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Bitcoin Core 230 Released: What’s New

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Bitcoin Core 23.0 Released: What’s New

by Namcios 

 

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

The newest version of Bitcoin’s original software launched by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 brings improvements on privacy, security and user experience.

A new version of the original Bitcoin software client launched by Satoshi Nakamoto has been released today.

Bitcoin Core 23.0 was worked on by 132 developers over about seven months to bring tangible improvements to Bitcoin Core’s wallet, peer-to-peer communication and network, fee estimation, and much more.

This article explores some of the main changes.

Wallet Updates Taproot Support

Bitcoin Core now enables the user to choose the new Taproot address type when creating a new wallet. Even though that isn’t the default, as many wallets in the ecosystem can’t send to a Taproot address yet, the user is given the option to create Taproot receiving addresses in newly-created wallets.

The Taproot address created by the Bitcoin Core wallet for receiving bitcoin is a simple, single signature one. Therefore, users won’t automatically save BTC in fees compared to regular Bech32 single-signature addresses, as bigger savings come from porting more complex spending conditions and address setups into the Taproot scheme.

By adding native support for Taproot addresses, Bitcoin Core takes a step in the direction of encouraging a wider adoption of Taproot. As more users opt into the new upgrade’s features, its benefits are able to best permeate through the userbase.

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Descriptor Wallets Are Now The Default

Bitcoin Core wallets now default to using descriptors when created, a significant change that promises a better backup and recovery process for bitcoin funds.

Since the advent of hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallets, a Bitcoin wallet will typically use the recovery seeds (usually 12 or 24 words) to generate a master private key. The wallet then uses that master private key to generate a master public key, which can be leveraged to generate a nearly infinite number of receiving addresses through derivation paths, that as the name says, guide the wallet to what path it should follow to correctly derive an address.

Recovering funds in a Bitcoin wallet therefore commonly depends on that derivation path, as most applications today default to HD wallets. (The usage of different derivation paths by wallets is the reason why it is common to see a user attempting to recover funds in a second wallet finding a balance of zero.)

However, descriptor wallets make it much easier for the user to recover any funds by explicitly stating the derivation path in the descriptor. The user is thereby relieved from having to care about the derivation path their wallet used – a big improvement in user experience (UX).

Typos On Bech32 Addresses Can Now Be Spotted

Bech32 addresses, the format in which the address begins with “bc1,” have an interesting property that enables the spotting of possible typos. However, it wasn’t until Bitcoin Core 23.0 that the user could benefit from that.

Bitcoin Core will now alert the user about up to two errors in a Bech32 address. The tool is currently only available on the command line, through the “validateaddress” RPC, though there are plans to integrate it into the graphical user interface (GUI) in the future. If more than two errors are made by the user when typing out the address, then the typo-finding tool cannot guarantee success.

The limit of errors the tool commits to finding is important because attempting to find a large number of typos could lead to undesired behavior. If the user typed an address with several mistaken letters, even if the tool could spot all of them it could end up suggesting a totally different address than what the user intended to send to in the first place – a much worse outcome.

Freezing Coins

A Bitcoin Core user has had the option to choose what coins, or unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs), to use in a transaction for years now. But this coin control feature required manual selection of what UTXOs to use every time – a cumbersome and tiring process that is highly prone to error.

Now, Bitcoin Core allows the user to indefinitely “freeze” a UTXO. The freezing process is still a manual one, but the user only needs to do that once and can then rest assured that the coin they froze won’t be automatically spent by Bitcoin Core until the user unfreezes that coin.

Carefully selecting which UTXOs to use in funding a transaction is important to prevent undesirably linking addresses that have conflicting purposes. For example, a user might not want to join UTXOs they obtained through know-your-customer (KYC) methods with non-KYC coins. If they did, any observer of the blockchain would be able to infer that that user, whom they could know because of the KYC information provided, also owns the non-KYC address and its coins – hurting user privacy.

Changes To P2P Communications Port 8333 Preference Removed

Broadly speaking, computers need two vital pieces of information to communicate with each other on the internet: an IP address and a port number. While the IP address serves as an identifier for a computer in a network, helping determine its location, the port number helps inform what type of communication is being done on the internet as each communication protocol usually defaults to a specific port number. As a result, ports enable a computer to run multiple types of traffic at the same time while easily differentiating between them. For example, the web’s HTTP protocol defaults to port 80, while its more secure counterpart HTTPS usually runs on port 443, and email’s SMTP protocol leverages port 25.

With Bitcoin, it is no different. Historically, upon starting Bitcoin Core, computers default to running on port 8333 and looking for peers using that same port.

While ports facilitate the communication between computers on the internet, it also makes it easier for internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor traffic as it is easy to assume what type of communication is being done. In an adversarial setup, an ISP could filter and block certain traffic based on the destination port. Despite not being the most effective censorship mechanism available to ISPs, it is the easiest, and an attacked protocol would need to change its default port of communication to bypass the censoring or throttling.

By removing the port 8333 preference, Bitcoin Core now mitigates the easiest path ISPs have for filtering or blocking Bitcoin traffic. Additionally, nodes not running on port 8333 now will have less friction getting inbound connections from other nodes as the network no longer prioritizes that port.

Support For The CJDNS Network

Bitcoin Core 23.0 also protects users from adversarial ISPs by adding support for CJDNS, a security-enhanced alternative to the standard internet protocol (IP).

CJDNS leverages public-key cryptography to implement an encrypted version of IPv6 – the most recent version of IP. By providing end-to-end encryption natively, CJDNS improves upon IPv6 and IPv4 (the previous IP version that is still widely used) with increased security and privacy as it protects nodes that use it from traffic analysis and filtering.

