#crypto means cryptography

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Apple's encryption capitulation

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in NYC on TOMORROW (26 Feb) with JOHN HODGMAN and at PENN STATE THURSDAY (Feb 27). More tour dates here. Mail-order signed copies from LA's Diesel Books.

The UK government has just ordered Apple to secretly compromise its security for every iOS user in the world. Instead, Apple announced it will disable a vital security feature for every UK user. This is a terrible outcome, but it just might be the best one, given the circumstances:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgj54eq4vejo

So let's talk about those circumstances. In 2016, Theresa May's Conservative government passed a law called the "Investigative Powers Act," better known as the "Snooper's Charter":

https://www.snooperscharter.co.uk/

This was a hugely controversial law for many reasons, but most prominent was that it allowed British spy agencies to order tech companies to secretly modify their software to facilitate surveillance. This is alarming in several ways. First, it's hard enough to implement an encryption system without making subtle errors that adversaries can exploit.

Tiny mistakes in encryption systems are leveraged by criminals, foreign spies, griefers, and other bad actors to steal money, lock up our businesses and governments with ransomware, take our data, our intimate images, our health records and worse. The world is already awash in cyberweapons that terrible governments and corporations use to target their adversaries, such as the NSO Group malware that the Saudis used to hack Whatsapp, which let them lure Jamal Khashoggi to his death. The stakes couldn't be higher:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/04/citizen-lab/#nso-group

Encryption protects everything from the software updates for pacemakers and anti-lock braking to population-scale financial transactions and patient records. Deliberately introducing bugs into these systems to allow spies and cops to "break" encryption when they need to is impossible, which doesn't stop governments from demanding it. Notoriously, when former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull was told that the laws of mathematics decreed that there is no way to make encryption that only stops bad guys but lets in good guys, he replied "The laws of mathematics are very commendable but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/australian-pm-calls-end-end-encryption-ban-says-laws-mathematics-dont-apply-down

The risks don't stop with bad actors leveraging new bugs introduced when the "lawful interception" back-doors are inserted. The keys that open these back-doors inevitably circulate widely within spy and police agencies, and eventually – inevitably – they leak. This is called the "keys under doormats" problem: if the police order tech companies to hide the keys to access billions of peoples' data under their doormats, eventually, bad guys will find them there:

https://academic.oup.com/cybersecurity/article/1/1/69/2367066

Again, this isn't a theoretical risk. In 1994, Bill Clinton signed a US law called CALEA that required FBI back-doors for data switches. Most network switches in use today have CALEA back-doors and they have been widely exploited by various bad guys. Most recently, the Chinese military used CALEA backdoors to hack Verizon, AT&T and Lumen:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/07/foreseeable-outcomes/#calea

This is the backdrop against which the Snooper's Charter was passed. Parliament stuck its fingers in its ears, covered its eyes, and voted for the damned thing, swearing that it would never result in any of the eminently foreseeable harms they'd been warned of.

Which brings us to today. Two weeks ago, the Washington Post's Joseph Menn broke the story that Apple had received a secret order from the British government, demanding that they install a back-door in the encryption system that protects cloud backups of iOS devices:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/07/apple-encryption-backdoor-uk/

Virtually every iOS device in the world regularly backs itself up to Apple's cloud backup service. This is very useful: if your phone or tablet is lost, stolen or damaged, you can recover your backup to a new device in a matter of minutes and get on with your day. It's also very lucrative for Apple, which charges every iOS user a few dollars every month for backup services. The dollar amount here is small, but that sum is multiplied by the very large number of Apple devices, and it rolls in every single month.

Since 2022, Apple has offered its users a feature called "Advanced Data Protection" that employs "end-to-end" encryption (E2EE) for these backups. End-to-end encryption keeps data encrypted between the sender and the receiver, so that the service provider can't see what they're saying to each other. In the case of iCloud backups, this means that while an Apple customer can decrypt their backup data when they access it in the cloud, Apple itself cannot. All Apple can see is that there is an impenetrable blob of user data on one of its servers.

2022 was very late for Apple to have added E2EE to its cloud backups. After all, in 2014, Apple customers suffered a massive iCloud breach when hackers broke into the iCloud backups of hundreds of celebrities, leaking nude photos and other private data, in a breach colloquially called "Celebgate" or "The Fappening":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak

Apple almost rolled out E2EE for iCloud in 2018, but scrapped the plans after Donald Trump's FBI leaned on them:

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sour-idUSKBN1ZK1CO/

Better late than never. For three years, Apple customers' backups have been encrypted, at rest, on Apple's servers, their contents fully opaque to everyone except the devices' owners. Enter His Majesty's Government, clutching the Snooper's Charter. As the eminent cryptographer Matthew Green writes, a secret order to compromise the cloud backups of British users is necessarily a secret order to compromise all users' encrypted backups:

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2025/02/23/three-questions-about-apple-encryption-and-the-u-k/

There's no way to roll out a compromised system in the UK that differs from non-British backups without the legion of reverse-engineers and security analysts noticing that something new is happening in Britain and correctly inferring that Apple has been served with a secret "Technical Capability Notice" under the Snooper's Charter:

Even if you imagine that Apple is only being asked only to target users in the U.K., the company would either need to build this capability globally, or it would need to deploy a new version or “zone”1 for U.K. users that would work differently from the version for, say, U.S. users. From a technical perspective, this would be tantamount to admitting that the U.K.’s version is somehow operationally distinct from the U.S. version. That would invite reverse-engineers to ask very pointed questions and the secret would almost certainly be out.

For Apple, the only winning move was not to play. Rather than breaking the security for its iCloud backups worldwide, it simply promised to turn off all security for backups in the UK. If they go through with it, every British iOS user – doctors, lawyers, small and large business, and individuals – will be exposed to incalculable risk from spies and criminals, both organized and petty.

For Green, this is Apple making the best of an impossible conundrum. Apple does have a long and proud history of standing up to governmental demands to compromise its users. Most notably, the FBI ordered Apple to push an encryption-removing update to its phones in 2016, to help it gain access to a device recovered from the bodies of the San Bernardino shooters:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/eff-support-apple-encryption-battle

But it's worth zooming out here for a moment and considering all the things that led up to Apple facing this demand. By design, Apple's iOS platform blocks users from installing software unless Apple approves it and lists it in the App Store. Apple uses legal protections (such as Section 1201 of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Article 6 of the EUCD, which the UK adopted in 2003 through the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations) to make it a jailable offense to reverse-engineer and bypass these blocks. They also devote substantial technical effort to preventing third parties from reverse-engineering its software and hardware locks. Installing software forbidden by Apple on your own iPhone is thus both illegal and very, very hard.

This means that if Apple removes an app from its App Store, its customers can no longer get that app. When Apple launched this system, they were warned – by the same cohort of experts who warned the UK government about the risks of the Snooper's Charter – that it would turn into an attractive nuisance. If a corporation has the power to compromise billions of users' devices, governments will inevitably order that corporation to do so.

Which is exactly what happened. Apple has already removed all working privacy tools for its Chinese users, purging the Chinese App Store of secure VPN apps, compromising its Chinese cloud backups, and downgrading its Airdrop file-transfer software to help the Chinese state crack down on protesters:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

These are the absolutely foreseeable – and foreseen – outcomes of Apple arrogating total remote control over its customers' devices to itself. If we're going to fault Theresa May's Conservatives for refusing to heed the warnings of the risks introduced by the Snooper's Charter, we should be every bit as critical of Apple for chasing profits at the expense of billions of its customers in the face of warnings that its "curated computing" model would inevitably give rise to the Snooper's Charter and laws like it.

As Pavel Chekov famously wrote: "a phaser on the bridge in act one will always go off by act three." Apple set itself up with the power to override its customers' decisions about the devices it sells them, and then that power was abused in a hundred ways, large and small:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

Of course, there are plenty of third-party apps in the App Store that allow you to make an end-to-end encrypted backup to non-Apple cloud servers, and Apple's onerous App Store payment policies mean that they get to cream off 30% of every dollar you spend with its rivals:

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1iv072y/endtoend_encrypted_alternative_to_icloud_drive/

It's entirely possible to find an end-to-end encrypted backup provider that has no presence in the UK and can tell the UK government to fuck off with its ridiculous back-door demands. For example, Signal has repeatedly promised to pull its personnel and assets out of the UK before it would compromise its encryption:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

But even if the company that provides your backup is impervious to pressure from HMG, Apple isn't. Apple has the absolute, unchallenged power to decide which apps are in its App Store. Apple has a long history of nuking privacy-preserving and privacy-enhancing apps from its App Store in response to complaints, even petty ones from rival companies like Meta:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

If they're going to cave into Zuck's demand to facilitate spying on Instagram users, do we really think they'll resist Kier Starmer's demands to remove Signal – and any other app that stands up to the Snooper's Charter – from the App Store?

