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China plans to toss foreign-made PCs from government agencies ‘in two years’ – The Register

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Authorities in China have reportedly directed government agencies and state-run companies to bin all personal computers made by foreign companies and replace them with homegrown hardware within two years.

According to Bloomberg, "people familiar with the plan" recounted how government staff were told upon returning from China's Labor Day holiday, which ran from April 30th through May 4th, they will have to toss foreign PCs.

Bloomberg's report claims that the yet-to-be-officially-published mandate could lead to the replacement of as many as 50 million PCs by the central government.

The leading PC maker in the APAC region last year, according to research firm IDC, was China-based Lenovo, with about 30 percent of the market. HP came in second, with 14.3 percent market share, followed closely by Dell with 14.1 percent market share.

Figures specific to the Chinese market from Canalys, covering Q2 2021, show Lenovo with a 40 percent market share.

Lenovo stock, coincidentally, was up about 4 percent on Friday, following the publication of the report from Bloomberg. The NASDAQ Composite during that period fell 1.4 percent.

The Register asked HP and Dell to comment but we've not heard back. We also asked Apple to comment because a predictably uncommunicative communications department is always good for a laugh.

We reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, which did not respond. The Commerce Department didn't immediately respond to a query either. A US State Department spokesperson did get back to us to say the agency has nothing to say on the subject.

This is not the first time reports of this sort have circulated. In December 2019, The Financial Times ran a similar story, "Beijing orders state offices to replace foreign PCs and software." At the time amid the Trump administration's friction with China and ban on Huawei's telecom gear the transition was to take three years, which is about where we are now.

Then there was the time in 2014 when, according to China's Xinhua news agency, China banned Windows 8 on government computers. That was a month after Microsoft ended support for Windows 8 and Chinese officials were said to concerns about the operating system's safety.

China has long wanted to wean itself from dependence on foreign technology providers. As far back as 1999, government officials hoped the homegrown Red Flag Linux would replace Windows. The software however proved unpopular and the project shut down in 2014.

More or less since Edward Snowden leaked classified information in 2013 about the scope of global surveillance programs run by the US National Security Agency, talk of disentangling global supply chains for the sake of national security has picked up. During the Trump administration, trade conflict with China increased and sanctions against Chinese firms like Huawei complicated global tech transitions like the adoption of 5G networking technology.

Relations with China have not improved much under the Biden administration, which has enacted its own considerable set of trade restrictions, as documented by China Briefing.

And thanks to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions imposed by the US, EU countries, and the UK, among others, Russia too has been forced to mandate locally made technology.

Even so, Scott Kennedy, senior advisor on Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, does not appear to find the report particularly troubling.

"This is at least the fourth or fifth time Beijing has 'ordered' replacement of foreign office equipment, only to later back down," he said via Twitter. "Unsure why this time will be different. Even if they swap in domestic brands, there'll still be lots of US & Western tech inside."

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China plans to toss foreign-made PCs from government agencies 'in two years' - The Register

Will Elon Musk give media the wake-up call they (we) need – Digital Trends

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Elon Musk is planning to make a few radical moves at Twitter, and from the looks of it, they are going to send ripples across the media industry. Lets start with the most recent splash he made regarding his Twitter dreams. Musk reportedly told bankers about his plans for charging a fee for embedding tweets. Given the digital medias reliance on tweets, a step like that would obviously hit the pockets of publications, especially the upstarts trying to leave a mark. It will also hamper the accessibility aspect for readers, with higher subscription prices or more paywalls likely resulting.

Musk also claimed that a nominal fee should be levied for commercial and government users. Yet again, it is newsrooms that keep a vigilant eye on the Twitter handles of government authorities and brands, passing on the information tweeted by them to the masses. Government institutions can absorb the cost, but theres no stopping brands from pushing their tweets behind a Super Follow paywall.

How would newsrooms that agree to pay the price for sourcing corporate Twitter announcements link or embed such tweets in an article that is free to read without any policy transgressions? Yes, screenshots can work for text- and picture-based tweets, but what about video clips? If embeds are blocked for such scenarios and a hyperlink to an exclusive tweet lands the reader nowhere, isnt that tantamount to asking users for blind faith in a news publication? But thats just the tip of the iceberg here.

Twitter and journalism share a deep bond. In 2015, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey credited journalists for the quick growth of Twitter, and how the platform was a great fit for people discovering news. Back then, 25 percent of Twitters coveted verified accounts belonged to journalists or media outlets. A Reuters Institute study from last year pointed out that Twitter is seen much more as a primary destination for news.

In comes free speech absolutist Elon Musk with his whirlwind $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Musk is making bold promises for the platform under his leadership. Among those goals are ending the scourge of spambots, encrypting Twitter DMs, and open-sourcing the algorithm to boost transparency. Or just generally making it a more fun place.

But at the top of the list is a free speech agenda. That sounds good on paper, but it also risks undoing Twitters years worth of progress on moderation. Having a platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. I dont care about the economics at all, Musk remarked during his TED interview two weeks ago.Balancing opinions and being politically neutral sound like benevolent ideals for a platform, but the repercussions might push the media business toward a major reality check.

Twitter acts somewhat like a virtual notebook for journalists to collect information and offer real-time updates on breaking news events. Research from the Sheffield Hallam University says Twitter has made it easier for reporters to build relations, while editors are effectively using it to promote legacy brands. But thats just the surface of it.

The platform has actually helped give birth to a new kind of journalism. The Guardian says Twitter has become central to its journalism, with the platform helping it achieve record traffic soon after the Edward Snowden story broke. A 2021 study from the Pew Research Center found that 69% of Twitter users in the U.S. rely on it for news, with nearly two-thirds of them showing trust in the news they come across on Twitter.

The role of journalists has also changed drastically, as theyre now building a personal brand by tweeting live events in real time, or writing threads about topics they are passionate about but cant really cover at a publication. Landing a plum book deal now depends on the number of Twitter followers you have, and so does the revenue one amasses from their Substack newsletter.

The retweet button is a convenient way to share breaking news or endorse an idea with just a single tap. Crowdsourced content available on Twitter helps create a more engaging news story with embedded videos and photos, without having to put a reporter on the ground, especially in precarious scenarios. For better or worse, influential figures beefing on Twitter regularly makes for front-page stories.

7/Journalists make Twitter better by providing context, research, and a balanced perspective drawn from what the people experience.

