Tag: facebook

Didn’t Take Long To Reveal The UK’s Online Safety Act Is Exactly The Privacy-Crushing Failure Everyone Warned About

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 22:25:41 +0000

Well, well, well. The “age assurance” part of the UK’s Online Safety Act has finally gone into effect, with its age checking requirements kicking in a week and a half ago. And what do you know? It’s turned out to be exactly the privacy-invading, freedom-crushing, technically unworkable disaster that everyone with half a brain predicted it would be.

Let’s start with the most obvious sign that this law is working exactly as poorly as critics warned: VPN usage in the UK has absolutely exploded. Proton VPN reported an 1,800% spike in UK sign-ups. Five of the top ten free apps on Apple’s App Store in the UK are VPNs. When your “child safety” law’s primary achievement is teaching kids how to use VPNs to circumvent it, maybe you’ve missed the mark just a tad.

But the real kicker is what content is now being gatekept behind invasive age verification systems. Users in the UK now need to submit a selfie or government ID to access:

Reddit communities about stopping drinking and smoking, periods, craft beers, and sexual assault support, not to mention documentation of war
Spotify for music videos tagged as 18+
War footage and protest videos on X
Wikipedia is threatening to limit access in the UK (while actively challenging the law)

Yes, you read that right. A law supposedly designed to protect children now requires victims of sexual assault to submit government IDs to access support communities. People struggling with addiction must undergo facial recognition scans to find help quitting drinking or smoking. The UK government has somehow concluded that access to basic health information and peer support networks poses such a grave threat to minors that it justifies creating a comprehensive surveillance infrastructure around it.

The Wikipedia situation is particularly telling. When an educational encyclopedia that hosts over seven million articles and sees five edits per second calls your law unworkable, maybe it’s time to reconsider?

And this is all after a bunch of other smaller websites and forums shut down earlier this year when other parts of the law went into effect.

This is exactly what happens when you regulate the internet as if it’s all just Facebook and Google. The tech giants can absorb the compliance costs, but everyone else gets crushed.

The only websites with the financial capacity to work around the government’s new regulations are the ones causing the problems in the first place. And now Meta, which already has a monopoly on a number of near-essential online activities (from local sales to university group chats), is reaping the benefits. Thousands of hamster enthusiasts are likely flooding onto Instagram as we speak, ready to be redirected into black holes of miscellaneous “content” they never asked for in the first place. The exact nature of this content is of no corporate concern. The only service rendered is to advertisers, whose pleas are helpfully interspersed between posts and videos. The people running the platform do not care what you logged on for and whether you got it.

Compare this to the beleaguered Hamster Forum. No venture capital is involved – the website was run by passionate hobbyists. They clubbed together with the express purpose of disseminating rodent intel to the people who searched for it. If its users really do move over to Instagram, they’ll find their photos and advice trapped behind a login wall, where they will only benefit other net contributors to Zuckerberg’s growing empire. Their pets will make Meta richer – cute videos are an asset if you’re trying to suck consumers into an infinite behavioural loop that only benefits you. Perhaps most unfairly, the forum’s hamster owners will have to live on the terms of people who are totally indifferent to the value of their time and knowledge.

The age verification process itself is a privacy nightmare wrapped in security theater. Users are being asked to upload selfies that get run through facial recognition algorithms, or hand over copies of their government-issued IDs to third-party companies. The facial recognition systems are so poorly implemented that people are easily fooling them with screenshots from video games—literally using images from the video game Death Stranding. This isn’t just embarrassing, it reveals the fundamental security flaw at the heart of the entire system. If these verification methods can’t distinguish between a real person and a video game character, what confidence should we have in their ability to protect the sensitive biometric data they’re collecting?

But here’s the thing: even when these systems “work,” they’re creating massive honeypots of personal data. As we’ve seen repeatedly, companies collecting biometric data and ID verification inevitably get breached, and suddenly intimate details about people’s online activity become public. Just ask the users of Tea, a women’s dating safety app that recently exposed thousands of users’ verification selfies after requiring facial recognition for “safety.”

