Previously published Bad Bitcoin Takes

Whilst another Bitcoin cycle plays itself out, there has been a predictable wave of negativity and smugness from the usual suspects. Sadly, however, it would appear that the real casualties during the last week were the new entrants who believed what they read and took fright then flight...losing millions!

So many people have been wrong before and plenty will be wrong in the future and that is because there are so many variables at work at the same time plus the pervasive influence of regulators and now celebrity and/or super investors. Bitcoin will remain volatile and so it should be...revolutions are never ea  but the brave will prevail.

So to cheer you and provide some succor at this time, here are some of the best 'wrong calls' on the nature and future of Bitcoin courtesy of @AnilSaidSo (look out for his forthcoming book).

“There is nothing inherent about the tools used to facilitate crimes that makes them criminal in themselves. Despite criminal use, no one is calling for the ban of roads, the internet, mail, etc.” @parkeralewis Bitcoin is Not for Criminals https://bit.ly/2RUuXHq

"It is logically inconsistent to form a view that bitcoin is sufficiently functional to be viable as a currency for criminals, while at the same time deny the implication that such a view would merely establish that bitcoin is functional for everyone.” @parkeralewis

Calling Bitcoin a pyramid scheme or a ponzi lacks an understanding of both Bitcoin and the definitions of those terms.  Bitcoin is permissionless, there's no ‘membership’ element into which to recruit.  Additionally, there is no central authority from which promises can be made.

"..bitcoin is not just beyond the control of governments, it functions without the coordination of any central third parties.  ..the very attempts to ban bitcoin will accelerate its adoption and proliferation." @parkeralewis https://bit.ly/3kEEf6A

What about if access to the internet is lost?  Let’s look at the different methods one can use to interact with the Bitcoin network in the event of infrastructure failures, natural disasters or intentional outages.

Offline bitcoin tx options are becoming ever more accessible-  Satellite: https://bit.ly/32Vc2Cx by @nwoodfine Radio: https://bit.ly/2Ex1nVm by @nvk SMS : https://bit.ly/300t9Rs by @SamouraiWallet Mesh: https://bit.ly/32Tbqxk by @notgrubles Bearer Instruments: @OPENDIME

When a bank gets robbed we don’t say the dollar (as a currency) was hacked.  When a jeweler is robbed we don't say gold (as an element) was hacked.  Bitcoin’s network resilience comes from being economically & logistically infeasible to attack, even at the scale of state actors.

“As of 2019, the largest general-purpose quantum computers have fewer than 100 qubits, have impractically-high error rates, and can operate only in..temperatures near absolute zero. Attacking Bitcoin keys would require around 1500 qubits.” -Bitcoin Wiki http://bit.ly/3ctqZ1Y

Bitcoin is an open source protocol for transferring value.  Anyone can copy it.  But you cannot take all of the developers, miners & hash power, users, node operators or suite of products and services with you.

A succinct explanation from @real_vijay on how duplication can serve to reinforce scarcity.

“Ultimately, bitcoin is backed by something, and it’s the only thing that backs any money: the credibility of its monetary properties.” - @parkeralewis Bitcoin is Not Backed by Nothing: https://bit.ly/2G3G8eg

Charlie Munger is right about most things. But he’s wrong about this.  Munger fails to see that Bitcoin is a monetary Schelling Point.  Altering the supply cap would ensure that the resulting fork is neither valued nor considered ‘Bitcoin’ by network participants.

"Volatility is the natural function of price discovery as bitcoin advances down the path of its monetization event..  If an asset is volatile, it does not mean that asset will be an ineffective store of value." - @parkeralewis Bitcoin Is Not Too Volatile https://bit.ly/3iZqv5R

“Bitcoin is money free of counterparty risk, and its network can offer final settlement of large volume payments within minutes. Bitcoin can thus best be compared to settlement payments between central banks and large financial institutions” - @Saifedean https://bit.ly/363dB35

“Many people, when decrying Bitcoin...presume that someone, somewhere is being deprived of electricity because of this rapacious asset.” @nic__carter https://bit.ly/3crtZMb “Bitcoin does not waste energy — it consumes energy waste.” @_ConnerBrown_ https://bit.ly/2ZXIbrh

"There has never been an example of a $100bn monster digital network that was vanquished once it got to that dominate position.  All you gotta do is see that chart, ..think about the dynamic and the network effect and you’re like- this has already won.”  - @michael_saylor

"Bitcoin is not competing with Visa.. bitcoin is competing with the dollar, euro, yen and gold as money..  ..the proper comparison would be between bitcoin and the Fed as currency issuer and as a clearing mechanism." @parkeralewis Bitcoin is Not Too Slow https://bit.ly/2RTrb0M

“Bitcoin looked like a bubble in 2011 at $1. It looked like a bubble in 2013 at $200. It looked looked like a bubble in 2017 at over $19,000.  ..the bubble moniker is less than helpful." @charliebilello Bitcoin, Bubbles, and Belief: https://bit.ly/3pJfwRU