The addition brings new optionality for users interested in protecting their traffic from prying eyes or increasing the security of their Bitcoin setup. While Tor and I2P exist as alternatives to clearnet IP, CJDNS serves as a complementary option that can enhance robustness for the Bitcoin network and its nodes.

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Better Fee Estimations

Bitcoin Core’s built-in fee estimation tool has just gotten a bit more complete.

According to a blog post by John Newbery on the subject, Bitcoin Core’s fee estimation “simply records and reports meaningful statistics about past events, and uses that data to give the user a reasonable estimate of how much fee they need to attach in order to have their transaction included within N blocks,” with N being the number of blocks the user is willing to wait to have their transaction confirmed.

The algorithm calculating such estimates used to take into account all transactions on the mempool, Bitcoin’s “waiting area” for transactions that haven’t yet been included in a block. However, since the introduction of replace-by-fee (RBF) transactions, which enable the user to effectively bump the fee their transaction is pledging to miners in an attempt to get a faster confirmation, Bitcoin Core did not account for the new transaction type when estimating fees out of doubts whether the feature would be widely adopted by users and miners.

Now, with Bitcoin Core 23.0, RBF transactions are taken into account on Bitcoin Core’s fee estimations, providing a more accurate estimate for users leveraging the software for sending transactions.

Support For Tracepoints And Userspace, Statically-Defined Tracing

Bitcoin Core now includes experimental tracepoints in its release binaries for Linux with userspace, statically-defined tracing (USDT).

USDT allows users to get detailed information from their node that can be used for review, debugging and monitoring. The feature makes it possible to keep track of custom fine-grained statistics and monitor otherwise hidden internal node events while having little to no performance impact when unused.

One example where this is useful is to spot and likely prevent attacks. A security researcher could set up multiple nodes and trace the messages received from peers to possibly identify attacks ahead of time.

Thanks to Aaron van Wirdum for information and feedback.

For more details and other changes, see the Bitcoin Core 23.0 release notes. To download Bitcoin Core 23.0, navigate here. Details about Bitcoin Core 23.0 are also explained in audio in the Bitcoin Explained podcast episode 56.

Tim Moseley

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US investors realized 6x more crypto gains in 2021 than UK investors

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US investors realized 6x more crypto gains in 2021 than UK investors

BYTOM MITCHELHILL

Crypto investors from the United States realized nearly $47 billion in gains during 2021, outpacing the U.K. by a factor of six.

US investors realized 6x more crypto gains in 2021 than UK investors​​​​

Crypto investors from the United States realized crypto gains nearly six times higher in total than the United Kingdom, the second-highest country in terms of realized gains. 

According to a report by Chainalysis, crypto investors in the U.S. accrued a record $46.9 billion in realized gains throughout 2021, leading the rest of the world by a wide margin. The U.S. is followed at quite some distance by the U.K. at $8.1 billion and Germany with $5.8 billion.

Total realized cryptocurrency gains 2021: Chainalysis.

The report comes as global cryptocurrency adoption continues to gain widespread traction. The U.S. witnessed a massive increase in adoption and realized gains, with the total estimated gains for 2021 up 476% from $8.1 billion the year before.

Special mentions were given to countries that outperformed their “traditional” economic rankings. Despite Turkey being globally ranked as number 11 by GDP, the country was ranked number six when it came to realized crypto gains.

China was one of the only large nations that did not see the same massive gains as other countries. In 2021, China’s total estimated realized cryptocurrency gains stood at $5.1 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 2020, which equates to a year-over-year growth rate of 194%. However, this is still impressive growth considering the extensive crypto bans that were progressively enacted in China in 2021.

China’s result pales, however, besides other countries such as the U.K. and Germany, which saw a respective 431% and a 423% increase last year.

Related: What is driving institutions to invest in crypto? BlockFi's David Olsson explains

Another notable trend was the increase in total gains from Ether (ETH), which saw ETH investors around the world cash out a total of $76.3 billion, beating out Bitcoin (BTC) as the highest realized earnings crypto asset in 2021. However, Bitcoin inventors still performed well, with the global crypto investing community securing $74.7 billion in gains throughout 2021.

Tim Moseley

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Inflation in European Union

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Inflation in European Union

The annual inflation rate in the European Union (comparing same month of the year 2021 to this year) rose to a record 7.8 percent in March from 6.2 percent in February. This was announced by the European statistical office Eurostat. The Czech Republic had the third highest inflation in the EU, at 11.9 percent.
Inflation in the euro area is now well above the European Central Bank's 2% target. Upward it is pushed especially by the rising energy. In March, energy prices in the euro area increased by 44.4 percent year-on-year.

The highest inflation in the EU was recorded in Lithuania, where consumer prices increased by 15.6 percent year-on-year. Second place went to Estonia with inflation of 14.8 percent. Czechia takes third place.

In an interview with the BBC,   the president of the World Bank, David Malpass said that war in Ukraine will make food more expensive by up to 37 percent, and the looming food crisis will cause human catastrophe in many poorer countries. Hundreds of millions of people are at risk of poverty and malnutrition if the crisis is not stopped.
The head of the World Bank warned that there is enough food for everyone in the world, and according to comparisons with the situation in the past, there are also high food stocks. But there is a need to change the way food is distributed to get where it is needed.

Here some examples of prices how it is influencing Czech Republic:
prices gasoline and diesel January 2022 were at petrol stations in the Czech Republic for an average of CZK 36.20,(approx 1,68 USD/liter) . But beginning of April gasoline was approx 2,27 USD/liter which means 38 % more  – this influences of course also the prices of public transport and transport of goods  – 22% up.
Foods – flour 63% more expensive than a year ago which has of course big influence on prices of bakery products. Butter and milk very similar. Bread – some economists say that in the second half of this year 1kg of bread can be even 70 CZK/3,10 USD – that might be increse by 40-50% in comparison with the price now.

