Business Type: Manufacturer, Trading Company, Buying Office, Agent, Distributor/Wholesaler, Government ministry/Bureau/Commission, Association, Business Service (Transportation, finance, travel, Ads, etc), Other
Frontrunning actionRipple tried to settle charges of conducting $1.3 billion worth of unregistered securities transactions when selling XRP (+3.89%) to exchanges and the public, before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued in December, CEO Brad Garlinghouse said Wednesday. In a Twitter thread, Garlinghouse addressed what he described as five “key questions†about the SEC’s argument, though he warned that he was limited in what he could say because the case is ongoing. Several exchanges have moved to delist or stop XRP trading.
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First acquisition of the yearCoinbase has acquired trade execution startup Routefire to bolster the exchange’s suite of institutional products ahead of a planned IPO. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, though Routefire was a small, seven-employee firm based in San Francisco. Coinbase has experienced intermittent outages during the run-up in bitcoin’s price above $40,000.
What Joe Biden’s $3 trillion stimulus package means for bitcoinPresident-elect Joe Biden is reportedly considering a two-pronged stimulus effort in the form of $2,000 checks for Americans and a tax and infrastructure spending package worth $3 trillion, the first sign of what many market analysts predict will be a tide of fiscal stimulus under a new U.S. presidential administration. With increased spending, comes increased inflation projections – which many crypto insiders see as a boon for bitcoin’s programmatic, deflationary attributes.
Yesterday, Facebook made the unprecedented decision to ban a sitting president, Donald Trump, from its services for his role in inciting the revolt that damaged the U.S. Capitol. Facebook and other social media firms have had four years to discuss how to balance publishing information in the public interest (because President Trump said it) when much of it is not factual.
Many opponents have long called for Trump to be booted from his ony pulpits, where he often commands a large audience (88.7 million people follow @realDonaldTrump, his personal Twitter account). Explaining the decision, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the “current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.â€
“I think what is happening right now is absolutely ridiculous. One big circus show setting us up for the last act – total control of our thoughts and actions. Twitter and Facebook are mass scams. No matter what your political view, the amount of heavy-handed censorship is, let’s say, suspicious,†Josh Petty, founder and CEO of the alternative social media site Twetch, told Blockchain Bites over
Instead of erecting laws to protect these freedoms, blockchains create cryptograc proofs to ensure certain conditions are always met. These are monetary assurances – like Bitcoin’s hard-capped supply, Ethereum’s infinite programmability or Solana’s blitzkrieg settlement speed – as well as cultural, like the idea that finance and speech should be uncensorable.
Blockchains, by connecting people directly, can assure certain freedoms that are often occluded when intermediaries get involved. If you believe that everyone has the right to a platform onn you’d probably disagree with Facebook’s decision to ban Trump – regardless of the circumstances.
Indeed, these bans could be seen as fatuous branding exercises. Trump has less than two weeks in office before a new president is sworn in, and many prominent figures in Congress and elsewhere are calling for his immediate removal.
Today, following news reports and a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) investigation that found “white supremacists and neo-fascists†are using the streaming platform DLive, owned by Justin Sun’s Tron, the blockchain-based platform will take steps to suspend and ban streamers found in violation of its community rules.
Then again, DLive’s primary selling point was not censorship resistance but its rewards program.
