Daily Archives: July 15, 2020

An Islamist Turkey would be a threat to NATO – Ahval

Posted: July 15, 2020 at 9:59 pm

An Islamist and expansionist Turkey would be a threat to NATO, a writer for the Jerusalem Post said on Wednesday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoans interventions in Syria and Libya are shoring up extremist Islamist forces, Ghanem M. Nuseibeh, chair of Muslims against anti-Semitism and the founder of Cornerstone Global Associates, said.

The expansionist Turkish policies in Libya are an implementation of the global blueprint of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, namely, to establish a pan-national Islamist caliphate, he said.

Erdoans used the traditional relations the secular Turkish state had with the West, especially with NATO, to legitimate his expansionist moves in the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Europe.

Nuseibeh said Turkeys interests in Libya, where it has intervened military to back the United Nations-recognised Government of National Accord, and in the eastern Mediterranean, where it is increasingly asserting its right to drill for hydrocarbons, are at odds with many Western countries.

The gradual Islamisation of Turkey now poses a direct threat to the West as a whole, as well as to the moderate states of the Middle East. The West, led by NATO, needs to adopt a united stance against Turkey, which no longer is the secular, pro-Western state that Erdoan inherited, he said. Turkey under Erdoan is the wolf, and most of Europe is still acting like Little Red Riding Hood.

Turkey has also come under criticism for abandoning secularism in its move last week to re-convert the Hagia Sophia museum back into a mosque.

Alex Galitsky, communications director of the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region, said the move was more than simply a provocation.

For Turkey, the conversion of the Hagia Sophia represents the death knell for any remaining semblance of secularism in the country, Galitsky said in the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.

It signals Turkeys full embrace of an expansionist, neo-Ottoman foreign policy, unperturbed by its neighbors and allies, and the complete abandonment of its European ambitions that NATO member states once desperately clung onto and used to justify their placation of Turkey amid the country's steady backsliding on democracy and human rights.

Galitsky said it is part of a longstanding oppression of Christianity in Turkey.

For the remaining Christians of Turkey today, who have experienced the steady erosion of their rights to religious freedom and cultural expression over the last two decades, the conversion of the Hagia Sophia is tantamount to a declaration of war on their very right to exist in the lands they have lived in for millennia, he said.

On Friday, Erdoan announced the opening of the Hagia Sophia to Muslim worship after the Council of State Turkeys highest administrative court ruled that the buildings conversion to a museum by modern Turkeys founding secular statesman was illegal.

In a televised address, Erdoan said that prayers will be held at the site on July 24.

The Hagia Sophia, originally built as a Byzantine cathedral in 537, was turned into a mosque following the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul on May 29, 1453, and then became a museum in 1935 under Mustafa Kemal Atatrks presidency.

With Turkey leaving secularism behind, Erdoan is positioning himself to lead what he sees as a resurgent Islam, with Turkey at its head, Yiannis Baboulias said in the Spectator magazine on Tuesday.

"Erdoans firm friendship with Donald Trump has so far protected him from worse sanctions and responses by European leaders. Will the Hagia Sophia be a wake-up call to a West that has so far tolerated far too many transgressions? Does it even care? The time for complacency is over," Baboulias said.

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NATO Forces return to Black Sea for the second time this year – defence-blog.com

Posted: at 9:59 pm

NATO Maritime Command has announced that standing NATO Maritime Group Two (SNMG2) and Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group Two (SNMCMG2) units have entered the Black Sea for the second time this year to conduct further routine operations, and to participate in two regional exercises organised by the Bulgarian and Ukrainian navies.

SNMG2 arrived to the Black Sea on 9 July, and is composed of three frigates from Spain, Romania and Turkey, led by Rear Admiral Manuel Aguirre of the Spanish Navy, with the Spanish frigate lvaro de Bazn (F-101) as the flagship.

SNMCMG2 vessels HS Aliakmon (flagship), ESPS Tambre, TCG Amasra and ITS Gaeta, led by Commander Dimitrios Katsouras of the Hellenic Navy, entered the Black Sea on 7 July, where it was joined by ROS Lupu Dinescu and sailed towards Burgas (BUL) where they arrived on 10 July.

