Big Tech

JPMorgan Boss Says ‘Emerging Issues’ Like Cryptocurrencies ‘Need to Be Dealt With Quickly’

08/04/2021 by Idelto Editor

JPMorgan’s boss Jamie Dimon has a bone to pick with cryptocurrencies, shadow banking, and the financial technology (fintech) economy. In a letter to JPMorgan shareholders, Dimon explained that banks are “playing an increasingly smaller role in the financial system” and there’s a list of items like digital currencies he’s named that needs to be “dealt with – and rather quickly.”

Jamie Dimon’s Letter to JPMorgan Shareholders Says Banks Need to Focus on the Future

Jamie Dimon has written a comprehensive letter to shareholders about the company’s accomplished goals and future concerns. Dimon’s letter, of course, meets the needs of his friends in Davos and the World Economic Forum’s 2030 playbook. The JPMorgan CEO addressed many of these targets like addressing climate change and lending more money to minorities who have limited access to banking.

In addition to the accomplishments and future changes, Dimon noted that financial incumbents are “bogged down in the past” and a concentration needs to be dedicated to the future.

Dimon highlights that U.S. banks have grown much smaller in comparison to shadow banks, fintech, and the magnitude of the ‘Big Tech’ companies. The JPMorgan CEO thinks however that it is “more important” for payment transactions to flow through the U.S. banking system than these alternatives.

“Transactions made by well-controlled, well-supervised, and well-capitalized banks may be less risky to the system than those transactions that are pushed into the shadows,” the letter to shareholders insists.

Competition and Dealing With Cryptocurrencies Rather Quickly

Still, Dimon recognizes the need for competition in the financial world.

“We need competition – because it makes banking better – and we need to manage the emerging risks with level playing field regulation in a way that ensures safety and soundness across the industry,” he stressed. Despite the competition, Dimon believes there are “serious emerging issues” that need to be “dealt with” soon.

“Not only are we slow in dealing with the past, but it distracts us from dealing with the future,” the JPMorgan boss emphasized. “There are serious emerging issues that need to be dealt with – and rather quickly: the growth of shadow banking, the legal and regulatory status of cryptocurrencies, the proper and improper use of financial data, the tremendous risk that cybersecurity poses to the system, the proper and ethical use of AI, the effective regulation of payment systems, disclosures in private markets, and effective regulations around market structure and transparency.”

Dimon has been well known for disliking cryptocurrencies and bitcoin and even called the leading crypto asset a “fraud” a few years ago.

Despite this, JPMorgan has shown strong interest in bitcoin (BTC) and the digital currency economy during the last year. In February even after calling cryptocurrencies the “poorest hedge for major drawdowns in equities” it said investors can allocate 1% of their portfolios in crypto assets.

What do you think about Jamie Dimon’s opinion about bitcoin needing to be “dealt with” rather quickly? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Purging Today’s Freedom Activists: Why Big Tech’s Censorship Isn’t Directed Solely at Trump Supporters

23/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

There’s been a lot of unrest in the U.S. and just before the presidential election’s electoral vote, Big Tech took action and censored a great number of individuals and even competing social media platforms. Moreover, even after President Biden’s first few days in office, social media apps continued to purge dissent. On January 22, Facebook deleted my social media profile, and a former co-worker’s account as well, for our libertarian views.

An Anti-War, Free-Market Libertarian Speaking Out Against Tyranny and Censorship

For many years now I’ve been an activist and years ago, Dr. Ron Paul helped me find libertarianism. At that time, I was a minarchist who believed in a minimalist form of government and the constitution. However, after traveling further down the rabbit hole, by reading the likes of Larkin Rose, Lysander Spooner, and others, I changed. Six months later, I considered myself an anarcho-capitalist. In 2008, I created my Facebook account and since then, even well before I began writing about bitcoin, I amassed a large following.

