Botanix Labs founder Willem Schroé argues a “huge amount of value” from real-world assets will be captured on Bitcoin, provided it connects to the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
Ordinals protocol sparks debate over NFT’s place in the Bitcoin ecosystem
The community has been divided as to whether the NFT-like “digital artifacts” are the right fit for the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Bitcoin hashrate recovers after big freeze shuts down miners
The Bitcoin network hashrate has returned to 241.29 EH/s after a temporary 38% fall to 170.60 EH/s from a weekly peak of 276.40 EH/s.
CZ and Saylor urge for crypto self-custody amid increasing uncertainty
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said self-custody is a “fundamental human right,” while Michael Saylor said self-custody is necessary to prevent powerful actors from accumulating and abusing power.
Cowboy hats, boots, guns and crypto talk with Dan Held
Bitcoiner Dan Held takes journalist Nicole Behnam around Austin, Texas, as they recount their journeys into the world of cryptocurrencies.
Intel To Present Low Voltage, Energy Efficient Bitcoin Mining Chip At Conference
This could be huge. Intel plans to enter the Bitcoin mining space with a cleverly marketed “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient” ASIC chip. Considering that the chip shortage severely delayed the next generation of ASIC miners, this is tremendous. And, more importantly, it opens up the door for Bitcoin miners manufacturing in the USA. And in the rest of the Western world, even.
Related Reading | Why Did China Ban Bitcoin Mining? Here Are The Seven Leading Theories
In December, Raja Koduri hinted at Intel’s intention to get into the Bitcoin mining space. Even though he’s the chief architect and senior vice president of Intel’s architecture, graphics and software division, no one expected Intel to deliver so soon.
Intel jumping into the #Bitcoin mining ASIC manufacturing is a huge. We need way more chip fab in the USA. It will result in:
– Improved National Security– Supply Chain robustness
And it will also result in less reliance on Taiwan, who is being threatened by China aggression.
— Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) January 18, 2022
Details are scarce. There’s nothing on Intel’s official site. A quick search reveals that “Access to additional search results for “bonanza” is restricted”. However, we have the 411 on the project that goes by the code name “Bonanza Mine.”
What Do We Know About Intel ’s “Bonanza Mine”?
The product will be an “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient Bitcoin mining ASIC.” According to Tom’s Hardware, the page that broke the news, Intel will reveal their new chip at:
“The ISSCC conference is a yearly gathering of the best and brightest minds in the chip industry. This year, Intel has a presentation scheduled in the ‘Highlighted Chip Releases’ category to outline a new “Bonanza Mine” processor, a new chip described as an “ultra-low-voltage energy-efficient Bitcoin mining ASIC.”
Apparently, Intel has been developing the product since at least 2018, when they registered “a patent for a specialized processing system that uses an optimized SHA-256 datapath.”According to Tom’s Hardware, “Intel has a wealth of experience in hardware-assisted SHA-256 algorithms due to the use of these instructions in its CPU products.”
This is huge news!
More competition in the hardware mining sector is welcome 
pic.twitter.com/C7I1FQJxH6
— Dan Held (@danheld) January 18, 2022
A more recent indication of the company’s intentions came when the already mentioned Intel executive Raja Koduri “appeared on popular streamer Dr. Lupo’s show.” He told him point-blank:
“Being able to do much more efficient blockchain validation at a much lower cost, much lower power, is a pretty solvable problem. And you know, we are working on that, and at some point in time, hopefully not too far into the future, we will kinda share some interesting hardware for that.”
BTC price chart for 01/18/2022 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Why Is This Development Important?
Until now, ASIC Bitcoin miners manufacturing is controlled by Bitmain and Microbt, with Canaan, Strongu, and Ebang handling a minority of the market. All of those companies are Chinese. The chips are all made in Taiwan and South Korea. This poses a centralization problem for the Bitcoin network that seemed unsolvable until Intel’s soft announcement.
Now, the open-source Bitcoin miner that Jack Dorsey’s Block is working on makes a lot more sense. Theoretically, the silicon chip is the only part of an ASIC machine that can’t be bought in a hardware store. With that problem solved, by no less than an industry leader with immense manufacturing power, the sky’s the limit. If this whole thing materializes, expect a huge leap forward in the further decentralization of Bitcoin mining.
Intel, a $220 billion industry leader, is preparing to launch ASIC hardware for bitcoin mining.