With three Allied nations, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, and two regional partners, Ukraine and Georgia bordering the Black Sea, Standing Naval Group presence in the region is a regular occurrence. Apart from conducting maritime security patrols in international waters, the two exercises will help enhance interoperability between Allies and regional partners.

With visits planned to Bulgaria and Ukraine in the coming days, all activities of the Standing NATO Forces ashore will continue to abide by COVID-19 restrictions, designed to protect their operational capabilities. However, as national regulations are eased, opportunities for key engagements will help reaffirm and build these regional relationships.

SNMG2 and SNMCMG2 are two of our four standing forces that comprise the maritime component of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), which is part of the NATO Response Force (NRF). To respond to contingency situations additional forces can be added to these groups, with the NATO command staff onboard and the ships of the group as the nucleus, capable of providing timely support to NATO operations.

NATO warships also will take part in Sea Breeze is a U.S. and Ukraine co-hosted multinational maritime exercise that held in the Black Sea and is designed to enhance interoperability of participating nations and strengthen maritime security and peace within the region.

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Spy planes in north-east take part in first Nato exercise – Press and Journal

Posted: at 9:59 pm

The north-easts new fleet of spy planes have taken part in their first Nato exercise hunting submarines submerged beneath the waves.

Nine P-8A Poseidons will eventually operate from RAF Lossiemouth with two already flying from nearby Kinloss Barracks.

The aircraft have now participated in their first multi-national training drill as crews continue to build their experience.

The Nato exercise Dynamic Mongoose involved six nations honing anti-submarine skills in the challenging North Atlantic.

Crews from RAF Lossiemouths 120 Squadron will be tasked with monitoring the area due to increasing levels of Russian activity detected under the surface with 201 Squadron due to arrive at the base next year.

During the drill personnel were tasked with locating and tracking a simulated submarine across an area of 200 square nautical miles with coordination between ships and aircraft to speed up the time taken to locate, identify and track targets.

On one sortie an RAF Poseidon launched a simulated attack within 10 minutes of taking over contact from a US aircraft also involved in the exercise.

Wing Commander James Hanson, officer commanding 120 Squadron, said: Participation in Dynamic Mongoose offers the trained crews a chance to hone their skills cooperating with ships, submarines and aircraft from a number of Nato partner nations, as well as the Royal Navy.

The exercise offers my crews a great opportunity to be tested against highly professional opposition in the exercise environment, and I know that the crews have relished the chance to show what they can do with our extremely capable aircraft.

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China threat: Beijing plotting massive territorial gains – with warning issued for Taiwan – Express.co.uk

Posted: at 9:59 pm

And territorial disputes from the South China Sea to the Himalayas, not to mention Beijing's ambitions in the Arctic, have all been highlighted as threats to world security. Meanwhile, the UK has been tipped to play a major role after the end of the year in accordance with the "Global Britain" strategy referred to by among others Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The report, which emphasises the importance of all member states paying their fair share of two percent of GDP into the alliance, is published by the Policy Institute think tank, based at Kings College London, and authored by among others George Robertson, former NATO Secretary General, Michael Fallon, former UK Defence Secretary, and former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell.

With reference to China, the report entitled The future strategic direction of NATO, highlights the fact that China's military spending has increased by 6.6 percent this year, irrespective of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The authors said: "It is clear President Xi Jinping remains committed to the modernisation of the Peoples Liberation Army by 2035 and its transformation into a 'world-class' military by 2049.

Recent events demonstrate the determination China has to bring Hong Kong under its firm grip, raising grave concerns for its future as well as that of Taiwan

Policy Institute report

"Recent events demonstrate the determination China has to bring Hong Kong under its firm grip, raising grave concerns for its future as well as that of Taiwan."

The report adds: "Chinas argument with India, and ongoing disputes with Japan, demonstrate preparedness to press territorial claims from the Himalayas to the South China Seas.

"In addition, China is increasing its activity in the Arctic, creating a 'polar silk road' and a 5+1 group with Nordic nations, similar to the 17+1 group that guides Chinas cooperation with Central and Eastern European countries."