This price development is supported by the fact that Czech government is inactive and does not want to do anything against this development arguing it is against rules of Europen Union – while for instance Polish government  decreased the VAT on foods.

This graf shows average prices of electricity in capital Praha – New year 2021 compared to New year 2022 = growth 48,49 %

The complicated situation applies also on enterprises
More than half of domestic enterprises expect their energy inputs to become more expensive by 50 percent or more. At the same time, the vast majority of companies will increase the prices of other cost items, such as input materials. This follows from the survey of the Chamber of Commerce. The most acute situation is in the manufacturing industry and construction.
A few days ago was published that inflation in Czech republic now is near to 13% – and if government will not do anything against it will still grow most probably.

But not every state in Europe has the same aproach – for instance Hungary  – The Hungarian government since 1. February  reduced prices for wheat flour, sugar, sunflower oil, milk, pork  and chicken breasts.

Evidently member states of European Union have different approach to the inflation, some politicians have more courage and the development this year might be still quite wild.

                            Thank you for reading

                                                                Margaret

 

Tim Moseley

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Batteries Are Everything These Days

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Batteries Are Everything These Days

by Luke Lango, editor, Hypergrowth Investing

Batteries Are Everything These Days

We need batteries. Literally everywhere.

When you sit back and think about it, pretty much every technological megatrend out there requires batteries to power it.

Electric vehicles? They run on lithium-ion batteries.

Energy storage systems? They, too, run on batteries.

Artificial intelligence? Built on software, which is run on computers, which are powered by — you guessed it — batteries.

What about smartphones? VR headsets? Charging stations? All those end markets need batteries, too.

Morgan Stanley aptly summed it up in a research note just a few weeks back by saying:

"We need batteries. Literally everywhere."

The purpose of the research note was to illustrate that the world is about to embark upon a battery infrastructure spending boom over the next decade so that countries and companies can produce enough batteries to power all of these tech megatrends

We couldn't agree more with that thesis.

Batteries will be the epicenter of our tech-dominated future. Demand for them is going to increase at exponential rates in the 2020s. But there is not an infinite supply of batteries. If anything, we have a supply shortage today. Therefore, there is going to be a battery spending boom over the next decade, wherein companies all along the battery manufacturing supply chain will make a lot of money.

 

 

It will be a "Battery Gold Rush."

The Forever Battery Is the Holy Grail of This Gold Rush

The "holy grail" of the coming Battery Gold Rush will be a special type of battery that I like to call a forever battery, and it's going to change the world as we know it.

To understand why we need to take a quick trip back to chemistry class…

Batteries comprise three things. A cathode, an anode, and an electrolyte. Batteries work by promoting the flow of ions between the cathode and anode through the electrolyte.

A graph depicting the percent change in the Nasdaq following a yield curve inversion

Conventional lithium-ion batteries are built on liquid battery chemistry. That is, they comprise a solid cathode and anode, with a liquid electrolyte solution connecting the two.

These batteries have worked wonders for years. But, due to the physical constraints of dealing with a liquid electrolyte, they are now reaching their limit in terms of energy cell density — which basically means that if we want our phones, watches, and electric cars to last longer and charge faster, we need a fundamentally different battery.

Insert the solid-state battery.

With solid-state batteries, the name pretty much says it all. Take the liquid electrolyte solution in conventional batteries. Compress it into a solid. Create a small, hyper-compact solid battery that — because it has zero wasted space — lasts far longer and charges far faster.

Of course, the implications of solid-state battery chemistry are huge.

Solid-state batteries could be the key to making our phones sustain power for days… enabling our smartwatches to fully charge in seconds… and, yes, allowing electric cars to drive for thousands of miles without needing to recharge.

That's why solid-state batteries are dubbed by insiders as "forever batteries" — and it is why these forever batteries are the holy grail of the Battery Gold Rush.

Competitive advantages in the 2020s will be gained by companies using the best batteries. The better the battery, the better the performance of an electric vehicle, phone, energy storage system, and more.

Therefore, there won't be any rush for old-school batteries built on old tech. But there will be an unprecedented mad dash for these solid-state batteries.

Said differently, the Battery Gold Rush of the 2020s will be focused on solid-state batteries.

 

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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After touching 2k why did gold price tumble 70?

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After touching $2k, why did gold price tumble $70?

After touching the $2,000 level at the beginning of the week, gold tumbled more than $70 as the U.S. dollar climbed alongside the U.S. Treasury yields. Here's a look at Kitco's top three stories of the week:

3. Gold price continues to consolidate as Fed's Powell reiterates hawkish stance

2. Is gold the next big play? Gold price heading to $2,100 – Wells Fargo

1. 'Turning point' for the U.S. dollar is near, says billionaire 'Bond King' Jeff Gundlach

 

By Anna Golubova

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

 

Tim Moseley

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ENTREPRENEURS vs POLITICIANS – SOVEREIGN KINGDOMS vs ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT

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ENTREPRENEURS vs. POLITICIANS – SOVEREIGN KINGDOMS vs. ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT 

Could it be that the tide is turning for entrepreneurs to be accepted by an overwhelming majority to the political platform? With all that is revealed recently, and many corrupt politicians and bureaucrats facing indictment, perhaps it's time to let the entrepreneurs take the helm. Think Hunter Biden & Co, Burisma and Ukrainian connection.

We all saw what an entrepreneur could do for a country for a short time that has gone down in history as triumphant by many, all to be destroyed in one year when a political puppet with his cronies seized power in what many considered as a coup d'état.

Many entrepreneurs are stepping up to thwart the dictator-driven hierarchy that is not even an elected official. Such as the World Economic Forum headed by Klaus Schwab pushing for a one-world government, one kingdom of a new world order where "you will own nothing and be happy." And where all governments across the world are answerable to it.

