1. Narrative attack: Bitcoin is used by terrorists and drug dealers.
- No. It’s the worst thing possible to use since all transactions are traceable on the blockchain. Most people know this now and this attack vector is used less often.
2. Hacking attack
- Less visible, but there have been many attempts to hack the protocol and break the encryption bitcoin uses.
- Many of these have been state sponsored but they haven’t worked and since the government itself relies on the same encryption they pretty much know this is a waste of energy.
3. Mining attack
- The government closes down Bitcoin miners rendering block production impossible.
What happened next is the genius of bitcoin. Every two weeks (or 2016 blocks), the protocol adjusts the mining difficulty. This time it was a downward adjustment of 27%, one of the largest ever. Now bitcoin is producing blocks again every 10 minutes. The protocol never stopped and mining is now much more profitable than it was last week and we will see hash starting to rise again as the Chinese miners relocate.
The difficulty adjustment is perhaps the most subtle and brilliant part of Bitcoin but we have never had such a dramatic demonstration of its power until now.
The US state of Wyoming has now recognised DAOs as legal entities. A DAO is a ‘decentralised autonomous organisation’, basically some computer code that says who gets what in certain circumstances.
They are just codified shareholder agreements, the computer doing the allocations of economic benefits through digital tokens rather than using lawyers and bank accounts.
Below is a codified version of just how simple it could be to start a digital organisation:
- Provide the cryptographic signatures of the shareholders
- Name of corporation, state of corporation, names of directors
The first meeting of the “Bitcoin Mining Council” reported last week. There is some debate about whether such a council is necessary at all, but the American miners have convened and formed a council to counter some of the factual inaccuracies being thrown at them by their politicians and who can really blame them.
Members of the Council reported 67% of their energy use as renewable, higher than any meaningful jurisdiction in the world. Perhaps even more relevant was the disclosure that the network’s consumption of global energy is around 0.1% of the world’s total. It is massively overblown as an ‘issue’, especially when half that energy is renewable.
We are now one year into tracking the Euro v Bitcoin. A shocking quarter for us to finish with means we only managed to outperform the Euro by 64x.
The real surprise was how the Euro held up against the USD, the race for monetary weakness is real. Who can print and spend the most is no longer a slam dunk, particularly with the US infrastructure plans gaining pace.
Euro-Trash
Not one month after winning her last “award” Agent Lagarde has done it again. This time winning the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Medal of Honor.
The award is in its inaugural year
The World Jurist Association awards the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Medal of Honor in recognition of inspiring women jurists who fight to defend and strengthen the rule of law and to consolidate society’s advances in gender equity.
Some pretty special people were also honoured:
Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, Vice-President of the International Criminal Court,
Maite Oronoz, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico,
Navi Pillay, Judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa,
Rosario Silva de Lapuerta, Vice- President of the European Court of Justice,
Sujata Manohar, retired Judge of the Supreme Court of India
Young Hye Kim, Senior Judge, Commissioner at National Human Rights Commission.
It must be said they are all in fact jurists, lawyers or experts in law. People who have given their lives in the pursuit of justice.
Christine Lagarde’s most recent contribution to the law was to be found guilty by a French court of negligence in her approval of massive sum of money to political allies. She then, inexplicably, then escaped punishment.
Agent Lagarde was gracious enough to acknowledge the other winners too, while they all stood behind her for the photo op.
As well as congratulating myself, I “also” want to acknowledge the people at the back, whoever they are.
It’s breathtaking. She cannot be stopped. I just wonder what comes after the ECB, I’m starting to think the French Presidency is on the cards.