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Snowden: Governments Will Use the Coronavirus to Seize More Power – Futurism

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Power Creep

Famous whistleblower Edward Snowden has a dire warning for everyone grappling with the coronavirus pandemic: dont let authoritarians exploit the crisis to claim more power.

Snowden told Vice that he sees the rise of emergency laws, increased surveillance, and other ways that governments have suspended civil rights to combat the pandemic as a disturbing power grab.

And, he added, he doesnt expect the leaders behind it to relinquish the newfound power when the coronavirus outbreak finally recedes.

Snowden argued that a global pandemic was readily predictable, and that scientists and intelligence agencies had long been sounding alarm bells. Imposing new emergency surveillance, he argues, is a particularly disturbing play.

As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world, Snowden told Vice.

Ultimately, Snowden fears that the world leaders claiming new emergency authority will hold onto them well after the pandemic ends.

Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? Snowden said. That these datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what is being built is the architecture of oppression.

READ MORE: Snowden Warns Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Build the Architecture of Oppression [Vice]

More on COVID-19: A Growing Number of Countries Tap Phone Data to Track COVID-19

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Snowden: Governments Will Use the Coronavirus to Seize More Power - Futurism

Will We Accept Being Monitored Via Our Smartphones As A Way Out Of The Pandemic, And Will We Have Any Say In The Matter? – Forbes

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Theres been a lot of coverage of Apples and Googles joint initiative to develop a contact tracing tool and collaboration on monitoring the pandemic. Such collaboration is rare. The fact that these two companies effectively control between them the whole market for the smartphone operating systems we carry around with us at all times, make this even more unusual.

What is contact tracing and how does it work? Basically, its a set of technologies that use the sensors in our terminals and internet infrastructure to identify people who may have come into contact with us, and then collect additional information about their movements. Contact tracing is an effective way to interrupt transmission and reduce the spread of coronavirus, alert our contacts to the possibility of infection and to provide preventive advice or care, as well as diagnosis, advice and treatment to people already infected, or to investigate the epidemiology of a disease in a particular population.

Implementing these types of initiatives is possible without completely compromising the privacy of users, but given the nature of geolocation data, the proposal has generated concern. In practice, a large percentage of the population has already given permission to Apple or Google, and possibly many other companies, regarding their geolocation data in order to use certain applications. But doing so for something as sensitive as health data requires a certain level of trust not only in these companies privacy safeguards, but also in the public institutions involved, something that for many is a real leap of faith. There are no easy answers here.

How do such systems work? In a first phase, the idea is to generate a common interface that public health agencies can integrate into their own applications. In the second, the idea is to develop a system-level contact tracking system that will work on both iOS and Android devices, which uses the smartphone to transmit anonymous identification at short ranges via Bluetooth. The device generates a daily tracking key, and transmits its last 14 days of keys on a rotating basis to other devices, which look for a match. This correlation is also capable of determining both the threshold of time spent in proximity, as well as the distance between the two devices. From this data, if a match is found with another user who has notified the system that he or she has tested positive, he or she is notified so that he or she can take action, perform the test and, if necessary, self-quarantine.

All of this raises a number of questions, for example, if our terminals generate a 16-byte identifier each day, which they must transmit together with those corresponding to the previous fourteen days to all the devices they cross, what levels of data transmission are we talking about? Logically, we will have to introduce some cut-off variable that will allow us to restrict transmissions, and the first candidate is the geolocation record. There are also possible problems such as people not registering having tested positivefearful of the stigma or restrictions on their movementor the other way around: people reporting positive when they arent, issues that could be addressed by attaching some kind of personal data to identifiers that would allow offenders to be located, but which raises civil rights issues.

As Sara Harrison pointed out a few days ago in The Markup, When is anonymous not really anonymous?, we know that the anonymization of data is not enough to guarantee privacy, because there are numerous techniques of de-anonymizationand abundant evidence of their use.

