Join me today for Episode 934 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- New Editor in Chief at Bitcoin Mag
- Venezuela, Russia Blocks Twitter, Signal
- BOJ Probably Won't Raise Rates Again
- Binance to Liquidate Monero
- UN to Sign Anti-Freedom Convention
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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https://cointelegraph.com/news/venezuela-blocks-binance-presidential-election-dispute
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/russia-venezuela-block-signal-messenger/
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/08/12/ex-bank-of-japan-official-rules-out-another-rate-hike-this-year/
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https://decrypt.co/244229/binance-will-start-converting-monero-to-usdc-on-september-2-as-part-of-delisting
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/nigerian-bitcoiner-sues-government-for-the-right-to-own-acquire-and-trade-bitcoin/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/un-cybercrime-draft-convention-approved-unanimously-despite-widespread-opposition/
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[00:00:00]
David Bennett:
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. Uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:0:9 am Pacific Daylight Time. It is the 12th day of August 2024 and this is Episode 934 of Bitcoin. And we got a busy day. Things are going on at Bitcoin Magazine.
Venezuela's got some issues with privacy as Russia does too. And then there's gonna be let's go revisit the whole Bank of Japan thing and the raising of the rates and the freaking out of the markets and then we'll do there's some there's an issue going on with Binance and Monero. This probably is not going to be very good news to the Monero fans out there. And then, we'll get into just a couple of other things. But let's start with this shakeup over here at Bitcoin Magazine. And it's really, you know, it's not really a shakeup, but it is a changing of a major guard Bitcoin Magazine Nick Hoffman is writing. Author Aaron Van Weerdam has been appointed as Bitcoin Magazine's editor in chief.
And before I get to the article, all I can say is that Aaron Van Weerdam is one of my favorite authors. I love reading his stuff and he's been a really excellent, Bitcoiner in the past. And I've had my issues with I've had my issues definitely with Bitcoin Magazine. I mean it's sort of like a love hate relationship. I am hoping that as Aaron von Weerdom becomes editor in chief that he will be able to pull Bitcoin back into a little bit more of a conservative issue when it comes to Bitcoin and maybe just maybe suggest to stop the shit coining. Alright?
Please, if at all possible. But anyway, Bitcoin Magazine is excited to announce veteran reporter and author Aaron Van Weerdam has been named editor in chief, a position that he has formally held from 2021 to 2022. The appointment follows his sabbatical in 2020 to write the Genesis book, the story of the people and projects that inspired Bitcoin released by Bitcoin Magazine Books in 2024. Known for reporting on Bitcoin privacy, scalability, core releases and more Since 2013, he's been at this for a while, Van Weerdam brings a wealth of experience and expertise to Bitcoin Magazine's editorial room.
For pioneer in the space, Van Weerten is the industry's preeminent technical reporter. Bitcoin Magazine has always been a leader in Bitcoin technical reporting. I am excited to work with a strong staff of industry veterans to continue this tradition, Van Weerdem said. Quote, Bitcoin is a technology that will continue to improve and advance and I believe Bitcoin Magazine can play a key role in facilitating this necessary dialogue with the community. Van Weerdam will be leading the editorial team in producing high quality, insightful content revolving around the most important topics of discussion in Bitcoin as well as resuming a leading role in publishing its quarterly magazine, which reaches 1000 of subscribers.
His deep understanding of Bitcoin's technical and economic aspects will undoubtedly enhance the publication's coverage and analysis, providing readers with reliable and informative content. Aaron Van Weerdam has long defined Bitcoin Magazine's editorial product and ethos, said Mike Germano, president and publisher of Bitcoin Magazine. Quote, we look forward to having him lead our staff at a time when presidents, senators, and celebrities are joining our readership's ranks. Alright. So, again, my hope here is that Aaron von Weerdham will be able to bring some, I don't know, to pull Bitcoin Magazine back into a much more sensible position, it would be very nice indeed because honestly the ordinals and inscriptions bent that they went on, in my view, kinda damaged the brand.
It I mean, David Bailey won't say that. Nobody else at at Bitcoin Magazine will say that. But I will say that I I think that there's some very serious damage was done to Bitcoin Magazine's brand At least at least for the people that are the hardcore guys that have always stuck by Bitcoin Magazine through thick and thin all the way back to even when, oh, Vitalik Buterin started that whole magazine. So here's to hoping, but we'll have to see. Now on down south to Venezuela where they have blocked Binance as well as Twitter amid a presidential election dispute, Jesse Coughlin Cointelegraph Venezuela's government has blocked access to crypto exchange Binance, social media platform X and other online services.
In an August 9th Twitter post, local anti censorship organization VESinfiltro said it quote, detected a DNS block on the cryptocurrency exchange Binance which affects the normal operation of its website and mobile application. Like several websites of companies from different segments in Venezuela, including social networks, Binance Pages have been facing access restrictions the exchange's Latin American focused Twitter account posted on August 10th. Binance assured its users that of course funds are SAFU adding that it was monitoring the situation closely to address it in the best and quickest way possible.
Vesinfiltro recommended Venezuelans use VPNs, or virtual private networks, to skirt the block. The August 9th Binance block comes a day Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised speech that he ordered telco regulator Conitel to ban access to Twitter in the country for 10 days, Reuters is reporting. Maduro and Twitter owner Elon Musk recently had a public spat. Both have offered and accepted challenges to fight each other. The encrypted messaging app Signal was also blocked the same day according to Internet monitoring ProjectNetBlox. It added the app remains functional with the censorship circumvention setting enabled.
Venezuela saw widespread protests after the July 28 presidential election where Maduro and rival Edmondo Gonzalez both claimed victory. The country's government controlled electoral authority named Maduro, of course, the winner with just just over 51%. Oh, just enough of the vote without releasing a detailed vote count. Well, of course, by God. How could you possibly have any kind of transparency whatsoever? Gonzales claimed that the voting machine printouts his party had collected proved that he had won with nearly 70% of the vote. The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and multiple South American countries have not recognized Maduro's claim to the presidency, and many have asked for detailed vote counts. Yeah. Well, good luck getting them because that's never gonna happen.
And Maduro is going to remain president of Venezuela and marching around a fucking square holding a sign isn't going to do a whole bunch of good at all because it never has. Do you actually think that the protests in Venezuela are going to change Maduro's mind? No. Uh-uh. Nope. That is not going to happen. That's what I have that's why I have a problem with protesting Because it doesn't do anything. Because nobody's actually willing to do that one extra step. And I'm not gonna say what it is. Let your imagination run wild. But marching around in a circle, holding up a sign, doesn't do anything, and it never has.
So, I I just don't I don't get why people think protesting is is gonna do anything. It just never does. Russia as well as Venezuela has blocked signal messenger. Okay. This is out of no bullshit Bitcoin. So Russia going over across the pond, Russia has blocked access to Signal App, prevent the Messenger's of terrorist and extremist purposes according to what Russia is saying about it. Quote, user access to the messenger signal is restricted due to violations of the requirements of the Russian legislation whose fulfillment is necessary to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes. Russia's telecommunications watchdog, Ross Kosmak commander, Iron. Has a Roskommadzor told Interfax the messenger was blocked in Venezuela following the disputed presidential election results from late July.
President Nicolas Maduro has also ordered a block on social media platform Twitter. Yes, we know. Signal confirmed that some countries block its services and advise users to enable the built in censorship circumvention feature. Signal's simple TLS proxy is available on both Signal Android as well as Signal iOS, enabling users to bypass network blocks and securely route traffic to the Signal service. Anyone can set up a proxy, and once deployed, users can provide a URL for others to use, sort of a Uncle Jim model. Quote, we have already started working on more advanced censorship circumvention techniques, but in order for these efforts to be the most effective, we need the big companies who are dragging their feet on moving away from PlaneTech's SNI headers to start taking this problem more seriously added the project.