The UK government’s response to widespread VPN usage has been predictably authoritarian. First, they insisted nothing would change:

“The Government has no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act, and is working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections.”

But then, Tech Secretary Peter Kyle deployed the classic authoritarian playbook: dismissing all criticism as support for child predators. This isn’t just intellectually dishonest—it’s a deliberate attempt to shut down legitimate policy debate by smearing critics as complicit in child abuse. It’s particularly galling given that the law Kyle is defending will do absolutely nothing to stop actual predators, who will simply migrate to unregulated platforms or use the same VPNs that law-abiding citizens are now flocking to.

Let’s be crystal clear about what this law actually accomplishes: It makes it harder for adults to access perfectly legal (and often helpful) information and services. It forces people to create detailed trails of their online activity linked to their real identities. It drives users toward less secure platforms and services. It destroys small online communities that can’t afford compliance costs. And it teaches an entire generation that bypassing government surveillance is a basic life skill.

Meanwhile, the actual harms it purports to address? Those remain entirely unaddressed. Predators will simply move to unregulated platforms, encrypted messaging, or services that don’t comply. Or they’ll just use VPNs. The law creates the illusion of safety while actually making everyone less secure.

This is what happens when politicians decide to regulate technology they don’t understand, targeting problems they can’t define, with solutions that don’t work. The UK has managed to create a law so poorly designed that it simultaneously violates privacy, restricts freedom, harms small businesses, and completely fails at its stated goal of protecting children.

And all of this was predictable. Hell, it was predicted. Civil society groups, activists, legal experts, all warned of these results and were dismissed by the likes of Peter Kyle as supporting child predators.

Yet every criticism, every warning, every prediction about this law’s failures has come to pass within days of implementation. The only question now is how long it will take for the UK government to admit what everyone else already knows: the Online Safety Act is an unmitigated disaster that makes the internet less safe for everyone.

A petition set up on the UK government’s website demanding a repeal of the entire OSA received many hundreds of thousands of signatures within days. The government has already brushed it off with more nonsense, promising that the enforcer of the law, Ofcom, “will take a sensible approach to enforcement with smaller services that present low risk to UK users, only taking action where it is proportionate and appropriate, and will focus on cases where the risk and impact of harm is highest.”

But that’s a bunch of vague nonsense that doesn’t take into account that no platform wants to be on the receiving end of such an investigation, and thus will take these overly aggressive steps to avoid scrutiny.

The whole thing is a mess and yet another embarrassment for the UK. And they were all warned about it, while insisting these concerns were exaggerations.

But this isn’t just about the UK—it’s a cautionary tale for every democracy grappling with how to regulate the internet. The OSA proves that when politicians prioritize looking tough over actually solving problems, the result is legislation that harms everyone it claims to protect while empowering the very forces it claims to constrain.

What makes this particularly tragic is that there were genuine alternatives. Real child safety measures—better funding for mental health support, improved education programs, stronger privacy protections that don’t require mass surveillance—were all on the table. Instead, the UK chose the path that maximizes government control while minimizing actual safety.

The rest of the world should take note.

Meta Faces Scrutiny Over AI Prompt Disclosure

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 22:15:45 +0000

Meta is under criticism for privacy practices across two of its platforms.

[contact-form-7]

Meta’s artificial intelligence assistant may publicly share user prompts, and its apps may have exploited a technical loophole to track Android users without their knowledge, CPO Magazine reported.

Meta’s AI app introduced a pop-up warning that content entered by users — including personal or sensitive information — may be publicly shared, per a June 20 report. It seems these prompts can be published in the “Discover” feed. The feature, which launched earlier this year, showcases AI-generated content and occasionally displays user-submitted prompts, some of which have included private data such as legal documents, personal identifiers and even apparently audio of minors.

Although users can opt out, the setting is enabled by default, and users must manually disable it, the report said. Privacy advocates argue that no other major chatbot service offers a comparable mechanism that proactively republishes private inputs.

