Big Tech

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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Big Tech Execs and Bitcoin: Skype Cofounder Keeps Personal Wealth in Crypto, Intercom Chairman ‘Firmly Jumps on the Bitcoin Wagon’

16/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

This week two well known tech executives revealed they have been dabbling in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In a recent interview, Skype cofounder Jaan Tallinn detailed that he held bitcoin and ethereum in his personal finances, while the Intercom cofounder Eoghan McCabe tweeted on Sunday that he’s “jumped firmly onto the bitcoin wagon.”

In 2020 a number of popular tech executives and CEOs from giant firms have revealed they hold a fascination for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum. On Friday, the cofounder of the telecommunications application Skype discussed a couple of donations he made in the past leveraging ethereum and bitcoin. Skype’s cofounder Jaan Tallinn sent 350 ETH ($158k) to the London-based organization Faculty AI and in March 2020, Tallinn donated 50 BTC ($850k) to the group.

Faculty AI won $800k from the U.K. Home Office in order to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) system that detects terrorism through social media. During his interview, Tallinn explained that the reason why he donated cryptocurrency to the organization is because he keeps a majority of his wealth in crypto assets.

He opted to donate the crypto directly because if he cashed out the digital assets he would be liable for capital gains. According to the recent interview, Faculty AI’s annual accounts note that the company sold roughly $144k from the stash of ethereum in 2019.

Following the interview with Tallinn, another well known executive told his Twitter followers on Sunday that he’s jumped into the bitcoin space. On November 15, 2020, the chairman and cofounder of Intercom, a well known American software firm, tweeted about the decentralized crypto asset bitcoin. Intercom’s Eoghan McCabe disclosed he is holding bitcoin after messing around with the digital currency for years.

“I would like to announce that after years of dabbling, I’ve jumped firmly onto the Bitcoin wagon,” McCabe tweeted. In a tweet that followed, McCabe noted that he’s been listening to the Pomp Podcast and one in particular that features the Bitcoin evangelist Robert Breedlove. “Mad love for all the Bitcoin freaks,” McCabe added in another tweet. A great number of bitcoiners welcomed McCabe into the space, and a few individuals told him that he was still in the early adoption phase of bitcoin.

The Tallinn and McCabe news follows a number of prominent executives getting into the cryptocurrency space and discussing the benefits of bitcoin in 2020. Executives like billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, the ‘Bond King’ Jeffrey Gundlach, the well known fund manager Bill Miller, billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, and even the actor Kevin Hart jumped on the bitcoin wagon this year. Alongside this, the U.S. Senator, Cynthia Lummis, sees a lot of “promise” when it comes to the innovation provided by the crypto economy.

Even the traditional crypto naysayers are starting to discuss bitcoin in a more positive way. Former bitcoin doubter JPMorgan’s recent analysis shows institutional interest has been moving from gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to bitcoin. The infamous BTC hater, Nouriel Roubini (‘Dr. Doom’), admitted that BTC might be a store of value in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance. With the way things are going, it’s likely a whole lot more popular tech and investor luminaries will be joining the cryptocurrency revolution. And maybe some former haters as well.

What do you think about Skype cofounder Jaan Tallinn holding most of his personal wealth in crypto and the Intercom’s chairman’s recent plunge into bitcoin? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The post Big Tech Execs and Bitcoin: Skype Cofounder Keeps Personal Wealth in Crypto, Intercom Chairman ‘Firmly Jumps on the Bitcoin Wagon’ appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin Cash-Fueled Onchain Social Media Platform Memo Launches iOS App

06/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

Two years ago, an onchain social network called memo.cash was launched and the application has developed quite a bit since then. On Tuesday, the Memo team revealed that the platform is now available for iOS phones via the App Store. Apple users can now connect to the social network that etches a user’s content to the Bitcoin Cash blockchain.

During the last few years, especially with deplatforming on the rise, uncensorable forums, immutable streaming video apps, and onchain social media projects have been developed. Worldwide governments in collaboration with Big Tech have managed to censor dissenting opinions against the status quo on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and more.

One particular decentralized application called memo.cash skips all that nonsense, as it allows users to post content to the BCH chain. Because nearly every action works by writing transactions to the BCH blockchain, the data stored allows for censorship-resistant social media in comparison to the platforms run by Big Tech giants.

On November 3, 2020, the Memo team announced that the application is now available via Apple’s App Store. This means anyone with an iPhone can download the onchain social media application that tethers content to a decentralized cryptocurrency network.

Memo works just like it does in a browser and users can simply register a new account or login with their existing credentials. In addition to leveraging the BCH chain, the memo.cash application also works with the cryptocurrency bitcoinsv (BSV).

Newcomers should understand that memo.cash needs a small fraction of bitcoin cash (BCH) in order to execute things like posting content or updating profiles. Users can leverage less than a nickel of BCH on memo.cash, by depositing the satoshis to the profile’s wallet address or even a small fraction of satoshis from a faucet.

Memo is similar to Twitter as it only allows for 217 characters in a given post. But just like Twitter, users can post not only threads but also videos, pictures, and URL links. Memo users can also start a poll with a variety of options. Unlike Twitter, which is well known in 2020 for blatant censorship, Memo app’s onchain content is immutable.

In addition to the posting abilities, users can also access a native wallet within the Memo app that allows users to send BCH and SLP tokens as well.

The main feed has a few different filters that allow Memo users to choose “hot” and “new” topics, alongside the ability to refresh the page in the top right corner of the screen. While memo.cash app newcomers will have to navigate and explore the onchain social media application, veteran Memo users will get the gist of the app much quicker.

Of course on Reddit, the new iOS mobile version of memo.cash was welcomed by the r/btc community. “Congrats Memo team,” one BCH proponent wrote on Tuesday, congratulating the developers.

What do you think about the Memo social media app being added to Apple’s App Store? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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