Aug 31, 2022 | Episodes, News
My name is Max. Max Pain. And in case you are wondering if the crypto world has encountered me yet? Some say yes. But some say no. What we know for sure is that Michael Saylor may be in trouble for tax fraud, Crypto.com accidentally transferred more than $10 million dollars to a customer, and Samsung hopes to open a crypto exchange in Korea next year.
There are predictions and prognostications on what happens next with Bitcoin and the crypto market from experts, so-called experts and wanna-be experts. All I can tell you is you don’t want to meet me in a dark alley behind the exchange. You’re better off meeting those clowns from that horrible podcast. Take your chances with Joel and Travis on this bad news episode #631 of The Bad Crypto Podcast.
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ARTICLES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW
Market Update:
Bitcoin News:
Current Events
Around the World
AltCoin News
Funny/Human Interest Stories
NFT World
LISTENER FEEDBACK
iTunes Reviews
TIMESTAMPS
- 00:00 Intro
- 03:40 Crypto market cap
- 05:00 – What’s the Bitcoin magic number?
- 06:15 – Bitcoin could become a zero emission network, according to a report. How much does it cost to print printing press money, when printing presses go “brrrrrrr” and print money out of thin air?
- 07:05 – Harnessing stranded methane gas into mining power. Basically, when they can siphon cow farts, Bitcoin will be carbon neutral.
- 08:23 – Travis read that by the year 2046 – like every 12,068 years there is some sort of big massive die-off on the planet – and we’re 24 or 26 years away from that. But how can you even determine that? How do you know?
- 09:00 – There’s a link I followed from that story in the show notes; banking uses 56x more energy than Bitcoin, exposing the banking system as energy hungry, demonstrating Bitcoin is better for the planet and offers a million times more efficiency than the regular banking system.
- 11:11 – Travis shares his real life human 404 error experience with his car registration and tire repair in Puerto Rico; an example of the inefficiency of government.
- 13:04 – Bitcoin expert price predictions; depending on who you speak with. What are the things that are causing Bitcoin’s price movement? Well, the Federal Reserve, inflation, money printing.
- 14:04 – Bitcoin hasn’t been over $50k since Christmas 2021. BUT Bitcoin is still twice as valuable as it was two years ago.
- 14:43 – Crypto goes up, crypto goes down.
- 15:38 – At some point, we will see a decoupling from the stock market. But I don’t see how we avoid max pain. COVID-19 discussion and prolonged economic impact unraveling in Europe with high energy prices (impacts of Russia shutting off access to oil) and small business foreclosures.
- 17:29 – I sent you a meme yesterday. It’s a conspiracy theory.
- 18:30 – Didn’t something happen with Solana this week?
- 18:55 – Travis was watching some stuff about Unreal Engine on a couple of YouTube channels, and they were talking about Star Atlas as one of the most amazing games about to come out, currently slated for release on Solana.
- 19:42 – Breaking news: District of Columbia suing MicroStrategy Michael Saylor for tax fraud and suing the business for helping Saylor shield earnings from the tax man. Discrepancy based on registered home state on IRS tax forms.
- 23:14 – Those of us who were adults in the 1980s remember the end of the Cold War with Ronald Regan as President and Michael Gorbachev. Gorbachev died at age 91 this week. 6,660 days between Regan’s death and Gorbachev’s death.
- 24:27 – Crypto.com accidentally transferred $10.3 mln to a client instead of $100 refund. Court reports the recipient bought a luxury home. They have been ordered to sell the property and return the funds.
- 26:12 – Bitcoin mining has never been more competitive, even as Bitcoin loses more than 13% in August. The hash rate is looking at new all-time highs of its own.
- 26:35 – Texas crypto mining rush may need as much power as the entire state of New York. Crypto miners are moving into Texas, sending the state’s electricity skyrocketing ahead of winter. Why are we not using solar power for mining, yet?
28:03 – Powell, Fed Reserve chairman, spoke and sees “pain ahead” (max pain) as Fed sticks to the fast lane to beat inflation. That means, if they need to bring interest rates up, that’s what they’re going to do. - 29:40 – Travis reads an opinion from Judge Keith Albur, California dated 1954. How to overturn a democracy.
- 31:59 – The FBI is pressuring crypto projects to place more focus on security.
- 33:30 – Argentines can now pay taxes in crypto.
- 33:47 – Samsung, the technology power house, wants to open a crypto exchange in Korea next year.
