Aggregatore di feed

MOSCOW – The 14th Middle East Conference of the Valdai Club in Moscow was hit by a geopolitical bunker buster bomb right in the middle of the proceedings: the announcement, by US President Donald Trump himself, of some sort of future Trump Gaza Riviera Resort and Casino in Palestine. 

Even before international outrage started to overspill, from the BRICS front to ASEAN to the Arab world (which sees it as Nakba 2.0), reaching even Trump-friendly Saudi Arabia and major US allies in Europe, perplexity set in at Valdai among most scholars and academics. 

Two glaring exceptions were professor at the University of Tehran Mohammad Marandi and former British diplomat Alastair Crooke – always delicately nuanced analysts of West Asia. Both have long argued that as the US empire is being forced to retreat, it will become much more ruthless and take greater risks.

Marandi qualifies Trump as “a gift” to American global decline. Crooke, for his part, wonders whether Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu really trapped Trump in a quagmire – when it may be the other way around. Trump now seems to have Netanyahu – which he basically despises – exactly where he wants him: owing favors. 

Trump made a lot of bombastic promises, which Netanyahu can sell as a major success to the Tel Aviv warmongers who compose his government. So his coalition will hold – for now. Yet, in return, Israel will still have to follow the next steps of the despised ceasefire project. And that would lead, in theory, to the end of the war. Netanyahu wants an Infinite War, with unlimited Eretz Israel expansion and annexation. That is not a done deal – by far.    

As it stands, at face value, in one fell swoop, Trump normalized genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the reduction of the Gaza tragedy to a tawdry real estate deal in a “phenomenal location.” The accumulated effect of “the US will take over the Gaza strip,” “we will own it,” and “… level the site” not only opens the US to a shockingly illegal foreign annexation, but it’s the embarrassingly passe “there are no Palestinians” trope on steroids.

But this is far from “sheer lunacy,” as defined by US think tanks everywhere. It’s a natural extension of trying to buy Greenland, trying to annex Canada (in both cases, an increase to the US resource base), grabbing the Panama Canal, and rechristening the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. 

It’s about changing the subject and the predominant narrative instead of addressing the real threat to the Empire: the Russia–China strategic partnership.   

In this case, the new Gaza Riviera built on a pyramid of skulls is not only endorsed but already envisioned by the genocidals in Tel Aviv in tandem with Trump’s billionaire donors, a key part of Israel’s lobby in the US.

Trump’s vision, according to New York insiders, came from his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who less than a year ago was already talking about the real estate gold represented by the Gaza seashore. Kushner is even more dangerous now that he’s acting behind the curtains in Trump’s second term: he’s the main influencer on POTUS when it comes to a possible, future US-sanctioned occupation of Gaza. 

For the moment, we have a Deporting-Building-Selling reality show ethos applied to the most insoluble problem in West Asia. Marandi calls it the “US–Israel problem.” Taha Ozhan at the Ankara Institute qualifies it as “the Israeli-centered order” as well as “the American problem.”  

Living under a ‘global regime change’

The discussions at Valdai, of course, extrapolated Trump’s Gaza bombshell. Ozhan focused on the “immense stress test” on West Asia – from the genocide in Gaza to “Assad must go” metastasizing into Al-Qaeda in suits ruling Damascus. He warns that the current global chaos may spawn new wars: We are now in a process of “global regime change,” where “sustainable instability is over.”

The Palestinian presence, via PLO Minister of Social Development Ahmad Majdalani, was not exactly heartening. He drummed up the usual talking points, such as the problem of “normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel with the backdrop of annexation of the West Bank,” while “other Muslim nations only watch from the sidelines.” 

Majdalani also wondered whether “BRICS will be able to work as an effective counter-balance” to the “American problem,” as defined by Ozhan. But on the tortuous issue of Palestinian unity, he offered nothing new, and went on carping about the impossibility of “the Abraham Accords without the Palestinian people.”

The eminent Vitaly Naumkin, President of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, published an excellent report on Syria, co-authored with Vasily Kuznetsov, also from the Institute of Oriental Studies. 

While they stress that the fall of former longtime Syrian president Bashar al-Assad represents a “window of opportunity” for Israel, Turkiye, and the Gulf monarchies, they qualify the nuances. 