One entrepreneur and investor, Peter Thiel, is stepping down from the board of Meta (Facebook) with a focus on helping elect Republican candidates that support former President Trump's strategies. Candidates such as J.D. Vance and Blake Masters, also entrepreneurs, will be directly backed by Mr. Thiel for the 2022 midterm elections. 

These non-politicians have all the hallmarks of entrepreneurship; they are critical thinkers and innovative individuals who focus on real people's lives and do not follow the dogmas that have manifested over the last few decades. They can empathize with their constituents on a simpler level; delivering their message the people can understand and follow through with positive action is just one example of what they would bring to the table.  

On the other hand, politicians deliver lip service with an agenda that suits them rather than society. We've seen it play out, especially in the last two years, in such a blatant fashion that it’s incredulous. Some politicians are also ignorant of emerging technologies to the point where they are apathetic and show disdain for fear of losing their grip on power. 

 

Some Get It – Some Don’t

Their skewed perception of world affairs results in poor, even detrimental decisions for us ordinary folk worldwide. In a recent congressional testimony based around interest rates, Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, was in the hot seat where questions were asked about crypto. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren rants about how corporations are causing inflation and how Russia is evading sanctions by using cryptocurrency in the second hearing. She even slammed cryptocurrency exchanges for refusing to sanction regular Russians; Powell stated that it was outside of his area of expertise.  

Senators Jack Reed and Kyrsten Sinema voiced their concerns regarding the global trend away from the US dollar, explicitly noting that some superpowers have accelerated their abandonment of the dollar in the wake of the Russia/Ukraine war. It’s most likely the superpowers saw that Central Bank assets are fair game for sanctions. 

Kyrsten also confirmed that US politicians are becoming concerned that their sanctions against Russia are doing more harm than good to the dollar. And Jerome essentially said that the damage to the dollar depends on how long this situation lasts. 

It seems the FED may have found itself backed into a corner that it can't get out of easily. As much as it's tried to stay neutral and avoid becoming politicized, politicians have been unscrupulous in using the dollar as a political weapon against International opponents. 

Notably, the international community has known this for some time, and many have been trying to move off the dollar for years. Many wars were started to preserve the American dollar as the reserve currency. When Moammar Gaddafi created an evaluated currency for Africa, western military power went to Libya and assassinated Gaddafi. 

When Saddam Hussein announced in Iraq that he would no longer accept the US dollar for oil, two months later, the war broke out in Iraq, and Saddam Hussein was murdered. The current conflict has accelerated this process, giving the edge to crypto and its benefits because it can be used to cut through the corrupt and fragile fiat financial system that is failing in every capacity. 

Some countries such as El Salvador have realized that fiat currencies are futile and have turned to adopt currencies that aren't controlled by any other nation. Currencies that maintain their value and can't be turned off for any reason. 

Jerome Powell’s testimony indicates that fiat currency’s days are numbered. We are heading towards a trend of decentralizing national currencies, and for many, favorably in the form of cryptocurrencies and not a Central bank-run digital currency. (CBDC)

Below is a snippet of the essential points of the second hearing relating to crypto from Guy at Coinbureau. 

To watch the full video of Guy breaking down Powell's testimony of both hearings into its most critical parts, giving you his take on what this could mean for the markets, click here. – 30mins.

 

The SWIFT System Weaponized

Since the sanctions on Russia by certain western countries and corporations, including the globally used SWIFT system. Founded in 1973, Belgium-based SWIFT is used by banks for cross-border financial transactions. It facilitates trillions of dollars of payments between 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries making it the backbone of the international financial transfer system.

The Central Bank of Russia has since permitted its largest bank, Sberbank, to act as a cryptocurrency vendor to circumvent sanctions imposed by the U.S and E.U and a way to avoid the massive downward pressure exerted on Russia’s ruble.

The above decision, along with other contingencies such as India purchasing oil from Russia using rupees instead of dollars. And Saudi Arabia is working on selling oil to China in yuan instead of dollars. 

It’s worth noting that most of the world has not joined the sanctions against Russia, including Argentina, Brazil, China, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Israel, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Pakistan.

In 2014, Russia launched the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), a Russian alternative to SWIFT. In 2015, China launched the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), a Chinese alternative to SWIFT. CIPS processed around $12.68 trillion in 2021. CIPS has 1,280 financial institutions in 103 countries and regions.

Combine the Russian System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) with the Chinese Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), and you see the foundation of a new Russian-Chinese cross-border payment system bypassing SWIFT speeding up global de-dollarization.

Interestingly, Russia has the ruble, which is fully backed by gold, unlike fiat with no intrinsic value except faith, trust, and acceptance of the people in their governments. India, China, and Russia have long had a different monetary system apart from SWIFT.

As recently as November 16, 2019, Vladimir Putin said, 

“The Dollar enjoyed great trust around the world. But, for some reason, it is now being used as a political weapon to impose restrictions. They’ll collapse soon. Many countries are now turning away from the Dollar as a Reserve Currency.”

What is happening here is that some misinformed or even corrupt self-serving decisions are giving rise to a multi-polar world, which is quite the opposite of a one-world government. In effect, the countries that have sold out to the United Nations supporting their Agenda 21/30 are creating their own demise.  

 

Are You Ready For Some Truth Bombs?

An award-winning journalist, and former newscaster, Lara Logan, drops a few truth bombs in this interview that rocks the world. The alternative media exposes the NWO, EU, US, NATO, the UN, CERN, the WHO, the CIA, the MOSSAD as all one big snake pit connected up the dark evil pyramid of the elite.

