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Yellen: ‘We Haven’t Seen Significant Evasion’ of Sanctions Using Crypto

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Yellen: 'We Haven't Seen Significant Evasion' of Sanctions Using Crypto

The Treasury secretary said the department thinks using crypto to evade sanctions on a large scale "is something that is not easy to do."

By Jeff Benson

Janet Yellen in 2021.

In brief

  • Many have worried about Russia using crypto to get around U.S. sanctions.
  • Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says there's no evidence this is happening on a large scale.

Since the U.S. introduced fresh sanctions on Russia in response to its February 24 invasion of Ukraine, prominent political figures and armchair observers alike have been asking whether cryptocurrency would allow the Kremlin to evade them.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has remained skeptical of that line of thought, stating in early March, "It's not that that sector is completely one where things can be evaded." Today, she declared during a hearing of the House Committee on Financial Services that while "it is a channel we're worried about, we haven't seen significant evasion through crypto so far." 

After saying that the Treasury Department continues to monitor the situation, Yellen alluded to the fact that large transactions would be easily viewable on public blockchain explorers—and spotted by private analytics firms. 

Said Yellen: "Trying to use crypto at a large scale, simply, we think is something that is not easy to do."

Decrypting the Week 10: Ukraine Welcomes Crypto

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukraine has raised more than $50 million in crypto donations—in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, and even Dogecoin. Decrypt’s Dan Roberts, Scott Chipolina, and Kate Irwin, joined by special guest Izabella Kaminska of The Blind Spot, discuss the biggest story in the world right now.

Go to video page

In late February, the U.S. and allies froze $400 billion in foreign assets owned by the Russian central bank, contributing to a currency crisis as the ruble lost much of its value relative to other currencies. Meanwhile, European leaders helped push Russian banks out of the SWIFT network, which financial institutions use to coordinate transactions. 

In early March, the Biden administration halted imports of oil and gas from Russia. The U.S. has also restricted exports of technology hardware and software, making it more difficult for Russia's military to replace parts for the war effort. 

But some legislators, most prominently Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), are worried that cryptocurrency provides an end run around such sanctions. In a March letter to Yellen, Warren joined Senators Mark Warner (D-VA), Jack Reed (D-RI), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in claiming that crypto assets "allow entities to bypass the traditional financial system."

They have a point. Cryptocurrency ecosystems, especially within decentralized finance, allow people to make transactions without utilizing traditional financial intermediaries. You can swap tokens, lend them out, and earn interest without ever talking to a bank or broker.

But dealing in billions of dollars is a bit different; there's not enough liquidity to quietly tiptoe around sanctions. Moreover, exchanges play a major role serving as on-ramps and off-ramps to crypto. Said Yellen today: "Exchanges, those who use crypto to get in and out of it, buy things in hard currencies, and exchanges are subject to [anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism] regulations. So they're part of the financial system that is subject to those regulations."

However, Warren last month told MSNBC that some crypto exchanges weren't doing their part. Referring to know-your-customer regulations, she said, "We have a lot of evidence that not all the crypto platforms are actually adhering to those rules, and collecting the information and then reporting the information and then shutting down where we have sanctions."

If they are, the Treasury Department isn't seeing evidence of it.

Tim Moseley

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Gold choppy but lower as FOMC minutes show no hawkish surprises

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Gold choppy but lower as FOMC minutes show no hawkish surprises

Gold prices initially erased mild losses and traded firmer in the wake of the just-released FOMC minutes. However, prices have since sold off moderately. Many deemed the FOMC minutes as containing no hawkish surprises, which allowed the precious metals markets to briefly drift higher. Rising bond yields this week are a bearish element for the metals markets. June gold futures were last down $5.00 at $1,922.60 and May Comex silver was last down $0.104 at $24.43 an ounce.

The FOMC minutes showed members see a total monthly drawdown of $95 billion of U.S. securities (quantitative tightening). Many members favor a 50 basis point interest rate hike at the next FOMC meeting and possibly the same in the following few meetings thereafter. The members also believe the Russia-Ukraine war has caused inflationary pressures to significantly heat up.

On the front burner of the marketplace is rising inflation. On Tuesday, usually dovish Fed governor Lael Brainard said the Russia-Ukraine war has further stoked inflation and that inflation must be tamped down aggressively. She also suggested the Fed will begin selling off its big balance sheet of bonds (quantitative tightening). U.S. Treasury yields spiked up on her remarks. The benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note presently yields 2.611%. The 2-year/10-year Treasury note spread quickly snapped out of its inversion after Brainard’s hawkish tone on U.S. monetary policy.

Gold prices continue to consolidate above $1,900 as bond yields hit three-year high

Global stocks markets were mixed to weaker overnight. The U.S. stock indexes are lower today. The Russia-Ukraine war is still on the front burner of the marketplace as more economic sanctions are levied against Russia for its war atrocities against Ukrainian citizens. That is keeping energy prices elevated as European countries consider banning Russian energy imports.

Nymex crude oil prices are sharply lower and trading around $96.75 a barrel. Meantime, the U.S. dollar index is modestly higher today.

Technically, April gold futures bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage amid recent sideways and choppy trading. Bulls' next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at $1,967.20. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at the March low of $1,888.30. First resistance is seen at today’s high of $1,937.60 and then at $1,950.00. First support is seen at today’s low of $1,916.20 and then at $1,900.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.0

May silver futures bulls have the slight overall near-term technical advantage. However, prices are in a four-week-old downtrend on the daily bar chart. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $26.16 an ounce. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $23.50. First resistance is seen at today’s high of $24.68 and then at $25.00. Next support is seen at today’s low of $24.20 and then at the March low of $24.045. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 5.5.

May N.Y. copper closed down 705 points at 472.45 cents today. Prices closed nearer the session low today. The copper bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage. Copper bulls' next upside price objective is pushing and closing prices above solid technical resistance at 500.00 cents. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at the March low of 446.85 cents. First resistance is seen at today’s high of 478.85 cents and then at this week’s high of 486.00 cents. First support is seen at 466.90 cents and then at last week’s low of 464.20 cents. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.0.

By Jim Wyckoff

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

 

Tim Moseley

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Confessions of an Information Hoarder

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Confessions of an Information Hoarder

by Charlie Warzel, contributor, The Atlantic

 

What happens to our brains when we have an infinite memory?

There was a point during the most isolating parts of the pandemic, usually when I was bored in the evening, where I’d open my phone’s camera roll and scroll back through my pre-pandemic life. I’m not sure if this was a healthy lockdown coping strategy or not, but I’d thumb through photos of mundane life moments that, in that moment, felt exotic. Look at me. In a restaurant! At a concert with friends! Participating in society showing my full face!

Content of the photos aside, there was also something genuinely pleasing about the experience of clicking the Photos app and seeing this mosaic of my life (when I sort by “All Photos,’ my iPhone shows 45 frames at a time). Occasionally I would page through the 26,224 photos in my library (which my phone refers to, quite generously, as “Recents”) to find something from a few years back, and the act of rapid scrolling would blur and shift the mosaic. I noticed while swiping that, without seeing individual photos, this specific document of my life had different eras with distinct color palettes. The palette was darker, for instance, when I lived in New York City, probably because more of my photos were taken inside my dimly lit railroad apartment. There’s a period around late 2015 where the mosaic turns reddish-brown, a marker of when my dog, Peggy came into my life. I moved to Montana in 2017, and the scrolling blur is blue and green, the result of many shoddy attempts to capture a new home that featured mountains and a large sky.