— jack (@jack) March 21, 2015

In fact, Twitter is influential enough that it can catalyze policy change for rival social media platforms with a much larger user base. The Everyday Sexism Project is an example of how Twitters hashtag feature was deployed, forcing Facebook to recognize the problem of disturbing content targeting women that was rampant on its platform. In fact, Hashtag Activism has become a powerful force for change across the globe. A study from the American Press Institute explained in detail how Twitter is more than just a breaking news service.

Thats problematic, especially with Elon Musks free speech stance. A loose hand at content moderation would mean the bad actors will have a field day at spreading conspiracies, fake news, and misinformation. A study conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison revealed that even reputed institutions like The Washington Post and NPR have mistakenly carried propagandist tweets from state-sponsored sources like Russias IRA.

Twitter has helped journalists overcome geographic circulation boundaries, but that freedom has also been exploited to disperse problematic content. With the kind of laissez-faire policing that Musk is potentially pitching, it would become even more difficult for the Twitter news consumer to identify good content from bad. And when the audience has been ensnared in the web of propagandist content, crowdsourcing for legitimate information is going to become a nightmare for reporters and newsrooms.

Whether or not Musk becomes the Tweetlord of Modern Civilization, Twitter will not fundamentally change as a platform. It will continue to be the public town square where news originates from influential figures and institutions, and covering stories as quickly as possible is what a journalist or media house will remain preoccupied with. But there are downsides to it as well.

As the Nieman Journalism Lab puts it, the overreliance on tweets for stories grants Twitter an unfairly large amount of authority, and it has compromised some core journalistic practices. Journalists can get caught up in a kind of pack mentality in which a story is seen as important because other journalists on Twitter are talking about it, rather than because it is newsworthy, concludes the Columbia Journalism Review, which performed research on journalists and their bond with Twitter.

For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2022

A free-speech platform that is more lenient on the kind of content from both sides of an ideology will definitely make the online chatter more chaotic. Musk said in his TED interview that instead of deleting tweets that fall in the gray area, he would rather let them stay on the platform, even though he is open to more suggestions.

That brings us to the final part of the equation: The echo-chambering. When a lot of journalists talk about a topic at the same time on Twitter, it seems as if the debate is roiling the country. In reality, it can be merely a heated discussion between a few reporters with opposite takes, while their followers just amplify the debate. Twitter can be a great journalistic tool, but it can also skew whats really important in the world, wrote CNNs incoming resident Chris Licht, who is also quitting the platform on the day he assumes his new role.

The Twittersphere has affected what good ol dogged reporting is, and Musks vision for the platform might just be the reality check this profession needs. Whether or not Twitter gets nastier under Musk would be an afterthought at this point. The bigger a crowd gets on the de facto public town square, the more diverse opinions will get.

With that happening, it would become harder for journalists and fact-checkers to separate truth from misinformation. In an age where sensationalism is commonplace and misinformation travels at light speed, the situation will get messy sooner rather than later. It would be an ugly sight and the onus would fall as much on Musks libertarian approach as it would on Twitter as a platform.

By free speech, I simply mean that which matches the law.

I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.

If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.

Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2022

The media will continue its reliance on Twitter as it does today, albeit in a potentially noisier online space with more toxicity and the fallacy of human behavior in its ugly, naked glory. As for Musk if hes willing to listen he should be aware of his massive influence and what is borne out of it, for the sake of Twitter and millions of its users. Lets not forget Musks toxic fandom. Theres a whole history of Musk fans harassing journalists that dared criticize the billionaire.

In a world where genocides have been planned over social media, bending to local laws and championing free speech is a delicate balance that cant be left to the whims of a billionaire who cant or simply doesnt want to comprehend whats at stake here. Therefore. its going to be up to the media to make the next move. The two are tied so closely these days that its impossible to separate the two. But the media is going to have to wake up and realize that things are changing, and they (read: we) are going to have to adapt to this new, Musk-led era of our favorite platform, for better or for worse.

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Will Elon Musk give media the wake-up call they (we) need - Digital Trends

Must the US be involved in every war? – newagebd.net

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The Nation

WHY has the United States already become so heavily invested in the Russia-Ukraine war? And why has it so regularly gotten involved, in some fashion, in so many other wars on this planet since it invaded Afghanistan in 2001? Those with long memories might echo the conclusion reached more than a century ago by radical social critic Randolph Bourne that war is the health of the state or recall the ancient warnings of this countrys founders like James Madison that democracy dies not in darkness, but in the ghastly light thrown by too many bombs bursting in air for far too long.

In 1985, when I first went on active duty in the US air force, a conflict between the Soviet Union and Ukraine would, of course, have been treated as a civil war between Soviet republics. In the context of the Cold War, the US certainly wouldnt have risked openly sending billions of dollars in weaponry directly to Ukraine to weaken Russia. Back then, such obvious interference in a conflict between the USSR and Ukraine would have simply been an act of war. (Of course, even more ominously, back then, Ukraine also had nuclear weapons on its soil.)

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, everything changed. The Soviet sphere of influence gradually became the US and NATO sphere of influence. Nobody asked Russia whether it truly cared, since that country was in serious decline. Soon enough, even former Soviet republics on its doorstep became Americas to meddle in and sell arms to, no matter the Russian warnings about red lines vis--vis inviting Ukraine to join NATO. And yet here we are, with an awful war in Ukraine on our hands, as this country leads the world in sending weapons to Ukraine, including Javelin and Stinger missiles and artillery, while promoting some form of future victory, however costly, for Ukrainians.

Heres what I wonder: Why in this century has America, the leader of the free world (as we used to say in the days of the first Cold War), also become the leader in promoting global warfare? And why dont more Americans see a contradiction in that reality? If youll bear with me, I have what I think are at least five answers, however partial, to those questions:

First and above all, war is even if so many Americans dont normally think of it that way immensely profitable. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the US military-industrial complex recognised a giant business opportunity. During the Cold War, the worlds biggest arms merchants were the US and the USSR. With the Soviet Union gone, so, too, was Americas main rival in selling arms everywhere. It was as if Jeff Bezos had witnessed the collapse of Walmart. Do you think he wouldnt have taken advantage of the resulting retail vacuum?

