Author: admin

Authored by Michael Anton via The American Mind,

Democrats are laying the groundwork for revolution right in front of our eyes…

As if 2020 were not insane enough already, we now have Democrats and their ruling class masters openly talking about staging a coup. You might have missed it, what with the riots, lockdowns and other daily mayhem we’re forced to endure in this, the most wretched year of my lifetime. But it’s happening.

It started with the military brass quietly indicating that the troops should not follow a presidential order. They were bolstered by many former generals—including President Trump’s own first Secretary of Defense—who stated openly what the brass would only hint at. Then, as nationwide riots really got rolling in early June, the sitting Secretary of Defense himself all but publicly told the president not to invoke the Insurrection Act. His implicit message was: “Mr. President, don’t tell us to do that, because we won’t, and you know what happens after that.”

All this enthused Joe Biden, who threw subtlety to the winds.

The former United States Senator (for 26 years) and Vice President (for eight) has not once, not twice, but thrice confidently asserted that the military will “escort [Trump] from the White House with great dispatch” should the president refuse to leave. Another former Vice President, Al Gore, publicly agreed.

One might dismiss such comments as the ravings of a dementia patient and a has-been who never got over his own electoral loss. But before you do, consider also this. Over the summer a story was deliberately leaked to the press of a meeting at which 100 Democratic grandees, anti-Trump former Republicans, and other ruling class apparatchiks got together (on George Soros’s dime) to “game out” various outcomes of the 2020 election. One such outcome was a clear Trump win. In that eventuality, former Bill Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, playing Biden, refused to concede, pressured states that Trump won to send Democrats to the formal Electoral College vote, and trusted that the military would take care of the rest.

The leaked report from the exercise darkly concluded that “technocratic solutions, courts, and reliance on elites observing norms are not the answer here,” promising that what would follow the November election would be “a street fight, not a legal battle.”

Two more data points (among several that could be provided). Over the summer, two former Army officers, both prominent in the Democrat-aligned “national security” think tank world, wrote an open letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in which they urged him to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division to drag President Trump from the Oval Office at precisely 12:01 PM, January 20, 2021.

About a month later, Hillary Clinton declared publicly that Joe Biden should not concede the election “under any circumstances.” The old English major in me interprets the word “any” to mean “no,” “none,” “nada,” “niente,” “zero,” “zilch” “bupkis”…you get the idea.

This doesn’t sound like the rhetoric of a political party confident it will win an upcoming election.

The Cover-Up in Plain Sight

These items are, to repeat, merely a short but representative list of what Byron York recently labeled “coup porn.” York seems to think this is just harmless fantasizing on the part of the ruling class and its Democratic servants. For some of them, no doubt that’s true. But for all of them? I’m not so sure.

In his famously exhaustive discussion of conspiracies, Machiavelli goes out of his way to emphasize the indispensability of “operational security”—i.e., silence—to success. The first rule of conspiracy is, you do not talk about the conspiracy. The second rule of conspiracy is, you do not talk about the conspiracy.

So why are the Democrats—publicly—talking about the conspiracy?

Because they know that, for it to succeed, it must not look like a conspiracy. They need to plant the idea in the public mind, now, that their unlawful and illegitimate removal of President Trump from office will somehow be his fault.

Never mind the pesky detail that the president would refuse to leave only if he were convinced he legitimately won. Remember: Biden should not concede under any circumstances.

The second part of the plan is either to produce enough harvested ballots—lawfully or not—to tip close states, or else dispute the results in close states and insist, no matter what the tally says, that Biden won them. The worst-case scenario (for the country, but not for the ruling class) would be results in a handful of states that are so ambiguous and hotly disputed that no one can rightly say who won. Of course, that will not stop the Democrats from insisting that they won.

The public preparation for that has also already begun: streams of stories and social media posts “explaining” how, while on election night it might look as if Trump won, close states will tip to Biden as all the mail-in ballots are “counted.”