You are not hearing this on mainstream media as they are facilitating the agenda and narrative of corrupt politicians whose thoughts and strategies are a polar opposite to entrepreneurs with life experience and a humanitarian approach. 

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be . . . The People cannot be safe without information. When the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe."

Thomas Jefferson

 

The Crypto Industry Takes A Firm Stand. More Entrepreneurs Stepping Up

The dollar as the Reserve currency all countries align is diminishing rapidly. The cry for regulation of cryptocurrencies by corrupt governments shows the corruption and mutiny within organized financial system bodies like the SEC, revealing how protected Bitcoin and Ethereum are.

Some governments asked entrepreneur and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to block Russian media outlets from its Starlink satellite broadband service. In a tweet he sent out on March 5th, Musk declared the company would not comply with the request "unless at gunpoint." According to Musk, the demand hadn't come from Ukrain, and he added, "Sorry to be a free speech absolutist." 

The sanctions to squeeze Russia's economy and sever the country from the global financial system have forced companies and financial firms to halt business. But many of the world's largest crypto exchanges – including Binance and US-based Kraken and Coinbase refused to ban Russian clients, despite a plea from the Ukrainian government. 

They said they would screen users and block anyone targeted by sanctions. The standoff illustrates the ideological difference between the traditional financial sector and the world of cryptocurrencies, whose origin lies in the ideal of liberty and distrust of governments. The crypto exchanges argued that cutting off a whole nation would counter Bitcoin's ethos of offering access to payments free of government oversight.

 

A Turning Point In History And The Rise Of Kingdoms

The world’s state of affairs may look bad to some, but it's a turning point in history, with Russia now seeming to lead the way out of the Matrix, leaving behind the corrupt financial system and mainstream media. This is perhaps the start to implementing a free world outside of the matrix of the cabal that we have been trapped in for centuries.  

We now have what can be considered separate kingdoms of sovereignty emerging that are all fundamentally on the same page and supporting each other. It includes social media marketing cryptocurrency ecosystems that can help an expanding community in times like these where the world has reached a level of volatility unprecedented. 

Unlike the tech giants, Markethive will not be or will ever be involved in sanctions that hurt people at the very core. Every individual from every country is welcome to the sovereign kingdom of Markethive and escape the tyranny that surrounds it but will not penetrate it. 

Aptly recognized as the Ecosystem for Entrepreneurs, Markethive stands for freedom of speech, critical thinking, self-expression, and liberty, cultivating the entrepreneurial spirit to keep it alive. Perhaps it’s time to get the entrepreneurs back into government—empaths with substance and have no agenda except to help humanity thrive. 

 

An Individual Thinker – An Entrepreneur Of Medieval Times

I will finish off with a quote from Roger Bacon, who was born in 1220 and died in 1294. A scholar with a background in experimental science, philosopher, educational reformer, he later became a friar and was subsequently condemned to prison for daring to speak his mind and his penchant for millenarianism. 

He also predicted the hot air balloon, the flying machine, and the magnifying glass. He was the first person in the West to give exact directions for making gunpowder.

Bacon displayed prodigious energy and zeal in the pursuit of experimental science. His studies were talked about everywhere and eventually won him a place in popular literature as a kind of wonder-worker. Bacon, therefore, represents a historically precocious expression of the empirical spirit of experimental science. He is what I would call an entrepreneur of medieval times. 

“True knowledge stems not from the authority of others, nor from a blind allegiance to antiquated dogmas, but instead is a highly personal experience. A light that is communicated only to the innermost privacy of the individual, through the impartial channels of all knowledge and of all thought.” 

 

 

 

Note from Editor; This article is an alternative view to the mainstream narrative. After much research, I felt the need to put it out there. After all, there are two sides to every story. 

 

Also published @ BeforeIt’sNews.com https://beforeitsnews.com/economics-and-politics/2022/03/entrepreneurs-vs-politicians-sovereign-kingdoms-vs-one-world-government-2529469.html

 

Tim Moseley

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Europe Is Building a Huge International Facial Recognition System

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Europe Is Building a Huge International Facial Recognition System

by Matt Burgess, Wired

Europe Is Building a Huge International Facial Recognition System

 

For the past 15 years, police forces searching for criminals in Europe have been able to share fingerprints, DNA data, and details of vehicle owners with each other. If officials in France suspect someone they are looking for is in Spain, they can ask Spanish authorities to check fingerprints against their database. Now European lawmakers are set to include millions of photos of people’s faces in this system—and allow facial recognition to be used on an unprecedented scale.

The expansion of facial recognition across Europe is included in wider plans to “modernize” policing across the continent, and it comes under the Prüm II data-sharing proposals. The details were first announced in December, but criticism from European data regulators has gotten louder in recent weeks, as the full impact of the plans has been understood.

“What you are creating is the most extensive biometric surveillance infrastructure that I think we will ever have seen in the world,” says Ella Jakubowska, a policy adviser at the civil rights NGO European Digital Rights (EDRi). Documents obtained by EDRi under freedom of information laws and shared with WIRED reveal how nations pushed for facial recognition to be included in the international policing agreement.

The first iteration of Prüm was signed by seven European countries—Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Austria—back in 2005 and allowed nations to share data to tackle international crime. Since Prüm was introduced, take-up by Europe's 27 countries has been mixed.

Prüm II plans to significantly expand the amount of information that can be shared, potentially including photos and information from driving licenses. The proposals from the European Commission also said police will have greater “automated” access to information that’s shared. Lawmakers say this means police across Europe will be able to cooperate closely, and the European law enforcement agency Europol will have a “stronger role.”

The inclusion of facial images and the ability to run facial recognition algorithms against them are among the biggest planned changes in Prüm II. Facial recognition technology has faced significant pushback in recent years as police forces have increasingly adopted it, and it has misidentified people and derailed lives. Dozens of cities in the US have gone as far as banning police forces from using the technology. The EU is debating a ban on the police use of facial recognition in public places as part of its AI Act.

