Bitcoin Is Organized Crime

I have explained in the past what is fundamentally wrong with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies: a currency is actually an expression of military and judicial might. A currency needs a state, or states, to back it up, and is a tool thereof: a state, or union of states, can exist without a currency, not reciprocally

Another problem with the concept of bitcoin is that crypto currencies rest on the the “blockchain”, a perfectly inefficient, energy devouring and thus ecologically criminal, idiotic technology… Which could be useful only if information and computation were ecologically free (instead I have proposed “AWE”… which is ultimate efficiency).

Indeed, the “blockchain” records all transactions everywhere, anytime… instead of some transactions by trusted actors. Bitcoin fanatics say they have a right to ravage the planet, because they don’t trust those “trusted” actors. Well, neither do I I say: make the actors (governments, and their agents, the banks) more trustworthy.

Bitcoiners have also insisted their activity was beyond any suspicion, it’s honest, it’s new age, it’s a new dawn, the geek world, better than anything the Greeks offered… Helpful bitcoiners sent me messages offering to educate me, in all sorts of ways. All this, in total violation of the simplest observation of the Bitcoin graph, which looks like a Tulip Mania. Just worse:

Market Capitalization of Cryptocurrencies dropped by ⅔, generating more than 200 billion dollars of losses.

And indeed, turning things on their heads, there is a new reason to criticize bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies: they are manipulated by organized crime. Bitcoin enthusiasts may counterpunch that central banks are organized crime; well, I agree, and wrote so for more than a decade; however, it’s not because Rome is on fire that one should start new fires! Bitcoin enthusiasts should go the way of Nero.

 

• New research observes that at least half of the 2017 rise in bitcoin prices was due to coordinated price manipulation using another cryptocurrency called tether.
• The 66-page paper says tether was used to buy bitcoin at carefully selected moments when it was declining, which helped “stabilize and manipulate” the cryptocurrency’s price.
• “In general I research things that are potentially illegal, and there’s a lot of rumors surrounding potential questionable activity in cryptocurrencies,” says University of Texas finance professor John Griffin, who has a decade-long track record of flagging fraud in financial markets.

Here is the paper’s abstract:

John M. Griffin

University of Texas at Austin – Department of Finance

Amin Shams

University of Texas at Austin – Department of Finance

Date Written: June 13, 2018

Abstract

This paper investigates whether Tether, a digital currency pegged to U.S. dollars, influences Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the recent boom. Using algorithms to analyze the blockchain data, we find that purchases with Tether are timed following market downturns and result in sizable increases in Bitcoin prices. Less than 1% of hours with such heavy Tether transactions are associated with 50% of the meteoric rise in Bitcoin and 64% of other top cryptocurrencies. The flow clusters below round prices, induces asymmetric autocorrelations in Bitcoin, and suggests incomplete Tether backing before month-ends. These patterns cannot be explained by investor demand proxies but are most consistent with the supply-based hypothesis where Tether is used to provide price support and manipulate cryptocurrency prices.

Keywords: Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin Prices, Tether

Suggested Citation:

Griffin, John M. and Shams, Amin, Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered? (June 13, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=

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Why was Bitcoin Organized geek Crime tolerated? Because those one bought, one owns! 

All this was long obvious. As it was that organized crime used Bitcoin (didn’t just manipulate it). A high level contractor of Google told me the government (under Obama) was perfectly aware, but let it run its course. That may look strange. But not so, once one has realized that the government knows that conventional banking is organized crime, a major engine of inequality, worldwide: bankers create money, and they create it, for their friends.

By letting Bitcoin run its perverse criminal course, many geeks made lots of money, getting ethically very dirty in the process, while growing in power and influence by leaps and bounds. Same general strategy as with holding the world economy hostage of monopolies (GAFA, FANG, etc.): all these dirty, wealthy people are now stakeholders in the engine of criminal inequality. Organized criminality got them there, and their now criminally confirmed minds make them most qualified to help run the world… as the little soldiers of dirt. They are all accomplices in crime, so they will shut up, cooperate, and subjugate. Thus geeks may as well implement the system, they are not just crucial to the system… They are it (or so they think, and thus will thereafter behave as the true holders of power want them to).

