NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned that the National Security Agency (NSA) is on the verge of significantly expanding its surveillance capabilities through a new bill amending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), potentially allowing the government to compel a wide array of businesses and individuals to assist in NSA surveillance operations. […]
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Dogecoin influencer Mishaboar has issued a vital warning to members of the Dogecoin (DOGE) community. This warning could prove timely as meme coin-related scams look to be on the rise in the crypto community.
Mishaboar warned community members in an X (formerly Twitter) post to be “extremely careful,” stating that there are several fake airdrops targeting the Dogecoin tag and other popular meme coins. The influencer also added that some of these scams are also deployed using the tags of popular AI tokens.
These scammers are said to promise airdrops to community members with the aim of solely stealing the tokens of unsuspecting users in the process. It is not surprising that these schemes are perpetuated using the tags of popular meme and AI tokens, as these categories of crypto tokens are two of the leading narratives for this bull cycle.
Therefore, using these token tags is likely to help these scammers gain more reach and attract more users. Mishaboar’s warning is no doubt crucial, especially for newbies in the crypto space who could easily fall prey to these scams in the bid to earn ‘airdrops’ that could give them more leverage entering into the bull run.
As part of his warning, the influencer advised his followers to report any account they suspected to be a scam. Mishaboar also noted that some of these accounts have a huge following and might seem legitimate, but users shouldn’t be deceived. Accounts with a significant following always tend to look more legit. That’s why these crypto users have to be extra vigilant.
Mishaboar is known to be very particular about the safety of crypto users. When the ‘MyDogeWallet’ Hack occurred, he advised members of the crypto community to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on their X accounts using an authenticator application or a physical security key.
At the beginning of the year, Shiba Inu scam detector platform Susbarium drew the SHIB community’s attention to scams that were targeted at obtaining people’s identities and stealing their crypto holdings. Back then, Susbarium warned that one of the scams involved fake accounts promoting fake TREAT tokens to unsuspecting investors.
Like Mishaboar, Susbarium urged users to enable 2FA on all their crypto accounts. They also proposed using hardware wallets to help community members securely store their crypto tokens. Some scam accounts clone or impersonate official accounts, so the scam detector advised to be wary of unsolicited messages they might receive from these impersonators.
DOGE price at $0.17 | Source: DOGEUSD on Tradingview.com
Featured image from Securities.io, chart from Tradingview.com
Disclaimer: The article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website entirely at your own risk.
The Quantum Fund’s historical performance is most often associated with Co-Founder George Soros. The fund achieved an average annual return of 30% from 1970-2000.
Perhaps Soros’s most famous bet came against the pound in 1992 when it netted his fund about $1 billion in one trade, considered by some to be the greatest currency trade of all time.
However, Soros didn’t start the Quantum Fund alone. Instead, he founded it alongside another now-famous investor, Jim Rogers. While Rogers left the fund in 1980 to “retire” and travel around the world on his motorcycle to search for international investment ideas, eventually turning his travel experiences into a best-selling book called “Investment Biker,” he continued to share his thoughts on the market.
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Seemingly, the best thing he can say about stocks at the moment is that it’s not the right time to short them … yet.
In a recent interview, Rogers shared that the world essentially is in an everything bubble, telling Soar Financially, “Bonds are a bubble, property in many countries is a bubble, stocks are getting ready for a bubble.”
Even with his bearish conviction, he points out that he’s “not shorting yet because often at the end there’s a blowoff and things get really crazy.”
To play out his thesis as he waits for his planned short, Rogers is happy to sit in hard assets such as gold and silver, explaining “everybody should have some silver and gold under the bed.”
Trending: Copy and paste Mark Cuban’s startup investment strategy according to his colorful portfolio.
Investors who don’t want the stress of storing the actual physical metal in their possession could consider an exchange-traded fund (ETF) such as the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE:GLD) or the iShares Silver Trust (NYSE:SLV).
It should be noted, however, that Rogers has not been accurate with his predictions in recent years.
In 2011, he shared that there was a 100% chance of a crisis worse than in 2008. If investors heeded his advice then and never got back into a market-tracking index fund such as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) they would have missed out on about 290% returns. Of course, these impressive returns came despite there being wars, a pandemic, flash crashes and inflation scares.
As the old expression goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day. However, to completely dismiss the advice of one of the world’s most legendary investors might not end up looking wise if Rogers is right about a serious crash being around the corner — especially if it is the worst in his lifetime, given how much he’s seen in his 81 years.
