Crypto celebrity calls on Trump to pardon Ross Ulbricht

Many people in the crypto field are calling on US President Donald Trump to pardon Silk Road founder before he resigns.

44 days before the inauguration of Joe Biden as President of the United States, some people in the crypto room are asking Donald Trump for a pardon from Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

In a recent tweet from Jason Williams, the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets called on Trump to „do the right thing“ and pardon Bitcoin Union and whistleblower Edward Snowden. Peter McCormack, the host of the podcast What Bitcoin Did agreed a few days later, adding WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the list of people to be pardoned.

@realDonaldTrump’s legacy as president may be remembered very differently if he pardons:
– Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU)
– Julian Assange
– Edward @Snowden

Humanity would only benefit from this.
ReTweet the shit out of this.
– Peter McCormack (@PeterMcCormack) November 24, 2020

These three – Snowden, Ulbricht and Assange – are just a few examples cited by advisors, experts and conservative commentators while Trump is still in the final days of his presidency. Ulbricht, the founder of the Darknet marketplace Silk Road, is currently serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole. He has been convicted of money laundering, computer hacking and conspiracy to trade narcotics.

Snowden, a former NSA employee and informant, left the United States in 2013 and was granted asylum in Russia. The Ministry of Justice charged him with violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 and theft of government property. He has since declared that he intends to apply for Russian citizenship.

Although he is an Australian citizen, Assange has been indicted by several authorities worldwide, among other things, on charges of sexual assault in Sweden. In 2019, the United States indicted him for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 in connection with the publication of documents. These were published on WikiLeaks by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. Assange is currently in a British prison and is awaiting extradition to the USA.

According to a decision of the Supreme Court, the U.S. president can grant an „unrestricted“ pardon. However, this ruling is being questioned in the media and rumors have been circulating that Trump is considering a preventive pardon for himself before he leaves the White House on January 20. Since taking office in 2017, he has pardoned 45 people accused of federal crimes, commuted their sentences or reversed their convictions.

Since there is no limit to the number of pardons Trump can grant, a pardon can simply be a response to a public outcry or personal concern.

Trump said in August that he would consider pardoning Snowden

A lawyer for Assange claimed that a former Republican congressman had also offered the WikiLeaks founder a presidential pardon. While Snowden is a possible candidate for a pardon, he also argued that Assange should receive a pardon instead of him.

There has not yet been a definitive statement from Trump. But people from the crypto room are hoping to support Assange, Snowden and Ulbricht at least on Twitter and get Trump’s attention.

It’s time for @realDonaldTrump to#FreeSnowden#FreeAssange#FreeRoss
And everyone else in jail for victimless crimes. pic.twitter.com/dwQDThb6Bl
– Roger Ver (@rogerkver) November 26, 2020

REMINDER: President Trump should pardon Edward Snowden and Julian Assange before he leaves office.
– Pomp (@APompliano) November 8, 2020

Not all crypto users are comfortable with the idea that Ulbricht might be released. The reason for this is the controversial marketplace Silk Road, which he founded and which was used to buy and sell drugs.

„I will never understand why so many Bitcoin maximumists want to pardon Ross Ulbricht so badly,“ says Jax Draper. „I believe he has received an extreme sentence and that he may be able to change, but he is anything but ‚innocent‘.

Wozniack, the new crypto-green – That’s it! The rise in the price of bitcoin has reignited the hype around cryptocurrencies. Indeed, even the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniack, embarks on the creation of a cryptocurrency: the WOZX.

The revolution by Wozniack

The news broke over the weekend, with the publication of the EFFORCE project white paper .

This initiative was launched by Steve Wozniack , Jacopo Vanetti, Andrea Castiglione, Jacopo Visetti and the company AitherCO2.

Concretely, EFFORCE presents itself as a future platform for exchange on energy savings . It would give companies wishing to improve their energy performance the opportunity to finance these improvements.

Thus, users called “contributors” could ultimately finance projects aimed at minimizing the negative impacts of energy consumption. Subsequently, the savings made are supposed to be redistributed to the contributors in the form of tokens.

“ The platform brings together those who want to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings or industrial processes, with a group of contributors interested in reimbursement in tokens representing the energy savings achieved through efficiency improvement projects. “

In total, it looks like 1 billion WOZX tokens will be created. A fifth of these tokens will be set aside to encourage participants to take part in the funding.

Project of the year… or shitcoin?