One way or the other, we are about to enter a phase in which, using the pandemic as a justification, it will be normal for data as personal as our geolocation, our state of health or proximity to other people to be collected and processed. The risk, as Edward Snowden has warned, is that some governments will develop systems that can continue to be used to surveil us. And not just governments: this kind of data can be used by companies to practice various forms of discrimination.

In addition to risks, there are opportunities, related to the future of health care: what would have happened, in a hypothetical scenario where privacy was taken for granted, if our devices were capable of transmitting our basic health parameters to a central authority? How simple would it have been to have noted the start of the epidemic and treat it properly before it spread? What about detecting the symptoms of other types of health problems which, in many cases, due to their late detection, cause not only more suffering to patients, but also incur costs to the health system?

As I commented last month, we now need an ambitious redefinition of the social contract, a change in the relationship between citizens and their governments, or between citizens and companies. These are tasks that the inevitable reset required as a result of the pandemic could help us with but that, as with so many other things that we could take advantage of to rethink, I suspect we will fail to capitalize on.

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Will We Accept Being Monitored Via Our Smartphones As A Way Out Of The Pandemic, And Will We Have Any Say In The Matter? - Forbes

Snowden Warns Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Build the Architecture of Oppression – VICE

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The future may be unpredictable, but global pandemics arent. There isnt a single government on the planet that hasnt been warned, repeatedly, that at some point a viral pandemic will sweep the globe, causing untold death and economic disruption.

And yet most failed to prepare for the novel coronavirus.

Every academic, every researcher who's looked at this knew this was coming, says famed whistleblower Edward Snowden in an exclusive interview with VICE co-founder Shane Smith. Yet when we needed it, the system has now failed us, and it has failed us comprehensively.

Snowden is the first guest in the new Shelter in Place series debuting on VICE TV on Thursday at 10 p.m. EST, which looks at the global response to COVID-19 and its lasting impact around the world. Smith will discuss these themes, as well as how to survive quarantine, with a host of thinkers from science, entertainment, economics, and journalism.

In the premiere episode, Smith talks to Snowden, who blew the lid off of the National Security Agencys surveillance of the American people in 2012. In the interview conducted from Smiths home in Santa Monica over video chat, the two tackle topics including the lack of preparedness in the face of a global pandemic, how long this will be a threat to humanity, and whether the power were handing to global leaders will come back and bite us in the ass.

Smith: Why does it seem like we're so ill-prepared?

Snowden: There is nothing more foreseeable as a public health crisis in a world where we are just living on top of each other in crowded and polluted cities, than a pandemic. And every academic, every researcher who's looked at this knew this was coming. And in fact, even intelligence agencies, I can tell you firsthand, because they used to read the reports had been planning for pandemics.

Are autocratic regimes better at dealing with things like this than democratic ones?I don't think so. I mean, there are arguments being made that China can do things that the United States can't. That doesn't mean that what these autocratic countries are doing is actually more effective.

If you're looking at countries like China, where cases seem to have leveled off, how much can we trust that those numbers are actually true?I don't think we can. Particularly, we see the Chinese government recently working to expel Western journalists at precisely this moment where we need credible independent warnings in this region.

It seems that [coronavirus] may be the greatest question of the modern era around civil liberties, around the right to privacy. Yet no one's asking this question.As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world. Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? That these datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what is being built is the architecture of oppression.

Watch the full interview Thursday at 10 p.m. on VICE TV or catch the episode later on VICEtv.com.

Cover: VICE co-founder Shane Smith interviews Edward Snowden for a new show, "Shelter in Place" from VICE TV.

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Snowden Warns Governments Are Using Coronavirus to Build the Architecture of Oppression - VICE

Oregon Tech students, faculty use spring break to produce PPE – Herald and News

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Oregon Institute of Technology (Oregon Tech) mechanical engineering students Davia Fleming and Jacob Allemann were not spending their spring break taking a breather. Instead, they were improving safety for healthcare providers by using 3D print technology to create protective shields for frontline medical workers.

With some help from faculty members, thus far 40 face shields have been made, with another 90 in production. The students are also making valves through a 3D printing process that will be able to adapt/convert CPAP/BiPAP machines commonly used to treat sleep apnea into ventilators.

