{"id":5268,"date":"2018-03-01T23:01:21","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T23:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=5268"},"modified":"2018-03-01T23:34:50","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T23:34:50","slug":"news-financial-times-uk-parliament-sec-overstock-gdpr-france-kleiman-vs-wright-lightning-network-iota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/03\/01\/news-financial-times-uk-parliament-sec-overstock-gdpr-france-kleiman-vs-wright-lightning-network-iota\/","title":{"rendered":"News: Financial Times, UK Parliament, SEC, Overstock, GDPR, France, Kleiman vs Wright, Lightning Network, IOTA"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/02\/24\/news-me-at-ft-sec-vs-icos-russia-vs-icos-ico-buyers-vs-icos-crypto-scammers-on-twitter-stolfi-vs-nist\/\">Financial Times event on Tuesday<\/a> was great fun. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlexBatlin\">Alex Batlin<\/a> and me up front, with Kadhim Shubber and Hannah Murphy from FT asking our thoughts on various topics related to cryptocurrency, ICOs, investing and blockchain (or Blockchain&trade;). Nearly a full room too, a hundred audience members. Sadly there isn&#8217;t a recording up &mdash; though I think they got one &mdash; and I forgot to bring either <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/03\/01\/get-a-signed-copy-of-attack-of-the-50-foot-blockchain\/\">books to sell<\/a> or even business cards. Talked to lots of people afterwards, though. Boy did you miss out.<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Bitcoin After the Bubble <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/FTengage?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#FTengage<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FT?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@FT<\/a> \u2014 fun to attend with a dozen <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UMich?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@UMich<\/a> students in London! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XwmORHd1iw\">pic.twitter.com\/XwmORHd1iw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Danny Sheridan (@captaindanny10) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/captaindanny10\/status\/968562085146845185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 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<ul>\n<li>UK Parliament has launched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.uk\/business\/committees\/committees-a-z\/commons-select\/treasury-committee\/news-parliament-2017\/digital-currencies-17-19\/\">an inquiry into digital currencies.<\/a> Looks like I&#8217;ve got some work to be getting on with, and you do too.<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The SEC is finally sick of your ICO rubbish. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/02\/28\/technology\/initial-coin-offerings-sec.html\">Eighty or more subpoenas so far<\/a> \u2014 and not just to the companies, but to their advisors and lawyers. Everyone told you this was coming.<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>One of those was Overstock.com, concerning its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tzero.com\/\">t&Oslash; securities trading blockchain ICO.<\/a> In an 8-K filed today, they disclosed that in February, the SEC had requested &#8220;certain documents related to the Offering and the Tokens in connection with its investigation.&#8221; Their stock proceeded to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/03\/01\/overstock-com-drops-10-percent-after-revealing-sec-investigation.html\">drop 10%.<\/a><\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Over in Europe, it&#8217;s the General Data Protection Regulation you&#8217;ll need to look out for \u2014 personally-identifiable data is almost certainly <a href=\"https:\/\/iapp.org\/news\/a\/blockchain-technology-is-on-a-collision-course-with-eu-privacy-law\/\">incompatible with an immutable blockchain.<\/a><\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>In France, the Autorit\u00e9 des March\u00e9s Financiers has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amf-france.org\/en_US\/Actualites\/Communiques-de-presse\/AMF\/annee-2018?docId=workspace%3A%2F%2FSpacesStore%2Fa225bf1d-de35-4f58-89e3-f03cb7e9e551\">announced<\/a> that it considers &#8220;<span class=\"titreContenu\">the offer of cryptocurrency derivatives requires authorisation and that it is prohibited to advertise such offer via electronic means&#8221; \u2014 that cryptos are covered by<\/span> MiFID II. &#8220;The AMF concludes that a cash-settled cryptocurrency contract may qualify as a derivative, irrespective of the legal qualification of a cryptocurrency.&#8221; As well as no more online ads, crypto businesses will have to meet much higher standards of conduct and reporting.<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The estate of Dave Kleiman, the guy who Craig Wright <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20160619012349\/http:\/\/www.lrb.co.uk\/v38\/n13\/andrew-ohagan\/the-satoshi-affair\">claimed<\/a> was involved with him inventing Bitcoin, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/Bitcoin\/comments\/80e2l9\/10_billion_lawsuit_filed_against_craig_wright\/\">suing Wright for ripping Kleiman off.<\/a> All those documents that Wright produced to support his claim? Dave&#8217;s brother Ira Kleiman has taken them seriously. Sadly, WizSec have noted that <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.wizsec.jp\/2018\/02\/kleiman-v-craig-wright-bitcoins.html\">none of the claims hold up<\/a> \u2014 &#8220;Neither Wright nor Kleiman owned any of the bitcoins claimed in the lawsuit.&#8221; Still, the font bit, claim 79 in the Kleiman estate&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/372445546\/Bitcoin-Lawsuit\">complaint,<\/a> was particularly awesome:<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The $10 Billion lawsuit against Craig Wright claims Wright used a computer-generated font called Otto to forge Dave Kleiman&#39;s signature and acquire hundreds of thousands of bitcoins. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vFA6uowMZa\">pic.twitter.com\/vFA6uowMZa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kyle Torpey (@kyletorpey) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kyletorpey\/status\/968187874268114944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 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<ul>\n<li>Rick Falkvinge: &#8220;In <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Ug8NH67_EfE?t=600\">this video,<\/a> I present new data showing that the Lightning Network does not work at all as a real-time decentralized payment routing network, as every single transaction invalidates the global routing table.