Bitcoin is a computer network. Every technology company will eventually plug themselves into it. https://t.co/pbTFiRqx0B
— Pomp 
(@APompliano) January 18, 2022
Also, Intel’s announcement certainly legitimizes Bitcoin mining as a business to watch for the next 100 years. As podcaster Anthony Pompliano said, “Bitcoin is a computer network. Every technology company will eventually plug themselves into it.” With this announcement, Bitcoin not only gets Intel’s seal of approval. The giant company now has skin in the game.
Related Reading | Intel, Microsoft Took 10+ Years to See Gains, Crypto Investors in Good Position
To close this off, let’s quote Tom’s Hardware one more time:
“For now, it isn’t clear if Intel will release the Bonanza Mine chip as a product for the public or if it remains confined to a research project. However, given that the chip is in the “highlighted Chip Releases: Digital/ML” track and Koduri’s comments, it’s logical to expect that these chips will be offered to customers in the near future.”
So, everything we said is not a done deal just yet. It smells good, though.
Featured Image by Badar ul islam Majid on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView
ESG Organizations Send Letter To Congress About PoW Mining, Bitcoin Responds
Will the ESG FUD ever stop? As a Congressional subcommittee prepares to take a good look at Proof-Of-Work mining, “more than 70” national, international, state and local organizations wrote a letter to the “Congressional leadership.” In it, they use old and unreliable data to get their point across. They completely ignore all of 2021’s research and progress on the matter, because it would invalidate their argument.
The question is, will Congress buy their poorly researched, alarmist letter? The ESG FUD hit PoW mining like a ton of bricks in 2021. It might be based on a poor understanding of the subject at hand, but the public in general definitely bought it. And they quote the bogus numbers that their authorities invented left and right on social media.
Related Reading | Despite Crackdown, Bitcoin Mining Is Still Alive And Well In China
Also, the whole argument completely ignores Bitcoin’s main virtue. The orange coin provides a framework and tools for the world’s transition to a disinflationary system. Paraphrasing “The Price Of Tomorrow’s” author Jeff Booth, in the inflationary system that we live in, there’s a clear incentive for consumption. If your money’s purchasing power decreases by the minute, everybody will logically buy, spend, and consume everything in sight. That is the real monster that the planet’s facing. And Bitcoin fixes it.
In any case, Bitcoin’s resident ESG FUD expert, Nic Carter, took it upon himself to reply to the ESG organizations that sent misinformation to Congress. Let’s see how each part did.
The ESG Organizations Make Their Point, Nic Carter Counterpoints
The ESG organizations come out swinging from the introduction on:
“We, the more than 70 climate, economic, racial justice, business and local organizations, write to you today to urge Congress to take steps to mitigate the considerable contribution portions of the cryptocurrency markets are making to climate change and the resulting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, environmental, and climate justice impacts it will have.”
And their accuracies start from the get-go, also:
“In 2018, scientists writing in Nature warned that Bitcoin’s growth alone could singlehandedly push global emissions above 2 degrees Celsius within less than three decades.”
Those numbers are ridiculous. The study assumes a progression relative to the number of users of the network, and that’s simply not how Bitcoin works. Even if the whole planet adopted the Bitcoin standard, the network would still produce one block every ten minutes. Energy consumption is not directly related to the number of users.
What did Nic Carter respond? That the claim is “false, based on a debunked paper with a completely erroneous model of bitcoin.”
2. bitcoin's energy consumption will 'only get worse over time'
most likely will trail off over time, after peaking in the next decade (see https://t.co/8x0koM6nR9 for actually rigorous projections)
— nic carter (@nic__carter) January 6, 2022
Right after that, the ESG organizations even throw Ethereum under the bus:
“The Digiconomist’s Ethereum Energy Consumption Index estimates that the Ethereum blockchain will consume 71 terawatt-hours this year, nearly the same as the energy consumption of Colombia.”
Since the letter is about PoW mining, it makes sense. The Ethereum community seems to have completely ignored the letter, at least over at Twitter.
BTC price chart for 01/07/2021 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Bitcoin Incentivizes Green Energy Infrastructure
The ESG organizations continue their poorly-researched attack with:
“The GHG emissions from this exorbitant and unnecessary energy consumption is staggering.”
It’s not unnecessary at all. In fact, PoW mining is absolutely essential for a decentralized, permissionless system. And the energy consumption is directly proportional to the security of the network. Plus, it anchors it to the real world. Not to mention the fact that Bitcoin actually incentivizes and finances green energy infrastructure.