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This article George Soros’s Former Co-Founder Sounds Economic Alarm Saying, ‘The Next Problem Has To Be The Worst In My Lifetime’ — Waiting For Right Time To Go Short originally appeared on Benzinga.com
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BEIJNG, CHINA – NOVEMBER 13: Illuminated skyscrapers stand at the central business district at sunset on November 13, 2023 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Gao Zehong/VCG via Getty Images)
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
The chief executive of the Institute of International Finance warned Tuesday that policymakers need to swiftly address record levels of global debt, describing the brewing crisis as a “huge fiscal problem.”
IIF CEO Tim Adams sounded the alarm on rising levels of debt while speaking to CNBC’s Silvia Amaro at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
His comments come at a time when the issue has largely been overshadowed at the WEF’s annual meeting, which runs through to Friday, with the rise of artificial intelligence and conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine high on the forum’s agenda.
“We have a debt problem globally. We have the highest levels of debt in a nonwar period in modern history and it’s at the corporate, household, sovereign, sub-sovereign [levels],” Adams said.
“We have a huge fiscal problem everywhere, including the U.S. We’re running [a] deficit at 7% of GDP. We need sobriety and we need to focus on how we are going to get our fiscal house in order,” he added.
The global banking industry’s premier trade group said late last year that worldwide debt climbed to a record of $307.4 trillion in the third quarter of 2023, with a substantial increase in both high-income countries and emerging markets.
The IIF said it expected global debt to reach $310 trillion by the end of 2023, warning that elections in more than 50 countries and regions this year could usher in a shift toward populism that brings with it still-higher debt levels.
“I worry about geopolitics every day,” Adams said. “I think this will be a challenging year.”
Asked whether high levels of global public debt mattered at a time when major central banks are poised to cut interest rates, Adams replied: “It matters because of demographics. We have aging populations in so many parts of the world, from China to across Europe to the U.S. and Japan.”
“We need to build that capacity and deal with that huge debt overhang going forward. And this is in peacetime, so the question is how to do we do this quickly and in an intelligent fashion. But we all need to focus on the fiscal imbalances.”
Wall Street’s top bull highlighted two big risks that could upend the stock market in 2024.
Fundstrat’s Tom Lee said a hard landing in the economy and a parabolic melt-up in the stock market are risks to watch.
“If we have a parabolic move in December and we end up at S&P 5000 by December 31, you’ve pulled forward a lot of the gains for 2024,” Lee said.
One of Wall Street’s biggest bulls highlighted the two big risks that could derail the stock market next year.
Fundstrat’s Tom Lee, who has one of the highest S&P 500 price target for 2024 at 5,200, told CNBC on Thursday that a hard landing in the economy and frothy trading action could lead to a volatile stock market next year.
Lee said that he expects the US economy to continue to grow in 2024, with PMI’s likely to turn higher in part because of the Federal Reserve signaling that it will shift from hawkish interest rate hikes to dovish interest rate cuts in 2024.
But a hard landing in the economy could still materialize if other countries don’t rebound from their current economic slump.
“You need a global turn, so China and Europe have to emerge from this stagnation, and if [they] don’t maybe we talk about a hard landing,” Lee said.
China in particular has been suffering from economic malaise since the government eased COVID-19 restrictions. A combination of high youth unemployment, challenging demographics, and a crumbling real estate market has put pressure on the second largest economy in the world.
The second risk to Lee’s bullish view is a melt-up in the stock market between now and the end of December.
“The second [risk] is if we have a parabolic move in December and we end up at S&P 5000 by December 31, you’ve pulled forward a lot of the gains for 2024, so the first half [of 2024] could be pretty bad,” Lee said.
The S&P 500 traded at 4,717 on Friday, about 5% away from 5,000.
Since October 27, the S&P 500 has surged 14%, the Nasdaq 100 is up 17%, and the Russell 2000 is up 22%. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged to an all-time high this week, while all of the other major indexes are within spitting distance of a new record high.
Such sharp moves higher in the stock market in such a short period of time could lead to a local top that requires months of consolidation before further gains can be had, and that’s the exact worry on Lee’s mind.
Read the original article on Business Insider
In a significant blow to the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, the Sushi DeFi protocol has fallen victim to its second exploit this year.
The protocol’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Matthew Lilley, has issued a stark warning to users, advising them to refrain from using any decentralized applications (dApps) until further notice.