Scrolling through all our images is a strange, introspective, even poignant experience, enough so that people have written songs about it. “Chronological order and nothing but torture” is how the singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves put it on her recent album. And, yes, these archives can be a reminder of lost love or loved ones or simply the relentless passage of time. It’s also a marvelous diary and documentary tool. On one thumbing excursion, I got preoccupied with the hypothetical notion of a historian trying to write somebody’s life story only by looking through their camera roll. The cloud as a biographer.

Archiving our lives is not new, but the volume we can amass and the ease with which we can do it is new. As writer Drew Austin notes in a wonderful recent piece for Wired, “by fostering the sense that our wells of personal information were bottomless, Google turned us all into information hoarders.”

Austin is referring to the fact that many of Google’s services—most notably Gmail, which requires users to create a Google account—were predicated on the idea of vast free storage for your personal data, and the ability to search it effortlessly. When it launched in 2004, Gmail gave us powerful tools that helped solve a lot of problems with email at that time—spam, the need to delete messages for space, difficulty finding old correspondence—and those tools also changed the way we thought about and used email.

Not, though, always for the better. Here’s Gmail’s creator describing the state of email on the occasion of his product’s 10-year anniversary:

The problem with email now is that the social conventions have gotten very bad. There’s a 24/7 culture, where people expect a response. It doesn’t matter that it’s Saturday at 2 a.m.—people think you’re responding to email. People are no longer going on vacation. People have become slaves to email. It’s not a technical problem. It can’t be solved with a computer algorithm. It’s more of a social problem.

Gmail’s creator is right that this is a social problem, but I don’t fully absolve him of his responsibility, either. It is a problem that is exacerbated by the powerful tools we use. Infinite storage and effortless search changes our relationship to our information. As Austin notes, it “enables us to be casual, even messy, with our data … Instead of organizing our data using a legible system or knowing where things are, it can all go into one seemingly jumbled pile.” It also leads to hoarding. “Anxious that we might delete something we will end up needing later, we err on the side of caution by saving it all,” Austin writes. This is how you get 26,000 “recent” photos or an inbox from hell. It’s also how you get strange behavior like somebody replying to an email out of the blue three months later. Our shitty etiquette isn’t only due to that availability of storage and search capacity, but I’d bet that email wouldn’t be the scourge it is today without those powerful functions.

Austin argues that at the societal level, ample personal data storage poses a serious problem because there’s an incentive to privatize our cluttered, poorly organized information into individual silos instead of building public infrastructures for it. We think of the internet as having an overabundance of publicly accessible information. But perhaps it’s also causing us to file away our private selves. We have more public information than ever, but what if there is also less transmission of more personal information between people—especially between generations. What is lost if our digital heirlooms become inaccessible to close relatives? What is lost if estates do not donate prominent people's cloud data to university archives?

 

 

I myself am an information hoarder. I recently had to upgrade my Google storage to 100 gigabytes, and I’m already inching closer to purchasing a new tier. My inbox is a disaster: nearly 200,000 emails, read and unread, dating back to my college years. The last label I created? “Summer internship applications.”

My photos are a hodgepodge of my personal life mixed in with 2,734 screenshots—mostly of tweets or paragraphs of articles that my past self apparently felt might be worth returning to. Across my various cloud-based notes apps, I store endless tossed-off lists and musings, copy-paste fragments, and links. It’s all an attempt at off-loading the deluge of information I’m confronted with each day into a kind of external memory. In theory, this is exciting and useful. In practice, I am not confident it makes me any smarter or more productive, or even better informed. Occasionally, I find myself barely pausing to think about something important I’ve read, and instead, filing it away to think about it later. One effect of my external memory is that it pushes me to consume faster and in higher quantities.

I know I’m not alone. In a paper published in 2019 in the journal World Psychiatry, titled “The ‘Online Brain’: How the Internet May be Changing Our Cognition,” the researchers suggest that “the Internet is becoming a ‘supernormal stimulus’ for transactive memory—making all other options for cognitive offloading (including books, friends, and community) become redundant, as they are outcompeted by the novel capabilities for external information storage and retrieval made possible by the Internet.”

That sure sounds bad. But in reality, it’s probably good and bad. The paper suggests that “reliance on online searching may impede memory retrieval by reducing the functional connectivity and synchronization of associated brain regions.” But it also notes that this process might also free up cognitive space in other parts of our brain. At one point, the paper’s authors posit that “increasing reliance on the Internet for information may cause individuals to ‘blur the lines’ between their own capabilities and their devices.” This is likely what I’m doing by saving information for later and mistaking that filing away for a kind of uploading into my own memory.

Ultimately, the paper notes that it is too early to really understand the long-term effects of all this on our brains. To me, what really matters is that it is likely changing us in ways we’re not fully aware of. In an interview last year, the technology writer and theorist L. M. Sacasas gave a lovely description of how he conceptualizes the way technology acts on us:

I sometimes think of the body and the world in our minds kind of creating a circuit. And so then, we introduce a tool into that circuit, and it’s going to shape how we perceive the world, and it’s going to shape how we interpret the world. And so the body is at the nexus of our experience of reality, and technology enters into that loop of perception in ways that can be benign, in ways that can be beneficial, in ways that can be detrimental. But it certainly changes it.

It often feels like new technology breaks that circuit, but Sacasas might be right that it is merely introduced into the loop. Having instantaneous access to tens of thousands of moments in my life doesn’t destroy my sense of self, but it alters how I formulate the narrative of my last decade. For example, there’s a weird patch from January to May 2015 where my photos never synced up to the cloud. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that this period now seems less relevant in my actual memory. Similarly, I was foolish and didn’t upload my high-school, college, and pre-2013 photos, most of them digital, to the cloud. Thanks to a damaged hard drive and a lost computer, most of these photos are gone, creating a massive hole in my life. What does it mean that my digital likeness, save for some Facebook photos, begins so late? Are the memories from that era, which now exist only in my mind, more precious and more indelible because I rely on my brain to access them? Or are they merely less reliable and more likely to degrade over time?

In that same interview, Sacasas discusses his relationship to documenting the lives of his two young children with his phone:

They’re growing up so fast, and you want to document where they’ve been along the way. Paradoxically, in my experience anyway, I think I’ve almost found that having this very pervasive record, visual record of their growth, has made that actually a more pronounced experience, a greater sense of things slipping by, slipping away.

Scrolling through my camera roll during the pandemic, I also felt that greater sense of time—and of myself—slipping by. There is a melancholy to that, but it is not merely a sad feeling. Because that feeling is also, at its core, a sense of awareness. I am constantly taking stock of myself and my life (a good thing!) while also taking myself out of moments in order to document it (probably not the best thing!).

For whatever reason, I take fewer photos now than I did pre-pandemic, and the ones I do take are somewhat inscrutable. I don’t even think to do it when I’m socializing. What I do seem to take are snapshots of where I am in quiet moments, even if the locations aren’t photogenic. Most aren’t really meant to be shared. For me, iPhone photos have become more about the action of taking them than what I do with them. They’re meant, instead, to add texture to that near-infinite scroll of the camera roll. They’re meant, probably, as proof that I’m alive and in the world. They’re meant for the mosaic. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s definitely a product of being able to take and save as many as I could ever want to.

