The autumn series of The 9pm Edict concludes with the implosion of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Our special guest is David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money.
This podcast is an expression of glorious schadenfreude. But we also talk about garlic, Julian Assange and the battle with Scientology, and even Elon Musk.
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Episode Links
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I'm most active at the moment on my blockchain blog, and on Rocknerd, my music webzine.
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Blockchain and cryptocurrency news and analysis by David Gerard
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Bitcoin, blockchains, Ethereum and smart contracts — what these ideas are, why they don’t work in practice, and the sort of people attracted to them.
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Libra was as incompetent as it was arrogant — and the world stopped it in its tracks. But how did Facebook put forward such a bizarre and ill-considered plan, that left every regulator who saw it reeling in horror?
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[16 May 2022] In just 24 hours, billions of dollars have been wiped off the cryptocurrency market in a crash that has seen Bitcoin plummet to its lowest in years.
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[13 May 2022] A massive sell-off of cryptocurrency erased more than $200 billion from the crypto market in a single day with the price of Bitcoin plunging to its lowest level in 16 months. NBC News’ Priscilla Thompson reports on how the sell-off mirrors the overall stock market with investors fleeing over fears of soaring inflation and a possible recession.
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[17 April 2021] The 9pm Autumn Series 2021 continues with blockchain and crypotocurrency realist David Gerard, author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain and Libra Shrugged: How Facebook Tried to Take Over the Money.
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[10 May 2022] Over the last few days, the TerraUSD (UST) algorithmic stablecoin lost its $1.00 peg. Terra’s attempts to rescue UST crashed the price of Bitcoin.
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A Ponzi scheme (/?p?nzi/, Italian: [?pontsi]) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.
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[8 April 2022] The autumn series of The 9pm Edict continues with special guest Greg Muller, a journalist who’s produced, among many things, the podcast documentary series Motherlode, It’s about the early computer hacking scene and the origin story of Julian Assange.
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Introducing Motherlode, a Ranieri & Co. production. The gripping story about the birth of computer hacking from an unlikely centre - Melbourne Australia. It was here teenage boys, and they were mostly boys, hacked into some of the biggest organisations in the world. It’s also where a young hacker, Julian Assange, cut his teeth on computers and went on to develop Wikileaks, the most disruptive website the world has seen. But Wikileaks didn’t just spring up out of nowhere. It was 20 years in the making. Motherlode reveals the technological and political motivations behind it.
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This page maintained by David Gerard.
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A series of incidents in 2009 led to Church of Scientology-owned networks being blocked from making edits to Wikipedia articles relating to Scientology. The Church of Scientology has long had a controversial history on the Internet and had initiated campaigns to manipulate material and remove information critical of itself from the web. From early in Wikipedia's history, conflict arose within the topic of Scientology on the website. Disputes began in earnest in 2005, with users disagreeing about whether or not to describe Scientology as an abusive cult or religion. By 2006, disagreements concerning the topic of Scientology on Wikipedia had grown more specific. Wikipedia user and Scientology critic David Gerard commented to The Daily Telegraph in 2006 that some articles were neutral due to a requirement to reference stated facts
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It is because of the continued existence on the internet of some of the commentary he wrote for these lists in his mid twenties that we can begin to hear, for the first time, the distinctive political voice of Julian Assange. In general, it is intelligent and assured. One of Suburbia’s clients had published some of the Church of Scientology’s holy scriptures. The church threatened legal action against Suburbia. The client, Dave Gerard, fought back. In March 1996, Assange issued an appeal to join an anti-Scientology protest.
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Including "Sexy Bob Katter".
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[19 May 2022] The Drop Founder & CEO Gannon Breslin joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the state of NFTs, the crypto crash, bitcoin dropping below $30,000, and the outlook for digital artists.
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[27 May 2022] Use of the word “billionaire” as a pejorative is morally wrong & dumb.
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As much as it is a big deal to be part of the royal family, it sure is not a piece of cake. There re hundreds of rules and regulations that every member of the royal family has to abide by, and some of them will make you thank your stars that you are not part of it.
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All you have to do is follow your nose to The Stinking Rose, one of San Francisco’s most unique and entertaining dining experiences. Located in the heart of North Beach, San Francisco’s renowned Little Italy, the garlic restaurant has become famous for celebrating the euphoria of garlic. Offering scrumptious, contemporary, California-Italian cuisine prepared and adorned with garlic, there is hearty fare for the truly adventurous, mild for the novice and sans garlic for vampires. “We season our garlic with food”®
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[24 May 2022] Investors are feeling the sting as NFT values crater and the celebrities who endorsed them look on in silence. #Colbert #Comedy #NFT
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[23 May 2022] Bitcoin could drop further and fall to $8,000 from its current levels, Guggenheim Chief Investment Officer Scott Minerd predicted Monday. That would represent a more than 70% drop to Monday morning’s price of just over $30,000.
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[25 May 2022] JP Morgan – one of the largest investment banks on Wall Street – sticks to its previous fair-value target for bitcoin at $38,000, meaning that the asset is currently being traded with a discount. The bank believes BTC could recover stronger than other beaten-down assets because it had fallen far deeper amid the correction period.
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[28 May 2022] The first indication from El Salvador’s extremely online president Nayib Bukele that his country’s experiment with Bitcoin was not going well came the second week of May, in typical fashion, on Twitter. But this time it was uncharacteristically subtle: He briefly removed the red laser eyes from his avi.
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[27 May 2022] 60 Minutes Australia is the most important current affairs show on Australian television. They’re putting together a segment on the crypto crash for Sunday evening, and I spent a morning filming with them.
If they aren’t showing up, try here.
Series Credits
- The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian via The Freesound Project.
- Edict fanfare by neonaeon, via The Freesound Project.
- Elephant Stamp theme by Joshua Mehlman.