Forget about the peace dividends Americans were promised then or downsizing the Pentagon budget in a major way. It was time for the big arms manufacturers to expand into markets that had long been dominated by the USSR. Meanwhile, NATO chose to follow suit in its own fashion, expanding beyond the borders of a reunified Germany. Despite verbal promises to the contrary made to Soviet leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev, it expanded into Poland, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Romania, among other countries that is, to the very borders of Russia itself, even as US weapons contractors made a killing in supplying arms to such new NATO members. In the spirit of management guru Stephen Covey, it may have been a purely win-win situation for NATO, the US, and its merchants of death then, but its proven to be a distinctly lose-lose situation for Russia and now especially for Ukraine as the war there drags on and on, while the destruction only mounts.

Second, when it comes to promoting war globally, consider the US militarys structure and mission. How could this country possibly return to anything like what, so long ago, was known as isolationism when it has at least 750 military bases scattered liberally on every continent except Antarctica? How could it not promote war in some fashion, when that unbelievably well-funded militarys mission is defined as projecting power globally across all spectrums of combat, including land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace? What could you expect when its budget equals those of the next 11 militaries on this planet combined or when the Pentagon quite literally divides the whole world into US military commands headed by four-star generals and admirals, each one a Roman-style proconsul? How could you not imagine that Washingtons top officials believe this country has a stake in conflicts everywhere under such circumstances? Such attitudes are an obvious product of such a structure and such a sense of armed global mission.

Third, consider the power of the dominant narrative in Washington in these years. Despite the never-ending war-footing of this country, Americans are generally sold on the idea that we constitute a high-minded nation desirous of peace. In a cartoonish fashion, were always the good guys and enemies, like Putins Russia now, uniquely evil. Conforming to and parroting this version of reality leads to career success, especially within the mainstream media. As Chris Hedges once so memorably put it: The [US] press goes limp in front of the military. And those with the spine to challenge such a militarist narrative are demoted, ostracized, exiled, or even in rare cases imprisoned. Just ask whistleblowers and journalists like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Daniel Hale, and Edward Snowden who have dared to challenge the American war story and paid a price for it.

Fourth, war both unifies and distracts. In this century, it has helped unify the American people, however briefly, as they were repeatedly reminded to support our troops as heroes in the fight against global terror. At the same time, its distracted us from the class war in this country, where the poor and working class (and, increasingly, a shrinking middle class as well) are most definitely losing out. As financier and billionaire Warren Buffett put the matter: Theres class warfare, all right, but its my class, the rich class, thats making war, and were winning.

Fifth, wars, ranging from the Afghan and Iraq ones to the never-ending global war on terror, including the present one in Ukraine, have served as distractions from another reality entirely: Americas national decline in this century and its ever-greater political dysfunction. (Think Donald Trump, who didnt make it to the White House by accident, but at least in part because disastrous wars helped pave the way for him.)

Americans often equate war itself with masculine potency. (Putting on big boy pants was the phrase used unironically by officials in President George W Bushs administration to express their willingness to launch conflicts globally.) Yet by now, many of us do sense that were witnessing a seemingly inexorable national decline. Exhibits include a rising number of mass shootings; mass death due to a poorly handled Covid-19 pandemic; massive drug-overdose deaths; increasing numbers of suicides, including among military veterans; and a growing mental-health crisis among our young.

Political dysfunction feeds on and aggravates that decline, with Trumpism tapping into a reactionary nostalgia for a once great America that could be made great again if the right people were put in their places, if not in their graves. Divisions and distractions serve to keep so many of us downtrodden and demobilized, desperate for a leader to ignite and unite us, even if its for a cause as shallow and false as the stop the steal Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

Despite the evidence of decline and dysfunction all around us, many Americans continue to take pride and comfort in the idea that the US military remains the finest fighting force in all of history a claim advanced by presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, among so many other boosters.

All the worlds a stage

ABOUT 15 years ago, I got involved in a heartfelt argument with a conservative friend about whether it was wise for this country to shrink its global presence, especially militarily. He saw us as a benevolent actor on the world stage. I saw us as overly ambitious, though not necessarily malevolent, as well as often misguided and in denial when it came to our flaws. I think of his rejoinder to me as the empty stage argument. Basically, he suggested that all the worlds a stage and, should this country become too timid and abandon it, other far more dangerous actors could take our place, with everyone suffering. My response was that we should, at least, try to leave that stage in some fashion and see if we were missed. Wasnt our own American stage ever big enough for us? And if this country were truly missed, it could always return, perhaps even triumphantly.

Of course, officials in Washington and the Pentagon do like to imagine themselves as leading the indispensable nation and are generally unwilling to test any other possibilities. Instead, like so many ham actors, all they want is to eternally mug and try to dominate every stage in sight.

In truth, the US doesnt really have to be involved in every war around and undoubtedly wouldnt be if certain actors (corporate as well as individual) didnt feel it was just so profitable. If my five answers above were ever taken seriously here, there might indeed be a wiser and more peaceful path forward for this country. But that cant happen if the forces that profit from the status quo where bellum (war) is never ante- or post- but simply ongoing remain so powerful. The question is, of course, how to take the profits of every sort out of war and radically downsize our military (especially its overseas footprint), so that it truly becomes a force for national security, rather than national insecurity.

Most of all, Americans need to resist the seductiveness of war, because endless war and preparations for more of the same have been a leading cause of national decline. One thing I know: Waving blue-and-yellow flags in solidarity with Ukraine and supporting our troops may feel good but it wont make us good. In fact, it will only contribute to ever more gruesome versions of war.

A striking feature of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that, after so many increasingly dim years, its finally allowed Americas war party to pose as the good guys again. After two decades of a calamitous war on terror and unmitigated disasters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and so many other places, Americans find themselves on the side of the underdog Ukrainians against that genocidal war criminal Vladimir Putin. That such a reading of the present situation might be uncritical and reductively one-sided should (but doesnt) go without saying. That its seductive because it feeds both American nationalism and narcissism, while furthering a mythology of redemptive violence, should be scary indeed.

Yes, its high time to call a halt to the Pentagons unending ham-fisted version of a world tour. If only it were also time to try dreaming a different dream, a more pacific one of being perhaps a first among equals. In the America of this moment, even that is undoubtedly asking too much. An Air Force buddy of mine once said to me that when you wage war long, you wage it wrong. Unfortunately, when you choose the dark path of global dominance, you also choose a path of constant warfare and troubled times marked by the cruel risk of violent blowback (a phenomenon of which historian and critic Chalmers Johnson so presciently warned us in the years before 9/11).