The third piece is to get the vast and loud Dem-Left propaganda machine ready for war. That leaked report exhorted Democrats to identify “key influencers in the media and among local activists who can affect political perceptions and mobilize political action…[who could] establish pre-commitments to playing a constructive role in event of a contested election.” I.e., in blaring from every rooftop that “Trump lost.”

At this point, it’s safe to assume that unless Trump wins in a blowout that can’t be overcome by cheating and/or denied via the ruling class’s massive propaganda operation, that’s exactly what every Democratic politician and media organ will shout.

Stop the Presses

What then? The Podesta assumption is that the military will side with the Dems. There are reasons to fear they might. The Obama administration spent a great deal of political capital purging the officer corps of anyone not down with the program and promoting only those who are.

Still and all, determining the outcome of an election would be the most open political interference possible from our allegedly apolitical military, and it’s plausible that the brass won’t want to make its quiet support of the ruling class agenda that overt. The aforementioned Chairman has already stated that the military will play “no role” in the outcome of the election. That’s probably not a feint, but one wonders if it will hold given the obvious attempt to influence military thinking by people like Jeffrey Goldberg in his recent Atlantic essay.

Can the Dems rely on the Secret Service to drag Trump out? I have my doubts on this one. I’ve seen the Service up close; it really is (or strongly appears to be) apolitical. It has a job to do: protect the president, whoever that is. Officers take that job very seriously. If they don’t believe Trump lost, I don’t think they can be counted on to oust him. On the other hand, were they to believe he did lose and was refusing to leave—a scenario I find impossible to imagine but the Democrats insist is just around the corner—it’s possible the Service might act.

Barring all that, what’s left? Remember that phrase from the Dem war game: “street fight.” In other words, a repeat of this summer, only much, much bigger. Crank the propaganda to ear-drum shattering decibels and fill the streets of every major city with “protesters.” Shut down the country and allow only one message to be heard: “Trump must go.”

I.e., what’s come to be known as a “color revolution,” the exact same playbook the American deep state runs in other countries whose leadership they don’t like and is currently running in Belarus. Oust a leader—even an elected one—through agitation and call it “democracy.”

The events of the last few months may be interpreted as an attempted color revolution that failed to gain enough steam, or as a trial run for the fall.

Is the Trump Administration prepared?

Here’s one thing they could do: play their own “war game” scenario so as to game out possibilities and minimize surprises. They should also be talking to people inside and outside of government whom they absolutely trust to get a clearer sense of who on the inside won’t go along with a coup and who might.

They also need to set up or shore up – now – communication channels that don’t rely on the media or Big Tech. Once the ruling class gives word that the narrative is “Trump lost,” all the president’s social media accounts will be suspended. The T.V. channels, with the likely exception of Fox News, will refuse to cover anything he says. Count on it. He’s going to need a way to talk to the American people and he has to find the means, now.

For the rest of us, the most important thing we can do is raise awareness. If there is a conspiracy to remove President Trump from office even if he wins, they’re telling you about it precisely to get you ready for it, so that when it happens you won’t think it was a conspiracy; you’ll blame the president.

Don’t be fooled.

A few weeks ago, we joked that the people of Wuhan were ‘partying at ground zero’ when a story about a massive pool party to celebrate the end of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak went viral around the world, eliciting frustrated reactions from public officials and social-distancing-obsessed “Karens”. But unlike in the US – where college party goers are being preemptively “scapegoated” while schools defy experts and “science” by sending sick students home en masse since they simply don’t possess the will or, perhaps, the competence, to quarantine them on campus – the Communist Party defended the pool party by arguing that it was a much-needed release for the people of Wuhan.

After suffering through one of the first, and most restrictive, global lockdowns, the people of Wuhan have defeated the virus, a party spokesman said. The party was one of their rewards.

Now, the Financial Times is reporting on the return of the nightlife scene in China. Revelers have returned to China’s nightclubs and bars at a faster pace than perhaps anywhere else in the world. In the US, bars and nightclubs have been closed and blamed for causing the outbreak across the Sun Belt that peaked over the summer. South Korea has also blamed its nightlife for an outbreak that, as it turned out, was largely the result of tests picking up asymptomatic people who were infected elsewhere. 