Were an engineering school, so I thought that theres got to be something that we can do to help, Davia said, a senior at Oregon Techs Portland-Metro campus in Wilsonville. I went online and researched what there were shortages of and found some Open Source software for making face shield visors using 3D printers.

With fellow Oregon Tech student Jacob Allemann, also a senior, Davia had two of the campus 3D printers from the prototype lab delivered to her home since she couldnt work on campus due to the stay-at-home directive.

At first using her personal supply of printer materials, Davia and Jacob got busy taking shifts to continuously print the visor component of the face shields.

Aided by faculty members Dr. Mike Myers in Mechanical Engineering, Dr. Chitra Venugopal in renewable energy engineering and Dr. Greg Pak in natural sciences, the students have produced about 40 visors so far and are working with Dr. Venugopal and staff lab technician and electrical engineering student Richard Ellis to laser cut the acetate shields for attachment to the visors; the first shipment will go out this week.

The team is also preparing 3D printed ventilator adapters. The students and faculty estimate that another 70 will be done by next week. Once the first shipment goes out, the production team will focus on digital manufacturing of ventilator adaptors/converters and their distribution to the local healthcare community.

Earlier this week Oregon Tech was awarded a $10,000 grant from the Ford Family Foundation in Roseburg, Oregon. The foundation made emergency funds available to support rapid response efforts to alleviate the hardships many rural families and organizations are experiencing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic so that the project could continue with its production and distribution of the PPE and the conversion of CPAP/BiPAP machines into ventilators.

In all, the student/faculty team are manufacturing respirator masks with changeable filters, printing 3D face shields, and converting CPAP/BiPAP machines into ventilators using resin printed valves and Arduino an open source electronic prototyping platform.

All Oregon Tech faculty had to quickly transition to all-remote teaching and learning in spring term, but still took time out of their hectic schedules to support this student-driven project.

HP in Vancouver, Wash. has also been helping with the project, donating their shield components to Oregon Tech through a connection of Dr. Paks. Oregon Tech then completes the final assembly, distribution and donation logistics.

Dr. Pak, who teaches at Oregon Techs Portland-Metro Campus in areas such as anatomy and physiology and immunology said, When COVID-19 broke loose across the state, Davia immediately deployed her expertise and inventiveness rather than taking a break after finals. She didnt let the virus and the need to stay at home stop her, but instead reached out to get 3D printers delivered to her house by faculty. Davias and Jacobs enthusiasm is an energy force that knows no barriers. They are the type of Oregon Tech students whose inventiveness is boundless, especially when there is real human need.

Dr. Pak has been reaching out to regional hospitals and clinics including Salem Hospital to help support their need of the PPE demand to protect their doctors, nurses and other medical staff. The team is also sending some of the shields to Sky Lakes Medical Center in Klamath Falls, where the universitys main campus is located, right across the street from the hospital.

Oregon Tech also recently lent Sky Lakes several ventilators from its respiratory care bachelors degree program in order to help it meet growing demand as positive cases increase in Klamath County. Director of Laboratory Services at Sky Lakes Medical Center, Meredith Case, who is an alumna of Oregon Tech, requested face shields from Oregon Tech. Dr. Meredith is one of our Medical Lab Science graduates, and it truly means a lot for us to extend our commitment to an Owl, and to our already close partner, Sky Lakes, said Pak.

Oregon Tech will also be providing its finished products to Salem and Portland donation centers, which have been set up by the state and are accepting PPE donations for many healthcare professionals and agencies. These facilities handle the screening process so that the PPE meets medical standards.

Besides the PPE project, Davia is also project lead of Oregon Techs RockSat-C project at the Portland-Metro campus. She and her student colleagues spent much of the 2019-2020 academic year working on a sophisticated payload that will be launched by NASA in June at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Oregon Tech payload research project was one of only seven in the nation accepted to provide a payload on the rocket.

Additional information on Oregon Techs COVID-19 response is available at http://www.oit.edu/coronavirus.