JUST IN:South China Sea crisis: US attacks Beijings claims to region

The onset of coronavirus would inevitably take its toll on the economy, the report acknowledged, with a knock-on impact on defence spending.

The report warns: "Whatever the reason, NATO may see less spent on defence in the next few years.

"This argues for a push on economies of scale, sensible procurement and greater collaboration."

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Nevertheless COVID-19 should not be an excuse for NATO member states to renege on spending commitments made at the Wales Summit in 2014.

The authors said: "All members pledged to move towards two percent by 2024.

"At the time, only three countries met the target; nine now do.

"NATO should continue to push for the pledge to be fulfilled."

As for the role of post-Brexit Britain, the report says: "We want the UK to play a central and leading role in the strategic direction of NATO, in full collaboration with other members.

"Global Britain should have at its core a determination that collective action on defence and security is where the country will make a major contribution.

"We anticipate the UK taking the lead where its expertise and experience can drive ideas, develop new thinking and promote action."

Assessing the future of NATO, Mr Robertson said: "Since it was established in 1949, Nato has played a vital role in preserving a way of life based on freedom and liberal values.

"As new threats emerge from an increasingly aggressive China and Russia, the alliance must step up to meet them and demonstrate its enduring importance in a more uncertain world.

"Failure to do so risks imperilling global security and undermining the prosperity and stability that Nato has helped to create for more than 70 years.

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Trump said that he does not want the US to leave NATO – FREE NEWS

Posted: at 9:59 pm

US resident Donald Trump said in an interview with newspaper columnist Mark Thyssen that he does not want the United States to leave NATO, but the allies must pay dues.

According to former White House national security adviser John Bolton in his book, The Room where it happened: the White House memoir, Trump wanted to threaten NATO leaders at the 2018 summit with the US leaving the Alliance if they did not pay contributions of 2% of GDP. According to him, after that, he discussed Trumps threat to withdraw from NATO with Secretary of state Mike Pompeo; they decided to convince him to stay in the Alliance, but perhaps by reducing US contributions. As a result, in his speech, Trump did as Bolton advised him he declared his support for NATO, but criticized those countries of the Alliance that still have small defense budgets.

In an interview with Thyssen, Trump complained that 2% of GDP is also too little.

There were those who paid almost nothing, and now they are paying. And they asked me an important question: You would leave if and I answered: Yes, I would leave. And if you dont give that answer, theyre not going to pay, said Trump, whose words are quoted by Thyssen in his article published by the Washington Post.

When asked by a columnist whether Trump wants the US to leave NATO, Trump replied in the negative. No, I dont want to leave But I want them to pay their fair share, Trump said.

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University lecturer who part of the NATO Peacekeeping after the Srebrenica genocide reflects on the 25th anniversary – The Northern Echo

Posted: at 9:59 pm

Jeremy Cook, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, who was part of the NATO Peacekeeping force in Bosnia after the Srebrenica genocide, and student Admir Meskovic talk about their experiences on this years anniversary

The atrocities committed in the Bosnian War were truly frightening and I witnessed first-hand the suffering of the victims as we helped them rebuild their lives.

My time in Bosnia taught me that we must always remain vigilant to the threat of those who incite intolerance, hate and discrimination.

So says Jeremy Cook, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Colleges and Student Experience) at Durham University, reflecting on the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide.

In July 1995, over 8,000 people mostly Bosniaks in and around the town of Srebrenica, part of modern day Bosnia and Herzegovina, were killed by units of the Bosnian Serb army under the command of Ratko Mladic.

The graves at Srebrenica Picture: AMRA MUJKANOVIC

The United Nations had declared Srebrenica a safe area under its protection, but failed to prevent the towns capture or the subsequent massacre.

Prior to joining Durham University, Mr Cook served with the British Army and in 1995 he was part of the NATO Peacekeeping force in Bosnia a few months after the Srebrenica genocide.

Last week was the UKs Srebrenica Memorial Week for 2020, with remembrance activities taking place across the region. In Durham, Srebrenica genocide flags were flown from Durham Cathedral; Durham Castle, home to University College, Durham; and County Hall, headquarters of Durham County Council.

