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<title>No Extradition Yet: Sam Bankman-Fried Ordered Back To Bahamian Jail In Surprise Twist</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/no-extradition-yet-sam-bankman-fried-ordered-back-to-bahamian-jail-in-surprise-twist/</link>
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<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:31:19 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Coins]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[Sam Bankman-Fried, the former billionaire crypto wunderkind now jailed in the Bahamas and facing a litany of criminal charges for alleged fraud, did not agree to […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Sam Bankman-Fried, the former billionaire crypto wunderkind now jailed in the Bahamas and facing a litany of criminal charges for alleged fraud, did not agree to extradition back to the U.S. as expected in a Monday court hearing.
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<title>LIVE NOW: Sam Bankman-Fried, Ex-FTX CEO, Goes On The Record With Forbes</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/live-now-sam-bankman-fried-ex-ftx-ceo-goes-on-the-record-with-forbes/</link>
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<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:31:18 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried speaks to Forbes Digital Assets Director of Research Steven Ehrlich from the Bahamas.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried speaks to Forbes Digital Assets Director of Research Steven Ehrlich from the Bahamas.
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<title>Bitcoin’s Trading Has Become “Boring”: Is This a Bad or Good Thing?</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/bitcoins-trading-has-become-boring-is-this-a-bad-or-good-thing/</link>
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<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:31:16 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[As the price of bitcoin continues on its sideways journey, it’s helpful to consider this volatility compared to previous episodes. This is an opinion editorial by […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[As the price of bitcoin continues on its sideways journey, it’s helpful to consider this volatility compared to previous episodes.

This is an opinion editorial by Francois Moreau, a fintech writer and financial risk analyst based out of Paris.
The Fed’s interest rate spikes are spooking the market, and speculative assets like bitcoin are amongst the hardest hit. Although once-touted as a non-correlative asset compared to equity markets, bitcoin’s beta is ultimately well past one as it falls at a rate nearly twice that of the struggling stock market.
But, recently, it appears that the coin is <a href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/bitcoin-price-crypto-markets-today-51667468347" rel="nofollow noopener">stagnating below</a> $20,000. In this apparent consolidation, some fear that it may simply be butting up against a previous support floor and that any additional bad bitcoin news will cause a further drop.
Some are more confident in the coin.
According to them, this consolidation is a <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/bitcoin-price-tests-critical-support-levels" rel="nofollow noopener">strong sign of a bottom</a>, and the support making bitcoin range-bound is a sign of a strong future. Whether the coin will shoot back up to close to its previous all-time-high of nearly $70,000 remains to be seen – but some are cautiously optimistic. 
<h2>Gathering Statistics</h2>
According to the crypto research giant Kaiko, the volatility of the<a href="https://www.compareforexbrokers.com/forex-trading/statistics/" rel="nofollow noopener"> $201B cryptocurrency market</a> fell below standard market benchmarks. This is a harbinger of solid consolidation, even as a stronger US currency and more attractive fixed-income assets distract investors. 
In fact, for some, that bitcoin stability is the best news of the year.
Luno exchange head Vijay Ayyar reinforced the thesis that consolidation is an indicator of future stability or moves upward rather than further crashing, saying that “Bitcoin has largely been range bound between $18-25K for four months now, indicating consolidation and a probable bottoming out pattern, given we are seeing the Dollar Index top out as well.”
Calling the bottom (or the top) is as much art as science, with a healthy dose of luck needed, but Ayyar relies on past trends to make his assessments: “We’ve seen BTC bottom when DXY has topped in the past, as in 2015, so we could be witnessing a very similar pattern again.”
Others in the industry agree; Antoni Trenchev of the lending firm Nexo says that the <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/discussing-the-revenge-of-the-nodes" rel="nofollow noopener">consolidation and reduced volatility</a> are “strong evidence that the digital assets industry has matured and is becoming less fragmented.”
<h2>Has Spring Sprung?</h2>
As the rest of the equities market fell by “only” <a href="https://www.usbank.com/investing/financial-perspectives/market-news/is-a-market-correction-coming.html" rel="nofollow noopener">around 20%</a>, bitcoin dropped by a multiple of that, losing <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/15/bitcoin-has-lost-more-than-50percent-of-its-value-this-year-what-to-know.html" rel="nofollow noopener">nearly $2</a> trillion in net value and falling by over 50% just this year. It has dropped almost 70% compared to its<a href="https://youngandtheinvested.com/cryptocurrency-statistics/" rel="nofollow noopener"> $68,543 peak</a> in November 2021. This fall was devastating to the class of investors who saw bitcoin as a hedge or means of diversification in a portfolio, as the coin proved substantially correlated with stocks.
As we’ve said, and you’ve undoubtedly heard parroted endlessly since October 2021, that fall is mainly due to the Federal Reserve’s attempts to tamp down inflation. Those attempts have proven to be largely insubstantial thus far, requiring a further rate increase of 75 BPS at a time with no end.
Compounding the correlation issue was that many large institutional crypto bulls built heavily leveraged positions they were then forced to unwind to avoid margin calls, ultimately driving the price down further as the assets were sold for relative scraps.
Some call this nuclear fallout in the crypto sphere, aptly, a crypto winter. Some, like Three Arrows Capital, even lost their entire firm as they unwound too slowly — the firm lost <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/battered-crypto-hedge-fund-three-arrows-capital-considers-asset-sales-bailout-11655469932" rel="nofollow noopener">more than $3B</a> of investor money before collapsing.
Going back to Ayyar, the stability indicates an “accumulation period.” That accumulation may indicate a willingness to tentatively return to bitcoin for funds, firms and investors, as the modeling shows the $20,000 range undervalued.
“The fact that bitcoin is trapped in such a range makes it boring, but this is also the point at which retail investors lose interest, and smart money begins to amass,” Ayyar said.
Not only that, but many family offices are expanding their crypto holdings as they, too, seek diversification and increasingly move towards alternative investments for clients. Digital asset management fund president Matteo Dante Perruccio reinforced this trend by pointing to a “counterintuitive spike in demand” from big money and smart money. This could be a move towards diversification or, just as likely, seeking substantial upside as they think the bottom is in.
