{"id":11123,"date":"2018-11-28T22:26:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T22:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=11123"},"modified":"2023-03-20T17:29:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T17:29:21","slug":"news-civil-ripped-off-its-journalists-bitfinex-untethers-tether-working-at-trezor-amazon-managed-blockchain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/11\/28\/news-civil-ripped-off-its-journalists-bitfinex-untethers-tether-working-at-trezor-amazon-managed-blockchain\/","title":{"rendered":"News: Civil ripped off its journalists, Bitfinex untethers Tether, working at Trezor, Amazon Managed Blockchain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Don&#8217;t forget \u2014 this news blog runs on your helpful subscriptions. Just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/davidgerard\/overview\">$5\/month<\/a> to delight your soul, and help your transactions go through faster. Tell your friends and colleagues, and <a href=\"#byemail\">sign up for new posts via email!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;i&#8217;d like to think that someone thought journalists weren&#8217;t reporting crypto news accurately and decided to teach them what it&#8217;s all about first hand&#8221; \u2014 Chalks on Civil<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Any company that tries to pay your wages in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Company_scrip\">company scrip<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 rather than actual money\u00a0\u2014 should be treated as fraudulent trash. This applies to any ICO that says they&#8217;ll fix an industry&#8217;s problems by using their token as a &#8220;private currency.&#8221; Today&#8217;s worked example is the Civil ICO to <a href=\"https:\/\/ftalphaville.ft.com\/2018\/10\/12\/1539316803000\/Sorry-Civil---crypto-economics--and--constitutions--won-t-save-journalism-\/\">&#8220;fix journalism&#8221;<\/a> \u2014 which spent five months paying people in promises of tokens that would\u00a0<em>totally<\/em> be worth 75c to $3. Of course they didn&#8217;t even give them the tokens. Coindesk has the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/civil-startup-token-crypto-ethereum\">first report,<\/a> and NeimanLab <a href=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2018\/11\/i-had-to-borrow-money-to-pay-my-rent-civils-tokenomics-has-left-some-of-its-journalists-wondering-where-their-salary-is\/\">follows up at length.<\/a> &#8220;One source with direct knowledge told me Civil failed to make payroll at one point earlier this fall, something I have internal correspondence to confirm.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I first called Civil out <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/03\/04\/ico-tokens-wont-fix-journalism-either-and-certainly-not-with-company-scrip\/\">in March.<\/a> I&#8217;ve spoken to a lot of journalists about Civil, and particularly for journalism-about-journalism. <i>Nobody<\/i> could work out what on earth Civil was supposed to be for, or how this thing was supposed to work. Jemima Kelly&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/ftalphaville.ft.com\/2018\/10\/12\/1539316803000\/Sorry-Civil---crypto-economics--and--constitutions--won-t-save-journalism-\/\">FT piece<\/a> from October remains the best summary of this multilayered fractal lasagna of bad ideas that couldn&#8217;t possibly work \u2014 and, as we see now, didn&#8217;t work.<\/p>\n<p>(I found myself freshly amazed today that some publications, which I won&#8217;t name, think journalists in a given area don&#8217;t all know each other and talk to each other\u00a0\u2014 particularly about subjects of overriding common interest, like contract terms, what the publisher and editor are like to work with, and whether they pay on time.)<\/p>\n<p>Breaker somehow runs a <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/Mav94\">publicity push for Imogen Heap<\/a>&#8216;s blockchain ambitions &#8230; without, at any point, mentioning the magic number: <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/imogen-heap-tiny-human-total-sales-133-20\/\">one hundred and thirty three, twenty.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It should be no news to anyone in crypto that coverage is something you basically buy. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-crypto-currencies-promoters-specialre-idUSKCN1NW17S\">Reuters writes it up<\/a> for the general public. And don&#8217;t forget <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/01\/27\/where-do-ico-advisors-come-from-paid-endorsements-and-nothing-else\/\">where ICO advisors come from.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Unrelated to anything&#8230; are there any media companies out there that aren&#39;t dumpster fires?<\/p>\n<p>Just asking as a reporter who&#39;s worked for both Newsweek and Civil in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jay Cassano (@jcassano) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jcassano\/status\/1067203096042967042?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 26, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The CFTC has issued <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cftc.gov\/PressRoom\/PressReleases\/7847-18\">A Primer on Smart Contracts<\/a> \u2014 and how to avoid breaking regulations in the process.