"A majority of hashing power 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁:

take coins you already possess away

change the rules of Bitcoin

hurt you without hurting themselves" @jimmysong "Attacks on Bitcoin incur an opportunity cost that scales with the amount of hash power an attacker controls." @hasufl

“PoW fair launch...ensures that it is impossible to acquire coins for below market rate. You can purchase the coins on the market or with electricity; no one is entitled to an insider deal.” @nic__carter In Support of the Proof of Work [un]Fair Launch: https://bit.ly/37If1R1

About the author

Anil is an independent bitcoin educator based in Canada. He holds an MBA, CBP and was part of MIT's inaugural FinTech certificate cohort. He's guest-lectured at Business schools and launched the first Bitcoin-specific university scholarship in Canada. His focus is on simplifying concepts through visuals and storytelling to make bitcoin easier to comprehend.

You can follow him on Twitter @anilsaidso

You can pre-order his book representing approximately 3,000 hours of research, teaching, writing and design in an effort to best communicate Bitcoin as a concept.

By @WCelementeIII

For starters, Bitcoin tops are marked by increasingly parabolic price action until a blowoff top occurs and demand steps back. We are not seeing that. There is a massive base of capital (on-chain volume) building at these levels. Cycle tops have very minimal distribution.

Tops are also marked by spikes in Dormancy (old coins being sold into strength) The opposite is occurring. Dormancy has been going down since February, meaning old holders are waiting for higher prices to unload their bags.

Next up let's look at Illiquid supply, imo this is more important than coins moving off exchanges. Coins are consistently moving to clusters of addresses that are statistically very unlikely to sell. This phenomenon is showing no sign of stopping.

Next up, MVRV Z-Score. This takes a ratio of market cap to realized cap (capitalization based on the price when coins were last moved) and adjusts it for volatility. This metric gives distinct cycle peaks, we are seeing the opposite of a top, a downtrend.

Just a few more, bear with me... Now we have Reserve Risk. This measures the confidence of HODLers and is calculated as Price / HODL Bank. When price is high and confidence is low, RR goes up. (vice versa) This metric is also far from overheated.

More food for thought: Each cycle has 3 distinctive peaks of supply being held by short-term market participants. We are still cooling off after just the first peak of the cycle.

...I'm sure you're wondering, "So ok Will, this all sounds great, but who is selling???" The answer is newer, inexperienced market participants. The average age of coins being sold has been steadily trending downward since February.

So what does this all mean? Coins are moving from weak hands to strong hands. We are in a massive mid-way consolidation of this cycle. Don't let short-term price action freak you out, this bull run still has a long way to go before becoming overheated. HODL on.

/FIN

About the Author

William Clemente III, Sophomore Finance Major, 19 | Analyzing the #Bitcoin Blockchain.

You can f ollow him on Twitter or check out more of his work on S ubstack .

Crypto promotional schemes are an old hat in the industry, with many businesses trying to secure customer loyalty through a range of perks and mini handouts.

For BlockFi, however, its latest promotional offer has gone topsy turvy, after the platform mistakenly paid out oversized rewards in Bitcoin ( BTC ). One BlockFi user allegedly received a staggering 701.4 BTC on Friday.

Under the terms of the original giveaway , BlockFi had offered Bitcoin rewards for clients trading a set volume in United States dollars between March 18 and 31. With rewards due to have been credited to accounts by May 31, BlockFi warned users already on Friday:

Just under 100 clients are thought to be affected, according to a BlockFi representative. Yet a small furor over the exchange’s allegedly threatening tone to clients who don’t comply instantly with its directives to return the funds has already erupted on social media.

---

Ethereum fees surged to record highs amid the recent crypto downturn , with users paying more than 2,000 gwei to execute transactions at its peak.

Digital asset research firm, Delphi Digital, noted gas prices oscillated between 1,500 and 1,700 gwei for approximately one hour as DeFi liquidations drove “gas wars amongst liquidators and arbitrageurs.”

Ethereum gas prices amid crypto market crash: Dune Analytics

In the May 19 Daily Gwei newsletter , Ethereum developer Anthony Sassano speculated the fee frenzy was likely triggered by on-chain margin traders racing to exit their leveraged positions:

“The price was falling so fast that people were getting scared for their on-chain leveraged positions and were willing to pay anything to get their transaction included in the next Ethereum block (presumably to close their positions).”

---

U.S. regulators and lawmakers may be revisiting legislation for crypto assets following a wild week of trading that has seen Bitcoin prices plunge by $15,000 at one point.

According to a May 20 Bloomberg report , Washington’s financial regulators are still unsure of how to regulate the volatile markets. As banking regulators testified on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve’s Vice Chairman of Supervision, Randal Quarles, spoke of a lack of sufficient regulations, stating:

“We are in the process at the Fed of studying the various ways to address this issue,”

He added that federal agencies need time to consider the right regulatory approach before they can then create a framework for oversight. U.S. authorities are still primarily concerned with the illicit activities associated with decentralized digital assets such as market manipulation, money laundering, and a growing trend in ransomware attacks .