Bitcoin miners, too, have reduced their crypto sales. As this happens, selling pressure also falls, another harbinger of positive movement in the coin’s future and the mining industry at large. Analysts from Goldman Sachs say that publicly traded bitcoin miners sold <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/boring-could-be-beautiful-for-xbtf" rel="nofollow noopener">around 3,000 bitcoins</a> in September compared to 12,000 in June.
Back to Perruccio: he predicts that the crypto winter will break in Q2 of 2023. “For the market to advance,” he said, “we’ll have seen a lot more failures in the DeFi [decentralized finance] arena and a lot of the smaller firms.”
Even financial service providers haven’t abandoned crypto.
Joining the trend, Mastercard just rolled out options for banks that enable crypto trading alongside traditional accounts. Also, Visa is collaborating with the FTX exchange to bring debit cards to market that direct links to trading accounts and help users <a href="https://www.waveapps.com/blog/accounting-and-taxes/cash-flow-projection" rel="nofollow noopener">ensure cash flow</a> as they speculate, spend, and manage the transition from cash to crypto (and vice versa). 
<h2>Fed Watch</h2>
Head of Crypto Research at the alternative asset management company CoinShares James Butterfill is a bit more cautious, reminding investors that it’s difficult to make too many predictions before more information and data come out. “We err on the side of higher upside possibilities rather than further price declines,” he said.
“The largest fund withdrawals recently have been in <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/earn-interest-on-bitcoin-short-sellers" rel="nofollow noopener">short-bitcoin positions</a>, whereas we have seen tiny but consistent inflows into long bitcoin over the last six weeks,” he said to CNBC via email. He later added, “A statement from the Federal Reserve that it intends to ease its aggressive tightening would be the major factor driving uptake of bitcoin.”
The Fed is expected to continue the 75 BPS incremental hikes. Still, some also see a pivot on the horizon back to the days of easy (or easier) money: “Clients are telling us that they will start increasing positions to bitcoin once the Fed pivots, or is close to it,” Butterfill said. “The recent liquidations of net shorts are consistent with what we observe in terms of money flows and suggest that short sellers are starting to give in.”
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
So what’s the bottom line? Unfortunately, the future is impossible to predict, and we can only manage expectations in line with past trends, data, and our thesis about the coin. For bullish investors, though, the recent <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/buyers-of-last-resort-and-bitcoin-price-volatility" rel="nofollow noopener">reduction in volatility</a> is a good sign indeed – and institutions appear to agree.
<hr>
<h2>Addendum – FTX And Its Dramatic Effect On The Crypto Capital Market</h2>
Sometimes you speak too soon, and in the case of Bitcoin’s reduced volatility, unforeseen circumstances are forcing the metaphorical groundhog back into his hole for another extended period of crypto winter. 
Midway through the month, the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, previously the third largest and seen as broadly beyond reproach, <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/ftx-files-for-bankruptcy-ceo-resigns" rel="nofollow noopener">collapsed</a> in a spectacular mess of financial mismanagement and tabloid-style personal intrigue. 
While the latter is undoubtedly good for gossip fodder, the crux of what happened and how it will affect Bitcoin moving forward lay in the former. In short, the appearance of mismanagement led to the uncovering of real abuses as the largest exchange, Binance, announced they’d be closing their positions in FTX’s proprietary coin FTT based on perceived conflicts of interest between FTX and trading firm Alameda. That announcement led to an effective bank run on FTX as thousands of customers pulled or cashed in their coins, triggering a liquidity crisis as FTX failed to deliver on customer withdrawals.
I told you it was complicated, and that’s just scratching the surface. But what matters now is the effect we see on Bitcoin capital markets. 
Despite a period of consolidation and accumulation as Bitcoin stayed effectively “flat,” the news of FTX’s collapse and shadow of doubt cast over the crypto arena. After just a week of increasingly concerning information, Bitcoin fell to a two-year low of $15,480, bringing the total market loss for the year to a round $1.5T. 
Some look to the FTX collapse as a final nail in the crypto coffin, rounding out stablecoin UST’s loss of stability and widespread failure of former monolithic crypto-focused funds that appeared to bring legitimacy to the markets as a safe(ish) store of value. It’s unclear whether the winter will continue. Still, increased regulations are almost a sure bet as agents from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Justice, and other government giants converge on the scraps of FTX to find out what happened and how to prevent it in the future.
Even the most optimistic Bitcoin bulls see the crypto winter extending through 2023, so it’s best to be prepared to hunker down for another rough ride. 
This is a guest post by Francois Moreau. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
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<title>Inaccurate U.S. Senate Testimony Misleads Lawmakers, Public About Bitcoin</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/inaccurate-u-s-senate-testimony-misleads-lawmakers-public-about-bitcoin/</link>
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<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:31:15 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Coins]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[In testimony before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, actor Ben McKenzie and professor Hillary Allen offered inaccuracies about Bitcoin. This is an opinion editorial by Level39, […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[In testimony before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, actor Ben McKenzie and professor Hillary Allen offered inaccuracies about Bitcoin.

This is an opinion editorial by Level39, a researcher focused on Bitcoin, technology, history, ethics and energy.
On December 14, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs received inaccurate testimony regarding Bitcoin from actor Ben McKenzie and Professor Hillary J. Allen. The hearing, entitled “<a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/hearings/crypto-crash-why-the-ftx-bubble-burst-and-the-harm-to-consumers" rel="nofollow noopener">Crypto Crash: Why the FTX Bubble Burst and Harm to Consumers</a>,” had all the markings of political theater and provided a stage to misinform senators and the public. It coincided with Elizabeth Warren’s new financial surveillance bill, which <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2022/12/20/elizabeth-warrens-new-financial-surveillance-bill-is-a-disaster-for-privacy-and-civil-liberties/" rel="nofollow noopener">is a disaster for privacy and civil liberties</a>. On December 18, the Senate Banking Committee Chair Senator Sherrod Brown divulged on “Meet The Press” that the hearing was intended to “educate the public” on the dangers of cryptocurrencies and <a href="https://youtu.be/gzqJahHvhsY?t=513" rel="nofollow noopener">floated the idea of banning them</a> altogether.