Then, the ESG crowd accuses Bitcoin of “exacerbating” the global chip shortage:
“Increased demand for these machines are exacerbating a global shortage of semiconductors. A bipartisan bill by Senators Maggie Hassan and Joni Ernst has called for a report on how cryptocurrency mining operations are impacting semiconductor supply chains.“
With ease, Nic Carter counterattacks with: “Bitcoin miners are not tier 1 clients, they don’t compete with Apple/Qualcomm/NVIDIA for space; the shortage is due to money printing and the demand shock. See section on semis here.”
5. Atlas/ greenidge increased power prices in NY.
The Atlas mine brought back online a fallow coal plant (converted to natgas) which now provides energy to the grid (in addition to mining). That's energy supplied to the grid which wasn't being produced beforehand
— nic carter (@nic__carter) January 6, 2022
Texas Doesn’t Know What Its Doing, The ESG Crowd Does
Then, the ESG researchers make wild, unbacked assumptions about Texas power:
“Following a crackdown on cryptocurrency miners in China, many miners are moving to Texas, due to its deregulated grid, taking away the power that Texans need.”
This completely ignores the fact that the state of Texas went to great lengths to attract those miners. And that, unlike the ESG organizations that signed the infamous letter, power companies in Texas regularly attend Bitcoin meetings. They are making an effort to understand the technology and the opportunities it brings to them. Also, as Carter puts it, “Majority of mining is in west texas where transmission bottlenecks mean prices routinely go negative. Huge overcapacity and limited demand for power outside of mining.”
Miners also participate in demand response, meaning they aren't online when the grid is overburdened. Their presence dramatically improves economics for renewables and does not compete with households during scarcity events.
— nic carter (@nic__carter) January 6, 2022
The state of Texas knows what it’s doing, they see Bitcoin’s future is bright. These ESG organizations think they know better, though:
“Adding more energy-guzzling crypto mining operations to Texas could exacerbate the sorts of blackouts the state already saw during the extreme cold in February — outages that reporting shows hit communities of color the hardest.”
Wow, playing the race card there. So low. And unrelated. Anyway, answering the claim that miners “could exacerbate” the February blackouts, Carter says. “Miners were/ would have been offline during this time, as we demonstrate here. They also help alleviate ‘black start’ issues through primary frequency response.”
9. Stronghold mining with coal waste is bad (implied)
The coal waste was going to oxidize naturally. It was going to combust anyway. This is an incentive to clean up a nasty site leeching into groundwater etc. Neutral from a CO2 perspective and ++ from an ecology view
— nic carter (@nic__carter) January 6, 2022
Three Other Prominent Bitcoiners’ Response
Are these direct responses to the ESG organizations’ letter? It’s not clear, but the authors published them in the same timeframe. The first one refers to SHA256, the set of cryptographic hash functions that Bitcoin uses. Nunchuk founder Hugo Nguyen said, “Once you understand that SHA256 is close to being 100% efficient at what it does, you’d stop calling it a “waste”. In fact, 100% efficiency is the exact opposite of “waste”. There’s nothing else like it.”
Once you understand that SHA256 is close to being 100% efficient at what it does, you’d stop calling it a “waste”. In fact, 100% efficiency is the exact opposite of “waste”. There’s nothing else like it. https://t.co/SLuVrAPfU2
— Hugo Nguyen (@hugohanoi) January 7, 2022
For his part, Swan Bitcoin’s Brandon Quittem attacks the concept of energy consumption being inherently bad. “Energy consumption is directly correlated with GDP. Want to help developing countries? Help them harness more energy. Interestingly, Bitcoin acts as a free market subsidy for energy investment.”
3/ Energy consumption is directly correlated with GDP.
Want to help developing countries? Help them harness more energy.
Interestingly, Bitcoin acts as a free market subsidy for energy investment.
Incentivizes developing otherwise uneconomical energy sources. pic.twitter.com/DJ6yYoz6WO
— Brandon Quittem (@Bquittem) January 6, 2022
And Kraken’s Dan Held states that “Bitcoin’s energy consumption is not “wasteful.” Why? Because “It is much more efficient than existing financial systems.” And we’re talking orders of magnitude, here. Not only that, “No one has the moral authority to tell you what is a good or bad use of energy (ex: watching the Kardashians).”
1/ Bitcoin’s energy consumption is not “wasteful.”
