Facebook Bans Cryptocurrency Ads
Following persistent complaints about spammy and fraudulent cryptocurrency ads, Facebook has issued an outright ban. As of a new ruling issued on January 30, “ads must not promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, such as binary options, initial coin offerings, or cryptocurrency”. The move is sure to be welcomed by Facebook users and bitcoin enthusiasts alike, who recognize that these adverts do little to promote the benefits of cryptocurrency.
Also read: Scammy Ads and News Factories Are Having a Field Day With Bitcoin
Facebook Gives Crypto Ads the Thumbs Down
In a post published on Tuesday, Facebook Product Management Director Rob Leathern wrote: “We want people to continue to discover and learn about new products and services through Facebook ads without fear of scams or deception. That said, there are many companies who are advertising binary options, ICOs and cryptocurrencies that are not currently operating in good faith.”
He added: “This policy is intentionally broad while we work to better detect deceptive and misleading advertising practices, and enforcement will begin to ramp up across our platforms including Facebook, Audience Network and Instagram”.
And Nothing of Value Was Lost
The moratorium on crypto ads can only benefit the cryptocurrency community. Scams such as Bitconnect and Arisebank are allowed to ferment on platforms such as Facebook, out of the reach of sharp-tongued Twitter traders who would otherwise call them out. Examples of ads that Facebook cites as being in contravention of its new policy include “New ICO! Buy tokens at a 15% discount NOW!”
Facebook’s advertising policy is notoriously fussy. The list of health foods and supplements it won’t list, for example, is extensive, and it also seems to have a problem with male torsos being displayed. ICOs and cryptocurrency projects – even those that are above board – can now be added to that list. There’s a school of thought that holds that ICOs which have merit shouldn’t require paid advertising in the first place, especially not display ads. If a product is genuinely innovative and worthy of investment, there are plenty of ways to create a buzz and form an active community without resorting to Facebook.
Do you think Facebook banning crypto ads is a good thing? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, and Facebook.
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Deep Web Roundup: Dream Adds Monero and Bitcoin Tumbler “Chip Mixer” Launches
The darknet has been quiet of late, which is the way it’s meant to be. No news means no mega busts, honeypots, or mass market shutdowns. Even when it’s out of the spotlight though, the deep web is quietly making news, whether trialling the latest privacy coins or the newest coin mixers that promise to restore a little of the privacy that’s being stripped away from bitcoin users on a daily basis.
Also read: U.S. Agency ICE Conducts Investigations That Exploit Blockchain Activity
The Battle for Privacy Heats Up
Privacy is all relative, but of late there’s been relatively little privacy to be enjoyed by bitcoin users. Blockchain monitoring software is becoming more sophisticated and more common, with U.S. law enforcement agencies using it to profile and hunt down deep web users. Chip Mixer is a relatively new bitcoin tumbler that’s designed to restore some of that privacy. Available on both the clearnet and darknet, the service uses a variety of techniques to obfuscate blockchain movements.
Unlike other mixers, Chip Mixer adds in its own chips which are then shuffled around in a manner akin to gambling at an online casino, before the initial deposit is withdrawn into a new address. Services such as Chip Mixer are useful not only to darknet vendors and customers, but to bitcoin users in general seeking to regain some privacy. In a week in which a prominent bitcoiner got the community talking simply by transferring their 40k BTC to a new address, it’s evident that there are instances where transaction obfuscation is desirable.
The Age of Blockchain Monitoring Has Arrived
“Criminals think that they are safe online because they’re anonymous, but they are in for a rude awakening,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday, launching a crackdown on Fentanyl distribution. “We have already infiltrated their networks, and we are determined to bring them to justice.”
