If you spend any significant amount of time on crypto twitter, especially as a contrarian or a skeptic, you will inevitably come across accounts that seem less than genuine. These bots, sock puppets, or intelligence deficient accounts are a nuisance, but their role in crypto is more complex than their limited speech will convey.
Often while on Twitter I will get angry replies from @firstname12345678 or similarly constructed accounts. Often these accounts will never tweet themselves and will only tweet in response to others. They are frequently irrational, angry, and seem to fail to grasp the nature of reality. Where…
Recently, Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain have increased in usage thanks to congestion on Ethereum.
Also recently, several people have started posting politically censored material on Binance’s chains.
This opens up several ethical questions that I think are valuable for anyone involved in crypto to ruminate on.
Censorship resistance is a valuable tool. It allows for people to transact, create, and act in manners that their government or other authorities might try to stop. It is the fundamental defining feature that gives cryptocurrency meaning.
Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain seem by all measures to be much more centralized…
First, I think it is valuable for us to establish several facts before we start creating a speculative narrative.
- From March of 2017 until September 15th of 2017 Tether did not have a bank account. (Settlement) (My copy)
- The only account they did have was one in the name of their General Counsel, Stuart Hoegner, at Bank of Montreal. This account never had more than $61.5 million dollars in it. (Settlement) (My copy)
- During this period the number of Tether’s issued increased from about 50 million to 442 million, each of which was claimed to be backed by the corresponding…
Bitfinex and Tether have settled with the New York Attorney General. The settlement document can be found here. ( My copy) Many seem to find the document exculpatory, but I find it damning.
As I have discussed previously, Bitfinex and Tether are dishonest and we are now getting a better view into just how dishonest they are.
Crypto Capital Corp is a licensed (in Panama [for one of the corporations]), unlicensed ( My copy) (just about everywhere else) money transmitter and payment processor. They partnered with a variety of cryptocurrency companies including: Kraken, Bitfinex, Quadriga, Bitmex, Coinapault, and more. They are implicated in wire fraud, bank fraud, embezzlement, and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of money laundering for the Colombian cartels.
The reason Crypto Capital Corp matters to me is twofold: first, they appear to be an utterly fascinating fraud entirely on their own. …
Isola Capital, a Chinese “ asset management and family office platform”, arose from Deltec. Their about page proudly proclaimed:
Deltec Bank is the bank currently banking ( archive) Tether ( introduction). Jean Chalopin, the chairman ( archive) of Deltec Bank, the creator of Inspector Gadget, and executive chairman of Deltec International Group is himself mentioned by name on historical versions of Isola Capital’s website. Deltec International Group is not just frequently name-dropped, but is listed as a core shareholder.
According to a report from Michael Green of Logica Funds, Isola Capital is no longer associated with Deltec and has not…
Raphael Nicolle is the founder of Bitfinex. Before that he had an interesting path.
By day a helpdesk technician, during his free time Raphael became active under the account ‘ unclescrooge’ on BitcoinTalk. From this account he makes some interesting posts, including occasional climate change denialism, saying he would invest in illegal businesses, and at least one joke about underage prostitution to make bitcoin. …
At one point I tried to learn about a token called Kimchi. That token no longer has any volume or value to speak of.
I decided to summarize some facts about the failed crypto entrepreneur Jacob Kostecki. Today, the class action lawsuit against him has entered default judgement.
I wrote about a deeply exploitive scam called The Billion Coins. Unfortunately, that coin is still active and is still taking advantage of people. They have tried to rebrand to make themselves look more official, but are still the same group of scum.
I once wrote about a worthless token called slidebits…
NOTE: THIS MAY BE UPDATED OR CHANGED AS I DEVELOP A BETTER PICTURE OF OWNERSHIP OF THESE COMPANIES, UPDATES WILL BE LABELED AS SUCH.
Havelock Investments was an early platform in the cryptocurrency space that allowed for a variety of companies to fundraise.
HAVELOCK INVESTMENTS MINING FUND — Havelock Investments Mining Fund was Havelock’s fund investing in Bitcoin mining.
KORB AND CO. INVESTMENTS MINING FUND — This is another fund that was meant for purchasing Bitcoin mining rigs. You can find the most recent copy of their website here.
SATOSHI DICE — Satoshi Dice was a game started by Eric…
Bitfinex is one of the historically largest Bitcoin exchanges and Tether is by far the largest stablecoin. Each potentially has significant influence over the industry on their own, and their interconnectedness makes this more of a concern. However, since both were founded years ago and many of the events have happened and been in revealed in bits and spurts it can be difficult to understand their place in the cryptocurrency environment. This will hopefully serve as a basic introductory document that will then prompt further research.
Bitfinex was founded by Raphael Nicolle, a helpdesk technician( best I can do for…