Consumers already have privacy concerns around generative AI. The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Generation AI: Why Gen Z Bets Big and Boomers Hold Back” found that 36% of generative AI users are nervous about these platforms sharing or misusing their personal information, and 33% of non-users are kept from adopting the technology because of the same hesitations.

Separately, Meta may have taken advantage of an Android system vulnerability known as “Local Mess” to harvest web browsing data, per a June 17 CPO Magazine report. The loophole, involving the mobile operating system’s localhost address, potentially allowed Meta and Russian tech company Yandex to listen in on users and correlate their behavior across apps and websites. The tech giants may have been able to do this even when users were browsing in incognito mode or using other privacy protections. This data could be linked to a user’s Meta account or Android Advertising ID.

Meta has since halted sending data to localhost, characterizing the issue as a miscommunication with Google’s policy framework. Privacy watchdogs and experts say both cases could trigger regulatory action in the European Union and other jurisdictions.

Meta is already facing legal action over its privacy practices in an $8 billion lawsuit concerning alleged data misuse.

Google, for its part, is scheduled to appear in court later this month for allegedly violating the privacy of both Android and non-Android mobile phone service users.

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.

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Billionaire Ray Dalio Calls for Overhaul of US Government Economic Data Estimates Amid BLS Controversy

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 22:01:44 +0000

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio says the US government needs to rethink how it comes up with its economic data.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, because of a large downward revision of job numbers.

On Friday, the BLS revised down the job growth figures for June from 147,000 to 14,000, a 90% drop.

Figures for May were also revised down from 144,000 to 19,000, bringing the combined two-month downward revision to 258,000 jobs.

Some analysts at US banks began citing the data as possible evidence suggesting the economy was slowing down and flashing potential recession signals.

Despite the controversy over firing the BLS Commissioner, in a post on the social media platform X, Ray Dalio says he would have fired her, too.

“I probably would have fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics too.

That’s because its process for making estimates is obviously obsolete and error-prone, and there is no good plan in the works for fixing it. The huge revisions in Friday’s employment numbers are symptomatic of this, especially because the revisions brought the numbers toward private estimates that were in fact much better.

I assure you that this is something that I know a lot about because of how I use data to follow the economy and bet on where it’s going.”

Dalio says if Trump indeed fired the BLS chief purely for political reasons, that may be a “big problem.”

Therefore, the investor says, “It would be good if President Trump made his thinking clear.”

“In any case, we do need big renovations to the ways the government estimates what’s going on in the economy to make them more, not less, accurate.”

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Peter Thiel-Backed Crypto Exchange Bullish Files for $4,230,000,000 IPO: Report

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 19:55:55 +0000

A crypto exchange backed by billionaire investor Peter Thiel is seeking to file for an initial public offering (IPO) worth over $4.2 billion.

According to a new Reuters report, the billionaire-backed Bullish is targeting a $4.23 billion valuation for its upcoming US IPO.

Bullish reportedly plans to invest many of the IPO funds in US-dollar-backed stablecoins.

Bullish plans to offer 20.3 million shares priced between $28-$31, seeking up to $629 million.

The news comes on the heels of another Thiel-backed firm, BitMine, announcing that it has accumulated over $3 billion worth of the second-largest crypto asset by market cap, becoming the largest Ethereum (ETH) treasury company in the world.

The company’s newly appointed chairman of the board of directors, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, says that BitMine is well on its way to achieving its goal of acquiring and staking 5% of the total supply of ETH.

BitMine seeks to become the MicroStrategy of Ethereum. The software company now known as Strategy already holds 601,000 BTC, worth approximately $72 billion, or around 2.865% of the total supply of the flagship cryptocurrency.

“Among Bitcoin treasury companies, we have witnessed the reflexive benefit of acquiring large holdings… Such sizable holdings have created a ‘sovereign put’ for the company, meaning a nation-state views MSTR holdings as attractive if a nation ever wanted to acquire 5% of the Bitcoin network. Similarly, ETH Treasuries, which accumulate 5% of ETH supply, can benefit from a similar ‘Wall Street put.’”