&#8221; LN never did solve the path-finding problem &mdash; how to reliably find a path from random user A to random user B, so they can exchange money. Advocates, and indeed the original <a href=\"https:\/\/lightning.network\/lightning-network-paper.pdf\">white paper,<\/a> claim that if BGP, the routing protocol for the Internet, works, then LN could work. This comparison is frankly inane, as BGP relies <em>entirely <\/em>on trustworthy actors, and when someone misbehaves \u2014 <em>e.g.<\/em>, that time when Pakistan, trying to censor YouTube locally, accidentally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/news\/how-pakistan-knocked-youtube-offline-and-how-to-make-sure-it-never-happens-again\/\">took over all routes to YouTube<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 it&#8217;s solved by the telecoms&#8217; network engineers rapidly getting together to kick the offender out of the network until they stop doing that. I&#8217;m pretty sure that&#8217;s the polar opposite of the cryptocurrency value proposition. If you know even a bit about how networking works, the fun bit is from 10:00. (Contains salty language.)<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"735\" height=\"414\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ug8NH67_EfE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-GB&#038;autohide=2&#038;start=600&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/casey.github.io\/iota\/\">IOTA: The Brave Little Toaster That Couldn\u2019t:<\/a> a summary of the numerous technical, social, and ethical problems surrounding the IOTA project, The IOTA Foundation, and the IOTA developers.<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Cynthia Lee has made a <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/cynthiablee\/blockchain-to-spreadsheet\">browser extension for Chrome<\/a> that replaces the word &#8220;blockchain&#8221; with &#8220;multiple copies of a giant excel spreadsheet.&#8221;<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/cynthiablee\/status\/969112616827170816<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>m1rko at Geektimes.ru has translated my <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2017\/12\/17\/why-you-cant-cash-out-pt-1-why-bitcoins-price-is-largely-fictional\/\">&#8220;Why you can&#8217;t cash out&#8221;<\/a> series <a href=\"https:\/\/geektimes.ru\/post\/298533\/\">into Russian.<\/a><\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>uMatrix is from Raymond Hill, the author of uBlock Origin, the best ad blocker for web browsers. It&#8217;s a sophisticated personal web filter, like uBO but much more powerful. I like his <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2017\/11\/26\/the-world-food-programmes-much-publicised-blockchain-has-one-participant-i-e-its-a-database\/\">choice<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/gorhill\/uMatrix\/wiki\/How-to-create-rules-which-apply-everywhere,-on-all-web-sites\">example web page.<\/a><\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Blog reviews of <em>Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain<\/em> I didn&#8217;t spot at the time: <a href=\"https:\/\/clivetong.wordpress.com\/2017\/11\/27\/bitcoin-where-does-it-go-next\/\">Clive Tong<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.maxieduncan.co.nz\/books\/2017\/11\/08\/attack-of-the-50-foot-blockchain\">Maxie Duncan<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.firedrake.org\/archive\/2018\/01\/Attack_of_the_50_Foot_Blockchain__David_Gerard.html\">Roger Burton-West.<\/a><\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;Computers yelling Numberwang at each other&quot; is my absolute favourite description of blockchain.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Justin Warren \u2b21 (@jpwarren) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jpwarren\/status\/968712815656697857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 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\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidgerard?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@davidgerard<\/a> hmmm seems reputable <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/7hoESKZSDO\">pic.twitter.com\/7hoESKZSDO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Tired Bitterman (@tiredtechpriest) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tiredtechpriest\/status\/968623512603721730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 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<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u201cHey,<br \/>I&#39;ve reached out a couple times, but I haven&#39;t heard back.<br \/>I&#39;d appreciate a response to my email\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tip  &#8211; if I\u2019ve ignored five emails about your ICO I may not be interested:<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ruskin147\/status\/968247421007482880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 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<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Everybody knows that the moon&#39;s receding<br \/>Everybody knows that the rocket stalled<br \/>Everybody got this sinking feeling<br \/>Like their home mortgage just got called<br \/>Everybody&#39;s mining as their new gig<br \/>Everybody wants a brand new rig<br \/>And a few burritos<br \/>Everybody knows<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Buttcoin (@ButtCoin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ButtCoin\/status\/968433926946553856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 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\/gilesgoatboy\/status\/967900942036189184<\/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>The big news: the SEC finally gets into asking ICO promoters what the hell they were thinking.<\/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":[146,493,484,492,491,495,415,233,6,106,497,494,33,496,457],"class_list":["post-5268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-craig-wright","tag-dave-kleiman","tag-financial-times","tag-france","tag-gdpr","tag-geektimes","tag-iota","tag-lightning-network","tag-links","tag-overstock","tag-raymond-hill","tag-rick-falkvinge","tag-sec","tag-umatrix","tag-united-kingdom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5268","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=5268"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5304,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5268\/revisions\/5304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}