Obviously, when we read “energy saving” and “Wozniack” , we have something to be excited about by this project. However, behind the scenes is quite different.

Indeed, this one has everything of a good big old-style bullshit blockchain . First of all, the 54-page white paper (just that) explains many marketing aspects, but remains fairly elusive on the technical aspects .

Then, the project has for the moment been only listed on the HBTC exchange platform and soon on Bithumb , later this week . It therefore seems that Wozniack’s crypto is of little interest to giants, like Binance or Coinbase – even if this interest alone would have been far from meaning that a blank check was given to the project .

Finally, Steve Wozniack met with Justin Sun , CEO of Tron, to discuss the project earlier this year, which in and of itself means nothing concrete. However, we are familiar with Justin Sun’s practices, as well as his discussed personality. He is probably not the best person in the ecosystem to talk to when you claim to launch a “revolutionary” project.

US Federal Reserve Board og Fincen foreslår å utvide definisjonen av penger til å omfatte kryptovaluta. Dette trekket kan bevise at finansielle regulatorer er villige til å ta inn digitale penger som betalingsmåte mens de åpner for nye muligheter for det. På den annen side kan dette også bety en styrking av kontrollen.

Selv om de innrømmer at digitale valutaer mangler regler, er vakthundene også enige om at de brukes til både innenlandske og grenseoverskridende transaksjoner. Den nye definisjonen kan legge grunnlaget for at kryptoer skal inkluderes i det juridiske rammeverket, akkurat som alle slags penger.

Blant andre endringer foreslått av US Federal Reserve Board og Fincen er senking av terskelen for sporing og rapportering av grenseoverskridende transaksjoner. Per nå utgjør terskelen $ 3000. Regulatorene foreslår å senke den til $ 250.

Bekjempelse av terrorisme

Begge byråene hevder at dette grepet er rettet mot å oppdage transaksjoner som er gjennomført for finansiering av terrorisme. Siden transaksjoner med store beløp kan tiltrekke seg unødvendig oppmerksomhet og virke mistenkelige, har kriminelle en tendens til å dele pengene opp i flere operasjoner med lite beløp. De har kommet til en slik konklusjon etter å ha analysert mistenkelige aktivitetsrapporter (SAR) som viste at mest mistenkelige og potensielt ulovlige transaksjoner utgjør mindre enn $ 3000.

Av samme grunn følger de nøye med kryptovaluta-transaksjoner, da dette også er et populært valg av kriminelle. Som CoinIdol, en verdensnyheter i blockchain, rapporterte, har kriminelle elementer så vel som terrorister en tendens til å velge digitale valutaer på grunn av lavere avgifter og høy anonymitet.

For øyeblikket anses Monero å være en av de mest populære kryptoene for å gjøre ulovlige pengeoverføringer på grunn av de forbedrede personvernfunksjonene. Bitcoin Profit, flaggskipskrypto, er på andreplass, med darknet-transaksjonsvolumet redusert siden begynnelsen av 2020. Imidlertid er USD fortsatt den mest populære valutaen for både lovlige og ulovlige transaksjoner.

Av denne grunn anser regulatoren det som nødvendig å ta større hensyn til eiendelene og beløpene som brukes til finansiering av kriminalitet og terrorisme, ellers kan det utgjøre en trussel mot nasjonal sikkerhet.

Il mercato delle criptovalute ha appena visto una balena XRP spostare un’enorme somma di token XRP a un costo minimo.

Segnalato per la prima volta dal bot crittografico di Twitter Whale Alert, l’entità ha spostato Bitcoin Rush per un valore di quasi 23 milioni di dollari. L’utente ha pagato solo una commissione di transazione di poco più di cinque dollari per l’enorme transazione.

Balena XRP in movimento

Una balena XRP anonima ha spostato 89.999.980 token XRP dal suo indirizzo di portafoglio all’exchange di criptovalute Coinbase. La transazione del valore di quasi $ 23 milioni è costata all’utente solo una somma al minuto di $ 5,04 come commissione di transazione.

Mentre il bot di Twitter ha segnalato la transazione come un trasferimento da un portafoglio sconosciuto a un indirizzo Coinbase, il sito Web del bot mostra che il trasferimento è avvenuto tra due portafogli di proprietà dello stesso scambio di criptovaluta.

Whale Alert filtra le transazioni di celle frigorifere dagli scambi, il che significa che la balena XRP è probabilmente un investitore che sposta le risorse per scambiarle sul mercato aperto o conservarle altrove. Se la prima dichiarazione è la ragione dietro la mossa, potremmo vedere un effetto ribassista a breve termine sul prezzo di XRP.

