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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DigitalCurrLA OP 4 Jun 2023 \ on: HHR047: How Bitcoin Protects the Working Class with Dom Bei | High Hash Rate 🎧 bitcoin
Also see a Business Insider article on this development:
Judge dismisses case over FBI raid of 1,400 private safe-deposit boxes and seizure of millions in jewelry and cash
https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-raid-1400-boxes-us-private-vaults-ruling-2022-10 [Archive]
CoinDesk has an article on this:
Khuu also allegedly used a network of financial institutions to launder the funds, including Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. The indictment alleged he created a number of fake accounts at these banks.The indictment went on to describe several transactions Khuu allegedly conducted as part of his efforts to convert bitcoin into cash. All told, he allegedly conducted just under 500 transactions tied to the sale of about 620 BTC.
US Officials Charge California Resident With Using Bitcoin to Launder $5.3M in Drug Proceeds
https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/10/07/us-officials-charge-california-resident-with-using-bitcoin-to-launder-53m-in-drug-proceeds [Archive]
From the press release:
The defendant allegedly distributed counterfeit pharmaceutical pills and other controlled substances on dark web markets to customers across the United States. Customers paid for their purchases by transferring cryptocurrency, usually Bitcoin, from their dark web market customer accounts to one of Khuu’s vendor accounts. Khuu and his co-conspirators traded the Bitcoin for U.S. currency and laundered the proceeds through hundreds of transactions and dozens of financial accounts.During the course of the conspiracy, Khuu and his co-conspirators allegedly laundered more than $5,350,000.00.
Also, see my other comment with the CoinDesk article.
[Glenn Arcaro] sentenced in federal court today to 38 months in prison for his participation in BitConnect.
Glenn Arcaro, 44, conspired with others to exploit investor interest in cryptocurrency by fraudulently marketing BitConnect’s proprietary coin offering and digital currency exchange as a lucrative investment. Arcaro and others misled investors about BitConnect’s “Lending Program.”
In truth, however, BitConnect operated a textbook Ponzi scheme by paying earlier BitConnect investors with money from later investors. Furthermore, Arcaro and others ensured up to 15 percent of the money invested into BitConnect went directly into a slush fund to be used for the benefit of the owner and promoters of BitConnect. The BitConnect Ponzi scheme ensnared 4,154 victims from 95 countries making it a true worldwide Ponzi scheme.
Arcaro admitted that he earned no less than $24 million from the BitConnect scheme, all of which, according to court documents, will now be repaid to investors in restitution or forfeited to the government.
Arcaro took steps to transmit the BitConnect proceeds that he earned to offshore accounts, transform some of the proceeds into precious metals storage, and obtain foreign passports. Arcaro’s goal was to avoid paying federal and state income taxes on his income earned from the scheme and to shield his assets from collection by the Internal Revenue Service.
This article is from the L.A. Times website. That article is:
Congress’ leading crypto skeptic is a Southern California congressman
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-09-04/brad-sherman-leading-crypto-skeptic-congress
https://archive.ph/kOj75
There are numerous reasons stablecoins are used. A big use case is for lending, for the purpose of earning interest. Another use case is to hold funds as "dry powder" to have tradable funds ready for trading should an opportunity present itself. Traders who perform arbitrage trading and need to move a USD balance from one exchange to another, so a stablecoin can be used to perform that transfer.
And then there's the DeFi use case you describe. A smart contract can act on a stablecoin token same as it would act on any other token for that chain. And a stablecoin can be issued on various blockchains. For example, Tether is on bitcoin (OMNI), Ethererum, Tron, and about a half dozen other blockchains.
And there are different types of stablecoins. There are ones for different currencies ... e.g., Tether has a EURt stablecoin.
Here's the Wikipedia article on stablecoins:
An earlier Tweet:
We are going to be getting new physical cards printed, I would estimate the time to ship at 2-3 months. The good new is we are trying to print large volumes, 100k or more cards
When the FBI asked a federal magistrate judge for a warrant to seize the property of US Private Vaults, it concealed critical details about its plan for the hundreds of individually rented security deposit boxes at the Beverly Hills business.
“The government has a duty to be honest with the court when it applies for a warrant under the Fourth Amendment,” said IJ Senior Attorney Robert Frommer. “But the FBI lied about its intentions in claiming to only be interested in the property of the business, and not the box holders. Ultimately, the lure of civil forfeiture turned these federal cops into robbers.”
Under the warrant’s terms, agents should have stopped when they encountered letters taped to the top of closed boxes that identified the box’s renter and beneficiaries. Yet invariably agents pored through each box, capturing photographic and video records of renters’ password lists, wills, personal notes and other sensitive documents. Now, the FBI and other agencies have copies of these records in their evidentiary databases, where renters’ private, personal information will remain for agents to access and analyze.
When the FBI asked a federal magistrate judge for a warrant to seize the property of US Private Vaults, it concealed critical details about its plan for the hundreds of individually rented security deposit boxes at the Beverly Hills business.
“The government has a duty to be honest with the court when it applies for a warrant under the Fourth Amendment,” said IJ Senior Attorney Robert Frommer. “But the FBI lied about its intentions in claiming to only be interested in the property of the business, and not the box holders. Ultimately, the lure of civil forfeiture turned these federal cops into robbers.”
Here are the top seven cities prospective homebuyers are seeking to leave, according to Redfin’s report:
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
- New York
- Washington D.C.
- Seattle
- Boston
- Detroit
Denver, Chicago and Minneapolis round out the list’s top 10. Collectively, they represent some of the country’s most populous cities: Minneapolis is the only one on the list with fewer than 650,000 people, according to U.S. Census data.