Tuesday, July 05, 2022

Doing Liberty Right



Through my blockchain startup I intend to build the most sophisticated digital tools to put at the service of the democracy movement in Russia. The Russian people have to take the lead. The Russian diaspora has to take the lead. I did similar work before Facebook with barely a blog and a mailing list hosted for free by Google. But then we also wrote before computers. It will not hurt to have the tools I intend to build.

Liberty is at risk in the United States. The same tools could be used to take this country to a new Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson expected a constituent assembly every 30 years or so. It has been way more than 30 years.

Racism is fascism. It is the opposite of liberty.

The same tools will neutralize the surveillance state that is China. But the proof is in the pudding. The work of liberty will take China back to a 10% growth rate, clean energy powered. Perhaps the CCP needs to be broken up like AT&T. Xi is Brezhnev. Perhaps there is an emerging figure in the Chinese Communist Party who successfully pushes the case for political reform.

The same digital tools will turn Saudi Arabia into a republic. The smart monarchies in the Gulf will volunteer to become constitutional monarchies. The not so smart ones will pave the way for repubics.

The same digital tools will take e-Estonia like government services to every poor, nascent democracy on the planet and help build the institutions of democracy.

Voting should be eezy peezy. Noone should be without a digital identity that they can take to the bank that resides on their phones.

Facebook and Twitter did not topple Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. The people did. Facebook and Twitter were just digital tools.

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5: CZ



Cost of rebuilding Ukraine at $750B . .

From Zero To Crypto Billionaire In Under A Year: Meet The Founder Of Binance Seven months ago Binance didn't exist. Since then, its 1.4 million-transactions-per-second capability have attracted 6 million users, making it the world's largest crypto-exchange. "No decentralized exchange today can handle our volume, and none are as secure as we are," says its founder, Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ. The market seems to buy it: Since its July initial coin offering, a Binance token BNB has soared from about 10 cents to $13, giving it a market capitalization of $1.3 billion. Zhao, 41, who wears a black hoodie, like some cross between Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, also owns the biggest stake in the coins. ........ The man who’s only indulgence is mobile phones (he owns three), sold his house in Shanghai in 2014 to go all in on Bitcoin and doesn’t own any cars, yachts nor fancy watches. Among the crypto-rich, Zhao falls squarely in the builder camp. ......... CZ was born in Jiangsu, China. Both of his parents were educators; his father, a professor, was labeled a "pro-bourgeois intellect" and temporarily exiled shortly after CZ was born. The family eventually emigrated to Vancouver, Canada, in the late 1980s. As a teenager, CZ pitched in to cover the household expenses, flipping burgers at McDonald's and working overnight shifts at a gas station. .......... After studying computer science at Montreal’s McGill University, Zhao spent time in both Tokyo and New York, first building a system for matching trade orders on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and then, at Bloomberg’s Tradebook where he developed software for futures trading. But even after the 27-year old coding whiz was promoted three times in less than two years to manage teams in New Jersey, London and Tokyo, Zhao became impatient. So in 2005 he quit and moved to Shanghai to start his Fusion Systems, a company known for building some of the fastest high-frequency trading systems for brokers. .......... Then, in 2013, Zhao learned about Bitcoin from a venture capitalist with whom he played poker. He began bouncing around prominent crypto projects. He joined Blockchain.info as the third member of the cryptocurrency wallet’s team. As head of development for eight months, he worked closely with well-known Bitcoin evangelists like Roger Ver and Ben Reeves. He also worked at OKCoin as chief technology officer for less than a year, a platform for spot trading between fiat and digital assets. ...............

The $15 million he raised in Binance’s 200 million token crowd-sale last July caught Bitcoin’s breathtaking ascent perfectly.

........... At the time this issue goes to print, he's broadcasting to his 33,000 followers on Twitter that Binance is hiring developers and customer support staff in Taiwan. CZ says he plans to double the size of his existing team to 300 in the next three to six months............ Binance now supports about 120 coins, working with 100 plus wallets and 240 trading pairs. "We've received over 5000 applications for coin listings," boasts Zhao explaining that his team only welcomes projects that have strong credibility, user base, and liquidity. At 3%, the chances of getting in are lower than being accepted into Harvard. .