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ChatGPT will ‘better detect’ mental distress after reports of it feeding people’s delusions

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 19:36:56 +0000

OpenAI, which is expected to launch its GPT-5 AI model this week, is making updates to ChatGPT that it says will improve the AI chatbot’s ability to detect mental or emotional distress. To do this, OpenAI is working with experts and advisory groups to improve ChatGPT’s response in these situations, allowing it to present “evidence-based resources when needed.”

In recent months, multiple reports have highlighted stories from people who say their loved ones have experienced mental health crises in situations where using the chatbot seemed to have an amplifying effect on their delusions. OpenAI rolled back an update in April that made ChatGPT too agreeable, even in potentially harmful situations. At the time, the company said the chatbot’s “sycophantic interactions can be uncomfortable, unsettling, and cause distress.”

OpenAI acknowledges that its GPT-4o model “fell short in recognizing signs of delusion or emotional dependency” in some instances. “We also know that AI can feel more responsive and personal than prior technologies, especially for vulnerable individuals experiencing mental or emotional distress,” OpenAI says.

As part of efforts to promote “healthy use” of ChatGPT, which now reaches nearly 700 million weekly users, OpenAI is also rolling out reminders to take a break if you’ve been chatting with the AI chatbot for a while. During “long sessions,” ChatGPT will display a notification that says, “You’ve been chatting a while — is this a good time for a break?” with options to “keep chatting” or end the conversation.

OpenAI notes that it will continue tweaking “when and how” the reminders show up. Several online platforms, such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and even Xbox, have launched similar notifications in recent years. The Google-owned Character.AI platform has also launched safety features that inform parents which bots their kids are talking to after lawsuits accused its chatbots of promoting self-harm.

Another tweak, rolling out “soon,” will make ChatGPT less decisive in “high-stakes” situations. That means when asking ChatGPT a question like “Should I break up with my boyfriend?” the chatbot will help walk you through potential choices instead of giving you an answer.

Quant Analyst PlanB Predicts Contrarian $300,000 Bitcoin Price Target – Here’s His Timeline

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 18:41:40 +0000

Widely followed quant analyst PlanB is taking an opposing view to most traders about the chances of Bitcoin (BTC) reaching $300,000.

In a new strategy session, pseudonymous BTC analyst PlanB tells his 216,000 YouTube subscribers that while most market participants don’t expect BTC to reach $300,000 by the end of 2026, he does.

“Now, 60% of people think that Bitcoin will not reach $300,000 by the end of 2026 – that’s this line, one and a half years from now. So, by the end of next year, this is the $300,000 point. Sixty percent of people think we’re not going to get there. In my opinion, we will. In fact, I think we’ll go a little higher, to the stock-to-flow target of $500,000 on average.

That’s a very rough model, of course, based on scarcity and the stock-to-flow ratio. It has a range of $250,000 to $1 million, so the average could be $300,000 or $600,000. That’s all good, but at the very least, it will be higher than what most people think.”

The stock-to-flow model is a predictive tool that assumes the scarcity of a commodity drives the price. While originally created to track traditional commodities, PlanB was the first to apply it to Bitcoin.

The analyst is also watching Bitcoin’s realized price indicator, which looks at what price certain cohorts of coins were last transacted on-chain, divided by the number of bitcoins in circulation. Given that the price of BTC is above all the major cohorts, PlanB says there are no signs of a bear market to be seen.

“Now, that’s classic bull market behavior, right? You can see that in all bull markets – the 2-year is above the realized, the 6-month is above the 2-year, and then Bitcoin, represented by the red dots, is above them all.

So there’s no bear market warning signs whatsoever.”

BTC is worth $115,043 at time of writing, up 1% on the day.