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Oregon Tech students, faculty use spring break to produce PPE - Herald and News

ZCash Privacy Preserving Contact Tracing App on Blockchain the Temporary Contact Number TCN Coalition – The Cryptocurrency Analytics

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Tracing the Virus without surrendering privacy is becoming a matter of concern. An open-source approach to enable a globally compatible contact tracing using digital technology is underway.

Peter Van Valkenbrrrgh, Board Member at ZCash, We must be vigilant against the imposition of tracing and identity technologies that could, long term, jeopardize our autonomy and privacy. That approach is seemingly well underway in China, but should not be on the table here in the U.S.

Sydney Ifergan, the crypto expert tweeted: Ideally, we need contact tracing technologies which do not steal our privacy. We need to really think beyond the pandemic. Good that Zcash Foundation is a part of making contact tracing without surveillance vide the TCN Coalition.

Contact tracing is important because it will help slow down the spread of the Corona Virus. This can also be the key to end lockdowns. The focus now is to get secure tracing apps which will help tracing by being run on the devices of billions of users from across the world.

The TCN Coalition is a privacy first protocol and it is viewed by a dozen experts. It is open source, free of charge, and extensible. Interestingly, it is available for implementation immediately.

TCN stands for Temporary Contact Number. It is the core of the TCN protocol. A completely anonymous number is created to record private transactions between compatible mobile devices without allowing them to be tracked.

The execution requires that all major technology companies, app developers, and governments to be able to implement apps which are compatible with the shared protocol from TCN.

Anonymity is very important to the user, while we live in a world where we use open source software projects, large scale distributed networks and end user products. An interesting write up stated that sometimes we land up over prescribing technical solutions. We need to know the trade off and the nuances in the whole process to avoid the process of sacrificing privacy.

A wide range of things like arbitrary behavior should be avoided apart from privacy concerns. Safely using anonymity tools is also the need of the hour. We need to keep track of how the privacy-preserving contact tracing methods help keep the virus at bay without having to lose privacy. As we previously stated, this should not jeopardize post pandemic privacy.

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ZCash Privacy Preserving Contact Tracing App on Blockchain the Temporary Contact Number TCN Coalition - The Cryptocurrency Analytics

More Than Half of Adults Say Their Video Calls Are Secure, Despite Hacking Concerns – Morning Consult

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Video calls have become one of the default modes of communication for those who are stuck at home during social distancing. In March, Zooms daily users grew to more than 200 million from a previous high of 10 million, Chief Executive Eric Yuan said earlier this month, and Skype reported that it had 40 million people using its platform each day in March, up 70 percent month over month.

However, with that growth came an increasing number of media reports highlighting privacy mishaps among such services, and scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators has followed particularly for Zoom. The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warning last month that Zoom and other teleconferencing platforms might not be as secure and private as users believe, after reports of Zoombombing, where bad actors barge into a digital meeting to disrupt the events. The U.S. Senate has also reportedly warned lawmakers against using Zoom.

Despite reports, 49 percent of adults said they havent heard anything about the FBIs Zoombombing warning, and 57 percent believe their calls are secure. But nearly half (48 percent) are still at least somewhat concerned that their calls could be hacked.

Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, an advocacy group focused on digital rights, said in the time of social distancing, its unrealistic to have people completely abandon video conferencing services. But that doesnt mean security and privacy for those calls arent important.

With the whole world moving online during this crisis, it helps people think about how real these threats are, Greer said. Theyre like, Well maybe Im not super worried about the NSA spying on my phone calls, but I would rather that my conversation with my therapist not be leaked on the internet.

Last week, Fight for the Future launched a campaign calling on Zoom to default to using end-to-end encryption for all conversations on the platform, saying that until that happens, little can stop law enforcement agencies, hackers and harassers from accessing its content by exploiting vulnerabilities in the software.

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More Than Half of Adults Say Their Video Calls Are Secure, Despite Hacking Concerns - Morning Consult

Donald Trump ‘offered Julian Assange a pardon if he denied …

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Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a pardon if he would say Russia was not involved in leaking Democratic party emails, a court in London has been told.