What is Israel really up to? “Establishing direct control over certain (which exactly?) territories or creating a wide buffer zone?”

On Turkiye, “Ankara’s interest in inflicting a strategic defeat on the Kurds and possibly creating a buffer zone along the Syrian–Turkish border is understandable.” What is unclear is “the extent of the [American] commitment to investing in the Kurds” under Trump. 

On the Gulf monarchies, “they will strengthen their position primarily using economic leverage.” Yet “the interests of various GCC countries vary, and their alignment is not always clear.” 

As for Iran, Naumkin and Kuznetsov realistically point out that if the formerly extremist, new Syrian setup “fail[s] to consolidate society” – and that’s a very strong possibility – “Iran may have another shot at restoring its influence.”

For Naumkin, the Russian bases in Syria “should stay” – a topic that is, incidentally, a source of fierce debate in Moscow’s corridors of power. He argues this position mostly because Russia “could balance the expansionist designs of some Turkiye factions in northern Syria.”   

Corridor-mania

Even though the recently-signed Russia–Iran strategic partnership was not specifically discussed at Valdai, Marandi noted that “Iran is moving very fast on what needs to be built, because that will draw India much closer economically.” 

The heart of the matter of the Russia–Iran deal is not military: it’s geoeconomic, and centered on the International North–South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), a key Eurasia/BRICS integration connectivity project. 

The INSTC is a de facto accelerator of trade between top BRICS members Russia, Iran, and India, bound to increase settlements in their own currencies: that’s exactly the kind of mechanism that led Trump – erroneously – to “accuse” BRICS of trying to come up with their own currency. Russia and Iran, both heavily sanctioned, already trade heavily in rubles and rials.     

On the wider geoeconomic front, arguably the most stimulating contribution at Valdai was offered by Elchin Aghajanov, the director of the Baku International Policy and Security Network. A breath of fresh air from the South Caucasus stood in sharp contrast with the gloomy geopolitical hurricanes threatening West Asia.

Aghajanov emphasized Azeri sovereignty – against hegemony, all the while acknowledging the “geostrategic aspirations of the west.” He described Azerbaijan as a “crossroads of transportation corridors”; at least 13 corridors, which led him to coin this beauty: Corridor-mania (italics mine). Across history, the South Caucasus has always been a key geoeconomic hub of Eurasia.

Corridor-mania encompasses every project from TRACECA to the Chinese Middle Corridor, the Trans-Caspian, and the INSTC, not to mention the hyper-controversial  Zangezur corridor – supported by the west – which should run across 40 km of Armenian territory, on the border of Iran. Zangezur would be linked to branches of the New Silk Roads from Xinjiang and Central Asia to Turkiye and also connected to the Trans-Caspian. 

Aghajanov was adamant that with Zangezur, Azerbaijan has no intention whatsoever to annex Armenian lands. Baku also wants its operation to go to Iran via an Iran–Armenia link. Tehran’s position is that as long as there’s no annexation – in this case, the better option would be underground – the corridor should go ahead. Aghajanov did refer to the Azerbaijan–Iran link across the Aras River: “The late [Iranian] president Ebrahim Raisi was a strong supporter.”

Aghajanov also emphasized that as much as Azerbaijan is “a natural ally of Turkiye and Pakistan,” the same should apply to Iran, where at least 13 million ethnic Azeris live. 

He defines Russia as a “natural strategic partner.” He also praised a corridor way up north, the Northern Sea Route: “The shortest way from New York to China is via Murmansk. And the shortest way from Brazil to China is via St. Petersburg.” 

As the dogs of war keep barking, Corridor-mania keeps on rolling. But first, West Asia really needs to bury the ridiculous Trumpian vision of a Gaza Riviera.   

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

The post In Valdai, Confronting the ‘American Problem’ in West Asia appeared first on LewRockwell.

On January 27, Pope Francis officially recognized the martyrdom of five Spanish Franciscan missionaries killed in September 1597 in what is now the state of Georgia. Francis labeled the martyrdom of the Venerable Servants of God Pedro de Corpa, Blas Rodríguez de Cuacos, Miguel de Añón, Antonio de Badajoz, and Francisco de Veráscola—also known as the “Georgia Martyrs”—to be in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith). The friars were murdered by an indigenous tribe because of an argument over marriage—many of the men took multiple wives. A sixth friar, Francisco de Ávila, was kidnapped and tortured before being liberated months later.