Flying the flag in Durham Picture: GAVIN WORT

The Very Reverend Andrew Tremlett, Dean of Durham, encouraged people to pray for continuing peace. Cllr Angela Surtees, Durham County Councils Cabinet member for social inclusion, said the lesson of Srebrenica was that hatred and intolerance can flourish if left unchallenged.

Admir Meskovic was only a child when the Bosnian War started. Fearful of what was to come, his family relocated to live with relatives. It proved to be a wise choice: not a single bomb exploded in their new home town during the four-year conflict.

Nevertheless, the young Admir was close enough to hear explosions and the movement of hostile tanks. He recalls his family turning out the lights to avoid hostile attention, sleeping in jeans in case you had to move quickly during the night and child refugees from the region around Srebrenica living in his home.

Now studying for an MBA at Durham University Business School, Admir reflects: There are frightening stories of those people who survived that hell. Not many, because few have survived. These kind of stories cannot be paraphrased, you have to hear directly from a person witnessing the horror.

Admir Meskovic

This includes my peer, a then-seven-year-old boy Fahrudin who survived the mass executions of civilians from his village, including his father. Fahrudin was wounded in his arm and leg, and was saved by the Red Cross driver who noticed that something was moving in the mass of dead bodies that was waiting to be transported to the mass grave.

The driver who saved the young boy was not considered a hero, however. He suffered the consequences because of his betrayal during his life, and his funeral later was attended by only the closest relatives.

If we say that it is important to remember the Srebrenica genocide, we talk about something that happened in the past and finished. It is incomparably more tragic to see that the ideology which led to genocide is still live and active.

The annual Memorial Week is co-ordinated by the Remembering Srebrenica charity and this years theme was Every Action Matters. Lucy Adams, chair of the charitys North East board, said she was delighted to see Durhams University, Cathedral and County Council marking the anniversary.

Just some of the names of the people who died

County Durham has long-standing links with Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the 1984-5 Miners Strike, miners from Tuzla sent aid to striking miners in the North-East. Then during the war, Durham miners reciprocated, sending aid to Tuzla.

Durham University also has links with the area through its School of Government and International Affairs and the Durham Global Security Institute. Dr Stefanie Kappler, an Associate Professor in Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding, has conducted extensive fieldwork in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

With Dr Lydia Cole and the University of Manchester, she is currently working on a project exploring how art can be part of peace processes, with Bosnia-Herzegovina as one of four case studies. She has also researched how the ways past atrocities are remembered can impact the quality of peace in the present.

In April 2018, Dr Kappler organised for the interreligious choir Pontamina, from Sarajevo, to perform at Durham Cathedral. The event featured Nedzad Avdic, a Srebrenica survivor, telling his story and Dave Temple, from the Durham Miners Association, speaking about the historic links between Durham and Tuzla.

Srebrenica graves Picture: Rooful Ali

Speaking about this years Memorial Week, Smajo Beso, a former Bosnian refugee who is now an architect and lecturer at Newcastle University, said: We were warmly welcomed to the North-East more than 25 years ago and supported by the incredible people of this region. I dont think you will find anyone in our community that hasnt lost a loved one or that isnt still suffering with the traumatic effects from the war.

But now to have our pain and suffering acknowledged in such a visible way is incredibly powerful and cathartic. Were a small community but we all proudly call the North-East our home. Thank you to all those that have supported us and continue to do so.

For more information, please visit: srebrenica.org.uk

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What We Learned From New FOIA Documents About The DOJs Wire Act Opinion – OnlinePokerReport.com

Posted: at 9:58 pm

Freedom of Information Act documents turned over to New Jersey paint more of a picture of what happened leading up to and in the wake of the Department of Justices decision to alter its opinion on the federal Wire Act in 2018.

Online Poker Report has received the results of the request from NJs attorney general. AG Gurbir Grewal was looking for information relating to outside groups lobbying efforts in the FOIA request. In particular, he was trying to find a link between the DOJ opinion and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a longtime opponent of online gambling in the United States.