The extraordinary claim was made at Westminster magistrates court before the opening next week of Assanges legal battle to block attempts to extradite him to the US, where he faces charges for publishing hacked documents. The allegation was denied by the former Republican congressman named by the Assange legal team as a key witness.

Assanges lawyers alleged that during a visit to London in August 2017, congressman Dana Rohrabacher told the WikiLeaks founder that on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr Assange said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] leaks.

A few hours later, however, Rohrabacher denied the claim, saying he had made the proposal on his own initiative, and that the White House had not endorsed it.

At no time did I talk to President Trump about Julian Assange, the former congressman wrote on his personal blog. Likewise, I was not directed by Trump or anyone else connected with him to meet with Julian Assange. I was on my own fact finding mission at personal expense to find out information I thought was important to our country.

At no time did I offer Julian Assange anything from the president because I had not spoken with the president about this issue at all. However, when speaking with Julian Assange, I told him that if he could provide me information and evidence about who actually gave him the DNC emails, I would then call on President Trump to pardon him, Rohrabacher added.

At no time did I offer a deal made by the president, nor did I say I was representing the president.

White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham told reporters: The president barely knows Dana Rohrabacher other than hes an ex-congressman. Hes never spoken to him on this subject or almost any subject.

It is a complete fabrication and a total lie, Grisham said. This is probably another never-ending hoax and total lie from the DNC.

Trump, however, invited Rohrabacher to the White House in April 2017 after seeing the then congressman on Fox TV defending the president.

In September 2017, the White House confirmed that Rohrabacher had called the then chief of staff, John Kelly, to talk about a possible deal with Assange, but that Kelly had not passed on the message to Trump. Rohrabacher confirmed that version of events on his blog on Wednesday.

I told him that Julian Assange would provide information about the purloined DNC emails in exchange for a pardon. No one followed up with me including Gen Kelly and that was the last discussion I had on this subject with anyone representing Trump or in his Administration, he wrote.

Even though I wasnt successful in getting this message through to the President I still call on him to pardon Julian Assange, who is the true whistleblower of our time.

Assange appeared in court on Wednesday by videolink from Belmarsh prison, wearing dark tracksuit bottoms and a brown jumper over a white shirt.

Before Rohrabachers denial, district judge Vanessa Baraitser, who is hearing the case at Westminster, said the claim of a deal was admissible as evidence.

Until he was voted out of office in 2018, Rohrabacher was a consistent voice in Congress in defence of Vladimir Putins Russia, claiming to have been so close to the Russian leader that they had engaged in a drunken arm-wrestling match in the 1990s. In 2012, the FBI warned him that Russian spies were seeking to recruit him as an agent of influence.

The publication of emails hacked from the Hillary Clinton campaign helped perpetuate an aura of scandal around the Democratic candidate a few weeks before the 2016 election.

WikiLeaks put them online hours after Trump had suffered an apparent public relations disaster with the emergence of a tape in which he boasted of molesting women.

Assange is wanted in America to face 18 charges, including conspiring to commit computer intrusion, over the publication of US cables a decade ago.

He could face up to 175 years in jail if found guilty. He is accused of working with the former US army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to leak hundreds of thousands of classified documents.

The extradition hearing is due to begin at Woolwich crown court on Monday, beginning with a week of legal argument. It will then be adjourned and continue with three weeks of evidence scheduled to begin on 18 May.

The decision, which is expected months later, is likely to be appealed against by the losing side, whatever the outcome.

Assange has been held on remand in Belmarsh prison since last September after serving a 50-week jail sentence for breaching his bail conditions while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

He entered the building in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over sex offence allegations, which he has always denied and were subsequently dropped.

Assanges claims of a deal emerged a day after Trump granted clemency to a string of high-profile figures convicted on fraud or corruption charges, including the former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and the junk bond king Michael Milken. Trump has not excluded pardoning Roger Stone, a former aide who was convicted in November of obstructing a congressional investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race, and in particular for lying to investigators about his relationship with Assange and WikiLeaks.

