cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/315507

> cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/315504 > > > Archived link > > > > WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange is free after a 14-year battle against extradition to the United States. In a final effort to secure his freedom, an anonymous Bitcoiner donated over 8 Bitcoin, worth around $500,000, to help Assange’s family pay off the debt incurred by his travel and settlement expenses. > > [...] > > The donation link was posted by Stella Assange on June 25, and within 10 hours, an anonymous Bitcoiner paid over 8 Bitcoin (BTC) to the fund, almost clearing the goal of $520,000. He has also received over 300,000 British pounds ($380,000) in fiat donations so far. > > > > The single Bitcoin donation was the largest donation to the fund, more than all other donations in all currencies combined. As a result, Assange will arrive in Australia debt free.

In a new blog post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared his thoughts on three issues core to Ethereum's decentralization: MEV, liquid staking, and the hardware requirements of nodes. The Block reports:

> In his post, published on May 17, Buterin first addresses the issue of MEV, or the financial gain that sophisticated node operators can capture by reordering the transactions within a block. Buterin characterizes the two approaches to MEV as "minimization" (reducing MEV through smart protocol design, such as CowSwap) and "quarantining" (attempting to reduce or eliminate MEV altogether through in-protocol techniques). While MEV quarantining seems like an alluring option, Buterin notes that the prospect comes with some centralization risks. "If builders have the power to exclude transactions from a block entirely, there are attacks that can quite easily arise," Buterin noted. However, Buterin championed the builders working on MEV quarantining through concepts like transaction inclusion lists, which "take away the builder's ability to push transactions out of the block entirely." "I think ideas in this direction - really pushing the quarantine box to be as small as possible - are really interesting, and I'm in favor of going in that direction," Buterin concluded.

> Buterin also addressed the relatively low number of solo Ethereum stakers, as most stakers choose to stake with a staking provider, either a centralized offering like Coinbase or a decentralized offering like Lido or RocketPool, given the complexity, hardware requirement, and 32 eth minimum needed to operate an Ethereum node solo. While Buterin acknowledges the progress being made to reduce the cost and complexity around running a solo node, he also noted "once again there is more that we could do," perhaps through reducing the time to withdraw staked ether or reducing the 32 eth minimum requirement to become a solo staker. "Incorrect answers could lead Ethereum down a path of centralization and 're-creating the traditional financial system with extra steps'; correct answers could create a shining example of a successful ecosystem with a wide and diverse set of solo stakers and highly decentralized staking pools," Buterin wrote. [...]

> Buterin finished his post by imploring the Ethereum ecosystem to tackle the hard questions rather than shy away from them. "...We should have deep respect for the properties that make Ethereum unique, and continue to work to maintain and improve on those properties as Ethereum scales," Buterin wrote. Buterin added today, in a post on X, that he was pleased to see civil debate among community members. "I'm really proud that ethereum does not have any culture of trying to prevent people from speaking their minds, even when they have very negative feelings toward major things in the protocol or ecosystem. Some wave the ideal of 'open discourse' as a flag, some take it seriously," Buterin wrote.

Abstract credit: https://slashdot.org/story/428637

You can read about it on their blog. Its over. Does anyone know any other unfreezable stablecoins? Honestly this might be the end of crypto for me. I truly can't believe they are doing this.

cross-posted from: https://monero.town/post/3145550

> Tari XTM is the new PoW asics-resistant Privacy coin by Fluffypony. This is the link for the Airdrop game. Live since May 14, 2024. > > Merge-Mining XMR has already been implemented. All you have to do is enter your Monero address with the miner.

Guys, Professional Trading e-book is on a big spring sale We do not want to lose this oppurtunity

Need Opinion.

What do you think is the right way to play this bet in the polygon prediction market?

Is playing contrarian gonna give a huge pay off?

Or Is going with the market trends going to help make decent but sure shot gains of 4-5%?

By the way the election result is to be declared on June 4th, 2024.

I still see most people in his favour despite everything.

I personally don't like Modi much but as a business decision there are higher odds in betting in support of him.

What are your thoughts on this?

Does anyone know of a community that talks or speculates about the next Meme coins to explode? 🤔 I do not believe that currencies are created and rise only because of the name they are assigned 🙈

Where can I buy $500 gift cards for amazon.com with cryptocurrency?

When bitcoin topped $70,000 recently, I went to a few gift card outlet websites. But when I actually went to add a $500 gift card for amazon.com to my cart, they said it was "currently unavailable".

Did amazon.com stop selling gift cards to third parties? Or was this a temporary supply problem during the ATH?

Where can I currently buy a few $500 gift cards for amazon.com using cryptocurrency?

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/goatcoin/

About Binance

• They justifies delisting because of smart-contract vulnerabilities and lack of development (Monero is under high development and dont have smart contracts because it's made to be digital cash 🤨)
• Increasingly halting withdrawals even after delisting ( monitoring chart )
• Users are complaining about a 3 XMR limit, we talk about 300$ that's a very very small amount that even your hood friend can refund you 🤨.
• People can be rewarded in USDT by taking risk to hold paper XMR if they can't withdraw them so hold if you can't withdraw to create a debt ( announce ).

ChangeNOW, FixedFloat and SideShift

• Exchanges like Binance, KuCoin (as examples) haves swap features used by all theses "non-custodial" exchanges, they just get referral on swaps you make.
• Technically by using then you're just feeding their reserves so again opt for Bisq.
• Since Binance fully stopped monero spot trading, sideshift and FixedFloat stopped monero swaps.

About Huobi & Poloniex.

• Both haves closed withdrawals, with proven price anomalies. Compare PLX + HTX versus TradeOgre or Bisq
• Huobi is very likely insolvent due to a hack and PLX were bought by Justin Sun (Huobi owner)

What can we conclude of this ?