The sort of tools used by three-letter agencies such as ICE are presented as a means of combatting the trafficking of harmful narcotics, but this is invariably the thin end of the wedge. Companies such as Bitfury gleefully boast of creating tools that are “for use by law enforcement organizations and financial institutions.” Their latest, Crystal, “tracks the relationships of an entity with identified bad actors (such as dark market traders)”. These sorts of companies would have no qualms about their software being used to profile users based on nothing more than their country of origin, libertarian beliefs, or cypherpunk ideology.
Dream Marketplace Adds Monero
There is an alternative means of regaining anonymity when transacting online which doesn’t call for passing through time-consuming tumblers: use a privacy coin. Dream, one of the longest standing DNMs, has always been a bitcoin-only marketplace, with bitcoin cash finally added a month ago. Now, much to the relief of r/Darknetmarkets, monero has made its way to Dream. To date, law enforcement – together with other busybodies intent on surveilling deep web users – have failed to deanonymize monero. Given the level of rhetoric surrounding new blockchain forensic tools, 2018 is shaping up to be an interesting year for privacy advocates and those who would seek to deny them that right.
Do you think tumblers such as Chip Mixer can be trusted to anonymize transactions? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, and Chip Mixer.
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U.S. Regulators Send Tether and Bitfinex Subpoenas
There’s been a lot of discussion and controversy surrounding Tether (USDT) a digital asset that claims to be backed by the U.S. dollar. Now according to reports, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has subpoenaed the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and the company Tether for unknown reasons.
Also Read: Analyst: IOTA Sharply Overvalued Due to “Overwhelming Evidence of Serious Flaws”
The CFTC Sends Bitfinex and Tether a Subpoena
Bitfinex and Tether Say Legal Requests Are Routine While the CFTC Declines to Comment
Tether and Bitfinex did respond to a question regarding the summons in an emailed statement sent to the news outlet.
“We routinely receive legal process from law enforcement agents and regulators conducting investigations,” explained Bitfinex and Tether representatives.
It is our policy not to comment on any such requests.
Furthermore Erica Richardson, a CFTC spokeswoman declined to comment on the subject concerning the digital currency businesses. Very little public information exists on why the CFTC has sent Bitfinex and Tether the notice.
However, the news follows a lot of speculation about both of these companies from various media sources and well-documented reports. This past week Professor Nouriel Roubini otherwise known as ‘Dr. Doom’ said, “regulators are asleep at the wheel while $2 billion of fake money was created via this scam.” With Bitfinex and Tether being subpoenaed by the CFTC, it seems regulators may be very aware of Tether and exchanges like Bitfinex who are ‘tethered’ to the digital dollar business.
What do you think about Bitfinex and Tether being subpoenaed by the CFTC? Let us know in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Bitfinex, the CFTC, and Tether logos.
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Nassim Nicholas Taleb vs David Birch on The Bitcoin Standard
The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, by bitcoin maximalist Saifedean Ammous, is set for a spring release, having managed to make news ahead by snagging philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb to write its foreword. Mr. Taleb is his usual profound self, offering a full-throated defense of its essential idea, in contrast to many contemporary intellectuals who often dismiss bitcoin out of hand.
Also read: Tezos Swiss Foundation Concept is “Old, Inflexible and Stupid”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Forwards Bitcoin
“Which is why Bitcoin is an excellent idea,” continues a crypto community favorite philosopher, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, 57, in a recent post to his Opacity blog, It May Fail but We Now Know How to Do It. “It fulfills the needs of the complex system, not because it is a cryptocurrency, but precisely because it has no owner, no authority that can decide on its fate. It is owned by the crowd, its users. And it has now a track record of several years, enough for it to be an animal in its own right.”
Mr. Taleb is best known for his work in probability, risk, decision theory, and his books include 2010’s The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, and 2012’s Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, both highly cited by ecosystem enthusiasts. His present meditation on bitcoin came by way of a foreword to an upcoming release.
