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Rawdon Adams Returns to the Barbados Space to Spearhead Bitt Inc

The BU household has been following the rise of blockchain technology with great interest. Obviously it is technology at a nascent stage and it is the venture capitalists and early adopters who have the  task of ‘selling’ a new payment mechanism to the population.

The BU household will continue to monitor the progress of the technology and wish Rawdon Adams every success who is the newly appointed CEO of Bitt.com. We have a lot of respect for Rawdon, the BU family should recall he has contributed to the BU forum in the past. He joins Marla Dukharan at Bitt.com where another person we have a lot of respect was recently added to the team to lead the charge.

The Barbados directorate should take note that the OECS sub-region has signed up with Bitt.com to pilot the technology.

The following article extracted from Coindesk.com.

 

Barbados Underground

Bitt, the blockchain payments startup backed by Overstock’s Medici Ventures, has announced the hiring of a new chief executive officer.

The new CEO, Rawdon Adams, takes the helm of the Barbados-based startup just months after it unveiled an ambitious plan to develop a pan-Caribbean settlement network built with blockchain tech. The plan, Bitt said in May, is to create a way to better connect a region with more than a dozen governments, each with their own currency systems.

The startup has also worked with the Central Bank of Barbados on pilot blockchain initiatives.

The appointment of Adams adds heft to the startup’s regional plans. Rawdon is the son of Tom Adams, who served as the country’s prime minister between 1976 and 1985. Tom Adams, in turn, was the son of Sir Grantley Herbert Adams, the first and only prime minister of the former West Indies Federation.

According to LinkedIn, Rawdon previously worked as an analyst for GE Medical Systems and founded market arbitrage software startup ArbMaker in 2008.

Jonathan Johnson, president of Medici Ventures, said in a statement:

“Rawdon is the perfect leader to grow and scale Bitt to the next level and bring to fruition Bitt’s initial vision in the Caribbean.”

Overstock, through Medici, invested $4 million in Bitt in April of last year.

Editor’s Note: This report has been updated for clarity.

 

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is an independent media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. Have breaking news or a story tip to send to our journalists? Contact us at news@coindesk.com

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201 responses to “Rawdon Adams Returns to the Barbados Space to Spearhead Bitt Inc”

  1. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    Bushie

    Hahaha…..Bwoi ah wuh a’we wuddah do wid out your bovine excrement pun a day……keep on doing what you doing…….up and on….

    PLT

    You are welcome

    David

    The only ism one should hold fast too is…pragmatism…..

  2. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    peterlawrencethompson September 30, 2017 at 6:05 PM #

    “How did Bittcoin get regulatory permission, what loops did they have to jump through”

    plt

    Again, I will counsel caution. An unregulated new currency is like the old wild west with the fastest gun winning the prize.
    Blockchain technology ma5y lead to disintermediation, which will put back financial services ages.
    One thing is for sure, the technological revolution will be not be delayed by the lack of proper regulation – which always follows progress.
    Already the exchange value of the currency has dropped since early September by about 25 per cent, as a result of the Chinese prohibition.
    One analyst believes that bitcoin will compete with precious metals in diversified portfolios and predicts that in time it may account for about five per cent of the over US$7.5trn alternative currency market, which is growing spectacularly.
    There are now bitcoin ETFs and there is now a market for clearing bitcoin ETFs, although the SEC has rejected them.
    I say all this to say that caution must be our watch word. Whatever we may feel about ourselves, our financial markets are very under-developed and a mad rush in to cryptocurrencies may end in tears.
    Financial services is highly speculative and there are lots of Bernie Madoffs about. In 1999 some of us were shocked when a book, Dow 36000: The Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market, predicted the Dow would hit that magic number by 2004. The next year we had the Dot.com crash.
    Recently, the Sage of Omaha predicted Dow will reach 1m within a century. Most of us will not be around to see the outcome, but over the last one hundred years the Dow has had compounded annual growth of just under six per cent. Buffet also called derivatives weapons of mass destruction.
    I end by pointing out that some of the very people bitterly opposed to currency derivatives are now advocates of cryptocurrencies. What a strange world.

  3. Well Well & Consequences Observing Blogger. Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing Blogger.

    PLT…block chain as understood is the future for finance, there is no denying that reality, but it’s all the little follow on scams launched from the block chain platforms. .. are the real problem and what one has to watch out for and be very wary of…for sure.