<h2>Mr. McKenzie Goes To Washington</h2>
Actor Ben McKenzie, who has starred in “The O.C.,” “Gotham” and “Southland,” lacks the qualifications and expertise one would expect for being called before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee to testify on the inner workings of financial technology. It should therefore come as no surprise that he made basic errors in his testimony, and could have been avoided altogether had witnesses with actual expertise been called. According to Mr. McKenzie:
<blockquote>
“Bitcoin cannot work as a medium of exchange because it cannot scale. The Bitcoin network can only process 5 to 7 transactions a second. By comparison, Visa can handle tens of thousands. To facilitate that relatively trivial amount of transactions, Bitcoin uses an enormous amount of energy. In 2021, Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total, comparable to the electrical energy consumed by the country of Argentina. Bitcoin simply cannot ever work at scale as a medium of exchange.
–<a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Schenkkan%20Testimony%2012-14-22.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener">Written testimony of Ben McKenzie Schenkkan</a>, December 14, 2022, U.S. Senate Banking Committee

</blockquote>
McKenzie’s testimony leaves one with the impression that he intentionally sought out the most biased and unreliable sources to confirm his own predetermined conclusions. Unfortunately, it was false information.
Leaving aside the fact that he referenced Digiconomist, an<a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/not-science-digiconomist-bitcoin" rel="nofollow noopener"> unreliable, exaggerated</a> and<a href="https://blog.zorinaq.com/serious-faults-in-beci/" rel="nofollow noopener"> seriously flawed</a> electricity consumption estimate from a<a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/questionable-ethics-of-bitcoin-esg" rel="nofollow noopener"> Dutch central bank employee’s personal blog</a> that<a href="https://medium.com/@nic__carter/comments-on-the-white-house-report-on-the-climate-implications-of-crypto-mining-8d65d30ec942" rel="nofollow noopener"> lacks peer review</a> (Cambridge University’s data is well respected and estimates that Bitcoin consumed<a href="https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index" rel="nofollow noopener"> 105 terawatt hours (TWh)</a>, or roughly 22% less energy than Digiconomist estimated, for 2021), McKenzie is effectively comparing a car engine to a wheel and not realizing how they relate to each other.
In technical terms, McKenzie conflated Visa’s transaction network with Bitcoin’s final settlement network, to make the illogical claim that Bitcoin cannot scale. This is a novice mistake. One could use the same faulty logic to make the erroneous claim that millions of retail payments within the banking system should be impossible because banks typically <a href="https://www.theclearinghouse.org/payment-systems/chips" rel="nofollow noopener">wait until the end of the business day to settle funds with each other</a>. That, of course, is not true, as gross settlement is precisely how high-volume retail payments are batched between banks.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/bluepnume/status/1393857753559420930" rel="nofollow noopener"></a></blockquote>
</div>
Visa is a credit-based transaction network. It’s not a financial institution, so it does not actually transfer money and cannot perform final settlement like Bitcoin can. Visa is effectively an IT company that<a href="https://youtu.be/i9timulsE4o" rel="nofollow noopener"> informs its member banks how to clear and perform gross settlement with each other</a> during business hours. If you’ve ever waited a few days for a check to clear, you know that payments between two bank accounts are not instantaneous. Credit card transactions take <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/credit-card-posting.asp" rel="nofollow noopener">one to three days to post</a>. And <a href="https://twitter.com/nic__carter/status/1605946168667766784" rel="nofollow noopener">90 to120 days to settle</a>.
The Visa system works well and offers services such as risk assessment, fraud prevention and clawbacks, but can incur high fees from the banks and intermediaries along the way. Member banks aren’t actually sending each other tens of thousands of payments every second. Instead, they batch millions of transactions together into a small number of final settlement payments. The settlements are typically routed through lower-volume <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_gross_settlement" rel="nofollow noopener">real-time gross settlement</a> (RTGS) networks operated by central banks, such as <a href="https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/wires" rel="nofollow noopener">Fedwire</a> in the U.S. or <a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/target/target2/html/index.en.html" rel="nofollow noopener">TARGET2</a> in the EU.
<figure>
<img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" src="https://swapcryptos.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/echo/layers-old-vs-new---energy.png" height="654" width="620"><figcaption>Source: Level39. Original from <a href="https://etherplan.com/2019/09/25/on-bitcoin-and-ethereum-classic-transaction-capacity/8911/" rel="nofollow noopener">Donald McIntyre</a>.</figcaption></figure>
Bitcoin and Fedwire can perform about the same number of transactions per year. In December of 2020, Bitcoin<a href="https://twitter.com/nic__carter/status/1363877250744152069" rel="nofollow noopener"> performed 26 million transfers</a> (counting multiple outputs) across 9.6 million transactions, while Fedwire settled<a href="https://frbservices.org/resources/financial-services/wires/volume-value-stats/monthly-stats.html" rel="nofollow noopener"> 18 million transactions</a> during the same time period. Just as Visa operates on transactional layers that batch transactions into gross settlement layers, Bitcoin is designed to scale in a similar manner.
Bitcoin’s <a href="https://lightning.network/" rel="nofollow noopener">Lightning Network</a> was formally <a href="https://lightning.network/lightning-network-paper.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener">theorized</a> as a scaling solution <a href="https://dci.mit.edu/lightning-network" rel="nofollow noopener">at MIT</a> in 2016 and today is a burgeoning Layer 2 open payments protocol, <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/guides/lightning-network" rel="nofollow noopener">layered on top of Bitcoin</a>. The Lightning Network enables instant payments, and micropayments down to a fraction of a penny, and can scale up to the entire world. Micropayments alone could change e-commerce and the internet itself as we know it. Imagine machines or people <a href="https://podcastindex.org/podcast/value4value" rel="nofollow noopener">streaming fractions of pennies for content</a> or APIs and you can already begin to see a new future for the internet emerging. Traditional finance simply cannot achieve this.
The Lightning Network allows high throughput Layer 3 retail payment apps and services such as <a href="https://cash.app/" rel="nofollow noopener">Cash App</a>, <a href="https://strike.me/" rel="nofollow noopener">Strike</a> and many other apps to efficiently batch transactions into Bitcoin’s “blocks” for final settlement. Services on Layer 3 <a href="https://youtu.be/276N9y293_k?t=4775" rel="nofollow noopener">can offer the same protections</a> we are used to in the legacy financial system, but anyone can freely access Bitcoin’s Layer 2 or Layer 1 whenever they want.