They won't. It is not in their interest to do so it's just not going to happen that's just nothing but wishful thinking there's only one way out of this and it's going to be things like Nostra. And I'm gonna go ahead and say it. It's also gonna include things like Fetiverse. Even though a lot of people don't like Mastodon and the Fediverse and how that works. And I don't like it either, but we need that network to be able to attach to the Nostra network and both of those networks need to attach to things like, what is it? Peach? I can't remember a hole punch.
And that entire ecosystem all 3 of these things need to start commingling and have or build the ability for those 2 those 3 networks together to start sharing information in a more primal way not just like a proxy way where if I post something to Nostr it automatically gets posted over to Mastodon blah blah blah. That's just not enough. It just isn't enough. There needs to be more of a and I I dare I say it, hold on for a second. Hold on. Okay. Sorry about that. Where was I at? You know how there's that cartoon where it's like there's 14 different, you know, like, protocols or conventions or something in computer science and somebody says this is ridiculous. We have 14 different ways of doing this one same thing. What we need is a brand new all encompassing protocol and the last frame is like now there's 15.
Yeah. So I don't want to say that. This has to be something more way more base something that is so ridiculously easy to read like whether it's a note or whatever a toot over on mastodon or whatever they call it over on you know like the ecosystem of hole punch that somehow or another there's just enough information to be able to parse that for all three of these networks and you can remain native to your network and have much more robust things that you can do but I really believe that when I talk about mycelial networks in the soil like 2 different fungal networks that are of a 2 different species and the possibility that they can connect to each other physically and open up a direct physical fluid filled channel so that whole nucleuses or nuclei of cells and all of their information I. E. The DNA can travel freely between 2 separate and well completely separate organisms if we can do that if we can take that idea and inject it into things like mastodon feddy verse noster the hole punch and all its signal and all that kind of all that kind of thing then what you end up with is a super organism that there's just no way to stop it's just you you try it's like whack a mole at that point but x facebook you forget it all of legacy social media it's all dead they just don't know it yet the problem is is that people refuse to stop using it because once they do they lose their audience and they don't want to lose their audience it's like a drug it's it's highly addictive an audience is highly addictive just like the dopamine hits you get when you just get a simple like from somebody who quote unquote may not even be in your audience.
It's all about addiction. And one of the things that Noster has done for me is completely break my addiction. You'll notice that I haven't really been posting on Noster lately, a, because I've been on vacation. But you know what didn't happen? I didn't feel like I needed to. And therein is a very important lesson for me personally is how to break that addiction and the one of the ways that you break that addiction is you start using something like noster. If you don't if you're not using noster if you haven't tried it you have nothing to lose by trying it and very well maybe and I do believe this it's so for you it very well may be but for me it is the only way that I can move forward right so with that said let's go over to Japan where an ex bank of Japan official has ruled out another rate hike this year. This is an opinion. This is an ex bank of Japan official.
So take everything here from CoinDesk written by Omkar Godbold with a grain of salt. A former just to preface it a former Bank of Japan official said that the central bank would defer additional interest rate hikes to next year suggesting a preference for market stability over the near term. They won't be able to hike again, at least not for the rest of the year. Former board member Makoto Sakurai said late Friday according to Bloomberg, it's a toss-up whether they can do one hike by next March. The Bank of Japan raised its key interest rate to about 0.25 percent from a range of 0 on July 31st, delivering the very first hike in over a decade.
The central bank also signaled additional rate hikes. The shift away from the 0 interest rate policy pushed the Japanese yen higher, triggering an unwinding of the risk on yen carry trades. The resulting slide in traditional risk assets weighed heavily over BTC crashing the cryptocurrency from 65,000 to roughly 50,000 in less than 7 days. Bitcoin has since recovered to trade above 58,000 amid signs of risk reset on Wall Street. The market turmoil saw Bank of Japan's deputy governor, Shinichi Uchida, walk back on the bank's hawkish commitment, saying that it would not hike rates when the markets are unstable, whatever the hell that means. Quote, Uchida's remarks were appropriate because market stabilization is very important now, said Sakurai.
The Bank of Japan is moving from excessive monetary easing to appropriate monetary easing, and the biggest problem is that Ueda failed to communicate firmly that they will maintain easing. That's always been a condition that they've kept, Sakurai added. So they are probably not probably not going to raise rates until sometime next year. That doesn't mean that they won't, clearly, but what I wonder is if the Bank of Japan somehow or another is going to be the anti pressure release valve to the fact that the United States is probably going to start easing its rates. And that somehow or another that there's gotta be a balance. And since Japan and their entire economy has basically been friends with the US since the end of World War 2, forcibly at first, but then it actually looked like we actually really did develop a very very good relationship with Japan, that Japan somehow or another is going to take the brunt of the fact that the United States, being the largest economy in the world, is going to have to start dropping rates. They just have to.
Well that balance that balance is probably going to be need need to be off set because natural systems and economies are one of them no matter how disgusting ours is because it is fiat it is contrived it is all this but remember what I always say the rules of the universe apply to everything that is created inside the universe because that which created it was created by the rules of the universe so we pass through this notion of balance and what I think is going to happen is that next year Japan is going to sacrifice itself on the pyre of economy so that the United States can start easing rates so that the entire world economy doesn't collapse and that's under the entire fiat mindset Bitcoin doesn't give a shit let's run the numbers CNBC Futures and Commodities West Texas Intermediate Oil is back up to $78.78 after a 2.52% rise.
Brent, North Sea also up just over 2% to $81.30. Natural gas up 1.77 percent to $2.18 a 1000. And gasoline is up almost a point and a half to $2.42 a gallon. All your shiny metal rocks are happy today so that makes Peter Schiff very happy. Gold is up 1 and a quarter point to $2504.70 Silver up 1 and a half. Platinum is up almost 2 points as well as copper and palladium is up 1.13%. Ag is fully mixed, mostly to the, red side, though. Biggest winner today is coffee, 3.3% to the upside. Biggest loser today looks like cocoa, which is down 6%. Wow. That's a hell of a move. Live cattle down a 3rd. Lean hogs up 2 thirds. And feeder cattle are down 2 thirds. Legacy Financial Markets, Dow is down a quarter of a point, the S and P is up 0.15, Nasdaq is up a third of a point, and the S and P Mini is down a half. So let's see what's going on over here at Clark Moody Bitcoin. Price is $59,820.
That is a $1,180,000,000,000 market cap. And yet, we can still purchase 24.4 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 Bitcoin of which are 19,730,796.12 of. And fees remain low on average on a per block basis. 0.05btc taken in fees on average on a particular block. Now how many blocks are there? There's, just under 200,000 unconfirmed transactions, waiting for 121 blocks to clear at high priority rates of 4 satoshis per v byte. Low priorities are also 4 satoshis per v byte. Hash rate looks like it is back up to 600 and 67.1 exahashes per second.
I wonder if we're gonna see that 780 exahashes per second again any time soon. Now, on to Queen Freeze, which was episode 933 of Bitcoin. And Dubravco with 2190. Sat says, I meant to say I miss you. K is right above m. Never mind. I stand by it. If you don't interview the rancher selling starter cattle for 3 ks, I'm going to thump your forehead with my finger though. FTX and Alameda having a lifetime ban is really funny. Quote. Y'all can do whatever. You can't do this. You don't have to go home, but you can stay here. What are they going to pull hold on. What? Are they going to pull a reverse Nintendo and start making playing cards? Suck it, Trebek.
02ZX421 satoshi says ABC BTCGBT L BTC, W BTC. I give you BTC. You give me the donut. We don't need to bring the entire alphabet to this translation. No shit. Pies with 420. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. God's death with 237. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And 02ZX with 124. Satoshi says transaction. Okay, yeah. The entire alphabet into this transaction. That looks like what he was about to say all right that's the weather report Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use and bad news for the Monero people. Binance will start converting Monero to USDC on September 2nd as part of the delisting.