The 2018 Wire Act opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel changed the DOJs stance on the Wire Act, saying it applies to all forms of interstate gambling, not just sports betting. That stance threatens the legality of online casinos, online poker and online lotteries in states that have legalized any of those things, in addition to other things, including multi-state lottery products.

A federal court has already rejected the new DOJ memo; the case is still active in appeals court.

Heres what we learned from the FOIA documents. While there is no smoking gun linking Adelson or his lobbying group to the DOJs change on the Wire Act, it does detail interactions between the department and outside sources.

All documents and emails referenced below are from the FOIA request.

The FOI uncovered that as early as March of 2017, some at the DOJ were already looking at changing the departments opinion on The Wire Act. According to guidance from the DOJ in 2011, the Wire Act applied only to sports betting and other forms of gambling that might cross state lines.

This correspondence took place more than a year and a half before the new OLC memo (written in 2018, and released in early 2019). It also roughly coincides with outside efforts to effect this change from a law firm (Cooper and Kirk) that works with the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling. CSIG is believed to be bankrolled by Adelson.

Heres an email from February of 2017, an introduction of a lawyer for a firm that works with CSIG, that likely led to a memo from Cooper and Kirk on the Wire Act.

That led to email exchanges in 2017 where CSIG lawyers were interacting with the DOJ in March and trying to set up a meeting. The email below is from Acting Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General James Mann:

More on DOJ actively engaging with someone from Steptoe on the issue, which seems to imply the DOJ working actively with outside sources regarding the Wire Act opinion:

CSIG, as we already knew before the FOIA, submitted its Wire Act memo in April 2017:

The issue continued to have momentum in May:

Graham is Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has long advanced Adelsons agenda on other topics as well as online gambling.

The issue made its way to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein a week later in a memo that was entirely redacted except for a footnote:

While not a smoking gun, it would be quite the coincidence if these lobbying efforts started and the reaction started soon thereafter. The DOJ attempts to distance itself from those lobbying efforts in answering reporters questions after the Wire Act opinion was released in 2019:

Interestingly, the CSIG had a press release ready to go soon after the Wire Act opinion was released.

Then acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker denied any influence in the crafting of the opinion.

Regardless, a lot of the heavy lifting on the early understanding of the Wire Act opinion happened well in advance of the opinion actually dropping, and a lot of people in the DOJ were thinking about it.

This is perhaps not shocking, as the DOJ is part of the executive branch.

Nevertheless, multiple people at the White House (WH below) were interested in what was going on around the Wire Act. This could just be standard operating procedure to loop in White House on a change in the interpretation of the law, but there was a lot of White House interest.

Here is an email chain that came just as Online Poker Report broke the news that a Wire Act opinion was coming (the Twitter post referenced is a link to OPRs story in December):

More from a few days later:

More after the opinions release:

The FOIA request had hoped to turn up more evidence that Adelson was working with the DOJ and/or the White House to change the Wire Act interpretation. While it didnt do that, it did demonstrate a lot of White House involvement that could potentially be explained by the normal course of business.

Adelson has been a large donor to the campaign of President Donald Trump and has demonstrated he has the presidents ear on other issues.

The FOIA request also turned up lots of correspondence with the DOJ about the 2011 and 2018 Wire Act opinions.

Notable, former US Sen. Ron Paul urged the DOJ to keep the opinion in place way back in June of 2017:

Its not entirely clear why Paul was writing this at this exact moment in time, but he had been an opponent of repeated Congressional efforts to change the Wire Act to cover online gambling.

Former Nebraska attorney general Jon Bruning also wrote the DOJ asking for the 2011 opinion to stand, according to the FOIA documents.

The FOIA also includes a number of other letters regarding the status of the opinion before and after it was issued.

A sidenote to all the documents in the request: Shortly after the US Supreme Court ended the federal ban on sports betting, the NCAA and the NFL had a meeting with the DOJ. This had been previously reported.

Its not clear if the Wire Act would have come up at this meeting, but it is included in the FOIA documents:

A letter from the NCAA and NFL to the DOJ did mention the Wire Act in passing.

