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We’re going to publish things you disagree with. It’s what a Catholic magazine should do. – America Magazine

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The British government announced in May a new initiative aimed at protecting free speech on university campuses, a move that follows several high-profile instances of de-platforming and cancellation of controversial speakers and opinions. Predictably, the political left and right disagree, not only about the nature and scope of the threat, but whether it is even real. Mercifully, we are not likely to address this sort of problem in the United States through national legislation. But that doesnt mean that the same social forcespolarization and ideological partisanshipare not at work here.

America has attempted to meet the challenge by publishing diverse opinions, an approach we have formalized in a new editorial initiative, The Conversation. (The conversation we initiate in this issue centers on the future of Catholic theology.) The choice to showcase diverse viewpoints stems not only from the fact that ideological partisanship is this editor in chiefs well-known bugbear, but also that this has been Americas approach from the start. True to its name and to its character as a Catholic review, the editors wrote in our first editorial in 1909, America will be cosmopolitan not only in contents but also in spirit. Joseph A. OHare, S.J., the tenth editor in chief, put it this way: A Catholic journal of opinion should be reasonably catholic in the opinions it is willing to consider. Which is not to say that catholic means indiscriminate. It does mean, however, that we will publish views contrary to our own, as long as we think they deserve the attention of thoughtful Catholics.

Accordingly, over the last several years we have hosted a wide range of authors across our platforms. In the area of economics, for example, we have published capitalists, communitarians, social democrats, libertarians, even a communist. In the area of theology, just this month, America published an article by one Catholic bishop who argued that pro-choice politicians should not be admitted to Communionwe then published an article by a different Catholic bishop saying just the opposite. And in between, we published hundreds of your comments about this important question.

Americas answers to such questions, of course, are contained in our unsigned editorials. But offering you our corporate opinion is but one, relatively small part of what we do. Our main task is to host opinions, to expose you to a variety of individuals and groups, all within the broad spectrum of Catholic opinion.

That inclusive approach is not, admittedly, a widely popular choice. In the present polarized climate, voicing contrary opinions requires courage, which is sometimes described as speaking truth to power. But context counts for a lot here. The most powerful force in the public, ecclesial discourse isnt the secular media or the U.S. bishops, but the elite foot soldiers on social media and elsewhere who police the boundaries of ideological orthodoxy, both left and right, often with cynical, brute force.

It doesnt take a lot of courage, for example, for us to publish someone who is denouncing racism. Our audience wholeheartedly agrees. It doesnt take courage to publish an editorial criticizing the U.S. bishopsthey are not that popular to start with, ranking down there near lawyers in terms of popularity. What does take some courage is defending the bishops when we think theyre right. And it does take some courage to buck the prevailing establishment ethos on matters of human sexuality or economics. And it took courage for America to say, on the precious few occasions when it was true, that Donald Trump was right.

America should have the courage to pay less attention to the mob and more attention to you. Here, Pope Francis is showing us the way. The pope believes in God, but he dialogues with atheists; he believes in a communitarian approach to economics, but he meets with capitalists; he has spoken out against ideologies of gender, but he has known and met with transgender people. You should hold us to a standard that requires that kind of courage.

Some people say that this editorial approach is nothing but an idealists fantasy. But those who think that do not know you as I have come to know you. For nearly nine years, I have traveled the length and breadth of this country, meeting thousands of you. I trust you. I trust the education most of you received from the Society of Jesus. I know that you are not afraid of argument, not afraid of different viewpoints; that you are suspicious of dogmas not thought through to their consequences; that you value intelligence, diversity and charity.

For which I say: Thanks be to God.

Once again, welcome to the conversation.

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We're going to publish things you disagree with. It's what a Catholic magazine should do. - America Magazine

Here’s the hacking group responsible for the Colonial Pipeline shutdown – CNBC

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The DarkSide hacker gang that is responsible for the devastating Colonial Pipeline attack this weekend is a relatively new group, but cybersecurity analysts already know enough about them to determine just how dangerous they are.

According to Boston-based Cybereason, DarkSide is an organized group of hackers set up along the "ransomware as a service" business model, meaning the DarkSide hackers develop and market ransomware hacking tools, and sell them to other criminals who then carry out attacks. Think of it as the evil twin of a Silicon Valley software start-up.

Bloomberg first reported that DarkSide may be involved in the attack on Colonial Pipeline. The FBI confirmed Monday that DarkSide was behind the attack.

On Monday, Cybereason provided CNBC with a new statement from DarkSide's website that appears to address the Colonial Pipeline shutdown.

Under a heading, "About the latest news," DarkSide claimed it's not political and only wants to make money without causing problems for society.