  4. Alien Avatar
    Alien

    Is it yet possible to secure financing in Bitcoin to be repaid in Bitcoin or is it always necessary to secure financing in dollars, to purchase Bitcoin? Asked another way, are investments in Bitcoin made to become wealthy in Bitcoin or wealthy in dollars?

  5. David Avatar
    David

    @Vincent

    To your earlier comment which rubbed Bush Tea the wrong way (not getting between you two Combermere boys)forget blockchain and bitcoin technology for the moment. Accept that many Fortune 500 and other top companies in the world are striking alliances with Fintecs to effectively integrate emerging technologies with traditional ‘product’ lines. It is the future. Again, we should support local companies/actors getting in on the ground floor for a change. For too long we have been satisfied with being takers of the technology. The upside to the alliance is that the traditional companies shave the know how/relationships with the oversight bodies therefore there is the expectation from a risk management perspective that a happy balance will be found.

  6. David Avatar
    David

    @Alien

    Have we not stressed that it is nascent technology? It is designed to be a currency (crypto) if consumer takeup achieves goal to fit product rollout then who knows what is possible. You should write or call Gabriel Abed, he s a smart fellow. Visit Bitt.com and email them.

  7. Alien Avatar
    Alien

    David, Bit not Bitt. Okay, is it yet possible to secure financing in digital currency to be repaid in digital currency or is it always necessary to secure financing in dollars, to purchase digital currency? Asked another way, are investments in digital currencies made to become wealthy in digital currencies or wealthy in dollars?

  8. Alien Avatar
    Alien

    https://cointelegraph.com/news/how-are-new-bitcoins-created-a-brief-guide-to-bitcoin-mining

    How Are New Bitcoins Created? A Brief Guide to Bitcoin Mining

    9572 Total views 346 Total shares

    Bitcoin is often compared with gold, and one of the chief factors of similarity it the way they’re both obtained. Similarly to gold, new Bitcoins are created via the process called “mining.”

    In fact, Bitcoin mining has a two-fold purpose: it allows for the creation of new coins and facilitates the processing of transactions in the network.

    Another parallel with the precious metal is that there’s a limited amount of Bitcoins that can ever be mined: no more than 21 mln coins. As of 2017, nearly 17 mln Bitcoins have already been mined.

    Mining can be quite a competitive task as new Bitcoins are created at a predictable and fixed rate. Those rates have been defined by Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, in the white paper published in 2008.

    The more miners join the network, the more difficult it becomes to make a profit for each of them. Because of that, miners have to remain highly competitive to keep receiving Bitcoins as a reward for validating the transactions.

    What you need to start mining
    Bitcoin mining is the process of adding records of a new transaction to the Blockchain – the public ledger of all transactions that have ever taken place in the Bitcoin network.

    New transactions are added in batches called “blocks” roughly every 10 minutes, hence the name Blockchain. The ledger is needed for the nodes of the Bitcoin network to always be able to confirm valid transactions.

    In order to become a Bitcoin miner, a person first needs a computer and mining software – like the GUIMiner. This program uses the computer’s resources to perform complex mathematical calculations.

    When any one miner succeeds in solving their math problem, they get to create a new block and receive a certain number of Bitcoins as a reward, known as “the block reward.”

    Every 210,000 blocks, or, roughly, every four years, the block reward is halved. It started at 50 Bitcoin per block in 2009, and in 2014 it was halved to 25 Bitcoins per block.

    However, mining on personal computers has only been feasible in the early years of Bitcoin. By now, the network is so competitive, that using specialized hardware is the only way to make a profit.

    The first ASICs – or Application-Specific Integrated Circuits – were introduced in 2013, designed specifically for the purpose of mining from the start.

    Despite the existence of such specialized equipment, the situation didn’t become easier for miners, as new, more efficient ASICs are released all the time. And the problem of paying for electricity bills is only exacerbated by the new, power-hungry hardware.

    Nowadays there are many prominent companies which design and produce mining hardware. Among them, are Bitfury, Bitmain. You may also find used equipment on eBay or Amazon.

    So, to recap, miners use their hardware to verify valid transactions, pack them into blocks, solve mathematical problems during the process which is called “hashing,” and, after getting a correct solution, add new blocks to the Blockchain.

    What is ‘hashing’?
    Bitcoin uses a cryptographic hash function SHA-256 for encryption. This algorithm allows you to take data of any size and turn it into a string of a specific, predefined size. The resulting string is called a “hash,” and the process of applying the hash function to random inputs is called “hashing.”