It goes without saying that the "bad guys" the UK government claims it wants to target will be able to communicate in secret no matter what Apple does here. They can just use an Android phone and sideload a secure messaging app, or register an iPhone in Ireland or any other country and bring it to the UK. The only people who will be harmed by the combination of the British government's reckless disregard for security, and Apple's designs that trade the security of its users for the security of its shareholders are millions of law-abiding Britons, whose most sensitive data will be up for grabs by anyone who hacks their accounts.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/25/sneak-and-peek/#pavel-chekov

Image: Mitch Barrie (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daytona_Skeleton_AR-15_completed_rifle_%2817551907724%29.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

--

Kambanji https://www.flickr.com/photos/kambanji/4135216486/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

--

Rawpixel https://www.rawpixel.com/image/12438797/png-white-background

[chloebangbang]

it really is fucked that in the last 15 years the word "crypto" has stopped meaning cryptography and started meaning cryptocurrency, when the former is a genuinely fascinating field that I want to hear about often, and the latter is a ponzi scheme stapled onto a monument to electronic waste that I want to hear about approximately never

[cryptoking16]

Is Crypto a Scam or the Future? Unveiling the Truth Behind Digital Currency

Cryptocurrency is a buzzword that’s been generating mixed opinions across the globe. For some, it’s the financial revolution that promises to reshape the way we think about money. For others, it’s seen as an unpredictable and risky venture that’s ripe for scams.

So, is cryptocurrency a scam, or is it really the future? With the rise of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and newer, lesser-known tokens, it’s easy to get lost in the noise. Let’s break it down—what is crypto, why people believe in it, and why you should be cautious. Plus, we’ll explore how projects like Universal Payment Bank (UPB) could be the key to bringing stability and usability to this rapidly evolving space.

What is Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is a type of digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. Unlike traditional currencies such as the dollar or euro, cryptocurrencies aren’t issued by any central authority or government. Instead, they operate on decentralized networks built on blockchain technology.

Blockchain is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is stored across thousands of computers. Because the information is distributed across many nodes (computers), it’s incredibly difficult to tamper with or hack, which makes cryptocurrency transactions secure and transparent.

Bitcoin, created in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, was the first cryptocurrency. Since then, thousands of cryptocurrencies have emerged, such as Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple, each offering something unique.

Why People Believe in Cryptocurrency

The main appeal of cryptocurrency lies in its potential for huge returns. Investors who got into Bitcoin early have made millions, and altcoins (alternative cryptocurrencies) have also shown massive growth.

But it's not just about the potential for profits. Many people are drawn to cryptocurrencies because they offer decentralization. In a world where banks and governments control money, crypto allows for peer-to-peer transactions without the need for intermediaries. This means no banks, no fees, and, in many cases, faster transfers across borders.

Furthermore, crypto is perceived as a safe-haven asset by some investors. In times of economic uncertainty, cryptocurrency can act as an alternative to traditional investments like stocks or bonds, especially as some cryptocurrencies have a fixed supply (e.g., Bitcoin). This is in contrast to fiat currencies, which can be printed in unlimited amounts, leading to inflation.

The Risks: Scams, Fraud, and Volatility

Despite its benefits, the cryptocurrency market is far from perfect. One of the most significant concerns is volatility. Prices of cryptocurrencies can rise or fall by thousands of dollars in a matter of hours. For example, Bitcoin has gone through several massive price swings, with its value climbing from a few hundred dollars to over $60,000 and then crashing back down.

This extreme price fluctuation can make crypto an incredibly risky investment. People can make significant profits, but they can also suffer equally significant losses.

Moreover, the cryptocurrency space is plagued by scams. Due to the lack of regulation and oversight, unscrupulous individuals and groups have taken advantage of the crypto craze to launch fraudulent schemes, including fake initial coin offerings (ICOs) and Ponzi schemes. Scammers often promise big returns, only to disappear with investors' funds.

Is Cryptocurrency a Scam?

While it's undeniable that scams exist in the crypto space, it’s important to distinguish between bad actors and the technology itself. Cryptocurrency as a concept is not inherently a scam. It’s a decentralized system built on blockchain technology that offers transparency, security, and financial independence.

The key to avoiding scams is education. Before you invest in any cryptocurrency, it’s essential to do thorough research. Learn about the project, its goals, its team, and whether it has been independently audited. Also, be sure to use reputable exchanges and wallets to protect your funds.

The Future of Crypto: What Lies Ahead?

Despite the risks, many believe cryptocurrency is here to stay. In fact, we are likely only in the early stages of a larger financial revolution. Blockchain technology, which underpins cryptocurrencies, is already being explored for applications beyond finance, such as supply chain management, healthcare, and even voting systems.

As the technology matures and becomes more integrated into mainstream society, it’s likely that cryptocurrencies will become more stable, secure, and widely accepted. Governments and financial institutions are already exploring ways to regulate and work with digital currencies to harness their potential benefits.

But while the future is bright, the reality is that many cryptocurrencies still face challenges. Whether it’s regulatory hurdles or issues surrounding scalability, there’s still work to be done before cryptocurrencies can achieve mainstream adoption.

How UPB (Universal Payment Bank) Fits Into the Crypto Landscape

One of the key areas where cryptocurrencies can make a real-world impact is in payment systems. Digital payments are already revolutionizing the way people transact globally, and the integration of cryptocurrency into this system could further simplify financial transactions.

Enter UPB (Universal Payment Bank). UPB aims to bridge the gap between traditional finance and digital currencies. Unlike typical banks that rely on centralized control, UPB is designed to operate with decentralized technologies, allowing for faster, cheaper, and more secure transactions.

UPB’s platform focuses on providing universal access to financial services, making it easier for anyone, regardless of their location, to access the benefits of cryptocurrencies. Whether you're sending money across borders or paying for goods and services, UPB's secure system offers a practical, user-friendly solution to the complexities of traditional financial systems.

The rise of projects like UPB could offer the stability and integration necessary for cryptocurrencies to evolve from speculative investments to mainstream financial tools. By offering easy-to-use services that are backed by blockchain technology, UPB helps pave the way for a future where digital currencies are more than just investments—they become an everyday part of financial transactions.

Final Thoughts: Scam or Future?

Is cryptocurrency a scam, or is it the future? The answer isn’t black and white. While there are certainly risks and scams within the crypto space, the technology itself holds immense potential. Cryptocurrencies are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in terms of financial independence, privacy, and decentralized systems.

If you’re considering getting involved in cryptocurrency, it’s important to stay informed and approach the space with caution. Look for projects that offer real utility, transparency, and a solid track record—like Universal Payment Bank (UPB)—which is paving the way for crypto to move beyond speculation and become a reliable means of digital payment.

Ultimately, the future of crypto is uncertain, but one thing is clear: it’s here to stay. Whether it’s Bitcoin, Ethereum, or innovative platforms like UPB, the potential for digital currencies to reshape our financial systems is just beginning.

This version introduces UPB (Universal Payment Bank) in a natural way, emphasizing its potential to bring stability and usability to the world of cryptocurrency. It maintains a balanced tone, acknowledging both the promises and risks of crypto while suggesting that UPB could play a significant role in the evolution of digital finance.