But in Beijing, partiers have reverted to the pre-pandemic tableau: bars are tightly packed, with revelers wearing little in the way of clothing, and no masks.

The procedure is simple. Revelers must use their smartphones to show their COVID-19 testing status is negative. Then they’re temperatures are taken, before being allowed in. Once inside, they can rest assured that the odds of being infected are minuscule. When asked, several revelers told the FT they felt like they had earned the “freedom to party”.

Analysts of the middle class in China have also bandied about the term “revenge spending”, even as China’s economic collapse was even worse than expected.

“From restrictions [on movement] and shop closures to no restrictions and shops opening, there’s [going] to be a big rebound,” said Tao Wang, chief China economist at UBS in Hong Kong. But while many middle-class professionals are engaging in “revenge spending” after months of being unable to splash the cash, lower-income workers are still suffering.

Economists say China’s economy is stuck in two-track growth, widening the wealth gap. The most conspicuous sign of the return to confidence in China was the giant pool party held last month in Wuhan, the city where the outbreak originated.

One western expert said China’s heavy handed response to the outbreak is one reason its people can enjoy these relatively friction-less events.

Susan Michie, professor of health psychology at University College London, said that for China to have this level of social life whilst keeping transmission low suggested they had the right protective measures in place and a good “test, trace and isolate” system.

“It is a fascinating potential insight into how we could do things differently [in western countries],” Prof Michie added. After Ms Lee returned from the Beidaihe festival, she talked to friends in the US whose lives have still not returned to normal. “Our relative recovery is a result of the strong-handed measures China took, after realising it got it wrong in Wuhan to begin with,” she argued. “It was the right approach.”

As far as the international outcry caused by the Wuhan pool party goes, with many claiming the party was particularly “disrespectful” since China is responsible for allowing the pandemic out of the gate, one party official told the FT that the rest of the world was just jealous.

Mr Luo said he was aware of “bitter comments” from those outside China questioning why people in Wuhan were able to party when they still had to abide by strict social distancing guidelines. There was also resentment on Chinese social media from residents of other cities — some of whom blame Wuhan for its first outbreak. “I think they just can’t make peace with the fact that we Wuhan people are back on our feet,” Mr Luo said. “We’re entitled to a little fun in life, after what’s happened.”

With China’s official infection numbers so low that the outbreak is officially over, China’s young are apparently sufficiently emboldened, and eager to enjoy themselves. It’s almost as if they’ve already been vaccinated…

Authored by Paul Rosenberg via FreemansPerspective.com,

I’ve gone on for a long time about fear making humans stupid, and even about it being a weapon and a brain poison. But I’ve also wondered at times whether people would hit fear-fatigue… that point where people have simply had enough fear and walk out from under it.

As it turns out, however, I was a bit optimistic on fear fatigue. I’ve been reading Robert Sapolsky’s newest book, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best And Worst, and was disappointed to learn what the best new research shows on the long-term application of fear. (Or, in the academic terminology, sustained stress.)

My disappointment, however, was soon tempered by two things:

1. I gained information on how fear poisoning works.

2. That human neurology is immensely variable, that there are exceptions to everything, and that if the whole picture were actually as dark as the most troubling findings, we’d have devolved into nothing but murderous monkeys long ago.

I barely need to say this, but 2020 has been The Year of Fear. I’m a bit amazed by the extent of it. There is a certain appeal to soaking up all the fear stories in normal times – our ability to look evil in the eye makes us appear vibrant – but 2020 has pushed far beyond that level. What we’re encountering is much more than simple fear porn, and there are certain outlets (including websites) that I can only describe as obscene.

This is more destructive than people realize.

What Perpetual Fear Does To Us

I’m going to quote from Sapolsky, who is one of the best neuroscientists of our time. I’ll edit a bit to simplify and to remove the brain-area references, and will follow the passages with a few elaborations.