<\/p>\n<p>SEC chairman Jay Clayton <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/video\/2018\/11\/26\/sec-cracks-down-on-initial-coin-offerings.html\">on ICO tokens:<\/a> &#8220;If people are going to raise money using Initial Coin Offerings, they either have to do so in a private placement, or they have to register with the SEC &#8230; To the extent that you&#8217;ve conducted a public offering in an ICO, it&#8217;s not compliant.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jay Clayton on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2018-11-27\/bitcoin-etfs-roadblocked-by-lack-of-safeguards-sec-s-chief-says\">Bitcoin ETF:<\/a> &#8220;concern over a lack of investor protections makes it unlikely that his agency will approve a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund anytime soon.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Bitcoin price does a &#8220;dead cat bounce&#8221; \u2014 if dead cats are in the habit of pumping in about $20 million of actual US dollars, to try to keep number from going down. The diagram below (Coindesk BTC-USD) shows the two massive and blatant artificial pumps at 0430 UTC and 1245 UTC today. You should very much judge journalists writing about this price rise on whether they bother noting this.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/11\/28\/news-civil-ripped-off-its-journalists-bitfinex-untethers-tether-working-at-trezor-amazon-managed-blockchain\/coinbase-btc-usd-2018-11-28-13-56-43\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11124\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-11124\" src=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/coinbase-btc-usd-2018-11-28-13-56-43.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"243\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/coinbase-btc-usd-2018-11-28-13-56-43.png 679w, https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/coinbase-btc-usd-2018-11-28-13-56-43-300x122.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Tether is now redeeming tethers for dollars! Sort of. <a href=\"https:\/\/tether.to\/tether-reopens-account-verification-and-direct-redemption-of-fiat-from-its-platform\/\">There&#8217;s a 1% to 3% fee,<\/a> that\u00a0<em>increases<\/em> with the size of the withdrawal \u2014 so your &#8220;dollar&#8221; is worth 97 to 99 cents. Where the Tether website used to say &#8220;frequent professional audits,&#8221; it went to saying &#8220;professional verifications&#8221; &#8230; and now doesn&#8217;t say either.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tether upgraded their website.<\/p>\n<p>They no longer say they do professional audits.<br \/>They no longer say they do professional verifications (whatever that is).<\/p>\n<p>Now they say&#8230; &quot;trust us&quot;. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/pwiEhuUWY9\">pic.twitter.com\/pwiEhuUWY9<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Bitfinex\u2019ed \ud83d\udd25\ud83d\udc27 \u039a\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03ac\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u03b1 \ud83c\udffa (@Bitfinexed) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Bitfinexed\/status\/1067456397925847041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 27, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As it happens, Bitfinex has <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/bitfinex\/bitfinex-announces-tether-neutrality-and-launches-new-stablecoin-pairs-a84b7ccbfd86\">unpegged<\/a> the USDT from the USD \u2014 it&#8217;s now a free-floating traded pair. I wonder what happened to all the genuine US dollars that tethers were backed with.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I too believe the exchange that has been hacked thrice and never provided a security audit is safe and I also am definitely not a bot <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/f58j0jGId0\">https:\/\/t.co\/f58j0jGId0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; @BennettTomlin@mstdn.social (@BennettTomlin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BennettTomlin\/status\/1067894346794639360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 28, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>An ex-employee of hardware wallet company Trezor posts to \/r\/buttcoin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Buttcoin\/comments\/a14so5\/trezor_the_glassdoor_review\/\">what it was like to work at Trezor.<\/a> Apart from the fabulously slipshod development practices \u2014 move-fast-and-break-things may not be a great idea when you&#8217;re dealing with people&#8217;s money \u2014 the &#8220;last straw&#8221; for the poster was:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>when they organised a two week long mandatory unpaid &#8220;team building&#8221; in a foreign country and didn&#8217;t book enough beds for everyone. A female coworker was supposed to sleep in the same bed with unrelated male employee until she excused herself. Some other colleagues and I ended up having to sleep on a stinking living room couch with no privacy while people partied around us until 5 AM.