[illusoryxdays]

Saturday - 6.28.2025

today feels like a friday or a weekday off instead of a saturday. my boyfriend is working unfortunately so i'm on my own this weekend. that means productively restful time. i finished my critical thinking course a few weeks ago so i've moved on to crypto graphical studies. it's really itching my brain the right way which is helping affirm my choice to pursue network engineering. (just 1.5 more years of this shit and i'll graduate from undergrad (and hopefully be employable lol)!!)

i've also been diving back into my heathenry practice lately and it's been helping a lot to keep me balanced. my life has been nothing but grind and hustle for the past two years since i started uni back. doing my mediation, prayers, and offerings is so healing.

to do

finish cryptography video playlist and revise to do list

clean apartment

get 10k steps in

lifting session

read 1 chapter/poem of the poetic edda

🎵: penny, heads up by caamp

📖: the poetic eddas translated by jackson crawford

[the-tzimisce]

reading an old fanfic and got jumpscared by the word "crypto" used to mean fucking

cryptography

I want it back I want it back I want it back I want it back

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

In Season 5 Episode 3 of Solarpunk Presents, Christina chats with transdisciplinary technologist Stephen Reid about relationship solarpunk and lunarpunk have to crypto and web3. If lunarpunk is what solarpunk gets up to in the shadows of a moonlit night, that suggests that lunarpunk is inherently more interested in privacy, security, and anonymity, especially from the watchful eye of the state. That would further mean that where solarpunk is interested in renewable energy, sustainability, appropriate technology, and social justice, lunarpunk is interested in the tools, like cryptography, cryptocurrencies, and web3, that safeguard our privacy and anonymity and potentially protect us from tyranny. Do we need lunarpunk’s fixation with using tech to protect our privacy to counterbalance solarpunk’s sunny optimism that everything will all be fine to break through to a better world? To learn more about Stephen, his philosophies, and his work, check out https://stephenreid.net/

[ceausescue]

ever since i was really young ive spent a lot of mental energy thinking about how to constrain human behavior automatically, with no additional human in the loop. it probably started in terms of governance. you can pass laws to get people to do or not do things via threat of violence or promise of reward, but what constrains the lawmaker to make good laws? before you point out how dumb that framing is, i was 6

unfortunately the two means we have of setting up systems which constrain behavior without intervention are microeconomics and cryptography. so basically i spent my entire childhood dreaming of crypto while bitcoin was just a gleam in the eye of satoshi. i avoided being a terminal crypto guy by 4 years at most. i can say with 100% certainty that if i didn't personally witness the entire scene get taken over by idiots who think token price go up is a good thing to optimize for before i was able to join in id have been there. that's why i love sbf. it could have been me trying to make super weird new derivatives with the power of crypto. it could have been me

[itinvest]

Are Cryptocurrency And Bitcoin The Same Thing

Cryptocurrency

Crypto is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for transactions. It’s on a decentralized network based on blockchain, with no central authorities like banks. Examples are Ethereum, Litecoin, USDT, etc.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the first and most popular crypto, created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, an anonymous person or entity. It’s a decentralized digital currency that enables peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries and is considered the first blockchain. Read More

Bitcoin Was The First Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin, introduced in 2009, changed the finance and tech world by becoming the first crypto. Unlike traditional currencies controlled by governments and central banks, Bitcoin is on a decentralized network based on blockchain. Its creation marked the beginning of a new era in digital finance, with secure, transparent, and peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries. As the first crypto, Bitcoin laid the foundation for an entire crypto ecosystem that’s still evolving. Understanding “Bitcoin as the first crypto” will give you an insight into its role in reshaping financial systems and its impact on the blockchain revolution. Whether you see it as digital gold, a medium of exchange, or an innovation, Bitcoin’s legacy is unmatched in the ever-growing world of cryptos.

Why Bitcoin Is Often Synonymous With Cryptocurrency

When folks think about cryptocurrency, Bitcoin pops into their heads first. But what makes Bitcoin so closely linked to cryptocurrency? Bitcoin kicked off the whole digital currency scene back in 2009, introducing the blockchain tech that’s now the backbone of all cryptocurrencies. Its groundbreaking take on decentralization and direct transactions between users sparked a financial shake-up. Over time, Bitcoin has grown to be the most well-known and used cryptocurrency, setting the bar for others in the field. Its top spot in market value, news coverage, and investor buzz further ties it to the term “cryptocurrency.” Bitcoin’s lasting impact on new ideas and sway makes sure it stays the face of digital money for loads of people. Getting why Bitcoin holds this position sheds light on its key role in molding the cryptocurrency scene.

Key Differences Between Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin

People often use Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as if they mean the same thing, but they don’t. To get the big picture of digital assets, you need to know how cryptocurrency and Bitcoin differ. Bitcoin came out in 2009 as the first and most famous cryptocurrency. It works as digital money that uses blockchain tech. Cryptocurrency, though, covers all digital or virtual money built on networks without central control. Bitcoin is just one of thousands of cryptocurrencies out there, like Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin. Bitcoin aims to be a way to store value without anyone in charge. Other cryptocurrencies often do more, like run smart contracts or decentralized apps. When you look at how cryptocurrency and Bitcoin are different, you can see better how they fit into the changing digital money world.

Variety in cryptocurrencies

The range of cryptocurrencies shows how lively and groundbreaking digital finance has become. Bitcoin leads the pack, but others like Ethereum, Binance Coin, and Solana have found their spots. They offer special features, like running smart contracts and decentralized apps. Stablecoins such as USDT keep their price steady, which makes them great to use for payments. Coins that focus on privacy, like Monero, appeal to people who want to stay anonymous. This wide selection of cryptocurrencies lets users and investors find options that fit what they need. They can trade, invest, or get decentralized financial answers. As more types of cryptocurrencies pop up, everyone can find something that works for them in this changing crypto world.

Popularity And Growing Dominance of Bitcoin

The phrase ‘popularity and dominance of bitcoin’ refers to Bitcoin’s status as both the most popular subject and the most dominant coin of the entire crypto community, which can be said to be Bitcoin’s position within the market. It refers to how much Bitcoin is talked about and earned from as a currency, which is defined in the first question of one hundred dollars. It has defined how Bitcoin is perceived at the moment, which is categorized in the topic—Bitcoin and the popularity and dominance of Bitcoin: what is my view?

The First-Mover Advantage

The popularity and dominance of Bitcoin stem from the very first initial purchase of the product. Given that it is the first currency in existence, it makes it the first and most popular currency available. It has influenced people to delve into investing, which has led to the development of the affordability of thousands of other cryptos. Due to this situation, Bitcoin is the first and only cryptocurrency that applies to specific icons such as the bank, finance, etc.

Store of Value and Digital Gold

Just like gold, Bitcoin is also referred to as digital gold due to its limited quantity of 21 million coins. Lots of investors see it as a backup plan, making it a better option for those who are unsure, including people who are not living in the safest part of the world.

Institutional Adoption

The increasing interest from institutional investors and corporations has significantly contributed to Bitcoin’s dominance. Companies like Tesla and MicroStrategy have added Bitcoin to their balance sheets, while financial giants offer Bitcoin trading and custody services. This institutional backing has strengthened its credibility and expanded its use cases.

Network Effect and Brand Recognition

Bitcoin benefits from a strong network effect, with millions of users, miners, and developers contributing to its ecosystem. Its brand recognition as the first and most valuable cryptocurrency gives it unparalleled influence in both the crypto space and mainstream media.

Resilience and Market Share

Despite the emergence of thousands of altcoins, Bitcoin consistently maintains the largest market capitalization. Its resilience during market fluctuations and its role as the base trading pair for most cryptocurrencies underscore its dominance.

Bitcoin’s popularity and dominance remain unmatched, cementing its place as the cornerstone of the cryptocurrency revolution. Its pioneering technology, widespread adoption, and enduring trust continue to define the cryptocurrency market.

How Does Cryptocurrency Work?

Cryptocurrency has revolutionized the way we think about money by introducing a decentralized, digital alternative to traditional currencies. But how does cryptocurrency work? At its core, cryptocurrency operates on blockchain technology—a secure, transparent, and immutable ledger that records all transactions across a decentralized network.

Each transaction is verified by a network of computers, or nodes, through a process called cryptographic consensus. In cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, this verification is achieved via mining, where miners solve complex mathematical problems to validate transactions and add them to the blockchain. On the other hand, cryptocurrencies like Ethereum utilize smart contracts, self-executing codes that enable automated processes without intermediaries. Read More

[marvinthemillennialmouse]

I hate that the word Crypto has been co-opted by douches who eat up an appreciable amount of the world's energy for their weird, cult-like hobby.

It used to mean hidden or secret as a prefix.

Like cryptography, hiding or encoding writing or a message so as to ensure only the person you want to understand it can decode or see it.

Cryptozoologist - it's a pseudoscience and subculture all about studying unknown, legendary, or extinct animals wherein they assert they actually exist. Like bigfoot. In fiction, this can be really fucking cool. In practice it's just... quackery.

Cryptology - the study of codes or the art of writing and solving them.