    It’s impossible to predict what the hash of any one input will be until you actually calculate it. The goal of the miners is to keep feeding the hash function with different inputs until they get a specific hash value which is below a certain threshold, which is called the “difficulty” of network.

    The difficulty is automatically adjusted every 2016 blocks – or, roughly, every 14 days – in accordance with the growing or shrinking combined computational power of the network.

    If the network became more powerful over the last 2016 blocks, then the difficulty value is decreased to make it harder to find a valid hash and vice versa.

    Considering the immense computational power that the Bitcoin network currently employs, it takes trillions of computer-generated guesses from all over the world until the right hash value is found by someone. And if you are the first to do it – congrats! You have just mined a block and got a reward of 12,5 Bitcoins.

    Pitfalls to avoid in mining
    As with any other activity, mining has some pitfalls to avoid. Let’s take a closer look at some mistakes usually made by newbie miners:

    You shouldn’t start mining without preparations. Given that it is a highly competitive sphere, profitable mining requires thorough planning and preparation. Many examples can be found of people, who had bought too much hardware equipment without calculating all the costs of running it and the likely profit rates. After finding out that they can’t maintain profitable operations with their equipment, these unfortunate miners usually have to re-sell it at a large discount.

    You also shouldn’t follow the hype and mine whatever coin that is the most trendy at the moment. From time to time, one coin or another will get overhyped, and a lot of new miners will start pouring in, driving the difficulty of its network up. As a result, mining becomes very hard for everyone, and almost no one manages to make a profit. This scenario has taken place recently with Ethereum, for example.

    What you should do, is take good care of your PC. Mining places a huge load on the computer’s processors, which have to run at full capacity all the time. If done without proper care, it might cause hardware malfunctions.

    All in all, mining is both a difficult and profitable business to get involved in. But if you’re going to try it – good luck to you!

  9. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    David

    One wonders why the USA the present control of world currencies thanks to the Saudis&oil, up to 2016 was against it and are presently warming to it.

    Why did China the next world power ditch it,is the next question that needs answering before the Caribbean and little Bim jump in.

  10. Alien Avatar
    Alien

    How to get a Bitcoin loan
    https://www.bitbond.com/resources/bitcoin-loan/

  11. peterlawrencethompson Avatar
    peterlawrencethompson

    @Vincent Haynes October 1, 2017 at 11:20 AM #

    The answers to your questions are simple. The American financial regulatory agencies are still against Bitcoin; they have never warmed to it and they never will because its cryptographic properties make it useful for money laundering and other untraceable transactions, posing a threat to their financial infrastructure. What they have done is begun to use blockchain technology, which is completely independent of and predates Bitcoin by decades, to improve their own financial infrastructure. The Chinese are no different: they have blocked Bitcoin, but are no doubt using blockchain technology in their own financial infrastructure.

  12. David Avatar
    David

    RBC using blockchain for payments between U.S., Canadian banks

     

    An RBC sign is seen in the financial district on Bay Street in Toronto.

    MARK BLINCH/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

    MATT SCUFFHAM

    TORONTO

    REUTERS

    SEPTEMBER 27, 2017SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

    Royal Bank of Canada is experimenting with blockchain to help move payments between its U.S. and Canadian banks, one of the bank’s senior executives told Reuters on Thursday.

    Martin Wildberger, RBC’s executive vice president for innovation and technology, said use of distributed ledger technology, or DLT, would improve the speed of payments, reduce complexity and lower costs.

    The bank developed the system over the past six months at an RBC blockchain technology center in Toronto, deploying software developed by a cross-industry open-source blockchain consortium known as Hyperledger.

    The technology was integrated into RBC’s existing systems several weeks ago as a "shadow" to RBC’s primary ledger, letting the bank monitor payments in real-time as they travel between the United States and Canada, he said.

    "We wanted to set it up as a shadow ledger so that we can demonstrate our leadership in exploiting that technology while at the same time recognizing that the technology is still early in its adoption phase," Wildberger said.

    Blockchain emerged in 2009 as the system underpinning the cryptocurrency bitcoin, allowing people to quickly and anonymously exchange electronic currency. It is a shared ledger of transactions maintained by a network of computers rather than a central authority.

    Investors have since put billions of dollars into developing blockchain, betting the technology could make banking operations faster, more efficient and more transparent.