When Augustus seized the Roman Republic, and made it his personal thing, he was not alone: several millions stakeholders (mostly having to do with the Roman army, its suppliers, accomplices, etc.) were helping him out. He had cultivated them carefully. Same now.

 

Patrice Ayme

Apple A Criminal Organization?

In 1839, the French government bought the right to the invention of photography, from Monsieur Daguerre (his co-inventor had died in 1831). Then the French government turned around, and offered the invention to the world. Present tech giants are doing the exact opposite: they steal inventors and sell the world to enrich themselves. So doing the violate all and any local law, and ruin the world.

Is Apple a criminal organization? Just asking. Let me roll out a few facts. You judge. Five hundred (500) people were killed or gravely injured in Paris, just because Apple, a tax-thieving corporation, which has weakened the armies of the West all over, is led by crook who cooperates with terrorists. American and French intelligence agree that they would have been able to detect the attacks in California and Paris, if not for encryption they can’t break. The master mind in Paris was a celebrity terrorist of the Islamist State, who had dragged bodies on video. He could come and go in Europe, communicating with accomplices, because of encryption. Last time he came in, that was with ninety (90) others, some in the refugee flow. To organize all this, communications through encrypted phones were essential.

Why Apple And Its Ilk Are So Rich: Because They Are Thieves, Not Because They Are Geniuses

All and any person facilitating the terrorist activities of mass murderers actual or potential, should be arrested immediately (lest spying on them allows to  find their accomplices). There has been enough tergiversation. Certainly the CEO of Apple seems to be such a criminal. In California, where Apple is located, a loser stealing a pizza slice have gone to prison for life, for stealing that pizza slice. Others were not that lucky, and were outright executed by the police for just looking suspicious.

I have myself witnessed several cases of police ready to shoot losers just for a traffic stop. The media has documented fatal cases. That Apple and its ilk are thieves is beyond questioning: it had 1.6 billion Euros in back taxes, in France alone. Fines were applied, because it was culprit. That it got help in this criminal scheme from the British government is besides the point.

Under Obama, the patent system was changed to help the big monopolistic corporations (the so-called tech giants). Now the giant plutocratic corporations can steal an invention legally. Because the inventor who has been stolen has to demonstrate that he or she suffered “economic damage” also irreparable harm”. So if Google steals you car, you now have to demonstrate that it hindered you economically, it’s not just a question of being stolen. This is the Obama presidency for you.

Apple lost at the ITC, a branch of the Federal Government in Washington DC (they were infringing patents of other companies). Then Obama overrode the ITC order, because he thought Apple was all-important, needed the world to have iphones.

Obama flew dozens of times to the San Francisco Bay Area to get money and further orders from his sponsors there, whom he rigged the system for (the head of Apple came several times at the White House).

Make no mistake: I am more pro-tech than anyone. And that’s precisely why I am for protecting inventors and motivating them with potential riches. Instead the present system is rigged towards the growth of plutocracy, at the cost of revolutionary technology.

Global Plutocratic Thievery Rests On Encryption And Secrecy

Terrorist mass murderers as in San Bernardino or Paris should have NO privacy RIGHT, WHATSOEVER. Besides, they are dead (except for one), rightly executed by the police, or themselves. Some have objected that Apple defends the “4th amendment” of the US Constitution. Not so.

What Does the Fourth Amendment Mean?
The Constitution, through the Fourth Amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The Fourth Amendment, however, is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law.
Whether a particular type of search is considered reasonable in the eyes of the law, is determined by balancing two important interests. On one side of the scale is the intrusion on an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights. On the other side of the scale are legitimate government interests, such as public safety.