"We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics, do not need to tie us with a defined government and look for our motives," the statement said. "Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for society. From today we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the future."

Cybereason reports that DarkSide has a perverse desire to appear ethical, even posting its own code of conduct for its customers telling them who and what targets are acceptable to attack. Protected organizations not to be harmed include hospitals, hospices, schools, universities, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. Also apparently protected are entities based in former Soviet countries. Fair game, then, are all for-profit companies in English speaking countries.

DarkSide also maintains that it will donate a portion of its profits to charities, although some of the charities have turned down the contributions.

"No matter how bad you think our work is, we are pleased to know that we helped change someone's life," the hackers wrote. "Today we sended [sic] the first donations."

Cybereason found that the group is highly professional, offering a help desk and call in phone number for victims, and has already published confidential data on more than 40 victims. It maintains a website called "DarkSide Leaks" that's modeled on WikiLeaks where the hackers post the private data of companies that they've stolen.

They conduct "double extortion," which means the hackers not only encrypt and lock up the victim's data, but they also steal data and threaten to make it public on the DarkSide Leaks site if companies don't pay ransom.

Typical ransom demands range from $200,000 to $20 million, and Cybereason says the hackers gathered detailed intelligence on their victims, learning the size and scope of the company as well as who the key decision-makers are inside the firm.

The hackers continue to expand: Cybereason reports they recently released a new version of their malware: DarkSide 2.0.

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Here's the hacking group responsible for the Colonial Pipeline shutdown - CNBC

Social media companies say they want to be transparent. So why arent they? – Wired.co.uk

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Who should have the right to a platform, and who should make decisions about what expression is allowed online? These conversations are nearly as old as the internet itself.

Among the earliest instances of civil society collaboration with social media occurred in 2007 when Egyptian journalist Wael Abbas lost his YouTube account for posting videos depicting police brutality in his country. By removing the content, YouTube a subsidiary of Google was simply enforcing its own rules, but the story nevertheless made international headlines.

Back then, YouTubes rules were pithy and light. Respect the YouTube community, they began. Were not asking for the kind of respect reserved for nuns, the elderly, and brain surgeons. We mean dont abuse the site. Regarding graphic violence, however, they were fairly clear: Graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked or humiliated, dont post it.

Abbas reached out to friends at influential groups around the world, as well as the US Embassy, according to a cable leaked by WikiLeaks. The cable details the videos contents and ends with a request that the State Department contact Google to try to resolve the matter. Whether the US government or civil society activists reached Google first is unknown, but Abbass account was quickly restored.

Content moderation was a nascent field at the time, but over the years it has grown to a multi-billion-dollar industry. With that growth have come changes some positive, others not so much. In the years following Abbass experience, most major tech companies began issuing transparency reports regular reports that show how they respond to government demands for user data and content removal. This initiative came after a push from civil society, one that continues today. But theres still much more they could be doing.

The Santa Clara Principles were created by a coalition of civil society and academic partners in 2018 to set baseline standards for transparency and accountability. The principles supported by more than 100 institutions around the world are simple: they demand that companies publish numbers about posts removed and accounts permanently or temporarily suspended due to violations of their content guidelines; provide detailed notice to users when their content is removed or their account suspended; and, perhaps most importantly, ensure that every user has the right to remedy the chance to appeal to a human being when a potentially erroneous decision is made.

A year after their release, the principles were endorsed by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snap, Apple, Github, Instagram and a handful of other companies, but only one Reddit has actually implemented them in full. (Disclosure: Reddit is an independent subsidiary of Cond Nasts parent company, Advance Publications.) In fact, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, much of the progress that had been made in recent years in terms of providing appeals to users has backslid, as commercial content moderators working in countries like the Philippines have been sent home, unable to do their jobs because of (valid) concerns about privacy and mental well-being.

Automation has been touted as the next big thing in content moderation. But although this could alleviate some of the problems that face human moderators most notably, the horrific content that these workers have to look at on a daily basis it is not particularly good at detecting nuance, leading to all sorts of mistakes. Mistakes that threaten the ability of users around the world to express themselves.

The rules that social media companies put in place to maintain user safety are sometimes necessary, and sometimes absurd (think the banning of womens bodies or Facebooks requirement of authentic names). But it is imperative that these rules be enforced fairly and evenly, and that when mistakes are inevitably made, users are able to seek justice.

The Santa Clara Principles are just a starting point: if Silicon Valleys tech giants have any interest in contributing to a just world, there is more to be done. We must diversify the boardrooms and root out existing biases. Rules, many of which were put in place more than a decade ago, should be audited and updated for the 21st century. And key voices, not just from the US but from around the world and particularly the global south, need to be brought into the policymaking process. A more equitable internet is possible.