Washington certainly feels its on the right side of history in this Ukraine moment. However, persistent warfare should never be confused with strength and certainly not with righteousness, especially on a planet haunted by a growing sense of impending doom.

TomDispatch.com, May 8. William J Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel of US air force and professor of history He is also a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, an organisation of critical veteran military and national security professionals.

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Must the US be involved in every war? - newagebd.net

Office of the National Cyber Director Announces Senior Leadership – The White House

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Today, the Office of the National Cyber Director announced Kemba Walden as the first Principal Deputy National Cyber Director and Neal Higgins and Rob Knake as Deputy National Cyber Directors. These key personnel will join Deputy National Cyber Director for Federal Cybersecurity and Federal Chief Information Security Officer Chris DeRusha in fulfilling ONCDs mission to ensure every American can share in the full benefits of our digital ecosystem.

As we continue to build this new office, the additions of Kemba, Neal, and Rob will accelerate our efforts to protect Americans in cyberspace, said National Cyber Director Chris Inglis. Each of these leaders brings impressive experience in cybersecurity policy making to our team, and their diverse perspectives will be invaluable as we strengthen our collective defense.

More on these additions:

Principal Deputy National Cyber Director Kemba Eneas Walden is an attorney with extensive experience in government and the private sector. She comes to ONCD from Microsoft, where she served as an Assistant General Counsel in Microsofts Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) responsible for launching and leading DCUs Ransomware Program. Prior to joining Microsoft, Kemba spent a decade in government service at the Department of Homeland Security, most recently at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. She was appointed to the Cyber Safety Review Board and holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center, Masters in Public Affairs from Princeton University, and B.A. from Hampton University.

Deputy National Cyber Director for National Cybersecurity Neal Higgins comes to ONCD from CIA, where he served as Associate Deputy Director for Digital Innovation, responsible for CIAs cyber operations, open source collection, data science, and secure global communications.Neal also served as CIAs Director of Congressional Affairs and as deputy chief of the WikiLeaks Task Force.Before joining CIA, Neal served in several senior staff roles in the United States Senate and worked as an editor at Foreign Affairs and as a member of the trial team prosecuting Slobodan Milosevic. Neal is a graduate of Princeton University, Harvard Law School, and the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy.

Deputy National Cyber Director for Strategy and Budget Rob Knake is a cybersecurity policy expert with decades of experience in the field. Prior to joining ONCD, he was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a fellow at the Harvard Belfer Centers Cyber Project, and an adviser to cybersecurity startups and Fortune 500 companies. During the Obama Administration, he served in the cyber directorate at the National Security Council and at the Department of Homeland Securitys National Protection & Programs Directorate, the predecessor organization to CISA. He is a graduate of Harvards Kennedy School of Government and the co-author of two books on cybersecurity.

Higgins and Knake have already assumed their roles at ONCD while Walden will be joining the office in the coming weeks.

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Office of the National Cyber Director Announces Senior Leadership - The White House

Russian-language Journalists Forced off Stripe by Sanctions Turn to Crypto – Blockworks

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Independent Russian-language website Meduza has raised more than $260,000 in crypto after Western sanctions crippled its ability to field donations through other means.

Meduza, which operates out of Latvia, turned to crypto after fintech giant Stripe stopped supporting payments to the website.

The news outlet was established in the wake of Russias annexation of Crimea in 2014. Independent reporting on the Ukrainian war is now basically illegal, but Meduza still publicly investigates and documents alleged Russian war crimes from its Riga newsroom.

Russias internet censors now block multiple news outlets including Meduza forcing Russia-based readers to access the site via virtual private networks and Telegram channels.

Last year, Meduza was labeled a foreign agent, which ultimately put a stop to local advertising revenue. Crypto has now reportedly enabled Meduza to rely entirely on funds sent from foreigners for the first time.

Before the war, Meduza fielded donations from around 30,000 Russian readers, according to Bloomberg. The outlets traffic has since been slashed by a third.

Meduza has recently been asking international audiences to donate cash (dollars, euros and crypto). It accepts bitcoin, ether (and Ethereum-based tokens), monero, BNB (and other BNB Chain tokens), Zcash, and Tether (USDT). Fiat contributions can still be sent via bank transfer or PayPal.

Meduzas crypto donors have so far sent 3.75 BTC ($117,400), nearly 50 ETH ($118,400), and more than $30,000 in various ERC-20 and BNB Chain tokens, including stablecoins Tether and USDC. None of the trackable crypto has been withdrawn so far, according to blockchain data reviewed by Blockworks.

Large individual contributions include 12 ETH ($28,500) received last Monday and 1 BTC ($31,500) netted the day after.

The outlet says it will use that money to quickly resettle its 25 journalists, mostly in the Latvian capital. Meduza Editor-in-Chief Ivan Kolpakov told reporters that Meduza is currently only raising half of what it needs.

Germanys Deutsche Welle and US-funded Radio Free Europe have also set up shop in Riga following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian independent outlet Novaya Gazeta is planning to start a new operation there as well, noted Bloomberg.

In any case, Meduza joins a growing list of journalistic organizations to accept contributions via crypto, including the Freedom of the Press Foundation, WikiLeaks, Bellingcat and the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Get the days top crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every evening.Subscribe to Blockworks free newsletternow.

Blockworks

Editor

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Russian-language Journalists Forced off Stripe by Sanctions Turn to Crypto - Blockworks

True Meaning of DAOs – Bitcoin as Business – hackernoon.com

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Bitcoin is not just a blockchain but a DAO that evolves along with the users needs in an ever-changing world. Bitcoin is governed by a headless management consisting of miners that expend large amounts of computing power to keep the network alive and well. Bitcoin would never have survived past its fragile infancy if it wasnt for a strong community of devoted developers that worked tirelessly on a volunteer basis to make the project succeed. In late 2010, the scandal-stricken whistleblower website Wikileaks was considering using Bitcoin as means of funding after the US government had forced companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal to blockade the organization.

Legal background, interested in business, and tech. http://www.futuristiclawyer.com

I have seen some articles lately, typically posted by profiles from shady investment companies who make the ridiculous claim that Bitcoin is too old-fashioned, volatile, environmentally unfriendly, and just plain boring, to keep up with upcoming metaversea new way of life in the digital realm.