When we consider such martyr stories, we usually focus our attention on the martyrs themselves: their faith, their courage, their stories which led them to the moment when they died for the Faith. But there’s another element to martyrdom stories that has historical, political, and spiritual importance: the character of the cultures doing the actual martyring. And that’s especially the case when the default stance of our dominant cultural institutions—media, the academy, and entertainment industry—is nothing but sympathy for indigenous peoples.

The fact that the Super Bowl featured a team called “The Chiefs” provoked the customary indignation from pundits who claim such mascots are racist toward indigenous peoples. “The team’s imagery is filled with racist tropes,” declared ESPN panelist and Washington Post columnist Kevin Blackistone, who accused the team of “cultural theft wrapped in misappropriated imagery and accompanying cartoonish imitations of their customs.” Changing team names such as the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians, land acknowledgements, and investigative journalism into American Indian children who died in boarding schools—these are all examples of attempts to “atone” for historic sins against indigenous peoples.

Certainly, as Catholics we should demonstrate charity and empathy for those who suffer, and the story of Native American relations with settlers and the U.S. government is categorically one of suffering, epitomized in such incidents as the Trail of Tears, the Sand Creek massacre, or Wounded Knee. Even American Indians who did their best to comply with the demands of the government and military often encountered mistreatment, betrayal, and violence. And American Indians today endure great hardship, with comparatively higher incidence rates of addiction, sexual violence, and poverty than other groups in the United States.

But the dominant narrative of victimized American Indians and victimizer white settlers has a tendency to obscure what the many civilizations and tribes of our continent’s indigenous populations were truly like. This is where martyr stories can be so important.

Consider the stories of the Canadian Martyrs (though many of them were actually killed in what is now upstate New York). The French Jesuits Isaac Jogues and René Goupil, for example, were ambushed by Iroquois warriors in 1642. For months, the Iroquois subjected Jogues and Goupil to terrible tortures, including tearing off their hair, beards, and nails, and biting through their forefingers. The Iroquois eventually tomahawked Goupil to death. Jogues escaped in 1643; but three years later, in 1646, he was tomahawked by a Mohawk warrior, his severed head implanted on a pole, and his dismembered body thrown into the Mohawk River.

Three years after that, French Jesuit missionaries Jean de Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant were captured by Iroquois warriors who tortured them, subjecting them to boiling water, then burning them at the stake. The Iroquois then cannibalized de Brébeuf’s body, drinking his blood and eating his heart. That same year, another French Jesuit, Noël Chabanel, was murdered by a “renegade” Huron.

Farther south, in what is now Virginia, the Powhatan—a tribe celebrated in contemporary accounts of Pocahontas—in 1571 betrayed and murdered Jesuit missionaries Juan Baptista de Segura, Gabriel Gómez, Pedro de Linares, Cristóbal Redondo, and Sancho de Zaballos. The Powhatan then tried to deceive a Spanish relief expedition later that spring by dressing in the dead Jesuits’ cassocks. (The Spanish soldiers recognized the deception, and avoided a similar fate.)

Out west, approximately 2,000 Comanches and allied North Texas Indians in 1758 attacked Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá, on the San Saba River in what is now Texas. Among those killed were two priests, Fray Alonso Giraldo de Terreros and Fray José de Santiesteban Aberín, who were seeking to evangelize the Apache. (As S.C. Gwynne describes in his best-selling book Empire of the Summer Moon, the Comanche’s brutality was especially legendary, mutilating the dead bodies of male settlers and gang-raping settler women.) A few decades after the attack on the Spanish mission in Texas, four Franciscan missionaries—Fathers Francisco Garcés, Juan Antonio de Barreneche, José Matías Moreno, and Juan Díaz—were murdered in 1781 during a Quechan uprising in what is now Arizona.