- 34:54 – Crypto miner malware hits systems across 11 countries via exploited apps. Scammers and hackers are getting more sophisticated.
- 35:30 – Joel encountered a verified Twitter handle with a Pudgy Penguins scam offer. Be careful, friends; check those handles before engaging with social media accounts.
- 37:20 – The ETH Merge is coming around Sept. 10-20th, and the Beacon chain hard fork is coming then, too. Update your clients. The markets might get very scary for a little bit with the ETH Merge. Our last Episode, #630, featured Matt Cutler sharing the details around the ETHmergency with us; tune in: badco.in/631
- 38:15 – ETH products have grown in August as Bitcoin products have dipped. A lot of speculation on what the Merge means to the ecosystem.
- 39:25 – Max pain for a teacher invested in crypto. Welcome to crypto.
- 39:55 – There’s a whistleblower inside Ava Labs, behind the Avalanche blockchain. Whistleblower is alleging legal was paid to hurt competitors and keep regulators at bay. The founder is dismissing it as a smear campaign. We interviewed Ava Labs’ Jay Kurahashi-Sofue, VP Marketing in Episode #593; listen here: badco.in/593
- 40:31 – What I am looking forward to is hearing from the Twitter whistleblower. Let’s see how many bots are faking us out on Twitter.
- 41:10 – Travis goes off the rails with an off-the-cuff news story. Jigger has done some analysis on every web3 game site and token launchpad. They determined one game that sits on top 3 of Binance with 35k monthly active users has been determined to be 70% bots.
- 42:31 – Moonbirds are going to store NFT art in-chain, meaning the NFT can be generated completely off the underlying smart contract without any need for an off-chain storage provider and they raised $50mln in Series A funding.
- 43:16 – 43:36 – Bad Crypto is a Blue Chip podcast
- 43:42 – A report from Dune Analytics is saying that Nike is number one out of these 10 companies in terms of the revenue they have made from NFTs; $185 mln in NFTs due to their acquisition of RTFKT.
- 45:10 – 46:10 Reviews and feedback
- 46:11 – Outro
Disclaimer
Jul 6, 2022 | Episodes
Beware Ransomware with Trent Fowler
Hackers. Viruses. Malware. There must be more than 50 ways to lose your crypto. But one of the ways is when you voluntarily hand it over to criminals demanding a ransom. This can be the result of ransomware.
What is this insidious method of extracting money from people, how did it come to be and how are you and your data at risk?
Today we are joined by Trent Fowler, an expert in the area of ransomware. You’ll want to know what it is and how you can protect yourself.
It’s a little dark, but we try to keep it light on episode #618 of The Bad Crypto Podcast.
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Guest: Trent Fowler
Trent Fowler is an author, data scientist, blockchain analyst, business strategist, and co-host of the Futurati Podcast. As an engineer, he has worked at several early-stage cryptocurrency startups creating infrastructure, doing predictive analysis, and helping to build the company by working closely across teams and with customers.
As a professional speaker, Trent Fowler’s eye-opening keynotes have tantalized audiences large and small. His most requested topics range from artificial intelligence and existential risk to cryptocurrencies and the future of business strategy.
From years of writing, speaking, and teaching Trent Fowler has honed an ability to distill complex topics like quantum computing and economics into concepts that every audience can understand and find useful.
Links
The Ransomeware Report 2022
My podcast – Futurati Podcast
@Trent_STEMpunk
Relevant links:
Ransomware is indiscriminatory: Prepare for everything to fail
TIME STAMPS:
2:15 The Bad Crypto Podcast 5 year anniversary is approaching!
3:00 Travis Wright is planning a stand-up comedy tour in 2023. Let us know what cities he should target. Send us a formal request for a performance via email: [email protected]
6:00 Introduction to guest Trent Fowler, author, data scientist, blockchain analyst, business strategist, co-host of The Futurati Podcast
8:00 Trent’s background and interest in technology and data science
9:20 What is ransomware?
11:00 Examples of ransomware and how bad actors can continue extortion for release of the stolen sensitive data
12:18 Give Me Your Lunch Money: Ransomware Bullies Took $3.56B From Schools In 2021 – news from Hardware.com
13:35 Canti is one of the most superior and professionalized ransomware operators on earth with one of their largest targets being the Costa Rican government https://www.group-ib.com/media/conti-armada-report
14:35 Ransomware groups break apart and reform pretty dramatically; not uncommon for these groups to innovate and form new nodes and create new versions of ransomware
15:20 How vulnerable are people that are holding cryptocurrency and what can they do to protect themselves?