    Although concerns remain about the legitimacy of bitcoin, which JP Morgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon described as a fraud earlier this month, the credibility of the blockchain technology itself has increased.

    A growing number of senior bankers have said they believe it will eventually revolutionize the way payments are made across the industry, reducing complexity and costs of back-office processes.

    "Everybody recognizes blockchain will be transformative and critical," said Wildberger. "At the same point in time, I think everybody recognizes these are early days."

    RBC is looking to use blockchain to improve its rewards and loyalty offers and trade finance capabilities, he said.

    Canada’s central bank said in May that it had decided against using blockchain to provide the underlying infrastructure for the country’s interbank payment system after a year-long investigation, saying "too many hurdles" had to be overcome to make the approach viable.

    Stephen Poloz on the economic issue that keeps him up at night(THE CANADIAN PRESS)

  13. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    PLT

    Thanks

  14. Alien Avatar
    Alien

    Six myths about blockchain and Bitcoin: Debunking the effectiveness of the technology
    https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/bitcoin-blockchain-issues/18019/

  15. Alien Avatar
    Alien

    Blockchain technology: 9 benefits & 7 challenges
    https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/innovatie/artikelen/blockchain-technology-9-benefits-and-7-challenges.html

  16. Alien Avatar
    Alien

    How do blockchain businesses make money?
    https://www.quora.com/How-do-blockchain-businesses-make-money

    How can I make money with blockchain technology?
    https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-make-money-with-blockchain-technology

  17. peterlawrencethompson Avatar
    peterlawrencethompson

    @Alien October 1, 2017 at 12:58 PM #
    Thanks Alien

  18. Alien Avatar
    Alien

    Certified Blockchain Professional (CBCP)TM
    https://blockchaininstituteoftechnology.com/certifications/certified-blockchain-professional/

  19. Well Well & Consequences Observing Blogger. Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing Blogger.

    As long as a person you do not get CHAINED to any of it, end up on the TRADING BLOCK with everything you worked your whole life to attain is in someone else’s control in a
    STOCK MARKET….it will be just fine.

    All of those key words are ominous and have been for centuries, as long as you understand them, you can avoid pitfalls.

    I wonder if the world’s crooks who appear to reincarnate after every generation are doomed to use the same words over and over through eternity.

  20. SuckaBubby Avatar
    SuckaBubby

    Only a matter of time, coupled with wireless technologies and the cell phones, this cryptocurrency business will be embedded into the human body,ultimately aiming to encode it into the human genome.The promotion, security, you are your own money,the evil,no man may buy or sell , save he has the mark of the beast.

  21. Money Brain, Avatar
    Money Brain,

    Sucky,
    They are already implants in the hand of employees in some Corps in the US.

  22. Well Well & Consequences Observing Blogger. Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing Blogger.

    One of the Dakotas already have chips implanted in citizens, a university designed them and people are now walking barcodes to be scanned…

    …..am sure within the the next 20 years most states would have achieved the branding of the sheeple.

    The Caribbean should stay well away from herding and branding their people, once again reinstituting slavery.

    Slaves do not want to be free, they want to become slave masters.

  23. SuckaBubby Avatar
    SuckaBubby

    Correct @ Money brain and Well well.They are optional trial runs.The cashless supermarket has already been implemented and also under a trial basis.

  24. Money Brain, Avatar
    Money Brain,

    There is NO WAY that I will accept the Mark of The BEAST!

  25. Well Well & Consequences Observing Blogger. Avatar
    Well Well & Consequences Observing Blogger.

    MoneyB….got that right, it will be the permanent enslavement of EVERYONE…for thousands of years to come, the plan has been in place for decades, they dont want to let go…too greedy and selfish.

    Every security expert, programmer encoder and cryotographer I know is saying the same thing, stay away from these scams, particularly Caribbean people who are the most vulnerable to con artists.

    “James Austin Bynoe
    September 28, 2017 at 10:51 pm
    As a cyber security expert for over 20+ years …. being an early adopter of blockchain technology will be a huge ERROR for the region.

    While the bitcoin sharks, opportunist and their minions are working to mind trick central banks across the region … it is important to note that the region as a whole is “totally unprepared” for digital currency from the cyber security perspective.”

  26. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/03/bitcoin-price-heading-to-6000-brace-for-volatility-fork.html

  27. Money Brain, Avatar
    Money Brain,

    Vinni,
    They dont have a clue where Bitcoin is going. But the Governments will be hunting all BITTerly.