These are not stories that are well-known, even among Catholics. But they offer a gruesome window into the practices of many Native American cultures. Polygamy, torture, rape, murder, and cannibalism were all practices settlers could expect to encounter among various indigenous civilizations. Yes, it’s true, not all tribes engaged in such horrors, but many did. (For another example of cannibalism, look up the Karankawa, a tribe in present-day Texas.) And, it should be said, indigenous peoples were fighting, conquering, and enslaving each other for millennia before European settlers arrived.

Read the Whole Article

The post Uncomfortable Martyrdoms appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Fed is in the business of generating inflation. It might attempt to stop the effects of inflation, namely rising prices. But under the old definition of inflation — an artificial increase in the supply of money and credit — the entire reason for Fed’s existence is to generate more, not less of it. — Ron Paul, End the Fed (emphasis mine)

It’s probably unfair to liken the 1998 Peter Berg dark comedy Very Bad Things to the activities of the US Federal Reserve, but the central bank does share the traits of incompetence and disastrous results with the bumbling wedding party in the film.  When one considers the legacy of the Fed since its inception in 1913 it may be that nothing comes close to the damage the Fed has done to people’s lives.  And there’s clearly nothing funny about it.  One would think monetary economics is an arcane art beyond man’s comprehension, and the best we can do is what we’re doing: Hire smart guys to take educated guesses about what needs to be done.

Yet, its mystery is purely man-made.

In its broadest sense, economics can be thought of as the study of exchanges.  This is how it is defined by Robert Murphy, author of an unusual textbook called Lessons for the Young Economist.  It’s unusual in that it’s methodical without being tedious.  In fact, it’s downright fascinating.

The economists who were blindsided by the 2008 crisis were neck-deep in charts, aggregates, and bad theory they believe in to this day.  They tell us no one saw the train coming, so if everyone was blind, no one was blind.  They insist the train wreck was just an unfortunate reminder that economics is hard stuff.  Better to leave it to the experts at the Fed where high IQs run rampant.

Problem is, economists of the Austrian school, such as Murphy, saw the train coming as soon as it left the station.  Every train that leaves the interventionist station has its fate written in economic law, as expounded in the works of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Paul, and others.  Everything that has happened since 1913 has had all the suspense of a bad novel — for Austrians.

Did the Fed inflate prior to the 2008-2009 financial meltdown?  Like mad.  Perhaps at Paul Krugman’s suggestion, Alan Greenspan created a monster housing bubble to replace the dot-com bubble.  Did it inflate in response to the bust?  Bernanke spiked the monetary base.  Were investors calling for even more monetary pumping?  The ones calling for QE3 were.  And there are countless nervous others hovering around the panic button ready to join them.

Murphy’s book, though geared to bright middle schoolers, provides the tools for understanding what the interventionist crowd seems unable to grasp, which is this: Unhampered markets have built-in regulatory mechanisms that keep the train on the tracks.  And the issue at stake could not be more critical.   As we read in Lesson One of Murphy’s book:

Unlike other scientific disciplines, the basic truths of economics must be taught to enough people in order to preserve society itself. It really doesn’t matter if the man on the street thinks quantum mechanics is a hoax; the physicists can go on with their research without the approval of the average Joe. But if most people believe that minimum wage laws help the poor, or that low interest rates cure a recession, then the trained economists are helpless to avert the damage that these policies will inflict on society.

The world’s policymakers as well as the people who suffer under them could benefit enormously from committing that passage to memory.  We have, in essence, exchanged sound economic principles for very bad ones — ancient fallacies framed in modern jargon — and are now wondering why the economic outlook is so threatening.

The idea of “exchange,” though, is not limited to the trading activities of individuals in which goods and services are traded for money or for other goods and services.  In every aspect of our lives we’re confronted with the possibility of exchanging the status quo for something else.  The exchange can be performed by an individual in isolation, such as the shipwrecked fictional character Robinson Crusoe who must build a one-man economy, or the change can be brought about by people acting together . . . as American voters did recently.

Exchanging education for state indoctrination

In the early 19th century educational reformers began “exchanging” the Jeffersonian system of voluntary parental education for a more collectivist approach inspired by the despotic Prussian system.  Jefferson was a strong advocate of public schools for the poor, but an equally staunch opponent of compulsion in education.  Yet, by the end of the 19th century almost every state had compulsory public schools in which the “virtues” of obedience, equality, and uniformity were inculcated, sometimes violently, while independent thinking was discouraged or punished.