 

New Opportunities Are Emerging For Citizens of The World.

Freedom and democracy may appear to be struggling to stay alive in America, but there may be a knock-out punch ready to be released. The evolution of the blockchain-enabled metaverse is going to enable the 'Citizens of the World' to gain their own Freedom by democratizing power and creating a new world with new rules, new players, and new opportunities. For 99.99% of us, the metaverse will improve our real-world lives through the democratization of power and opportunity.

Along with the major long-term trend of society towards decentralization and smaller-scale organizations, there are new opportunities developing to help 'Preparers' in the cryptocurrency sector. Businesses are beginning to issue their own Crypto Coins that can be traded on Cryptocoin Exchanges.

Markethive.com for example will be releasing its HiveCoin (HIV) in the coming weeks. It has tremendous upside potential that is outlined in a Video by Founder Tom Prendergast, "Entrepreneur Advantage…".

Not only that, if you go to their website and register as a FREE Member, you will be given 500 HiveCoins for "FREE" along with access to several Earning Opportunities and online tools to increase your HiveCoin balance.

Be sure to check it out today – Markethive.com

Markethive

Tim Moseley

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New Bill Takes Aim at El Salvador’s ‘Careless Gamble’ on Bitcoin

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New Bill Takes Aim at El Salvador’s 'Careless Gamble' on Bitcoin

U.S. lawmakers are pressing on with legislation aimed at protecting U.S. financial interests from El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law.

By Mat Di Salvo

El Salvador. 

In brief

  • El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender last year.
  • The U.S. government is worried—and is drafting legislation that aims to protect its financial system.

The U.S. is pressing on with legislation aimed at protecting its financial system from El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law. On Monday, lawmakers introduced a new bill asking the State Department to mitigate the risks of El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin. 

This new bill, the Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador Act, will accompany the Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador (ACES) Act, which was introduced in the U.S. Senate in February and passed committee last month.  

Yesterday’s bill was introduced by Congresswoman Norma J. Torres (D-CA-35) and Congressman Rick Crawford (R-AR-01). Congresswoman Torres said in a statement that the bill was necessary to “protect” the U.S. financial system from El Salvador’s “careless gamble.” 

“Global financial institutions have studied and detailed the numerous risks of El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin, and the international community acknowledges the potential danger,” she said. 

“El Salvador is an independent democracy and we respect its right to self-govern, but the United States must have a plan in place to protect our financial systems from the risks of this decision, which appears to be a careless gamble rather than a thoughtful embrace of innovation.”

The new legislation specifically asks the State Department to produce an analysis of El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender and “the risks for cybersecurity, economic stability, and democratic governance” in the country. February’s bill is broader and will also ask the State Department to look at El Salvador’s regulatory framework and the impact the Bitcoin Law has on businesses and citizens. 

El Salvador last year made Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, legal tender in the country. Businesses have to accept the digital asset if they have the technological means. 

The Bitcoin Law was the idea of the country’s president, Nayib Bukele. The baseball cap-wearing millennial leader is hoping to attract investors and crypto-trading digital nomads to the tiny country—which has long been one of the most violent nations in the Americas—with the law.  

Bukele even announced plans for a "Bitcoin city" in El Salvador: a geothermal energy-powered tax-free haven. “Invest here and make all the money you want,” he said during the announcement in November. 

But not everyone is happy with his plans. U.S. lawmakers want to keep an eye on the Central American country. Senators introduced February’s bill because they think the Bitcoin Law has the “potential to weaken U.S. sanctions policy, empowering malign actors like China and organized criminal organizations,” congressman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) said in a statement. 

The IMF and World Bank have both criticized—and even asked the country to drop—the law.

Tim Moseley

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Elon Musk’s Dogecoin and Bitcoin Tweets: A Crypto Twitter Timeline

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Elon Musk's Dogecoin and Bitcoin Tweets: A Crypto Twitter Timeline

The Tesla CEO isn't known for being shy about DOGE and BTC on Twitter.

By Jeff Benson

Have you ever had a partner who was no good for you? Your parents, your friends, even the voice in your head told you to split up, but before you knew it, you were married with three kids.

For Tesla CEO Elon Musk, that partner is Twitter. The SEC warns him off of tweeting things that can move the market, and what does he do? He goes and buys a 9% stake in the company—and joins the board to boot.

The latest concern is that Musk's appointment could revitalize scrutiny of the automobile kingpin from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is tasked with protecting consumers from things like market manipulation. While the agency has fined Musk for tweets it regards as ill-timed and/or misleading related to Tesla, the South African has also been known to inflate crypto market prices in under 140 characters.

Musk first started tweeting about cryptocurrency in January 2018 with Musk-founded The Boring Company's release of flamethrowers (not a typo):

From February 2018 through at least February 2019, Musk publicly maintained via Twitter that he owned no cryptocurrency aside from 0.25 BTC that a friend had sent to him.

But in April of that year, something shifted as Musk declared (jokingly or not), "Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It's pretty cool." What followed was a years-long love affair with the joke coin, based on a meme involving a Shiba Inu dog. Decrypt has previously reported that Dogecoin searches spiked from 2019 through 2020 around the times Musk tweeted about the coin. 

There's also general agreement that Musk's tweets—including "Dogecoin is the people's crypto" and a photoshopped allusion to "The Lion King" in which he anoints DOGE—helped push Dogecoin's price upward from under a penny in January 2021 to an all-time high of $0.73 on the day of his May 2021 "Saturday Night Live" appearance.

Musk's DOGE involvement goes beyond shitposting. He's actually been working with part-time Dogecoin developers to improve the blockchain since 2019. In May 2021, he tweeted that the immediate goal was to "improve system transaction efficiency," adding that the work was "potentially promising."

While Bitcoin was frequently the butt of Musk's jokes (he called it "almost as BS as fiat money" in December 2020) he made something of an about face in February 2021, when Tesla announced it had $1.5 billion in BTC in its treasury. At the time, several lawyers told Decrypt that Musk's Twitter habit likely didn't cross a legal line, at least with regards to cryptocurrency. 

Nonetheless, said Anderson Kill partner Preston Byrne, “CEOs of companies with substantial Bitcoin holdings will need to be very careful before talking their Bitcoin books in a fashion that might move the markets to ensure their statements are not part of anything which might be viewed as a manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in the context of either the commodity or securities domains.”

#DecryptLive: Twitter and NFT PFPs

How big is Twitter's verified NFT feature for the future of NFTs? Decrypt's Dan Roberts, Andrew Hayward, Jason Nelson, and contributor Kate Irwin break it down. Join live to ask questions and post your comments.

Go to video page

Musk has rarely been categorized as "careful," however. In 2018, the agency argued that a series of tweets about taking Tesla private constituted securities fraud and mandated he step down as Tesla chairman; less than a week later, he called it the Shortseller Enrichment Commission on Twitter. In July 2020, he tweeted, in an ostensible reference to his genitalia that SEC stood for something else: "SEC, three letter acronym, middle word is Elon's."

Enjoy the honeymoon.

 

 

 

 

Tim Moseley

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An End to Progress

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An End to Progress

by Jeff Thomas, editor, International Man Communique

An End to Progress

 

"Progress may have been all right once, but it has gone on too long."