However, Prüm II allows the use of retrospective facial recognition. This means police forces can compare still images from CCTV cameras, photos from social media, or those on a victim’s phone against mug shots held on a police database. The technology is different from live facial recognition systems, which are often connected to cameras in public spaces; these have faced the most criticism.

 

 

The European proposals allow a nation to compare a photo against the databases of other countries and find out if there are matches—essentially creating one of the largest facial recognition systems in existence. One document obtained by EDRi says the number of potential matches could range from between 10 and 100 faces, although this figure needs to be finalized by politicians. A European Commission spokesperson says that a human will review the potential matches and decide if any of them are correct before any further action is taken. “In a significant number of cases, a facial image of a suspect is available,” France’s interior minister said in the documents. It claimed to have solved burglary and child sexual abuse cases using its facial recognition system.

The Prüm II documents, dated from April 2021, when the plans were first being discussed, show the huge number of face photos that countries hold. Hungary has 30 million photos, Italy 17 million, France 6 million, and Germany 5.5 million, the documents show. These images can include suspects, those convicted of crimes, asylum seekers, and “unidentified dead bodies,” and they come from multiple sources in each country.

Jakubowska says that while criticism of facial recognition systems has mostly focused on real-time systems, those that identify people at a later date are still problematic. “When you are applying facial recognition to footage or images retrospectively, sometimes the harms can be even greater, because of the capacity to look back at, say, a protest from three years ago, or to see who I met five years ago because I'm now a political opponent,” she says. “Only facial images of suspects or convicted criminals can be exchanged,” the European Commission spokesperson says, citing a guide on how the system will work. “There will be no matching of facial images to the general population.”

Pictures of people’s faces shouldn’t be combined in one giant central database, the official proposal says, but police forces will be linked together through a “central router.” This router won’t store any data, the European Commission spokesperson says, adding that it will “only act as a message broker” between nations. This decentralized approach makes Prüm II more straightforward: Police wanting to compare fingerprints under the current system must connect to other police forces individually. Under the new infrastructure, countries only need one connection to the central router and it will be easier to “add additional data categories to the system,” the documents obtained by EDRi say.

The European data protection supervisor (EDPS), who oversees how EU bodies use data under GDPR, has criticized the planned expansion of Prüm, which could take several years. “Automated searching of facial images is not limited only to serious crimes but could be carried out for the prevention, detection, and investigation of any criminal offenses, even a petty one,” Wojciech Wiewiórowski, the EDPS, said in early March. Wiewiórowski said more safeguards should be written into the proposals to make sure people’s privacy rights are protected. The European Commission spokesperson says the body has taken “good note” of the EDPS opinion and the thoughts will be taken into account as the European Parliament and Council discusses the legislation.

During the development of the plans, Slovenia has been one key country pushing for the expansion—including asking for people’s driving license data to be included. Domen Savič, the CEO of Slovenian digital rights group Državljan D, says there are significant concerns about the differences between police databases and who is included. “I haven't heard enough to be convinced that all of this data gathered by individual police forces is sanitized in the same way,'' Savič says.

Police databases are often poorly put together. In July 2021, police in the Netherlands deleted 218,000 photos it wrongly included in its facial recognition database. In the UK, more than a thousand young Black men were removed from a “gangs database” in February 2021. “You could have databases that have completely different backgrounds in terms of how this data was collected, where it was sourced, how it was exchanged, and who approved what,” Savič says. Slovenia has already faced similar problems. “And this could lead to misidentification.”

One of the biggest problems for Jakubowska is how Prüm II could normalize the use of facial recognition by police forces across Europe. “What really concerns us is how much this Prüm II proposal could incentivize the creation of facial image databases and the application of algorithms to these databases to perform facial recognition,” she says. The EU will pay for the cost of connecting databases to Prüm II, the proposal says, and this includes the cost of creating new national facial images databases. Sixty years after being invented, facial recognition is still just getting started.

 

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Tim Moseley

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Here’s what latest gold price pattern tells investors about the metal’s next move

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Here's what latest gold price pattern tells investors about the metal's next move

After touching $2,000 an ounce at the beginning of the week, gold tumbled more than $70 as the U.S. dollar climbed alongside the U.S. Treasury yields.

With the latest trading pattern, analysts see some undeniably bullish signals.

"Gold has been reaching new highs and consolidating. Right now, it is liquidating because of the higher dollar. But how can you be short gold in this market? Any dips in gold and silver are buying opportunities," Walsh Trading co-director Sean Lusk told Kitco News.

At the time of writing, June Comex gold futures were trading $1,937.90, down $64 from the highs seen early Monday.

This pattern in gold has been pretty dominant over the past few months, said Gainesville Coins precious metals expert Everett Millman.

"Every time gold hits the upper resistance level, it tends to sell off. Similar dynamics happen when it falls to its support levels. Given that part, I'm turning bullish on gold, and I expect a bounce-back," Millman said.

A very encouraging sign this time around is gold being able to hold above $1,900 an ounce at the same time as the U.S. dollar and bond yields advance. "As bond yields rise, gold is supposed to be less attractive. The fact that gold is holding its ground is a good sign," Millman said.

The recent selloff in equities is also expected to boost gold as more investors diversify, noted Lusk. "People are starting to see the light in regards to what the aggressive hikes will do to the economy," he said. "And that's on top of the inflationary overtone in the market here."

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell telegraphing two or more half-point rate hikes in the next few months put additional pressure on gold at the end of the week.

But again, the encouraging news is that the Fed's hawkish rhetoric might give the central bank some room to be less aggressive when it comes to actually raising rates and reducing its balance sheet, said TD Securities head of global strategy Bart Melek.