16:50 In Q3 2020, Canti attacked 106 different companies, and nearly the same every quarter since. Are they using crypto as their payment method when extorting businesses?
21:00 2018 marked something of a turning point for ransomware groups because they started to utilize a strategy called “big game hunting”, targeting businesses for larger amounts of stolen data and larger ransoms. Now called the rise of professionalism of ransomware and ransomware as a service.
23:20 Ransomware operating as a franchise or business, targeting lists of businesses with weak security cultivated and shared via the dark web.
24:18 The Canti group earlier this year said they were backing Moscow versus Ukraine. Travis hypothesizes World War Three is this economic, cyber infrastructure warfare.
25:35 The only way to get money to family and friends in Ukraine and Russia is via cryptocurrency.
26:15 People escaping the (Ukraine) war zone with twelve words in their heads that allow them to tap into their net worth.
26:40 This is the high water mark for the boldness of these groups going after their enemies, speaking on behalf of a sovereign power as their “cyber muscle” with one of the first credible threats from a ransomware group in support of governments during conflict.
27:45 What happens next, what is the next evolution of cyber crime after ransomware?
28:20 People have become more aware of how social media and technology have improved their lives, but also made them more vulnerable in certain ways; more reticence to post pictures of their children or check in to locations for fear of tracking by stalkers.
29:50 If we don’t take cyber security seriously and solve some of these problems, we will see an increased scale in these malicious groups and how they operate.
31:00 The ways you defend yourself against ransomware are similar to how you defend yourself against cyber security in general. Building better security into the operating systems and browsers we use is an important first step. (No thanks, Google; hello, Brave and ProtonMail!)
33:00 Travis shares a new browser he is using, Avast. Conspiracy theory: are the anti-virus companies creating new forms of malware to sell more of their products?
34:00 Is MetaMask secure? What do we need to do to keep safe?
35:00 Invest in learning more about cybersecurity, taking greater care of your cryptocurrency custodianship via cold wallet storage, browsers with high levels of securities and a password manager with regular password management and updates.
37:08 Closing remarks; an upcoming recap of NFT.NYC on The Nifty Show! nifty.show/171
Disclaimer
Jun 1, 2022 | Episodes
Crypto Estate Planning with Vanessa Clark
What happens when you die? Well depending who you speak with and what you believe, your concept of the afterlife may vary. But even more importantly, what happens to your crypto and your other stuff when you die? This is a question we can answer more specifically, and one that you should personally be able to answer.
We’ve invited Vanessa Clark to the show to answer some really important questions. She’s an attorney practicing estate planning, crypto and personal injury. Planning for what happens to your stuff when you die or become incapacitated may not be on your radar for stuff you want to hear, but if you’ve got loved one who you want to have access to your crypto, you definitely don’t want to miss this “we’re all gonna die someday” episode #611 of The Bad Crypto Podcast.
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FEATURED GUEST:
Attorney Vanessa Clark was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and she is the founder and principal attorney of Clark Law PLCC in Orlando, Florida. She focuses her practice on Estate Planning, Cryptocurrency, and Personal Injury. Vanessa is active in her community – she serves on the Board of the Hispanic Bar Association of Central Florida, she was one of a few Latina Attorneys chosen to participate in the Hispanic National Bar Association’s Latina Leadership Academy, and she is a huge extrovert who enjoys working with people and providing an unapparelled client experience.
So many people do not think – and do not plan – for the unexpected. As a result, when the unimaginable happens, it is not only an emotional disaster, it is a catastrophic nightmare for their friends and families to try and piece together their lives and their final wishes.
As I am sure you already know, without access to the private keys, the beneficiaries are left without access to the cryptocurrency. However, I would never advise someone to write out their private keys on their will. The will is filed in Probate court and Probate matters are public record. Those private keys will become public record for anyone to find.
The other problem, one that people may not be thinking about, is sudden incapacitation. If you are suddenly incapacitated, do you have a Power of Attorney? And does that agent know how to access your crypto to pay for any long term care? Or does the agent know to only touch the cryptocurrency as a last-means alternative?
Despite what the simple “Do It Yourself Wills” will have you believe, Estate Planning is a complex area. This is truly magnified with cryptocurrency because it is a new emerging area of law.