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Social media companies say they want to be transparent. So why arent they? - Wired.co.uk

Father of Julian Assange to speak on the Northern Rivers this week The Echo – Echonetdaily

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John Jiggens

Julian Assange in 2010. Photo Espen Moe, Creative Commons.

John Shipton, father of detained WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, is due to speak in the Byron Shire again this week.

Mr Assange and his family have close connections to the Northern Rivers, with the acclaimed journalist having spent part of his childhood in the hinterland.

His father has dedicated much of the past decade to fighting for Mr Assanges freedom and has spoken as part of sell-out public forums in the Byron Shire at least three times, with support from independent local media organisations The Echo and Bay FM community radio.

This May, Mr Shipton is on tour down the east coast again and started with a public address in the Nimbin Town Hall as part of MardiGrass festivities.

Mr Shipton spoke in Brisbane on World Press Freedom Day (May 3) and marched with the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance on behalf of his son, a Queensland-born member of the MEAA, before addressing a rally in West End.

Northern Rivers residents can hear Mr Shipton in person at the Courthouse Hotel this Tuesday, May 4, from 7pm as part of the monthly Turning Point Talks.

Peace advocates Ciaron OReilly and Melbourne4WikiLeaks member Jacob Grech will join Mr Shipton on the panel, while local regional journalists Mandy Nolan (The Echo) and Mia Armitage (Bay FMs Community Newsroom)will introduce and facilitate the discussion.

On Wednesday, May 5, Mr Shipton will speak in Lismore at the space in front of the gallery in Keen Street from 1pm with support from Lismore Mayor Vanessa Ekins and Councillor Darlene Cook.

A midday rally at Byrons Railway Park on Friday, May 7, will end Mr Shiptons North Coast stint and will also feature Byron Shire Councillor and former journalist Sarah Ndiaye.

Lismore City Councillors Ekins and Cook and Byron Shire Cr Ndiaye have all supported Mr Assange at a local government level.

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Father of Julian Assange to speak on the Northern Rivers this week The Echo - Echonetdaily

CPJ calls on Biden administration to commit to source protection in wake of Washington Post subpoena revelations – CPJ Press Freedom Online

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Washington, D.C., May 10, 2021 The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on the Biden administration to make public why the Justice Department under former President Donald Trump secretly subpoenaed journalists phone records, and to commit to respecting journalist and source relationships.

The Justice Department secretly obtained call records from April 15, 2017, to July 31, 2017, for the phone numbers of currentWashington Postreporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller and formerPostreporter Adam Entous,The Postreported on May 7. The reporters were separately notified on May 3 in letters that did not specify when the material was obtained, according to the report.

Public interest journalism cannot work if the U.S. government is willing to disregard journalists right to source protection, said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. The Biden administration must provide more information about why theWashington Postreporters call records were subpoenaed, and commit to upholding protections in place at the Justice Department to prevent this form of government overreach in the future.

An unnamed Justice Department spokespersontoldThe Postthat the departments decision to subpoena the records was made in 2020, when William Barr was attorney general. According toThe Post, the material included records for Nakashimas work, cell, and home phones, Entous cell phone, and Millers work and cell phones.

Quoted inThe Post, Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi said,The targets of these investigations are not the news media recipients but rather those with access to the national defense information who provided it to the media and thus failed to protect it as lawfully required.

The Justice Department did not immediately return CPJs request for comment submitted through its online media portal.

In arecent white paperto the Biden administration, CPJ called on the president to back guidelines that protect confidential sources, and to refrain from using the Espionage Act to prosecute journalists or whistleblowers.

The Trump administration indicted at least eight government employees and contractors for leaking classified information to journalists, and also charged WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange with obtaining and publishing secret government materials,CPJ reported.

In 2017 the Justice Department, then under Jeff Sessions, said that it planned to relax U.S. government guidelines to make it easier for investigators to subpoena journalists and their records, CPJdocumented at the time.

The Obama administration prosecuted 10 government employees and contractors for leaking classified information, including eight under the Espionage Act, asCPJ reported.

The threePostreporters had written articles about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election using classified intelligence intercepts, the paper reported. The letters to the reporters did not state the purpose of the subpoena, according toThe Post. The phone records included information about who made calls to and from the specified numbers, as well as the length of calls, though not what was said during the conversations,The Postreported.