<blockquote>
“While it would require time and investment, Visa’s payment network could sit on top of the bitcoin network to fulfill payments much the same way it sits on top of the existing banking system.” 
–<a href="https://unchained.com/blog/bitcoin-is-not-too-slow/" rel="nofollow noopener">Parker Lewis</a>
</blockquote>
While Fedwire adheres to <a href="https://app.frbservices.org/resources/financial-services/wires/operating-hours.html" rel="nofollow noopener">limited operating hours</a>, shutting down on weekends and <a href="https://www.frbservices.org/about/holiday-schedules/" rel="nofollow noopener">holidays</a>, Bitcoin never shuts down and it continues settling transactions roughly every 10 minutes — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Bitcoin has achieved a<a href="https://buybitcoinworldwide.com/bitcoin-uptime/" rel="nofollow noopener"> similar uptime to Fedwire since Bitcoin’s inception</a> and has demonstrated<a href="https://buybitcoinworldwide.com/bitcoin-uptime/" rel="nofollow noopener"> better uptime</a> than Fedwire since 2013. Fedwire experienced a<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/24/the-feds-system-that-allows-banks-to-send-money-back-and-forth-is-down.html" rel="nofollow noopener"> major outage in 2021</a>.
There is no doubt that the larger cryptocurrency industry has become rife with fraud, scams and deception and it’s commendable that McKenzie makes an effort to warn the public about those dangers. However, in his haste to condemn the entire industry, he failed to fundamentally understand<a href="https://youtu.be/RI4xEHI7tGg" rel="nofollow noopener"> what sets Bitcoin apart</a> from the seemingly endless “crypto” scams and fraud that have sprung up around Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention.
Bitcoin’s Lightning Network has a<a href="https://twitter.com/Excellion/status/1456088664132440069" rel="nofollow noopener"> theoretical throughput of 40 million transactions per second</a>. Just as the internet took more than a generation to achieve today’s levels of connectivity and reach, the Lightning Network would need time to grow its liquidity for it to achieve this theoretical maximum throughput. The performance of the Lightning Network is already astounding and is <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeNakamoto/status/1551546953934278660" rel="nofollow noopener">faster than traditional contactless payments</a>. Thus, the testimony McKenzie provided to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee that, “Bitcoin simply cannot ever work at scale as a medium of exchange” was not only misleading, it was false.
Bitcoin uses multi-layered architecture,<a href="https://www.layeredmoney.com/" rel="nofollow noopener"> modeled after the existing financial system</a> and banking systems going back to <a href="https://twitter.com/level39/status/1604368939428958209" rel="nofollow noopener">at least the 15th century</a>. Layered architecture is an ideal pattern for<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitier_architecture" rel="nofollow noopener"> well-built information technology systems</a> — including<a href="https://5g.systemsapproach.org/arch.html" rel="nofollow noopener"> mobile networks</a> and<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite" rel="nofollow noopener"> the internet itself</a>. This kind of deliberate and intelligent architecture is what enables Bitcoin to become a decentralized medium of exchange for the entire planet.
In his written testimony, McKenzie <a href="https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Schenkkan%20Testimony%2012-14-22.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener">highlighted</a> the issues plaguing El Salvador’s Bitcoin banking system, <a href="https://www.chivowallet.com/" rel="nofollow noopener">Chivo</a> — a privately-built, government-controlled Layer 3 system that plugs into the Lightning Network. However, he failed to inform senators that users in El Salvador are free to use high-quality open-source wallets, such as <a href="https://muun.com/" rel="nofollow noopener">Muun</a> or <a href="https://www.bitcoinbeach.com/" rel="nofollow noopener">Bitcoin Beach</a> wallet and a wide range of others. More importantly, <a href="https://youtu.be/Ibw7YA39s-M" rel="nofollow noopener">the technology is starting to make a difference</a> in the lives of those who would otherwise be unbanked, as <a href="https://youtu.be/Ibw7YA39s-M" rel="nofollow noopener">journalist Sharyn Alfonsi of “60 Minutes” discovered on a visit to El Salvador</a> earlier this year.
McKenzie, who <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-11-24/counting-the-ways-the-world-hates-crypto-crypto-irl" rel="nofollow noopener">after getting high one evening</a> decided to write a book on the rampant fraud in the crypto industry, has since begun a collaboration with journalist Jacob Silverman on the endeavor. McKenzie <a href="https://uvamagazine.org/articles/before_batman" rel="nofollow noopener">earned his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Virginia in 2001</a>, majoring in foreign affairs and economics. That the U.S. Senate Banking Committee felt that an actor with an atrophied undergraduate degree in economics would somehow make an expert witness for a particularly complicated financial innovation suggests that the hearing was solely intended as political theater.
<h2>Senators Regurgitate Ben McKenzie’s Fallacious Testimony</h2>
When it was Senator Mark Warner’s turn to ask questions, he remarked:
<blockquote>
“I do think it’s curious that China made the decision to basically take that kind of risk, to ban crypto, because of their, at least, risk/reward analysis… The clunkiness of the technology behind Bitcoin, it could never go to scale no matter what! If you can only do 5 or 6 transactions per second, that is not a scalable tool and obviously a technology at a power and environmental cost. It just doesn’t make sense to me.” 
–<a href="https://twitter.com/level39/status/1603260817251745792" rel="nofollow noopener">Senator Mark Warner</a>
</blockquote>
Ignoring for a moment that Senator Warner thought it was “curious” that an authoritarian country made the risk/reward calculation to ban free speech of code and software — which is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States" rel="nofollow noopener">protected under the First Amendment</a> — McKenzie’s false testimony had misinformed the senator into thinking that Bitcoin cannot scale when it is in fact already <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/bitcoin-lightning-network-surges-6746790" rel="nofollow noopener">rapidly scaling</a>.
<h2>The Energy Debate</h2>
Earlier this year,<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/style/ben-mckenzie-crypto.html" rel="nofollow noopener"> McKenzie toured</a> Riot Blockchain’s<a href="https://www.riotblockchain.com/bitcoin-mining/whinstone-u-s" rel="nofollow noopener"> Whinstone U.S.</a> — North America’s largest Bitcoin mining facility, located about an hour outside Austin, Texas. When it was Senator Tina Smith’s turn to ask questions, she turned to McKenzie and, doing her best to act confused,<a href="https://twitter.com/level39/status/1603823473524187137" rel="nofollow noopener"> asked what appeared to be a series of pre-scripted questions</a>:
<blockquote>
SMITH: As I understand it, crypto mining is built on a process that becomes more and more energy intensive, over time. Is that correct?