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Rich Dad Poor Dad Author Warns ‘August Curse’ Could Trigger Deep Bitcoin Crash, Vows to 2x His BTC Position at This Price Level

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 18:05:45 +0000

Best-selling author Robert Kiyosaki is warning that Bitcoin (BTC) may have a deep correction this month for one main reason.

In a post on the social media platform X, the Rich Dad Poor Dad author tells his 2.8 million followers that Bitcoin may dip below $90,000 this month based on Bitcoin’s historical trend of performing poorly in August – something he refers to as the “August Curse.”

However, Kiyosaki says he will make a massive Bitcoin purchase if its current value declines by more than 21%.

“Bitcoin curse: will the Bitcoin ‘August curse’ crash Bitcoin’s price to below $90,000? I hope so.

I enjoyed an exciting educational summer attending ‘The Collective’ and ‘Limitless Financial’ education event, learning about what lies ahead with speakers such as Larry Lepard, Jim Rickards and other stock, bond, real estate, gold, silver and Bitcoin geniuses – Rickards, Brent Johnson and many other real teachers who practice what they teach, unlike fake school teachers who have no idea what they teach.

If the Bitcoin ‘August curse’ hits and Bitcoin crashed, I stand by to 2x my position today. The problem is not Bitcoin. The real problem is our multi-trillion dollar debt and incompetent PhDs running ‘the swamp,’ the Fed and our Treasury. The Bitcoin ‘August curse’ will make most Bitcoin investors richer.”

Bitcoin is trading for $114,973 at time of writing, up marginally on the day.

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Tom Lee’s BitMine Abruptly Accumulates $3,030,000,000 of Ethereum (ETH) in New Altcoin Treasury Strategy

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 15:11:46 +0000

One of the first public companies to test an Ethereum treasury strategy has rapidly accumulated more than $3 billion of the second-largest crypto asset by market cap.

BitMine says it has rapidly stockpiled the largest Ethereum treasury in the world, now holding 833,000 ETH worth more than $3.03 billion at time of publishing.

Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee, who is now the Chairman of BitMine’s board of directors, says the firm is pushing to acquire 5% of the circulating supply of Ethereum, which would be about 6,035,480 ETH.

“BitMine moved with lightning speed in its pursuit of the ‘alchemy of 5%’ of ETH growing our ETH holdings to over 833,000 from zero 35 days ago.

We have separated ourselves among crypto treasury peers by both the velocity of raising crypto NAV per share and by the high liquidity of our stock.”

BitMine calls itself a Bitcoin and Ethereum network company focused on buying crypto for the long term, acquired by BTC mining proceeds and capital raises.

The firm’s mining operations are centered in Trinidad as well as Murray, Kentucky, Pecos, Texas and Silverton, Texas.

ETH is priced at $3,641 at time of publishing, up 4.02% in the last 24 hours.

Featured Image: Shutterstock/Tithi Luadthong/NEWAY 3D

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Apu Is Now Live for Trading on Hyperliquid

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 14:50:58 +0000

August 4, 2025 – Helsinki, Finland

Apu Apustaja (APU), a cross-chain memecoin, has announced that its native token is now available for spot trading on Hyperliquid, a leading fully on-chain orderbook exchange.

Hyperliquid currently facilitates billions in daily trading volume and manages over $7 billion in TVL (total value locked).

The addition of APU marks the first memecoin from ‘Murad’s List’ to be bridged directly from Ethereum to the Hyperliquid ecosystem, utilizing LayerZero’s cross-chain messaging infrastructure.

Technical milestone and cross-chain expansion

Unlike synthetic assets or wrapped versions, the APU token maintains its native supply integrity through a direct Ethereum-to-Hyperliquid bridge.

This deployment introduces spot trading immediately, without the need for a perpetual-only beta phase.

APU is now available natively on Ethereum, Solana, Base and Hyperliquid.

FlowDesk, alongside automated arbitrage systems and ecosystem participants, will help maintain price parity across chains.

This integration places APU within a high-performance trading environment built to support 100,000 transactions per second and designed for institutional-grade capital routing.