“During sustained stress, we’re more fearful, our thinking is muddled, we assess risks poorly, and act impulsively out of habit, rather than incorporating new data.”

Under a long stream of fear (like scary headlines), our thinking breaks down. Let me put that very simply: You may be very bright in essence, but when you consume hours of fear every day, you become stupid. And please understand: This is biological. Your brain operations become those of a stupid person. (And yes, I’m using “stupid” very unscientifically.)

Also bear in mind that fear works. The people selling fear on TV, web pages and social media are being rewarded for it. They have become, using my terms loosely but not unfairly, drug dealers, selling damaging material that people become dependent upon. Moreover, these are professionals. Social media companies are fully aware that their business models depend upon people being addicted to them. They are careful to keep them addicted.

The fears people consume, then, are coming to them from people who are cashing in from it.

“Stress weakens connections that are essential for incorporating new information that should prompt shifting to a new strategy – while strengthening connections with habitual brain circuits.”

In other words, fear locks you into your habits and your previous choices.

It literally diminishes the brain pathways that allow you to change your mind.

This is serious, and I suspect that you’ve seen examples of this already.

“Under sustained stress we process emotionally prominent information rapidly and automatically, but less accurately. Working memory, impulse control, decision-making, risk-assessment and task shifting are impaired.”

Again, prolonged fear locks people into whatever path they’re already on. And again, this is biological. The brain circuits are directly affected.

Still…

From everything I’ve written above (and there are other nasty effects like domestic violence), it would appear that we are doomed; that our neighbors who’ve drunk deep from the river of fear are brain-locked, and so long as the fear stream continues (there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight), they will get more and more rigid in their biases, and that violence will continue and increase.

And for some people all of the above will be true. Fear destroys in the most direct way: biologically.

Still… biology is never simple, and especially on the human level. While the things above are generally true, there are always exceptions; sometimes a lot of them. And it is those exceptions that have saved us, time after time.

The wages of perpetual fear are polarized and locked minds. And that leads to knee-jerk opposition, violence and murder. We’re seeing that now and we stand to see it for some time. The world, it seems, has become addicted to fear.

And yet, many of us refuse, and this is a long way from over.

There was a party in my neighborhood two days ago: Music, talking, playing, laughing and so on. It was the first joyful noise I’ve heard in public for a long time.

Life finds a way, and especially human life.

Citizens around the country are hurriedly working out ways to try and prevent their local police from falling victim to the ridiculous demands of “defunding” being pushed by Marxist social justice groups and socialist politicians across the country.

The Texas Attorney General appears to have come up with one such solution: enact legislation that puts Austin’s police under state control. 

Governor Greg Abbott is considering the legislation, according to Attorney General Ken Paxton. The move comes in response to Austin’s Mayor, Steve Adler, seeking to defund $150 million from the Austin Police Department. 

Paxton told Fox News: “That makes little to no sense and makes our city less safe. We can fund the police in a way that will keep the city safe, which is what we all want.”

Abbott Tweeted about the proposal late last week: “We can’t let Austin’s defunding & disrespect for law enforcement to endanger the public & invite chaos like in Portland and Seattle.”

Mayor Steve Adler has blamed President Trump for the unrest in the city. The city’s council issued a vote of “no confidence” in the city’s police leadership back in June to try and spur changes to end police violence against people of color – none of which appeared to be an issue in Austin. 

“I think they’re appeasing left-wing radicals who think this is a good idea,” Paxton concluded. 

Local NBC affiliate KXAN also covered the story:

Authored by John Tamny via RealClearMarkets.com,

There are so many reasons to celebrate the United States of America. Thankfully too many reasons to celebrate what’s spectacular. Countless books, articles and songs speak to this happy truth. In that case, this write-up will lightly cover just three of many reasons to cheer what rates a routine standing ovation.