Stone once boasted that he had dinner with Assange but later said the claim was a joke.

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Release Julian Assange, says woman who had two children with him while in embassy – The Guardian

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The partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has revealed that she had two children with him while he was living inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Stella Moris, 37, a South African-born lawyer, issued a plea for the father of her two young sons, Gabriel, three, and Max, one, to be released from prison and said there were genuine fears for Assanges health.

Assange was forcibly dragged out of the embassy and arrested in April last year, after Ecuador revoked his political asylum and invited Metropolitan police officers inside their Knightsbridge premises. He had been living at the embassy for nearly seven years.

Assange has since been held in Belmarsh prison in London, where he is serving a 50-week jail term for violating his bail conditions. He is awaiting an extradition hearing on 18 May on behalf of the US, where he is wanted for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks and likely facing espionage charges.

In a statement to the courts supporting an application for bail, Moris revealed that she met Assange in 2011 when she was a legal researcher and looking into ways to halt Assanges extradition.

Over time Julian and I developed a strong intellectual and emotional bond. He became my best friend and I became his, she wrote.

In 2015, Moris and Assange began a relationship despite the extraordinary circumstances, she said, and became engaged in 2017.

She said she had gone to great lengths to protect the couples children from the climate that surrounds Assange, adding that she was making the statement now because their lives were on the brink and she feared Assange could die.

According to Moris, Assange is in isolation for 23 hours a day and all visits have stopped.

My close relationship with Julian has been the opposite of how he is viewed of reserve, respect for each other and attempts to shield each other from some of the nightmares that have surrounded our lives together, Moris said.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Moris said Assange had watched the births of both children in London hospitals via live video link and met Gabriel after he was smuggled into the embassy.

She further revealed that both boys had visited their father in prison, and that the couple were planning to marry, whether Assange is released or not.

Friends and supporters of Assange, among them celebrities including Pamela Anderson, have said he has been in poor health for many months and have expressed growing concern for his wellbeing since the coronavirus outbreak.

HMP Belmarsh has repeatedly come under scrutiny in recent years, lastly after a remand prisoner was found dead in his cell in January, triggering an investigation by the prisons and probation ombudsman.

The man was the third prisoner to have died in Belmarsh within the past year. Another inmate was found dead there in November.

A judge at Westminster magistrates court rejected the request for an adjournment of Assanges extradition hearing in May until September over what his legal team said were insuperable difficulties preparing his case because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Release Julian Assange, says woman who had two children with him while in embassy - The Guardian

Bitcoins Next Boom Has Already Begun – Forbes

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Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have returned to the spotlight in recent weeks, despite the bitcoin price crashing along with traditional markets last month.

Governments and central banks around the world have moved to flood the market with freshly-minted cash to fight the economic devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic just as bitcoin investors brace for a highly-anticipated supply cut.

Now, after courts in India reversed a near two-year effective bitcoin ban in March, bitcoin trading in the country is explodingpushed higher by a country-wide economic slump and a coronavirus-induced lockdown.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency interest in India is soaring amid economic stagnation and a nationwide ... [+] coronavirus-induced lockdown.

Bitcoin and crypto banking services platform Cashaa India saw its trading volume rocket by 800% in the two days after the ban on the country's banks facilitating cryptocurrency transactions was lifted.

"The platform also registered a volume of 600+ [bitcoin] in the first 24 hours," Cashaa chief executive Kumar Gaurav told bitcoin and crypto industry news site Coindesk.

India's bitcoin and crypto ban was originally brought in to calm over-eager investors who were at risk of losing money to the myriad of scams that plagued the market in 2017 and 2018. Indian crypto exchanges were adding up to 300,000 new customers every month before the crackdown, it's been reported.

Since the ban has been lifted, a survey carried out by peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace Paxful found three in every four people in India with some understanding of cryptocurrencies have invested in them.

"India has proved itself as a center for innovation, and were excited to see the growth and discoveries they will bring to the [bitcoin and crypto] industry," said Paxful chief executive Ray Youssef, adding: "India has a lot of potential in all aspects of growth."