I’ve always been fond of that quote. Back when Ogden Nash wrote it, it was quite clever. Today, the quote is a bit less entertaining, as we are living in a period when, more and more, world leaders seem to be headed in the wrong direction – away from progress. As the Great Unravelling plays out, people are coming to the conclusion that the directions taken by their leaders are, not only the wrong thing to do but the exact opposite of the right thing to do.

The first category in which this seems to be true is economics. Most world leaders are quite committed to the idea that Keynesian economics will provide all the answers to solve any economic problem. However, the further each country goes down the Keynesian road, the clearer it becomes that Keynesian theory simply does not work. In fact, many countries that have followed it are on the brink of economic collapse, yet they are charging forward all the more determinedly with solutions that are based upon the very theories that caused the problems.

The second category is economic legislation. In most First World countries, particularly the US, legislators are making it ever-more difficult for businesspeople to function, as a result of the passage of ever-more complex and stricter regulations. The free market is, at this point, far from free, and there is a substantial flow of business away from First World countries as a result. Contrary to the claims of many politicians, most businesspeople are not following this exodus out of greed, but out of a need for survival.

The third category is social legislation. First World countries, at one time, took pride in referring to themselves as "the Free World," in contrast to the communist and socialist Second World. Not so, today. Whilst many former Second World countries are beginning to open up, First World countries, generally speaking, are passing increasingly draconian legislation, converting once-free countries into virtual police states.

When the above trend began, few people took much notice, but, in recent years, the changes that have taken place are becoming, increasingly, both more numerous and more frequent. At present, the frequency and severity of governmental developments have begun to resemble a runaway train.

 

 

As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, more and more people are becoming convinced as to the reality of all of the above – that we are reaching an "End of Progress." There does, however, seem to be a division in who they feel is responsible. Three theories follow.

The Evil Party

  • The party I support makes mistakes, but they mean well.
  • The alternate party is inherently evil and must be removed from power.
  • The future depends upon whether our party takes control as a result of the next election.

People who see the control of their country in this light tend to live from election to election, each time hoping that their chosen party will take control of all branches of their government (such as occurred in the US between 2008 and 2010). On occasions when their party does succeed in doing so, they rarely seem to lose faith in this belief, even when their party fails to "right all the wrongs" as they promised they would if they gained complete control.

The Inept Legislators

  • Both our primary political parties have become thoroughly corrupt.
  • It no longer matters which party we vote for. They both act in opposition to our best interests.
  • Legislators appear to be so inept that they truly don’t understand that they are bringing about the ruination of the country.
  • All (or most) legislators have sold out to corporate interests, which have become their puppeteers.

The followers of this theory tend to believe that the situation will not improve substantially, no matter who is elected.

The Elite

  • A group exists, made up primarily of bankers, whose goal is to one day rule the world.
  • The Elites control the central banks of the First World, and, therefore, control the governments, as legislators need loans from the banks to pay for the ever-increasing cost of government. (Tax dollars, at this point, could not come close to covering that debt.)
  • The Elites are not buffoons. They know exactly what they are doing, and they have a very clear long-term plan.
  • The Elite plan is for a neo-serfdom; the elimination of the middle class, with the Elite as a very small, very wealthy class who will dominate nearly every facet of the lives of the proletariat.

A dominant perception of the identity of the Elite begins in 19th century Europe, with Mayer Rothschild, whose five sons are credited with developing a concerted plan for economic and political domination of the world. Their descendants are believed to have conquered America in the early 20th century when they and others created the US Federal Reserve. Since that time, the power of the Elite has slowly increased both politically and economically, whilst the Elite themselves remain well in the background.

From the beginning, a Rothschild tenet was to avoid the limelight, whilst pulling the strings behind the screen. With each generation, this concept has been more apparent, and, today, the family names that have been associated with the seizure of control tend not to appear in the media. The names of Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan and the rest have either become less visible or more closely associated with philanthropy in public awareness.

Theories differ as to whether the Elite plan a communist, socialist, fascist, or another type of state, but they agree that the goal is a statist system, with a minimum of personal freedom for the proletariat.

There appears to be a bit of a divide between those who support each of the above theories. Each group appears to give a nod to the others, whilst firmly focusing on their own theory as being correct. This is interesting, as the three theories are by no means mutually exclusive. Certainly, the idea that the Elite are the puppeteers of the Inept Legislators is a good fit.

If the first theory is the accurate one, it would seem that the present pattern of decline would be due to a battle between good and evil, in which the socio-economic structure is an unfortunate casualty of the battle itself. If the battle would only end (with the good guys as the winners), substantial progress would hopefully begin again.

If the second theory is the accurate one, a similar battle exists, but it is between two more-or-less equally-incompetent parties, neither of which seems to be able to sort things out. And again, the socio-economic structure is an unfortunate casualty. (This theory promises less hope than the first.)

If the third theory is correct (whether or not it is coupled with the second theory), we have a very different reality. In the Elite theory, whilst there may be a battle between the political parties, it would matter little to the puppeteers as to which party is victorious. In fact, it would serve their interest if the battle were never-ending.

Just as in the latter days of the Roman Empire, the public, if they are to continue to be controlled, needs a distraction – something to focus on rather than to focus on the real game. To an Elite, the political struggle is not so different from either the gladiators of the first century or the football matches of the twenty-first century. Both politics and sports are tried-and-true distractions from the otherwise central issue of the maximization of social and political rule.

Under the Elite theory, the almost-consistently negative developments that are occurring in First World countries would by no means be an unfortunate casualty; in fact, they would be occurring by design. For a New World Order to exist, based upon statist principles, with the vast majority of humanity as a class of serfs, an End of Progress is not only an acceptable by-product, it is a principal objective.

So, is this, then, merely an academic discussion, a curiosity for the brain to muse over? Not at all. Regardless of our own personal perception of what is causing the present condition, the objective for us all should be to be as open as possible to all interpretations, as the closer we understand the situation, the more likely we are to create an ability to step away from the fray and avoid becoming a casualty of it.

 

New Opportunities Are Emerging For Citizens of The World.

Freedom and democracy may appear to be struggling to stay alive in America, but there may be a knock-out punch ready to be released. The evolution of the blockchain-enabled metaverse is going to enable the 'Citizens of the World' to gain their own Freedom by democratizing power and creating a new world with new rules, new players, and new opportunities. For 99.99% of us, the metaverse will improve our real-world lives through the democratization of power and opportunity.

Along with the major long-term trend of society towards decentralization and smaller-scale organizations, there are new opportunities developing to help 'Preparers' in the cryptocurrency sector. Businesses are beginning to issue their own Crypto Coins that can be traded on Cryptocoin Exchanges.

Markethive.com for example will be releasing its HiveCoin (HIV) in the coming weeks. It has tremendous upside potential that is outlined in a Video by Founder Tom Prendergast, "Entrepreneur Advantage…".

Not only that, if you go to their website and register as a FREE Member, you will be given 500 HiveCoins for "FREE" along with access to several Earning Opportunities and online tools to increase your HiveCoin balance.

Be sure to check it out today – Markethive.com

Markethive

Tim Moseley

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Online Affiliate Marketers 1 Success Secret

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Online Affiliate Marketers #1 Success Secret

By Karon Thackston – Marketing Words

Online Affiliate Marketers #1 Success Secret

 

Passive Income Strategies

To many people, that statement represents an unattainable dream. Most who are asked if they want passive income answer with an excited “Yes!” to having money flow in day and night with just a little upfront work and an occasional bump to keep the machine well-greased.