The U.S. is defined by fierce individualism. Sorry, but we’re not “all in this together” in the Land of the Free. In truth, the inspiring idea that led to the U.S. was the rather novel notion that a very limited government would exist to protect the rights of individuals to live as they want. People would be free to conform, rebel, or somewhere in between so long as their pursuits didn’t trample on the rights of others.

Crucial is that this elevation of a “live and let live” ethos proved a magnet for the world’s strivers. They risked it all, including crossing oceans, for the chance to be a part of a great American experiment rooted in freedom. The ability to live and think freely overwhelmed the very real possibility that they would die before getting the chance to.

All of which speaks to another reason to celebrate America: its very existence rejects so much conventional wisdom. For the purposes of this piece, the narrow focus will be on why the U.S. mocks all the hand wringing about inequality, and the laughable contention that the gap between the rich and poor harms the poor.

The United States is living proof of why this isn’t true. Indeed, it would be hard to find a country more wealth unequal than the United States. To be fair, massive inequality was the U.S. design. See fierce individualism yet again. If the individual right to freedom of thought and action was going to be protected, it was only natural that some courageous enough to take their talents here would achieve in amazing ways. And so they have. Great wealth has always defined the U.S., and it does to this day.

Yet the world’s poorest keep risking it all to get here, don’t they? Ronald Reagan used to say something along the lines of “facts are stubborn things,” and the facts are that the world’s poorest continue to flock to what is one of the world’s most unequal countries. That they do thoroughly wrecks the popular narrative that wealth inequality harms the poor, and/or that they’re inflamed by it. In truth, they take huge risks in order to live and work where inequality is greatest.

If anyone doubts the above assertion, consider where the poorest Americans migrate to once they’re in the U.S. It’s rarely Buffalo, Flint and Jackson, but often New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. That’s the case given the basic truth that opportunity is greatest where the density of superrich is greatest.

It’s not just that the mass production of former luxuries by the rich (think cars, air conditioners, mobile phones, and computers) lifts our living standards in incredible ways, it’s also that the location of their innovations tends to be where other talented people cluster, only for the range of work options that lift all manner of skill sets to explode. The U.S. is a magnet for the world’s strivers because of its elevation of freedom, and freedom logically correlates with wondrous inequality as varied talents are free to showcase them in endless ways.

Which brings us to the third reason to celebrate the United States: its appeal to those with natural “get up and go” means that it’s the epicenter of entrepreneurialism. Think about it.

The U.S. is in so many ways separated from the old world of Europe and Asia. In an historical sense, it’s the distant new world. The act of leaving the past behind in pursuit of freedom and opportunity (as opposed to security) in the United States is and was the ultimate entrepreneurial act. Imagine leaving the known for a country that offers freedom, but not much else. Such a country would naturally attract the motivated, the visionary, the dreamers….

Having attracted those willing to risk it all just to taste freedom, it’s no surprise that so many Americans and their descendants have risked it all in a commercial sense. Populated by the motivated, those same motivated people regularly channel their herculean energy into creating new ways of doing things.

As a nation of people from “somewhere else,” these entrepreneurial wanderers restless in their search for better relentlessly bring the future into the present. Crucial is that they’re able to rush tomorrow to today precisely because they’re able to express their intrepid nature in a country that exists specifically to protect their right to do just that.

In short, it’s no speculation to say that the late Steve Jobs, who descended from Syrian immigrants, could never have created Apple in Damascus. Neither could Andrew Carnegie have revolutionized the steel industry in Dunfermline. The U.S. is where energetic dreamers become entrepreneurs precisely because the U.S. is where those who see the future differently are free to show why it will be different.

Thank goodness for the U.S. and its design that enables wondrous human flourishing. If the U.S. didn’t exist now, it would have to be invented so that a still primitive planet could be propelled into the future by human capital formerly suffocated by a world that cruelly lacked its most essential country. Let’s celebrate the U.S. indeed.

China recently launched the “Clean Plate Campaign,” which targets people wasting food, as speculation of a worldwide food shortage mounts. 

