I did a podcast for “When the Music Stops” with fellow crypto skeptic David Gerard, where we discuss the Justice Department’s criminal probe into Tether. You can also listen to the podcast on Spotify and 2021-07-29 14:46:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Early this morning, Bloomberg reported that Tether executives are under a criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice.
The DOJ doesn’t normally discuss ongoing investigations with the media. However,...
2021-07-26 19:26:15 +0000 UTC View Post
My Patreon account saw seven new subscribers this month, so far. Thank you! Your support is a big deal. It helps me keep doing what I’m doing.
If you like my writing enough to buy me a cup of coffee now and then, you can sponsor this blog for $5 a month — or $20, $50, or $100 a month, if you want to help out...
2021-07-20 14:01:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Ever since Germany’s BaFin and the UK’s FCA issued warnings against Binance, the dominoes have continued to topple. Global regulators are fed up with the world’s biggest crypto exchange.
This last week, three more jurisdictions issued warnings about Binance’s tokenized stocks, joining 2021-07-17 17:39:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Last thing I remember,
I was running for the door.
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before.
“Relax,” said the night man,
“We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave.”
~ Eagles
Bin...
2021-07-14 11:32:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Jeremy Allaire is taking his Boston-based company Circle public via a SPAC. Circle is best known for its stablecoin USDC, which now has a market cap of $25.5 billion.
In all his press interviews talking up the future potential of stablecoins — “Circle sits at the center of the next major transformation that the internet is bringing to the world,” he said in an 2021-07-10 01:17:03 +0000 UTC View Post
It looks like Reginald Fowler, the man tied to hundreds of millions of dollars of missing Tether and Bitfinex money, has ditched plans for renegotiating a plea deal. Instead, he is planning to head to trial.
In a letter filed with the New York Southern District Court on July 7 on behalf of both parties, the government stated: “The parties are not cu...
2021-07-08 03:37:16 +0000 UTC View PostIn case you missed my tweet, I ended up sick at the end of June. I was chatting with a friend over Zoom when he noticed that I was tilting over in my chair. Was I drunk? No. Should he call an ambulance? I’m fine.
I ended up in the ER the next day on IV fluids and hooked to monitors. Turns out I had 2021-07-08 03:33:05 +0000 UTC View Post
RSA Conference, arguably the world’s largest gathering of computer security experts, surprised everyone Saturday night when it suggested replacing the entire internet with — a blockchain.
“The Internet has a serious fundamental flaw: the transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) — the prim...
2021-07-04 09:50:31 +0000 UTC View PostBinance, the world’s largest dark crypto slush fund, is struggling to find corners of the world that will tolerate its lax anti-money laundering policies and flagrant disregard for securities laws.
On Thursday, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority issued a statement that Binance, the Binance Group and Binance Holdings Limited are not registered, licensed, regulated or otherwise authori...
2021-07-02 20:35:34 +0000 UTC View PostOn June 8, El Salvador passed a law to make bitcoin legal tender, alongside the dollar. Salvadorans were blindsided by the decision. Overnight, their president, Nayib Bukele, had turned into a bitcoiner, even adopting the bitcoin laser eyes in his Twitter profile — he and members of his ...
2021-07-02 20:22:05 +0000 UTC View Post
In June, I wrote a story for Artnet (paywalled) describing how NFTs create new opportunities for bad guys to move money without attribution. Read the full story if you can. Otherwise, here are some of the points I touch on along with additional notes.
One of my favorite Tether skeptics, Trolly McTrollface, had to take down a parody post about Stuart Hoegner today.
Trolly received an email from his hosting service this morning warning him that he had committed some kind of copyright infringement. (It’s not clear that he did, but Trolly doesn’t have oodles of time on his hands to fight this, and it was easier to simply take down the post.)
According to the 2021-05-25 01:42:16 +0000 UTC View Post
I’ve been inconsistent with my newsletters lately because I’m struggling to write this dang NFT book. It is slow going, and I keep falling down these rabbit holes. I feel like if I don’t hurry, the entire crypto market will collapse and NFTs will become a distant memory. Nevertheless, next week, I’ll begin publishing drafts of chapters on Patreon. You can subscribe here.
Tether has so far issued ...
2021-05-16 17:34:30 +0000 UTC View PostTether, the world’s most popular stablecoin issuer, released a breakdown of the composition of its reserves backing tethers on May 13.
The breakdown is no surprise to Tether followers: Two lame pie charts showing, at best, only a fraction of assets are in cash, and the rest are in risky assets.
Specifically, this is a breakdown of the composi...
2021-05-13 17:30:57 +0000 UTC View PostBitcoin is sitting at around $54,000, and Tether has hit a new milestone: 50 billion tethers in circulation, something it’s quite proud of. “Will we reach $100B before 2022?”
So far, in April, Tether has issued 9 billion tethers—and the month isn’t even over yet. Tether has been minting 2021-04-26 17:57:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S., just announced it is listing tether (USDT), the world’s dodgiest stablecoin.