The metaverse-will-take-over-bitcoin theory is easy to dismiss. First of all, at this point in time, the metaverse is a pure fantasy constructed and promoted by Big Tech. More than anything else, I cant help but see the metaverse as a distraction technique applied by Meta to divert the consumers attention away from bigger problems with their platforms like privacy issues and pronounced mental health issues among their users.

However, the online space is indeed evolving, and new developments including Web 3.0 applications and DAOs are certainly gaining ground. A question worth posing is whether Bitcoin with its limited functionality can continue to stay relevant while dApps, NFTs, Defi, and DAOs are increasingly developed and used on more advanced smart contract platforms like Ethereum and Solana.

Based on the research I have done for this post; the answer should unanimously be yes. Those who claim that Bitcoin is the most outdated and useless blockchain have missed an important point. Bitcoin is not just a blockchain but a DAO that evolves along with the users needs in an ever-changing world.

The first and most successful example of a DAO is Bitcoin. As critics would point out, Bitcoin may be a bit primitive for a DAO, since it does not do much, but merely exists as a store of value or a medium of exchange, depending on how you use it. However, Bitcoin is operating by pre-encoded rules independent of any single individual or central authority. By definition, Bitcoin is thereby decentralized, and at least semi-autonomous because human users are still needed to update the software and implement proposals. But that is not different from how many other DAOs operate today.

In a traditional joint-stock company the interplay between four main roles helps the company to realize its value: shareholders (owners), management, employees, and users.[1] In the Bitcoin network, we dont see the same strict division of roles or internal hierarchy. Bitcoin is, like other DAOs, owned, managed, employed, and used by the community as a whole.

If we view Bitcoin through the lenses of traditional corporate structure, the owners would be the investors since they are the primary group to command price movements. [2] At the crossroads, the network develops in the direction where most value can be generated for all stakeholders. That direction is determined by the investors through supply and demand.

The Bitcoin network is governed by a headless management consisting of miners that expend large amounts of computing power to keep the network alive and well. They are responsible for the daily operation of Bitcoin along with nodes that broadcast and validate transactions on the network. The developers are also vitally important community members, and like miners and nodes, they typically wear all the four hats of the traditional roles in a joint-stock company.

Bitcoin would never have survived past its fragile infancy if it wasnt for a strong community of devoted developers that worked tirelessly on a volunteer basis to make the project succeed. If bugs were somehow discovered and exploited early on, or if the network was overpowered by malicious nodes in its early make-it-or-break-it stage, Bitcoin would quickly have faded into oblivion as just another fad.

Another major concern that was apparent in Bitcoins early years was too much attention from the press which could lead to unwanted government interest. In late 2010, the scandal-stricken whistleblower website Wikileaks was considering using Bitcoin as means of funding after the US government had forced companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal to blockade the organization.[3]

Exactly one week before Satoshi Nakamotos permanent disappearance, he replied to a forum member on bitcointalk.org who encouraged Wikileaks to bring it on:[4]

Some days later, Satoshis posted his famous penultimate message:[5]

The fact that Satoshi Nakamoto upheld his anonymity and left the project without a trace cements Bitcoins status as a community-driven organization without a CEO, board of directors, executives, or identifiable founder. The community as a whole is responsible for the direction that Bitcoin takes.

As NY Times wrote in an article from January 2016 before DAOs became a thing:[6]

Bitcoin resembles a participatory democracy as every participant in the network has the ability to vote in a narrow sense of the word. Since the software is open-source, anyone can propose changes, and run any version of the software that they see fit. Technically, proposals and feedback on proposals are managed, discussed, and implemented via software-based BIPs (Bitcoin Improvement Proposals).[7]

Bitcoins Taproot upgrade which was implemented in November 2021, exemplifies how nodes, developers, and miners can successfully work together and agree on protocol changes. Bitcoins incentive structure ensures that the community acts in the networks best interest at all times, since contributing to the network is more profitable than trying to damage it.

Now that we have concluded that Bitcoin is a DAO, lets take a closer look at Bitcoins role in the Web 3.0 space.

People get involved in the Web 3.0 space for various reasons (a side remark: I believe that the Web 3.0 space is probably a better term than crypto space or blockchain space since it has a broader meaning than the former and is more relatable, less technical-sounding than the latter.)

The vast majority of developers and users join the Web 3.0 space to seek new opportunities and have fun. One could argue that few regular users are turned on by studying Bitcoins source code, or like me by reading and writing lengthy articles about Bitcoins potential. So, lets rephrase and ask the same question from the introduction: if Web 3.0 is fun and exciting, how can Bitcoin as a relatively old and slow technology continue to stay relevant?

What binds Web 3.0 users together are that they typically subscribe to the importance of Bitcoins philosophy. Just as the internet has revolutionized the world by digitizing traditional businesses, blockchain technology which was born with Bitcoin has the potential to revolutionize the internet by decentralizing it.

Analogue Business Digital Business Decentralized Business.

I note that technically speaking decentralization is a misnomer since central entities will necessarily still be a big part of the decentralized web. In alignment with the first academic definition of Web 3.0, a more befitting adjective to describe Web 3.0 would be verifiable because users can attest to the correctness of code execution or the authenticity of data feeds.[8] The development of Web 3.0 can eventually turn the internet into a truly public good, instead of a private good dominated by a short list of monopolistic, profit-seeking intermediary businesses.

What some casual altcoiners have still not caught on to is that Bitcoin will most likely be a key institution in the Web 3.0 space. Not just as a grandfather of new innovation in blockchain. In the future, Bitcoins infrastructure could provide the security for a much larger ecosystem of decentralized applications (dapps) and DAOs.

The classical blockchain trilemma[9] concerns the inevitable tradeoff between decentralization, security, and scalability. A traditional blockchain can only have two of the three properties. For example, Bitcoin is highly decentralized with no trusted intermediary or central point of control, highly secure as transactions are validated and broadcasted to all nodes in the network, but Bitcoin is also unable to scale due to the rigorous, slow verification process.