Texas Democrat Al Green implored Quarles to offer ideas on how Congress should regulate the market declaring that: “This is a serious issue. We need your expertise.”

This Daily Dose was brought to you by Cointelegraph.

One of the big myths about iOS is that as every browser is based on Safari anyway, you should just use Safari out of the box. And even though that statement is not completely untrue, as every browser is indeed using the built-in Safari engine, not every browser is equally private or secure. Some even have diagnostics and other unnecessary things enabled in the browser itself.

Today we will have a look at some alternate browsers on iOS and I'll share my personal recommendations and favourites.

If you read decentralize.today and our Privacy Cookbook you know that now I am a big fan of AdGuard and NextDNS. Before you pick any browser, the first thing to do is to set your DNS. This can be done via the AdGuard app, or if you are a NextDNS user you can jump over to apple.nextdns.io and enter your nextdns ID, and download and install the profile. However, as always use the DNS provider you trust, but make sure you encrypt your DNS!

AdGuard or other ad blockers ensure that all your browsing experience is safe, by blocking bad Apples away. This starts with the telemetary of Apple itself, but includes also malware, advertising agencies and data holders. I strongly recommend checking AdGuard and use the DNS blocking option. And add this blocklist as the first line of defense:

The beauty of AdGuard and NextDNS is not just that it encrypts the websites you visit, but also protects and blocks them system wide. This not just includes your browser, but every app you're using.

Apple added in iOS 14 a lot of built-in tracker protection and even proxy Google Safe Browsing over an Apple proxy to block Google from collecting information. A noble cause you might think, but probably just allowing Apple to collect the information and use it otherwise in the future.

However, using AdGuard is a great start. And if you set the DNS blocking feature and Apple telemetry blocking to it, you are halfway there.

This said you have better options as the built-in Safari browser and I always recommend having a second browser to separate your personal life from banking and co. So, let's dig in, shall we?

DDG

DuckDuckGo is another option and, of course, respects your privacy a bit more than Apple does, surprisingly you still have diagnostics with DDG and this is somewhat disturbing for a private search engine, who promote the browser as a privacy-friendly option.

Usage data and diagnostics (not linked directly to you) are coming with DDG, and therefore I can’t recommend it to be your daily drive.

Brave

Often you hear the argument Brave is the “privacy browser” and Brave looks better when it comes to trackers, diagnostic and co. But Brave has proven in the past to be more than a privacy-focused browser, but also a business. Therefore, as much as the browser itself seems pretty good, I cannot recommend it to be your daily drive over Safari

Identifier and usage data (not directly linked to you) is coming with Brave and, of course, the past of this company comes with it, so I can’t recommend Brave as your Safari replacement.

Coming to my three recommendations as your primary and secondary browser choices:

Snowhaze

Snowhaze is my personal daily drive, it has many features you can’t find in Safari itself, including adding search engines, a built-in VPN (paid service), TOR, which is experimental, but will also be able to block fonts, scripts and makes sure no one can fingerprint your browsing experience. The browser is totally free, and you do not need to subscribe to the paid VPN service.

No data is collected

iCab Web

If you're looking for even more features, iCab Web is for you. However, keep in mind this browser is not free. Yet, it has many unique features and just as Snowhaze allows you to add search engines, but also has a great built-in download manager. iCab has so much to offer that I recommend you to read the official website to learn more about it. The amount they're charging is surely worth the browser!

No data collected

Onionbrowser

Last but surely not least is Onionbrowser, not an official Tor browser, but is recommended by the Tor project. Not only does the browser have zero trackers, but it also allows you to use the Tor network, and hide your browsing history and habits from third parties, like your ISP.

No data collected

As you can see, you actually have some good options, with zero data collecting browsers, and I would recommend giving at least one of these three recommendations a try. I doubt you'll regret it but then I'll never know! :-)

As always stay safe, browse safe and use DNS ;)

I think that giving names to things is helpful for both empowering and de-clawing ideas. George Orwell explored this in his infamous novel 1984 , where he talked about how The Party attempted to remove any language that could potentially be used to inspire or conspire for revolt. Giving identity to thoughts is powerful. For example, being able to identify “I have depression” now means you know what the problem is and you can start working toward fixing it – be it medication, therapy, lifestyle changes, or some combination. By the same token, giving names can also be an easy way to remove power from something. This is typically done in the form of a “thought-terminating cliché.” For example, calling someone a conspiracy theorist is shorthand for “if that guy says anything weird just ignore him. He’s crazy.” It removes the onus of critical thinking and evaluation of one's claims if they make you uncomfortable or challenge your existing beliefs.

This is an example of a “logical fallacy.” You’ve probably heard the term, and almost certainly seen quite a few of them in action. A common one in the world of politics is “whataboutism.” Ex: “The president sucks.” “Yeah, well so did the last one/other guy.” Another common one is called “ad hominem,” which is when you attack the person rather than the argument. “I think Signal is secure.” “Yeah well you’re not a cybersecurity expert.” (Hold that thought, we’ll come back to it.) One more common one: the strawman argument. It’s when you misrepresent the claim to make it easier to attack. For example, “I think everyone has a right to privacy.” “So you think we shouldn’t investigate pedophiles and drug dealers?”