Background on Hyperliquid

Hyperliquid is an on-chain orderbook protocol that offers centralized exchange-like functionality while preserving the transparency of DeFi (decentralized finance).

Its infrastructure is optimized for high throughput, low latency and deep liquidity aggregation.

The platform has become an increasingly prominent venue for active crypto traders, with a focus on speed, capital efficiency and transparency.

Deployment timeline and operations

The listing was coordinated by Alexander Levin, Jr., recently appointed director of operations at Apu Apustaja.

Under his oversight, the Ethereum-to-Hyperliquid deployment was completed in under three weeks, streamlining cross-chain migration and consolidating key stakeholders.

This effort followed extended delays prior to his involvement and is part of a broader operational overhaul within the APU ecosystem.

Quote from APU operations

Alexander Levin, Jr., director of operations at Apu Apustaja, said,

“This deployment represents a pivotal step in expanding APU’s accessibility to advanced trading platforms.

“Hyperliquid’s infrastructure offers the performance and transparency we were looking for, and the integration process through LayerZero was executed with precision and speed.”

About Apu Apustaja (APU)

Apu Apustaja (APU) is a decentralized memecoin project originally launched on Ethereum.

Known for its grassroots growth, cross-chain expansion and cultural resonance within crypto communities, APU aims to build a multi-chain ecosystem driven by community participation and interoperable infrastructure.

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Contact

[email protected]" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Apu Apustaja

This content is sponsored and should be regarded as promotional material. Opinions and statements expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of The Daily Hodl. The Daily Hodl is not a subsidiary of or owned by any ICOs, blockchain startups or companies that advertise on our platform. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in any ICOs, blockchain startups or cryptocurrencies. Please be advised that your investments are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility.

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Crypto Analyst Who Called 2025 Bitcoin Pullback Sees PENGU Set for Next Leg Higher, Updates Forecast for BONK and Top Memecoin

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 13:20:56 +0000

The crypto strategist who nailed the Bitcoin (BTC) local top in January believes that the memecoin Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) is gearing up for another upside burst.

The pseudonymous analyst Bluntz tells his 326,600 followers on the social media platform X that PENGU looks poised for a wave-five surge.

The trader relies on Elliott Wave theory, which states that a bullish asset tends to witness a five-wave rally, with waves one, three and five serving as upside moves and waves two and four acting as corrective periods.

Says Bluntz,

“This looks like the PENGU wave four, in my opinion. If you missed the last run up and have been patiently waiting for the pullback, this is a good one to bid. Nice 33% dip after a big run-up is perfectly normal.”

Source: Bluntz/X

Looking at the trader’s chart, he seems to predict that PENGU will soar above $0.05 before ending its five-wave rally. At time of writing, PENGU is worth $0.0357, up over 7% in the past day.

Another meme token on the trader’s radar is Bonk (BONK). Bluntz says the altcoin is flashing a bullish divergence on the four-hour chart, indicating that buying momentum is on the up and up for the altcoin even though its price is going down.

Traders keep an eye out for coins showing a bullish divergence, as it signals that a reversal to the upside is on the horizon.

“Likely going to be a cracking four-hour bullish divergence on BONK, probably a good spot to bid here.”

Source: Bluntz/X

At time of writing, BONK is worth $0.000026, up nearly 5% on the day.

The last memecoin on the trader’s radar is Useless Coin (USELESS), which the trader says will likely enter a corrective phase after completing a five-wave rally.

“That’s five up on USELESS from inception [up to] now. Will be bidding this again in the future after the correction to the inevitable billions in market cap, but as in all things, timing is everything.”

Source: Bluntz/X

At time of writing, USELESS is worth 0.246.

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Ethereum To Break All-Time Highs in Coming Months, Predicts Analyst Benjamin Cowen – Here’s When

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 12:20:18 +0000

A widely followed crypto analyst says that Ethereum (ETH) looks set to reach a new all-time high within the next few months.