MCKENZIE: Yes.
SMITH: So, it’s inherently inefficient. Is that correct?
MCKENZIE: The technology is bad.
SMITH: And so, where is the benefit of this kind of innovation? How should we think about the impacts when it comes to the climate and energy impacts? Because when crypto mines are located in communities, those communities often see their energy prices go up — their energy rates go up — is that correct?
MCKENZIE: That’s right. I visited the largest crypto mine in the country, Whinstone, which is in Rockdale, Texas, just outside of my hometown of Austin, Texas. Local citizens are upset. It raises the cost of electricity for all citizens. And it also uses an enormous amount of energy. It took over a former Alcoa aluminum smelting plant that had been abandoned and now we are using it to mine ephemeral digital assets of no productive value.
</blockquote>
While it’s convenient that McKenzie just happened to have visited a mining operation and could provide Smith with the exact answers that confirmed her biases, unfortunately he has zero expertise on energy markets,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response" rel="nofollow noopener"> demand response</a> programs, power engineering or mining and has no qualifications to inform congress or policy on the matter.
The idea that Bitcoin mining is an “inefficient” technology and therefore needs the government to reign it in is nonsensical. If it were as inefficient as claimed, there would be no need to stop it, since more efficient technologies would be able to outcompete it and easily replace it. This is precisely the reason we have markets — to let the most efficient and cheapest technologies win over the inefficient and expensive technologies that will fail. Those who are willing to take the risk on those technologies are either rewarded or bear the consequences.
McKenzie doesn’t divulge that<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2003/08/why-texas-has-its-own-power-grid.html" rel="nofollow noopener"> ERCOT, the Texas grid, is isolated</a> and therefore is required to have excess dispatchable energy for extreme weather events. That excess energy needs to be consumed by large scale flexible customers who are willing to pay for it is an open market when it’s not needed. Buying energy that would otherwise go wasted, for computation, keeps dispatchable energy profitable and officially classifies Bitcoin miners as beneficial<a href="https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2022/11/29/SARA_Winter2022-23.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener"> large flexible loads (LFLs)</a> by the ERCOT grid. A<a href="https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2022/11/29/SARA_Winter2022-23.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener"> recent ERCOT study</a> showed miners are<a href="https://news.bitcoin.com/applied-direct-response-ercot-study-shows-bitcoin-mining-is-beneficial-to-the-texas-grid/" rel="nofollow noopener"> essential to its demand response strategy</a>.
As demand response consumers, miners purchase wholesale energy in advance and buy private insurance products that incentivize them to turn off their machines when prices rise during periods of increased consumer demand — thus<a href="https://twitter.com/level39/status/1548550264218583040" rel="nofollow noopener"> balancing the grid and its prices, while increasing grid reliability</a>. The idea that McKenzie or any critic could isolate escalating power prices to a single consumer in a deregulated wholesale market is extremely dubious. Such a claim ignores the recent <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/natural-gas-prices-tripled-diesel-oil-2021-almost-no-ceiling-2022-5" rel="nofollow noopener">tripling in natural gas prices</a>, as well as the recent build out of over <a href="https://tppa.com/texas-expected-to-add-10-gw-of-solar-by-2023-according-to-eia/" rel="nofollow noopener">10 gigawatts of solar power</a> and Texas load growth from non-mining customers, such as the<a href="https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-gigafactory-texas-3k-model-y-per-week/" rel="nofollow noopener"> Tesla Gigafactory</a>.
While the Tesla Gigafactory may be considered a more productive use of energy, it is not nearly as<a href="https://youtu.be/TpqoJnpzK9g" rel="nofollow noopener"> flexible at demand response as miners</a>. Miners<a href="https://www.seetee.io/podcast/s2e10/shaun-connell-bitcoin-mining-is-the-holy-grail-for-power-grids/" rel="nofollow noopener"> de-risk excess renewable power</a> and will<a href="https://youtu.be/-k0eRTcMJQ4" rel="nofollow noopener"> instantly shut down for high consumer demand when prices rise</a>. In fact, contrary to what McKenzie claims, The U.S. Department of Energy<a href="https://www.energy.gov/oe/activities/technology-development/grid-modernization-and-smart-grid/demand-response" rel="nofollow noopener"> explains that demand response technologies are beneficial</a> for “balancing supply and demand” and says “such programs can lower the cost of electricity in wholesale markets, and in turn, lead to lower retail rates.”
While McKenzie may have come across local residents of Rockdale, Texas who were “upset” about the Whinstone mining operation replacing the town’s <a href="https://grist.org/article/rockdale-texas-alcoa-luminant-sandow-lakes-ranch/" rel="nofollow noopener">abandoned Alcoa aluminum plant</a>. In reality, the new mining facility<a href="https://www.governing.com/community/a-small-town-in-texas-turns-to-bitcoin-mining-to-survive.html" rel="nofollow noopener"> is a net positive for the struggling community</a>, boosting its economy, local tax collection and<a href="https://www.ercot.com/files/docs/2022/11/29/SARA_Winter2022-23.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener"> grid stability</a>.
Senator Smith and McKenzie’s suggestion that mining becomes “more and more energy intensive over time” is highly misleading and shows a lack of understanding of the technology. Like any publicly-traded commodity<a href="https://www.cftc.gov/sites/default/files/idc/groups/public/@customerprotection/documents/file/oceo_bitcoinbasics0218.pdf" rel="nofollow noopener"> such as bitcoin</a>, the energy required is economically linked to the public’s demand for its declining issuance, and unfolds in a highly-competitive open energy market. There is <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/03/05/the-frustrating-maddening-all-consuming-bitcoin-energy-debate/" rel="nofollow noopener">nothing about the technology</a> that requires the consumption of more and more energy over time. Bitcoin’s four-year “halving” cycle reduces the rewards that miners receive to purchase energy. In fact, Bitcoin’s critics claim that miners <a href="https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/interview-vitalik-buterin-creator" rel="nofollow noopener">may not be able to afford to buy as much energy</a>, decades from now — a topic which is hotly debated. Eventually, critics will need to get their stories straight. Either miners will have the money to purchase energy in the future or they won’t, however, both outcomes cannot be true.