Adrian Zmunksy from decrypt, following Binance's February announcement that it would de list Monero and its finalization later that month, the exchange has now announced its very last steps to get the privacy coin off of its platform because god forbid when you're when you're dancing for the fiat man, your skirts have to be a particular length above the floor. You know, there used to be a time when Binance would just thumb their nose at all at at everybody. And granted, they did so for a very for a lot longer than than I thought they'd be able to get away with. But what's really sad is that we keep going back to exchanges like Binance and Kraken and Coinbase and they're all going to comply because they're all weak and spineless and sackless for that matter.
The only way through this is with decentralized exchanges and nobody seems to be using them. There's HODL HODL. There's, Bisk. There's, like, there's at least 3 and there's probably more like 7 and I just don't know about the other ones. But, you know, hoddle hoddle and bisque, good place to start. Just go look at it. Just I mean, it's it's not all that complicated. You don't have to buy or sell anything. Just go look at the interface and say, you know, and then kind of try to figure out what does it mean? How do I do a transaction? Get on their Reddit and, you know, or their Telegram and start asking questions about How does this actually work? Because honestly you're going to see Binance, d and Kraken, and Coinbase pretty much delist everything that has anything to do with any kind of safety whatsoever. I'm not a Monero fan.
You know this. But of there's only after Bitcoin there's only 2 other coins that I would even consider as potentially not being a complete shitcoin. And it was simply because of the way that they were launched. But one is Monero and the other one is Zcash. That's it. Everything else is a complete and utter shitcoin. And I don't even really let Monero and Zcash out of the shitcoin category. I just think that they're closest to the exit. That's all I'm saying. So I'm just just be aware. But anyway, in an August 12th blog post Binance said that it will convert the balances of 15 different tokens including Monero to USD coin on September 2, 2024 the conversion will be complete and USDC will be in users' wallets by March 1, 2025 the announcement explains that the conversion rate for the assets will be based on their average exchange rate between September 2, 2024 and March 1, 2025.
The affected assets other than Monero are Bitcoin Gold God, you remember that shit? Bitcoin Standard Hash Rate Token, never heard of it. Bitshares, District 0X, Groistcoin, Hygic, mobilecoin, whatever. This is these are all shitcoins. Oh my god. For what it's worth, XMR seems unfazed by this latest stage of Binance delisting. At the time of writing, Monero is trading for a $149.38 after having fallen 0.2% since the time this time yesterday. But the delisting of a privacy coin like Monero by the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume does set a troubling precedent, said Web3 Privacy Now core contributor, McCullough Suzuki.
Guess, quote, Binance is widening the gap between original decentralization ethos and regulated surveillance capitalism. You know, I'm not the only one thinking that. Good. Misleading millions of people, what the web 3 is about, permissionless and freedom, he told decrypt. Quote, basically, they are proving to be part of surveillance. End quote. Mobile coin, like Monero, is a privacy focused coin. It uses ring signatures to conceal transactions, which is similar to how Monero works. Binance users will be able to withdraw the assets from the exchange up to September 1, 2024.
And of course, Binance didn't, you know, respond to requests for comments. Privacy coins are crypto currencies designed to enhance transaction anonymity beyond what standard cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin offer. These various cryptographic techniques to obscure transaction details such as addresses and amounts making it extremely difficult to trace or link transactions to specific individuals. While advocates argue that these coins protect user privacy and bring cash like anonymity to digital transactions, critics point out their potential for illicit use in areas like ransomware payments and money laundering.
Popular privacy coins include Monero, Zcash and Dash, each employing different methods to achieve anonymity. However, these coins face regulatory scrutiny and potential bans in some jurisdictions with some cryptocurrency exchanges delisting them due to compliance concerns. Despite these challenges, privacy coins continue to gain popularity among users seeking enhanced financial privacy in the digital realm. Again, that's that's the end of the the article. But, the stuff like Monero and Zcash, and I've been seeing a lot of chatter about Monero specifically on Noster lately. And it's like a lot of people that I followed on Noster that had never said anything about Monero before are starting to talk a lot about Monero and I'm basically I've gotta unfollow.
And it's not because of an ethic. It's not because of moral. I just I just don't give a shit. I don't hate Monero like I hate ether. Right? I don't I I'm not in a position where I just find myself nauseated at the thought that Zcash exists like I am with, you know, ether. But I don't have time for this. I just don't. So understand that if you start talking about Monero, you know, I just I don't want to hear it. It's just it doesn't make it's not that it doesn't make sense to me, it's that the world is so cucked at this point and all of the people that we thought were on our side over the last 10 years are falling away like flies because they are getting smokin' hot rich.
That's what getting rich will do for you is that then you start having to protect your wealth at all costs and you will do anything anything like Brian Armstrong will do anything to make sure that he retains his wealth. He will wear however long a skirt he is required to wear. He will he will ask how high when he is told to jump by the United States authorities and this will go on and on and on. The only way to circumvent this is to the same ethos that Bitcoin had in the beginning and that Nostra has right now. Complete decentralization.
Almost a complete almost a complete ability to eschew wealth or the potential of wealth, at least in the short to medium term. Just so that you can build the thing. Because if you build the thing with wealth in mind chances are good it's going to become or you and your thing will become co opted by those who are going to protect their power at any cost except it's so cheap for them to protect their power because all they have to do is threaten to take away the wealth of somebody else. And then all of a sudden you get you get compliance. And that's how it works.
But some people will fight like this dude over here in Nigeria. Nigerian Bitcoiner sues government for the right to own, acquire, and trade Bitcoin. Nigerian Bitcoiner and political or politician James Otoodor has taken a bold legal stance to advocate for the fundamental rights of Nigerians to own, use, and trade bitcoin, stable coins, as well as other digital assets. He announced legal action against multiple Nigerian government and regulatory bodies including the president, minister of finance, attorney general, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Nigerian Police Force Force, the National Information Technology Development Agency, and finally, the Nigerian Communications Commission. Good Lord.
I mean, that's a lot of lawsuits to file. O'Toole argues that, quote, the ongoing targeting of Nigerians who own and use crypto currencies is a clear violation of their fundamental human rights. Bitcoin and other digital assets are vital tools for protecting savings from inflation and enabling international transactions, particularly in light of naira devaluation and foreign exchange shortages. Quote, it is our submission that the rights to acquire Bitcoin and other digital assets have been severely infringed on as the Federal Republic of Nigeria and its agencies have forced telecom companies to prevent and restrict innocent Nigerian citizens from acquiring, holding, and accessing these assets, Othudor said. The lawsuit seeks the following remedies.
1, the immediate removal of the block on all crypto exchange online platforms ensuring unrestricted access for all Nigerians. 2 A declaration that the right of every Bitcoin, USDT, and other cryptocurrency holder be protected as well as guaranteed. 3. A declaration that the infringement, victimization, and human rights violations of those who own, use and trade Bitcoin, All USDT and other crypto in Nigerian is in Nigeria is unlawful, unconstitutional, as well as illegal. And finally, 4, establishment of regulations for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency assets within the Nigerian financial ecosystem recognizing their distinct categories and regulating Bitcoin as a commodity. Quote, this legal action represents a peaceful protest for freedom and financial inclusion.
As a nation founded on human rights, it is our responsibility to ensure that the rights of Bitcoin, USDT, and other digital asset users and holders are protected and guaranteed, he added. So this dude just getting all up in these people's grill like a son of a bitch. I mean, that's that's like he's suing 7 agencies in Nigeria. I just hope that I just hope he survives it. I mean, physically, because Nigeria ain't exactly a nice place to be and they do some pretty nasty shit sometimes. And finally for today, UN cybercrime draft convention approved unanimously despite widespread opposition.