In a new strategy session, Benjamin Cowen tells his 917,000 YouTube subscribers that the second-largest digital asset by market cap has met his previous criteria of forming a higher macro low, therefore setting it up for an eventual push to new highs.

“For a long time, my bias was that it made sense to fade Ethereum because it was going to bleed against Bitcoin, and it needed to go home. It needed to form a macro higher low. Now, that’s happened. So, what is my bias now, right? Well, my bias now is that it will make new all-time highs and I’m going to say no later than December.”

Cowen sees Ethereum hitting its market cycle top before January 2026, with a maximum price tag of $7,500.

“I think the top for Ethereum for this market cycle will occur no later than January, and it could very well occur before that. It depends on what happens. So let’s suppose that Ethereum does go to a new all-time high this cycle and let’s suppose it happens within the next 5 to 6 months…

We did this whole video on the butterfly effect, where essentially if you go through the butterfly effect, it calls for a price of Ethereum, potentially of $5,300 to as high as $7,500. So, I say that again. $5,300 to $7,500 is a range that would be justified if you believe in that butterfly harmonic pattern that we’ve been following for a while.”

The butterfly effect refers to a harmonic pattern Cohen believes Ethereum is following, one that leads to a cycle top and an ensuing bear market.

Ethereum is trading for $3,499 at time of writing, a 3% increase during the last 24 hours.

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US Government Scammed out of $13,000,000 by Fake Millionaire Who Filed Fraudulent PPP Loans and IRS Refunds

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 11:20:12 +0000

A man has been convicted of several crimes after being caught in a scheme to defraud the US government of $13 million.

Carl Delano Torjagbo, a resident of Georgia, is being convicted of bank fraud, wire fraud and money laundering after obtaining a fraudulent $9.6 million Payment Protection Plan (PPP) loan and filing fraudulent tax returns that generated $3.4 million in Internal Revenue Service (IRS) refunds.

Federal prosecutors say that Torjagbo submitted two different tax returns to the IRS in February of 2021 while using different Social Security numbers and dates of birth and claiming that he had suffered millions of dollars in losses to offset earnings from a supposed African gold mining business.

The tax returns resulted in a Treasury check being issued to Torjagbo for $3,366,240. Prosecutors say that days later, he filed for a PPP loan for $9.6 million.

Theodore Hertzberg, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, says that Torjagbo had listed 493 fake employees for his company called Kremkov Industries who supposedly lived in the US but worked in a mine in Ghana, and many of the employees had fake names like “Keanu Reeves,” “Gene Hackman,” “Oliver Twist” and “Jon Snow,” reports FOX 5 Atlanta.

“This was really a notorious fraud. It’s horribly offensive that this was money meant to help struggling Americans, and it was wasted and abused by this criminal.”

Prosecutors say that Torjagbo splurged the money on his own personal indulgences, including $1,677,861.01 for his personal residence, $332,999.80 for a 2014 Lamborghini Aventador, $120,799.79 for a 2022 BMW M850xi, $90,520 for a 2021 Land Rover Range Rover Velar, $51,000 for the down payment on a 72-foot yacht, over $1,000,000 for real estate, trucks, and trailers to start a new business and more than $15,000 for plastic surgery.

Torjagbo’s sentencing is scheduled for November 3rd and could result in a maximum sentence of 170 years in prison.

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Margex Introduces New Market Section for Users

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:46:23 +0000

August 4, 2025 – Victoria, Seychelles

Margex, a cryptocurrency trading platform that offers accessible and user-friendly copy trading, announces a brand new market section for users.

Margex’s new market section helps market watchers track real-time prices of over 70 different cryptocurrencies.

Also, this brand new market section improves trading for users while enabling them to make better trading decisions.

Here are the features.

Real-time price chart of top crypto assets in the market, all in one place
Access to market sentiment and price predictions of top-performing crypto assets
Deep dives into Margex’s best curated blog content on top crypto assets and market updates
Inside chart and AI price predictions of top crypto assets

Additionally, Margex plans to roll out more cryptocurrency assets in the top 300 by market capitalization, as part of the team’s strategic plan to serve it’s users.