Using energy to remove the need for <a href="https://www.lynalden.com/proof-of-stake/" rel="nofollow noopener">equity-based governance</a> is not “bad.” Equity-based governance was a common <a href="https://www.lynalden.com/proof-of-stake/" rel="nofollow noopener">criticism of proof-of-stake “crypto”</a> networks in the hearing. Using energy for issuance and security is breakthrough technology that has <a href="https://twitter.com/level39/status/1549805288269701120" rel="nofollow noopener">many applications for energy innovation</a> that we are only just beginning to discover.
None of the witnesses or senators were even aware, or cared, that Bitcoin is<a href="https://twitter.com/DSBatten/status/1570624374927167489" rel="nofollow noopener"> on track to becoming CO₂e carbon negative by 2024</a>, by<a href="https://batcoinz.com/quantifying-the-potential-impact-of-bitcoin-mining-on-global-methane-emissions/" rel="nofollow noopener"> mitigating CH₄ methane emissions</a>. Nor were they aware that Bitcoin can monetize new sources of carbon-negative energy production, such as<a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/landfill-gas-bitcoin-mining-garbage-money" rel="nofollow noopener"> monetizing landfill gas</a> and<a href="https://youtu.be/1vROP40L9Bg?t=6870" rel="nofollow noopener"> carbon capture</a>. Or that Bitcoin can bring<a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-unlocks-ocean-energy" rel="nofollow noopener"> clean baseload power to one billion people</a> in developing nations by monetizing stranded pilot plants that would be too expensive to test, prove and scale on a highly-competitive grid. In time, these stranded sources of energy<a href="https://vespene.energy/" rel="nofollow noopener"> will merge with our future grid</a>.
<figure>
<img decoding="async" src="https://swapcryptos.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/echo/carbon-negative-energy-innovation3-large.jpg" height="424" width="620"><figcaption>Source: Level39. Original sourced from “<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15122021/methane-emissions-epa-landfills/" rel="nofollow noopener">Inside Climate News</a>”</figcaption></figure>
The Senate’s thespians don’t care that Bitcoin mitigates waste methane emissions<a href="https://twitter.com/denverbitcoin/status/1549693747935461376" rel="nofollow noopener"> from oil and natural gas exploration</a> where there is no other use for waste CH₄, which would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere and would heavily contribute to warming forces. To them, Bitcoin is “bad” simply because people having the voluntary option for a digital sound money, without counterparty risk, threatens their politics.
<h2>Professor Allen Fails Bitcoin 101</h2>
Professor Allen, an <a href="https://www.wcl.american.edu/community/faculty/profile/hjallen/" rel="nofollow noopener">associate professor at American University Washington College of Law</a>, made a fallacious claim about Bitcoin’s decentralization during her testimony:
<blockquote>
“It’s not decentralized… Bitcoin is controlled by a few core software developers — fewer than 10. And they can make changes to the software and that software is implemented by mining pools and there’s just a few of them.” 
–<a href="https://twitter.com/level39/status/1603214594012598273" rel="nofollow noopener">Professor Hillary J. Allen</a>
</blockquote>
Allen’s assertion is factually incorrect and shows a fundamentally flawed understanding of how Bitcoin works and why it is valued for being extremely difficult to change. Even if you believe that the<a href="https://github.com/orgs/bitcoin-core/people" rel="nofollow noopener"> project’s maintainers</a>, who have the elevated commit and publishing privileges, could persuade the largest mining pools to support their own whims, they would still need to persuade a majority of the world’s independent miners to stay loyal to existing mining pools. Creating new competing pools <a href="https://bestfinancier.com/how-to-create-your-own-mining-pool/" rel="nofollow noopener">is trivial</a> and any software update supported by pools that miners disagreed with could easily be avoided by creating new pools for defectors to join.
And what if miners unanimously supported a software update that users didn’t want? In 2017, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinBeginners/comments/786sfo/if_rbitcoin_are_apposing_segwit2x_why_has_it/" rel="nofollow noopener">83% of the global hash rate</a> attempted to force an update to increase Bitcoin’s block size and failed because the users, who are actually responsible for propagating and interacting with the Bitcoin network through their own full nodes, refused to install the new software. The Bitcoin network simply doesn’t exist or propagate without the user nodes, so miners defecting to their own network is pointless unless they convince users to come with them. The history of this critical test for Bitcoin was carefully documented by Jonathan Bier in his book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Blocksize-War-controls-Bitcoins-protocol/dp/B08YQMC2WM" rel="nofollow noopener">The Blocksize War: The Battle Over Who Controls Bitcoin’s Protocol Rules</a>.”
Running a full node<a href="https://thebitcoinmanual.com/behind-btc/nodes/full-node/" rel="nofollow noopener"> is fairly easy</a>. At minimum, all it takes is a hard drive, a Raspberry Pi and an internet connection. Since Bitcoin updates with soft forks (backwards-compatible software updates), users who find themselves in the minority always have the <a href="https://youtu.be/XE9mm9uem3k?t=343" rel="nofollow noopener">right to dissent</a> and oppose contentious updates by just continuing to run the software with the rules they signed up for. Additionally, even if the entire Bitcoin Core team went rogue, users would be able to install <a href="https://bitcoin.eu/bitcoin-core-alternatives-dont-fork-blockchain/" rel="nofollow noopener">alternative competing clients in their nodes</a>, without forking the blockchain.
Other so-called innovative “crypto” projects use <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/ethereum-is-coercive-bitcoin-is-not" rel="nofollow noopener">coercive techniques to force updates</a> while they try to rapidly innovate like software companies. No other project offers the kind of user rights that Bitcoin offers. As such, there is no incentive for Bitcoin users to run a fork that fundamentally changes Bitcoin’s properties — its resistance to change is the core value proposition that its users are drawn to and demand.
Is it plausible that Bitcoin could be tested again and fail the same test in the future? Of course. But for Professor Allen to ignore the fact that users ultimately decide Bitcoin’s fate — as well as its well-documented history proving its resilience to unwanted changes from miners and developers — shows Allen was either woefully unprepared to be discussing such technical aspects of Bitcoin or is intentionally misleading senators and the public with her testimony.