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RONALD PAUL FORD SR. – Obituaries – The Times – The Times

Posted: at 9:58 pm

WednesdayJul15,2020at12:01AM

Ronald Paul Ford Sr. Ambridge Formerly of Moon Township Ronald Paul Ford, Sr., passed away peacefully on July 11, 2020, at the age of 63. Born on August 5, 1956, in Sewickley, he was the son of the late Elizabeth and Henry Ford, Sr. Ronald loved cars and spending time with his beloved grandchildren. Ronald is survived by his children, Heather Ford of Daytona Beach, Fla., Holly Neff (Ron) of Ambridge, and Jason Ford of Ambridge; 11 grandchildren; and siblings, Susan Hillman of Sewickley, Linda McDermott (Roger) of Ambridge, Diane Hathaway of Ambridge, Henry G. Ford Jr. (Clara) of Hampton, Va., and Garry P. Ford Sr. (Darlene) of Bedford. In addition to his parents, Ronald was preceded in death by his son, Ronald Ford Jr. and his brother, Terry A. Ford. Visitation will be held at COPELAND SEWICKLEY FUNERAL HOME, 702 Beaver St., http://www.copelandfuneralhomes.com, on Thursday, July 16, from 4 to 7 p.m. where his funeral service will be held on Friday at 11 a.m. Burial will follow in Sewickley Cemetery.

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NEWS WATCH: Beasts of the Black Hand 2 From Paul Harding, Ron Marz and Matthew Dow Live on Kickstarter Now – Comic Watch

Posted: at 9:58 pm

The BEASTSare unleashed once again! Created by sculptorand artistPaul Harding,the dieselpunk horror-adventureBEASTS OF THE BLACK HAND, is returning with an all-new graphic novel.BEASTS OF THE BLACK HAND Volume 2: The Viking Leagueis now on Kickstarter, with a campaign to produce a hardcover sequel to the landmark initial volume, viaOminous PressandCreation.Ink.

Written byRon Marz, drawn byMatthew Dow Smith, and colored byNanjan Jamberi, the sequel will be a lavish, 64-page oversize hardcover, just like Volume 1, which was produced thanks to a highly-successful Kickstarter campaign. Once successfully funded, Volume 2 is expected to be released in December.

Set at the close of the First World War in a world where dieselpunk technology is transforming the world, Volume 1 introduced British secret agent Oswald Rayner as he assassinated the Mad Monk, Rasputin. Rayner is charged with battling the nefarious Black Hand, a secret cabal of sorcerers bent on unleashing monsters upon Europe. Rayner is aided by a team that includes his driver and mechanic, Biffy Dunderdale; French Hello Girl Oleda Marchand; and American war hero Henry Johnson.

Having thwarted Maria Rasputins machinations to destroy the Versailles peace conference, Volume 2 finds Rayner and his team battling the Black Hand in Eastern Europe, as well as Germany, where the fascist Viking League is rising to power. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure known as the Teutonic Knight has appeared in Berlin, his loyalties unknown.

Im so excited to reunite with Ron and Matt forVolume 2.Everythingaboutthis story is bigger, better, and darker. Were really turning loosethe monsters in this one,Paul Harding said.

Both Volumes 1 and 2 will be available will be available via the Kickstarter, with standard covers byMatthew Dow Smith, and limited sculpture variant covers byPaul Harding. Other rewards include collectible, limited-edition, single-issue comics with exclusive variant covers by artists includingMatthew Dow Smith, Eric Powell, Mike McKone, Mark Nelson, Meghan Hetrick, and others. Additional variant covers will be announced throughout the campaign by an all-star collection of artists, includingRachael Stott, Tom Mandrake, and more.

There are also sculpture rewards crafted byPaul Harding and Creation.Ink, limited-edition prints, and T-shirts.

Paul Hardingis a sculptor whose work has premiered through DC Collectibles, Gentle Giant, MarvelLegends, Sideshow, and more. Legendary writerRon Marzhas worked for every major publisher with acclaimed runs onSilver Surfer, Green Lantern, Witchblade, and others.Matthew Dow Smith, known for both his art and writing, has art credits ranging fromBatmanandWonder WomantoDoctor WhoandX-Files.