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CPJ calls on Biden administration to commit to source protection in wake of Washington Post subpoena revelations - CPJ Press Freedom Online

Exposing the bias of Western media: Old video of Azerbaijan President goes viral. Heres what he said – OpIndia

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With India facing a severe COVID-19 crisis, Western media has descended upon the country like vultures, trying to photograph every possible funeral to showcase it in the West. From launching drones in the sky to photograph funerals, to selling those pictures for Rs. 23,000 to gain more clicks, the Western media is media shamelessly profiting off Indias misery. Sometimes, they just straight-up use an old fake picture to depict Indias COVID-19 victims. All of these stunts have earned some well-deserved contempt for the western media from Indians.

In this climate, an old video of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev talking to a BBC reporter has gone viral. In this interview dating back to November 2020, the BBC reporter tries to put Aliyev on the spot, asking him about media freedom in Azerbaijan. Instead of being defensive, Aliyev goes on the offensive and asks the reporter point blank, You think they do not have it? Why do you think that people in Azerbaijan do not have free media and opposition?

The BBC interviewer then tries to clap back at the Azerbaijani Prez, claiming that multiple independent sources in the country have told her that Azerbaijan has no press freedom. To this, Aliyev demands to be told about these independent sources. When the interviewer refuses to disclose the sources, Aliyev responds coldly, Oh, if you couldnt name that means you are just inventing the stories.

After a spate of accusations from the BBC interviewer about lack of press freedoms, a crackdown on NGOs, critics in jail, etc., Aliyev issues a strong denial and repudiation of the BBC, bringing up the imprisonment of Wikileaks-founder Julian Assange.

Absolutely fake, absolutely. We have free media, we have free internet. Now, due to martial law, we have some restrictions but before there have been no restrictions. The number of internet users in Azerbaijan is more than 80 percent. Can you imagine the restriction of media in a country where the internet is free, there is no censorship, and there is 80 percent of internet users? We have millions of people on Facebook. How can you say that we dont have free media? This is again, a biased approach. This is an attempt to create a perception in Western audiences about Azerbaijan. We have opposition, we have NGOs, we have free political activity, we have free media, we have freedom of speech. But if you raise this question, can I ask you also one? How do you assess what happened to Mr. Assange? Isnt it the reflection of free media in your country?, said Azerbaijan President Aliyev in the BBC interview.

Aliyev brings up the unjust imprisonment of Wikileaks Julian Assange, who is still in a British prison, after being dragged out of his Ecuadorian embassy asylum in London two years ago. The United States is seeking Julian Assanges extradition to try him for conspiring to hack into US military databases to acquire sensitive secret information,which was then published on the Wikileaks website. In other words, the USA wants to prosecute Julian Assange for doing journalism and publishing documents stolen by other people which reveal US war crimes in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Publishing stolen or leaked information is not a crime, its journalism.

Thus, President Aliyev was successfully able to expose the BBCs hypocrisy of questioning media freedoms about another country, when it is funded by taxpayers money from Great Britain, the country currently imprisoning Julian Assange. According to United Nations Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer, Julian Assange has been a victim of injustice, torture, and political persecution at the hand of the British and American governments. Therefore, the West has no moral right to criticize not just Azerbaijan, but any other country, whilst they allow and support the obvious persecution of a journalist like Assange.

In order to accuse me saying that Armenians will not have free media here, lets talk about Assange. How many years, sorry, how many years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy, and for what? And where is he now? For the journalistic activity, you kept that person hostage actually killing him morally and physically. You did it, not us. And now he is in prison. So you have no moral right to talk about free media when you do these things, said President Aliyev, raising the important issue of Assanges captivity.

This interview from November 2020 has resurfaced because of the obvious contempt towards western, mainstream media which is on the rise. The COVID-19 pandemic also revealed the western mediasunhealthy fetishof linking Indias COVID-19 outbreak with funeral pyres. Several media organizations, be it Washington Post or Reuters, posted pictures of funeral pyres from various places in India to highlight the severity of the pandemic. One of the Washington Post journalists even described a cremation grounds vertical shot as stunning.

Where there are deaths, there are obviously going to be funeral pyres. When the pandemic took its devastating toll on the US, Italy, and other western countries, there were hardly any media organizations that symbolized the outbreak with the images of burial grounds.

This indignity of linking the COVID-19 outbreak with funeral pyres is reserved only for Indians, and it smacks of the Wests envy of India, which was remarkably successful in staving off the initial COVID-19 outbreak when the developed and richer countries of the world were finding it incredibly difficult to control it.

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Exposing the bias of Western media: Old video of Azerbaijan President goes viral. Heres what he said - OpIndia

Defend the freedom of the press! Break the silence about Iraq! – Workers World

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By Swedish Iraq Solidarity Association

The following is an appeal by the Swedish Iraq Solidarity Association on occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, May 3.