<h2>A Performance Of Misinformation</h2>
If anything was evident from the hearing, it was that there was zero effort to ascertain nuance or truth — the hearing was political theater. Unfortunately, having an undergraduate degree in economics, or reaching the higher echelons of<a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/why-does-academia-have-a-bias-against-bitcoin" rel="nofollow noopener"> Bitcoin-resenting academia</a>, does not automatically qualify one to have the expertise to inform the Senate on how Bitcoin works. If only it were that easy. Understanding Bitcoin requires an open, multidisciplinary mind and hours upon hours of research just to begin scratching the surface. Perhaps Kanye West’s recent public statement on Bitcoin could have gone a long way for McKenzie and Allen.
<blockquote>
“As far as Bitcoin, I’m just not knowledgeable enough to speak on that subject.” 
–<a href="https://twitter.com/BTCGandalf/status/1584085032523530241" rel="nofollow noopener">Kanye West</a>
</blockquote>
Warren’s rapid-fire question and answer session with Allen<a href="https://twitter.com/level39/status/1603873902211522562" rel="nofollow noopener"> showed Allen nervously reading, verbatim, pre-scripted answers to Warren’s questions</a>. McKenzie on the other hand had the discipline to memorize and perform his lines with poise and confidence. If only they each had the expertise required to address the U.S Senate Banking Committee on Bitcoin — a technology that quite literally enables self custody and solves the breaches of trust that the hearing was ostensibly concerned with.
While Allen, McKenzie and the senators who invited them to testify were eager to perform their anti-technology, anti-free speech propaganda, the rest of the world is capitalizing Bitcoin for energy innovation. Just last week, Japan’s<a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/tepco-to-mine-bitcoin-with-excess-power" rel="nofollow noopener"> TEPCO announced it is mining Bitcoin with surplus energy</a>. And now Russia is <a href="https://cryptonewsland.com/russia-to-pass-bill-legalizing-bitcoin-btc-mining/" rel="nofollow noopener">set to pass a bill</a> to legalize Bitcoin mining. Meanwhile, a distinguished U.S. national defense fellow is <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonPLowery/status/1594475293275656192" rel="nofollow noopener">advising the White House on the strategic benefits of Bitcoin</a>.
Whether the hearings participants realized they were being manipulated by politicians or not, participating in political theater means they are normalizing the loss of privacy rights as they lobby for legislation to limit the right to<a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-journey-to-self-custody-bitcoin" rel="nofollow noopener"> self custody</a> digital property and<a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/dids-built-on-bitcoin-fix-the-web" rel="nofollow noopener"> one’s identity</a>. Such action not only empowers governments to enact greater monitoring controls, install social credit systems and strip personal freedoms, but it also exposes consumers to the prying eyes of corporations and any hackers that can infiltrate highly-centralized data. Ironically, such restrictions will empower their<a href="https://twitter.com/level39/status/1552313697736998914" rel="nofollow noopener"> political opponents</a> when our political pendulums invariably swing in the other direction.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/LynAldenContact/status/1603084958502903814" rel="nofollow noopener"></a></blockquote>
</div>
While those unfamiliar with Bitcoin may believe they are siding with a morally superior government, Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention is seen by many as <a href="https://youtu.be/Amcj-IKmGKA?t=949" rel="nofollow noopener">American technology</a> that<a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-and-the-american-idea" rel="nofollow noopener"> digitally enshrines personal freedoms afforded to Americans by the Founding Fathers</a>. 
Meanwhile, Warren is headed in the opposite direction. She recently <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/business/elizabeth-warren-bipartisan-crypto-crackdown/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNN&utm_term=link&utm_content=2022-12-14T11%3A54%3A07" rel="nofollow noopener">introduced a bipartisan bill</a> with Senator Roger Marshall to aggressively close crypto money laundering loopholes by imposing Orwellian controls on all users. The bill seeks to make self-custody technology illegal — a dangerous policy that would expose Americans to <a href="https://twitter.com/ODELL/status/1603078096097255424" rel="nofollow noopener">mandated government surveillance</a> and only increase the chances of the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ftx-founder-indicted-fraud-money-laundering-and-campaign-finance-offenses" rel="nofollow noopener">fraud</a> that FTX committed against its users when funds were rehypothecated and stolen through their custodial platform. Stopping this kind of fraud was what the hearing was supposed to be about and is <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-helps-users-avoid-the-downfall-of-ftx" rel="nofollow noopener">exactly the kind of protection that Bitcoin already empowers through self custody</a>.
Warren <a href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1603033907968049154" rel="nofollow noopener">argues</a> that “rogue nations, oligarchs and drug lords are using crypto to launder billions, evade sanctions and finance terrorism.” This is <a href="https://www.btcpolicy.org/articles/bitcoin-wont-save-russia-from-western-sanctions" rel="nofollow noopener">fear mongering</a>. The reality is that public, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-false-narrative-of-bitcoins-role-in-illicit-activity/" rel="nofollow noopener">immutable ledgers are too transparent for most crimes</a>. Physical <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/cash-still-king-criminals-prefer-cash-for-money-laundering" rel="nofollow noopener">cash is far better</a>. Firms that do on-chain analysis for law enforcement have <a href="https://go.chainalysis.com/2022-Crypto-Crime-Report.html" rel="nofollow noopener">documented that cryptocurrency usage for criminal activity is rather low</a> and is trending downwards. Warren’s eagerness to make self-custody technology illegal would be like banning the internet because phishing scams exist.
<blockquote>
“Regardless, the good news is two-fold: Cryptocurrency-related crime is falling, and it still remains a small part of the overall cryptocurrency economy.” 
–<a href="https://go.chainalysis.com/2022-Crypto-Crime-Report.html" rel="nofollow noopener">The Chainalysis 2022 Crypto Crime Report</a>
</blockquote>
However, this is not to say that crypto doesn’t have a problem with fraud. To Allen and McKenzie’s credit, 99.99% of the “crypto” market is indeed scams, and they should be commended for calling them out. Yet, to blindly call Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention a scam shows a lack of critical thinking and expertise. To attack Bitcoin — an open, global and neutral economic protocol layer for the internet<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI4xEHI7tGg" rel="nofollow noopener"> with no issuer</a> and no central control — simply because one does not like it or understand it, shows a lack of humility and unwillingness to recognize<a href="https://hrf.org/why-bitcoin-matters-for-freedom/" rel="nofollow noopener"> real-world benefits</a> with an open mind.