Layer 2 solutions such as the Lightning Network are built on top of Bitcoin to scale the networkpotentially into a worldwide payment system like VISAby processing transactions off the main blockchain. Layer 2 uses the base protocol (Layer 1) as a secure settlement layer to validate bundles of smaller transactions at once. Layer 3 will be the application layer that uses Layer 2 to provide interfaces and software that millions of users can access. [10]Besides, Layer 3 is prospected to introduce cross-chain functionality so different blockchains can communicate and interact with each other.[11]

In other words, Layer 2 and Layer 3 on Bitcoin and other well-established blockchains could very possibly be where Web 3.0 happens in the future. The multi-layered approach resembles how the internet is built, not as one, but as multiple protocols designed on top of each other, each leveraging the one below. [12]

Trust Machine is one example of a company that has raised $150M in funding to expand Bitcoin to a Web 3.0 platform by utilizing this layered approach. CEO and co-founder, Muneeb Ali, previously co-founded Stacks which Trust Machines will be built upon. Stacks is a programming layer on Bitcoin that enables DeFi, NFTs, apps, and smart contracts while relying on Bitcoins consensus mechanism for security. Read more about it here.

Impervious is a Layer 3 solution built on the Lightning Network. Like Trust Machines and Stacks it works towards bringing Web 3.0 functionality to Bitcoin. Impervious has developed a web browser that was announced on April 7 2022 at the annual Bitcoin conference in Miami.[13]

The founder Chase Perkins neatly formulates what the purpose of the Impervious Browser will be [14]:

Impervious is also a programmatic layer that developers can write programs on with the security of Bitcoin, and the quickness of the Lightning Network for fast data transmissions. Read more about Impervious here.

Perhaps in the future, the unrivaled security of Bitcoins base protocol could serve as a breeding ground for the new internet of valuesimilar to how physical infrastructure like coax and fiber cables forms the backbone of the internet. [15]

Please join me in my next post, where we will learn more about practical use cases for DAOs.

This article was first published here.

[1] See Is the Bitcoin community a DAO? thread on bitcointalk.org: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5349365.0 (29042022).

[2] Daniel Krawisz (Feb 2015) -> Who Controls Bitcoin? -> https://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/who-controls-bitcoin/ (28042022).

[3] Bitcoin History Part 19: Wikileaks and the Hornets Nest (Nov 2019) https://thebitcoinnews.com/bitcoin-history-part-19-wikileaks-and-the-hornets-nest/ (29042022).

[4] Reply to thread on Bitcointalk Wikileaks contact info? -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1735.140

[5] Reply to thread on Bitcointalk PC World Article on Bitcoin -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2216.msg29280#msg29280

[6] Nathanial Popper (Jan 2016), A Bitcoin Believers Crisis of Faith -> https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/business/dealbook/the-bitcoin-believer-who-gave-up.html (14042022).

[7] See more: Archie Chaudhury (Oct 2021), Why the Bitcoin Network Is the Original DAO -> https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/why-bitcoin-network-is-original-dao (29042022).

[8] Liu et. al (2021), Make Web 3.0 Connected A Perspective from Interoperability and Programmability across Blockchains, pg. 2.

[9] Vitalik Buterin (April 2021), Why sharding is great: demystifying the technical properties -> https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/04/07/sharding.html

[10] Tom Wilson (Marc 2022), Web 3.0, DeFi & dApps Soon On Bitcoin? And 3 High Potential Projects! -> https://medium.com/general_knowledge/web-3-0-defi-dapps-soon-on-bitcoin-and-3-high-potential-projects-ce696a88df47 (24042022).

[11] See e.g., Evan Schwartz (Oct 2018), Layer 3 Is for Interoperability -> https://medium.com/xpring/layer-3-is-for-interoperability-ca387fa5f7e2.

[12] Ibid.

[13]Charles Jenkins (Jan 2022). Impervious Browser: Functionality Overview -> https://newsletter.impervious.ai/impervious-browser-functionality-overview/

[14] Ibid.

[15]AAX (Aug 2021), Layer 3 Solutions on Bitcoin & Blockchain -> AAX Academy https://academy.aax.com/en/layer-3-solutions-on-bitcoin-blockchain/.

Read more from the original source:

True Meaning of DAOs - Bitcoin as Business - hackernoon.com

The JD Vance I Knew – The Atlantic

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Last week, Politico reported on a strange leak from the J. D. Vance campaign. A super PAC supporting the Ohio Republicanwho won the partys nomination for Senate on May 3had commissioned opposition research to help Vance defend against his vulnerabilities. The super PAC discovered that a decade ago, the now staunchly pro-Trump Vance had written a half dozen articles for a website run by a future anti-Trumper: me. Politico found the super PACs report and posted a link to it.

The site was called FrumForum.com. From 2009 to 2012, it tried to imagine a reformed Republican Party: more economically inclusive, more culturally modern, more environmentally aware. The project proved unsuccessful, to put it mildly. Yet it attracted dozens of young writers who subsequently advanced to important careers and high reputations. One of them was J. D. Vance.

Vance wrote for FrumForum under a pseudonym. So, even as my former contributors career has lurched in disturbing directions, Ive felt honor-bound to maintain confidentiality about the pieces. I also felt that the substance of what he wrote, while revealing, didnt at the time rise to the level of urgent public interest. Now the record is out there, not by my doing.

In some ways, there are continuities between the FrumForum Vance and candidate Vance. Both are deeply concerned about the deteriorating prospects for working-class white America; both are immigration skeptics. But the differences are more profound. FrumForum Vance scorned culture-warring, valued expertise, endorsed social inclusion, rejected partisan rancor, and supported Americas important role in world security. All that has been left behind by Senate candidate Vance.

Tom Nichols: The moral collapse of J. D. Vance

One Vance essay for FrumForum praised former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman as a truer conservative than Texas Governor Rick Perry. Another attacked ethanol subsidies. A third endorsed cuts to the future growth of Medicare and Social Security. (Vance wrote: Of all the things I cant stand about politics, the tendency to emotionalize a difficult topic is probably the worst.) In the course of writing about the Supreme Court, he conceded his support for race-conscious affirmative action.

A fifth essay defended the U.S. war in Iraq against a video released by WikiLeaks showing an Apache helicopter firing upon and killing at least 10 Iraqis. War will always be a grisly business, Vance wrote. Im not a peacenik, and I supported the Iraq invasion on the merits, but its folly to send troops to do the toughest job and then be shocked by the attitude that some show while doing it. A sixth expressed Vances disdain for the rhetorical populism of the Tea Party era. It defended ultraselective elite universities, and championed government by the best and the brightest. He wrote: I was raised primarily by my grandparents in a dying steel town. They taught me that if I worked hard and believed in myself, I could do anything. They were right. This fall Im headed to Yale Law School, and Ill join 200 other studentsof every colorvirtually all of whom scored above the 95th percentile on the LSAT. Our best institutions of higher learningwarts and alldemand excellence from their students.