    In 1653 just one Supreme Tulip bulb sold for an entire good size farm!!!!! When the inevitable collapse came it bankrupted Holland and mashed up the finances for years.

  28. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    MB

    Yup…..another take on it…..

    IMF Chief Christine Lagarde thinks bitcoin could give central banks a run for their money.
    -1:26
    5,795 Views
    CNBC Crypto
    1 hr ·

  29. Vincent Haynes Avatar
    Vincent Haynes

    https://www.facebook.com/cnbccrypto/?hc_ref=ARQMyxxIeC5jIRRPv3tJgv2EBLO7cDde_Xd0xX0Szf7XslzQeXQFKF_Rf_gA5SwjOFQ

  30. Money Brain, Avatar
    Money Brain,

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-06/bass-says-ico-investors-will-get-wiped-out-in-crypto-mania

    Professional on Cryptos

  31. Theophilius Gazerts 234 Avatar
    Theophilius Gazerts 234

    overstock went up by 23% today

  32. Theophlius Gazerts Avatar
    Theophlius Gazerts

    Up $7.00 today. This is a ‘bitcoin’ play.

  33. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    CIBC is looking to move into the US market saying that the Caribbean has become too risky.They just bought a bank in Chicago for US5 billion.The Prime Minister of Barbados is saying he doesn’t care about 21 downgrades.It is not harming Barbados,where CIBC First Caribbean Bank happen to be headquartered.Woe betide Barbados led by a man who is not at one with either the market place or its players,who does not see his role as one to engage the business community on a very regular basis,who does not see his role to engage the intellectuals of the UWI on a regular basis,whose advisers seem to lead him towards the path that spells doom for Barbados,obsessed with a piece of irrelevant paper.
    ,

  34. Theophilius Gazerts 255 Avatar
    Theophilius Gazerts 255

    Surprised at the ups and down of Bitcoin and no additional comments on this page. There was a person who mentioned ethereum as an alternative, but I cannot find that post.

    Any development at Bitt.com?

  35. Theophilius Gazerts 255 Avatar
    Theophilius Gazerts 255

    This is like a Bitt.com play. Money transfer (MG) and crypto alliance
    https://cointelegraph.com/news/ripple-announces-partnership-with-moneygram-to-speed-fiat-settlements

  36. Theophilius Gazerts 258 Avatar
    Theophilius Gazerts 258

    Overstock (OSTK) fell by $14 during the bitcoin meltdown but regained $7.00. This did not erase earlier gains. My boy sign-on bonus is safe.
    Money gram (MG) was relatively flat…
    Kodak made a ‘bitcoin’ move in the first week of January. Stock price surged and remained intact during last week meltdown…

    The best bitcoin play may be to buy the bit players who are on the sidelines

    Money Brain where are you???

  37. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    The day is not far off when some person will say “ The Emperor (Bitcoin) has no clothes”. Anyone who wants to invest in this crypto currency should listen to a Bitcoin miner.

  38. Theophilius Gazerts 256 Avatar
    Theophilius Gazerts 256

    I think overstock fits the bill.
    https://www.coindesk.com/sec-looking-closely-public-company-blockchain-pivots-says-clayton/

  39. Theophilius Gazerts 263 Avatar
    Theophilius Gazerts 263

    Overstock (OSTK) down to $55.00
    Would buy and hold for a few days… If bitcoin recovers, this goes up

    Article mentions future Prime Minister of Barbados

    https://www.investingnewscenter.com/overstock-com-incs-nasdaqostk-dives-blockchain-bitts-mobile-money-app/

  40. TheGazer Avatar
    TheGazer

    Overstock (OSTK) now at $45,70

    I thought it was good side-play to get into crypto-currency. Thank God, I did not jump in. A few months from now I maybe singing a different tune.

    But you Caribbean guys have to be careful… The US has the SEC. Who do you have..

    https://www.coindesk.com/overstock-confirms-250-million-tzero-ico-sec-review/

  41. TheGazer Avatar
    TheGazer

    OSTK.. was around 30 in October, reached a peak of $87.00, Now at 37.00
    Overstock tried to enter the crypto-currency market through the side door, but as the market collapses so to is overstock. As bitcoin and other crypto-currencies stumble, so too does side players.

    Kodak try the same backdoor trick and is getting the same punishment as overstock.