– It is much more efficient than existing financial systems– No one has the moral authority to tell you what is a good or bad use of energy (ex: watching the Kardashians)
Let's debunk this FUD
— Dan Held (@danheld) January 6, 2022
Do you know how much energy American households use for their Christmas lights? As much as the whole Bitcoin network, that’s how much.
Related Reading | Is This The Reason China Banned Bitcoin Mining? Carvalho’s Mind Blowing Theory
Where is the letter to Congress protesting Christmas lights, ESG organizations?
Featured Image by Karsten Würth on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView
Did US Regulators Began Offensive Against Crypto Platforms? CFTC Fines Kraken
One of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, Kraken, received a $1.25M fine. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission imposed the “civil monetary penalty” plus a cease and desist from “further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA)” on September 28th. According to the CFTC, Kraken provided margin for commodity transactions to retail clients in the U.S. who were not suitable to use those products.
Related Reading | How the CFTC fine on Coinbase could affect future crypto company listing
The fine, however, seems like a slap on the wrist for a gargantuan company like Kraken. They’re a private company and their annual revenue is not on the public domain, but they raised $100M at a $4B valuation in 2019. And, reportedly, Kraken was seeking a $20B valuation this year following an IPO that didn’t happen. For a company that size, a $1.25M fine is not much, but maybe the punishment just fits the violation.
ETH price chart on Kraken | Source: ETH/USD on TradingView.com
What Did Kraken Do Exactly?
The violation occurred between June 2020 and July 2021 approximately. During that period, “Kraken illegally operated as an unregistered FCM.” And, what did the unregistered futures commission merchant offer? Well, U.S. customers could acquire digital assets using margin, and Kraken provided said asset or the fiat money “to pay the seller for the asset.” Of course, users had to provide collateral and pay for the received asset within 28 days.
If they didn’t pay in the established period, “Kraken could unilaterally force the margin position to be liquidated.” They could also liquidate “if the value of the collateral dipped below a certain threshold percentage of the total outstanding margin.” In short, Kraken was selling derivatives and extending credit without registering as an FCM. “These transactions were unlawful because they were required to take place on a designated contract market and did not.”
The CFTC’s Acting Director of Enforcement, Vincent McGonagle, said in the press release:
“This action is part of the CFTC’s broader effort to protect U.S. customers. Margined, leveraged or financed digital asset trading offered to retail U.S. customers must occur on properly registered and regulated exchanges in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.”
The Cryptocurrency Exchange’s Latests Plays
Over the last few months, Kraken representatives went hard on the traditional financial system. From their Director Dan Held calling the whole thing “a cartel,” to CEO Jesse Powell predicting that cryptocurrency companies would replace them within a decade. In Held’s tweet, he attached a graphic that showed how the consolidation of the US banking sector advanced through the years. Nowadays, just four institutions control it all:
The traditional banking system is a cartel.#Bitcoin fixes this. pic.twitter.com/LEFCTb6g93
— Dan Held (@danheld) July 1, 2021
Related Reading | Bitcoin Slides 5% From Recent Highs Amidst Binance CFTC Probe Revelation
For his part, the last day of March, Powell told Bloomberg:
“Most of these guys haven’t done the work these last ten years to make sure they are current with the crypto technology. So I think there’s a very real risk that over the next ten years, for those legacy businesses to be simply replaced.”
In more recent news, Kraken is trying to re-enter the European market. The company was licensed to operate through the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. Thus, since Brexit happened, they have to find a new home for their license. When NewsBTC covered the news, we said:
“Powell added that the Kraken exchange seeks to re-enter Europe by the end of 2021. It will go with the Republic of Ireland, Malta, and Luxembourg, among possible countries, to award such a license. However, they are yet to fix an official date as the talk still goes on.”
Will the $1.25M fine the CFTC imposed throw a wrench on those, or any of Kraken’s plans? Certainly not. Not by a long shot.
Featured Image by Erik Tanghe from Pixabay – Charts by TradingView
Kraken Director Dan Held Tags Traditional Financial Institutions A “Cartel”
Kraken Director Dan Held recently posted a tweet that shows what he thinks of the traditional banking system.
Are traditional banks truly a collision of government financial structures for monopoly? A necessary fact-check and digging into the actual status of the state-owned bricks and mortar financial depository institutions comes to bear following Dan Held’s recent tweet.
The traditional banking system is a cartel.#Bitcoin fixes this. pic.twitter.com/LEFCTb6g93
— Dan Held (@danheld) July 1, 2021
Dan’s Profile
Dan Held, at present, is the Director of Growth Marketing at Kraken. A company he sold his erstwhile company called Interchange to. The company was a portfolio reconciliation tool for crypto institutional traders. Kraken acquired Interchange in July of 2019.