The Kickstarter campaign is live now, and ends on Aug. 13.

NEWS WATCH: Beasts of the Black Hand 2 From Paul Harding, Ron Marz and Matthew Dow Live on Kickstarter Now

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Storytelling has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember, I look forward to offering opinions and insight on some of the best stories being told today.

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Five Years On, Ethereum Is the Minecraft of Crypto-Finance – CoinDesk – CoinDesk

Posted: at 9:58 pm

Camila Russo is the founder of The Defiant and author of The Infinite Machine, the first book on the history of Ethereum, which launches today. Read an extract here.

Almost five years ago on July 30, 2015, part of the Ethereum team had gathered in Berlin to see the network they helped build go live. A big screen overhanging their worktables served as the countdown clock for when the test network reached block 1,028,201. Thats the palindrome and prime number they picked as the key which would launch the mainnet. Others were waiting for the launch in Ethereum hubs in Amsterdam, Toronto, New York and Zug, Switzerland.

It was the culmination of months of work, where core developers did the heavy lifting on the technical side, but which also included designers, marketers, and community managers.Ethereans knew a distributed network with no community would fail.

Ethereum turns five on July 30, 2020. CoinDesk is marking five years of Ethereum with a series of retrospective stories and live-streamed Twitter conversations. There are even some Easter eggs for eagle-eyed readers. Tune in to our CoinDesk Live sessions July 27-31 at 4 p.m. Eastern each day or call +1 (661) 4-UNICRN.

Early Ethereum team members had also spent endless hours with lawyers leading up to the ether sale, some co-founders had gone through bitter fights, while many others had ravaged their savings working with no salaries towards one goal: Making the vision Vitalik Buterin laid out on a white paper in November 2013, a reality.

Its happening

When the test network hit the predetermined block at 4:26 p.m. in Berlin, a meme of Ron Paul, jubilant, with his arms up and surrounded in green laser beams and white block letters that read ITS HAPPENING, popped up on the monitor. The Ethereum team opened a bottle of champagne while rocket emojis filled chat rooms.

The Ethereum network quickly left other blockchain upstarts behind and has since grown to become the second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, with ethers market capitalization (as of writing) at just under $30 billion.

Minecraft of crypto-finance

But a better measure of success is to examine whether Ethereum builders achieved what they set out to do. Ethereum aims to be a fully-fledged, Turing-complete (but heavily fee-regulated) cryptographic ledger, which allows developers to build any application they can dream of on top, Vitalik wrote in the white paper, which inspired early team members to drop everything and join him in building it.

Rather than being limited to a specific set of transaction types, users will be able to use Ethereum as a sort of Minecraft of crypto-finance that is to say, one will be able to implement any feature that one desires simply by coding it in the protocols internal scripting language, he wrote. Minecraft is a sandbox-style video game, which gives players flexibility to explore and build whatever they want in the games virtual world.

Vitalik, who was 19 years old at the time, listed on the Ethereum white paper the applications he envisioned could be built on top of this generalized platform:

Sub-currencies representing assets such as USD or gold to company stocks and even currencies with only one unit issued to represent collectibles or smart property.

Financial derivatives, such as hedging contracts. He notes that financial contracts of any form do need to be fully collateralized; the Ethereum network controls no enforcement agency and cannot collect debt.

Identity and reputation systems where users can register their names in a public database alongside other data, for example, for domain-name systems.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, which replicate traditional companies but use blockchain technology for enforcement. The entity would have shareholders who collect dividends and decide how the corporation automatically allocates its funds, using either bounties, salaries or even more exotic mechanisms such as an internal currency to reward work.

Also listed were crop and generic insurance, decentralized data feeds, gambling and prediction markets, a full-scale on-chain stock market and an on-chain decentralized marketplace.

Five years later, all of the use cases envisioned by Vitalik have become a reality, though some with more success than others.

Sub-currencies success

What Vitalik called sub-currencies what we now know as tokens, stablecoins and NFTs have arguably been the most successful applications on Ethereum so far. Valued at over $33 billion, Ethereums ERC-20 tokens represent almost 13 percent of total cryptocurrency market capitalization, according to Etherscan. Together with ether, all of the Ethereum ecosystem is about one-fourth of crypto.