    A good financial reporter would look at the trading patterns of insiders just after their companies announces they are getting involved in cryptocurrencies. Do they hold on for the initial rise and dump before the fall sets in? Willing to bet that insiders made good money on this ‘scam’.

  42. Theophilius Gazerts 443 Avatar
    Theophilius Gazerts 443

    Did you read this? I’m literate and educated, butt when I finished reading I had mo questions than answers

    https://www.coindesk.com/eastern-caribbean-central-bank-pilot-bitt-blockchain-tech/

  43. Theophilius Gazerts 443 Avatar
    Theophilius Gazerts 443

    ““In recent weeks Bitt.com has launched a mobile app-based solution that allows people in Barbados to walk into a store and buy goods or services with digitized Barbados currency”

    You have to give me more than these throw away sentences. When I first heard of Bitt. I thought it was a local “western Union”. Now I feel it is something to getting a gift card from Western Union, but you can buy from anywhere.

    Protect your technology, but you have to educate the man in the street…

    https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/02/21/1372611/0/en/Bitt-com-to-Provide-Digital-Payments-Services-to-Caribbean-Nation-of-Montserrat.html

  44. TheoGazerts Avatar
    TheoGazerts

    OSTK $84.35 Jan 5
    OSTK $ 35.50 Jun 7
    Bittcoin $16,937 Jan 5
    Bittcoin $7,254

    TheoGazerts, April 14
    “Overstock tried to enter the crypto-currency market through the side door, but as the market collapses so too has overstock. As bitcoin and other crypto-currencies stumble, so too does side players.”

    Theo iz Bajan
    Theo has been following bitcoin and overstock
    Theo I wanna be senator. He iz outside de place, but we got we constitutional amendment already
    Theo gonna change his name to Theo Adams

  45. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    Rawdon
    The man wid de pedigree
    To lead we
    Poor Mia, she sweating
    Knowing Rawdon waiting
    One moment She a queen Bee
    But she knows in reality
    She blocking Rawdon’s destiny
    Enuff of that…

    Keeping some topics alive

  46. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    A year ago, bitcoin was near the peak of a frenzied rally to almost $20,000 — a surge that fired up crypto enthusiasts who declared that the digital currency revolution would render fiat money and traditional finance useless. Today bitcoin has tumbled towards $4,000 and the online bravado among crypto fans on Reddit has given way to snipes at other digital tokens and a general sense of malaise.(Quote)

  47. pieceuhderockyeahright Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright

    @ Theophillus

    De grandson sent this for you…do enjoy

    https://youtu.be/OPoAteYgaV4

  48. pieceuhderockyeahright@gmail.com Avatar
    pieceuhderockyeahright@gmail.com

    @ the Honourable Blogmaster

    Your assistance please with an item here thank you

  49. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Last year, I took part in a noisy public debate about whether bitcoin is a beneficial innovation — or the opposite. It was an eye-opening experience: almost as soon as the event was posted online, I was trolled by furious cryptocurrency fans and critics alike. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as ethereum, I concluded, arouse a level of passion rarely found within finance. Their detractors are convinced that the entire concept is a fraud; their evangelists are equally certain that cryptocurrencies are the future.Both sides may be right, depending on timing. Presently, cryptocurrencies seem to be marred by intellectual contradictions. Why does anyone think, for example, that crypto is a good payment mechanism or store of value when transactions are clunky and the value of a bitcoin has swung from $20,000 to $5,000 in the past 18 months?But I also recognise that the underlying blockchain technology is potentially very useful. It is entirely possible that future historians might see bitcoin as the MySpace of cryptocurrency — a pioneering product that was flawed but eventually replaced by better versions of the technology. However, if you want to get a less emotional view of these issues, consider a fascinating study of crypto trading that has just been conducted by an eight-strong team of computer scientists based at institutions including Cornell Tech, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign and ETH in Zurich. Their research set out to determine whether trading in cryptocurrencies is fair when it takes place on decentralised exchanges (DEXes), where individual traders cut deals directly with each other in a relatively transparent way, without a central authority. Before the study, it might have been expected — or hoped — that these venues were indeed pretty fair. After all, the whole point of cryptocurrencies is that they enable “miners” to create “money” and for it to be priced in a peer-to-peer manner with a permanent digital record. Central banks, governments and other institutions are not involved: call it digital people power.It is true that shady things have occurred when cryptocurrencies have gone on to exchanges: just last month, for example, a computer analytics group called The Tie calculated that “87 per cent of exchanges reported trading volume was potentially suspicious, and that 75 per cent of exchanges had some form of suspicious activity occurring on them”. But cryptocurrency advocates argue that the gains from democratising money outweigh such apparent abuses. However, when the researchers started tracking the DEXes (six of them, over 18 months) they had a nasty surprise: they found that the networks have become infested by computer bots, operating alongside the libertarian humans who are meant to populate them. More specifically, some unscrupulous miners and traders have apparently created these bots to anticipate and gain from others’ everyday trades by gaining advantages in the platforms’ information flows, enabling them to siphon off millions — or even billions — of dollars a year in profits.“Like high-frequency traders on Wall Street, these bots exploit inefficiencies in [DEXes], paying high transaction fees and optimizing network latency to front-run trades,” the research paper declares. “We observe bots competitively bidding up transaction fees in order to obtain priority ordering.” Translated for the lay reader, what this means is that some ruthlessly aggressive traders are finding ways to grab data on the deals that other investors are trying to cut — and then jumping ahead of them to take advantage of the prices.To be fair, crypto is not alone in this respect. As Michael Lewis’s book Flash Boysexplained a few years ago, high-frequency traders have been using bots to front-run other investors in the equity world for several years. Moreover, the scale of this bot activity is probably still small when viewed against the wider financial system. Nevertheless, there are two reasons why this tale is striking. First, it shows the difficulty of ever trying to build a truly democratic marketplace — with bitcoin or anything else — in a world of accelerating (and unequal) computing power. Second, it also shows the challenges of cleaning up this corner of finance. Thus far, regulators have shown little sign of being heavy-handed in their crypto regulation, preferring to rely instead on the principle of caveat emptor. Besides, very few crypto enthusiasts are asking for regulation (partly because they tend to dislike government intervention in any form). But can a fledgling product such as bitcoin truly flourish if there is no external oversight? Can investors find a way to clean up their marketsthemselves? Right now it is unclear. However, the next time you meet a crypto evangelist, point out the odd story of the blockchain bots — or direct them to the webpage that the researchers have provided, which tracks the bots in real time. If nothing else, it should spark more debate — and possibly another bitcoin row. (Quote)

  50. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Sometime ago I raised the issue of Overseas Lebanese and was crucified on BU. Here is a report on a hugely successful Lebanese (Brazilian and French, but with his links in Beirut). A leopard never loses its spots.
    Beware of foreigners bearing gifts.

    Japanese prosecutors built their potentially most damaging charge against Carlos Ghosn on evidence acquired from a laptop computer in Lebanon used by an aide to the former Nissan chairman, according to people familiar with the investigation.

    The laptop, which contained information relating to Mr Ghosn’s financial transactions, enabled prosecutors to pursue the investigation in Beirut, where the former Nissan chairman is protected by his status as a national hero.
    Without the laptop, said two of the people, neither Nissan nor the Japanese prosecutors would have been able to show how millions of dollars of Nissan company money was allegedly diverted from an Omani car distributor into companies that were partly or fully owned by Mr Ghosn’s wife and his son.
    Nissan and Tokyo prosecutors declined to comment. Several weeks before Mr Ghosn’s rearrest in early April, the laptop was obtained from a 44-year-old Lebanese assistant who had worked for Fadi Gebran, Mr Ghosn’s longtime lawyer and childhood friend, who died of cancer in 2017.
    In more recent years, the assistant, whose name is listed as Amal Rachid Rizkallah Abou-Jaoude in company filings, worked directly for Mr Ghosn.
    Her name appears among the individuals listed in the shareholder registry of Good Faith Investments, a Lebanese company set up by Gebran.
    Her name is also listed in other companies set up by Gebran that had the same Beirut address as Good Faith, such as Phoinos Investments, the entity that owns a $9.5m house in Beirut that Nissan purchased for Mr Ghosn.Ms Abou-Jaoude could not be reached for comment.
    Phone numbers for Gebran’s office listed in a Beirut legal directory published before his death did not work. The office building was nowhere to be found on the street named in the address, and several people in the area said they had no knowledge of the building or the office.
    An internal investigation by Nissan found that about $35m in payments were made from its Dubai-based subsidiary to an Omani distributor with ties to a friend of Mr Ghosn between 2011 and 2018, according to people familiar with the case.(Quote)

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