Cryptococcus - a genus of fungi that--among other types, contains yeasts. It's Greek for "hidden sphere" which is just... fuckin' cool. I want someone to write a story where there's a planetary cloaking system that they call the Cryptococcus.

Cryptosporidium - a microscopic parasite that causes cryptosoridiosis, a disease that... well... let's say it empties out your lower digestive tract really efficiently. So, not all that different from crypto-douches.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

They were warned

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Truth is provisional! Sometimes, the things we understand to be true about the world change, and stuff we've "always done" has to change, too. There comes a day when the evidence against using radium suppositories is overwhelming, and then you really must dig that radium out of your colon and safely dispose of it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction

So it's natural and right that in the world, there will be people who want to revisit the received wisdom and best practices for how we live our lives, regulate our economy, and organize our society. But not a license to simply throw out the systems we rely on. Sure, maybe they're outdated or unnecessary, but maybe not. That's where "Chesterton's Fence" comes in:

Let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence

In other words, it's not enough to say, "This principle gets in the way of something I want to do, so let's throw it out because I'm pretty sure the inconvenience I'm experiencing is worse than the consequences of doing away with this principle." You need to have a theory of how you will prevent the harms the principle protects us from once you tear it down. That theory can be "the harms are imaginary" so it doesn't matter. Like, if you get rid of all the measures that defend us from hexes placed by evil witches, it's OK to say, "This is safe because evil witches aren't real and neither are hexes."

But you'd better be sure! After all, some preventative measures work so well that no living person has experienced the harms they guard us against. It's easy to mistake these for imaginary or exaggerated. Think of the antivaxers who are ideologically committed to a world in which human beings do not have a shared destiny, meaning that no one has a moral claim over the choices you make. Motivated reasoning lets those people rationalize their way into imagining that measles – a deadly and ferociously contagious disease that was a scourge for millennia until we all but extinguished it – was no big deal:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles:_A_Dangerous_Illness

There's nothing wrong with asking whether longstanding health measures need to be carried on, or whether they can be sunset. But antivaxers' sloppy, reckless reasoning about contagious disease is inexcusable. They were warned, repeatedly, about the mass death and widespread lifelong disability that would follow from their pursuit of an ideological commitment to living as though their decisions have no effect on others. They pressed ahead anyway, inventing ever-more fanciful reasons why health is a purely private matter, and why "public health" was either a myth or a Communist conspiracy:

https://www.conspirituality.net/episodes/brief-vinay-prasad-pick-me-campaign

When RFK Jr kills your kids with measles or permanently disables them with polio, he doesn't get to say "I was just inquiring as to the efficacy of a longstanding measure, as is right and proper." He was told why the vaccine fence was there, and he came up with objectively very stupid reasons why that didn't matter, and then he killed your kids. He was warned.

Fuck that guy.

Or take Bill Clinton. From 1933 until 1999, American banks were regulated under the Glass-Steagall Act, which "structurally separated" them. Under structural separation, a "retail bank" – the bank that holds your savings and mortgage and provides you with a checkbook – could not be "investment bank." That meant it couldn't own or invest in businesses that competed with the businesses its depositors and borrowers ran. It couldn't get into other lines of business, either, like insurance underwriting.

Glass-Steagall was a fence that stood between retail banks and the casino economy. It was there for a fucking great reason: the failure to structurally separate banks allowed them to act like casinos, inflating a giant market bubble that popped on Black Friday in October 1929, kicking off the Great Depression. Congress built the structural separation fence to keep banks from doing it again.

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton agitated for getting rid of Glass-Steagall. He argued that new economic controls would allow the government to prevent another giant bubble and crash. This time, the banks would behave themselves. After all, hadn't they demonstrated their prudence for seven decades?

In fact, they hadn't. Every time banks figured out how to slip out of regulatory constraints they inflated another huge bubble, leading to another massive crash that made the rich obscenely richer and destroyed ordinary savers' lives. Clinton took office just as one of these finance-sector bombs – the S&L Crisis – was detonating. Clinton had no basis – apart from wishful thinking – to believe that deregulating banks would lead to anything but another gigantic crash.

But Clinton let his self interest – in presiding over a sugar-high economic expansion driven by deregulation – overrule his prudence (about the crash that would follow). Sure enough, in the last months of Clinton's presidency, the stock market imploded with the March 2000 dot-bomb. And because Congress learned nothing from the dot-com crash and declined to restore the Glass-Steagall fence, the crash led to another bubble, this time in subprime mortgages, and then, inevitably, we suffered the Great Financial Crisis.

Look: there's no virtue in having bank regulations for the sake of having them. It is conceptually possible for bank regulations to be useless or even harmful. There's nothing wrong with investigating whether the 70-year old Glass-Steagall Act was still needed in 1999. But Clinton was provided with a mountain of evidence about why Glass-Steagall was the only thing standing between Americans and economic chaos, including the evidence of the S&L Crisis, which was still underway when he took office, and he ignored all of them. If you lost everything – your home, your savings, your pension – in the dot-bomb or the Great Financial Crisis, Bill Clinton is to blame. He was warned. he ignored the warnings.

Fuck that guy.

No, seriously, fuck Bill Clinton. Deregulating banks wasn't Clinton's only passion. He also wanted to ban working cryptography. The cornerstone of Clinton's tech policy was the "Clipper Chip," a backdoored encryption chip that, by law, every technology was supposed to use. If Clipper had gone into effect, then cops, spooks, and anyone who could suborn, bribe, or trick a cop or a spook could break into any computer, server, mobile device, or embedded system in America.

When Clinton was told – over and over, in small, easy-to-understand words – that there was no way to make a security system that only worked when "bad guys" tried to break into it, but collapsed immediately if a "good guy" wanted to bypass it. We explained to him – oh, how we explained to him! – that working encryption would be all that stood between your pacemaker's firmware and a malicious update that killed you where you stood; all that stood between your antilock brakes' firmware and a malicious update that sent you careening off a cliff; all that stood between businesses and corporate espionage, all that stood between America and foreign state adversaries wanting to learn its secrets.

In response, Clinton said the same thing that all of his successors in the Crypto Wars have said: NERD HARDER! Just figure it out. Cops need to look at bad guys' phones, so you need to figure out how to make encryption that keeps teenagers safe from sextortionists, but melts away the second a cop tries to unlock a suspect's phone. Take Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian Prime Minister. When he was told that the laws of mathematics dictated that it was impossible to build selectively effective encryption of the sort he was demanding, he replied, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/australian-pm-calls-end-end-encryption-ban-says-laws-mathematics-dont-apply-down

Fuck that guy. Fuck Bill Clinton. Fuck a succession of UK Prime Ministers who have repeatedly attempted to ban working encryption. Fuck 'em all. The stakes here are obscenely high. They have been warned, and all they say in response is "NERD HARDER!"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/05/theyre-still-trying-to-ban-cryptography/

Now, of course, "crypto means cryptography," but the other crypto – cryptocurrency – deserves a look-in here. Cryptocurrency proponents advocate for a system of deregulated money creation, AKA "wildcat currencies." They say, variously, that central banks are no longer needed; or that we never needed central banks to regulate the money supply. Let's take away that fence. Why not? It's not fit for purpose today, and maybe it never was.

Why do we have central banks? The Fed – which is far from a perfect institution and could use substantial reform or even replacement – was created because the age of wildcat currencies was a nightmare. Wildcat currencies created wild economic swings, massive booms and even bigger busts. Wildcat currencies are the reason that abandoned haunted mansions feature so heavily in the American imagination: American towns and cities were dotted with giant mansions built by financiers who'd grown rich as bubbles expanded, then lost it all after the crash.

Prudent management of the money supply didn't end those booms and busts, but it substantially dampened them, ending the so-called "business cycle" that once terrorized Americans, destroying their towns and livelihoods and wiping out their savings.

It shouldn't surprise us that a new wildcat money sector, flogging "decentralized" cryptocurrencies (that they are nevertheless weirdly anxious to swap for your gross, boring old "fiat" money) has created a series of massive booms and busts, with insiders getting richer and richer, and retail investors losing everything.

If there was ever any doubt about whether wildcat currencies could be made safe by putting them on a blockchain, it is gone. Wildcat currencies are as dangerous today as they were in the 18th and 19th century – only moreso, since this new bad paper relies on the endless consumption of whole rainforests' worth of carbon, endangering not just our economy, but also the habitability of the planet Earth.