Eighteen years have passed since Iraq was invaded and occupied in 2003 by the United States, supported mainly by Britain. The coverage by Western media not least the Swedish media of developments in the country has been extremely deficient and often directly misleading.

Stockholm, Sweden, May 3. Credit: Sigyn Meder

The Australian journalist Julian Assange, who through WikiLeaks revealed to the world the war crimes of the invading forces, is being held without trial in a British high-security prison under poor sanitation and in total isolation, which equals mental torture. His case is not only a mockery of the rule of law but also an attack on international press freedom, intended as a warning to the media worldwide. Whoever reveals war crimes will be severely punished; whoever commits them goes free.

Iraq, which before the invasion was a rich and successful country with a high standard of living for the population, has been destroyed by the invasion. Over one and a half million people have been killed, even more injured or displaced from their homes or subjected to arbitrary violence and abuse.

Large cities such as Mosul and Fallujah have been repeatedly subjected to terror bombing and mass destruction. The countrys infrastructure, including the water and electricity supply and sewage treatment plants, has been smashed to pieces. Extensive corruption prevents reconstruction. Politically, the United States has imposed on Iraq a sectarian system to divide its people.

Destruction of Iraq environment

The weapons used by the United States have caused lasting damage to the environment and to its people. Depleted uranium, white phosphorus and other chemical toxins were used in its warfare.

Many children are still [being] born severely malformed due to radioactivity and other environmental degradation. President Joe Biden recently made a big deal out of the fact that the United States is now joining the Paris Agreement. He made no mention of the [U.S.] American war machines deliberate environmental destruction and poisoning, not only in Iraq.

Officially, the U.S. role today is said to be to fight terrorism, although terrorism was a direct creation of the U.S. war, as even President Barack Obama noted. In reality the role of the United States includes massive bombings of civilians, drone strikes on Iraqi territory, such as the one that resulted in the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020, and the deployment of special forces, contract staff and intelligence agents.

There is strong pressure for U.S. troops to leave Iraq. Major demonstrations call for national independence. On Oct. 1, 2019, a series of extensive demonstrations began, the so-called October Uprising. More than 700 protesters have been killed and thousands injured. No one has been held responsible for these abuses. Media reporting has been almost nonexistent.

The Pentagon plans to stay

The Iraqi parliament has called on the United States to withdraw from the country, and talks have been held with the government on the withdrawal of U.S. military units. But the commander of the U.S. Central Command, Kenneth McKenzie, says: I do not see us completely withdrawing from Iraq in the future.

The U.S. military is clinging to Iraq, but with a less conspicuous role, mainly as advisers and for military training and exercise. Combat units are transferred to Kuwait, Jordan or other areas, from where they can intervene again when they deem it appropriate.

At the same time, the U.S.-led military alliance NATO is increasing its strength in Iraq from 400 troops to 4,000. Formally, that force is currently under Danish command (formerly Canadian, next year Italian), but ultimately control lies with the United States. In addition, the United States finances private companies, which provide mercenaries.

For the United States, Iraq is a base for attacks on Syria and the encirclement of Iran; [Iraq is] a pawn in the game for control of the oil-rich and strategically important Gulf region and ultimately in the pursuit of U.S. domination over the entire Eurasian continent.

Since 2015, the Swedish military has been participating in the U.S.-led coalition Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) in Iraq, which lacks a mandate from the United Nations. Sweden has no national interests to defend in the region and contributes to violations of international law as the coalition carries out attacks in Syria. Sweden should not contribute to the occupying powers continued abuses against Iraq and its neighbors.

[Swedish] Foreign Minister Ann Linde and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have still not answered satisfactorily the questions about Swedens treatment of Julian Assange that Nils Melzer, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, and editor Arne Ruth asked more than a year ago.

The Iraq Solidarity Association calls on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to answer these questions and act for the immediate release of Julian Assange. The war criminals should be punished, not those who exposed the crimes.

The Association calls on the media to break the silence about the illegal abuses against Julian Assange and to stop the smearing of him, which contributes to obscuring this judicial scandal. Defend freedom of the press in the world!

The Association demands an end to Swedens participation in the war and to all foreign interference in Iraq! The Iraqi people must be allowed to decide in their own country. USA out of Iraq!

Contact: [emailprotected]

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Defend the freedom of the press! Break the silence about Iraq! - Workers World

Ethereum: What is it and how is it different from bitcoin? – CNBC

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Jack Taylor | Getty Images

LONDON Ether, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, has been stealing the limelight from bitcoin lately. The digital coin hit a record high above $4,000 on Monday and is now up more than 450% since the start of 2021.