Years later, in late 2011 into 2012, I discovered bitcoin and three years later, I decided to write about the technology every single day for a profession. For over a decade, I had used Facebook to share my libertarian views, connect with others, and share my bitcoin articles as well. It was in 2020 when things really started to change on the platform. Censorship was taking place regularly, and the company had applied ‘fact-checkers’ that are used to flag alleged ‘fake media.’ I personally never advocated violence, hate, or anything that truly went against community standards.

I did, however, explain on a regular basis that the government is an immoral entity, one that is built upon violence. I was not a Trump fan or a Republican, however, I had shown distaste for Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Obama, Bush, and the rest of the presidential goons. Yes, I regularly told political followers that they had lost all decency by forgetting to be individuals and instead towing R & D party lines. Many posts I had written also called for opening the economy, letting people decide on whether or not they want to wear a mask, and other topics involving the coronavirus and civil liberties.

Big Tech Censorship Is Not Just Targeting Trump Supporters, but Anyone Who Supports Free Thought and Liberty

Then during the first week of the year, after the Capitol breach in Washington DC, I wrote about the event. My editorial was a scathing critique of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google, and Amazon’s decision to censor not only Donald Trump but hundreds of right-wing supporters, conservatives, and libertarians. During that period of time, I had also predicted that my Facebook (FB) profile, in particular, would be axed in due time. I told an old friend from high school that week that I knew that I would be next in line, and two weeks later my prediction came to fruition.

Before my account was deleted, I managed 15 libertarian-based pages, had close to 5,000 friend connections, and moderated six cryptocurrency groups. On Friday morning, the account was completely disabled and was given no access to my FB profile data.

Now, this editorial isn’t a complaint, but more of a documentation of events in order to showcase the fact that the current Big Tech censorship is not just focused on Trump conservatives, but literally anyone with a dissenting opinion against the state. I wasn’t the only one who was purged, as a number of other like-minded individuals who expressed distaste for the current oligarchic rule were also wiped off Facebook on Friday. Sterlin Lujan, a former news.Bitcoin.com contributor, was also purged by Facebook and just like my experience, we were given no reason and no chance to appeal the decision.

“I woke up in the morning and as usual I checked my Facebook page,” Lujan explained to me. “It was still active. I took a restroom break, sat back down at the desk, and my account was logged off. I tried to log back in and it said my account was disabled for violating community standards. I tried to appeal the decision, but I received an auto-response saying I could not appeal my account. This is nothing new for me. I have had issues with Facebook censoring my pages and accounts for a couple of years now. Back in 2018, my Facebook page Psychologic-Anarchist got purged. It had around 50,000 followers, and I have managed other pages that got censored as well,” Lujan added.

Lujan said that many people think only ‘extremists’ are getting the ban hammer. But in reality, anyone who supports free thought and liberty has gotten caught up in their censorial campaigns. The libertarian further stressed that moderators and decision-makers of these social media platforms want people to be carbon copies of each other, uttering the same platitudes and gleefully discussing simple things like the weather.

“My own personal feed was filled with discussions on freedom from government intrusion, the importance of privacy and cryptography, and the power of compassion and love for transforming society into one based on voluntary action rather than coercion,” Lujan emphasized. He further added:

In this regard, I did not break any community standards as they claimed I did. Of course, they did not bother to point out any “wrongdoing.” Facebook, along with other Big Tech social media platforms, are on a crusade to purge people who don’t support big government, political correctness, and communist mentalities. It’s a tragedy, but what’s happening represents all the scary stuff that Orwell chronicled in his book 1984. We are actually living in a much worse dystopian nightmare by comparison.

The Ruling Elite Fears What We Might Say

Currently, the unrest in the U.S. is being suppressed by censorship and the whole principle of censorship is wrong and immoral. The experience has led me to agree with Lujan’s opinion, that this societal system is swelling into a grotesque dystopian nightmare. One where voices are silenced regularly for speaking freely and not adhering to the nation state’s propaganda.

For years now, and just a few weeks before this event, I had written extensively about people migrating to decentralized social media. I am still using Twitter, but have migrated my social media presence to places like noise.cash, Flote, Minds, memo.cash, member.cash, and Peepeth as well. This is the best I can do and we can do, which is just re-build and migrate to decentralized social media that allow free speech and censorship-resistant discussions.