Lately I’ve been seeing one particular logical fallacy make the rounds in the privacy community: the “Anecdotal” fallacy. A common version of these I've seen a lot in my life is “My grandma drank Diet Pepsi every single day for 40 years and developed cancer, therefore aspartame must cause cancer despite numerous scientific studies finding no correlation .” I also see a touch of “Personal Incredulity,” aka “I can’t imagine a situation in which a computer might literally explode , therefore if you said yours did I assume you’re lying.”

Lately in the privacy community, I’ve been seeing these pop up a lot in regards to features and the attempts of various products and services to cater to the mainstream. For example, this past week during a discussion about smart TVs, a couple popular ones popped up a few times: “I don’t even watch Netflix, why do they make smart TVs at all?” or “Is it really that hard to hook up a laptop to a TV with HDMI?” (This one also assumes you own both a laptop and a smart TV, and I can think of lots of situations where that may not be the case.) Another one in a different discussion said “why does Signal need stickers? I’ve never met anyone who uses stickers.” Even Henry and I were guilty of this one when Signal announced their integration with MobileCoin: “I have never used a messenger to send payments to friends or family. I’ve always used Paypal or Venmo or whatever.” Just because I’ve never done it doesn’t mean that nobody has and that this is a terrible idea on that merit alone.

I think this is an unhealthy thought pattern that the community needs to break out of. It’s very damaging in many ways when we project our values, cultural norms, or thought processes onto others. This is how we end up inadvertently becoming extremists. Some common “privacy extremist” thoughts I see frequently are things like “if you aren’t willing to switch to Linux, give up on having a private machine” or “if you aren’t willing to delete Facebook, you’ll never truly be private so you may as well just give up” or “if you have a phone, you have no privacy. End of story.”

Some time ago, I wrote two closely related blogs called “ One Size Does Not Fit All ” and “ The Privacy Myth: Binary vs Spectrum .” The basic premise of these two blogs is that what’s right for you isn’t necessarily right for everyone for a variety of reasons and that it’s possible to have more or less privacy without having total or no privacy. In fact, I would argue that’s healthier for both newbies and veterans to frame their privacy journey in this context, though admittedly this mentality can be a double edged sword. For newbies, some may find it a relief to learn that you can never truly be “done.” When there’s a definite, objective, universal finish line, there’s pressure to get to that finish line, but when the finish line is subjective and varies from person to person, then who are you to tell me that I haven’t done enough? For veterans – particularly those who enjoy the challenge of this stuff – that means there’s always more to learn and more to do. Of course, as I said, it can also be a curse: it can feel overwhelming knowing that you’re never really done, or it can be used an excuse to not do more when you should.

Perhaps the biggest problem with a toxic mentality based on anecdotal and/or personally incredulous fallacies is that you run a high risk of accidental gatekeeping. For example, suppose you consider Session to the best encrypted messenger out there, but maybe someone else doesn’t like it because it can’t make calls. If you’re a person who never really does voice or video calls – and you suffer from the “personal incredulity” fallacy – you run the risk of gatekeeping someone else. “Why would you need to make phone calls? Who talks on the phone these days. It’s 2021, just text them.” It ignores the myriad of perfectly valid reasons that a person may want to call instead: emergency, too much to type on a phone, etc. “Well I’ve never met anyone who used GIFs in a messenger so why did Signal have to implement that?” I’ve met a lot of people who love to use GIFs, including myself.

Now it is worth noting that not all fallacies are bad. Above I used the example that a person who’s not a cybersecurity expert may still endorse Signal. This is another topic, perhaps one I’ll write on if enough people want: how to examine a claim. When someone makes a claim – for example: “the moon is made of green cheese” – there are a variety of factors to examine that basically boil down to two categories: the claim itself and the person making it. When examining the person making it, you need to look for qualifications, interests (such as being on payroll), and track record. While it could be considered an “ad honinem” attack to point out that a person making a claim is not qualified, that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong. If I make the claim that I think Signal is a secure messenger based on my own opinion or “expertise,” you’re not wrong to point out that I have absolutely no background in cryptography. But if I make the claim that I think Signal is secure because numerous other actual security experts have vetted it and even the CIA and Cellebrite have been unable to crack it (according to Vault 7), then you attacking me distracts from the point and serves no purpose other than to show yourself to be a jerk who doesn’t take criticism very well. Not all logical fallacies are always wrong or immediately mean that you’re losing the argument. For example, the “slippery slope” argument is technically a logical fallacy, but it is one that has been proven true in many situations time and time again. Is it really wrong to cite that as a concern in some situations?