That doesn't come close to the returns on meme-inspired crypto dogecoin, which is up over 11,000% year-to-date. But many crypto investors dismiss dogecoin as little more than a joke and have compared its rise to the Reddit-fueled trading frenzy that pumped up the prices of GameStop and other stocks.

Here is a breakdown of what ether is and how it's different from bitcoin:

Ether is the native currency of Ethereum, an open-source blockchain platform. Ethereum was founded in 2013 by Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin and several other crypto entrepreneurs. Many of the people who started Ethereum were previously involved in bitcoin.

For Buterin, bitcoin was too limited in functionality. In an interview with Business Insider, he compared it to a pocket calculator that "does one thing well," whereas he said Ethereum is more like a smartphone with multiple applications you can use.

That's the main premise of Ethereum. Like bitcoin, it's built on blockchain technology essentially a distributed computer network that records all cryptocurrency transactions. But unlike bitcoin, people can build apps on top of Ethereum.

In Buterin's own words, Ethereum is "a blockchain with a built-in programming language" and the "most logical way to actually build a platform that can be used for many more kinds of applications."

The Ethereum network hosts what's known as smart contracts collections of code that carry out a set of instructions and run on theblockchain.

These contracts are what power decentralized applications, or dapps, which are similar to smartphone apps that run on Google's Android or Apple's iOS operating systems, except they don't answer to one company or authority.

Recently, activity on ether's network has surged thanks to the rise of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which are digital assets designed to represent ownership of unique virtual items. That's because many NFTs from the colorful online cats of CryptoKitties to the cyberpunk-inspired avatars of CryptoPunks run on Ethereum.

Put simply, bitcoin is a payments network that can be used to transfer value between two people anywhere in the world. Today, it's mainly used for investing. Ethereum, on the other hand, is aiming to create the infrastructure for an internet that isn't maintained by any single authority.

A big trend in Ethereum right now is decentralized finance, a term that refers to traditional financial products like loans and mortgages that are built using blockchain. In this case, blockchain replaces the middlemen from banks to governments and keeps track of everything.

Ethereum is far from perfect, though. In 2017, the popularity of the game CryptoKitties caused ether's network to become heavily congested, slowing transactions significantly and leading the game's developers to raise their fees.

Scalability is one of the biggest issues with the Ethereum network today. It currently operates using a proof-of-work protocol, similar to bitcoin. This means that cryptocurrency miners with purpose-built computers have to compete to solve complex mathematical puzzles in order to validate transactions.

This has led to criticisms of both bitcoin and Ethereum from those who are worried about the massive amounts of energy consumed by their networks.

But Ethereum is undergoing an ambitious upgrade called Ethereum 2.0. This would see it move to a "proof-of-stake" model which relies on "stakers" who already hold some ether to process new transactions.

Crypto investors say the upgrade should help the Ethereum network run at scale, processing lots more transactions at a faster pace and supporting apps with millions of users.

It could also lead to short-term price appreciation. More and more ether is gettingstashed awayfor a "lockup" period by token holders seeking to become stakers and validate transactions on the new network. This could, in theory, limit the available supply of ether.

Still, some skeptics remain unconvinced by digital currencies like bitcoin and ether. The latest rally has reminded some investors of the 2017 crypto bubble, in which bitcoin ran up toward $20,000 before plummeting as low as $3,122 a year later. Bears say cryptocurrencies are in another bubble that's waiting to burst. But bulls are convinced things are different this time namely, increased interest from institutional investors.

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Ethereum: What is it and how is it different from bitcoin? - CNBC

This bitcoin misconception could be what takes it to $250,000, according to Morgan Creeks Yusko – CNBC

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Bitcoin may be struggling to break back above $60,000, but Morgan Creek Capital Management's Mark Yusko is aiming even higher.

The investment management firm's founder and chief investment officer predicts the cryptocurrency could reach $250,000 within five years. He says the key is it's so much more than just a token of value something he believes many investors overlook and underestimate.

"It's just about network adoption and increased usage," Yusko told CNBC's "Trading Nation" on Friday. "This is a network and networks grow in an exponential way. This is the fastest network in history to a trillion dollars of value, right on the heels of the FAANGS that took, you know, 15 to 20 years depending on which one you look at."

Yusko bases his $250k target on a gold equivalence. If gold's monetary value is $4 trillion, then digital gold should move up to that total a sum that puts the price at a quarter of a $1 million per coin.

"What people miss is this is a technological evolution of computing power that isn't going away," he said. "It is a powerful computing network that is going to become the base layer protocol for the Internet of value."

It's not just bitcoin that has rallied this year. Litecoin and Ethereum are both up triple digits, while 'meme' crypto Dogecoin has gained more than 13,000%.

