Trump threatens to kill GM’s electric-vehicle subsidies. But even presidents can’t stop market forces

Donald Trump can fret over General Motors Co.’s plan to close plants, slash jobs and ditch models. He can even threaten, as he did Tuesday.

But market forces are tough to beat, even if you’re president.

Trump captured the White House thanks in large part to the story he told — that he could reverse…

L.A. Times – Business

Canadian Law Forces Woman to End Her Life Early

Audrey Parker used Canada’s medically assisted death law to legally end her life—but a provision in that law forced her to do so months earlier than she wanted to. The Guardian looks at the 57-year-old’s case and the debate it has generated: Parker’s stage 4 breast cancer was painful…
Newser

The Daily: Kanye Teaches Opsec, Crypto Foes Join Forces

The last 24 hours has been one of those all-too-rare periods in which the cryptosphere unites against a shared enemy. We’ll detail who in The Daily, right after we’ve discussed blockchain spam, Blockfolio’s new funding round, and how we learned an opsec lesson from Kanye West.

Also read: Bitcoiners Shoot Down Roubini’s US Senate Testimony

Coinbase Gains an Altcoin, Bitfinex Loses a Bank

Coinbase finally listed 0z (ZRX) on Oct. 11, sending the price of the Ethereum-based token into a sharp climb. This miniature pump paled in comparison to that going on over at Yobit, whose exchange-orchestrated pump sent putincoin up 1,370 percent in just 15 minutes, prompting widespread condemnation. While pump and dumps have been part of crypto since the start, they’re rarely instigated by the exchanges themselves.

Two other noteworthy exchange stories also broke on Thursday. Firstly, Bittrex made the unusual decision of relisting metal (MTL), an altcoin it had previously delisted. Elsewhere, it was reported that Bitfinex has paused all USD deposits while it resolves banking issues, believed to have been caused by HSBC terminating the arrangement the exchange had in place via a private account with Global Trading Solutions. The same publication also revealed that Coinbase is shuttering its index fund for high-net-worth individuals, and will be focusing on selling its bundled baskets of cryptocurrencies instead.

Blockfolio Completes $ 11.5M Funding Round

Cryptocurrency portfolio app Blockfolio has completed a Series A round led by Pantera Capital. All told, over a dozen investment funds chipped in, as the project seeks to become more than just the industry’s go-to portfolio checker. Exchanges Bitmex and Huobi also got involved as part of the deal.

“Blockfolio Signal is the beginning of our effort to help the ecosystem move from an era of speculation to an era of participation,” enthused the team. “With our new investment partners, our continued collaboration with token teams and exchanges, and our millions of dedicated users, the future is exceedingly bright. We’re excited to work together to push the ecosystem forward, one block at a time.”

Litecoin Has a UTXO Problem

UTXOs, also known as “dust”, are a problem faced by all Bitcoin-based blockchains. Generally, these nominal wallet balances are swept to aggregate the leftover satoshis from previous transactions into a single wallet. In the case of litecoin, however, that’s not possible for the more than 50 percent of UTXOs that measure just one ‘litoshi’ in size. Sweeping them would cost more in transaction fees than the value of the dust itself. The issue can be traced back to a spam attack in late 2011. Litecoin creator Charlie Lee has now asked the community what should be done with the UTXOs that are lying in limbo.

What should we do about the 12M 1-litoshi outputs in Litecoin's UTXO set that represents more 50% of all UTXOs?

See this Reddit post for more details: https://t.co/gcrJVqmM1b

— Charlie Lee [LTC] (@SatoshiLite) October 11, 2018

So far, crypto Twitter is split between doing nothing and having them marked as unspendable. Vitalik Buterin had a different idea however: the Ethereum founder suggested that Lee “consider an ongoing tax where all UTXOs lose 1 litoshi per N blocks.”

Kanye Teaches the Value of Opsec

Kanye West (or “Ye” as he now wants to be known) had a characteristically bizarre meeting with President Trump on Thursday. During the course of Ye’s nine-minute monologue in the Oval Office, the artist pulled out his cellphone and punched in his password. Onlookers gleefully noted Ye’s code to be six zeroes, prompting crypto commenters to use the incident as an opsec refresher.

“Pro-tip: if you’re going to be in a highly public place surrounded by cameras, change your phone’s passcode to something easy to remember that you wouldn’t use otherwise to avoid revealing your real passcode,” tweeted Peter Todd. Others used the opportunity to meme Ye’s screen when he flashed it at the president:

Cryptosphere Unites as One

Finally, in a rare moment of solidarity, crypto Twitter took time out from arguing on Thursday to unite against Nouriel Roubini. The economist, whose views have been heavily discredited in bitcoin circles, testified before a Senate committee on cryptocurrency.

really worth watching the whole congressional hearing on bitcoin. @valkenburgh describing wechat and alipay as the tools dreamed by totalitarians after @roubini recommended them was beyond perfect. https://t.co/KUus2Mx8ey

— santi (@santisiri) October 11, 2018

Shortly afterward, “Nocoiner” Roubini, as he had been dubbed, embarked on an unhinged Twitter rant that sent his mentions into overdrive.