President Xi Jinping has pushed new measures to curb food waste following the virus pandemic, calling those who live stream their eating experiences on social media as “shocking and distressing.” 

Too strict or not strict enough? A recent @CNN article says the “authoritarian” China wants to control what people eat with its new “clean plate” campaign, but also suggests the campaign isn’t specific enough. It’s too confusing! Seems like China can do no right! pic.twitter.com/RRDZLmFo98

— LIU Xin (@LiuXininBeijing) September 4, 2020

Jinping said China had to “maintain a sense of crisis about food security” amid the virus pandemic. The warning comes as the world’s second-largest economy could soon face food shortages. Besides the virus-induced economic downturn disrupting food supply chains, there’s been droughts, floods, and pests that are likely to result in poor harvests this year.

Chinese state news agency, the Global Times, downplayed the notion China is headed for a food crisis. Some restaurants in China have limited the number of dishes served to diners, while others have weighed customers before ordering. 

Estimates show China wastes enough food to feed 30 to 50 million people per year, according to a study published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the World Wildlife Fund in China. The government’s abrupt crackdown on food waste suggests a shortage could be nearing: 

But the campaign [Clean Plate Campaign] has raised speculation China could be facing a food shortage, although state media outlets were quick to try and stop the panic of imminent food shortages, reporting that China had recently seen consecutive bumper grain harvests and record high grain output.

As living standards have raised, so has consumption. Obesity levels have soared and China was estimated to waste enough food in a year to feed a country the size of South Korea.

But with the pandemic already cutting consumption levels, China’s options to quell any shortages domestically were limited.

Subsidising production could fall foul of World Trading Organisation rules which could heighten tensions with the US.

This would mean China, already the world’s largest importer of food, would need to look to increase imports to meet demand.

This could then have a ripple effect on prices all around the globe. –Farmers Guardian 

Adapt 2030’s David DuByne offers an alternative view of what could be causing weather disruptions that are pressuring worldwide food supply chains. He said the reduction in the Sun’s energy output over the coming solar cycles will have profound changes on the Earth’s climate and may result in poorer harvests. 

DuByne said, “food production globally” won’t be able to feed everybody and already cracks in food supply chains are showing up in China…

China now admits there is a food crisis and the same week the US agricultural department begins to buy surplus crops from farmers to stock food banks. Cosmic rays are increasing to levels not measured since the Dalton Minimum in 1810. -DuByne

Video: You Are Being Trained for Food Shortages 

Readers may recall the United Nations warned in late Aug. that billions of dollars in emergency funds are needed to prevent an emerging “famine of biblical proportions” that threatens much of the world.  

Food shortages would ultimately result in soaring food price inflation. Something that would make the Federal Reserve excited, considering its new shift in monetary policy, has paved the way for inflation to run well above the 2% target. As we pointed out in 2011, the Fed has argued that rising food prices are not a concern considering technology prices are becoming cheaper. 

As we explained in 2014, the cost of living is getting a lot more expensive for households. Take a low-income household with folks working low-wage-paying jobs; years of rising food, shelter, education, and healthcare costs, have left them in a precarious situation of no savings and insurmountable debts. 

And the one thing central bankers cannot print is food – if shortages in China and or elsewhere become more serious, resulting in out of control spikes in food prices as the virus pandemic and economic downturn continues, then there’s going to be a lot of hangry people around the world. It’s only then when the next round of global protests could overwhelm governments and central bankers, as they realize “you can’t eat an iPad.”

A global reset is ahead. 

Authored by Robert Stephens via Decrypt.co,

Criminals could use “Exclusive mining” to pass off their money laundering as Bitcoin mining income…

In brief

• Exclusive mining could be used to launder Bitcoin.

• It works by only allowing certain miners to process transaction fees.

• It could also be used to start a whole industry around exclusive mining.

Researchers at the Blockchain Research Lab in Hamburg have outlined a new way to launder money on the blockchain: “Exclusive mining.” 