As India struggles with record high unemployment, likely to be significantly worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, the survey also revealed people in India believe cryptocurrencies could spur job creation and economic activity.

India's national 21-day lockdown ends on April 14 but a number of state governments have urged prime minister Narendra Modi to extend itpotentially making the country's economic crisis more dangerous than the coronavirus pandemic itself.

A recent study found over half a billion people around the world could be pushed into poverty by the economic fallout from the spreading coronavirus pandemic.

Elsewhere, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have seen a surge of interest around the world since the coronavirus crisis began, causing some traders and investors to recall bitcoin's epic 2017 rally.

In 2017, the bitcoin price climbed from under $1,000 per bitcoin at the beginning of the year to around $20,000 by December, largely driven by retail investors and so-called fear of missing out as early bitcoin adopters became overnight millionaires.

Some of the world's biggest bitcoin and crypto exchanges have reported an influx of new users since the coronavirus shutdowns started.

The bitcoin price has weathered the coronavirus storm more-or-less intact, up around 40% on this ... [+] time last year despite some wild swings over the last month.

Away from India's booming bitcoin interest and the coronavirus pandemic's economic crisis, bitcoin and crypto investors have a lot to feel bullish about.

"Almost every disruptive benefit of bitcoin is surfacing today: asset scarcity in a world of fiat dilution, self-sovereign capital ownership amidst government overreach of civil liberties, cross-border payment transfers during system outages and [fears of] contagious paper money [in] China," said Tom Lombardi, director at investment management company Wave Financial.

"All of this occurring on the heels of massive support and bitcoin application development from Fidelity, Square, Revolut, the highly anticipated Bakkt App, a subsidiary of ICE and the NYSE that's partnered with Starbucks, and India lifting the crypto trading ban."

A survey of major bitcoin investors showed most were upbeat at the beginning of the year, with the bitcoin price expected to soar to over $20,000 per bitcoin in 2020.

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Bitcoins Next Boom Has Already Begun - Forbes

More Profit-Taking? Bitcoin Price Sags 7% Ahead of Easter Weekend – CoinDesk

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Major cryptocurrency markets fell 7 percent over the past 24 hours, with bitcoin (BTC) retreating below $7,000.

While traditional stocks saw modest gains during early trading hours Friday, the crypto market shed more than $13 billion over the past 24 hours, according to Nomics. Most large-cap cryptos fell more than 8 percent in that time period, with BTCs 6.8 percent dip being the only exception.

The sell-off appears to have begun early UTC Friday.

According to CoinDesks Bitcoin Price Index, the worlds oldest cryptocurrency fell from about $7,300 at 01:00 UTC Friday to just above $6,800 as of press time, losing nearly $500 over 14 hours.

Given some of the abruptness of the overnight move, it suggests that some larger holders were inclined to take profits at these relatively favorable prices, David Nuelle, managing director of Hehmeyer Trading + Investments, told CoinDesk. Other than that, I dont see anything that would precipitate the market move.

Still, Nuelle called bitcoins recovery from mid-March lows of roughly $4,100 pretty impressive.

With other markets closed and it being a U.S. holiday, the crypto markets are generally feeling less liquid, CMS Holdings Partner Bobby Cho told CoinDesk. I dont see this being an issue with crypto fundamentals, rather, short term market liquidity issues.

In contrast to the crypto markets, traditional stock markets capped largely positive weeks. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Index saw major gains in the last four days of trading (markets were closed Friday for the Easter holiday), despite the economic hit caused by record job losses.

The U.S. saw 10 percent of its workforce laid off over a three-week period as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. Jobless claims grew 6.6 million on Thursday, for a total of 16 million, according to CNBC.

Economies worldwide are bracing for an economic shock due to the pandemic. Germany and France are already seeing their economies slide into a recession, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Zack Seward contributed reporting.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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More Profit-Taking? Bitcoin Price Sags 7% Ahead of Easter Weekend - CoinDesk