Bitcoin is still the gold standard in the crypto world, though, says Yusko. He likens it to the way in which the internet functions. Bitcoin is the base layer protocol like TCP/IP, the foundation that allows computers to connect and communicate, while a crypto like Ethereum is akin to 'www dot', the "toolkit" to build upon that foundation.

"So, yes, there's room for a couple of protocols to survive, but there are 1000s of coins and Doge is in that category that really are useless, they're just utility tokens that have no underlying value or use case and they'll eventually disappear," said Yusko.

Bitcoin is up 98% in 2021. It has struggled in the past month, though, rising little more than 2%.

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This bitcoin misconception could be what takes it to $250,000, according to Morgan Creeks Yusko - CNBC

Bitcoin SV: The Original Bitcoin – Yahoo Finance

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Bitcoin SV: The Original Bitcoin

By Makkie Maclang, CoinGeek

Bitcoin will forever be remembered throughout history as the pioneer in digital currencies. Before Ethereum, Litecoin, Binance Coin, Cardano and Tether came into existence, there was Bitcoin. It has been more than a decade since the Bitcoin white paper, entitled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, was published on Oct. 31, 2008 under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. However, it only reached mass consciousness in 2017 when its value skyrocketed to $20,000.

Bitcoin is a triadic term that denotes a digital coin, a set-in-stone protocol and a public blockchain network. While Bitcoin has since become a household name and blockchain has been gaining ground in the past few years as a viable technology for businesses in various industries, such as healthcare, gaming, social media, marketing, supply chain and real estate, not many people know about their true history and real value.

Bitcoin History

The first ever person-to-person Bitcoin transaction was completed on Jan. 12, 2009 when Nakamoto successfully sent 10 bitcoins to cryptographer and developer Hal Finney. It was a year after, on May 22, 2010, that the first documented Bitcoin transaction was created when early bitcoin mining aficionado Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizza pies for 10,000 bitcoins - worth about $25 total at that time. Now, 10,000 bitcoins would amount to almost $600 million.

From its humble beginnings, Bitcoins value and popularity steadily started to rise; and people became increasingly curious as to who Nakamoto was as his identity remained a mystery. Public interest was so high that on Mar. 6, 2014, Newsweek published the lengthy investigative article The Face Behind Bitcoin that identified Dorian Nakamoto, a Japanese-American engineer living in California, as the creator of the global phenomenon.

The next day, Satoshi Nakamotos account, which had been dormant since 2009, on the P2P Foundation website suddenly became active. Nakamoto simply replied, I am not Dorian Nakamoto, in one of his old posts dated Feb. 11, 2009. In 2015, a year full of upheaval in bitcoin, Wired and Gizmodo published leaked documents and headline stories claiming the largely unknown Dr. Craig S. Wright was Satoshi Nakamoto - effectively doxing him and threatening the well-being of his business, friends and family. This prompted a media frenzy which culminated in the removal of Gavin Andresen from the helm of Bitcoin Core, and caused a fury of problems for Wright who very clearly did not want to be a public figure at the time.

Story continues

On May 2, 2016, the confusion came to an end when Wright, Chief Scientist of UK-based Bitcoin research company nChain, addressed the world and admitted on BBC News that he was indeed Satoshi Nakamoto.

Over the years, there has been an underlying dispute within the Bitcoin community over the scalability of its blockchain. The conflict reached its peak in 2017. Termed as the Bitcoin scaling war, Bitcoin split into Bitcoin Core (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), with advocates of the former labeled as small blockers and the latter big blockers. These labels denote those who did not believe in scaling and opted to keep Bitcoins 1MB block size cap, and those who believed that increasing it is the only answer for Bitcoin to move forward.

For Bitcoin beginners, a blockchain is a distributed ledger that records validated transactions on data blocks, which are then linked together to form a chain. A master copy of the data, updated in near real time, is stored on all nodes (or miners) on the network. All miners also need to agree if ever a change is going to be made, making data practically impossible to be manipulated. Hence, data is distributed and the network is decentralized. In order to scale, the block size limit needs to be raised, enabling each block to contain more data and transactions.

At the height of the scaling war in 2017, Wright could not take what was happening to his creation anymore. With Bitcoin nurturing a reputation for being a network focused exclusively on large, slow and expensive (but presumably unstoppable) transactions, the only viable use cases for the network were becoming evasive savings and large-scale criminal commerce. Against this backdrop, Wright made a fiery, surprise speech at the Arnhem conference in July 2017.