I’m kind of enjoying this brief moment where the crypto community is united against Nouriel’s ridiculous tweets. https://t.co/vycjWjSSC7

— Linda Xie (@ljxie) October 11, 2018

“A broken clock is right twice a day, or in @Nouriel’s case, once every 10 years,” came one retort, acknowledging the fact that Roubini has been cheering Bitcoin’s demise since 2013, when it dropped below $ 58. There is realistically no price bitcoin can climb or fall to at which Dr. Doom will concede that he was wrong. Like the Christmas truce of World War I, however, Roubini is to be commended for fleetingly bringing crypto foes together.

What are your thoughts on today’s news tidbits as featured in The Daily? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, and Twitter.

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The post The Daily: Kanye Teaches Opsec, Crypto Foes Join Forces appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin News

Deaths of civilians spike as US, Afghan air forces pound Afghanistan

The number of civilians — mostly women and children — killed or injured by airstrikes in Afghanistan has risen a startling 39% year on year, according to UN figures released Wednesday, casting fresh scrutiny on the use of air power by the United States and its Afghan partners at a time of near-record bombing and increasing violence.
CNN.com – RSS Channel – World

Honda joins forces with GM to bring self-driving vehicles to market

General Motors Co.’s self-driving car unit drew its second major investment in a matter of months, with Honda Motor Co. committing to spend $ 2.75 billion on backing the company and joining forces to bring autonomous vehicles to market.

Honda will make a $ 750-million equity investment in GM Cruise…

L.A. Times – Business

Public Anger Forces Bank CFO to Quit Over Huge Money Laundering Affair

Bank executives rarely get punished for their misdeeds, leading to many people distrusting the entire banking system as plagued with widespread corruption. But once in a while someone has to bite the bullet. Recently, public anger has forced a CFO of a major bank to quit after a huge money laundering affair came to light.

Also Read: Denmark’s Largest Bank May Have Facilitated up to $ 150 Billion in Money Laundering

CFO Leaves ING

ING Group (EPA:INGA), the Dutch multinational banking corporation, has announced on Tuesday that Koos Timmermans will step down from his position as chief financial officer and member of the executive board and will leave the company. The bank admitted that his resignation follows the announcement on September 4 about a settlement regarding shortcomings to prevent financial economic crime at ING Netherlands. During the investigated period (2010-2016) Timmermans was a member of the management board and for several years responsible for ING Netherlands.

“We deeply regret the shortcomings found and take this matter very seriously,” said Hans Wijers, chairman of the Supervisory Board of ING. “Given the seriousness of the matter and the many reactions among stakeholders since the announcement and in the interest of the bank, we came to the conclusion it is appropriate that responsibility is taken at Executive Board level. We have a serious task ahead of us and the Executive Board is fully committed to completing the various initiatives we have started at ING Netherlands to further strengthen our handling of compliance risks.”

€775 Million Fine

Last week ING agreed to pay a fine of €675 million and €100 million for disgorgement as part of a settlement agreement with the Dutch Public Prosecution Service, following investigations regarding money laundering and corrupt practices. However, the bank claimed at the time that, the “identified shortcomings that occurred in the period investigated are not attributable to some individual persons but rather collective shortcomings at all responsible management levels.”

This position was only reversed after public anger swelled in the Netherlands, resulting in CFO Timmermans losing his position. Prime Minister Mark Rutte was the most senior figure to voice his displeasure and the Dutch Finance Minister, Wopke Hoekstra, summoned Wijers to The Hague, reportedly stating the affair had “shaken public faith in the banking sector yet again”. Additionally, shareholder interest group VEB asked for an examination of CEO Ralph Hamers’ part in the matter and its president, Paul Koster, suggested that Timmermans was just a “sacrificial victim”. Adding that, “For outsiders…this has the appearance of being about protecting Hamers.”

Should the public be more angry about banks facilitating money laundering? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.

The post Public Anger Forces Bank CFO to Quit Over Huge Money Laundering Affair appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin News

Syrians in Idlib brace for chemical weapons attack, ground invasion by Assad forces

While pro-Assad bombs fall from the skies on the edges of Idlib province – the last opposition stronghold left amid the twilight of Syria’s long-running civil war – those trapped inside the city of the same name can only wait for the inevitable last battle, with nowhere left to hide.
FOX News

Woman Sues Her Special Forces Ex Over Alleged Revenge Porn

A North Carolina woman says her ex-husband, a Special Forces major at Fort Bragg, posted “revenge porn” photos of her online because he was angry about paying child support. Elizabeth Ann Clark’s civil lawsuit against Adam Matthew Clark appears to be the first of its kind in Cumberland County since…
Newser

Lira Volatility Forces Investors to Find New Turkey Hedge

Turkey’s attempts to stabilize its embattled financial markets had borne some fruit this week, sparking a brief rally in the lira, but investors are still looking for ways to hedge against any new shocks.
WSJ.com: What’s News Europe

Qualcomm Deal Collapse Forces NXP to Forge a New Path

Qualcomm decision to abandon the takeover of NXP produced a cash windfall for the Dutch chip maker, but left it scrambling to spell out what its future may hold.
WSJ.com: US Business