The worst part about the current censorship in the U.S. is the fact that the populace (even friends and family) is sitting idly by watching it all without protest. In fact, many are becoming apologists for censorship and giving excuses to those who produce the suppression. Just like Lujan and the others who have been purged, I was not a Trump supporter and I only spoke my mind about collective tyranny. Yet I was deplatformed because I will never stand down to collective tyranny, and I have promised myself to hold my principles dear.

My main goal is to let you the reader know that this Big Tech censorship is quite real and fascism in the U.S. is thriving. There’s no doubt that this current censorship agenda will continue and freedom activists should be prepared to fight it with whatever voice we have left. As Laurie Halse Anderson once said, “censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.”

What do you think about my experience with Facebook censorship? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Kim Dotcom Discusses the Swelling Crypto Economy and His Plans to ‘Accelerate P2P Electronic Cash’

13/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

This week, news.Bitcoin.com chatted with Kim Dotcom, the founder of the now-defunct file hosting service Megaupload and the creator of the content monetization application called K.im. The Internet entrepreneur Dotcom is a big believer when it comes to the crypto economy and during the conversation, we discussed subjects like bitcoin cash, the recent Big Tech censorship, and how cryptocurrencies will forward financial freedom.

Kim Dotcom is a well known Internet entrepreneur and political activist that believes the crypto economy will continue to swell in value. Dotcom is well known for being the former CEO of the now-defunct file hosting platform Megaupload. The site was taken down by the U.S. government in 2012, but before the takedown Megaupload served 180,000,000 registered members, and saw 50,000,000 visits per day.

Currently, Dotcom is working on a content monetization application called K.im which will meld the benefits of cryptocurrency solutions and file hosting. News.Bitcoin.com reported on the application in the summer of 2017, and the K.im platform is expected to launch in Q4 of 2021.

Moreover, Dotcom has revealed that the next-generation content monetization app will see bitcoin cash (BCH) integration. During our phone conversation, Dotcom spoke about the recent demand for digital assets, why BCH has a lot of upside potential, the recent Big Tech censorship, and how decentralized platforms will invigorate our future.

Bitcoin.com (BC): While the global economy has been extremely gloomy, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have seen significant demand. Do you think cryptocurrencies will continue to shine in 2021?

Kim Dotcom: What we’ve seen with the global economy because of the pandemic, in my mind is really just the beginning of greater global distress of the economy and currencies. Simply because governments are printing money to finance debt. In the U.S. alone in 2020, over 30% of all the U.S. dollars in existence have been created during the year. It’s just not sustainable, you cannot keep printing money to pay what is required.

I think there is a significant devaluation of the U.S. dollar going on and that is driving the demand for cryptocurrencies. Digital currencies are now seen to be more stable than fiat currencies. If that trend continues, which I think it will, it’s going to accelerate the devaluation of fiat currencies. Therefore causing significant disturbances in the markets as well.

BC: Recently you said that Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has great “upside potential” and is currently “undervalued.” Can you tell our readers why you think this is the case?

Kim Dotcom: There are a couple of factors. One factor is that bitcoin cash (BCH) already does around 10% of the transaction volume that bitcoin (BTC) does. But BCH is only valued at 1% of the current valuation of BTC. So that’s a little bit of a discrepancy there. It is a very simple way to understand why it is undervalued. Another reason is that bitcoin cash, unlike bitcoin, is electronic cash where bitcoin wants to be electronic gold. Bitcoin is not really what you use to pay for things online. If you go and buy an apple and transaction fees cost more than the fruit, that’s not a viable electronic cash solution.

Now when you look at the transaction volume potential for bitcoin cash, it is significantly higher than that of bitcoin because of the parameters of BCH. It has very low fees, currently, on txstreet.com it says that the average media fee for bitcoin cash is $0.001 per transaction.