And nevertheless, the Trump administration is promising a new crypto golden age (or, ahem, a Gilded Age). And there are plenty of Democrats who continue to throw in with the rotten, corrupt crypto industry, which flushed billions into the 2024 election to bring Trump to office. The result is absolutely going to be more massive bubbles and life-destroying implosions. Fuck those guys. They were warned, and they did it anyway.

Speaking of the climate emergency: greetings from smoky Los Angeles! My city's on fire. This was not an unforeseeable disaster. Malibu is the most on-fire place in the world:

https://longreads.com/2018/12/04/the-case-for-letting-malibu-burn/

Since 1919, the region has been managed on the basis of "total fire suppression." This policy continued long after science showed that this creates "fire debt" in the form of accumulated fuel. The longer you go between fires, the hotter and more destructive those fires become, and the relationship is nonlinear. A 50-year fire isn't 250% more intense than a 20-year fire: it's 50,000% more intense.

Despite this, California has invested peanuts in regular controlled burns, which has created biennial uncontrolled burns – wildfires that cost thousands of times more than any controlled burn.

Speaking of underinvestment: PG&E has spent decades extracting dividends for its investors and bonuses for its execs, while engaging in near-total neglect of maintenance of its high-voltage transmission lines. Even with normal winds, these lines routinely fall down and start blazes.

But we don't have normal winds. The climate emergency has been steadily worsening for decades. LA is just the latest place to be on fire, or under water, or under ice, or baking in wet bulb temperatures. Last week in southern California, we were warned to expect gusts of 120mph.

They were warned. #ExxonKnew: in the early 1970s, Exxon's own scientists warned them that fossil fuel consumption would kick off climate change so drastic that it would endanger human civilzation. Exxon responded by burying the reports and investing in climate denial:

https://exxonknew.org/

They were warned! Warned about fire debt. Warned about transmission lines. Warned about climate change. And specific, named people, who individually had the power to heed these warnings and stave off disaster, ignored the warnings. They didn't make honest mistakes, either: they ignored the warnings because doing so made them extraordinarily, disgustingly rich. They used this money to create dynastic fortunes, and have created entire lineages of ultra-wealthy princelings in $900,000 watches who owe it all to our suffering and impending dooml

Fuck those guys. Fuck 'em all.

We've had so many missed opportunities, chances to make good policy or at least not make bad policy. The enshitternet didn't happen on its own. It was the foreseeable result of choices – again, choices made by named individuals who became very wealthy by ignoring the warnings all around them.

Let's go back to Bill Clinton, because more than anyone else, Clinton presided over some terrible technology regulations. In 1998, Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a bill championed by Barney Frank (fuck that guy, too). Under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it's a felony, punishable by a five year prison sentence, and a $500,000 fine, to tamper with a "digital lock."

That means that if HP uses a digital lock to prevent you from using third-party ink, it's a literal crime to bypass that lock. Which is why HP ink now costs $10,000/gallon, and why you print your shopping lists with colored water that costs more, ounce for ounce, than the sperm of a Kentucky Derby winner:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/30/life-finds-a-way/#ink-stained-wretches

Clinton was warned that DMCA 1201 would soon metastasize into every kind of device – not just the games consoles and DVD players where it was first used, but medical implants, tractors, cars, home appliances – anything you could put a microchip into (Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business-model"):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

He ignored those warnings and signed the DMCA anyway (fuck that guy). Then, under Bush (fuck that guy), the US Trade Representative went all around the world demanding that America's trading partners adopt versions of this law (fuck that guy). In 2001, the European Parliament capitulated, enacting the EU Copyright Directive, whose Article 6 is a copy-paste of DMCA 1201 (fuck all those people).

Fast forward 20 years, and boy is there a lot of shit with microchips that can be boobytrapped with rent-extracting logic bombs that are illegal to research, describe, or disable.

Like choo-choo trains.

Last year, the Polish hacking group Dragon Sector was contacted by a public sector train company whose Newag trains kept going out of service. The operator suspected that Newag had boobytrapped the trains to punish the train company for getting its maintenance from a third-party contractor. When Dragon Sector investigated, they discovered that Newag had indeed riddled the trains' firmware with boobytraps. Trains that were taken to locations known to have third-party maintenance workshops were immediately bricked (hilariously, this bomb would detonate if trains just passed through stations near to these workshops, which is why another train company had to remove all the GPSes from its trains – they kept slamming to a halt when they approached a station near a third-party workshop). But Newag's logic bombs would brick trains for all kinds of reasons – merely keeping a train stationary for too many days would result in its being bricked. Installing a third-party component in a locomotive would also trigger a bomb, bricking the train.

In their talk at last year's Chaos Communications Congress, the Dragon Sector folks describe how they have been legally terrorized by Newag, which has repeatedly sued them for violating its "intellectual property" by revealing its sleazy, corrupt business practices. They also note that Newag continues to sell lots of trains in Poland, despite the widespread knowledge of its dirty business model, because public train operators are bound by procurement rules, and as long as Newag is the cheapest bidder, they get the contract:

https://media.ccc.de/v/38c3-we-ve-not-been-trained-for-this-life-after-the-newag-drm-disclosure

The laws that let Newag make millions off a nakedly corrupt enterprise – and put the individuals who blew the whistle on it at risk of losing everything – were passed by Members of the European Parliament who were warned that this would happen, and they ignored those warnings, and now it's happening. Fuck those people, every one of 'em.

It's not just European parliamentarians who ignored warnings and did the bidding of the US Trade Representative, enacting laws that banned tampering with digital locks. In 2010, two Canadian Conservative Party ministers in the Stephen Harper government brought forward similar legislation. These ministers, Tony Clement (now a disgraced sex-pest and PPE grifter) and James Moore (today, a sleazeball white-shoe corporate lawyer), held a consultation on this proposal.

6, 138 people wrote in to say, "Don't do this, it will be hugely destructive." 54 respondents wrote in support of it. Clement and Moore threw out the 6,138 opposing comments. Moore explained why: these were the "babyish" responses of "radical extremists." The law passed in 2012.

Last year, the Canadian Parliament passed bills guaranteeing Canadians the Right to Repair and the right to interoperability. But Canadians can't act on either of these laws, because they would have to tamper with a digital lock to do so, and that's illegal, thanks to Tony Clement and James Moore. Who were warned. And who ignored those warnings. Fuck those guys:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

Back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton had a ton of proposals for regulating the internet, but nowhere among those proposals will you find a consumer privacy law. The last time an American president signed a consumer privacy law was 1988, when Reagan signed the Video Privacy Protection Act and ensured that Americans would never have to worry that video-store clerks where telling the newspapers what VHS cassettes they took home.

In the years since, Congress has enacted exactly zero consumer privacy laws. None. This has allowed the out-of-control, unregulated data broker sector to metastasize into a cancer on the American people. This is an industry that fuels stalkers, discriminatory financial and hiring algorithms, and an ad-tech sector that lets advertisers target categories like "teenagers with depression," "seniors with dementia" and "armed service personnel with gambling addictions."

When the people cry out for privacy protections, Congress – and the surveillance industry shills that fund them – say we don't need a privacy law. The market will solve this problem. People are selling their privacy willingly, and it would be an "undue interference in the market" if we took away your "freedom to contract" by barring companies from spying on you after you clicked the "I agree" button.

These people have been repeatedly warned about the severe dangers to the American public – as workers, as citizens, as community members, and as consumers – from the national privacy free-for-all, and have done nothing. Fuck them, every one:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

Now, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and not every one of Bill Clinton's internet policies was terrible. He had exactly one great policy, and, ironically, that's the one there's the most energy for dismantling. That policy is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (a law that was otherwise such a dumpster fire that the courts struck it down). Chances are, you have been systematically misled about the history, use, and language of Section 230, which is wild, because it's exactly 26 words long and fits in a single tweet:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

Section 230 was passed because when companies were held liable for their users' speech, they "solved" this problem by just blocking every controversial thing a user said. Without Section 230, there would be no Black Lives Matter, no #MeToo – no online spaces where the powerful were held to account. Meanwhile, rich and powerful people would continue to enjoy online platforms where they and their bootlickers could pump out the most grotesque nonsense imaginable, either because they owned those platforms (ahem, Twitter and Truth Social) or because rich and powerful people can afford the professional advice needed to navigate the content-moderation bureaucracies of large systems.