The United Nations approved its 1st cybercrime treaty, a massive surveillance pact that mandates intrusive domestic surveillance measures and states' cooperation in surveillance and data sharing in a unanimous vote last week. Yes. They unanimously voted to bend over their citizenry. The treaty was adopted by consensus after 3 years of negotiations, but still needs a vote from the general assembly in the fall. It requires ratification by 40 nations and is expected to pass, as the same states will be voting on it. The draft agreement requires the United Nation member states to legislate against unauthorized access to information systems, the production or sale of explicit child sexual content, online grooming, deep fakes, misuse of electronic devices, computer related forgery or theft, and allow states to collect data for convictions and compel service providers to provide incriminating information. It's time to buy one of my caves where you too can become a hermit in the middle of the forest because these people running around make the world suck. Quote, the UN Cybercrime Convention drastically expands government surveillance powers and enables widespread personal data sharing between UN member states.
It mandates that member states formalize money laundering offenses and cyber crimes to an extent that would criminalize hacking, whistle blowing, and security research reports the rage. The convention requires member states to identify, trace, confiscate, and seize crime related assets and collect real time data for requesting states. It also mandates establishing criminal offenses for concealing or disguising the true nature and source of property and enter or intentionally transferring property to conceal its illicit origin. Quote, while the treaty defers most articles to the governance of local laws, it states that states shall not decline to act on the grounds of bank secrecy, writes Lol Elites, which I think is also part she's the one that does the rage.
Opponents of the treaty, including human rights organizations and tech companies, are concerned about provisions allowing authorities to obtain electronic evidence and request data from Internet service providers across nations. Quote, the cybercrime treaty adopted by the UN is an unexpected surveillance tool without adequate safeguards. Governments should take their human rights obligations seriously and reject signing or ratifying this treaty, End quote. Deborah Brown, Deputy Technology and Rights Director of Human Rights Watch. Deborah, I'm sorry, but they're going to do this. Because they know that the the only thing that we're going to do in reaction is to make a funny sign and walk around in a circle and protest.
And all they have to do is wait until we get hungry and go home. Because nothing's going to change. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be all doom and gloom, but let's let's be realistic. When have you ever seen a protest actually change anything? And I'm not I'm not talking about the seventies. I'm not talking about like you know equal rights movements that kind of thing. I'm talking about post 2000 Post the year 2000 when have you ever seen any protest actually do a damn thing where they're just walking around in a circle of signs? You you haven't.
That's the answer. You haven't. Global businesses don't support the text as it is. It should be abandoned, said Nick Ashton Hart, the head of the Tech Accord delegation. Quote, the United States welcomes the ad hoc committee on cybercrime's adoption of the United Nations Conventions Against Cybercrime. The agreement expands the global fight against cybercrime, which is one of the most pervasive challenges of our time affecting communities around the world, said US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller, who is a cook. Alright. So that's that's the article. But everywhere in this in this write up there's no I mean, there's never going to be an exact definition of what it is. Like, okay. The sale of explicit child sexual content.
That's that's pretty that's pretty well defined. Alright? Most people know what that is. But what is unauthorized access to information systems? What is online grooming? Is there a definition for online grooming? Even though that like let's say that you're just talking to somebody online you have no intention of grooming. It's not even in your personality to do so. You're not even thinking of it. You're thinking about, I don't know, maybe going fishing or something. But you're talking to somebody and all of a sudden you say, you know what? Walking around in a circle with a bunch of funny signs doesn't actually do shit and all of a sudden you just get charged with online grooming. Because there's no real definition here. And the same can be said for what is a deep fake?
Well, how would you know? I mean, if I if I do, like, Photoshop and I don't use AI at all, could I be accused of deepfakes? Misuse of electronic devices. What does what does that even mean? If I if does that mean that if I use my iPhone and I call somebody that is on a watch list that I am now misusing my electronic device? Computer related forgery. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'll get that one. Forgery is pretty well defined, but, let's see, for oh okay. That that's about it. That that sort of like that's what I'm getting at here is that and and it's not just this that's ill defined.
It's everything is ill defined. There's like almost no technical communication. There's no there's no user interface that is well defined when it comes to how do I interact with the definition of these things? And because of that, you get situations where just because somebody said you did a thing all of a sudden you're arrested, or your property is absconded with, or your your freedom is absconded with. It I mean, it's just the whole thing is maddening. We're talking about 40 member states of the UN are going to sign this thing. This is going to pass. There's not going to be a reprieve.
You know, there's not going to be like, you know, maybe they'll get a 100000 people to hold up a sign and walk around in a park for about an hour and a half and then they'll get hungry and go home and then no but no. No. That's not going to do anything. There's only one way out. Well, not one way. There's several ways out. There's Nostr, there's FreedomTech, there's free and open source software, and this is the direction that we really have to swing hard to because it's not just about Bitcoin now. It's about all communications. It's about communicating with each other, it's about communicating ideas just out in general, it's about writing, it's about reading, it's about being able to have the right to call somebody on the phone and not be scared that maybe they've said something 10 years ago and now they're on a watch list and you don't know but because you contacted them, now you're in trouble.
The the the UN has become something other than what it was originally intended for. And there will be people that will say it was always intended to be this. Okay, I I'll just I'll give you that, but still, at least at the very beginning of the UN there was it wasn't like this. They weren't doing shit like this. But over the years, you know, post World War II, the UN has just become worse and worse and worse and worse, and now we're here to this. I don't there's I was about to say I don't know how to stop it, but I've already said there is no stopping this. So that's just kind of a dumb thing to say. But just be aware, we're gonna have to start taking our rights back on an individual basis and that doesn't that does not mean that you won't get in trouble.
It means that we have to make a we have to really qualify what we want for our future as individuals and for the other people that that we love and that we like and that we hang around with, we've got to make a decision as to what are we willing to risk To just not to just not do this? To just not comply with the UN, to just not comply with FADF, to not comply with the SEC, to not comply with any of these agencies because none of these people have our best interest in mind anymore. I don't think they can. I don't think they're able to because their bureaucracy is is just like it's like driving a car and over the years black spray paint is being sprayed over the windscreen and the people driving the car just can just every once in a while it got dimmer and dimmer and dimmer but now where we're at is that the windscreen is completely blacked out yet they're still doing 80 miles an hour. And the people inside very well may have everybody's best intentions in mind, but they can't see the crowd they're about to drive into at full speed.
So I will give them that. I will say that maybe it's just pure bureaucracy that's just gotten out of hand that has turned good people into people that we think are now bad people. And I really want to believe that there's no such thing as bad people. There's just people in under really terrible circumstances. And driving a car at 80 miles an hour and not being able to see where you go is about as terrible as it gets. Alright. So with all that said, that's the end of the show. I am in a new room. We moved, a bunch of furniture around in the house.
So I am in a completely different space. That if you were wondering why shit may sound different because I don't know. I haven't I haven't listened to playback yet. I haven't done quality control yet. There may be slap back because I'm sitting facing a wall. If you're hearing something and it is annoying the crap out of you and, you know, like, and I'm talking about sonically. I'm not talking about, like, hey, I didn't like that story you read. Well, I that that's not gonna be helpful. But sonically, the audible, you know, the audible stuff, if you hear something like a bat like I don't know like, too high end or it's too deep or something like that, throw me a boostagram and let me know. And by the way boostagrams and streaming sats on podcasting 2.0 is the way to support the show. And if you want the show to go on, I request your donations so that I can continue to do this. Because right after I get this show out I gotta email get albie, I gotta email Pablo, and I gotta email my rancher lawyer friend who is fighting for the King Ranch and start setting up a lot more interviews than what I normally do because that's going to have to happen. But I can't do it.