Most of exchanges giving on monero:

• Leverage
• Lending / Borrowing

Struggle in reality to cover their reserves. People should also avoid as much they can KYC platforms, where they can get restricted on their trading/arbitrage activity like we seen on CoinEX. KYC and AML leads to frozen funds so money losses.

About CoinGecko & CoinMarketCap

• No one knows on what their "trust score" of an exchange is based.
• It changes constantly and they don't list all exchanges (BasicSwapDEX, IncognitoChain, SevenSeas ect..)

You’ll need a credit or debit card.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12511460

> Law360 (February 28, 2024, 1:40 AM EST) > -- FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried asked a Manhattan federal judge late Tuesday for a sentence that releases him "promptly" after his conviction for stealing billions from customers of the now-collapsed crypto exchange, arguing that federal sentencing guidelines recommend no more than six-and-a-half years in prison. > > Bankman-Fried made the request in a memorandum submitted to U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is due to sentence the 31-year-old former crypto executive on March 28. Bankman-Fried was found guilty in November of seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, although he maintains his innocence and has vowed to appeal. > > According to the filing, a presentence report prepared by the U.S. Probation Department calculated sentencing guidelines that call for a maximum sentence of 1,320 months, or 110 years, with the report recommending a downward variance of 10 years to bring the recommended sentence to 100 years. > > But Bankman-Fried asked the court to reject the report's "barbaric proposal," saying the advisory guidelines should put the appropriate sentence range at 63 to 78 months, or 5 years and 3 months to 6 years and 6 months. > > Considering the former CEO's "charitable works and demonstrated commitment to others, a sentence that returns Sam promptly to a productive role in society would be sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes of sentencing," the memo states. > > Bankman-Fried argues that he is a first-time, non-violent offender and that the report includes an incorrect 30-point increase to the base offense level based on the assumption that the case involved a loss of $10 billion. But the report adopted that $10 billion loss number "without a scintilla of support," the memo states. > > Tuesday's filing says that bankruptcy counsel for FTX stated last month that "customers and creditors who can prove their losses are expected to get back all of their money." > > "[T]he company was solvent at the time of the bankruptcy petition," the memo asserts. "The money was there — not lost." > > "The harm to customers, lenders, and investors is zero," the filing adds, italicizing the sentence for emphasis. > > Alternatively, the court could peg customer losses as the estimated cost of collection in the bankruptcy proceedings, according to the memo. > > At this point, the total fees incurred by advisors to the unsecured creditors committee is about $57.5 million, the memo states, which Bankman-Fried argued is a much more reasonable estimate of actual loss than the presentence report's estimate of $10 billion. > > With that in mind, there should not be a 30-point increase in the guidelines calculation for a loss amount enhancement, Bankman-Fried said. > > The memo also highlights Bankman-Fried's "selfless, altruistic" qualities and his commitment to philanthropy, attaching 29 letters of support from his brother and parents; several professors at Stanford University, where his parents work, including the interim dean of Stanford Law School; tech executives; two psychiatrists; and his former personal assistant. > > Barbara Fried, an attorney and professor emeritus at Stanford Law, wrote that anyone who tries to "understand him through the lens of 'normal' behavior and motivations is going to misunderstand" her son. She said her son has suffered with depression but has devoted his life to the happiness of others. > > For example, when he took a lucrative job as a trader at Jane Street Capital, he gave away more than half his earnings without telling his parents, according to the letter. Even in the six months he has spent in detention, she said her son is running a tutoring session to help fellow inmates prepare for GED exams. > > Fried also emphasized that her son is autistic and that she fears for his life in a typical prison environment, where his "inability to read or respond appropriately to many social cues, and his touching but naive belief in the power of facts and reason to resolve disputes, put him in extreme danger." > > "If allowed to resume his life, he would do the only thing he has ever cared about: devote the remainder of his natural life to leaving the world a better place than he found it," Fried wrote. > > Paul Brest, named the interim dean of Stanford Law last month, wrote that Bankman-Fried is a proponent of a philanthropy theory called "effective altruism," which holds that a person's life "should be devoted to doing as much good as possible." > > "Beyond his intellectual contributions, Mr. Bankman-Fried has manifested the philosophy in his own giving and life," Brest wrote, noting that he has donated millions of dollars to effective altruism causes. "Based on his behavior to date, Mr. Bankman-Fried is likely to continue to engage in philanthropy in whatever circumstances he is placed." > > The prosecution's sentencing recommendation is due March 15. > > Counsel for Bankman-Fried and a representative for the DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Tuesday. > > During a month-long trial this past fall, prosecutors said Bankman-Fried drove FTX into bankruptcy by spending $10 billion worth of customer deposits on venture investments, lavish real estate and political donations. > > Three of Bankman-Fried's top lieutenants — Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh — testified that the defendant accomplished this scheme by secretly funneling billions of dollars between FTX and his crypto hedge fund Alameda Research. > > The defense, meanwhile, said Bankman-Fried made a number of governance mistakes but did not intend to steal from FTX customers. Bankman-Fried himself made this argument from the witness stand, telling jurors that he always believed Alameda could lawfully borrow from FTX and then repay the debts. > > The jury ultimately deliberated for just over four hours before finding Bankman-Fried guilty on all counts. He has been detained at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center since August due to alleged witness tampering. > > The government is represented by Danielle R. Sassoon, Nicolas Roos, Danielle Kudla, Samuel Raymond and Thane Rehn of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and Jil Simon of the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division. > > Bankman-Fried is represented by Marc L. Mukasey, Torrey K. Young, Thomas E. Thornhill, Michael F. Westfal and Stephanie Guaba of Mukasey Young LLP. > > The case is U.S. v. Bankman-Fried, case number 1:22-cr-00673, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.