I hope this blog has raised some awareness. The privacy community is often a skeptical one, and I think that’s healthy. To quote the popular TV show Person of Interest: “only the paranoid survive.” We live in a world where companies lie to our faces, governments break their own laws, and the information they collect is used for far more nefarious and unethical purposes than just trying to sway us into shopping at one fast food chain instead of another. It’s healthy to question the best way to protect ourselves against these invasions. But we have to be careful not to become insular and out of touch lest we become the pop culture depiction of a youth pastor – arguably right, definitely well meaning, but impossible to connect with on a human level and unable to be taken seriously. In fact, not to get too far off topic, but I know from personal experience that the Christian church has a habit of alienating "non-believers" by using their own lingo, phrases, and slang that isolates the "in" group from the "outsiders." This is a very dangerous practice in any social circle, particularly one who is attempting to proselytize to others.

Privacy is a human right, one that is only just starting to be taken seriously in the mainstream. If we’re ever going to reach more people we have to accept that this can often be a slow, scary, and sometimes difficult journey. Giving up the Facebook account you’ve had for 15 years is a lot like breaking up with a long term partner (albeit an abusive one). For many people that dramatic change is akin to staring into the unknown abyss. What comes next? Will I ever find love (or that dopamine hit of validation from a viral tweet) again? It’s been in my life for so long, what will I do without it? It sounds ridiculous to us because we’ve been through it and come out the other side, but for the uninitiated it feels much like a child losing their first tooth: messy, scary, and extreme. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that just because you’re already past it or because you didn’t share those feelings that everyone is in the same boat. I come from a broken family, so the idea of cutting out a toxic member of my immediate family for my own sake is about as difficult a decision as what socks to wear, but I still respect that some people crave the connection of a close, healthy family and might be scared or hesitant to cut that tie, even if it’s the right thing to do. There are 8.5 billion people in the world. Widen your perspective, welcome the curious – even if they ask really stupid questions – and be patient. They’re not your enemy. Big Tech doesn’t need any help tending the gate.

The top-10 Bitcoin ( BTC ) mining pools by hash rate distribution are now signaling for Taproot activation with BTC.Top being the latest among them as of the time of writing.

Indeed, 90% of Bitcoin’s hash rate briefly signaled for the protocol upgrade with the figure now standing at about 73%.

Tweeting on Monday, crypto exchange giant Binance announced that Binance Pool had begun signaling for Taproot. According to the Taproot Signal Twitter bot, Binance Pool’s maiden Taproot signal occurred at block height 683,878.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the two largest Bitcoin mining pools — AntPool and F2Pool — were among the earliest supporters of the protocol upgrade in the mining arena. SlushPool — the 12th-largest pool by hash rate distribution — was the first to mine the first transaction block with a Taproot signal.

BTC.Top, the last of the top-10 pools to signal for Taproot, did so on block height 683,945 . The mining pool had previously announced that it had completed the testing protocols necessary to begin including Taproot activation signals in mined transaction blocks.

The United States Federal Trade Commission has found that crypto scammers’ profits spiked in the last two months, noting a surge in fraudulent impersonators posing as prominent figures associated with digital assets, such as Elon Musk.

The findings report that cryptocurrency investment scams rose sharply in October 2020 as the impacts of coronavirus pandemic and lockdown deepened, with nearly 7,000 people reporting losses of more than $80 million to digital asset scams over the six months that followed.

The FTC’s Consumer Sentinel notes many of the thefts arose from giveaway scams where con artists pose as celebrities or crypto influencers and falsely promise to multiply cryptocurrency deposits sent to their wallet. More than $2 million in digital assets were to Elon Musk impersonators over the past six months.

The data shows an overall increase in losses to crypto scams by roughly twelve times year-over-year. The median loss reported by victims has also spiked nearly 1,000% to $1,900 in 12 months.

While new entrants to Bitcoin markets have been panic selling at a loss, the recent market slide has not vexed the old hands. Heavy selling in response to hints from Elon Musk that Tesla may soon sell its BTC stash saw Bitcoin prices tumble to their lowest levels in 20 weeks as the markets found support near $42,000 on Monday, May 17.

According to on-chain analytics provider, Glassnode, the crash predominantly saw newer traders exiting from their positions at a loss while long-term hodlers stood their ground.

Glassnoded noted Bitcoin’s adjusted Spent Output Profit Ratio (aSOPR) , a metric that shows whether BTC was in profit or at a loss when it was last transacted on-chain, fell below 1.0 amid the dip. An aSOPR of less than 1.0 indicates aggregate losses have been realized on-chain and are most pronounced in short-term holders (coins younger than 155-days) — traders that purchased during the 2021 bull market.

Elon Musk appears to have again been the catalyst for Bitcoin’s price shedding more than 10% over the weekend after Tesla's CEO appeared to suggest the firm may be planning to dump BTC from its balance sheet this quarter.

On May 16, Musk replied to a tweet predicting that Tesla may dump its BTC holdings this quarter. To the chagrin of the Bitcoin community, Musk simply replied: “Indeed.”

With Musk’s popularity already dwindling within the crypto community after he criticized the energy efficiency of Bitcoin amid Tesla’s suspension of support for vehicle purchases using BTC , his one-word comment has elicited further condemnation from many leading figures in cryptocurrency.