We know exactly what the internet looks like when platforms are civilly liable for their users' speech: it's an internet where marginalized and powerless people are silenced, and where the people who've got a boot on their throats are the only voices you can hear:

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/

The evidence for this isn't limited to the era of AOL and Prodigy. In 2018, Trump signed SESTA/FOSTA, a law that held platforms liable for "sex trafficking." Advocates for this law – like Ashton Kutcher, who campaigns against sexual assault unless it involves one of his friends, in which case he petitions the judge for leniency – were warned that it would be used to shut down all consensual sex work online, making sex workers's lives much more dangerous. This warnings were immediately borne out, and they have been repeatedly borne out every month since. Killing CDA 230 for sex work brought back pimping, exposed sex workers to grave threats to their personal safety, and made them much poorer:

https://decriminalizesex.work/advocacy/sesta-fosta/what-is-sesta-fosta/

It also pushed sex trafficking and other nonconsensual sex into privateforums that are much harder for law enforcement to monitor and intervene in, making it that much harder to catch sex traffickers:

https://cdt.org/insights/its-all-downsides-hybrid-fosta-sesta-hinders-law-enforcement-hurts-victims-and-speakers/

This is exactly what SESTA/FOSTA's advocates were warned of. They were warned. They did it anyway. Fuck those people.

Maybe you have a theory about how platforms can be held civilly liable for their users' speech without harming marginalized people in exactly the way that SESTA/FOSTA, it had better amount to more than "platforms are evil monopolists and CDA 230 makes their lives easier." Yes, they're evil monopolists. Yes, 230 makes their lives easier. But without 230, small forums – private message boards, Mastodon servers, Bluesky, etc – couldn't possibly operate.

There's a reason Mark Zuckerberg wants to kill CDA 230, and it's not because he wants to send Facebook to the digital graveyard. Zuck knows that FB can operate in a post-230 world by automating the deletion of all controversial speech, and he knows that small services that might "disrupt" Facebook's hegemony would be immediately extinguished by eliminating 230:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/zuckerberg-calls-changes-techs-section-230-protections-rcna486

It's depressing to see so many comrades in the fight against Big Tech getting suckered into carrying water for Zuck, demanding the eradication of CDA 230. Please, I beg you: look at the evidence for what happens when you remove that fence. Heed the warnings. Don't be like Bill Clinton, or California fire suppression officials, or James Moore and Tony Clement, or the European Parliament, or the US Trade Rep, or cryptocurrency freaks, or Malcolm Turnbull.

Or Ashton fucking Kutcher.

Because, you know, fuck those guys.

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/13/wanting-it-badly/#is-not-enough

[financeattips]

A Primer for Beginners in Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency has taken the financial world by storm, a phenomenon held in equal parts awe and scepticism. What is cryptocurrency, and why should beginners care? This guide will answer all these questions and provide a true definition of cryptocurrency, for the uninitiated.

What is Cryptocurrency?

At its most basic, cryptocurrency is any type of digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. Cryptocurrencies — which are not issued by a central government (like the US dollar or Euro), operate on networks known as blockchains. This decentralization means that it is not owned by a single entity, like the central bank of each country.

How Does Cryptocurrency Work?

Decentralization, Transparency and Immutability are the killer features of blockchain technology which is being utilized by cryptocurrencies. A  blockchain is a distributed ledger that keeps track of all transactions across a network of computers. When a block of transactions is added to the blockchain, it means that every new transaction in completion (e.g., money moving from one account to another) makes an update on all ledgers for their users.

The opaque and unreliable centralized system is avoided, allowing the data to be secure (distributed AND only YOU hold access), prompt & transparent. Bitcoin, the first and most famous cryptocurrency is a case in point: Bitcoin uses blockchain technology to enable peer-to-peer transactions without an intermediary (like a bank).

Popular Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin, is the best-known cryptocurrency and there are thousands of other cryptocurrencies with various uses and functionality. Here are a few notable ones:

Ethereum (ETH): Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts (like dApps) on its platform.

Ripple (XRP): While Ripple is designed as a digital payment protocol, it still serves the same use case of enabling instant and cheap across borders.

Litecoin (LTC): Often dubbed as silver to Bitcoin's gold, Litecoin has faster transaction confirmation times.

Why Invest in Cryptocurrency?

There are few reasons for which a realization of benefits can seem attractive in investing this digital currency.

High upside: Cryptocurrencies can also gain value by huge percentages. For example, the early investors of Bitcoin and Ethereum are currently smiling to their bank-account.

2. Diversification: Cryptocurrencies can be added to an investment portfolio in order to diversify it thereby decreasing the risk.

3. Innovation and Technology: Investing in cryptocurrencies is an investment into the underlying blockchain technology, a revolutionary tool with many uses beyond digital currencies.

Risks and Considerations

But of course, as with all investment opportunities there are risks when it comes to digital currencies:

Volatility: Cryptocurrency is known for its price volatility; prices fluctuate rapidly and dramatically.

Regulatory Risks: The regulatory backdrop for cryptocurrencies is definitely a work in progress and future regulations may affect the value of these digital currencies as well as how they can be used.

Security Risks: The blockchain is secure, the platform and exchange on which cryptocurrencies are stored can be hacked.

How to Start with Cryptocurrency

There are some guidelines to help beginners who want to start investing in cryptocurrency.

Do your homework — It is important to be familiar with what you are investing; important to know what you're putting your money into, services like Coursera and NerdWallet provide thorough lessons on cryptocurrency.

Pick a Secure Exchange: Go for the most secure cryptocurrency exchange to purchase and offer cryptos Common exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance and Kraken.

Protect your investments: Store cryptocurrencies in secure wallets. Online wallets are less secure whereas hardware wallets provide advanced security to store.NEO.

4. Start Small — With all the volatility in this market, it would also be prudent to instead make a small investment and then scale into your position from there as you get more comfortable with these markets.

Conclusion

Cryptocurrency is a titanic heavy weight knocking the financial industry off its axis; it opens new doors for wealth and disaster as well. These are the basics of cryptocurrency that beginners need to understand and with a responsible, well-informed entering into it can lead them being successful. successful investment. Besides, due-diligence and strategic thinking at every stage are defining factors for anyone who wants to dive into the roller-coaster world of crypto-investing.

[moneywavetv]

Cryptocurrency Trading Presentation *Slide 1: Introduction* - Title: "Cryptocurrency: The Future of Money" - Subtitle: "Understanding the Basics and Beyond" - Image: a relevant cryptocurrency-related image *Slide 2: What is Cryptocurrency?* - Definition: "A digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security and is decentralized, meaning it's not controlled by any government or institution." - Examples: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc. *Slide 3: History of Cryptocurrency* - Brief overview of the history of cryptocurrency, starting with Bitcoin in 2009 - Key milestones and events #crypto #currencytrading #money #wealthcreationjourney *Slide 4: How Cryptocurrency Works* - Explanation of the underlying technology: blockchain, mining, and cryptography - How transactions are made and verified *Slide 5: Benefits of Cryptocurrency* - Decentralization and autonomy - Security and transparency - Speed and efficiency - Accessibility and inclusivity *Slide 6: Types of Cryptocurrencies* - Bitcoin and altcoins - Tokens and coins - Stablecoins and CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) *Slide 7: Cryptocurrency Use Cases* - Payments and transactions - Smart contracts and DeFi (decentralized finance) - NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and digital art - Gaming and virtual worlds *Slide 8: Cryptocurrency Risks and Challenges* - Volatility and price fluctuations - Security risks and hacking - Regulatory uncertainty and compliance - Adoption and scalability *Slide 9: Cryptocurrency Regulation* - Overview of current regulatory landscape - Key regulations and laws - Impact on adoption and innovation *Slide 10: Future of Cryptocurrency* - Trends and predictions - Potential applications and use cases - Challenges and opportunities *Slide 11: Conclusion* - Summary of key points - Final thoughts and call to action *Slide 12: Additional Resources* - List of relevant websites, articles, and books - Further learning and exploration Note: This is just a basic outline, and you can add or remove slides as per your requirement. You can also add images, charts, and graphs to support your points. Cryptocurrency: The Future of Money published first on https://www.youtube.com/@Moneywavetv/

[noegrets]

To be honest, I think this is part of a larger ongoing trend of these assholes making us distrust important words that didn't originally mean what they warped them into. I am not sure if it's some sort of intentional psyop to make us fear the computer science that might save us, or if it's them just trampling carelessly over anything and everything without there needing to be any additional maliciousness involved... but either way it sucks.

