Hi all,
Having recently fallen victim to a cryptocurrency scam on Coinbase, I began to follow to follow the appropriate steps in terms of notifying the local authorities, Action Fraud and so on about what happened.
In the meantime, I figured I would do my own investigation into this to see how these funds were moving via the scam addresses used by the criminals.
After tracing this through a number of proxy addresses myself, I found some of the funds (BTC) linked to the below wallet which holds 25,147.49544844 BTC worth $1,224,001,782.69.
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1NDyJtNTjmwk5xPNhjgAMu4HDHigtobu1s
It was only upon seeing this that I realised the extent of the scam operation likely being used by a network of criminals and exploiting crypto users around the world.
Is there any way we can fight back against these criminals and expose their accounts and exchanges being used, especially when so many people have become vulnerable?
As a side note, the first thing I would say to any and all people exposed to fraud is to follow the appropriate steps - notify your bank and local authorities, and keep track of any and all evidence you have. I do not advise following the steps that I took, I am mainly doing this to highlight the extent of the criminal activity in this case.
I realise what I am highlighting here is might be ludicrous and will remain a mystery forever, but just wanted to highlight the darker side of crypto that goes on at the moment. I would have posted this in r/cryprocurrency too, but I don't have the necessary comment karma (I'm using an alt account for safety).
Edit: I corrected the balance on this wallet to 25,147.49544844 BTC ($1,224,001,782.69) for future reference, but can't change the title unfortunately - an oversight on my part. Also apologies if this seems like 'click-bait', that's not what I intended.
Recently a research team from Google and EPFL proved that attention is not all you need and also proved that pure attention decays in rank doubly exponentially with respect to depth. Here is what researchers did,
- Studied the structure of a basic transformer model by experimenting with main structural elements in Transformer architecture are MLPs ( Multi-Layered Perceptons), Skip connections, Layer Normalization.
- Considered each of the structural elements differently and analyzed the performance of the model.
- They observed that the model heavily relied on short paths. They behaved as if they are ensembles of shallow single head self-attention. MLP helped the model not to converge, and Layer normalization helped in rank collapse. That made the model stronger.
Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.03404.pdf
Github: https://github.com/twistedcubic/attention-rank-collapse
Russian tested an Anti Satellite weapon shedding many objects into LEO disrupting space operations and the ISS. NASA chief Bill Nelson condemns Russian anti-satellite test | Space
China and India have performed similar tests over the past few years. Net result....dicey space debris / FO increase risks to space operations.... US has capability in this area also (F-15, THAD). A good read here: a-history-of-ASAT-programs_lo-res.pdf (ucsusa.org)
Space risks:
- Disruptions to StarLINK
- Disruptions to commercial crew
- Disruptions to future SS operations....especially longer latency refueling operations with SS
Reference: (4) How to Protect Starship from Orbital Debris - is it possible? : SpaceXLounge (reddit.com)
> So we have looked in to this. It's far more complex than first suspected -- EAC has two versions. Non-EOS and EOS (Epic Online Services). Most games historically use Non-EOS EAC. It's the one Vermintide 2 uses as well. Epic only added Proton support for the EOS version of EAC. Therefor in order to implement proton support for Vermintide 2, a huge amount of reworking of the EAC implementation would be required, which may also require all players to authenticate with Epic Online Services as well -- perhaps even logging in to the Epic environment (to be confirmed, however).
> So the "just a few clicks" statement made in the original announcement wasn't entirely accurate, and would only apply to titles using the EOS version of EAC, which simply hasn't been many games aside from either pretty new ones, and likely predominantly Epic exclusive titles.
> We are still looking at what is or isn't going to be possible, but it's not as easy as it was made out to be -- far from it in fact.
> There may be other solutions or workarounds, but ripping out the old EAC and rewriting everything to implement "NuEAC" and potentially asking our entire playerbase to connect through and sign through EOS for an honestly tiny market share that was (and would remain) unsupported from the get go might be a deal breaker.
(apologies if this sounds too vague and brief to properly read into) - Is aware he is wrong but refuses to accepts this. Distorts and creates his own version of events in which he is seemingly innocent or normal and tells this story to friends to gain support. Gains confidence that he is in the right then starts to legitimately believe this (that he is in the right) until this distorted story replaces the real events in his head. Uses this new confidence to attack family once again not realising his recollection of things have been badly warped and that he was in the wrong all along -
This market isn't running on randomness.
It's not a bunch of people randomly throwing darts to decide on trades.
In fact, for the most part, it's not even people.
It's estimated that 70-86% of the trading volume is actually done by bots.
https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2019/08/21/research-crypto-trading-bots/
How do bots work?
They do a lot more than set buy and sell limits, They actually do the analysis of the market data for you.
They do the job of a quantitative analyst. Those mathematicians on Wall Street who figure out how to analyze market data, use statistical analysis to evaluate risk/reward, and crunch that into a trading strategy.
There are also bots there just to influence the market. Sometimes created by traders. It's also suspected that many of the major exchanges use bots on their trading platform. And they are nudging the market and volume as well.
And yes, these bots all take into account support, moving averages, trends, and all that technical analysis that people assume is just astrology.
Call it self-fulfilling, but that's how the majority of the market is trading right now.
Who are these bots?
There's many popular bots for top exchanges like Pionex, Cryptohopper, Trality, Conirule, etc...
Anyone can create a bot. And if you have the money, you can get some really bright people to customize one for you. Whether you're a whale or an exchange.
But the important thing to understand is that there is a pecking order. People with money can potentially prey on the market and on weaker bots, with a more complex bot.
The Whales.