In a Twitter thread today, billionaire investor Mark Cuban weighed in on the current state and the future of blockchain technology and investment, ultimately concluding that while there are real obstacles to adoption asset prices are increasingly reflective of real “utility” and “demand,” and that the day will eventually come when crypto is “mature to the point we wondered how we ever lived with out.”

Cuban posted the 10-tweet thread this morning, noting that as the asset class matures prices for cryptocurrencies often are now a byproduct of current use, as opposed to speculative eventual utility.

“Having more TPS and lower gas fees is not enough,” he wrote, likely referring to often grandiose claims from various layer-one chains with little activity, “There must be a CURRENT network effect and significant user growth. This is a challenge for most L1s and L2s because w few exceptions, marketing in the crypto universe is beyond awful.”

This Daily Dose was brought to you by Cointelegraph.

Things have been pretty intence here at EXPOSED! HQ recently as I have walked through a nightmarish look at how Orwell's Blueprint for a mass surveillance society is being fulfilled by corporations as well as governments. So, I thought today I should take a step back and revisit one of the foundation articles for EXPOSED! as we rerun my piece on Sumsung from two years ago...

Every Monday, I will be taking on corporations, exposing their unethical practices, how they sell our data and the other things that make them richer and richer at your expense. I will try to share with you not just our findings, but also provide some solutions. Today we start with the world's best selling cellphone company, Samsung. But this story is not about the mighty pen, or the great camera, but about the things you didn't know.

One would have thought that all of the big conglomerates would nowadays be very careful when it comes to their labor practices but not so at Samsung. A well known Korean media outlet has been visiting several of the Samsung production sites around Asia and has released a very negative report. Skirting local labor laws or simply just ignoring them has been common practice in those manufacturing venues. The younger the workers, the easier it is for them to be exploited, with factories engaging non-contractual labor with those individuals being unfairly terminated and replaced with a fresh batch as needed.

This is particularly prevalent in Indonesia where workers in their late teens are employed but not hired again once then reach their early twenties. The rationale behind this is the existence of a huge pool of cheap labor coming out from the schools and vocational centers, all vying for those much needed jobs. For those lucky enough to be on contracts, they are normally short-term, just long enough to cover the peak manufacturing period. This works well for Samsung, as annual bonuses can be avoided. It cannot be claimed that  this is the norm in Indonesian factories as Samsung’s workers often sit  alongside other workers who are employed on a permanent basis. Interviews at the factory gate have confirmed all of this.

When it comes to wages, it transpires that Samsung are clearly short changing their workers. Whilst Sanyo and Panasonic pay the industrial minimum wage in Indonesia, Samsung only pays a lower wage and applies that across the region, blatantly breaking the law.

In India, a country well known for its indentured child labor at the brick kilns, Samsung is not behaving any better. They are taking advantage of the apprenticeship scheme wherein probationary work is allowed for on-the-job training but such recruits are put out onto the main production line and treated as ordinary workers. They are subject to verbal abuse and threats of dismissal if targets are not met. Probationary workers are not supposed to be given production quotas but the opposite is the case as they are put under immense pressure to meet unreasonable levels of output. Their monthly salaries fall far short when compared to regular workers and this non adherence to labor regulations is exploitative in the extreme. These probationary workers hold on hoping to be employed on a regular basis but this is seldom the case. Samsung uses a backdoor method of changing the category of their work in order to re-hire them but still on the same terms.

In China, forced overtime of over 100 hours a month in Samsung factories is commonplace and with wages being so low, employees find themselves in an endless cycle of over-work in order to make ends meet. China Labor Watch have monitored 6 Samsung-owned production sites which showed that there was little compliance with safety measures. Sitting during shifts was forbidden with employees at times being physically and verbally abused. Having entered the factories incognito, the investigators were able to see for themselves, with interviews of the employees taking place away from the factory gates. Allegations of employing child workers have dogged Samsung for years but when faced with the evidence, the Korean manufacture has claimed that fake ID’s were the issue. However, the correct hiring and supervision procedures were never in  place thus allowing such abuse to happen.

Whilst Samsung should  be thoroughly condemned for these terrible practices, a degree of blame can also be laid at the door of each of the host countries who have welcomed the Korean conglomerate with open arms, preferring at times to overlook these serious malpractices and take the economic gains instead. Shame on them also.

Now, having seen how they treat their employees who slavishly work to churn out those smartphones, TVs, fridges, and other home appliances, which we all enjoy using, let’s spare a thought for how Samsung regards you and I, the end consumers.

Many smartphone users were rightly very concerned when it came to light that the Samsung Messaging app has at times been known to send all of a user’s photos to their contact list. Wow! Only when they get a concerned message from the recipient do they either laugh out loud or jump off a bridge. People constantly complain about their data being “shared” without their permission but sending out photos like this brings Samsung’s incompetence to a new level. The vast majority don’t need a geeky explanation as to how this happened but to have a grovelling apology from Samsung for such a huge breach of trust.

You should use Signal as your main messaging app and also use it as your SMS app. Combined with other messengers like Riot, Briar, Telegram or Threema. We have a final chapter on our secure or not so secure messengers coming up, including a review on Briar as we did not cover it in our last round  up.