If they are willing to engage in thoughtful and meaningful discussion, Professor Allen and Mr. McKenzie would likely find a lot of common ground with members of the Bitcoin community, who<a href="https://twitter.com/coryklippsten/status/1597254469750001664" rel="nofollow noopener"> commonly criticize the scams</a> as well as the <a href="https://tomerstrolight.medium.com/bitcoiners-are-not-toxic-they-have-integrity-bd866d2773e9" rel="nofollow noopener">lack of ethics and integrity that pervade the industry</a>. If not, it suggests they have an agenda.
If the U.S. Senate Banking Committee has any desire to preserve freedoms and keep the United States from falling behind other nations, it would do well to seek out actual experts who <a href="https://youtu.be/eAIR83im8Us" rel="nofollow noopener">work in Bitcoin mining</a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/TpqoJnpzK9g" rel="nofollow noopener">energy markets</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/ZpKa1fzEKr4" rel="nofollow noopener">those who are using its layered payments architecture</a> to build the next generation of commerce. Political theater will only cause the U.S. to fall further behind the rest of the world in all of these areas.
Alas, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, led by <a href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1603033907968049154" rel="nofollow noopener">Warren’s disdain for technology</a>, seems more interested in preserving the power of big banks and <a href="https://twitter.com/ODELL/status/1603078096097255424" rel="nofollow noopener">mandating government surveillance</a>. Progressives, such as Warren, <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/elizabeth-warren-progressives-should-love-bitcoin" rel="nofollow noopener">should love Bitcoin</a> as an open payment rail that empowers the freedom of economic expression, <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/wealth-gap-black-america-bitcoin" rel="nofollow noopener">financial inclusion</a> and <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/elizabeth-warren-ironic-war-on-bitcoin" rel="nofollow noopener">circumvents predatory banking practices</a> — something that <a href="https://twitter.com/level39/status/1552313697736998914" rel="nofollow noopener">progressives might one day find themselves in need of</a>.
Instead, they appear to be flirting with the <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/cbdcs-orwellian-new-world-order" rel="nofollow noopener">authoritarian playbook of China and its social credit system</a>. Perhaps it’s just as well that the committee was misinformed by its unqualified witnesses, as they now have no idea <a href="https://twitter.com/tatumturnup/status/1605048106848075778" rel="nofollow noopener">how to stop a technology that manifests itself as free speech</a>. Information wants to be free, a lesson the United States and its misinformed senators will need to learn one way or another.
This is a guest post by Level39. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
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<title>Brazil legalizes crypto as payment option</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/brazil-legalizes-crypto-as-payment-option/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:31:14 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Coins]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/brazil-legalizes-crypto-as-payment-option/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Brazil approves bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as means of payment and prepares the ground for licensing crypto companies. According to the Brazilian federal government’s official journal, […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Brazil approves bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as means of payment and prepares the ground for licensing crypto companies. According to the Brazilian federal government’s official journal, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro approved a bill into law on Dec. 23. President Bolsonaro…
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<item>
<title>Crypto employment reaches record high despite crypto winter</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/crypto-employment-reaches-record-high-despite-crypto-winter/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:31:13 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Coins]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/crypto-employment-reaches-record-high-despite-crypto-winter/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The crippling crypto winter has necessitated massive layoffs across all industry sectors. But despite those, the employment rate has hit a record high this year. Crypto […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[The crippling crypto winter has necessitated massive layoffs across all industry sectors. But despite those, the employment rate has hit a record high this year. Crypto winter not slowing down Web3 projects Since the beginning of the crypto winter earlier…
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<item>
<title>Sam Bankman-Fried Will Be Released On $250 Million Bail</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/sam-bankman-fried-will-be-released-on-250-million-bail/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:31:13 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Coins]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/sam-bankman-fried-will-be-released-on-250-million-bail/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is set to be released from federal custody after his attorneys struck a deal with prosecutors on a bail amount of $250 […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is set to be released from federal custody after his attorneys struck a deal with prosecutors on a bail amount of $250 million, according to multiple reports.
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<item>
<title>Sam Bankman-Fried Faces Extradition To U.S.—Here’s What To Know</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/sam-bankman-fried-faces-extradition-to-u-s-heres-what-to-know/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:31:12 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Coins]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/sam-bankman-fried-faces-extradition-to-u-s-heres-what-to-know/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A Bahamas judge on Wednesday approved the extradition of former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of befallen crypto exchange FTX, from a Nassau jail to the […]]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[A Bahamas judge on Wednesday approved the extradition of former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of befallen crypto exchange FTX, from a Nassau jail to the United States, where the former crypto wunderkind faces a slew of criminal charges.
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<item>
<title>‘We’re already living in the Metaverse’: Yat Siu — Big Ideas</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/were-already-living-in-the-metaverse-yat-siu-big-ideas/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:30:52 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Coins]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/were-already-living-in-the-metaverse-yat-siu-big-ideas/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" src="https://swapcryptos.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/echo/Big-Ideas-Yat-Sin-scaled.jpg">
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<item>
<title>Price analysis 12/21: BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, DOGE, ADA, MATIC, DOT, LTC, UNI</title>
<link>https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/price-analysis-12-21-btc-eth-bnb-xrp-doge-ada-matic-dot-ltc-uni/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[admin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 02:30:51 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Coins]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://swapcryptos.net/2022/12/23/price-analysis-12-21-btc-eth-bnb-xrp-doge-ada-matic-dot-ltc-uni/</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Bitcoin and select altcoins are showing signs of a possible recovery in the near term but higher levels may continue to attract sellers.]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<img decoding="async" src="https://swapcryptos.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/echo/840_aHR0cHM6Ly9zMy5jb2ludGVsZWdyYXBoLmNvbS91cGxvYWRzLzIwMjItMTIvNTBiYmJlZGItNzM4MS00Njc2LTgyNWYtZDc1Yzc2YjZjN2Q1LmpwZw-3D-3D.jpg">
Bitcoin and select altcoins are showing signs of a possible recovery in the near term but higher levels may continue to attract sellers.
]]></content:encoded>
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