Successful online affiliate marketers, bloggers, and others will tell you this is 100% achievable. But how do you get there? Which passive income strategies will set you on the right path?

 

One Versus Many

The #1 secret of most successful online affiliate marketers is not to send one email or share a social post on all their accounts one time. What would happen if Toyota ran one TV ad one time? Even if it were during the Super Bowl, there’s no way they would reach everyone in their audience.

While ads placed in the Super Bowl broadcast are some of the most seen in the country, not everyone watches pro football. I’m a college ball fan, myself. Some people don’t like football (as hard as that is to grasp). For others, the time wasn’t convenient and they didn’t bother to record it.

Other people don’t watch TV at all, or they only have a streaming service that doesn’t include the station broadcasting the Super Bowl. The reasons are endless.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

What must Toyota do if they want to reach every segment of their target audience with their message? Create affiliate marketing campaigns.

 

 

Affiliate Marketing Campaigns vs. One-Off Mentions

What’s your favorite way to receive information? Email? Video? Social media? Blog post? Podcast? When it comes to online affiliate marketing, there are numerous options. Some of your followers will love blog posts but hate social media and video.

What would happen if you did most of your recommendations via video or on social media via Facebook or Instagram Live? A major portion of your audience would miss what you were saying altogether.

That’s where campaigns come into play.

Instead of posting or emailing one time in one place, successful online affiliate marketers are everywhere!

 

Creating an Affiliate Marketing Campaign

This passive income strategy involves choosing several places to promote. Start with these questions:

  1. Which affiliate product do you want to promote?
  2. What avenues do you have at your disposal for reaching your followers/subscribers?
  3. How many can you cover within a reasonable period of time?

For example, if I want to promote a course on passive income, I’ll first see if I have any super-targeted lists/groups I can approach. I have a segment of my email list with people who are interested in passive income, so I’ll definitely use that. There are also people in one of my Facebook groups who want to grow their passive income, so that’s also a go.

Other places I can promote include social profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Then I have the ability to create a short how-to or talking-head video for my YouTube channel. And there’s the Marketing Words Blog where I can add a post.

How many can I cover within a reasonable period of time? All of them! If I use another popular strategy most successful online affiliate marketers use.

 

Add Repurposing to Your Passive Income Strategies

When I begin to create an affiliate marketing campaign, I start with the piece of copy or content that will be the longest and most detailed. That’s usually the blog post.

Why? Because, once I have that written, I can extract bits and pieces and repurpose them. This keeps me from needing to write every element of my campaign from scratch. If I have a 1,000-word post on my blog, I can pull email copy from it, a video script, social posts, and more.

Repurposing your content seriously helps cut down on the work!

Depending on the timeframe for the campaign, you’ll want to stagger your promotions. If you’re doing a quick campaign for a 2-day flash sale (for example), you may choose to push everything out at once.

However, if your promotion will cover a week or longer, choose the timing more carefully. I start and end with the medium that gets me the best results: email. Then I weave everything else based on the order of engagement.

Here’s a sample schedule for a week-long campaign:

Day 1:  Kickoff with an email.

Day 2:  Add a post to my blog. Share on all social sites.

Day 3:  Upload a YouTube video. Depending on the affiliate product, I may direct traffic back to the blog post. Share on all social sites.

Day 4:  Send another email.

Day 5:  Get a discussion going in my Facebook group.

Day 6:  Send another email.

Day 7:  Send a last-call email (or 2). Post last call notices on all social sites.

 

Last-Call Emails: A Critical Element of Your Affiliate Campaign

What’s a last-call email? Pretty much what it sounds like. This email usually gives a summary or wrap-up of what I’ve been talking about all week. Then it mentions that today is the last day to get the offer.

Urgency is a huge persuasion element. Statistics show that reminding followers that an offer is about to expire will drive significantly more sales.

Experian (a credit reporting agency) stated that emails using urgency in the subject line had at least 14% higher click-to-open rates, 59% higher transaction-to-click rates, and twice as high transaction rates compared to their average marketing emails.

I, personally, have repeatedly seen last-call emails pull in as many or more sales than every other medium combined.

In numerous cases, I may have received 50 sales from the first email, blog post, video, and other techniques. Then I would get 50 or more sales just from the last-call email. The magic combination is to send two last-call emails (one in the morning and one a few hours before the expiration time).

Use this same approach on social media to top off your online affiliate marketing efforts.

When products from affiliate campaigns do really well, I add them to a backend funnel or even create a separate funnel just for them.

Does that mean you can never send out just one post or email? Of course, you can! But the real money is in campaigns.

 

New Opportunities Are Emerging For Citizens of The World.

Freedom and democracy may appear to be struggling to stay alive in America, but there may be a knock-out punch ready to be released. The evolution of the blockchain-enabled metaverse is going to enable the 'Citizens of the World' to gain their own Freedom by democratizing power and creating a new world with new rules, new players, and new opportunities. For 99.99% of us, the metaverse will improve our real-world lives through the democratization of power and opportunity.

Along with the major long-term trend of society towards decentralization and smaller-scale organizations, there are new opportunities developing to help 'Preparers' in the cryptocurrency sector. Businesses are beginning to issue their own Crypto Coins that can be traded on Cryptocoin Exchanges.

Markethive.com for example will be releasing its HiveCoin (HIV) in the coming weeks. It has tremendous upside potential that is outlined in a Video by Founder Tom Prendergast, "Entrepreneur Advantage…".

Not only that, if you go to their website and register as a FREE Member, you will be given 500 HiveCoins for "FREE" along with access to several Earning Opportunities and online tools to increase your HiveCoin balance.

Be sure to check it out today – Markethive.com

Markethive

Tim Moseley

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Web3 Is Supposed to Be Secure What About All These Hacks?

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Web3 Is Supposed to Be Secure. What About All These Hacks?

Web3 promised us a new era of privacy and security, but a series of recent major hacks make all that look like a lie.

By Jeff John Roberts

Hacks remain common in DeFi. 

The promise of Web3 is that we'll get all the stuff we like about the internet, but with more privacy and a blockchain-based architecture to keep our data more secure than before.

Well, that's the theory. In reality, Web3 is becoming a security nightmare as a slew of recent hacks has left some wondering if they should just turn our money and data over to Mark Zuckerberg and call it day.

The latest security disaster involves the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, which is supposed to be the poster child for what Web3 can be. If you missed it, hackers broke into the Ronin "bridge" between Axie and the Ethereum blockchain and robbed it to the tune of $552 million at the time (now worth $630 million, since ETH is up)—a staggering amount even in this crypto gilded age.

Even more shocking is how the attack took place. As Web3 engineer Molly White explains, the crew behind Axie set up the bridge in such a way that it required only nine trusted validators—meaning that a hacker only needed to compromise five accounts to get the keys to the kingdom. And that's what happened. Even worse, it took six days for the Axie team to notice that $630 million worth of Ethereum had been looted and to tell users, whose money is now gone.

If a security team at a bank or a Web2 company behaved this way, they would be fired and face charges of civil or even criminal negligence. But since it's Web3, Axie leadership has offered only vague mumbles to the effect of what a shame this is. (Axie founder Jeff Zirlin tweeted on Tuesday, "It's a hard day," and two hours later, "This is when we show what we're made of.") As Bloomberg's Matt Levine archly observed, "Nobody cares less about information security than the builders of cryptocurrency projects."