You don’t have that with BTC, so bitcoin cash is likely to take a more significant share of daily, real-life transactional volume. That’s where the upside potential lies and that’s why I think BCH is undervalued.

BC: You also said the other day that you plan to make bitcoin cash the “leading electronic cash solution in the world” and said you plan to help “accelerate the use of BCH.” How do you plan to do that?

Kim Dotcom: So global credit card transactions are about 1.01 billion a day, I think that bitcoin cash in the next ten years will be able to compete with that. More and more vendors are accepting bitcoin cash at their point-of-sale and we are going to accelerate that with partnerships. Getting big retail chains to accept bitcoin cash like grocery markets and really anything that does big volumes of transactions. Then of course, online transactions as well because nothing works better and smoother than bitcoin cash. It’s already a proven system with over 100,000 vendors that have implemented BCH, so you can see that there is a demand for a solution that is cheaper and better than traditional credit cards.

BC: Can you tell our readers about the progress of the application K.im you have been working on?

Kim Dotcom: It’s going well and we’ve been working on it for a number of years. We’re basically turning files into shops. For example, if you are a music artist and you created an mp3 file, you can embed that into a K.im file shop and then the file becomes the shop. You can unlock the content inside the file with a crypto payment, and that’s a new way for people to basically transact. They can also have a section in the file shop for commissions, so they can have a sales force all over the Internet.

Anyone who wants to sell their content can get whatever share the artist or creator wants to have, so you can basically turn the entire Internet into a massive sales force. We expect K.im to have several hundred million users within five years of launching and a lot of that transaction volume will sit with bitcoin cash. Simply because it is the cheapest, fastest way to transact right now with crypto.

BC: How do you think the world’s governments will react to the swelling crypto economy and permissionless innovations?

Kim Dotcom: I think cryptocurrencies are going to be a target for governments, because crypto is in reality competing with the money-printing schemes. The governments want to continue to print money to pay their bills. To pay for its military, to pay for whatever the government needs. As long as crypto continues to grow, the ability of the government to do that and run these old schemes is undermined more and more. I think we will see governments creating difficulties for cryptocurrencies and I expect that.

BC: Just recently, Big Tech censored the sitting U.S. President and a number of other voices and even applications like Parler. Why do you think this is happening?

Kim Dotcom: You can see that Big Tech is getting more and more engaged in politics. One has to wonder what these companies want to get out of this. They are not doing this out of their good heart, they are doing this for a purpose and one has to wonder what that purpose is.

BC: With governments encroaching on freedoms worldwide, do you think cryptocurrency networks will help protect financial freedoms?

Kim Dotcom: Absolutely, cryptocurrencies are the game-changer. They will definitely unlock more freedoms for people around the world. It is just one of many components. What the Big Tech companies did has very little to do with crypto because they run the infrastructure we are all using. They can now basically control what we see, what we hear, and that is frightening. Blockchain is just as interesting as the Internet was and the opportunities are endless. I think that it is important that we have more decentralized, non-corporate owned networks to communicate.

We don’t really want a single entity to be able to change the way we communicate. It should be a network for the people, by the people, open source, decentralized, and I think that is the future. I think the tech giants are making a big mistake in underestimating the power of open source and the willingness of people to switch to something else.

BC: When do you think the masses will catch on to cryptocurrency solutions?

Kim Dotcom: We will see a steady rise of people adopting cryptocurrencies. It is only roughly 3% of Internet users that have had any contact with crypto. The upside potential is enormous. The more people learn about the benefits of cryptocurrencies, the easier it becomes to use and the safer it becomes to use. With those improvements, more people will engage and that is part of my mission. We need to do a good job of marketing crypto better.

The crypto community also has to come together and work together toward that effort because the sooner we have critical mass, the better for everyone involved in the crypto space. I see a lot of infighting, I see a lot of tribal negative arguments and they are counter-productive. We should all just work together to make sure that users feel safe coming into this space. So the first thing they see is not all these arguments and bickering about what is the best cryptocurrency.