The extent to which an individual is protected by the Fourth Amendment depends, in part, on the location of the search or seizure. Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U.S. 83 (1998).

I guess it depends what one means by “people” and “reasonable” and “protect”.

Apple makes its money by paying tiny money for the companies which made its devices in Asia. This is a form of labor, and economic laws evasion. Presidential candidate Donald Trump has suggested a 45% tax on Chinese imports to compensate. That would make a lot of his fellow plutocrats very unhappy.

SILICON VALLEY CATCHES YOU WITH HONEY:

For years the so-called “tech giants” have led a symphony of lies. Some firms are real inventor, for example Intel, and smaller firms you have never heard of. However the firms making the most money are technology integrators which are basically arms of the American government as a worldwide plutocracy. The great opposition of Apple Inc. is part of that act. It’s all a big manipulation to make us believe they are the opposite of what it is. It’s not because the Polar Bear, Ursus Maritimus, is white that it is pure as the driven snow. Actually it is white, and apparently innocent, so it can eat you.

In related news, Silicon valley plutocrats have started to push for a “basic income”, European style. That’s just a smokescreen to avoid the real conversation, which should be that Silicon Valley should be paying its taxes, and should be paying for our services, when it sells our data, unbeknownst to us. It is true that Silicon Valley uses our data. So it should pay us for it. That it does not want to do so, speaks volumes.

Basic income is necessary for the indigent. However, basic income is not a new idea. It is as old as imperial Rome, where it was implemented. Thus, basic income has more to do with a system friendly with slavery.

The argument has been made by Silicon Valley that no one should know our data, thus the need for absolute encryption. That’s hypocritical: as I said, they use our data. Thus they say: fear the thieves, while stealing us.

Paul Handover worries that:”Millions of people with nothing to hide are, nonetheless, deeply concerned about a general loss of personal privacy.” That’s ironical, considering what the tech monopolies are doing with our data.

If people have nothing to hide, they have nothing to hide. They can stand in plain view of the governments. So they should not do what the tech giants want them to do. They should not behave as if they were plutocrats, and had something to hide. If they have something to hide, that nothingness should be exposed. And if the government cannot be trusted, it should be fixed. Right now, as it is, the tech giants of the USA, giants in unlawful profits, of the USA, are completely entangled with the government in Washington, DC. That should be exposed, made transparent, revealed, dismantled.

I have nothing to hide, the government can follow me all day long. What I fear is terrorists: I was attacked several times, and even bombed by right wing fascists in Europe, and got death threats. None of these attacks or threats ever came from a government, although I lived in Algeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, Niger, Mali, Peru, Bolivia, Iran, Mexico, Canada, USA, the EU, etc. Yet, everywhere I went, I did not keep my mouth in my pocket.

Transparency is not something we should fear. It is something we need. We need it for two main reasons:

1. Organized crime, such as global plutocracy, thrives on secrecy. This is what really worry Apple and its billionaire share holders: once its worldwide cheating shenanigans are exposed, it will not be able to enjoy them anymore.
2. As technologies forges ahead, weapons of mass destruction will be feasible in all cellars. The Islamist State, for example, has made chemical weapons. (It’s not just Assad!)

Our future world will be transparent, or it will not be. The Roman Republic, since inception, was friendly to the rich.

However, the same Roman Republic blocked the rise of plutocracy absolutely, by limiting how much power individuals could control. In particular, the wealth of the richest families was capped absolutely. How did the Roman Republic do this? With the Cadastrum, the registry of all private property.

Right now, there is no world cadastrum. The plutocrats hide their money in various ways, mostly through anonymous companies. Some treasures islands have several times more anonymous companies registered than they have inhabitants. (It’s no coincidence that these treasure islands are often British, or Dutch owned, that is why the UK is so rich. And this part of the reason why it is so hard to change.)