I really I mean it becomes very very hard to do when nobody is donating. Because it's like a signal that says you suck. And if if I do totally suck that's fine. I mean truth is truth, right? If it's just true that it's just the show's just not working, I get it. But other I'm gonna just be beating baby seals until I figure it out. Because it's like there are times when it feels like this is really going in the right direction and there are times when it feels that it is not. And I hate the feeling of going in the wrong direction. So I'm asking you to help me to get in to get on and stay in the right direction, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. Uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:0:9 am Pacific Daylight Time. It is the 12th day of August 2024 and this is Episode 934 of Bitcoin. And we got a busy day. Things are going on at Bitcoin Magazine.
Venezuela's got some issues with privacy as Russia does too. And then there's gonna be let's go revisit the whole Bank of Japan thing and the raising of the rates and the freaking out of the markets and then we'll do there's some there's an issue going on with Binance and Monero. This probably is not going to be very good news to the Monero fans out there. And then, we'll get into just a couple of other things. But let's start with this shakeup over here at Bitcoin Magazine. And it's really, you know, it's not really a shakeup, but it is a changing of a major guard Bitcoin Magazine Nick Hoffman is writing. Author Aaron Van Weerdam has been appointed as Bitcoin Magazine's editor in chief.
And before I get to the article, all I can say is that Aaron Van Weerdam is one of my favorite authors. I love reading his stuff and he's been a really excellent, Bitcoiner in the past. And I've had my issues with I've had my issues definitely with Bitcoin Magazine. I mean it's sort of like a love hate relationship. I am hoping that as Aaron von Weerdom becomes editor in chief that he will be able to pull Bitcoin back into a little bit more of a conservative issue when it comes to Bitcoin and maybe just maybe suggest to stop the shit coining. Alright?
Please, if at all possible. But anyway, Bitcoin Magazine is excited to announce veteran reporter and author Aaron Van Weerdam has been named editor in chief, a position that he has formally held from 2021 to 2022. The appointment follows his sabbatical in 2020 to write the Genesis book, the story of the people and projects that inspired Bitcoin released by Bitcoin Magazine Books in 2024. Known for reporting on Bitcoin privacy, scalability, core releases and more Since 2013, he's been at this for a while, Van Weerdam brings a wealth of experience and expertise to Bitcoin Magazine's editorial room.
For pioneer in the space, Van Weerten is the industry's preeminent technical reporter. Bitcoin Magazine has always been a leader in Bitcoin technical reporting. I am excited to work with a strong staff of industry veterans to continue this tradition, Van Weerdem said. Quote, Bitcoin is a technology that will continue to improve and advance and I believe Bitcoin Magazine can play a key role in facilitating this necessary dialogue with the community. Van Weerdam will be leading the editorial team in producing high quality, insightful content revolving around the most important topics of discussion in Bitcoin as well as resuming a leading role in publishing its quarterly magazine, which reaches 1000 of subscribers.
His deep understanding of Bitcoin's technical and economic aspects will undoubtedly enhance the publication's coverage and analysis, providing readers with reliable and informative content. Aaron Van Weerdam has long defined Bitcoin Magazine's editorial product and ethos, said Mike Germano, president and publisher of Bitcoin Magazine. Quote, we look forward to having him lead our staff at a time when presidents, senators, and celebrities are joining our readership's ranks. Alright. So, again, my hope here is that Aaron von Weerdham will be able to bring some, I don't know, to pull Bitcoin Magazine back into a much more sensible position, it would be very nice indeed because honestly the ordinals and inscriptions bent that they went on, in my view, kinda damaged the brand.
It I mean, David Bailey won't say that. Nobody else at at Bitcoin Magazine will say that. But I will say that I I think that there's some very serious damage was done to Bitcoin Magazine's brand At least at least for the people that are the hardcore guys that have always stuck by Bitcoin Magazine through thick and thin all the way back to even when, oh, Vitalik Buterin started that whole magazine. So here's to hoping, but we'll have to see. Now on down south to Venezuela where they have blocked Binance as well as Twitter amid a presidential election dispute, Jesse Coughlin Cointelegraph Venezuela's government has blocked access to crypto exchange Binance, social media platform X and other online services.
In an August 9th Twitter post, local anti censorship organization VESinfiltro said it quote, detected a DNS block on the cryptocurrency exchange Binance which affects the normal operation of its website and mobile application. Like several websites of companies from different segments in Venezuela, including social networks, Binance Pages have been facing access restrictions the exchange's Latin American focused Twitter account posted on August 10th. Binance assured its users that of course funds are SAFU adding that it was monitoring the situation closely to address it in the best and quickest way possible.
Vesinfiltro recommended Venezuelans use VPNs, or virtual private networks, to skirt the block. The August 9th Binance block comes a day Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised speech that he ordered telco regulator Conitel to ban access to Twitter in the country for 10 days, Reuters is reporting. Maduro and Twitter owner Elon Musk recently had a public spat. Both have offered and accepted challenges to fight each other. The encrypted messaging app Signal was also blocked the same day according to Internet monitoring ProjectNetBlox. It added the app remains functional with the censorship circumvention setting enabled.
Venezuela saw widespread protests after the July 28 presidential election where Maduro and rival Edmondo Gonzalez both claimed victory. The country's government controlled electoral authority named Maduro, of course, the winner with just just over 51%. Oh, just enough of the vote without releasing a detailed vote count. Well, of course, by God. How could you possibly have any kind of transparency whatsoever? Gonzales claimed that the voting machine printouts his party had collected proved that he had won with nearly 70% of the vote. The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and multiple South American countries have not recognized Maduro's claim to the presidency, and many have asked for detailed vote counts. Yeah. Well, good luck getting them because that's never gonna happen.
And Maduro is going to remain president of Venezuela and marching around a fucking square holding a sign isn't going to do a whole bunch of good at all because it never has. Do you actually think that the protests in Venezuela are going to change Maduro's mind? No. Uh-uh. Nope. That is not going to happen. That's what I have that's why I have a problem with protesting Because it doesn't do anything. Because nobody's actually willing to do that one extra step. And I'm not gonna say what it is. Let your imagination run wild. But marching around in a circle, holding up a sign, doesn't do anything, and it never has.
So, I I just don't I don't get why people think protesting is is gonna do anything. It just never does. Russia as well as Venezuela has blocked signal messenger. Okay. This is out of no bullshit Bitcoin. So Russia going over across the pond, Russia has blocked access to Signal App, prevent the Messenger's of terrorist and extremist purposes according to what Russia is saying about it. Quote, user access to the messenger signal is restricted due to violations of the requirements of the Russian legislation whose fulfillment is necessary to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes. Russia's telecommunications watchdog, Ross Kosmak commander, Iron. Has a Roskommadzor told Interfax the messenger was blocked in Venezuela following the disputed presidential election results from late July.
President Nicolas Maduro has also ordered a block on social media platform Twitter. Yes, we know. Signal confirmed that some countries block its services and advise users to enable the built in censorship circumvention feature. Signal's simple TLS proxy is available on both Signal Android as well as Signal iOS, enabling users to bypass network blocks and securely route traffic to the Signal service. Anyone can set up a proxy, and once deployed, users can provide a URL for others to use, sort of a Uncle Jim model. Quote, we have already started working on more advanced censorship circumvention techniques, but in order for these efforts to be the most effective, we need the big companies who are dragging their feet on moving away from PlaneTech's SNI headers to start taking this problem more seriously added the project.
They won't. It is not in their interest to do so it's just not going to happen that's just nothing but wishful thinking there's only one way out of this and it's going to be things like Nostra. And I'm gonna go ahead and say it. It's also gonna include things like Fetiverse. Even though a lot of people don't like Mastodon and the Fediverse and how that works. And I don't like it either, but we need that network to be able to attach to the Nostra network and both of those networks need to attach to things like, what is it? Peach? I can't remember a hole punch.
