NBTV: Your Money, Your Data, Your Life

I watched the live Mars landing last week, excited to see a rocket touchdown, live, on the red planet. Instead, I was underwhelmed. The live stream only showed an animation of the landing, not the real thing, and some reaction shots from NASA personnel. It's not that landing on Mars isn't super cool -- it is! It's just that I've been spoiled by SpaceX, who provide awesome lives...

Searched the dark web using Tor recently? Your information may have been leaked, if you were using the Brave browser. Coindesk Privacy reporter Ben Powers shares all the details. Don’t forget to update your Brave Browser!! To make a tax-deductible (in the US) donation to NBTV, visit https://www.nbtv.media/support Sign up for the free CryptoBeat newsletter here: https://cryptobeat.substack.com/ Sup...

The Australian government passed a law that would force Facebook to pay every time someone shares a news article on their platform. Facebook decided that this was not a privilege they were willing to pay for, and in response have instead blocked Australian Facebook users from sharing or viewing news content. As a result, they have also inadvertently blocked many charities or government pages which...

Today the price of bitcoin exploded past 46k after Tesla announced their purchase of $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. "Moreover, we expect to be accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for our products in the near future," they said. Juggernauts like Microstrategy, Square, and Telsa are making bitcoin part of their reserve assets, as a hedge against inflation and economic instability. This...

We have a newly minted US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen. She is the US political establishment’s insider’s insider, and the crypto ecosystem is now grappling with what her appointment to Treasury will mean. I go over the history of Treasury Secretaries throughout Bitcoin’s lifespan, and what we can expect from a Yellen Treasury. From C. Edward Kelso and Naomi Brockwell Support the show

Janet Yellen was just unanimously approved by The U.S. Senate Finance Committee for Treasury secretary. She’s taking over from Mnuchin, and is so far not off to a good start regarding cryptocurrency. Earlier this week she said that cryptocurrencies are “a particular concern” when it comes to criminal activity and terrorist financing. “I think many [cryptocurrencies] are used, at least in a transac...

The request for extradition to the United States of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, was denied by a UK judge. This is fantastic news, because the US wants to put Assange on trial basically for being an investigative journalist. The indictment from the DOJ against Assange is one of the single biggest threats to freedom of the press of the last decade. I explain in detail what it all means. But t...

Recently Snowden was awarded the Thomas Szasz Award from the Center for Independent Thought, which was presented to him by my boss John Stossel. During the call I was able to ask Snowden about Bitcoin and the need for anonymous digital payments.  Bitcoin played an important role in the 2013 Snowden leaks: the servers that Snowden used to transfer information to journalists were paid for using bitc...

According to The Daily Beast this week: "Trump Is Considering Clemency for Silk Road Founder: Two sources tell The Daily Beast that the president has expressed sympathy for the situation of Ross Ulbricht, who is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole." The attempt to get Ross’s case in front of Trump has been ongoing for the last 4 years.  Ulbricht’s court appeals were...

The inevitable war between government and crypto is getting started. German Finance Minister on Monday: “We must do everything possible to make sure the currency monopoly remains in the hands of states.” The G7 this week: "We want to regulate digital currencies." European Central Bank President: "Stablecoins threaten monetary sovereignty.” Between the STABLE Act, which would ensure...

Yesterday a disastrous new bill was introduced to congress: The STABLE Act, which stands for Stablecoin Tethering and Bank Licensing Enforcement. Under the guise of "protecting people" it will require stablecoin issuers to obtain a banking charter. Meaning, only banks will be able to issue stablecoins. They said: “Digital currencies, whose value is permanently pegged to or stabilized aga...

Many companies are forced to hand over customer data, or weaken their security, and they can’t tell you about it. The FBI has a thing called a National Security Letter, which is a request for information and gag orders rolled into one. Although judges have ruled them to be unconstitutional, they are more common than you realize, and each branch and agency in the US government has something similar...

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin plans to rush out new regulation regarding self-hosted crypto wallets before the end of his term. Apparently the proposed regulation would  “require financial institutions like Coinbase to verify the recipient/owner of the self-hosted wallet, collecting identifying information on that party, before a withdrawal could be sent to that self-hosted wallet” according to Coinb...