Satoshi Nakamoto didnt like the crime culture of Bitcoin; however, it was the predominant cultural narrative. Hey, we need a lot of distributed nodes, we need to make sure bitcoin cant be censored, and to make sure we cant censor it, we need to make it slow and small enough for people to run their own nodes and create their notion of perfect security, CoinGeek Chief Historian Kurt Wuckert Jr. said.From the moment Wright made his surprise appearance in Arnhem, he steadily returned to the Bitcoin community and became active in order to fix Bitcoin and get it back on track - focusing on the technology, the economics and the culture that makes Bitcoin valuable. In 2018, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was again embroiled in conflict over the scaling issue. While BCH had scaled its block size limit set to 32MB, many believed that that was enough. Again, some bitcoiners fought against the need for continuing to scale, while others wanted to pursue Wrights vision of infinite scalability. In late 2018, BCH again split and Bitcoin SV (BSV) emerged from the battle.

What is Bitcoin SV (BSV)?

With SV standing for Satoshi Vision, it is clear that BSV is all about restoring Bitcoin to what Wright originally intended it to be. Since its inception, BSV has been dubbed as the original Bitcoin. About a year after the split, the Genesis Upgrade was released on Feb. 4, 2020, which successfully restored Bitcoins original, set-in-stone protocol, as close as possible to how it was designed in the white paper. Aside from scalability, Bitcoins changing protocol and the nature of its governance has been a major issue during the scaling wars. A protocol that is often changed means applications built upon it need to be adjusted as well. Applications would need to stop running and developers would require time and money in order to fully adapt to the new rules. Furthermore, time-locked contracts or escrowed bitcoins were impossible to implement with the shifting sands of the protocol wars - breaking many commercial use cases. With a fixed protocol, developers can now build a variety of applications and platforms on the Bitcoin SV blockchain without having to worry about changes, just like how the Internet protocol created a trustworthy online economy.

What sets BSV apart from other digital currencies?

Unlike other digital currencies where the coin is the product and communities focus on absorbing value for holders of the coin during frothy bull market cycles, BSV is built to allow the external creation of value based on four pillars: a stable protocol, a massively scalable blockchain, security beyond sufficiency and safe instant transactions.

With the original Bitcoin protocol set in stone, BSV provides a rock-solid foundation upon which developers can build whatever application or software that suits their needs. The Genesis Upgrade also unlocked the capability of BSV for unbounded scalability and use of the BSV for monetized, general-purpose computation (like Ethereum but without limits!)

Since then, the BSV network has continued to scale massively; and this is evidenced by its test network recording 16,415,525 transactions in a single block the size of 3.15GB at an average transaction fee of 0.00000197 BSV on Feb. 3, 2021. This proves that micropayments and financial services can be rendered at a very low cost compared to Western Union or PayPal.

Aside from implementing the first ever, fully security-audited Bitcoin node software, BSVs security is also the only variant of bitcoin that can benefit from the economic security inherent to bitcoin as a complete system without arbitrary limits and compounding dependencies. BSV is public by nature and abides by the rule of law.

Per the Bitcoin White Paper, all transactions and changes thereof are broadcasted to all nodes on the network. Their active participation in mining and governance make it impossible for an attacker to successfully conduct a 51% attack, which is the name of an act whereby malicious actors gain control of the blockchain; disrupting and reversing transactions for the sake of theft or vandalism of the blockchain ledger. The public blockchain also prevents criminal activities as evidence of any illegal dealing is publicly accessible. All of these attributes, which other blockchain networks seek to remove from their competing protocols, make instant transactions on BSV uniquely safe and reliable.

Enterprise Blockchain Solutions

The Genesis Upgrade is just the first step towards BSVs grand vision of making it an enterprise blockchain that can be globally adopted by businesses. At present, there are more than 400 projects and ventures being built on the BSV blockchain.

US-based EHR Data, Veridat and VXpass are each developing their own healthcare data management platforms; Norway-based UNISOTs Seafoodchain is already providing solutions to the seafood supply chain; Scotland-based Recycle SV has created an app that streamlines and incentivizes the recycling process; and Australian-based firm LAYER2 Technologies has already successfully tested out voting platform B-Vote to accommodate the countrys entire population.

These are just a small number of projects on the BSV blockchain that spans many countries and industries, and blockchain conferences are continuously being held to foster global awareness.

The Original Bitcoin

Bitcoin has been misused throughout the years and has deviated from its creators original vision. And although more than a decade late, Wright has finally stepped up to rightfully claim what was his and steer the project back toward the creation of more economic and personal freedom. He is doing this by giving the world the tools to do business more efficiently and by giving people ownership of their data with increased privacy and utility - only possible with the power of Bitcoin SV.

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