And that entire ecosystem all 3 of these things need to start commingling and have or build the ability for those 2 those 3 networks together to start sharing information in a more primal way not just like a proxy way where if I post something to Nostr it automatically gets posted over to Mastodon blah blah blah. That's just not enough. It just isn't enough. There needs to be more of a and I I dare I say it, hold on for a second. Hold on. Okay. Sorry about that. Where was I at? You know how there's that cartoon where it's like there's 14 different, you know, like, protocols or conventions or something in computer science and somebody says this is ridiculous. We have 14 different ways of doing this one same thing. What we need is a brand new all encompassing protocol and the last frame is like now there's 15.
Yeah. So I don't want to say that. This has to be something more way more base something that is so ridiculously easy to read like whether it's a note or whatever a toot over on mastodon or whatever they call it over on you know like the ecosystem of hole punch that somehow or another there's just enough information to be able to parse that for all three of these networks and you can remain native to your network and have much more robust things that you can do but I really believe that when I talk about mycelial networks in the soil like 2 different fungal networks that are of a 2 different species and the possibility that they can connect to each other physically and open up a direct physical fluid filled channel so that whole nucleuses or nuclei of cells and all of their information I. E. The DNA can travel freely between 2 separate and well completely separate organisms if we can do that if we can take that idea and inject it into things like mastodon feddy verse noster the hole punch and all its signal and all that kind of all that kind of thing then what you end up with is a super organism that there's just no way to stop it's just you you try it's like whack a mole at that point but x facebook you forget it all of legacy social media it's all dead they just don't know it yet the problem is is that people refuse to stop using it because once they do they lose their audience and they don't want to lose their audience it's like a drug it's it's highly addictive an audience is highly addictive just like the dopamine hits you get when you just get a simple like from somebody who quote unquote may not even be in your audience.
It's all about addiction. And one of the things that Noster has done for me is completely break my addiction. You'll notice that I haven't really been posting on Noster lately, a, because I've been on vacation. But you know what didn't happen? I didn't feel like I needed to. And therein is a very important lesson for me personally is how to break that addiction and the one of the ways that you break that addiction is you start using something like noster. If you don't if you're not using noster if you haven't tried it you have nothing to lose by trying it and very well maybe and I do believe this it's so for you it very well may be but for me it is the only way that I can move forward right so with that said let's go over to Japan where an ex bank of Japan official has ruled out another rate hike this year. This is an opinion. This is an ex bank of Japan official.
So take everything here from CoinDesk written by Omkar Godbold with a grain of salt. A former just to preface it a former Bank of Japan official said that the central bank would defer additional interest rate hikes to next year suggesting a preference for market stability over the near term. They won't be able to hike again, at least not for the rest of the year. Former board member Makoto Sakurai said late Friday according to Bloomberg, it's a toss-up whether they can do one hike by next March. The Bank of Japan raised its key interest rate to about 0.25 percent from a range of 0 on July 31st, delivering the very first hike in over a decade.
The central bank also signaled additional rate hikes. The shift away from the 0 interest rate policy pushed the Japanese yen higher, triggering an unwinding of the risk on yen carry trades. The resulting slide in traditional risk assets weighed heavily over BTC crashing the cryptocurrency from 65,000 to roughly 50,000 in less than 7 days. Bitcoin has since recovered to trade above 58,000 amid signs of risk reset on Wall Street. The market turmoil saw Bank of Japan's deputy governor, Shinichi Uchida, walk back on the bank's hawkish commitment, saying that it would not hike rates when the markets are unstable, whatever the hell that means. Quote, Uchida's remarks were appropriate because market stabilization is very important now, said Sakurai.
The Bank of Japan is moving from excessive monetary easing to appropriate monetary easing, and the biggest problem is that Ueda failed to communicate firmly that they will maintain easing. That's always been a condition that they've kept, Sakurai added. So they are probably not probably not going to raise rates until sometime next year. That doesn't mean that they won't, clearly, but what I wonder is if the Bank of Japan somehow or another is going to be the anti pressure release valve to the fact that the United States is probably going to start easing its rates. And that somehow or another that there's gotta be a balance. And since Japan and their entire economy has basically been friends with the US since the end of World War 2, forcibly at first, but then it actually looked like we actually really did develop a very very good relationship with Japan, that Japan somehow or another is going to take the brunt of the fact that the United States, being the largest economy in the world, is going to have to start dropping rates. They just have to.
Well that balance that balance is probably going to be need need to be off set because natural systems and economies are one of them no matter how disgusting ours is because it is fiat it is contrived it is all this but remember what I always say the rules of the universe apply to everything that is created inside the universe because that which created it was created by the rules of the universe so we pass through this notion of balance and what I think is going to happen is that next year Japan is going to sacrifice itself on the pyre of economy so that the United States can start easing rates so that the entire world economy doesn't collapse and that's under the entire fiat mindset Bitcoin doesn't give a shit let's run the numbers CNBC Futures and Commodities West Texas Intermediate Oil is back up to $78.78 after a 2.52% rise.
Brent, North Sea also up just over 2% to $81.30. Natural gas up 1.77 percent to $2.18 a 1000. And gasoline is up almost a point and a half to $2.42 a gallon. All your shiny metal rocks are happy today so that makes Peter Schiff very happy. Gold is up 1 and a quarter point to $2504.70 Silver up 1 and a half. Platinum is up almost 2 points as well as copper and palladium is up 1.13%. Ag is fully mixed, mostly to the, red side, though. Biggest winner today is coffee, 3.3% to the upside. Biggest loser today looks like cocoa, which is down 6%. Wow. That's a hell of a move. Live cattle down a 3rd. Lean hogs up 2 thirds. And feeder cattle are down 2 thirds. Legacy Financial Markets, Dow is down a quarter of a point, the S and P is up 0.15, Nasdaq is up a third of a point, and the S and P Mini is down a half. So let's see what's going on over here at Clark Moody Bitcoin. Price is $59,820.
That is a $1,180,000,000,000 market cap. And yet, we can still purchase 24.4 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 Bitcoin of which are 19,730,796.12 of. And fees remain low on average on a per block basis. 0.05btc taken in fees on average on a particular block. Now how many blocks are there? There's, just under 200,000 unconfirmed transactions, waiting for 121 blocks to clear at high priority rates of 4 satoshis per v byte. Low priorities are also 4 satoshis per v byte. Hash rate looks like it is back up to 600 and 67.1 exahashes per second.
I wonder if we're gonna see that 780 exahashes per second again any time soon. Now, on to Queen Freeze, which was episode 933 of Bitcoin. And Dubravco with 2190. Sat says, I meant to say I miss you. K is right above m. Never mind. I stand by it. If you don't interview the rancher selling starter cattle for 3 ks, I'm going to thump your forehead with my finger though. FTX and Alameda having a lifetime ban is really funny. Quote. Y'all can do whatever. You can't do this. You don't have to go home, but you can stay here. What are they going to pull hold on. What? Are they going to pull a reverse Nintendo and start making playing cards? Suck it, Trebek.
02ZX421 satoshi says ABC BTCGBT L BTC, W BTC. I give you BTC. You give me the donut. We don't need to bring the entire alphabet to this translation. No shit. Pies with 420. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. God's death with 237. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And 02ZX with 124. Satoshi says transaction. Okay, yeah. The entire alphabet into this transaction. That looks like what he was about to say all right that's the weather report Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use and bad news for the Monero people. Binance will start converting Monero to USDC on September 2nd as part of the delisting.
Adrian Zmunksy from decrypt, following Binance's February announcement that it would de list Monero and its finalization later that month, the exchange has now announced its very last steps to get the privacy coin off of its platform because god forbid when you're when you're dancing for the fiat man, your skirts have to be a particular length above the floor. You know, there used to be a time when Binance would just thumb their nose at all at at everybody. And granted, they did so for a very for a lot longer than than I thought they'd be able to get away with. But what's really sad is that we keep going back to exchanges like Binance and Kraken and Coinbase and they're all going to comply because they're all weak and spineless and sackless for that matter.