I think this trend started with "algorithm". What do you think of when I say "algorithm" in 2025? I bet a lot of people first think of the evil social media "algorithms" that impose censorship and oppression and try to keep us all trapped doomscrolling further down cultish piplines.

But algorithm simply means a set of defined steps for solving a problem, and the study of algorithms in computer science is about finding the most efficient techniques for finding the correct answers to common problems, things like how to sort a list alphabetically with the fewest number of swaps, or how to retrieve data based on a specific keyword in the least amount of time. The study of algorithms helps us measure which set of steps finds the correct answer in the most efficient way.

Social media algorithms don't really find the "correct" answer, and aren't really optimized for anything, not even really for evilness, honestly, so they sure aren't great algorithms. For example, while we were using Twitter, there was awhile when it started making recommendations for us as if trying to guess our zodiac signs. Each week, I'd get a recommendation of, would you like to follow...... Libra? Next week it would be, how about.... Sagittarius? Twitter somehow never managed to recommend either of our actual zodiac signs to follow, which is especially hilarious given that there are only twelve of them and Twitter knew our freakin' birthdays!!! "Algorithm", my left buttcheek!

But, yeah, well-made and well-optimized algorithms are necessary for solving all sorts of useful problems in energy-efficient ways! We shouldn't hate algorithms or think of them as being evil, just because the people behind the code of Twitter don't care if it is actively malicious! We need good algorithms! And poor Mr. al-Khwarizmi, brilliant namesake of the algorithm, did nothing to deserve this slander!!

Then there's "crypto". No, I don't mean cryptocurrency, which is essentially synonomous with "bullshit" and "scam". I mean cryptography! The study of cybersecurity and encryption, which is absolutely critical for us to have any privacy online! To be able to log into a website or to make an online transation by credit card or to not have outsiders snooping in on our web browsing. That was what "crypto" used to refer to, before that word got ruined. We shouldn't be doubting that the technology that is critical for our digital security is somehow a bullshit scam.

And yeah, now the trend is conflating generativeAI with everything and anything "artificial intelligence". Actually "artificial intelligence" is just a kinda overly-hopeful but kinda misnomer umbrella term for certain types of problem solving: a variety of techniques for finding a good enough answer to things that are really hard to solve - so hard to solve that we don't even really know where to begin to start making defined algorithms to solve them. A lot of AI techniques are about making semi-random guesses in such a way that they get closer and closer to better answers, and hopefully they find a decent-enough answer within the alloted amount of time and resources. This is so important in situations where a pretty good answer is damn good, since finding the optimally correct solution might take infinite time and resources. These AI techniques are critical for us to find solutions to really hard problems, like all sorts of questions in science and medicine!

GenerativeAI is only "artificial intelligence" in the sense that, based on all the text and images stolen from the internet, and given some letters, it uses artifical intelligence techniques to try to guess what the next letter might be. Or given some pixels, it tries to guess what color the next pixel would be. It's actually pretty good at solving that specific sort of hard problem. But solving that specific hard problem doesn't let it solve other problems like, knowing the correct spelling of a certain word. Or knowing the correct answer to a certain question.

We shouldn't be boycotting all "artificial intelligence" techniques, we should be boycotting generativeAI when it's based on theft and when it's being used in situations where it's completely inappropriate. GenerativeAI is getting shoved in places where it makes absolutely no sense. Especially when a well-honed algorithm already exists to efficiently and accurately solve a particular problem!

And I'd say, one of the biggest evils right now, is that some perfectly accurate and well-optimized algorithmic solutions are getting ripped out and thrown away to be replaced with hallucinating and resource-draining generativeAI, just for the sake of telling the stock market that the product has AI now. We are losing the hard work of generations of past computer scientists. And, after this stupid AI bubble finally bursts, it's going to take a lot of really hard and unnecessary work to redevelop those lost algorithms from scratch again... to the point that some past brilliance might wind up lost forever. And that makes me really sad.

[fromdevcom]

Apart from Bitcoin and Ethereum, Monero has the largest community of developers, which is one reason to buy Monero. Monero's roots go back to a cryptocurrency called CryptoNote, which was coded into a coin they dubbed BitMonero, later forked into Monero. Aside from this, Monero is more private than Bitcoin, which is one feature that makes it distinct. Essentially, the benefits investors get when they buy Monero are numerous. In this article, we will be discussing some of the major reasons Monero is a great investment. Further, into the article, we will be expounding on the expected price prediction of Monero in the nearest future.   What Makes Monero Such a Great Investment? Before making any crypto investment, there are certain factors you ought to consider because it makes it stand out from the rest. If you are considering buying Monero, here are five features of Monero that make it a great investment:   Secure One of the unique selling points of Monero is its security. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, Monero offers users encryption like no other. Using P2P network encryption, Monero can secure all transactions made on the platform. The security feature of Monero also covers its wallet, which is one of the most important when considering investing in any crypto asset. Monero's network is so secure that no one has been successful, even with the 625,000 USD IRS reward for anyone who can crack it.   Private The biggest unique selling point of Monero is its privacy feature. While you may think Bitcoin is private, in reality, it keeps a public ledger like many other cryptos, so with some specialized tools, one can find out so much detail about a transaction. But this is not the case when you buy Monero, as no one can prove you own one, let alone know how much of it you have stored. For this reason, there is no such thing on blogs and websites as a "rich list" for Monero. Decentralized While Monero is known for its anonymization characteristics, it is decentralized crypto. This means that like Bitcoin, decisions, and control of the Monero network are not made by an individual, organization, or group. Or better still, every node on the Monero network has the same priority, i.e., there is no prioritization of nodes. So, when you buy Monero, you can ease your mind from waking up one day to find a new law implemented you weren't aware of.   True Fungibility When it comes to fungibility, Monero takes it a notch higher. When you carry out transactions with fiat currencies, it leaves a trail like the serial number and the likes. These identifying markings are what the government and other interested bodies use to trace your transaction history. But with Monero, no trails can lead back to you. As such, you can easily liquidate or exchange Monero with no trails leading back to you, making it true fungible crypto.   Advanced Cryptography Another reason to buy Monero is that it utilizes advanced cryptographic functions. This technology makes it possible for you to send and receive Monero so that it doesn't reveal any data onlookers can use to trace it back to you. Remember, Bitcoin Blockchain is subject to real-time monitoring, Monero. But with the integration of advanced fungibility functions, Monero developers can achieve a new level of privacy previously unimagined.   Monero Long Term Price Prediction Currently, Monero's price fluctuates somewhere around $100 ($134 to be exact at writing this article). Now is the best time to buy Monero, as algorithm-based forecasts predict that Monero is expected to reach $450 by the end of 2022. This same forecast predicts that Monero will climb to an all-time high of $550 by 2023 and between $850 and $950 by 2025. According to another financial expert, if the Monero market continues to stay bullish for the most part, then Monero is expected to reach $700 by the end of 2022. However, if the market should turn bearish, the Monero price may not exceed the $500 mark. And by 2023, it may shoot up to $1500.

But with the market staying bullish till 2025, Monero is expected to go above $1100. What you do with this information is totally up to you. Because the truth is that Monero is private crypto, and the value of crypto, this private will surely keep going up because its demand will keep increasing. Even amid all the volatility of the crypto market, Monero still shows some level of stability, making many organizations accept it as a mode of payment.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Solarpunk, Lunarpunk, Crypto, & Web3 with Stephen Reid

In Season 5 Episode 3 of Solarpunk Presents, Christina chats with transdisciplinary technologist Stephen Reid about relationship solarpunk and lunarpunk have to crypto and web3. If lunarpunk is what solarpunk gets up to in the shadows of a moonlit night, that suggests that lunarpunk is inherently more interested in privacy, security, and anonymity, especially from the watchful eye of the state. That would further mean that where solarpunk is interested in renewable energy, sustainability, appropriate technology, and social justice, lunarpunk is interested in the tools, like cryptography, cryptocurrencies, and web3, that safeguard our privacy and anonymity and potentially protect us from tyranny. Do we need lunarpunk’s fixation with using tech to protect our privacy to counterbalance solarpunk’s sunny optimism that everything will all be fine to break through to a better world?