Anche le balene BTC e ETH sciamano sui mercati

Le balene di Bitcoin ed Ethereum hanno invaso i mercati negli ultimi due giorni. L’ultimo giorno è avvenuta una moltitudine di transazioni Bitcoin su larga scala, con la più grande che ha spostato BTC del valore di oltre $ 220 milioni tra due portafogli anonimi.

La maggior parte delle transazioni di balene avveniva tra due utenti anonimi o investitori che trasferivano risorse dagli scambi di criptovaluta. Questo è un segnale rialzista poiché le persone che vogliono vendere le attività tendono a mantenerlo memorizzato in borsa.

Le balene di Ethereum, d’altra parte, hanno mostrato un movimento verso scambi o protocolli DeFi. Questi includono la più grande transazione ETH avvenuta ieri, trasferendo oltre $ 21 milioni di ETH a Uniswap.

Nel frattempo, la Fondazione Ethereum è ancora abbastanza lontana dal raggiungere il suo obiettivo di avere 524.288 ETH in stake. Il contratto ha ricevuto 50.849 ETH, con quasi due settimane rimanenti fino alla scadenza.

Ethereum (ETH) is currently still supported by Proof of Work.

This will change soon with the update to Ethereum 2.0: Then the Ethereum block chain will be verified via Proof of Stake. The picture shows an Ethereum coin standing on a motherboard.

The Ethereum network has now had higher average transaction fees than the Bitcoin Freedom network for 2 months. The block chain fees are one of the biggest challenges. Ethereum users and investors are wondering when the solution will come? – Among other things, this involves an improvement proposal called EIP-1559.

Ethereum fees beat Bitcoin (BTC)

Especially the use and hype around Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has pushed the Ethereum network to its limits. Countless transactions have led to the fact that not only transactions themselves were carried out slowly, but above all, they also had high fees.

A recent tweet from the analysis company Messari on October 8th shows that the longest period of time has now been reached where Ethereum fees are higher than Bitcoin fees.

Especially in August, at the absolute high of DeFi, the Ethereum fees reached their all-time high. Due to the cooling off from the DeFi market, however, the situation has calmed down considerably to this day.

In absolute terms, this means that the Ethereum fees are currently around $2, while the average fee in August-September was around $14.
EIP-1559 and the question of a solution

Ethereum 2.0: This buzzword has been circulating in cryptospace for several months and years now. It refers to the final solution of the scaling debate and problems of Ethereum. But until this is actually implemented, another 2 years will probably pass.

Therefore the question arises how to find a good interim solution. In other words: Are there ways to solve the problems with the fees quickly and satisfactorily?

Last week ConsenSys developer Tim Beiko published the findings of a survey on Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559.

At the core of this EIP is the idea of implementing a fixed network fee per block and additionally using a „tip“ for miners. A part of the fees would again be burned depending on the congestion level of the block chain.

The survey shows that the majority (60%) supports the project. The remaining 40% are divided into 27% who have a neutral opinion and 13% who reject the project. Logically, it is especially the miners who are critical of the EIP-1559.

Bitcoin could take twice as long to hit $ 100,000 than expected.

Bloomberg’s latest crypto newsletter stated that Bitcoin ( BTC ) tends to „add zeros to its course“

The asset also rose from $ 1,000 to $ 10,000 in less than four years. The ripening process may have slowed this trend down a bit, but Bloomberg believes it has not stalled. Such an increase could occur again, even if it might take some time:

„If the cryptocurrency repeats its previous gains with a certain degree of maturity, it could get its course to $ 100,000 in 2025 in about twice the time it took for another zero to $ 1,000.“

Even if this forecast seems bold at first, it is rather conservative compared to other forecasts that we have seen in recent months. The cryptoanalyst „PlanB“ recently stated that Bitcoin development always coincides with the stock-to-flow model .

A rate of 100,000 US dollars is forecast here by the end of 2020

In addition to historical trends, Bloomberg suspects that fundamental factors related to supply and demand are driving the rise of Bitcoin. Around 90 percent of the total offer has already been mined. Institutional demand continues to grow at the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). The trust is expected to have around 500,000 Bitcoin soon .

Bloomberg’s short-term prediction is that Bitcoin could hit its 2019 high of $ 14,000 by the end of the year .