The Axie debacle is hardly a one-off. Two months ago, hackers robbed Wormhole, a popular bridge to the Solana blockchain, to the tune of $320 million. Fortunately for users, the venture capitalists beyond Wormhole, recognizing the terrible optics, decided to backstop the losses even as the engineers responsible all but shrugged their shoulders. Last week, $28 million was drained from Solana stablecoin protocol Cashio. Last August, Poly Network was hacked for over $600 million.

There are numerous other examples of Web3 users being robbed because the platforms they use are full of gaping security holes.

Meanwhile, more than two dozen Web3 companies, including Circle and BlockFi, revealed last month that they had been hit by a Web2-style attack. In that case, hackers compromised one of their marketing vendors and made off with a trove of customer data that is already being used to conduct phishing campaigns and other scams.

At this rate, Web3 risks inheriting the worst security failures of the previous internet but none of the accountability. At least big banks have insurance to make customers whole when they're robbed, while Big Tech firms deploy sophisticated security teams to guard their data. Many leading names in Web3, by contrast, appear focused on getting filthy rich by dumping tokens while not giving a fig about users left to navigate a predatory landscape on their own.

The token gold rush has led many to forget the values that gave rise to crypto in the first place. Those include building secure architecture and remembering Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin's "blockchain trilemma," the notion that it's easy to achieve two of three goals when it comes to decentralization, scale, and security, but very difficult to achieve all three. By the way, Vitalik spoke up about about bridges in January, warning they are simply not as secure as Layer 1 projects like Ethereum or Bitcoin.

And speaking of Bitcoin, I think this is one occasion where the broader Web3 world should consider learning from Bitcoin maximalists. Obnoxious though they may be, the maxis are right that there is nothing more battle-tested and secure than the Bitcoin blockchain—one of the big reasons Satoshi's creation remains the world's most valuable crypto. Web3 founders should take more time to build their projects in a similar fashion rather than hitting the gas in hopes of a quick token payoff. If they don't, Web3 risks losing the little credibility it's built.

This is Roberts on Crypto, a weekend column from Decrypt Editor-in-Chief Daniel Roberts and Decrypt Executive Editor Jeff John Roberts. Sign up for the Decrypt Debrief email newsletter to get it in your inbox every Saturday. And read last weekend's column: Vitalik Is the Crypto Hero We Don't Deserve.

Tim Moseley

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New EU laws set to revolutionize tech markets

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New EU laws set to revolutionize tech markets

by Robert O'Sullivan, Cora Quigley, Jackie Dana, contributors, Namecheap Blog

New EU laws set to revolutionize tech markets

 

EU takes aim at U.S. tech giants with Digital Markets Act

Much has been said in recent years about the dominance of ‘big tech’ firms and the way this unfairly impacts digital markets. But this could all be about to change, with new EU regulations that are aiming at reducing the power of online ‘gatekeeper’ platforms, such as Facebook and Google. The BBC reported that EU officials agreed on the wording of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) last week and, provided further approvals are met, the new legislation could be in effect later this year. 

So which tech giants will be hit and how will it affect them? Any company with a market capitalization that exceeds €75 billion ($82 billion) and also has more than 45 million users would be impacted. This includes the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Meta (formerly Facebook), Alphabet (Google’s parent company), and Booking.com.

The regulations concern interoperability (the extent to which different companies or software applications cooperate), and there will be limits to the use of personal data for the purposes of advertising. The European Commission will also have new powers to place a ban on large mergers.  

Changes to interoperability mean that different messaging services, such as Whatsapp and Telegram, will be forced to allow messages from users of different platforms.

 

 

Another change is that large companies that offer online markets will no longer be able to provide a single option, according to Wired. This means Apple will need to provide alternatives to its App Store for Apple devices, while Android devices will not be limited to Google Play store. When it comes to billing, this is good news for companies like Spotify, which will be able to avoid commission fees of up to 30%.  

The new law heralds a shift in government approaches in dealing with large tech companies. Many U.S. politicians support breaking up big tech, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, who recently introduced legislation that would limit the powers of big tech companies. But France’s Digital Affairs Minister Cédric O, who has been working to draft the DMA, goes with “don’t break them up, break them open”. This suggests that the new regulation will usher in a period of increased sharing and competitiveness.  

The DMA has not been well received by large tech firms like Apple, which told Fortune that it will “create unnecessary security vulnerabilities for our users.” And Google said it would “reduce innovation and the choice available to Europeans.” 

As with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into effect in 2018, Europe looks to be leading the world in the regulation of large tech companies. Similar to the GDPR, the Digital Markets Act will impose hefty penalties (up to 20% of global revenues) when the regulations are not met. For such large companies, this could be equal to billions of euros. 

The DMA will also be similar to the GDPR in that its impact will reach further than its EU jurisdiction, and many large companies will be forced to rethink their approaches. The law is intended to bring more fairness and innovation to Europe and the rest of the world, so the upcoming months will show us just how markets and users will take to the restrictions on large companies. 

 

New Opportunities Are Emerging For Citizens of The World.

Freedom and democracy may appear to be struggling to stay alive in America, but there may be a knock-out punch ready to be released. The evolution of the blockchain-enabled metaverse is going to enable the 'Citizens of the World' to gain their own Freedom by democratizing power and creating a new world with new rules, new players, and new opportunities. For 99.99% of us, the metaverse will improve our real-world lives through the democratization of power and opportunity.

Along with the major long-term trend of society towards decentralization and smaller-scale organizations, there are new opportunities developing to help 'Preparers' in the cryptocurrency sector. Businesses are beginning to issue their own Crypto Coins that can be traded on Cryptocoin Exchanges.

Markethive.com for example will be releasing its HiveCoin (HIV) in the coming weeks. It has tremendous upside potential that is outlined in a Video by Founder Tom Prendergast, "Entrepreneur Advantage…".

Not only that, if you go to their website and register as a FREE Member, you will be given 500 HiveCoins for "FREE" along with access to several Earning Opportunities and online tools to increase your HiveCoin balance.

Be sure to check it out today – Markethive.com

Markethive

Tim Moseley

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Marketing Must-Dos – Make More In Less Time

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Marketing Must-Dos = Make More In Less Time!

by Karon Thackston, owner, Marketing Words

Marketing Must-Dos - Make More In Less Time!

 

Plan Your Offer Funnel Checklist

For decades, the marketing funnel has proven itself to be a steadfast marketing method that repeatedly delivers new opt-ins to your list and dollars to your bank account. But many funnels don’t work as well as they should because steps are missing, the target is off, or something else isn’t quite right. These steps will make sure you’re on track.

“I need to…”

 Identify my most expensive product or service. This is the tip/bottom of my funnel and what all of my activities, products, and services funnel into.

 Set the price for this product or service. It’s a fair price that meets demand and solves a high-level problem and provides a substantial value.

 Outline a tiered product/service offering that gradually increases from free to my previously identified most expensive item. Each item provides value and builds upon itself to offer increasing value and benefit.

 Create a system to brainstorm my free content, the largest portion, and the top of my funnel. This includes all of the content I normally publish to generate awareness and drive traffic. I’ve used:

 Lists

 Mindmaps

 Keyword research

 Google Alerts

 Consumer surveys

 Previously published content

 Competition

 Trends

 Social media

 Other_______________________

 

 Decide on a schedule and content plan for my free content. My content includes:

 

 Blog posts

 Podcast(s)

 Video(s)

 Interview(s)

 Guest blogging

 Social media posts

 Other_________

 

 Make my freebie or free offer (or have it created for me) to introduce or pull people into the next tier of my funnel. The goal of this offer is to capture an email address.