Given the educational system, should we be surprised that government inroads into the economy and our private lives take place without much resistance?

In 1913, we exchanged a high tariff for the income tax.  Then got a high tariff again in 1921.

In 1917, we exchanged peace for war.  Then peace for war again a generation later.  And after that, peace for perpetual war.

In 1933, we exchanged economic liberty for economic fascism.  It still bears the name of “free market capitalism,” though, which is useful for confusing people when the fascists in power screw things up.

After 2001, we exchanged freedom for security and are getting less of both.

But the biggest disaster has been the exchange of market money for political money, initiated in 1933 and completed in 1971.  Every American and dollar holder is now at the mercy of bureaucrats instead of the market.

In economics, all voluntary exchanges are win-win agreements at the time of the transaction.  Both sides to the trade believe they’re improving their lot, otherwise they wouldn’t agree to make it.  When politicians take to making exchanges for our benefit, however, we’re almost always on the losing side.

Someone must be winning, but in the end it’s not clear who.

The post Fed Policies Yield Very Bad Things appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Vasko Kohlmayer.

The post Cartoon: White House Garbage Support appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

The Intercept

The post Trump Is Bullying Jordan, Egypt Tp Help in Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Dean Henderson

The post Rothschild’s Gaza Land Grab appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Eugyppius

The post Farhad Noori, rejected asylum seeker in Germany, runs down 28 people at a trade union demonstration in Munich appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

John Leake

The post New “Task Force for the Declassification of Federal Secrets” Announced appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

OnePeterFive

The post A Great Trumpet Falls Silent appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post The Beginning Of The End Of The War In Ukraine appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Wayne Goodfellow:

Dr. Doctorow is an highly experienced and knowledgeable specialist on Russia who provides an in-depth analysis of the recent phone call between Trump and Putin and over three hours of discussions between Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and high level Kremlin officials. He also analyzes the speech of the Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth in Brussels. The message is that the Ukraine war is over, Ukraine will not become part of NATO, Zelenskyy is finished, former Ukrainian territories populated by people of Russian background and taken by Russia will not be returned to the Ukraine, Europe will have to defend itself as the US draws down its conventional forces, US-Russia relations will be normalized and much, much more related to China, the Middle East, global security, AI, economics, trade and energy plus other critical resources. If Trump is able to secure peace in this world, promote fair and reciprocal trade, freedom, and move to a gold standard where our money cannot be debased and stolen, then we are indeed on the road to a Golden Age. And very little of these important developments are being covered by the Main Stream Media (MSM) which is why the corporate/government MSM is increasingly ignored and abandoned throughout the western world and beyond. Canada is on the wrong side of history in this revolution and great reawakening taking place in the US which will impact the entire world. From what I have seen on the part of Canada, all political parties on Parliament Hill are misinformed or willfully ignorant about the Trump agenda. Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada are focusing on tariffs when what we are dealing with is a drug war and the subversion of Canada by powerful drug cartels connected in part to the CCP that have infected and corrupted all government levels in Canada and vital institutions of governance including the department of justice and the RCMP. 

The post Interview of Russian Expert Dr. Gilbert Doctorow appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Forbes

The post All The Major Companies And Orgs Dumping Their DEI Programs (Full List) appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

John Leake

The post Why Are Massachusetts Senators & Reps So Hopeless? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Rick Rozoff.

TASS News

The post Press review: Putin, Trump discuss Ukraine peace appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tom Woods and I talk about the need to look beyond the Trump administration to plan for a realistic ideological and political plan moving forward. Trump’s election victory was by a very slim margin and the US is still deeply divided. In fact, the break-up of the United States is inevitable:

The post Is the US Headed for Breakup (in the Long Run)? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato "fuori controllo" negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/bitcoin-fud-6-tesi-comuni-degli-scettici)

Fin dalla sua nascita Bitcoin ha dovuto affrontare un'opposizione implacabile alimentata da paura, incertezza e dubbio, o anche etichettato con l'acronimo FUD. I critici denunciano regolarmente Bitcoin come qualcosa di volatile, insostenibile, o uno strumento per il crimine.