Last week, $1 billion of bitcoin was seized by the DOJ, money that a hacker allegedly stole from the Silk Road in 2012.   The hacker's lawyer calls him a "modern-day Robin Hood". But a couple of things to keep in mind: 1) The Hacker was most likely coerced to hand over the keys under heavy duress 2) The money was given to the DOJ so that they can continue their war on p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ d...

How private is Zoom, really? For years, Zoom claimed to have end-to-end encryption for all its calls, which means that users can communicate securely with each other, and no one else -- not even Zoom -- can access the call. It turns out this wasn't true, and yesterday the FTC reached a settlement with Zoom about its misleading language.  Even though Zoom now actually IS rolling out e2eE for i...

Another election has come and gone. And the winner is... the state. The money printers will continue to churn, that much we can expect.    In the past 12 months, the amount of US  Dollars in existence rose by over 41%. 25% of all money ever created by the FED was created in the last 12 months. Let that sink in. It's no wonder bitcoin rose back above $15k today for the first time in almost 3 y...

Avanti, led by crypto OG Caitlin Long, was approved to become a bank in Wyoming.  Quick Bytes: 00:09 JPMorgan changes its tune: “Bitcoin has considerable upside and will become more valuable if people use it” 01:32 China’s battle against stablecoins: anything that competes with their Central Bank Digital Currency will be outlawed 02:43 Harvest Finance protocol hack! 10s of millions drained from th...

There are 3 different types of consensus protocols:Classical, Satoshi's, and a new one released last year called AvalancheEmin Gün Sirer is a professor at Cornell and founder of Ava labs and he explains how each works, and the history behind them. The newest, Avalanche, was released anonymously last year by a group calling themselves "Team Rocket" ('Team Rocket' is a refer...

Back in 2014 I interviewed Joey Fiscella of Florin coin: A small alt coin where you could write messages to your loved ones that would be stored forever in the blockchain. Now 5 years later, Florin has transitioned to "Flo" with a really interesting use case, and you wouldn't believe the success they've had with some major organizations including Caltech and Tzero. To watch the...

Some baby tips from CEO of Sense chat Crystal Rose Pierce:When choosing a baby name, the first thing to do is make sure it's 12 characters, which is the length of an EOS wallet addressGet your baby involved early, ideally have her carry a crypto torch whilst still in uteroProof of Birth: Get her registered with a REAL identity on the blockchain, not one of these flimsy govt-issued identitiesT...

The community has shown that we NEED a crypto alternative to Patreon. Too many people are being deplatformed, and payment providers have too much power. Crypto is censorship resistant, and is the obvious next step for those who believe in Freedom of Speech. Crypto-fuelled Patreon alternative "Bitbacker" was just acquired by Draper-backed startup "Flote". I chat with CEO Kingsle...

Trader Cobb and I talk about the market movements over the past month, predictions for future trends, and some interesting coins and market opportunities that may have been overlooked. Support the show

2 Videos! Part 1: https://youtu.be/5hcApg3vjZYJustin Sun wins charity auction bid of $4.6 million for a lunch with Warren Buffett and 7 blockchain industry leadersPart 2: https://youtu.be/dh-i20UKcL0KIK:SEC sues KIK, things don't look good Australia cracks down on crypto tax avoidance schemes, as do many other parts of the world Samourai receives funding to fight bitcoin surveillanceLocalbitc...

Justin Sun bid 4.6 million dollars in a charity auction to have lunch with Warren Buffett. He said that he did it to support the Glide Foundation, because he's a longtime fan of Warren Buffett, and also because he wants to help be a bridge between traditional finance and crypto. He announced he will invite 7 blockchain industry leaders to the lunch with him. Buffett is a longtime Bitcoin skep...

I caught up with the team from Humanaction.io while I was in Kentucky, and we talked about why freedom is a radical movement, and what they're doing to help the culture around it. Their store focuses on crypto and Austrian economics, 2 of my favorite things. To watch the video of the episode, visit https://youtu.be/AemWmNviwto Support the show