"The latest core inflation numbers were a bit below expectations, which brings us to believe that the Fed might not be as aggressive as people anticipate. Markets are pricing in 50 bps in May. That's a given. And maybe have another 50bps rate hike after that and then see if inflation will start turning lower," Melek told Kitco News.

Even if the Fed proceeds with six more rate hikes based on the dot plot, it is still pretty low relative to where inflation is, added Melek. This is why the market is starting to wonder how serious Fed is about getting restrictive.
 

Gold's levels for next week

Next week's support is around $1,923-24 an ounce for gold, and resistance is at $1,980 an ounce, Melek pointed out.

The $1,950 an ounce level will be an important one to hold next week, said Lusk, adding that he sees $2,000 an ounce on a sustainable basis as a very likely outcome in the second half of the summer.
 

Data to watch

Next week, one of the key releases will be the U.S. first-quarter GDP data, scheduled for Thursday. Market consensus calls estimate Q1 GDP to come in at 1% after posting 6.9% growth in Q4 of 2021.

But slower growth is unlikely to discourage the Fed from raising rates by 50 basis points in May, said ING chief international economist James Knightley.

"The next Federal Reserve meeting is on 4 May and market expectations are firmly centred on a 50bp interest rate increase," Knightley said. "The coming data shouldn't impact this outlook meaningfully. 1Q GDP data is expected to show the economy expanded at a 1-1.5% annualised rate, which would mark quite a deceleration from 4Q 2021, reflecting the Omicron wave of the pandemic that impacted people movement quite considerably."

Markets will also be interested in examining the data in more detail to glance at what's been happening with the core PCE, Fed's preferred inflation measure, added Melek. "Inflation is too high, which is why the Fed will get tighter no matter what. The only way to fight inflation when it is no longer transitory is to erode economic activity (aggregate demand)," he said.

Tuesday: U.S. durable goods orders, CB consumer confidence, new home sales

Wednesday: U.S. pending home sales

Thursday: U.S. GDP Q1, jobless claims

Friday: U.S. PCE price index

By Anna Golubova

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

Tim Moseley

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Constantly online – escape into the digital world

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It's crazy how technology has developed over the past ten and a half years. It offers many advantages, but precisely because we are so often online, it is important to learn a mindful and conscious approach to the ubiquitous media and to remember that life writes the stories in analogue.

I hope you enjoy reading this.

Nightmare: The analogue world is extinct
Online, I have drifted away. Penless writing has steered me the wrong way. I jumped from page to page, kept getting linked and after some fling, I lost my bearings. As if someone had spun me in circles, the world spins in circles, though I remain motionless and just stare apathetically at the screen.

The internet holds me captive.

It is everyone's home, the bread for the world, the religion that everyone believes in without knowing it. Here everyone is equal, here everything is just, and yet it takes revenge, because the internet is big. Infinite and yet finite.

Where I stop, the internet only begins: it has the thoughts that I don't have myself. It shows me the places I have not yet been. It speaks the languages I don't understand. It knows my tastes and what I'm looking for before I know what I need. It suggests friends and sites that suit me. It knows everything and I know that I know nothing, only where to find it: On the internet.

But the internet is big. Infinite and finally boundless. Finally rid of all boundaries and makes little people big.

It is everyone's diary, even if everyone thinks theirs is safely – and safely unread – in the drawer of their bedside table. Yet the most secret secrets of the big secret services and the most private spheres of the small private people online are an open book that you can't open because you have nothing in your hands and nothing in your hands.

The internet is big. So big that you lose yourself in it and yet small enough to find everything else again and again. The streams of data hold me captive like an invisible spider's web. I want to get out of here! But the internet won't go out. I am lost and I have lost myself.

Can you find me?
Can you find yourself in me?

Connected, yet a stranger to myself
Even before I am awake, I am online. My WLAN has the best connection for twenty-four hours – only not to myself. I surf here and surf there, but not on my own homepage. I want to go offline, but I can't find the link. That's how linked the internet is and how big the addiction is that haunts me for many hours every day and makes me keep searching on the many pages.

Can you find me?
Do you find yourself in the addiction?

How difficult it is to bring the soul to rest when it is always kept in motion. When its material surface clings to every worldly possibility and what is underneath must always make waves and never become quiet. Never allowed to become loud. Never allowed to breathe because hardly anyone asks for it.

How difficult it is to quiet the soul when even silence has become loud. The internet is never quiet. Always only wise, because it knows everything, even the senseless.

Fictitious outside show and lack of introspection
How hard it is to quiet the soul when you are constantly following the latest news from around the world and living the lives of others. Like a little parasite that always eats but never gets full, I stick to the pages of others, while my page does not fill up because its host does not nurse it with life.

Because the lives of others are so exciting and one's own life only excites, because the lives of others last so long and one's own life only bores, I am always so happy online.

Analogue I am always lonely, but online I am never alone. Here I have thousands of friends who share things with me, communicate with me and linger with me online. Yet our faces are distorted, just like realities: As avatars, we celebrate holidays, weddings and parties, but we hide the dark sides offline – that's why no one wants to be there anymore. We only post a positive excerpt on the net now and then.

Virtual existence shows us bundled extravagances and the special lives of others. Completely uncensored and without Photoshop, I am happy when my face, which only resembles my profile picture in profile, is not reflected in the screen. Deceptive truth. No one puts the abysses of the soul on display.

Just as advertising plays with perfect-looking characters, we design a flawless catalogue of our selves on social networks. Do we have the wrong role models? Or the wrong images in front of us? Perfect aesthetics, a hunger for experience and starving until we live up to the ideal – yet deep down, nothing can fill us up. We are hungry for life and don't notice it because apathy doesn't like to talk. The inner emptiness is filled on the outside, cluttered up and enveloped by actionism.