Here’s how exclusive mining works, according to the paper by Dr. Elias Strehle of the Blockchain Research Lab and Lennar Ante of the University of Hamburg, published on Friday: 

Someone places a transaction through a private channel and gives a single miner, or mining pool, the exclusive right to confirm that transaction and earn cryptocurrency as a reward. These are added to the blockchain, just like regular transactions.

This is different from what usually happens: if someone makes a Bitcoin transfer, everyone on the network can take a shot at mining it to earn their reward of Bitcoin. 

Strehle told Decrypt that he is not the first to come up with the concept, but that his research is the first time it has been described in an academic paper.

How could exclusive mining be used by criminals?

So, how can the technology, as the paper mentions, be used for “camouflaging wealth transfers as transaction costs to evade taxes or launder money”?

Imagine that you’re a darknet drug baron and you need to launder your millions of Bitcoin. You send some Bitcoin to an exclusive miner – that you control – and get that miner to charge an absurdly high transaction fee.

Then the exclusive miner takes the Bitcoin they received as a reward for processing this expensive transaction to a cryptocurrency exchange and swaps it for fiat currency. It looks legitimate since it’s income earned from Bitcoin mining. Then the exclusive miner gives the fiat currency to the mafia boss. 

And the money trail disappears. 

The researchers say that exclusive mining is pretty difficult to detect and can’t easily be solved—it is here to stay. 

But is it likely to be used by money launderers? 

“I have not come across [it],” Rich Sanders, CEO of blockchain investigations firm CipherBlade, told Decrypt.

“I’ve come across mining services as a laundering methodology, but it is FAR less technically complex – it’s more like a deposit to [mining pool] NiceHash, which, from a functional perspective, will be equivalent to a deposit at an exchanger (trading one coin for another for chain-hopping),” he said, adding that it’s an “interesting” technique but one more likely to be employed by sophisticated users.

“This isn’t going to be a route, say, a divorcee is going to use – at least, not now. It’s way too technical, so unless someone makes a turnkey solution, I doubt we’ll see much of it.” 

Legitimate uses for exclusive mining

There are other, legitimate uses for exclusive mining, said Strehle. It opens up a whole new market for private mining: Imagine if you paid a miner a flat fee to process your transaction to get around volatile mining costs or to ensure that none of your miners go rogue and try and mess with the blockchain.

“My gut feeling is that this will become more and more important as block rewards go down on Bitcoin and Ethereum and miners will increasingly have to find other ways of securing their income,” said Strehle. Becoming the exclusive miner of an exchange could be good for business. 

Once again during a period of slight market volatility, Robinhood users found themselves unable to access their platform more than once during the beginning of last week.

It was deja vu from when the market was crashing due to Covid-19 earlier this year and traders couldn’t login to their accounts. Except this time, the outages weren’t triggered by market crashes. They were triggered by Apple and Tesla splitting their stock, according to a new article by Bloomberg. 

The influx of trading that occurred as a result of the splits sparked problems at Robinhood (and at Schwab) after the cash open on Monday. Other platforms, like TD Ameritrade, also had difficulty Monday morning.

Robinhood had to deal with a technical problem that caused delays to customer order status updates, though it maintains its entire platform didn’t wind up going down and there was no “system-wide” issues. The stock splits “exacerbated” the issues, the report says.

 

Schwab said it had changed the storage systems it uses to display price quotes recently, which caused the error on Monday after increased volume in Apple and Tesla. A Schwab spokesperson told Bloomberg: “We have handled far greater volumes than we experienced on Monday as demonstrated by our site performance, which is at over 99.9% for the year.”

A TD spokesperson said the issues on Monday were “completely unrelated” to the stock split. So, it was just a coincidence that TD went down on the same day all these other brokerages did, then?

Regardless, Robinhood needs to make sure it keeps its customer orders working smoothly. It is, after all, how they make their money. 

Recall in late July, we detailed how Robinhood was making $90 million by selling its order flow. This followed up on our September 2018 article where we were first to unveil how Robinhood was selling its order flow to HFT clients.