The plutocrats want others to live in misery: this is how they feel like Gods. San Jose, the USA’s richest large city is a place, partly of utmost madness, destitution and people living in garbage. This what the Silicon Valley cool billionaires in jeans organized. Here you go, and it’s the same squalor all over the Bay Area, except in the billionaires’ enclaves:

San Jose, 2014. While Billionaires Fill Their Jumbo Jets At Government’s Expense, Normal People Can See Such Scenes Everyday, A Few Miles Away

[People walk along a thrash-lined trail at the Silicon Valley homeless encampment known as The Jungle, Monday, Dec. 1, 2014, in San Jose, Calif. City officials began posting notices on hand built structures, tents and tree trunks warning the 200 residents of what is likely the nation’s largest homeless encampment that the bulldozers are coming. People living in the Silicon Valley camp had to be out by Thursday, Dec. 4 or face arrest for trespassing. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)]

In the greatest scheme of things, it is plutocracy and the world of organized crime which has brought worldwide instability and terrorism (I have explained how in hundreds of essays, going along many threads; it’s the main story of the twentieth century). Should we not apply the brakes now, things will get much worse (think middle ages with nukes, spaceships and engineered life forms). Nazism was greatly a product of German plutocracy, aided and abaited by plutocrats from the USA. Should we want to repeat fully the performance, it would be much worse. Last time felt like the apocalypse, but it was just a warning.

Ordinary people commit, at most, tiny little crime. The plutocrats who “lead” the world (into the abyss) commit gigantic crimes, they depend upon the lack of transparency to operate. As Quantum encryption (completely unbreakable) is on the rise, it’s urgent to require a transparent world. Moral people have nothing to fear, crooks, plutocrats, and criminals, everything.

Patrice Ayme’

Too Little Debt & Too Much Blood Money Kill

Dying Of Too Little Debt, and Too Much Institutionalized Crime:

“Nobody Understands Debt” says Paul Krugman, and he demonstrates it in an excellent editorial. I am happy that he is finally getting black on white, what I wrote long ago. He does not put it as spectacularly as I have: at worst, debt becomes tax.

From Krugman’s description Dr. Merkel comes out as a complete fool (so it is not reassuring that she goes around the world that the Ukrainian Republic should not be sold lethal defense weapons: is she Putin’s agent?). Krugman concludes: “…if the euro does fail, here’s what should be written on its tombstone: “Died of a bad analogy.”

The world economy can die of other things too, such as massive corruption under the increasing weight of global plutocracy.

The presence of more than 30,000 known tax evaders in just one subsidiary of the British bank HSBC in Switzerland alone, between 2005 and 2007, has been revealed today. The total amount of tax evasion is 180 billion euros (200 billion dollars; lower numbers were initially announce, in good disinformation style). The accounts tied to politicians, royalty, designers, sports figures, corrupt businessmen, dictators, arms industry officials, drug traffickers, and high-end criminals.

The bank actively helped customers conceal the accounts from authorities. The bank also provided customers with cash under the form of bundles of old bank notes, in various currencies so they couldn’t be traced. Organized crime, also known as banking, is in charge of creating money… as debt. (97% of money is created by banks as credit, worldwide.)

The data was “illegally” downloaded by bank employee Herve’ Falciani, who later fled to France. Falciani told CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night that colleagues at the bank helped him with the data.

“Friends — let’s say partners — gave me these data,” Falciani says. “I’m not the only person in banking system that wants to raise alarm.”

60 Minutes made a biased report, insisting on Falciani wearing disguises, etc. Falciani was in jail in Spain (because of an Interpol warrant for his arrest launched by Switzerland, at the British bank’s prodding) for 5 months. During that time, Spanish authorities, fearing for his life, let him appear only under a heavy disguise (“60 Minutes” did not mention that the authorities disguised him; instead, “60 Minutes” insisted that Falciani wearing a disguise reflected the general mental derangement “60 Minutes” was anxious to impart to its viewership that Falciani was suffering from! Of such little details good propaganda is made of). Falciani has now police protection in France (and I would suggest that France sends warrant of arrest against various Swiss “authorities” instead; actually what about Putin’s 40 billions residing in Switzerland…).