Tethers, for the uninitiated, are a stand-in for real dollars, used mainly on offshore crypto exchanges that can’t get proper banking. Now tethers can be found on Coinbase, a banked exchange—overseen by the SEC.
The timin...
2021-04-23 12:12:08 +0000 UTC View PostBitcoin rose above $60,000 again. It only took 6 billion tethers to make that happen since the last time it hit $60,000 in March—less than a month ago. We now have 44.5 billion tethers in circulation.
Coinbase set to debut on Nasdaq 2021-04-12 04:50:35 +0000 UTC View Post
Many technologists today were disappointed to learn that Signal, an encrypted messaging service, is adopting MobileCoin (MOB), a new cryptocurrency that went live in December, for payments.
Signal is hugely popular in the tech world. I use it, and many of the people I correspond with use it as a safe and secure way of communicating. And many prefer it over WhatsApp and Telegr...
2021-04-07 20:36:22 +0000 UTC View PostI’m working on a book on NFTs and how they became the tulip mania of crypto. As of now, the plan is to self-publish on Amazon, hopefully before the bubble explodes like this dead whale.
I’ve finished the outline—which I’ll continue to update in coming weeks—and I’m playing with ideas for a catchy title.
If you have thoughts for a title, se...
2021-03-30 02:24:45 +0000 UTC View PostBitClout, a social-media-on-the-blockchain project, is selling a type of token (called “creator coins”) tied to influential Twitter accounts—without account holders’ permission.
And folks are getting understandably pissed off.
At first, I thought these creator coins were NFTish due to their artificial scarcity and being a way to trade influence. But it turns out they are more 2021-03-28 20:27:56 +0000 UTC View Post
I’ve been traveling the U.S., visiting friends on the East and West Coasts and in between, and this is my first newsletter in a few weeks.
This week has been a busy one, full of interviews and talking to reporters about nonfungible tokens. Who knew NFTs would become this big? I’ve gained nearly a thousand more Twitter followers and several more patrons, which is wonderful because I can certainly use ...
2021-03-22 14:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostNFTs are all over the news lately.
Recently, I was having drinks with a friend, who knows zip about crypto, and out of the blue, she started asking me about “non-fungible tokens.”
The next day, a musician friend posted an amateurish drawing of a guitar on Facebook, proudly announcing, “This will soon be available as an NFT.”
If initial coin offerings were the crypto grift of 2017 and decentralized finance (aka “DeFi”) was the grift of 2020, then “nifties...
2021-03-19 01:57:49 +0000 UTC View PostLast week, a crypto whale going by the moniker “Metakovan” bought a Beeple artwork via Christie’s auction for $69 million—$60 million in ETH and $9 million in fees—outbidding a surprised Justin Sun, founder of the Tron blockchain, in the last minute.
After the barest amount of digging, I am going to hazard a guess that the mystery Beeple buyer is Vignesh Sundaresan, a crypto entrepreneur who has been in the crypto landscape for about seven years.
It’s pretty obvious, r...
2021-03-15 01:22:01 +0000 UTC View PostDear Patrons,
I just wanted to drop a note and thank you all for your kind support— and share some news.
I’ll be in another film!
I’m filming for another QuadrigaCX documentary on Saturday.
I can’t tell you much more until an official announcement about the film comes out, but I’ll try and post photos—if and when I can.
The filming will be al...
2021-03-04 01:09:50 +0000 UTC View PostThe New York attorney general issued a stern warning to crypto companies and crypto investors on Monday. Crypto firms doing business in the state must play by the rules or face consequences, she said. And to investors, she underscored the hazards of dabbling in the crypto markets.
The two-part warning from NY attorney general Letitia James comes on the heels of a 2021-03-01 19:46:20 +0000 UTC View Post
February is coming to an end. I’m waiting to get vaccinated, so I can travel without worry again. Maybe I’ll go to some crypto conferences later this year? I still have fond memories of Coindesk’s Consensus in May 2018—when you could hear the rumble of lambos coming through midtown Manhattan—and sitting in a coatroom with scant Wifi and a broken water cooler. (It was a big coatr...
2021-02-28 21:28:39 +0000 UTC View PostI wrote a quick article this morning about the New York attorney general settlement, wherein Bitfinex and Tether agreed to pay $18.5 million in penalties, stop servicing New York customers, and submit quarterly transparency reports.
But there are more details to highlight. Namely, the 2021-02-24 04:01:54 +0000 UTC View Post
Bitfinex and Tether have settled with the office of the New York attorney general in an investigation that began two years ago.
The sister companies will pay $18.5 million in penalties to the state for violations of the Martin Act, according to a statement issued by the NY attorney general. Per the terms of the 2021-02-23 16:29:36 +0000 UTC View Post
I nearly ventured to Austin Wednesday, but my flight was canceled due to the storm, havoc, and general disaster in the area. I found another flight later in the day and was headed out the door, when I thought, nah. Turned out to be a good decision, since I probably wouldn’t have survived more than a day without wifi.
Last week, Tether issued another 2.2 billion tethers, so you can buy bitcoin with real cash at a higher price. As of today, Feb. 21, there are now 2021-02-22 00:09:09 +0000 UTC View Post