 

 Newsletter

 Course

 Report

 eBook

 Audio

 Video

 Tutorials

 Webinars

 Other_________

 

 Create an introductory product or service that meets my target audience’s basic needs.

 

 eBook

 Guide

 Webinar

 Group Coaching

 Other__________

 

 Identify an introductory price for the product or service that my customers will be able to easily justify and part with.

 Choose a mid-level product or service that meets my target audience’s basic needs.

 

 eBook

 Webinar series

 Home Learning Product

 Individual Coaching

 Other__________

 

 Pick a mid-level price for the product or service that my customers will be able to easily justify and part with.

 Establish a marketing strategy to connect with customers as they move through the funnel to upsell and help them take the next step.

 Use this plan for your offer funnel checklist to guide you as you plan your offer and create a seamless system to introduce prospects to your funnel and move them through seamlessly.

 

Sales Funnel Development Checklist

“I need to…”

 Make a list of all the products and services I offer, including their original and sale price points. Create a system to organize my products/services and relevant prices. Use:

 

 Spreadsheets

 Mind map

 Flowchart

 Notebook

 Other__________

 

 Identify the problem solved, the target audience, and the benefit each product or service provides.

 Create a content plan that is used to drive traffic and enter my prospects into my sales funnel including:

 

 Social media post

 Blog posts

 Guest blog posts

 Free reports/case studies

 Videos

 Interviews

 Other______

 

 Develop an opt-in offer and squeeze page to build my email list. My opt-in offer is a:

 

 Report

 Newsletter

 Video series

 Tutorial

 eBook

 Other_______

 

 Write automated emails and a thank you page so I can follow-up messages to transition them to the first product in my sales funnel. 

 

 Establish a timeline that takes into consideration the most effective time to deliver each message.

 Identify the format, goal, and call to action for each message.

 

 Write and scheduled my email messages using my chosen email marketing platform such as Active Campaign or Aweber.

 Look at my product/service list, I’ve identified opportunities to:

 

 Upsell – When during your sales and marketing process can you offer the next higher-priced product to your customer?

 Cross-sell – When within the body of your sales funnel can you offer complementary or supplementary products to your customer?

 Create special promotions – Where in your sales process and funnel can you introduce special promotions to your customers to help them move through your funnel?

 

 Develop my sales page for each offer. It includes:

 

 Attention-grabbing headline

 Compelling benefit-driven copy

 Proof

 Motivation to act now, for example, a limited number or a limited time offer

 Call to action

 

 Test all elements of the sales funnel process including email links, sales page links, and how each element appears on various browsers. My shopping cart system is integrated into the sales material and emails and everything is working perfectly.

 Implement a system of analytics and evaluation – create systems to collect data about:

 

 Email message click-through rates

 Links and calls to action on sales pages

 Email open rate

 Squeeze page conversions

 Sales and profits for each customer and offer

 Schedule a time each week/month/quarter to review the analytics and make any necessary tweaks or changes to my existing sales funnel.

 

Email Marketing Checklist

Email marketing is one of the most effective and efficient methods to connect with your audience on a consistent and personal level. This checklist will help you create a productive email marketing strategy.

“I need to…”

 Set my goal for my email marketing strategy and each message sent to subscribers. I’m:

 

 Motivating affiliate sales

 Driving traffic to a sales page

 Driving traffic to my blog/website

 Selling/promoting a product

 Other:______________

 

Research and identify the autoresponder technology that will help me create an effective and efficient email marketing system. For example, Active Campaign or Aweber. Create an account and/or set up my account with the service provider, including:

 

 Newsletter/email format

 Image/graphics

 Unsubscribe policy and procedure

 Subscribe policy/procedure. For example, do you require a double opt-in?

 Disclaimers/copyright statement

 Social media connections have been enabled.

 

Establish a content/email schedule that consistently provides value and helps me reach my email marketing goals.

 

 This schedule is one that I can follow through on by writing the content myself and managing the newsletter or by hiring assistance.

 This schedule includes the day(s) and time(s) each email message will be sent.

 

Know who my email list is targeting and I’ve implemented measures to motivate subscriptions. Including: 

 

 Download

 Freebie

 Special offer/promotion

 The promise of fantastic content

 Other__________

 

 Define my email message. Create a list of email topics that engage my subscribers and provide value. I know what my audience wants to know and I’ve created an email content plan to achieve it.

 Implement and use Google Analytics or my email service provider provides the data that I need to evaluate the success of each email I sent. A time has been scheduled on my weekly/monthly calendar to review the analytics and make necessary adjustments to my email marketing campaign and strategy.

 Write attention-grabbing and effective subject lines. Each email message has a test subject line so I can determine what my audience best responds to.

 Include a call to action in each email message sent to subscribers. The call to action clearly tells readers what they should do next and there are compelling reasons to take action now.

 Create engaging content that supports my goals for my email marketing strategy. This content provides value and motivates readers to not only remain subscribers but to also take action.

 Test each email and make sure that:

 

 My links work

 My email isn’t perceived as SPAM and placed in junk email folders

 My email, whether delivered in text or HTML, looks good on all browsers

 My 'From' line is clear and apparent – people know who is sending them an email

 

Use this handy checklist to help you make sure you don’t miss a step when creating your email marketing messages and strategy. Reap the many powerful benefits email marketing has to offer.

 

 

Brand Decisions Checklist

Your brand is the image that people observe, develop, and relate to. It connects you to your customers and prospects. The branding process, including the planning and decision process, are important. These decisions have an impact on your future success. By working through this checklist, you’ll establish a solid brand and a plan to move forward and integrate it into all of your marketing and sales efforts.

“I need to…”

 Identify my business vision and mission. My branding decisions must remain true to my vision and mission in order to provide a consistent and comprehensive image to prospects and customers.

 Identify colors that best represent the brand I want to portray. These colors embody the vision and mission of my business along with the message I wish to convey.

 Choose a brand name that is easy to remember, easy to spell, and can be registered as a domain name.

 Have a solid understanding of who my target audience is and understand what their needs, interests, and goals are. I know how my branding efforts influence my unique target customer. 

 Know what differentiates me from my competition. I know what value I bring to my prospects. I can answer the following questions:

 

 How do you benefit your clients?

 Why do they like you?

 Why do they buy from you?

 

 Create a logo, or hire someone to create a logo, that conveys my brand in a way that is simple and easy to understand. My brand colors are used in the logo and the logo supports my vision and mission.

 Develop a brand purpose – a statement that highlights what I provide the market, how my business is different, and what makes my business distinct. 

 Create a brand personality – a statement or list of characteristics and words that best describe my brand. My brand personality embraces elements of my personality so that I can create a stronger connection with my audience.

 Develop a brand promise – an emotional statement that connects prospects to my brand and my company. My brand promise and message both evoke a positive emotion.

 

Facebook Checklist

Facebook continues to grow amongst most demographics. It’s widely used by many target audiences and can be an effective tool to grow your audience, and ultimately your sales. Use this checklist to make sure you don’t miss a step as you plan and implement your Facebook Marketing Strategy.