Changpeng Zhao - Success Story of the Binance Founder . the company’s inception in 2017. In a span of a few months, Zhao turned the company into the largest exchange platform for the crypto trade. Changpeng Zhao, popularly known as CZ, was valued as the 11th richest person in the world. Recent estimates revealed that his net worth is around $96 billion. ........... From selling his apartment to buy cryptocurrencies to turning out to be one of the richest people in the world ....... Born 1977 ........ Later in 2005, Zhao co-founded a company called Fusion Systems. The company was involved in providing IT solutions and other business consultancy services. Changpeng Zhao remained as a partner in Fusion Systems until the end of 2013 and then entered the world of Crypto. ..............

Binance made Zhao a billionaire within just 180 days of its operation.

.......... China’s stringent policies on crypto forced him to shift the headquarters from the Chinese land to Caymen Islands. The United States Department of Justice has put Binance under investigation for money laundering offenses. Similarly, many other countries like Germany and UK have also raised legal actions or warnings against the company. In fact, in 2019, there was a huge theft of bitcoins from Binance whose value stood around $40 million. Zhao faced all these challenges explicitly including the bitcoin theft. He made sure that the company makes up for all the losses and never let his customers down. ............... Zhao created a belief that it is possible to start a business and make it the world’s largest in 5 years. He showed that becoming one of the richest in the world would take just a couple of years. He also proved that despite any hardships from the superpower countries, it is possible to flourish a business in every part of the world. .......... Binance is the cryptocurrency exchange platform that helps people trade cryptos for assets. ........ Binance is the largest crypto exchange platform in the world. .





Ukraine Wants NATO’s Help Against Russia’s WMDs Ukraine is calling out Russia’s “state nuclear terrorism.” .......... On Monday, the European Union agreed to supply Ukraine with $12 million worth of medical equipment and protective gear to deal with possible chemical, biological, and nuclear threats. ........... Ukraine has 15 Russian-designed nuclear power plants on its soil. ......... Zelensky has also urged the United States to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism after a wave of missile attacks hit civilian targets last week, including a missile strike on a shopping center in Kremenchuk, hundreds of miles west of the front lines in the Donbas, with hundreds of civilian shoppers inside. ......... European officials remain concerned that Russia’s track record of using chemical weapons to break out of entrenched urban combat in Syria shows that they could do the same in Ukraine. Further fears were raised about this over the weekend when Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to move nuclear-capable missiles into Belarus, a close Kremlin ally that borders Ukraine to the north—a pledge that a senior U.S. defense official said was “irresponsible” on Monday. .......... But with the Donbas war increasingly tilting toward an attritional battle of artillery with only incremental Russian advances, there is fear in Kyiv that the Kremlin sees the possibility of opening up a second front with the help of allied Belarus. “People are concerned about this—not only the missiles but also that Belarus can actually open another front,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, an advisor to the Zelensky administration. “They have to change the strategic situation.” .......... Raising alarms further, Russian military doctrine gives commanders the right to use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield, something that has crossed the minds of Western policymakers as a possible worst-case scenario in Ukraine. ........... Ukraine also will ask the alliance to come up with a comprehensive Black Sea strategy, including joint patrols of the region that link up the information-sharing capabilities of the Baltic countries, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine. The push comes as the United Nations has tried to broker a deal between Western powers and Russia to open up Ukraine’s sealed ports to break a four-month blockade of grain shipments out of the country—and Turkey has shut off access to the Black Sea to any nation without a coastline that borders it. Ukraine has also recently asked for a demined corridor out of the port city of Odesa to get out the grain. But the prospect of a NATO flotilla could also lay down a tripwire that could spark a wider war. Russian naval vessels could target international ships escorting grain shipments. ............ “NATO should be able, willing and ready to defend the principles of the democratic and rules-based world order, not only with words, but through deeds.”

China Is Hardening Itself for Economic War Beijing is trying to close economic vulnerabilities out of fear of U.S. containment.