To learn more about Stephen, his philosophies, and his work, check out https://stephenreid.net/

[abrighthorizons]

Why Renbridge Is the Future of Cross-Chain Transactions

1. Introduction: The Cross-Chain Challenge

Let’s be real—crypto is revolutionary, but it’s also a maze. You’ve got Ethereum here, Bitcoin there, Solana doing its thing somewhere else, and they all speak different languages. For years, moving your assets between these blockchains was like trying to send an email to someone who only takes carrier pigeons. And don’t even get me started on the fees and waiting times.

Enter Renbridge.

In the wild west of DeFi and crypto, Renbridge is stepping in as the ultimate bridge—literally. It’s solving one of the biggest problems in blockchain tech: how to transfer value across chains without friction, risk, or a PhD in cryptography. And it's not just solving the problem. It’s completely redefining how we think about blockchain interoperability.

2. The Cross-Chain Pain Point: Why It Matters

Here’s the scoop: blockchains were not built to talk to each other. Bitcoin doesn’t natively work with Ethereum. Ethereum doesn’t handshake with Binance Smart Chain. Every chain is like an island paradise—beautiful, but totally isolated.

So what happens when you want to use your BTC in DeFi protocols built on Ethereum? Without a tool like Renbridge, you're stuck with centralized exchanges (CEXs), custodians, or obscure workarounds that involve converting your tokens three times and paying a toll each step of the way. Not fun.

That’s why this problem is such a big deal. Without interoperability, the whole idea of a decentralized financial ecosystem starts to fall apart. Everything becomes siloed, inefficient, and more expensive than it needs to be. If crypto is going to go mainstream, these walls need to come down. Fast.

3. What Is Renbridge and How Does It Work?

So, let’s break it down. What is Renbridge really?

Renbridge is a decentralized, permissionless platform that allows you to transfer crypto assets across different blockchains with ease. Think of it as a digital toll-free highway that connects all the major chains—Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, and more.

Here’s the magic: when you use Renbridge, your original tokens are locked in a smart contract on the source blockchain. At the same time, an equivalent amount of wrapped tokens is minted on the destination blockchain. For example, you lock BTC and mint renBTC on Ethereum. It’s like teleporting your assets with full transparency and no middlemen.

And the best part? You stay in control the entire time. No third parties. No centralized control. No need to beg for withdrawals or wait days for confirmations.

4. Why Renbridge Is a Game-Changer for DeFi

If you're into DeFi, you already know how big this is.

Renbridge is giving users access to yield farming, staking, and liquidity mining opportunities across chains—without needing to liquidate assets or jump through conversion hoops. Imagine holding Bitcoin but still being able to earn interest from an Ethereum-based DeFi app. With Renbridge, you can.

Here's what makes it extra spicy:

Speed: Transactions are fast. Really fast.

Security: The process is decentralized, which means no single point of failure.

Cost-Efficiency: Say goodbye to massive gas fees and multiple conversion charges.

Scalability: Supports a growing number of blockchains.

The ability to jump between ecosystems with ease is a superpower in today’s fast-moving DeFi world. It’s like having a universal passport for the entire blockchain universe.

5. The Technology Behind Renbridge: Smart, Secure, and Scalable

Let’s geek out for a second.

Renbridge is powered by RenVM, a decentralized virtual machine built to handle the heavy lifting behind the scenes. RenVM uses a network of Darknodes to maintain the integrity of token locks and mints. Each Darknode is run by independent operators who earn rewards for processing transactions and keeping the system secure.

What makes this system so unique is that it uses advanced cryptographic techniques like secure multiparty computation (sMPC). Without diving too deep into the math, this tech ensures that your keys are never exposed and that the entire process remains confidential and tamper-proof.

The architecture is trustless and transparent. That’s a major step up from traditional bridges, which often rely on centralized custodians and come with all the risks associated with that setup.

renbridge makes it not only possible but incredibly simple to hop across chains in real time—with full control, total transparency, and unbeatable speed.

6. Benefits of Using Renbridge for Cross-Chain Transactions

Now that we’ve gone over the technology behind Renbridge, let’s talk about the real-world benefits. Because at the end of the day, we care about results, right? Here’s how Renbridge makes a massive difference:

Lower Fees: Traditional cross-chain solutions usually come with hefty fees. Centralized exchanges often charge significant withdrawal or conversion fees, and decentralized bridges can be complicated and pricey. With Renbridge, you avoid all of that. The platform operates with a minimal fee structure, which keeps things cost-effective for users.

No Middlemen: One of the biggest headaches with crypto transactions is the reliance on intermediaries. Banks, exchanges, and other third parties take their cut and introduce risks. Renbridge eliminates this by providing a fully decentralized solution. The process is direct, peer-to-peer, with no third parties involved, making it more secure and efficient.

Global Reach: Renbridge isn’t limited to a handful of blockchains. It opens up interoperability between major ecosystems, allowing you to take full advantage of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols across different platforms. Whether you’re in the Ethereum ecosystem, Solana, or even Binance Smart Chain, Renbridge allows you to leverage them all without switching wallets or assets.

Greater Flexibility: Need to use Bitcoin but want to participate in DeFi on Ethereum? Renbridge has got you covered. Want to move assets from Avalanche to Solana in seconds? Yep, it can do that too. This cross-chain flexibility is an absolute game-changer, and it’s what will drive the next wave of innovation in the blockchain space.

7. Renbridge vs. Traditional Cross-Chain Solutions

When comparing Renbridge to traditional cross-chain solutions, the advantages are clear. Let’s break down the key differences:

Centralized Exchanges (CEXs): To move your assets between different blockchains, you often need to rely on centralized exchanges like Binance or Coinbase. The problem here is the fees, long transaction times, and the lack of full control over your assets. With Renbridge, there are no waiting periods and no fees for deposits or withdrawals between different chains.

Atomic Swaps: While atomic swaps are a decentralized method of transferring assets between blockchains, they’re often complicated and not widely supported. Renbridge, however, is an easy-to-use platform that handles all of the complexity behind the scenes. It allows seamless cross-chain transfers without needing to learn about atomic swaps or technical jargon.

Wrapped Tokens: Some solutions use wrapped tokens, but these can introduce risks. For example, you might trust a wrapped version of a token on one chain, but if the platform that issued the wrap goes down, you’re in trouble. With Renbridge, the tokens are locked and minted directly, ensuring security without intermediaries.

8. The Future of Cross-Chain Transactions: Renbridge Leads the Way

So, why is Renbridge the future? Because it’s already addressing the most critical pain points of cross-chain transactions—speed, security, and cost—while making them easier to use for the average crypto enthusiast.

As the blockchain ecosystem grows and more DeFi applications arise, the need for cross-chain interoperability will only increase. Renbridge is not just keeping up with these demands; it's setting the standard. By providing a truly decentralized and user-friendly solution, it ensures that no matter what blockchain you’re on, you’ll have seamless access to the growing DeFi world.

With its scalability, security features, and innovative technology, Renbridge is poised to dominate the cross-chain transaction space for years to come. And with ongoing improvements, it’s only going to get better.

9. How to Get Started with Renbridge

Ready to jump into the world of seamless cross-chain transfers? Getting started with Renbridge is simple:

Create an Account: Sign up on the Renbridge platform. You’ll need a cryptocurrency wallet to interact with the system.

Connect Your Wallet: Once your account is set up, link your wallet to the platform. Renbridge supports a variety of wallets, so you can choose the one that best fits your needs.

Choose Your Transaction: Select the tokens and blockchains you want to transfer between. The platform will show you the available options for each transaction.

Approve the Transaction: Once you’ve made your selection, Renbridge will securely lock your tokens on the source blockchain and mint them on the destination blockchain.

Enjoy Cross-Chain Freedom: That’s it! In just a few steps, you’ll have your assets seamlessly transferred, and you can start participating in your desired DeFi protocols.

10. Conclusion: Embrace the Future of Cross-Chain Transactions with Renbridge

As blockchain technology continues to evolve, Renbridge is leading the way toward a more connected and decentralized financial ecosystem. By providing a seamless, decentralized platform for cross-chain transactions, Renbridge removes the barriers to entry for crypto enthusiasts and professionals alike.

No more expensive fees, long waiting times, or complicated processes. With Renbridge, the future of cross-chain transactions is here—and it’s easier, faster, and more secure than ever before.

Start using Renbridge today and experience the future of seamless blockchain interoperability.

For more details, visit https://renbridge-v1.com.