“I need to…”

 Choose a Facebook name that is consistent with my business. Customers will be able to easily identify my business Facebook page and profile.

 Create a vanity URL that I can use to promote my Facebook page. My vanity URL, for example, Facebook.com/yourbusinessname, is professional, consistent, and apparent to my customers. (Go to Admin panel, Edit page, and Update info to set your Vanity URL).

 Design and brand my Facebook page with current photos, my logo, and other images that represent my business. My cover photo and header image are professional and relevant to my business. My tagline is present on my Facebook page.

 Create an "About" page that embraces my company brand, voice, and communicates current and relevant information about my business.

 Decide on a goal for my Facebook page and social media marketing activities. I intend to use Facebook to:

 

 Drive traffic to my site

 Provide valuable content

 Promote/sell products

 Build my opt-in list

 Other__________

 

 Establish a message for my Facebook page that supports my goals for Facebook marketing.

 This message supports my brand and is authentic.

 This message is engaging and provides value to my friends and followers. 

 Create a content schedule that provides a steady and consistent flow of valuable content that supports my goals and message.

 Set aside time each day so that I can consistently connect with potential prospects and build my following while building my business and reaching my marketing goals. For example, I’ve set aside fifteen minutes two times each day to share, comment, and post. I’ve scheduled one post for each day of the week.

 Integrate Facebook with my other marketing tactics including:

 

 My blog

 My website

 My email signature

 My email marketing

 Other social media pages

 Other__________

 

 Leverage technology and automate as much of the process as possible. For example, my weekly email newsletter is posted on Facebook.

 Create systems to test and track my Facebook marketing results. I’m testing for:

 

 Content

 Delivery/posting time

 Clicks

 Subscribes

 And measuring my results as they relate to my specific Facebook goals.

 

Facebook can be a useful tool to connect with your prospects and begin to build a community around your business. Create your message, follow-through, and track your results.

 

Twitter/LinkedIn Checklists

Both Twitter and LinkedIn serve different audiences and purposes. However, for the sake of efficiency, I’m combining the checklists – many of the steps are the same or similar.

“I need to…”

 Create my Twitter profile. My profile includes my name, my location, and a short bio

 or statement about me and my business. It also includes a link to my blog or website.

 Customize my Twitter background with my business logo or an image that is relevant to my business.

 Create my LinkedIn Profile page.

 

 It includes a lengthy summary about me and/or my business.

 It includes contact information.

 It includes references/recommendations/endorsements.

 It includes a recent and professional photo

 

 Choose a goal for both my Twitter and LinkedIn social media marketing activities. I intend to use them to:

 

 Drive traffic to my site

 Provide valuable content

 Build my opt-in list

 Establish credibility and authority

 Other__________

 

 Establish a message for my Twitter and LinkedIn activities that supports my goals for each site.

 

 This message supports my brand and is authentic.

 This message is engaging and provides value to my friends and followers.

 

 Develop a content schedule that provides a steady and consistent flow of valuable content that supports my goals and message. This content schedule includes searchable hashtags for Twitter content. For LinkedIn, consider answering questions or joining groups and providing content for a unique and specific audience.

 Set aside time each day so that I can consistently connect with potential prospects and build my following while building my business and reaching my marketing goals. For example, I’ve set aside time during my day/week to post unique and valuable content.

 Integrate Twitter and LinkedIn with my other marketing tactics including:

 

 My blog

 My website

 My email signature

 My email marketing

 Facebook

 Other__________

 

 Leverage technology and automate as much of the process as possible. For example, I’ve scheduled Twitter posts in advance using an autoposter and linked those tweets to my Facebook page.

 Create systems to test and track my Twitter and LinkedIn marketing results. I’m testing for:

 

 Content

 Delivery/posting time

 Clicks

 Subscribes

 And measuring my results as they relate to my specific LinkedIn and Twitter goals.

 

Both Twitter and LinkedIn have unique audiences and can help you build a community, increase awareness and ultimately build your business.

 

Instagram/Pinterest Checklists

Instagram and Pinterest are two of the hottest social platforms today. People love getting insight into your everyday life on Instagram, and sharing all the cool stuff they find on Pinterest. In fact, Pinterest is one of the top sources of referrals to blogs in many niches, so if you’re not leveraging these two social networks, you might just be missing out!

“I need to…”

 Create my Pinterest profile. My profile includes my name, a short bio or statement about me and my business, and a link to my website.

 Customize my Instagram profile with my name and business, appropriate keywords, and a link to my website.

 Create relevant Pinterest “boards” to showcase:

 

 Related products and services

 Fun niche content

 My products and services

 Personal interests

 Useful tips my market can use

 

 Identify appropriate hashtags for Instagram which are:

 

 Related to my niche

 Widely used and searched for by my target audience

 Keyword-rich

 

 Establish a goal for my Instagram and Pinterest activities that supports my overall business development plans, including:

 

 Increasing traffic to my website

 Growing my mailing list

 Increasing sales

 

 Develop a habit of sharing content through both Instagram and Pinterest on a regular basis.

 Schedule time each day so that I can consistently connect with potential prospects and build my following while building my business and reaching my marketing goals. For example, I’ve set aside time during my day/week to post unique and valuable content.

 Integrate my Instagram and Pinterest accounts with:

 

 My blog

 My website

 My email signature

 My email marketing

 Facebook

 Other__________

 

 Test and track engagement and follower growth using the tools available on both Instagram and Pinterest.

 

YouTube Checklist

YouTube is the second largest search engine online today. You very likely use it yourself when looking for help on a project, or just want a fun diversion for a few minutes. But are you using YouTube to grow your business? Here’s how to get the most out of YouTube.

“I need to…”

 Create my YouTube profile. My profile includes my name, a short bio or statement about me and my business, and a link to my website.

 Customize my YouTube header and profile picture to include an image of me and my logo.

 Make relevant YouTube “playlists” to showcase various categories of videos.

 Identify appropriate keywords for YouTube which are:

 

 Related to my niche

 Widely used and searched for by my target audience

 

 Organize a system for optimizing my YouTube videos, including:

 

 Appropriate and keyword-rich naming

 Compelling descriptions which include my website link

 Call to action within each video

 

 Develop a schedule for posting new videos that is both consistent and goal-oriented.

 Schedule time in my calendar to batch record videos so that I don’t get overwhelmed.

 Integrate my YouTube and Google + accounts.

 Share my videos on Facebook, Pinterest, and other social accounts.

 Share my YouTube videos on my blog and in my email marketing.

 

New Opportunities Are Emerging For Citizens of The World.

Freedom and democracy may appear to be struggling to stay alive in America, but there may be a knock-out punch ready to be released. The evolution of the blockchain-enabled metaverse is going to enable the 'Citizens of the World' to gain their own Freedom by democratizing power and creating a new world with new rules, new players, and new opportunities. For 99.99% of us, the metaverse will improve our real-world lives through the democratization of power and opportunity.

Along with the major long-term trend of society towards decentralization and smaller-scale organizations, there are new opportunities developing to help 'Preparers' in the cryptocurrency sector. Businesses are beginning to issue their own Crypto Coins that can be traded on Cryptocoin Exchanges.

Markethive.com for example will be releasing its HiveCoin (HIV) in the coming weeks. It has tremendous upside potential that is outlined in a Video by Founder Tom Prendergast, "Entrepreneur Advantage…".

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Markethive

Tim Moseley

The Artist that came out of the Winter