Queste narrazioni riemergono a ogni mercato rialzista, spesso scoraggiando i nuovi arrivati. Dan Held, un importante sostenitore di Bitcoin, ha affermato: “I detrattori cercano di far fronte al fatto di aver perso il treno razionalizzando il motivo per cui fallirà attraverso 'Paura, incertezza e dubbio'”. Ma quanta verità contengono queste argomentazioni?

Una volta liquidato come un progetto di nicchia, Bitcoin è ora abbracciato da istituzioni finanziarie, investitori e persino politici. Tuttavia lo scetticismo persiste, con i critici che mettono in dubbio il suo valore, il consumo di energia e l'utilità sociale.

Ecco alcune tesi legate al FUD che emergono ogni volta che Bitcoin va bene.

Bitcoin non ha alcun valore

Tra i critici più accaniti di Bitcoin ci sono il leggendario investitore Warren Buffett e il defunto Charlie Munger.

Buffett definì Bitcoin “veleno per topi al quadrato”, sostenendo che non avesse alcun valore perché non genera guadagni o dividendi. Munger fece eco a queste affermazioni, descrivendo Bitcoin come “disgustoso” e il suo sviluppo “contrario agli interessi della civiltà”.

“Odio il successo di Bitcoin”, disse Munger.

Bitcoin esiste dal 2008 e il suo valore è cresciuto notevolmente, diventando l'asset con le prestazioni più elevate nell'ultimo decennio.

Held ribatte a queste argomentazioni affermando che non ha senso criticare Bitcoin perché non ha alcun valore “quando la valuta fiat non ha assolutamente alcun valore”.

Il 10 gennaio 2018 gli economisti Aleksander Berensten e Fabian Schär scrissero, in un articolo di revisione per la Federal Reserve: “Bitcoin non è l'unica valuta che non ha alcun valore intrinseco. Anche le valute di monopolio statale, come il dollaro statunitense, l'euro e il franco svizzero, non hanno alcun valore intrinseco. La storia delle valute monopolistiche di stato è una storia di forti oscillazioni di prezzi e fallimenti [...] ecco perché le criptovalute decentralizzate sono un'aggiunta gradita al sistema monetario esistente”.

Il valore di un asset è astratto, poiché dipende dalla percezione delle persone. La scarsità, l'utilità e la tecnologia di Bitcoin ne sostengono il valore.

Bitcoin ha un'offerta limitata di 21 milioni di coin, il che gli ha fatto guadagnare il soprannome di “oro digitale”. L'interesse istituzionale, come i fondi negoziati in borsa (ETF), ha consolidato la sua posizione come riserva di valore, poiché è raro per progettazione.

Bitcoin è solo una mania come quella dei tulipani

La rapida crescita del prezzo di Bitcoin ha portato molti a paragonarlo a bolle finanziarie come il crollo delle dot-com o la mania olandese dei tulipani del XVII secolo.

Held non è d'accordo: “Bitcoin non è un tulipano. Fornisce al mondo il miglior deposito digitale di valore mai creato, consentendo alle persone di conservarlo e rendendone arduo il sequestro e la trasmissione a chiunque altro senza permesso”.

Nel 2017 l'amministratore delegato di JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon, criticò duramente Bitcoin, definendolo una “frode”. Nel 2018 affermò che Bitcoin era “peggio dei bulbi di tulipano”.

Da allora ha attenuato le sue osservazioni e ritirato alcune delle sue critiche. Durante una chiamata sui guadagni di JPMorgan nel 2021, Dimon ha osservato che “le mode in genere non durano 12 anni”.

Nel maggio 2024 sono emerse segnalazioni secondo cui JPMorgan aveva investito in Bitcoin tramite gli ETF spot e la banca aveva persino creato la propria valuta digitale, JPM Coin.

Sin dalla sua creazione, Bitcoin ha sperimentato costanti trend al rialzo caratterizzati da ondate cicliche. A differenza delle famigerate bolle finanziarie, non ha affrontato un crollo catastrofico che ha svalutato in modo permanente l'asset.