In his defense of bitcoin, he rifles through “experts” on the economy, familiar names who’ve either outright failed or who merely kept the dying patient alive for a little while longer, arriving at the cautionary value of how “we need to be careful on who to endow with centralized macro decisions.” The echo chamber of central banking has sought only its own ends rather than improving upon currency, half of all transactions. It’s probably safe to write the industrialized world hasn’t experienced innovation for at least a century. Imagine if any other technology, tool, commodity was allowed such stillbirth.
Mr. Taleb notes Hayek as inspiration for the innovation of bitcoin, at least in spirit. The distribution of knowledge means, almost paradoxically, “it looks like we do not even need that thing called knowledge for things to work well. Nor do we need individual rationality. All we need is structure,” and that structure is decentralization. Even stalwart stores of value throughout history, such as gold, have lost their heroic reason for existence: they’re now wholly play things of governments, from Hong Kong to New Jersey, while “Bitcoin is a currency without a government,” Mr. Taleb reminds readers.
As such, he explains, it “has a huge advantage over gold in transactions: clearance does not require a specific custodian. No government can control what code you have in your head,” Mr. Taleb insists. He does acknowledge bitcoin’s present drawbacks in terms of network congestion and transaction fees, however, but brings us back to Hayekian ground, as bitcoin “is the first organic currency.”
David GW Birch Might’ve Very Well Missed the Point of Bitcoin
While Mr. Taleb is refreshingly pithy and grounded in bitcoin’s ultimate ends, other intellectuals of note in the financial world aren’t so convinced. Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin: From Money that We Understand to Money that Understands Us (London Publishing Partnership, 2017), is a breezy enough read by a familiar English financial columnist and pundit, David GW Birch. Mr. Birch, The Telegraph notes, is “one of the world’s leading experts on digital money,” and a director of Consult Hyperion, an IT management consultancy.
Despite its title, the book has precious little to say about bitcoin, devoting almost as much space to ether, zcash, and ripple as possible alternatives to what Mr. Birch declares a near sure thing: bitcoin won’t survive. Indeed, cryptographic currencies won’t either, at least not in the manner Mr. Taleb has praised, according to Mr. Birch.
Of its 18 chapters, it takes until the 13th before a discussion of cryptocurrency is hashed out. And really the segment is to probably justify the title, as scattered paragraphs tangent to practical concerns and comparisons to M-Pesa. Lost wallets and lack of recovery. Low relative adoption rates. Finally, he even doubts bitcoin is a currency. He writes almost rhetorically, “might it be the future of money? I think not,” Mr. Birch answers.
“Bitcoin is not the future of money, and the future of money is not Bitcoin,” he emphasizes. He does walk a tightrope of coming close to Mr. Taleb’s understanding, suggesting many people are fed up with status quo currency arrangements. But then Mr. Birch cheers much more centralized cryptocurrency alternatives such as ripple before advocating a kind of digital fiat hybrid where central bankers somehow stabilize and tame crypto in preference to his favored centralized structure. And then he’s off to the drug of professional financial journalists, “blockchain” this and “blockchain” that.
Mr. Birch has it exactly backward: bitcoin is practical in a liberation sense. It’ll find its way toward use cases, and is nearly every day. While Mr. Birch’s predictions might just come to pass, the allure of bitcoin as an idea is now out there: people are free to transact without minders. Ending on Mr. Taleb for contrast suffices to push home the point:
“But its mere existence is an insurance policy that will remind governments that the last object establishment could control, namely, the currency, is no longer their monopoly. This gives us, the crowd, an insurance policy against an Orwellian future.”
What do you think bitcoin’s future is? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Pixabay, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, David GW Birch.
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PR: ETicket4 Launch Its Pre ICO and Offers Qualitatively New Dimensions in the Ticket Industry
This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support this product/service. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release.
Today, January 30, the international p2p-platform Eticket4, with which you can buy tickets in the secondary market for any event, announces the launch of Pre ICO. During crowd sale, which will last till February 21st, utilities-tokens ET4 will be on sale.
