Cryptocurrency News
The Future of Energy? Brooklyn's Bitcoin-Heated Bathhouse
Behind the scenes of a traditional bathhouse in Brooklyn, something extraordinary is taking place: The pools, heated to 104 degrees, are not warmed by conventional means but by computers mining for bitcoin. A profit-seeking drive for energy efficiency has caused bitcoin miners to pop up in unexpected places, such as Jason Goodman’s New York bathhouse, […]
Lyn Alden: Our Money Is Broken
This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern. “At its core, money is a ledger,” writes investment analyst Lyn Alden in her new book Broken Money: Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better. And if money is a ledger, she […]
Battle Lines Drawn
A showdown is brewing between the Republican-led House of Representatives and the Biden administration over how to pay for a military aid package to Israel. On Thursday night, the House passed a $14.3 billion package that would redirect funding from the IRS—which, recall, got an $80 billion boost as part of the poorly-named Inflation Reduction Act […]
Government Blocking of "Tornado Cash" Cryptocurrency-Related Service Was Legal, Didn't Violate First Amendment
From Monday’s opinion by Judge T. Kent Wetherell, II (N.D. Fla.) in Coin Center v. Yellen (for a similar decision, see this August post about Van Loon v. Dep’t of Treasury): Plaintiffs argue that [the government’s restriction on the use of] Tornado Cash [a mechanism for further anonymizing cryptocurrency transactions] violated the First Amendment because […]
Is Our Money Broken?
“At its core, money is a ledger,” writes investment analyst Lyn Alden in her new book Broken Money: Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better. And if money is a ledger, the most important question to consider, she says, is “who controls the ledger?” Join Zach Weissmueller this Thursday […]
Israel Hit From All Sides
Rising death toll: Overnight, the number of deaths in Israel and Gaza rose to roughly 2,200, following Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel this past weekend that resulted in the massacre of civilians. In addition, more than 150 foreign nationals who had been traveling or living in Israel are dead or missing. This includes at least 40 […]
Poisonous Atmosphere
In the wake of the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R–Calif.), President Joe Biden called on lawmakers Wednesday to fix the “poisonous atmosphere in Washington” and get their act together. “We cannot and should not again be faced with an 11th-hour decision or brinkmanship that threatens to shut down the government.” But the “poisonous […]
The Federal Government Is Trying To Shut Down Decentralized Finance
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced yesterday it had both filed and settled charges against three “decentralized finance” operations, Opyn Inc., ZeroEx Inc., and Deridex Inc. In the agency’s own language, the charges included “failing to register as a swap execution facility (SEF) or designated contract market (DCM), failing to register as a futures […]