The only way through this is with decentralized exchanges and nobody seems to be using them. There's HODL HODL. There's, Bisk. There's, like, there's at least 3 and there's probably more like 7 and I just don't know about the other ones. But, you know, hoddle hoddle and bisque, good place to start. Just go look at it. Just I mean, it's it's not all that complicated. You don't have to buy or sell anything. Just go look at the interface and say, you know, and then kind of try to figure out what does it mean? How do I do a transaction? Get on their Reddit and, you know, or their Telegram and start asking questions about How does this actually work? Because honestly you're going to see Binance, d and Kraken, and Coinbase pretty much delist everything that has anything to do with any kind of safety whatsoever. I'm not a Monero fan.
You know this. But of there's only after Bitcoin there's only 2 other coins that I would even consider as potentially not being a complete shitcoin. And it was simply because of the way that they were launched. But one is Monero and the other one is Zcash. That's it. Everything else is a complete and utter shitcoin. And I don't even really let Monero and Zcash out of the shitcoin category. I just think that they're closest to the exit. That's all I'm saying. So I'm just just be aware. But anyway, in an August 12th blog post Binance said that it will convert the balances of 15 different tokens including Monero to USD coin on September 2, 2024 the conversion will be complete and USDC will be in users' wallets by March 1, 2025 the announcement explains that the conversion rate for the assets will be based on their average exchange rate between September 2, 2024 and March 1, 2025.
The affected assets other than Monero are Bitcoin Gold God, you remember that shit? Bitcoin Standard Hash Rate Token, never heard of it. Bitshares, District 0X, Groistcoin, Hygic, mobilecoin, whatever. This is these are all shitcoins. Oh my god. For what it's worth, XMR seems unfazed by this latest stage of Binance delisting. At the time of writing, Monero is trading for a $149.38 after having fallen 0.2% since the time this time yesterday. But the delisting of a privacy coin like Monero by the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume does set a troubling precedent, said Web3 Privacy Now core contributor, McCullough Suzuki.
Guess, quote, Binance is widening the gap between original decentralization ethos and regulated surveillance capitalism. You know, I'm not the only one thinking that. Good. Misleading millions of people, what the web 3 is about, permissionless and freedom, he told decrypt. Quote, basically, they are proving to be part of surveillance. End quote. Mobile coin, like Monero, is a privacy focused coin. It uses ring signatures to conceal transactions, which is similar to how Monero works. Binance users will be able to withdraw the assets from the exchange up to September 1, 2024.
And of course, Binance didn't, you know, respond to requests for comments. Privacy coins are crypto currencies designed to enhance transaction anonymity beyond what standard cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin offer. These various cryptographic techniques to obscure transaction details such as addresses and amounts making it extremely difficult to trace or link transactions to specific individuals. While advocates argue that these coins protect user privacy and bring cash like anonymity to digital transactions, critics point out their potential for illicit use in areas like ransomware payments and money laundering.
Popular privacy coins include Monero, Zcash and Dash, each employing different methods to achieve anonymity. However, these coins face regulatory scrutiny and potential bans in some jurisdictions with some cryptocurrency exchanges delisting them due to compliance concerns. Despite these challenges, privacy coins continue to gain popularity among users seeking enhanced financial privacy in the digital realm. Again, that's that's the end of the the article. But, the stuff like Monero and Zcash, and I've been seeing a lot of chatter about Monero specifically on Noster lately. And it's like a lot of people that I followed on Noster that had never said anything about Monero before are starting to talk a lot about Monero and I'm basically I've gotta unfollow.
And it's not because of an ethic. It's not because of moral. I just I just don't give a shit. I don't hate Monero like I hate ether. Right? I don't I I'm not in a position where I just find myself nauseated at the thought that Zcash exists like I am with, you know, ether. But I don't have time for this. I just don't. So understand that if you start talking about Monero, you know, I just I don't want to hear it. It's just it doesn't make it's not that it doesn't make sense to me, it's that the world is so cucked at this point and all of the people that we thought were on our side over the last 10 years are falling away like flies because they are getting smokin' hot rich.
That's what getting rich will do for you is that then you start having to protect your wealth at all costs and you will do anything anything like Brian Armstrong will do anything to make sure that he retains his wealth. He will wear however long a skirt he is required to wear. He will he will ask how high when he is told to jump by the United States authorities and this will go on and on and on. The only way to circumvent this is to the same ethos that Bitcoin had in the beginning and that Nostra has right now. Complete decentralization.
Almost a complete almost a complete ability to eschew wealth or the potential of wealth, at least in the short to medium term. Just so that you can build the thing. Because if you build the thing with wealth in mind chances are good it's going to become or you and your thing will become co opted by those who are going to protect their power at any cost except it's so cheap for them to protect their power because all they have to do is threaten to take away the wealth of somebody else. And then all of a sudden you get you get compliance. And that's how it works.
But some people will fight like this dude over here in Nigeria. Nigerian Bitcoiner sues government for the right to own, acquire, and trade Bitcoin. Nigerian Bitcoiner and political or politician James Otoodor has taken a bold legal stance to advocate for the fundamental rights of Nigerians to own, use, and trade bitcoin, stable coins, as well as other digital assets. He announced legal action against multiple Nigerian government and regulatory bodies including the president, minister of finance, attorney general, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Nigerian Police Force Force, the National Information Technology Development Agency, and finally, the Nigerian Communications Commission. Good Lord.
I mean, that's a lot of lawsuits to file. O'Toole argues that, quote, the ongoing targeting of Nigerians who own and use crypto currencies is a clear violation of their fundamental human rights. Bitcoin and other digital assets are vital tools for protecting savings from inflation and enabling international transactions, particularly in light of naira devaluation and foreign exchange shortages. Quote, it is our submission that the rights to acquire Bitcoin and other digital assets have been severely infringed on as the Federal Republic of Nigeria and its agencies have forced telecom companies to prevent and restrict innocent Nigerian citizens from acquiring, holding, and accessing these assets, Othudor said. The lawsuit seeks the following remedies.
1, the immediate removal of the block on all crypto exchange online platforms ensuring unrestricted access for all Nigerians. 2 A declaration that the right of every Bitcoin, USDT, and other cryptocurrency holder be protected as well as guaranteed. 3. A declaration that the infringement, victimization, and human rights violations of those who own, use and trade Bitcoin, All USDT and other crypto in Nigerian is in Nigeria is unlawful, unconstitutional, as well as illegal. And finally, 4, establishment of regulations for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency assets within the Nigerian financial ecosystem recognizing their distinct categories and regulating Bitcoin as a commodity. Quote, this legal action represents a peaceful protest for freedom and financial inclusion.
As a nation founded on human rights, it is our responsibility to ensure that the rights of Bitcoin, USDT, and other digital asset users and holders are protected and guaranteed, he added. So this dude just getting all up in these people's grill like a son of a bitch. I mean, that's that's like he's suing 7 agencies in Nigeria. I just hope that I just hope he survives it. I mean, physically, because Nigeria ain't exactly a nice place to be and they do some pretty nasty shit sometimes. And finally for today, UN cybercrime draft convention approved unanimously despite widespread opposition.
The United Nations approved its 1st cybercrime treaty, a massive surveillance pact that mandates intrusive domestic surveillance measures and states' cooperation in surveillance and data sharing in a unanimous vote last week. Yes. They unanimously voted to bend over their citizenry. The treaty was adopted by consensus after 3 years of negotiations, but still needs a vote from the general assembly in the fall. It requires ratification by 40 nations and is expected to pass, as the same states will be voting on it. The draft agreement requires the United Nation member states to legislate against unauthorized access to information systems, the production or sale of explicit child sexual content, online grooming, deep fakes, misuse of electronic devices, computer related forgery or theft, and allow states to collect data for convictions and compel service providers to provide incriminating information. It's time to buy one of my caves where you too can become a hermit in the middle of the forest because these people running around make the world suck. Quote, the UN Cybercrime Convention drastically expands government surveillance powers and enables widespread personal data sharing between UN member states.