Pre-installed bloatware is another issue on Samsung phones and although less prevalent now, users can still end up getting advertisements via push notifications. Are Samsung giving you a heads-up about free stuff which is available? Absolutely not. Once you have shelled out big bucks for their latest device you can, for example, end up getting ads for the Galaxy Note 10+, or the Galaxy Watch 2. Advertising expensive gear in this fashion is an unwelcome intrusion.

But it doesn’t stop there. Samsung have been taking advantage of their position as a major manufacturer of cellphones to modify their devices to get hold of your personal information which you thought should be protected. A nice business sideline for them is to be surreptitiously selling your data or at the same time using it to enhance their own in-house advertising. This is of grave concern to businesses and  individuals, all of whom rely on their commercial and personal details to be kept private. Apparently the Samsung Pay app is sharing personal information with vendors. Because of the California Privacy Act, Samsung has had to come clean and admit that it “may have” passed on a significant amount of identifiers, commercial information and preferences belonging to users. This is very disturbing as other Samsung made apps are at it as well, harvesting your music interests, your searches and the metadata from the photos you take, all to be sold on to the highest bidder. The Samsung Pay app has now an opt-out function (in the USA!) for your data to be sold! But don't be fooled this works probably as well as the "Do Not Track" option in your browser!

This is cool isn't it? Considering you can opt-out from something you never signed up to in the first place, after all you paid for a phone which comes at a hefty price in the first place, why should you need to worry about your data being sold on top of this.

They've also been working with  Qihoo 360 a well known Chinese data 'security' and collection company, and your phone keeps connecting to their services. They have addressed this by explaining this is just to scan some junk data and are not about having access to your phone. This said, we can see permanent connections on our AdGuard Home setup and the PiHole who shows connections to 360.cn, and also to baidu.com, qq.com and many others. This sadly also happens when you use your camera or browse your gallery!  Some bloatware also includes Facebook that is not removable! The Samsung Keyboard looks and feels great, but sends data to at least two servers for data analysis, which means that everything you type on the keyboard gets analysed! We recommend to remove/disable the keyboard via ABG, but of course, only after you have installed a replacement! For example the AnySoftKeyboard on the f-droid store!

It is likely you can remove/disable bloatware and you can find more in the Privacy Cookbook, which covers Samsung Phones . If you have one, do not skip this chapter!

If you do not want to go through the hassle of adb connections and removing bloatware, please at least use AdGuard, NetGuard or NextDNS and add these domains manually to your blocklist!

If you use a PiHole or AdGuardHome also add them to your blocklist!

||samsung.com.cn^
||dnsdelegation.io^
||crashlytics.com^
||samsungapps.com^
||baidu.com^
||360safe.com^
||360.cn^
||qq.com^
||samsungdm.com^
||samsungcloud.com^
||samsungimagine.com^
||secb2b.com^
||samsung.com^
||fbcdn.com^
||fasty.net^
||taobao.tw^
||taobao.com^
||localytics.com^
||medialytics.com^
||samqaicongen.com^

Last but not least, do not use Samsung Internet as your browser as Samsung Internet intercepts URLs and submits data to Samsung!

Bixby and also the weather app are more then questionable and we don't need  to point out that your voice is submitted to Samsung servers, you can opt-out of this, but are you 100% sure they don't submit data anyway?

Samsung's new Visit In gives you the power to connect to nearby stores and exclusive deals, as great as this sounds, it also means they track every move and give you the deals of their partners.

Have you ever wondered why TV sets are getting lower and lower in price? Certainly there is healthy competition between the big manufacturers and ever increasing efficiencies on the production side. But a good income stream for the likes of Samsung comes from the spying activities of their sets. Whilst privacy is paramount in other areas of tech, the smart TV industry seems to be lagging far behind as our sets sit in the corner of  the living room watching us whilst we watch them. Once they have enough information about our viewing habits, we are bombarded with targeted ads. Recently at a press conference a Samsung spokesman did acknowledge that there was a need to “discuss privacy” when it came to their TV’s monitoring what viewers were watching. This is hardly getting to grips with the situation when clear guidance should be available during initial set-up of TVs to have a choice to opt out in order to get rid of this form of home invasion.

When it comes to corporate arrogance however, the first prize must go to Samsung. Back in 2015 it was reported Samsung TVs were eave dropping on us.

Please be  aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and  transmitted to a third party
the policy reads.

In the newest version of the privacy policy on smart TVs from Samsung you can also read

Your  TV viewing history includes information about the networks, channels, websites visited and programs viewed on your Smart TV and the amount of  time spent viewing them. We may use automatic content recognition (ACR) and other technologies to capture this information. Your Smart TV transfers video snippets or TV tuner information in order to determine the programs watched.

The good news is if you don't connect your  TV to the internet, you won't need to worry ;) But if you actually want to use your TV as a Smart TV there is a solution.