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Feb 27, 2022 | Episodes
Cybersecurity with Joseph Steinberg
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me., But beware ye landlubbers… there be nasty scoundrels on the high seas and they be seeking to seize your booty. Not that booty… yer cryptos and NFTs. And ye don’t be wanting to lose your treasures to thieves and scallywags.
In episode 591, we welcomed cybersecurity expert, Joseph Steinberg, to the show to make sure you scurvy dogs have your goods locked down and safe from prowlers and scavengers.
Shiver me timbers and don’t be sharing your private keys on episode #591 of The Bad Crypto Podcast.
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SHOW SPONSORS
Brave Wallet is the first secure crypto wallet built natively in a web3 crypto browser. No extension required. Store, manage, and grow your portfolio, get NFT & multi-chain support, and more. Download the Brave privacy browser at brave.com/badcrypto and click the wallet icon to get started.
What’s a crypto wallet?
Learn the basics of crypto wallets: How to use them to buy cryptocurrency on a trading platform or exchange, and send, receive, and store other crypto assets.
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Brave and Brave Wallet are built by a team of privacy-focused, performance-oriented pioneers of the web. Brave was co-founded by Brendan Eich & Brian Bondy. Brendan Eich is the creator of Javascript and was a co-founder of Mozilla Firefox.
FEATURED GUEST
Joseph Steinberg is a Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies Advisor. He has led businesses and divisions within the information-security industry for over two decades, has been calculated to be one of the top 3 cybersecurity influencers worldwide, and has written books ranging from Cybersecurity for Dummies to the official study guide from which many CISOs study for their certification exams. He is also one of only 28 people worldwide to hold the suite of advanced information security certifications, CISSP, ISSAP, ISSMP, and CSSLP, indicating that he possesses a rare, robust knowledge of information security that is both broad and deep; his information-security-related inventions are cited in over 150 US patent filings.
Steinberg is also one of the best-read columnists in the cybersecurity field, and a respected authority on other emerging technologies – having amassed millions of readers as a regular columnist for Forbes and Inc. magazines. Within three months of going independent in April of 2018, his column reached 1,000,000 monthly views.
He also writes thought leadership articles for a variety of technology companies. Steinberg co-founded and led several businesses including the cybersecurity firms, SecureMySocial and Green Armor Solutions, presently serves as an expert witness and consultant on matters related to information security and emerging technologies, and advises cybersecurity and other emerging technology firms.
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Feb 9, 2022 | Episodes
How to Keep Your Ethereum Wallet Private with Alan Scott, Railgun
Privacy is something all humans instinctively value. It is a well-recognized human right, and even those who deny it to others expect it for themselves. Privacy and anonymity should be the default, not the exception. Your consent should be needed before your personal or financial details are revealed to any would-be voyeur.
This is the vision statement of Railgun, a new privacy-based technology that allows you to make your Ethereum wallet, the tokens in that wallet AND your NFTs unavailable to prying eyes.
In episode 586, we welcome Alan Scott of Railgun to the show to discuss all things privacy and how this new technology delivers on its promises.
You may turn Japanese and say ka-nee-chi-wa by the time you are done listening to this episode #586 of The Bad Crypto Podcast.
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SHOW SPONSORS
Protect your precious apes, punks, cats, and heroes from voyeurs, copy-cat traders, and kleptomaniacs with Railgun. Railgun is a private smart contract concealing users' wallets for transactions in DeFi protocols and applications. Railgun is available on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, and now Solana. Think of it like a VPN for your crypto wallet.
Follow @railgun_project on Twitter or access the privacy tool at railgun.org.
FEATURED GUEST
Alan Scott, Advisor to RAILGUN Privacy Project
- Currently handling adoption and partnerships for the RAILGUN Privacy Project
- Cofounder of the DEFICON conference where we’re reimagining philanthropy with DeFi
- Worked in TradFi for years prior to going full time DeFi
- Fun fact – Fluent in Japanese
RAILGUN: Vision
Privacy is something all humans instinctually value. It is a well-recognized human right, and even those who deny it to others expect it for themselves. Privacy and anonymity should be the default, not the exception. Your consent should be needed before your personal or financial details are revealed to any would-be voyeur.
News:
LINKS:
Twitter: @railgun_project
Telegram: https://t.me/railgun_privacy
Discord community for $RAIL stakers:
Website: railgun.org or railgun.ch
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