The innovation of entrepreneurs being able to issue their own coins and sell them to anyone in the world in fundraising rounds, which for the first time didnt need venture capitalists or banks, helped fuel one of the most spectacular speculative manias in 2017-2018. This past year, most growth has come from stablecoins, with tokens pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar trading at about $12 billion thats about three times stablecoin market cap a year ago, according to Messari data most of which is on Ethereum, due mainly to Tethers migration to the network.

Non-fungible tokens and their marketplaces had their biggest moment with CryptoKitties in late 2017, but the space is arguably one of the brightest spots for innovation within Ethereum, with use cases from in-game items to art and limited-edition fashion.

Dexs and derivatives

On-chain stock exchanges are todays decentralized exchanges. While they still represent a fraction of total volume traded on centralized crypto exchanges, growth has been staggering. Almost $5.7 billion have traded so far on DEXs this year, or more than twice the value trading hands in all of 2019, according to Dune Analytics. Beyond volume metrics, DEXs are delivering on the cypherpunk dream of seamless, global, non-custodial trading of cryptocurrencies.

Financial derivatives are also flourishing. Synthetic assets platforms such as Synthetix and UMA allow almost any assets to be represented on the Ethereum blockchain, while margin trading platforms such as dYdX have enabled futures trading, the most popular asset in centralized crypto finance.

Meanwhile, lending platforms including Compound and Aave allow users to gain interest on their crypto deposits, and tokenize those deposits so they can be simply bought on an exchange and held in users wallets.

DAOs started out early in Ethereum history as one of the strongest projects. The DAO attracted, at the time, the most capital ever for an Ethereum fundraiser, though we all know how that ended. After a traumatic experience, the Ethereum community steered clear of decentralized organizations for a couple of years, until 2019 ushered a DAO revival. Initially, these entities were focused on distributing donations, but that quickly evolved into for-profit DAOs, like The LAO and VentureDAO.

Ethereum has also given rise to applications in prediction markets, identity systems and insurance, but theyre lagging financial applications in terms of volume and adoption.

Internet of value

Financial applications have had the greatest success on Ethereum so far, arguably because it provides something that just cant be replicated by the current financial system, or by bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency. Its a global network thats built to transfer value, and it can also process computer programs to allow for more sophisticated financial transactions. Value held in these financial platforms has soared to more than $2 billion this year, a fivefold increase from a year ago.

Ethereum has successfully become the Minecraft of crypto finance, as Vitalik envisioned. But beyond becoming a platform that can support all these different kinds of applications, the biggest impact is its creating an actual internet of value. Its a network that enables fast, cheap, global value transfers and the ability to program that money to become anything from futures contracts to collectibles to derivatives pegged to stocks, forex and commodities. And its allowing users of this system to take charge of their own assets and data.

Almost any network metric will show there is demand for permissionless, trustless systems. Active addresses are near a record at just under 568,000, a stone throws away from bitcoins 745,000, according to CoinMetrics. Transaction fees paid to the networks miners have surpassed bitcoins, while daily transaction count is almost four times that of the biggest cryptocurrency at about 1 million, the data show.

A good problem to have

The question isnt whether theres demand for Ethereum, but whether the network will continue developing fast enough to meet that demand. The wait for ETH 2.0, which would allow Ethereum to scale, has been a constant in Ethereums history. A barebones proof-of-stake chain, which was slated to launch early this year, has been delayed and now its unclear whether it will launch this year at all.

But progress with Layer 2 solutions, which take transactions off-chain, has been encouraging. Teams working on Optimistic Roll-Ups are testing prototypes, while solutions using Plasma and Zero Knowledge technology are live right now and able to handle thousands of transactions per second. While the wait for ETH2.0 continues, the wait for Ethereum scaling is over.

The next five years will be about strengthening these scaling solutions and making these financial applications more robust and secure. It will also be necessary to create better crypto onramps and building apps in the less developed areas of Ethereum, like identity and insurance. The result will be this Minecraft of finance stops being an insiders secret and more players can join.

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

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