BC: Do you think applications like K.im will help fuel the crypto economy and peer-to-peer electronic cash solutions?

Kim Dotcom: Yes big time. K.im is going to have hundreds of millions of users and they are going to fuel the crypto economy no doubt. It’s going to be a part of making mass adoption happen and there will be some killer apps like K.im, that will do the same and combined, we’re going to drive more and more people toward accepting cryptocurrencies.

What do you think about our conversation with Kim Dotcom? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Big Tech’s Freedom of Speech Purge Pushes People to Censorship-Resistant Blockchain Social Media

09/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

During the last few days, the world has watched the Big Tech and social media crackdown after the incident that took place at Capitol Hill a few days ago. During the last 48 hours, U.S. President Donald Trump, a great number of right-wing supporters, and literally anyone who speaks out against the U.S. government has been censored. The extreme Big Tech censorship has driven a great number of social media participants to search for censorship-resistant alternatives.

Big Tech’s Purge

In 2020 and into 2021, mainstream media alongside the help of Twitter, Google, Apple, Youtube, Amazon, and Facebook has managed to whitewash the corruption and scandalous acts caused by the U.S. bureaucracy. Following the large protest in Washington and the protestors who managed to enter the Capitol building; videos, pictures, and viral social media posts littered the internet capturing the day’s events. Then after it was all said and done, in a matter of mere hours, Big Tech and the social media giants started to purge any dissent.

These tech companies ARE becoming the state.

Privacy violations, blatant bans and an extraordinary willingness to appease increasingly authoritarian governments.

— russ (@RussellOkung) January 9, 2021

On January 7, Facebook announced the deletion of President Trump’s page and also said that it would be deleting all the commentary that shows “praise and support of the storming of the U.S. Capitol.” Facebook said they would also be deleting posts that call for peaceful protests, alongside pictures and videos of the Capitol breach.

History and future Americans will not judge kindly those who in times of crisis chose to censor and silence their fellow Americans.

— Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) January 9, 2021

Facebook has further implemented a new feature asking the user if they are sure they want to post. The company has started to purge any dissent toward the American bureaucracy and plan to “update labels on posts” and add more fact-checkers. Facebook said the firm will leverage “AI to demote content that likely violates our policies.”

85,000 followers purged in a day and a half.

I guess the Twitter folks missed all the liberal blather about “unity.”

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) January 9, 2021

Additionally, Twitter decided to follow Facebook’s censorship path as well, and also banned the @realdonaldtrump account with 87 million followers. Twitter called the President’s account a “risk” that could further incite violence and called the Capitol building breach “horrific.” The company highlighted two tweets written by Trump and said that they glorified violence. Following the deletion of Trump’s account, Twitter also slashed the followers of many activists who have shown any signs of a dissenting viewpoint.

On January 9th 2021 Silicon Valley took over. Welcome to a new world.

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) January 9, 2021

Further, left-wing supporters have applauded the censorship and a great majority of the bureaucrats have joined the purge as well. Some of them have even called on Apple and Google for the deletion of censorship-resistant social media apps like Parler. Many progressives have fully supported the censorship of dissenting views, and are calling for even more censoring.

Decentralized Networks and Blockchain-Based Social Media Alternatives

The intense censorship storm has invoked a great number of people to leave Twitter and Facebook and search for alternatives. Of course, there are decentralized alternatives that don’t use blockchain tech like Diaspora, Mastodon, Parler, Flote, Sola, and Manyverse, but there are many social media apps that do use blockchain tech.

A blockchain-based social media application operates just like the popular social media giants we all use today, but they also allow people to post content in a censorship-resistant and immutable fashion.

Big Tech's Freedom of Speech Purge Pushes People to Censorship-Resistant Blockchain Social Media — One particular decentralized application called memo.cash skips all the censorship nonsense, as it allows users to post content to the BCH chain. In November 2020, memo.cash launched its iOS application for the App Store.