I admired this outspoken young writer. More than that, I liked him. I welcomed his rise as a future leader of reformist conservatismand him as a guest in my home for dinner parties.

Vance has obviously traveled a long way since those days, and I was a spectator to some of that journey.

In the early 2010s, Vance and I talked about a book he might write, outlining how government policy could address poverty and addiction in rural America. When Vance did write a proposal for that book, he opened with a personal introduction. His publisher advised him to discard the policy chapters and expand the introduction into a book-length memoir. The result was the megabest seller Hillbilly Elegy.

Cassie Chambers Armstrong: Hillbilly Elegy doesnt reflect the Appalachia I know

Vances superpower in those days was his biographical credibility as he spoke about Trump America to non-Trump America. In talks at forums like the Aspen Institute, in an essay for The Atlantic, across elite tables at venues like the investment bank Allen & Companys Sun Valley media conference, Vance urged understanding of the people who had voted for Trump, even as he excoriated Trump himself as unfit, bigoted, authoritarian, fraudulenta deceiver and exploiter of the people Vance spoke for.

Vances message was tough, but his tone was measured. In those days, the figure he most modeled himself upon was Barack Obama. Vance made the comparison explicit in an early-January 2017 opinion article for The New York Times, titled Barack Obama and Me. Vance pointed out the similarities between their lives: absent father, raised by grandparents, prestigious law degree, literary fame. He described President Obama as a man whose history looked something like mine but whose future contained something I wanted I benefited, too, from the example of a man whose public life showed that we need not be defeated by the domestic hardships of youth.

Before the 2016 election, Vances future political path looked straightforward. He would await the expected Trump defeat, then emerge as a next-generation Republican savior: a candidate who could speak from his origins in Appalachia to the suburbs of Columbus, all while preserving his connections to his donors in Silicon Valley.

Trumps Electoral College victory complicated the calculation. Some Democrats wooed Vance to change parties. Obamas campaign guru David Axelrod had Vance as a guest on his popular podcast the month after Vances Times article was published.

More plausible was a path for Vance as leader of the internal Republican opposition to Trump. About a week after the inauguration, in 2017, Vance invited me and a dozen other anti-Trump conservatives to a quiet meeting in a downtown Washington, D.C., conference room to discuss ways forward from the Trump predicament. That meeting was off the record, but Vance subsequently emailed participants to alert us that he himself had spoken to a reporter about it.

Read: Opioid of the masses

Among the topics we considered: Could any good come from the Trump administration? How outspoken should we be in opposition? The meeting did not reach conclusions, but it did not need to. The unspoken but widely understood agenda looked further into the future: We were present at the creation of a Vance for President campaign that might go into operation sometime in the late 2020s or early 2030s.

I imagine that many of the participants in that meeting still hold such hopes. Vances subsequent choices, however, have ensnared his plans. In a reversal of the usual political trajectory, Vances writing and speaking have edged angrier and uglier as he has gained success and prominence.

In July 2021, Vance inveighed against the childless left who have made no physical commitment to the future of this country. In November, he attacked fellow Ohioan LeBron James for criticizing Kyle Rittenhouses demeanor at his homicide trial: Lebron is one of the most vile public figures in our country. Total coward.

In a September podcast, he urged that Trump, upon his hypothetical restoration to office in 2024, purge the government of federal employees who arent loyal to him and defy the courts if the purge was held illegal.

When he got the endorsement recently of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who notoriously floated a conspiracy theory about Californias wildfires being started by space lasers associated with Rothschild Inc., he tweeted: Honored to have Marjories endorsement. Were going to win this thing and take the country back from the scumbags.

The former supporter of the Iraq War has turned into one of the nations preeminent scorners of Ukraines fight for independence, declaring: I gotta be honest with you, I dont really care what happens to Ukraine. At the end of last month, Vance even suggested that President Joe Biden was plotting intentionally to flood the U.S. with deadly fentanyl: It does look intentional. Its like Biden wants to punish people who didnt vote for him.

David A. Graham: The art of the dealer

In April of this year, Vance tweeted: Barack Obama is articulate but has never made a memorable speech. The reason is that his views are utterly conventional. Hes unable of saying anything outside of the elite consensus. Hes a walking, talking Atlantic magazine subscription. What prompted that highly personal outburst against Vances former role model and the magazine to which he himself had contributed his sharpest anti-Trump criticisms? A video clip of Obama speaking negatively of Steve Bannon and Vladimir Putin.

Many who knew the early Vance ponder the question: What happened to him?

I dont overthink that question; the answer seems obvious enough. I ponder something else.

The anti-populist conservative Vance persona of 201017 was well designed to please the individuals and constituencies that held power over his future at that juncture in his career. The angry-white-male persona of 201722 was as perfectly aimed at the Thiel-Trump-Tucker nexus as the earlier iteration had been to the Allen-Aspen-Atlantic one.

With a Senate nomination secured, Vance now has new constituencies to please. Ohio today is not the swing state it used to be, yet its still home to many non-Trumpy constituencies, including tens of thousands of voters of Ukrainian descent. If elected to the Senate, Vance may rekindle still-higher ambitions, ambitions that cannot be realized by the narrowly based support that got him not quite a third of the vote in last weeks Ohio Republican primary. I very much doubt that the Vance for President dream has diednot in him, and not in his backers.

So the question I ponder is not: What happened to the J.D. I knew? It is: Who will J.D. become next?

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The JD Vance I Knew - The Atlantic

Cryptoverse: rising interest hurts Bitcoin

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STORY: This is Crypto Weekly, with your top stories on alternative currencies. This week, how will Bitcoin fare during an extended period of rising interest rates?

The currency has scant experience of such choppiness - and that could be perilous for investors looking to capitalize on its recent dramatic drop.

Bitcoin tanked this week to its lowest level since July 2021, along with other risk assets such as tech stocks after the Fed amped up rates.

Those rates are expected to pass 3% early next year. The last time that happened was 2008. Before Bitcoin was even born.

Crypto price moves are baffling at the best of times, let alone when entering uncharted waters.