Shutting Off ACR on Samsung TVs

On  newer Samsung Smart TV models, including those from 2019, find Settings  on the main menu, then look for Support, then scroll down to Terms  &  Policies

You will have a number of options, including Viewing  Information Services, Interest-Based Advertising and Voice Recognition  Services. Turn off Viewing Information Services to prevent the set sending ACR data directly to Samsung.

Turning off Voice Recognition  Services stops the TV collecting voice data including the searches  you make, the apps you use and websites you visit. However, you won't now be able to control the TV using  voice commands.

Shutting down Interest-Based Ads means you'll get general rather than personalized ones.

On older Samsung sets, the ACR controls are found under the Smart Hub  menu. Go to Settings, click on Support and then locate sub-menu entitled Terms & Policy

In that sub-menu, look for SyncPlus and Marketing, and you’ll see an option to disable SyncPlus. You can also turn off Voice Recognition Services and disable voice commands

At a preview for its  2020 range at CES, Samsung revealed a new app on its TVs, namely 'Privacy Choices'. As Smart TVs have increased in their ability to profile and track your activities, this app gives owners a place where  they can see what data is being collected and opt-out if they so wish.

And use PiHole or AdGuardHome and add the following two lists to your blocklists.

Samsung - Snooping
Samsung TV - Smart TV

Samsung’s powerful grip on South Korea - recent press reports

The public is disappointed that this kind of large-scale crime caused by cozy relations between politics and business still happens -- it's  not in the past but remains a reality," Judge Kim Jin-dong said in court. He also laid some of the blame on Park, saying the former  president made aggressive demands

2018 Samsung admits fault over illnesses and deaths of workers

We offer our sincere apology to our workers who have suffered with illnesses and their families

-Samsung Electronics co-president Kim Ki-nam (L)

2019 Article from Bloomberg further shedding light on the political situation of South Korean and the Samsung conglomerate, showcases recent scandals and the rising  voices of the people regarding the economic model that allowed conglomerates “Chaebols” to grow so large.

Samsung's headquarters is in Seoul, Seoul Teugbyeolsi. Samsung has a revenue of $196.9B, and 320,671 employees as of 2019.
Samsung Subsidiaries
Samsung Industries
Samsung Electronic
Smasung SDI
Samsung SDS
Samsung Corning
Samsung Networks
Samsung ELectro-Mechanics
Samsung Corning Precision Glass

Financial Services
Samsung Life Insurance
Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance
Samsung Card
Samsung Securities
Samsung Capital
Samsung Investment Trust Management
Samsung Venture Investment

Chemical
Cheil Industries
Samsung Total
Samsung Petrochemicals
Samsung BP Chemicals
Samsung Fine Chemicals

Machinery & Heavy Industries
Samsung Heavy Industries
Samsung Techwin

Other Affiliated Companies
Samsung Corporation
Samsung Engineering
Samsung Everland
Shilla Hotels and Resorts
Cheil Communications
S1 Corporation
Samsung Medical Center
Samsung Economic Research Institute
Samsung Foundation of Culture
The HO-AM Foundation
Samsung Press Foundation
Samsung Welstory
Samsung Bioepis
Samsung Biologics

Samsung Fashion
8 Seconds
10 Corso Como Seoul
Ami
Alaia
ASpesi
Beanpole Men
Beanpole Ladies
Beanpole Kids
Beanpole Golf
Beanpole Accessory
Beanpole Sport
Beaker
Brooks
Canada Goose
Colombo
Galaxy
Giuseppe Zanotti
Granit
Heartist
Juun.J
Kuho
Kuho Plus
Lansmere
Lebeige
Lemaire
Maison Kitsune
OIAUER
Rag & Bone
Rapido
Rick Owens
Rogatis
Slowear
Suitsupply
Thom Browne
Tory Burch
Valextra

Enough said, I think - Samsung is just the beginning, there are way more unethical and shocking things to come, when we take on the next usual and unusual suspects. Next week Apple ;)

It is said that \unless you know your history, then you are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past| or words to that effect.

So with so many of us talking about the 'brave new worlds' of defi, decommerce and the like as components of a replacement system for the old economic order, we think it is important that we all have, at least, a basic grasp of the instruments and institutions that shaped the 'Good Old Bad Old Days'....the Reserve Bank, the Gold Standard, Inflation and it's evil half brother, Staflation...

So today's 'starter for ten' is a rerun of an episode of The Part-Time Show podcast featuring Drr Kapil Amarasinghe as he looks into the origins of the fiat currency system, outlines how and why the USD emerged as the de facto dominant global reserve currency along with a look into it's possible future.

A history of the Petrodollar and the future of the USD

Part 2 of today's offering involves a reference link (well, more of a tweetstorm) into a new book by Alex Gladstein  revealing some of the insights he garnered whilst researching the subject of the "Petrodollar'.

1/ While doing research for my essay on the negative externalities of the petrodollar, I learned a huge amount. Much of it was shocking or surprising.

Here's a thread with a few of my favorite bits of insight, with links for further reading 🧵 https://t.co/w3KQvmBQk3

— Alex Gladstein (@gladstein) April 30, 2021

Have a great Sunday!