How Chinese crypto king Changpeng Zhao lost US$77.5 billion: the Binance CEO went from boom to bust amid the bitcoin and NFT crash, but luckily doesn’t ‘really care much about money’ With a US$96 billion net worth at the height of his crypto exchange’s success, he was one of the world’s richest men alongside Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Larry Page ........ After attempting to settle in China – which he fled due to the government’s anti-crypto laws – then tax-friendly Cayman Islands, he’s set to move to Dubai in the UAE ............ Zhao is actually the wealthiest figure in the crypto world, with a current net worth of US$18.5 billion. That sum was US$96 billion just months ago though, before the crypto market began spiralling. .......... He’s now worth an estimated US$18.5 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, making him the 80th richest person in the world and the wealthiest person in the industry. ......... Zhao’s net worth was US$96 billion before the market spiral, a sum that put him in the same ballpark as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Larry Page. ........... As for Zhao’s personal lifestyle, the exec has a reputation for never hanging his hat in one place for too long, a feat that his company shares. ........... Binance has long received criticism from regulators for failing to provide a location for the company’s headquarters. It’s an ideological tenet for some decentralised-minded crypto companies to opt out of physical, centralised home bases. ........ He only recently decided to settle in Dubai, choosing a flat and a Toyota minivan



Changpeng Zhao: tech chief in the eye of the cryptocurrency storm .



Changpeng Zhao: tech chief in the eye of the cryptocurrency storm The founder of Binance, the world’s largest digital currency exchange, is on a mission to talk to governments and regulators even as investors retreat ......... the crypto industry, in which he is a leading figure, is in turmoil and crying out for clarity. ......... Often referred to by the nickname CZ (see-zee), Zhao is dressed in the classic tech-tycoon mix of formal dark suit with a company T-shirt and trainers. He says he is travelling from country to country at the moment, meeting with “different government officials, regulators”. .......... Despite his softly spoken manner, he is on a mission to convince. ........... … fluctuations in price is normal.” .......... Last week, Bloomberg ran an interview with him that raised the prospect of a deep regulatory winter for his business. He responded by tweeting to his 6.5 million followers: “I will stop doing interviews with news outlets that do clickbait titles.” .......... He clearly has a deep interest in media. Binance has announced plans for a $200m (£160m) investment in Forbes, the business publisher, as well as investing $500m in Elon Musk’s $44bn bid for Twitter. ........... Born in the coastal province of Jiangsu, north of Shanghai, Zhao followed his academic father to Canada when he was 12. After graduating from Montreal’s McGill University with a degree in computer science he worked on programming systems for the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Bloomberg. Zhao then moved to Shanghai in 2005, where he founded a high-frequency trading platform. ......... “Internally, keep your head down and build. Externally, learn risk management. If everything went to zero, are you still OK?” .......... Biggest career mistake Should have started Binance sooner. ........ How he relaxes Books, hanging out with friends. .......... Zhao laughs that off. “I actually have no idea how they come up with those numbers. You need to understand that net worth are just estimates,” he says. “When I look at my wallet, I don’t have that much. I don’t have anywhere close to any of those numbers.” ............. Last year, Zhao told the AP news agency that he only held bitcoin and his firm’s own crypto-asset, BNB. ......... One issue puzzling regulators is the lack of clarity about Binance’s structure. The holding company is registered in the Cayman Islands but the company describes itself as having “decentralised” ownership, with its terms and conditions referring to an “ecosystem”. For instance, its US exchange is separate from the main binance.com platform, whose operating base is not disclosed. ............. He concedes there could be more failures in the crypto market. But he is unambiguous that there will be survivors. “There may be other failures. But crypto will stay, bitcoin will stay, ethereum will stay, BNB will stay. That part is quite certain.”

Changpeng Zhao #36 Founder and CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, launched Binance in July 2017 and has since grown it into the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange for retail investors. It’s a long way from when he was flipping burgers while studying at McGill University in Montreal. In addition to leading Binance, CZ has also become a social media personality in his own right, with his trademark “funds are safu” having been launched into the crypto-meme hall of fame. .......... Zhao’s company sued two Forbes journalists in 2020, prompting a letter of support for the defendants from the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers. ......... Despite closing its Ugandan subsidiary in November 2020, Binance could continue to expand into Africa — CZ referred to the continent as an “untapped market” for crypto. ........ The exchange will most likely face a changing regulatory landscape in 2021, both at its headquarters in Malta and even in established markets, with the potential rise of game-changing technologies in the crypto space. CZ has floated the idea of Binance purchasing its own bank and said he believes staking coins for liquidity through DeFi will likely last the test of time.

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