The whales have two advantages. Despite much higher market caps, the current trading volume still gives whales a big advantage at pushing the market.
On top of that, they likely trade with the better trading bots to begin with. And probably use a more Machiavellish approach. When you're at the top of the food chain, Machiavelism seems to be often the best approach to protect your power.
Keep in mind that since 2017, we've had CME futures, and a lot of different ways that traders can short the market.
Whales are no exception.
Why only wait to go up to make money, when you can make money in both directions? Cryp
... keep reading on reddit ➡
Obligatory apology for formatting; on mobile
I've hit the point where I am now gaslighting myself into questioning the seriousness of covid now compared to previously; I have been very supportive of restrictions/precautions (while also trying not to rip my hair out over the ones that make zero sense and completely ignore the fact that the virus is airborne), but lately I'm wondering if things are still as bad now with omicron reportedly being less severe. I think I've just gotten to a point where I'm just too confused and disillusioned with covid and so at this point, I don't even know what is the "right" thing to do as a society anymore.
I just read something on r/Ontario where people shared their personal experiences with working currently, and I would like to hear perspectives of Albertans who are on the front lines of the covid crisis. Is the severity of omicron making any difference or is it heavily outweighed by the contagiousness? Is the system on the verge of collapse? Are nurses quitting all over the place? Is it still primarily unvaccinated in hospital?
The narrative being pushed by the ucp that its not that big of a deal anymore and we just have to live with it has me questioning my sanity, it feels like. I'd really appreciate some perspectives.
Edit:
This was what I needed to help remind me of why it's important to continue with the same attitude that my family and I have had the last 2 years. I think that this feeling like it will never end has been weighing on me, causing me to question if what we are doing is even working anymore. It's a necessary reality check to understand what is happening behind the scenes while our government pretends like things are gonna be alright, just like in the summer. It is very easy to separate oneself from the gravity of the situation when it's not directly affecting you, and it is certainly becoming even easier to develop a sense of apathy--especially towards the (non-exempt) unvaccinated. I don't want to lose my humanity as this crisis continues, and these kinds of comments, while heartbreaking, highlight why it is so vital that we can't just give up and move on while those in the thick of it are busting their asses and sacrificing everything for the rest of us.
Thank you to everyone for sharing, and I sincerely thank all of you for everything that you do. I know that my thanking isn't going to make your days any easier or the trauma you're experiencing any less painful, but I am truly grateful
... keep reading on reddit ➡I've been looking through the FAQs and subreddits and haven't been able to find exactly what I'm looking for (insert U2 joke here).
Obviously there are more transactions than just create_account and payment. I see there are manage_offer, set_options etc.. under 'Recent Operations: Live Network'
https://dashboard.stellar.org/
In the below linked transaction, it looks like someone is offering to buy 700 ETH at 0.000355 XLMs. Am I interpreting that correctly? How/where are offers like this created?
https://stellarchain.io/tx/c297e6c1ea769d6462664f8d91eea98325c18de7c691112c672f712b9e66c6c8
Additionally, in the following transaction, it looks like someone is send JPY, no XLMs involved. How is this being done? Is it possible to store multiple currencies in the Stellar wallet??
https://stellarchain.io/tx/84778026561238e90ad609193f598b8ded805022e7c307d7591480455877f190
This account looks like it holds/has held/will hold multiple currencies. How is this done?
https://stellarchain.io/address/GCMCWPC5FK42HM4VRFTFTYJ4GERVDEXCPREBCNPBDF63IHDPD7DF36CH
If these questions have already been answered, can you point me to right FAQ or Link?
Thanks in advance!
reposting with a more descriptive title and summary, per some requests. This isn't any new information, but with the recent release of the recipients of those emergency repo loans, it did connect some dots with topics I've been interested in - derivatives and leverages loans.
I unfortunately don't have the bandwidth these days to build out a full post with as much detail as I'd like, but I included some papers for further reading at the bottom:
TL;DR: the top banks - the ones who received those emergency loans in 2019 (and 2020, with then continued access 2021) were/ and still are very active and some of the largest firms in the derivatives markets, and some of the largest underwriters and holders of leveraged loans (largely CLOs). Below goes into some more detail. Remember correlation does not equal causation, but the dots aren't super hard to connect when you line everything up. This much leverage exposure requires a healthy balance of solvency and liquidity - when one dries up, or there's too much of one the Fed is forced to step in with either cash (2019/2020) or collateral (2021)
Original Post - just a few totally unrelated tables and papers*:*
so the Fed released some new figures on the repo activity back in Sept. 2019 - when some spikes in overnight rates popped up, and massive repo loans were issued to some of the largest US banks. All prior to covid and all prior to the establishment of the Fed's Repo facilities
Well here are a few fun tables from back in 2019 that might help paint a bigger picture of what may have been an underlying reason for the banks needing those repos.
Here is the direct link to download the transaction data from the Fed, but this is the article that is making waves and prompted this post:
https://preview.redd.it/9ocmemscks981.png?width=1044&format=png&auto=webp&s=4d18353d434b4df22bd50ee5c204b66cc892afe0
now take a look at these, both from the OCC quarterly report (link below):
https://preview.redd.it/c2dr3ixdks981.png?width=2004&format=png&auto=webp&s=4efb0853f9ad1f27cdd5132d634000a69f217c29
https://preview.redd.it/5sewxeneks981.png?width=1484&format=png&auto=webp&s=cf8b9f3d374a5d65e2d6c273f63530985ecb81f5
that's a lot of derivatives exposure... remember all that hoopla about the top 4 banks holding an insane amount of notional derivative value a few months ago? Same report, different month. But
... keep reading on reddit ➡