Many heads of states were involved in HSBC Switzerland, including the King of Morocco, who had 8 million dollars on one account alone at HSBC Suisse. Ironically enough, Moroccan law forbids foreign bank accounts. The King of Jordan had 41 million in one account.

Also several dozen major Arab plutocrats owned accounts obviously set-up to feed Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda. Terrorism can be so expensive nowadays… Plenty of accounts of HSBC could be traced to blood money.

The brother in law of the Tunisian dictator Ben Ali. Family members of the Syrian blood bathing dictator, Assad. A major woman politician from Burundi. Money from major drug traffickers, being laundered.

HSBC says that it did not know. That’s a lie: the bank called all the owners of the accounts exposed to politics “PEP” (“Politically Exposed People”).

Why don’t banksters go to prison? Say, for decades. Why, instead of asking the Greek people to pay for bankers, we don’t systematically recover all the properties of all the officers, and shareholders of all the banks which lent to Greek plutocrats? One should also expropriate said plutocrats. Let’s do it, and see what’s left… If anything.

Here is Krugman again: “Many economists, including Janet Yellen, view global economic troubles since 2008 largely as a story about “deleveraging” — a simultaneous attempt by debtors almost everywhere to reduce their liabilities. Why is deleveraging a problem? Because my spending is your income, and your spending is my income, so if everyone slashes spending at the same time, incomes go down around the world.

Or as Ms. Yellen put it in 2009, “Precautions that may be smart for individuals and firms — and indeed essential to return the economy to a normal state — nevertheless magnify the distress of the economy as a whole.”

The worst thing that can happen with national debt is that it does not get reimbursed. Then debt will act as a tax on those who had money to lend it. Not a tragedy. The failure of the Euro would be a tragedy, though.

So is sub-performing economic activity. It’s not a question of not buying enough cars, TV, pants and houses. It’s also a question of the educational system going down (so kudos to Obama for proposing to make college free… Although that just part of the problem).

What does debt do?

It augments the quantity of money on the economy while allowing greater economic activity. So, when demand is faltering, it makes demand higher than it otherwise would have been.

With all the infrastructure decaying, or proven insufficient, such as the educational system, one can only observe that more activity is needed.

A related problem is that the velocity of money has collapsed… Another indication of the insufficient economic activity.

Krugman again: “This was a prescription for slow-motion disaster. European debtors did, in fact, need to tighten their belts — but the austerity they were actually forced to impose was incredibly savage. Meanwhile, Germany and other core economies — which needed to spend more, to offset belt-tightening in the periphery — also tried to spend less. The result was to create an environment in which reducing debt ratios was impossible: Real growth slowed to a crawl, inflation fell to almost nothing and outright deflation has taken hold in the worst-hit nations.

Suffering voters put up with this policy disaster for a remarkably long time, believing in the promises of the elite that they would soon see their sacrifices rewarded. But as the pain went on and on, with no visible progress, radicalization was inevitable.”

Radicalization? It looks more like Enlightenment to me. Or then, one should go at the root of radical, which is root. Voters are starting to get to the root of the problem: they were manipulated by a class of greedsters who hold power…. And lied to get there.

Insufficient economic activity creates a plebs that does nothing but getting enough subsidies to get by, while a plutocracy rules above it. This is what happened to the Roman empire. Starting around 160 CE, taxes, especially on very rich estates became insufficient to support even the military.

Taxing the hyper rich then (as was done earlier under emperor Trajan) would have allowed to re-institute welfare for children, and make the military as strong as it was under Trajan (that, in turn brought peace and prosperity).

Are we not learning history?

Patrice Ayme’