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The CEO of Trezor responds in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/TREZOR\/comments\/a15xr5\/trezor_the_glassdoor_review\/\">fine and frothing fashion<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/IW1RX\">archive<\/a>)\u00a0\u2014 including an accusation that the original poster was &#8220;blackmailing us by sending governmental controls to our company.&#8221; Now, the obvious way to cope with compliance inspections would be to &#8230; stay compliant with regulations. But, this is crypto.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon Web Services offers <a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/managed-blockchain\/\">Amazon Managed Blockchain!<\/a> This <em>eliminates<\/em> &#8220;the need for a trusted, central authority&#8221;! Of course, it&#8217;s a &#8220;fully managed service&#8221; with all nodes on AWS, because centralisation is vastly more efficient.\u00a0 They <a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/about-aws\/whats-new\/2018\/11\/introducing-amazon-managed-blockchain\/\">currently offer Hyperledger,<\/a> with private Ethereum &#8220;coming soon.&#8221; There&#8217;s also <a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/qldb\/\">Amazon Quantum Ledger Database,<\/a> which keeps the word &#8220;blockchain&#8221; to the fine print, and <a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/about-aws\/whats-new\/2018\/11\/introducing-amazon-qldb\/\">looks like<\/a> a reasonably sane Merkle-tree ledger.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2018\/11\/27\/style\/what-is-inside-this-internet-rabbit-hole.html\">This is not a crypto scam<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 but the story feels very like when I trace a weird ICO to its roots. Also, our ex-<a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2017\/12\/01\/bitfinex-tether-and-5w-pr-mount-the-worst-public-relations-campaign-ive-seen-in-a-while\/\">Bitfinex friend Ronn Torossian<\/a> shows up.<\/p>\n<p>A new way to explain blockchain, by Torsten Kleinz \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/notes.computernotizen.de\/2018\/11\/27\/die\">Die Blockchain ist ein Stempel<\/a> (The Blockchain is a Stamp).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/codepen.io\/zompunk\/full\/vVgPPv\/\">Crypto BS Clickbait Generator.<\/a> &#8220;H. E. the King of Botswana announces real estate quantum resistant prediction market.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Guy who owns a casino talks about opportunity from uncertainty you would laugh your coffee out through your ears.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Palley (@stephendpalley) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stephendpalley\/status\/1067775940317626368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 28, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Fantasy worldbuilding props if there&#39;s a quasi-illegal alternate currency made out of very small persistent spells created in bulk in sweatshops by apprentice sorcerers, that is causing an inflationary bubble as it gradually depletes the global mana supply all magic relies on. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EF3mGbTbNw\">https:\/\/t.co\/EF3mGbTbNw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Charlie Stross (@cstross) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cstross\/status\/1067375089279221760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 27, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/ncweaver\/status\/1067619983222423552<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The more time I spend on crypto Twitter the more convinced I am that recruiting greater fools than we have now will be difficult<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; @BennettTomlin@mstdn.social (@BennettTomlin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BennettTomlin\/status\/1067627788025376769?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 28, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<br><br><div align=\"center\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=8420236\"><img src=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/become_a_patron_button.svg\" alt=\"Become a Patron!\" title=\"Become a Patron!\" width=217 height=51><\/a><br><p style=\"align:center;\" class=\"patreon-badge\"><i>Your subscriptions keep this site going. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=8420236\">Sign up today!<\/a><\/i><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Any company that tries to pay your wages in company scrip \u2014 rather than actual money \u2014 should be treated as fraudulent trash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[103,21,38,167,505,9,198,6,286,33,83,39,192],"class_list":["post-11123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-amazon","tag-bitcoin","tag-bitfinex","tag-cftc","tag-civil","tag-ico","tag-imogen-heap","tag-links","tag-ronn-torossian","tag-sec","tag-smart-contract","tag-tether","tag-trezor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11123"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15785,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11123\/revisions\/15785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}