Right now there are a few blockchain-based alternative social media sites that allow people to speak and share content in an immutable fashion. Some of these applications have been operating for a few years now, and some of them are just starting to kickstart the social network. These platforms are also built on various blockchains like Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, IOTA, EOS, and more.

A few of the apps also leverage both blockchain technology and the Inter-Planetary File System (ipfs.io) in a combination. Blockchain apps that people can sign up for and test today include platforms like Voice, Memo.cash, Peepeth, Member.cash, Socialx, Sapien, Lbry, Dtube, All.me, Minds, Society2, Peakd, Hive, and Indorse.

For instance, the app Peepeth is a decentralized “microblogging” platform that emulates Twitter in some ways. The platform is built using the Ethereum blockchain and IPFS. Another application called Memo.cash is a decentralized social network powered by the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. Essentially, all Memo posts are visible to anyone using the BCH blockchain, with each Memo account being associated with a BCH wallet address. Member.cash is another decentralized public platform for discussion and reputation built using the BCH chain. The Member.cash model is similar to Reddit, but leverages the BCH network for censorship resistance and decentralization.

The application called Minds leverages the Ethereum (ETH) network and claims to be accessible to all, and says it is censorship-resistant as well. People looking for Youtube alternatives can try Dtube or Lbry. For instance, Lbry’s creators say the app is a decentralized content sharing and publishing platform that is wholly owned by its users. There are many types of social media applications that leverage blockchain, decentralization techniques like IPFS, and have created places where anyone can speak their minds.

As usual, the biggest downfall of all these applications is the lack of users, as most people have not gravitated toward decentralized social media. However, during the last few years as nation-states have ramped up censorship, and heightened the crackdown against anti-government rhetoric, these platforms have seen significant growth.

The best thing people can do right now is to start migrating toward social media applications that offer decentralization and blockchain censorship-resistance, because the dystopian world that looks an awful lot like Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 is surely upon us.

What do you think about the myriad of censorship-resistant and blockchain-based social media applications? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

US Representatives Add Digital Currencies to the 2021 Defense Bill

06/12/2020 by Idelto Editor

The United States government is preparing to pass the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the latest bill includes a broad definition of currencies and includes “digital currencies.” However, after more than 50 NDAA bills passed, President Donald Trump plans to veto the act which is expected to authorize more than $740.5 billion.

U.S. Congress members are expected to complete the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the 2021 fiscal year. The NDAA is the name for a series of U.S. laws that involve the U.S. Department of Defense and the entity’s annual budget and expenditures. The NDAA was first invoked in 1961, but during the last two decades, the bill has been very controversial.
This year’s NDAA includes the name and definition of digital currencies like bitcoin. A summary of the 2021 NDAA by one of its sponsors Mark Warner from Virginia explains that the inclusion of digital currencies is necessary.

“[To] ensure the inclusion of current and future payment systems in the AML-CFT regime by updating the definition of “coins and currency” to include digital currency,” explains Mark Warner’s press release that discusses “corporate transparency” and “money laundering.”
The “digital currency” inclusion can be found in the NDAA’s section 308 which is dubbed “Value that substitutes currency or funds.”
Section 308 changes the definition from “currency or funds denominated in the currency of any country” to “currency, funds or value that substitutes for currency or funds.”

The digital currency addition to the latest NDAA, follows a number of politicians who want more oversight on stablecoins. U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, the head of the House Financial Services Committee, wants the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to retract recent crypto-asset guidance.
This week, U.S. Representatives Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced the Stablecoin Tethering and Bank Licensing Enforcement (STABLE) Act. The Representatives insist the stablecoin bill is aimed at “protecting consumers from cryptocurrency-related financial threats.”

As far as the latest NDAA completion is concerned, the current U.S. President Donald Trump plans to veto the 2021 NDAA. Trump is not too pleased with the NDAA’s section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The President explained that the NDAA’s language in that particular section protects ‘Big Tech’ firms like Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter.

The current National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and section 308 concerning digital currencies can be viewed in its entirety here.

What do you think about the U.S. government including digital currencies in the latest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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