Robert Cantwell, portfolio manager at Upholdings, says for now the persistent volatility doesn't appear to overly concern investors.

"In fact this volatility is proving to be a feature within this universe. And as more folks have been coming into it and trading it, that volatility creates a lot of entertainment to the markets and potentially creates a lot of opportunity for long term investors. And so we think it's entirely plausible that crypto assets can persist with many more participants in years to come and that volatility variant may never dwindle."

Next up - Uganda's central bank has told Reuters it's considering whether to issue a digital currency.

The African nation has some concerns to work through, including consumer protection and financial inclusion.

Governments on the continent have approached digital currencies differently.

Nigeria launched its own digital currency last year, while Central African Republic last month adopted bitcoin as an official currency.

Finally, Gucci's jumping on the crypto bandwagon in some of its flagship U.S. stores.

Its high-end handbags and other luxury products can soon be bought using virtual currencies, including bitcoin.

A growing number of companies are warming to cryptos, bringing an asset class shunned by major financial institutions until a few years ago closer to the mainstream.

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Cryptoverse: rising interest hurts Bitcoin

Bitcoin Miner CleanSpark Tops Quarterly Estimates

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Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12.

Bitcoin miner CleanSpark (CLSK) reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $41.6 million and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation (Ebitda) of $22.5 million. Both results beat analysts' average estimates tallied by FactSet.

While quarterly revenue edged up only slightly from the previous quarter, it was up fivefold from the year-ago level and beat estimates by $400,000.

Adjusted Ebitda slipped 7% from the previous quarters $24.1 million. It was up from $1.9 million a year ago and topped estimates of $18.4 million.

While the whole industry faced macro headwinds, primarily driven by a lower average bitcoin price, we continued to execute on our infrastructure-first strategy, CEO Zach Bradford said in a statement.

Bradford noted that 100% of growth and capital spending was funded from the conversion of bitcoin (BTC). He also said the company hasn't used its shelf offering to raise capital since November.

The company ended the quarter with $1.9 million in cash and $17 million in digital currencies.

In March, CleanSpark said it aims to be among the top bitcoin miners with an expansion of up to 500 megawatts (MW).

CleanSpark's shares rose 5.3% in after-hours trading on Tuesday. They are down about 40% year to date.

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Bitcoin Miner CleanSpark Tops Quarterly Estimates

Where Are Bitcoin Prices Heading Next After Falling Below $30,000? – Forbes

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Bitcoin prices bounced back today after falling below $30,000 yesterday.

Bitcoin prices have suffered some turbulence lately, dropping under $30,000 yesterday and reaching their lowest since July.

The worlds largest digital currency by market value fell to less than $29,900 last night on TradingView.

Since then, the cryptocurrency bounced back somewhat, rising to $32,650 today, additional TradingView figures show.

Following this recovery, the digital asset fell back, and was trading close to $30,750 at the time of this writing.

[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment.]

Key Market Drivers

Analysts have cited varying factors when explaining these recent declines, including central banks hiking benchmark rates and selling assets they accumulated during the recent pandemic.

Several market observers pointed to risk-off trading when describing the recent downward movement in bitcoin prices. Scott Melker, a crypto investor and analyst who is the host of The Wolf Of All Streets Podcast, commented on this development.

Bitcoin has fallen alongside global markets as traders and investors risk off in the face of recession and inflation concerns, he stated.

Bitcoin dropped to below 30K, the tail end of which was largely the result of the Luna Guard Foundation dumping Bitcoin on the market in a desperate attempt to fix the UST peg, said Melker.

This was insult to injury on a down day.

Technical Analysis

Melker also offered some technical analysis, pointing out key levels of support and resistance that traders should keep in mind.

The 30K psychological level remains important, although technically 33K is the area to watch for bulls to attempt to flip key resistance back to support, he stated.

Richard Usher, head of OTC Trading at BCB Group, elaborated on the subject, offering further detail.

Whilst the market has been fixated on a move below 30,000k in BTC being the key level, last night's dip below was actually the fourth such move in the last 14 months, he stated.

The key support for us is at 29,000, a break of which targets a move to 25,500 and ultimately the significant support at 20,000 which triggered the rally last year when it broke, said Usher.

Julius de Kempenaer, senior technical analyst at StockCharts.com, outlined some similar support levels.

Since mid February BTC formed some intermediate support around 33-34k. Breaking that level downward yesterday opened up the way to major support around 30k, he stated.

That level is in play since the start of 2021 and should be considered a major support level, said de Kempenaer.

A clear break lower will free more downside risk as the next serious support level is only found near 20k which is the peak of 2017 (!) and a cluster of smaller peaks/highs in November 2020, just before the break that took BTC all the way to 65k, he added.

In addition to providing this input, the analyst also spoke to resistance.

Breaking those support levels means that they will now come back as resistance and block BTC advances in the near term. The former aforementioned support level in the 33-34k area is now the first resistance level to watch.

Usher also singled out some key areas of resistance.

Resistance levels are stacking up at 33,000, 34,700 and ultimately 40,000 which needs to be regained to call a longer term low in place, he stated.

Potential Market Turbulence

Bitcoin prices could experience significant volatility in the coming months, as the uncertainty surrounding Federal Reserve policy decision making impacts cryptocurrency markets, said Collin Plume, CEO and founder of My Digital Money.

There's a possibility Bitcoin could bounce around wildly in the next couple of months, said Plume.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if another selloff happens to push it down.

Investors are seeing the Fed interest rate hike, and all the uncertainties that come with it, as a buy opportunity. The next Fed meeting won't be for another month, and we are certain another interest rate increase is coming, he stated.

Only then will investors have confidence in where prices are headed, where assets are headed, and where their investments are headed.

Keeping The Faith

Regardless of what the digital currency markets do in the near-term, investors should keep the faith, said Konstantin Boyko-Romanovsky, founder and CEO of Allnodes Inc.

Whether you invest in Bitcoin or other blockchains that will rise in the next bull run, the sentiment remains the same, he stated.

We are past the point where blockchain and cryptocurrencies can become obsolete suddenly.

So a sharp swing downwards in cryptocurrency prices might be a chance to enter or re-enter the market, said Boyko-Romanovsky.

Disclosure: I own some bitcoin, bitcoin cash, litecoin, ether, EOS and sol.

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Where Are Bitcoin Prices Heading Next After Falling Below $30,000? - Forbes


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