Dopamine addict
How difficult it is to bring the soul to rest when one constantly wonders how many unread messages are waiting in the virtual mailbox. Yet it's not the who or the how many – it's much more the meaningless whether someone has written. Whether there is something there that you can open. Like a gift whose contents you don't know, and like a donor whose name you don't give, all you need is the blood. 

Online, I therefore walk the path to the letterbox incessantly, while I only dare to look in my post box at the front door once a week. A message on the outdated letter route can't be of any importance anyway – it has time. How nice for her – I don't have it. Because there's always something going on online and so I'm rid of time without being timeless. Always on the go and yet never ready to jump off, time passes and simply doesn't stop, nor does it stop with me.

Another click on Inbox – my obsessive-compulsive disorder takes on more and more weight. I have become infected online and when I compare the time it takes to send my emails with the time it takes to answer them, an epidemic has long since broken out. If there are more than sixty minutes between sending and receiving, my anxiety neurosis is activated and I worry that the person I am writing to, the patient in the next bed, has died of his neurosis. I should have received a new message long ago, which is like administering my next tablet, so that the anxiety finally gives way.

But nothing happens.

I make an emergency call via Skype and ring for my mother to no avail. To distract myself, I go shopping online and pay the bill for my order via online banking. The internet knows no Sunday, the internet is always nice.

Always hungry inside
The internet can do everything but satisfy my hunger and so I regret that fast food is only fast and not slim. I want to have it in my inbox and unpack it after downloading. An alphabet salad as a favourite dish that satisfies my inner emptiness. Not cooking, not doing the dishes, can't the internet do that? Because I can't leave here or I'll miss something.

I swallow the hunger, but it doesn't fill me up. Because there's a part of me that neither whether nor food can fill. Only I could fill it, if I knew who I was, without being logged in. If I knew who I was offline, I would still be there. But I'm not there, otherwise I'd miss something. Only once a week, when I dare to go to the mailbox, where no one meets me and nothing awaits me.

But there's always something going on online. The whole world is twittering that something is happening and trembling when something does happen. There is always unrest somewhere, because you can't report on calm. Catastrophes are always happening somewhere, because everyday life doesn't write stories.
We love the extravagant and need the rush, being normal was yesterday and so were traditions.

Crazy world
Our life has moved behind the screen. It takes place two-dimensionally, i.e. rather flat, in front of a small horizon. Depth is lost, superficiality lives. One is only on the outside, the inside is glued. Nature is the tilted window, movement the skilful finger play over the keyboard and a good conversation a virtual dialogue.

The analogue world is extinct.

My nightmare has come true and no one has noticed because everyone is behind the display and no one ever sticks their head out. Yet the internet can't dream, can't smell, can't feel, can't laugh and can't do nice things. It numbs the senses and steals our lives.

Longing for reality
When the whole world works like this
you can no longer take yourself out of it,
you can only exclude
and create boundaries
that leave room for oneself,
even if others hate you.
Be with yourself again, all alone.
Being analogue again, not always online.
What used to be quite normal
is a rarity today.
Today, rarely does anyone have time,
because everyone wants to do everything,
because everyone can do everything,
because everyone wants to be everywhere
and preferably at the same time.
Here and there, in space and above space,
and everywhere that no one has ever been.
And everyone wants to be back right away,
so as not to be left behind,
and hurry behind.
Because whoever loses the connection, loses the connection. Yet we have long been wirelessly networked and yet are entangled in something that is supposed to hold us together, but which takes away our breath and sometimes suffocates us

Tim Moseley

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New rules for internet in Europe

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New rules for internet in Europe

Countries and EU members have agreed on new rules for internet content. Negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states have agreed on new rules under which technology giants must more closely monitor the content on their platforms and pay fees to regulators monitoring their compliance. Thus, hate speech and other illegal content on the internet should be removed more quickly in the future.

The agreement has yet to be confirmed by the European Parliament and EU states, but this is considered a formality, wrote the agency DPA.

The digital services act (DSA) is the second point of the strategy of the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, which aims to limit the power of the technology giants. The agreement was concluded after more than 16 hours of negotiations.

"We have a DSA agreement: the Digital Services Act will ensure that what is illegal offline is also perceived and addressed as illegal online – not as a slogan, as a reality," Vestager wrote on Twitter.

According to the DSA, companies face fines of up to six percent of their global turnover for violating the rules. In the event of repeated infringements, they could be prohibited from doing business in the EU.

The aim of the DSA is, among other things, to ensure that illegal content such as hate speech is removed more quickly from the network, that harmful disinformation and war propaganda are shared less, and that counterfeit products are sold less on internet marketplaces.

DSA is part of a large digital package proposed by the European Commission in December 2020. The second part is the digital markets act (DMA), for which the agreement was concluded at the end of March. The DMA aims above all to limit the market power of technology giants such as Google and Facebook with stricter rules.

One of the points at issue was, for example, the legislation under which the illegality in question would be assessed.

* * * * *

Many internet users comment on this as oppression of freedom of speech. "Still no one really knows what it is hateful content and what it is misinformation, it is not specified, so it can be anything and also it will still change, swearing at Putin is now allowed, but for exactly the same swearing at Ukrainians you can also go to prison, but the hateful content is exactly the same." Or another comment " And who will ensure that those who will carry out these "regulatory" interventions are so well versed in the law (they should actually be judges by profession, right?) to be able to evaluate the contributions immediately and to judge whether or not they comply with the law??? "

Governments are clearly eager to tighten their censorship measures. But we have this free platform – Markethive.

                     Thank you for reading

                                                               Margaret

 

 

Tim Moseley

The Artist that came out of the Winter