Bitcoin è uno strumento per il riciclaggio di denaro

Bitcoin viene spesso attaccato per il suo presunto ruolo in attività illecite. La senatrice degli Stati Uniti, Elizabeth Warren, lo ha descritto come uno “strumento per il riciclaggio di denaro” e ha chiesto normative più severe per reprimere gli asset digitali.

Tuttavia la blockchain di Bitcoin è completamente trasparente, il che rende le attività illecite più facili da tracciare rispetto al denaro contante.

Inizialmente i criminali lo vedevano come un ottimo strumento per nascondere le loro attività illegali, ma hanno imparato rapidamente che usare la tecnologia di un registro trasparente non era così buono per i loro affari. Bitcoin è pseudoanonimo. Gli account sono anonimi, ma se uno di essi è collegato a un'identità, la sua cronologia e i suoi movimenti finanziari saranno esposti.

“Il problema risiede nei soldi fiat, non in Bitcoin o nelle criptovalute, i quali operano per lo più su registri trasparenti che rendono difficile nascondere i fondi”, ha affermato Held.

Detto questo, ci sono servizi che possono oscurare i movimenti di Bitcoin e favorire attività illecite. Servizi come mixer e tumbler, specializzati nell'oscurare il flusso di fondi, hanno visto un aumento delle attività di riciclaggio di denaro, secondo la società di analisi dei dati blockchain Chainalysis.

Bitcoin ha fame di energia

La rete Bitcoin utilizza la proof-of-work (PoW) come meccanismo di consenso, in cui i miner risolvono complessi enigmi matematici per convalidare le transazioni e proteggere la rete in cambio di ricompense.

Inizialmente chiunque avesse un computer portatile poteva minare Bitcoin, ma con l'aumento della concorrenza sono state create strutture di mining su larga scala, rendendolo un processo ad alto consumo energetico.

Le preoccupazioni sono legittime poiché, secondo l'indice di consumo di elettricità dell'Università di Cambridge, il consumo energetico di Bitcoin è superiore al consumo energetico annuale dell'Egitto e sta per superare quello del Sudafrica.

Held ha affermato che la PoW è un modello energetico efficiente. Ha criticato coloro che si lamentano del consumo energetico di Bitcoin senza “confrontarlo con il consumo energetico dell'estrazione dell'oro, del sistema finanziario, dei governi, dei tribunali, degli eserciti” o dei modelli generativi di intelligenza artificiale come ChatGPT.

Negli ultimi anni il mining di Bitcoin si è spostato sempre di più verso l'uso di energia verde. Le dinamiche della PoW spingono i miner a cercare le fonti di energia più economiche possibili e, poiché il mining è indipendente dalla posizione, i miner possono muoversi a livello globale.

Una delle fonti energetiche più convenienti è l'energia rinnovabile e i miner se ne sono accorti.

Una nuova ricerca ha dimostrato che il mining di Bitcoin potrebbe potenzialmente dare una spinta alla transizione verso l'energia rinnovabile. I ricercatori affermano che monetizzare l'energia in eccesso raccolta dalle rinnovabili potrebbe generare centinaia di milioni di dollari di entrate, grazie al mining di Bitcoin.

Il 12 maggio 2021 Elon Musk ha ordinato a Tesla di smettere di offrire Bitcoin come mezzo di pagamento per i suoi veicoli elettrici, poiché era preoccupato per i suoi effetti sull'ambiente. Il 13 giugno 2021 Musk ha affermato che Tesla avrebbe consentito nuovamente le transazioni BTC una volta che fosse stato sicuro che almeno il 50% dell'energia utilizzata dai miner fosse pulita e avesse un trend futuro positivo.

Secondo l'analista di dati blockchain, Willy Woo, e il sostenitore di Bitcoin e ambientalista, Daniel Batten, l'utilizzo di energia rinnovabile da parte di Bitcoin è vicino al 57%; tuttavia Musk non ha reagito di fronte a questi nuovi numeri.

La mancanza di trasparenza nei dati del mining rimane una sfida continua. Batten sostiene che i media generalisti pubblicano spesso informazioni fuorvianti sull'impatto ambientale di Bitcoin, basandosi su studi scarsamente documentati o “scienza spazzatura”.