This major update also complements Margex’s strategic partnership with Paybis and FinchPay, allowing users to access over 50 cryptocurrencies and more than 40 fiat currencies in real-time worldwide through these payment providers.

About Margex

Established in 2019, Margex is a boutique cryptocurrency exchange offering a secure, efficient and convenient copy trading platform.

Margex’s copy trading feature allows users to replicate professional traders’ strategies, making trading accessible to all experience levels.

Professional traders can also earn rewards by sharing their strategies.

With a minimum deposit of $10, traders can access all of Margex’s copy trading functionality.

It remains the most user-friendly platform in the crypto industry.

Users can follow Margex on Facebook, X, Telegram and YouTube or join the Margex team.

Contact

[email protected]" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Alsu Irkabaeva, head of communications at Margex LTD

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The post Margex Introduces New Market Section for Users appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

New York Man Defrauds the IRS With Stolen $810,000 Tax Refund Check In Bank Fraud and Identity Theft Scheme

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:20:58 +0000

A man from Yonkers, New York, has pleaded guilty to charges related to a fraudulent tax refund check scheme that used the stolen identity of an investment company executive.

In a statement, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says that in December 2023, Steven Ware opened bank accounts at a credit union in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts, under the name of a Connecticut-based investment company and one of its executives.

Ware assumed the identity of the executive by submitting the man’s full name, date of birth, Social Security number and related documents. He then deposited a check issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury payable to the investment company and the executive for $810,337.

The check cleared, and Ware used a debit card to withdraw the funds from the account. He subsequently used the money to buy goods at various retailers in New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

He continued impersonating the executive and returned to the credit union several times over the next days and weeks to wire more than $634,000 of the stolen funds.

Ware was arrested and charged in September 2024 and indicted in October 2024. The IRS says that he pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft in a Boston federal court on July 24th. His sentencing is set for October 8th.

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The post New York Man Defrauds the IRS With Stolen $810,000 Tax Refund Check In Bank Fraud and Identity Theft Scheme appeared first on The Daily Hodl.

‘Largest Ever’ Bitcoin Hack Uncovered As Thieves Get Away With $14,500,000,000 Worth of BTC: Arkham

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 09:15:18 +0000

Blockchain “de-anonymizer” firm Arkham has discovered what it believes is the biggest Bitcoin (BTC) hack in history.

In a post on the social media platform X, Arkham says it has uncovered the “largest ever” BTC hack, which appears to have targeted Chinese mining firm LuBian in 2020.

While the firm has never publicly acknowledged the hack, Arkham’s on-chain analysis suggests that 127,426 BTC was stolen from LuBian in December of 2020, which was worth $3.5 billion at the time and is now worth about $14.5 billion.

“LuBian was one of the world’s largest mining pools in 2020, controlling almost 6% of the Bitcoin network’s total hash-rate as of May 2020.

They appear to have been first hacked on December 28th, 2020 for over 90% of their BTC. Subsequently, on December 29th, around $6 million of additional BTC & USDT was stolen from a LuBian address active on Bitcoin Omni layer.

On the 31st, LuBian rotated their remaining funds to recovery wallets.”

Arkham also discovered on-chain messages between LuBian and the hackers’ wallet addresses offering a reward if they acted as whitehats – hackers that take a payment in exchange for discovering security weaknesses and returning the stolen funds.

“To the whitehat who is saving our asset, you can contact us through [email protected] to discuss the return of asset and your reward.”

Arkham says it appears that LuBian had used an algorithm to generate its private keys for custody of its coins, which may have been vulnerable to brute force exploits.

For now, the hacker still holds the coins, which were last moved in July of 2024, according to Arkham.

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The post ‘Largest Ever’ Bitcoin Hack Uncovered As Thieves Get Away With $14,500,000,000 Worth of BTC: Arkham appeared first on The Daily Hodl.