ET4 tokens will allow their owners to get a number of advantages when buying or selling tickets through the ETicket4 platform. Thus, with the ET4 token, customers will be able to receive discounts up to 100% of the ticket price, and sellers will have access to the extended functionality of the analytical cabinet. So, when, for example, tickets for the football World Cup are paid with tokens, the buyer receives a 20% cashback, while paying for tickets to any other events – 10%.
To join ETicket4 and to participate in its Pre ICO, users may send BTC (Bitcoin) or ETH (Ethereum) and receive ET4 tokens in return at a price of 1/1000 ETH per token. Those who buy tokens in the first five days of Pre ICO will receive a discount of 8%. Also bonuses are provided depending on the volume of investments and can reach 30% discount.
ETicket4 is an international secondary ticketing platform developed by Russian-Israeli entrepreneurs in 2015. Being an intermediary between various entities involved in the ticket reselling process, the platform serves as a guarantor of transaction security, tickets’ validity, timely payment and delivery.
ETicket4 has an annual turnover of $2 million and already provides tokens with real, rather than speculative, liquidity. During the FIFA Confederations Cup ticket selling period ETicket4 successfully entered the CIS countries and Eastern Europe markets having sold more than 80,000 tickets for the Cup matches and major performers’ shows.
ETicket4 already provides high speed and transparency of transactions in the secondary ticket market. This is an active and successful business: the platform was launched in the fall of 2016, through it more than 80 thousand tickets were sold, more than 3500 professional brokers were registered, and the annual turnover is more than $ 2 million. The service is not only an intermediary, but also a guarantor of transaction security, authenticity tickets, timely payment and delivery. In the long term, the company plans to scale its business in Europe and the US.
Right now the project team is already working on a loyalty program at the core of the token economy, forecasting prices in the secondary market with the help of the neural network, forward contracts for brokers, and general expansion of the platform functionality with the help of blockchain technologies. The participants of the platform have the opportunity to forecast changes in ticket prices and choose the most favorable time for the transaction. Forward contracts and analytical tools for brokers reduce the risks of not selling tickets purchased, and our experience in conducting safe transactions will allow users not to be afraid of fraud.
Contact Email Address
[email protected]
Supporting Link
et4.io
This is a paid press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in the press release.
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Coincheck to Repay Hack Victims’ XEM Balances at 81 U.S. Cents Each
Major Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck has announced that it will reimburse the accounts of the 260,000 customers who lost XEM tokens in a recent hack at a rate of roughly 81 U.S. cents per unit. As of this writing, XEM is trading for approximately 89 U.S. cents, having recovered slightly from its dip in the wake of the hack. The announcement comes amid concerns expressed by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) that it is uncertain as to whether Coincheck possesses sufficient funds in order to conduct the reimbursement.
Also Read: Japanese Crypto Exchanges Strengthen Self-Regulation Following Coincheck Hack
Coincheck Announces Reparations Policy
The price has been calculated “using the weighted average of turnover […] during the period beginning with the suspension of [the] sale of NEM on the Coincheck platform and ending with the release of this notice” (01/26/2018 12:09 JST – 01/27/2018 23:00 JST) using Zaif’s XEM/JPY pairing. Based upon the current price listed on Coinmarketcap of approximately 89 U.S. cents, the reimbursement will comprise a loss of 9% for affected users. The exact date for the distribution of the reparations has not yet been decided.
FSA Expresses Concerns Regarding Coincheck’s Ability to Repay Stolen XEM Balances with JPY
The FSA has demanded that Coincheck conduct an “investigation of the facts and causes surrounding the [hack], a “strengthening of current measures to manage system risk,” in addition to providing “proper support of [its] customers.” The FSA has requested a written report addressing the aforementioned concerns before Tuesday, February 13, 2018. The FSA has also recently expressed uncertainty as to whether or not Coincheck possesses the funds required to conduct its planned reparations.
What is your reaction to Coincheck’s proposed repatriations policy? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Coincheck
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