Batten ha osservato un crescente cambiamento nel sentimento dei media generalisti, con molti organi di informazione che adottano una posizione più favorevole, o neutrale, nei confronti del mining di Bitcoin mentre conducono indagini più approfondite sull'argomento.

Q-day: Bitcoin è sotto minaccia quantistica

Internet si basa su protocolli di crittografia per proteggere i dati, con la National Security Agency statunitense che ha impostato la crittografia AES a 256 bit come standard. Bitcoin utilizza questa stessa crittografia per i suoi wallet, ma molti affermano che un futuro computer quantistico potrebbe facilmente violare questa crittografia, compromettendo la sicurezza di Bitcoin.

Con ogni svolta nell'informatica quantistica, i mercati delle criptovalute vengono inondati da FUD e affermazioni secondo cui Bitcoin potrebbe diventare un bersaglio facile.

Il 10 dicembre 2024 Google ha presentato il suo nuovo chip di calcolo quantistico, Willow. Si suppone che possa risolvere problemi computazionali in meno di cinque minuti, mentre l'informatica tradizionale impiegherebbe 10 settiliardi di anni.

Le preoccupazioni riguardo la “minaccia quantistica” trascurano un punto cruciale: un computer quantistico in grado di violare la sicurezza di Bitcoin probabilmente prenderebbe di mira honeypot molto più grandi, come i sistemi bancari tradizionali, prima di Bitcoin.

Held ha affermato che Bitcoin è già pronto per un simile attacco e che, nel caso di una reale minaccia quantistica, basterebbe semplicemente aggiornarne il protocollo: “I computer quantistici sono ancora in gran parte sperimentali; sapremo con largo anticipo quando saranno utilizzabili”.

La storia infinita di Tether

USDT di Tether, la più grande stablecoin per capitalizzazione di mercato e una coppia di trading comune con Bitcoin, è una delle fonti più significative di FUD correlato a Bitcoin. I critici sostengono che le riserve di Tether mancano di trasparenza, alimentando i timori di un crollo.

La controversia è iniziata anni fa, quando Tether fu accusata di aver emesso USDT senza un'adeguata copertura, per manipolare i prezzi di Bitcoin durante i rally di mercato. La questione si è intensificata nel 2021 dopo che la società ha rivelato che solo una parte delle sue riserve era detenuta in contanti, mentre il resto era in cambiali commerciali, prestiti garantiti e altri asset.

Nonostante gli sforzi di Tether per migliorare la trasparenza, gli scettici rimangono poco convinti. Sostengono che il predominio di Tether nel trading di criptovalute e l'assenza di un audit completo di terze parti presentino rischi sistemici.

Justin Bons, fondatore del fondo di criptovalute CyberCapital, ha affermato che queste preoccupazioni coinvolgono molti investitori in criptovalute e afferma che un crollo di Tether potrebbe essere “una delle più grandi minacce esistenziali per le criptovalute nel loro complesso”.

Held ha affermato che è a dir poco assurda l'idea che il fallimento di Tether possa danneggiare Bitcoin, visto che il primo rappresenta solo il 10% della capitalizzazione di mercato del secondo. Held ha aggiunto che la vera preoccupazione dovrebbe essere rivolta a Ethereum e al suo ecosistema di finanza decentralizzata (DeFi): “Se Tether diventasse inutile causerebbe un enorme terremoto strutturale nell'ecosistema di Ethereum”.

Il crollo di USDT sarebbe catastrofico, ma Held ha ricordato che Bitcoin alla fine sopravvivrebbe, proprio come è successo negli ultimi 12 anni attraverso crisi come l'hacking di Mt. Gox, la chiusura di Silk Road, il divieto cinese al mining e la guerra civile di Bitcoin con Bitcoin Cash.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una “mancia” in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

Thanks, John Frahm.

The Gateway Pundit

The post Tulsi Gabbard Confirmed as Trump’s Director of National Intelligence in Blow to Deep State appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah:

Sputnik News

The post How Federal Reserve’s Corruption Has Swung US From Crisis to Crisis appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

The National Pulse

The post Neocons Clutch Pearls as DOGE Sets Sights on Globalist National Endowment for Democracy. appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

LifeSite News

The post Wisconsin Catholic bishops release immigration letter supporting secure borders appeared first on LewRockwell.