It mandates that member states formalize money laundering offenses and cyber crimes to an extent that would criminalize hacking, whistle blowing, and security research reports the rage. The convention requires member states to identify, trace, confiscate, and seize crime related assets and collect real time data for requesting states. It also mandates establishing criminal offenses for concealing or disguising the true nature and source of property and enter or intentionally transferring property to conceal its illicit origin. Quote, while the treaty defers most articles to the governance of local laws, it states that states shall not decline to act on the grounds of bank secrecy, writes Lol Elites, which I think is also part she's the one that does the rage.
Opponents of the treaty, including human rights organizations and tech companies, are concerned about provisions allowing authorities to obtain electronic evidence and request data from Internet service providers across nations. Quote, the cybercrime treaty adopted by the UN is an unexpected surveillance tool without adequate safeguards. Governments should take their human rights obligations seriously and reject signing or ratifying this treaty, End quote. Deborah Brown, Deputy Technology and Rights Director of Human Rights Watch. Deborah, I'm sorry, but they're going to do this. Because they know that the the only thing that we're going to do in reaction is to make a funny sign and walk around in a circle and protest.
And all they have to do is wait until we get hungry and go home. Because nothing's going to change. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be all doom and gloom, but let's let's be realistic. When have you ever seen a protest actually change anything? And I'm not I'm not talking about the seventies. I'm not talking about like you know equal rights movements that kind of thing. I'm talking about post 2000 Post the year 2000 when have you ever seen any protest actually do a damn thing where they're just walking around in a circle of signs? You you haven't.
That's the answer. You haven't. Global businesses don't support the text as it is. It should be abandoned, said Nick Ashton Hart, the head of the Tech Accord delegation. Quote, the United States welcomes the ad hoc committee on cybercrime's adoption of the United Nations Conventions Against Cybercrime. The agreement expands the global fight against cybercrime, which is one of the most pervasive challenges of our time affecting communities around the world, said US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller, who is a cook. Alright. So that's that's the article. But everywhere in this in this write up there's no I mean, there's never going to be an exact definition of what it is. Like, okay. The sale of explicit child sexual content.
That's that's pretty that's pretty well defined. Alright? Most people know what that is. But what is unauthorized access to information systems? What is online grooming? Is there a definition for online grooming? Even though that like let's say that you're just talking to somebody online you have no intention of grooming. It's not even in your personality to do so. You're not even thinking of it. You're thinking about, I don't know, maybe going fishing or something. But you're talking to somebody and all of a sudden you say, you know what? Walking around in a circle with a bunch of funny signs doesn't actually do shit and all of a sudden you just get charged with online grooming. Because there's no real definition here. And the same can be said for what is a deep fake?
Well, how would you know? I mean, if I if I do, like, Photoshop and I don't use AI at all, could I be accused of deepfakes? Misuse of electronic devices. What does what does that even mean? If I if does that mean that if I use my iPhone and I call somebody that is on a watch list that I am now misusing my electronic device? Computer related forgery. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'll get that one. Forgery is pretty well defined, but, let's see, for oh okay. That that's about it. That that sort of like that's what I'm getting at here is that and and it's not just this that's ill defined.
It's everything is ill defined. There's like almost no technical communication. There's no there's no user interface that is well defined when it comes to how do I interact with the definition of these things? And because of that, you get situations where just because somebody said you did a thing all of a sudden you're arrested, or your property is absconded with, or your your freedom is absconded with. It I mean, it's just the whole thing is maddening. We're talking about 40 member states of the UN are going to sign this thing. This is going to pass. There's not going to be a reprieve.
You know, there's not going to be like, you know, maybe they'll get a 100000 people to hold up a sign and walk around in a park for about an hour and a half and then they'll get hungry and go home and then no but no. No. That's not going to do anything. There's only one way out. Well, not one way. There's several ways out. There's Nostr, there's FreedomTech, there's free and open source software, and this is the direction that we really have to swing hard to because it's not just about Bitcoin now. It's about all communications. It's about communicating with each other, it's about communicating ideas just out in general, it's about writing, it's about reading, it's about being able to have the right to call somebody on the phone and not be scared that maybe they've said something 10 years ago and now they're on a watch list and you don't know but because you contacted them, now you're in trouble.
The the the UN has become something other than what it was originally intended for. And there will be people that will say it was always intended to be this. Okay, I I'll just I'll give you that, but still, at least at the very beginning of the UN there was it wasn't like this. They weren't doing shit like this. But over the years, you know, post World War II, the UN has just become worse and worse and worse and worse, and now we're here to this. I don't there's I was about to say I don't know how to stop it, but I've already said there is no stopping this. So that's just kind of a dumb thing to say. But just be aware, we're gonna have to start taking our rights back on an individual basis and that doesn't that does not mean that you won't get in trouble.
It means that we have to make a we have to really qualify what we want for our future as individuals and for the other people that that we love and that we like and that we hang around with, we've got to make a decision as to what are we willing to risk To just not to just not do this? To just not comply with the UN, to just not comply with FADF, to not comply with the SEC, to not comply with any of these agencies because none of these people have our best interest in mind anymore. I don't think they can. I don't think they're able to because their bureaucracy is is just like it's like driving a car and over the years black spray paint is being sprayed over the windscreen and the people driving the car just can just every once in a while it got dimmer and dimmer and dimmer but now where we're at is that the windscreen is completely blacked out yet they're still doing 80 miles an hour. And the people inside very well may have everybody's best intentions in mind, but they can't see the crowd they're about to drive into at full speed.
So I will give them that. I will say that maybe it's just pure bureaucracy that's just gotten out of hand that has turned good people into people that we think are now bad people. And I really want to believe that there's no such thing as bad people. There's just people in under really terrible circumstances. And driving a car at 80 miles an hour and not being able to see where you go is about as terrible as it gets. Alright. So with all that said, that's the end of the show. I am in a new room. We moved, a bunch of furniture around in the house.
So I am in a completely different space. That if you were wondering why shit may sound different because I don't know. I haven't I haven't listened to playback yet. I haven't done quality control yet. There may be slap back because I'm sitting facing a wall. If you're hearing something and it is annoying the crap out of you and, you know, like, and I'm talking about sonically. I'm not talking about, like, hey, I didn't like that story you read. Well, I that that's not gonna be helpful. But sonically, the audible, you know, the audible stuff, if you hear something like a bat like I don't know like, too high end or it's too deep or something like that, throw me a boostagram and let me know. And by the way boostagrams and streaming sats on podcasting 2.0 is the way to support the show. And if you want the show to go on, I request your donations so that I can continue to do this. Because right after I get this show out I gotta email get albie, I gotta email Pablo, and I gotta email my rancher lawyer friend who is fighting for the King Ranch and start setting up a lot more interviews than what I normally do because that's going to have to happen. But I can't do it.
I really I mean it becomes very very hard to do when nobody is donating. Because it's like a signal that says you suck. And if if I do totally suck that's fine. I mean truth is truth, right? If it's just true that it's just the show's just not working, I get it. But other I'm gonna just be beating baby seals until I figure it out. Because it's like there are times when it feels like this is really going in the right direction and there are times when it feels that it is not. And I hate the feeling of going in the wrong direction. So I'm asking you to help me to get in to get on and stay in the right direction, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
Protests and Their Effectiveness
Decentralized Networks and Their Importance
Market Updates: Commodities and Bitcoin