He has, over time, been actively involved in crypto activities. For instance, before his role at Kraken, Dan created some of the most prominent earlier crypto products, including ChangeTip and ZeroBlock acquired by AirBnB and ZeroBlock and Blockchain.com, respectively, second-ever all Bitcoin acquisition.
Related Reading | Controversial Bitcoin Mining Council Confirms “Sustainable Power Mix”
2013 is worthy of mentioning as the year he was part of the original crypto meetup group in SF. The meetup comprised of crypto giants like the founders of Coinbase, Litecoin, and Kraken, which he now works for.
As ardent crypto, particularly bitcoin, influencer, the U.S. national recently took to his Twitter media page on Thursday to label the structure of traditional financial institutions as equivalent to “a cartel.”
What Dan Held Thinks Of Traditional Banks
To Dan, “Institutions” are referred to as financial institutions, otherwise known as banking institutions, which are corporations that provide services as intermediaries of financial markets that are formed to monopolize the financial market.
They include central banks, sovereign wealth funds, different types of banks (ex: commercial/investment), brokerages, and insurance firms. However, Dan’s tagged – “a cartel” was exclusively for the state’s banks other than the private ones, as perceived.
So was he in any way right terming them a cartel?
Traditional Banks: A Cartel Or Not? Findings Show, He Might Be Right
A study reported in 2020 ships in some support to Dan’s claim. The study posits that Banks are becoming “instruments, rather than conduits, of monetary policy.”
In the advanced civilizations, most significantly, the 2020 findings uncovered that since the 2008 financial crisis, private banks had been subjected to some brutal regulatory changes in the hands of state-owned ones.
From pricing caps on loans to floors on deposits to rising capital buffer requirements, and the list goes on, the pain for many minority shareholders is seemingly endless.
Many countries, especially the developing ones, have gone one step ahead in terms of their involvement in the banking sector of their respective states.
However, the study highlights that the authority of these countries is making an effort to fuel the dominance of state-owned banks over private players.
Related Reading | Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital Launches Ethereum Fund
And then some take “outright stakes in formerly ‘private’ banks (in both friendly and less than amicable manners), to exercise an increasingly populist form of monetarism.”
JP Morgan Chief Confirmation
Comments from the likes of Jamie Dimon, a central figure in JP Morgan, a global leader in financial services offering solutions to the world’s most important corporations, governments, etc., drives home Dan Held’s tweet. The Chief Executive during a financial crisis period was once quoted as saying,
“I believe there were people … who were greedy, selfish, did the wrong stuff, overpaid themselves, and couldn’t give a damn. Yes.”
His utterance reflected the monopoly, resultant corruption, and abuse the state-backed financial institutions’ players were enjoying at the time at the expense of the common good.
Regulatory default
Another report in the same year on findings by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) shows that five global central banks have been detected siphoning trillions of dollars in criminal funds in the recently leaked FinCEN Files.
The shocking finding is 2,100 documents stretching from 2000 to 2017. It reveals swindling funds flowed almost effortlessly through JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank, and Bank of New York Mellon.
The detected FinCEN Files show that Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and other world government-controlled regulatory bodies rarely prosecute the world’s banking cartel.
Related Reading | FinCEN Issues Advisory On Iran’s “Illicit” Use of Crypto to Bypass Sanctions
It Was All About Decentralized and Centralized Antagonism
Nonetheless, the support of the fact checks on his claim, we assume Dan’s stance has been triggered by the competition between Bitcoin and the government-backed legal tender.
While Dan Held is trustworthy, many think it was mere advocacy for Bitcoin against the regulatory competitor.
Featured image from Dan Held Twitter, chart from TradingView.com
The Definitive Breakdown of All Bitcoin FUD, With Dan Held
From “backed by nothing” to “China mining control,” a complete look at the best response to every category of bitcoin FUD out there.
Satoshi’s Unappreciated Marketing Genius, Feat. Dan Held
There is a constant free market competition to define the Bitcoin narrative, and Kraken’s Dan Held argues this is part of what makes the protocol so strong.
Kraken’s Dan Held on What’s Different About Bitcoin at $10K This Time
As bitcoin inches towards $10,000, @nlw is joined by Kraken’s Dan Held to discuss how the narrative, infrastructure and audience have changed since this price last year.