The latest breach has prompted concerns about the security and integrity of the Sushi DeFi protocol and other associated dApps. According to Lilley, a widely-used web3 connector has been compromised, allowing malicious code injection that affects numerous dApps.
Specifically, dApps that use the LedgerHQ/connect-kit, a dApp that allows users to connect other dApps to their Ledger hardware wallets, are considered vulnerable. Notably, Lilley’s warning underscores the severity of the situation, emphasizing that this is not an isolated attack, but a large-scale assault targeting multiple dApps.
Further investigation by security experts has revealed a potential supply chain attack on the ledger connect kit. The attacker allegedly successfully injected a wallet-draining payload into the popular Node Package Manager (NPM), impacting several prominent dApps, including Hey and others.
Additionally, it has been discovered that the Zapper and Sushi frontends have been hijacked, exacerbating the scope of the breach.
Slowmist, a module of Ledger, further confirmed that their system was hijacked and tampered with during the supply chain attack. This compromised the integrity of the ledgerhq/connect-kit library, which is relied upon by many dApps.
As a result, users are urged to exercise caution when conducting any dApp-related operations and to scrutinize requests for wallet information that may appear unexpected.
In an official statement, Ledger has confirmed the identification and removal of a malicious version of the Ledger Connect Kit. The company assures users that their Ledger devices and Ledger Live remain uncompromised.
The company stated that a genuine version of the Connect Kit is currently being pushed to replace the malicious file. Ledger advises users to refrain from interacting with any dApps at the moment for their safety.
The company pledges to provide updates as the situation develops, ensuring users stay informed about the ongoing efforts to address the security breach.
In light of recent events affecting the Sushi DeFi protocol, its native token, SUSHI, has experienced a decline of over 4% within the past hour, reaching a low of $1.590.
Before the exploit, SUSHI had been exhibiting a notable uptrend structure on its 1-day chart, marked by higher highs and higher lows. However, with the loss of its crucial support level at $1.961, there is a potential invalidation of the previously established uptrend.
The uncertainty surrounding the protocol’s native token raises the possibility of further downside in SUSHI’s price action. If a sustained downtrend continues, the next significant support level for SUSHI is located at $1.084.
Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com
Disclaimer: The article is provided for educational purposes only. It does not represent the opinions of NewsBTC on whether to buy, sell or hold any investments and naturally investing carries risks. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use information provided on this website entirely at your own risk.
The crypto trading days of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried are over, and the recently convicted founder has found a new thing to trade while in jail: fish.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Nov. 23 that Bankman-Fried recently traded four packets of Mackerel — known in prison as “macks” — for a haircut before his criminal trial last month.
Mackerel packets have risen to be the hottest trading commodity in United States prisons since tobacco products were banned. Postage stamps and soup packets — “soups” — come second and third on the value hierarchy, respectively. The commissary of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) where Bankman-Fried is housed sells mackerel packets for $1.30.
Bankman-Fried is sharing a cell at the Brooklyn prison with former Honduran President Juan Hernández and a former senior Mexican police officer, sources familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
Social media pundits questioned the legitimacy of the reports, but controversial tech figure Martin Shkreli, known as “pharma bro,” who spent more than four years in federal prison, confirmed macks were a staple currency in U.S. jails.
In a Nov. 24 post on X (formerly Twitter), Shkreli claimed paying four macks for a haircut was a “rip off” but noted it was still less than paying someone a book of stamps.
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Shkreli explained in the MDC that the market for macks was larger than stamps compared to a regular state federal prison but warned against holding too many mack packs, saying any more than 500 becomes suspicious.
four mack is a ripoff. but if you’re stunting you would toss homie a book (a book of stamps).
in MDC mac spot market is bigger than stamp spot market. in prison prison, stamp spot market is more liquid. mac is very dense and its suspicious to be holding 500 macs. however, it’s…
— Martin Shkreli (e/acc) (@wagieeacc) November 23, 2023
As a vegan, Bankman-Fried wouldn’t eat mackerel, making them a more easily traded commodity for the recently convicted former billionaire.
On Nov. 21, the court of appeals denied Bankman-Fried’s request to be released from prison while he awaits his sentencing hearing, currently scheduled for March 28 next year.
Bankman-Fried was found guilty of seven fraud- and money laundering-related charges on Nov. 2.
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Bitcoin (BTC) soared by over 5% on Tuesday to trade above $26,000 for the first time this week. A major contributor to this price rise was an increase in positive sentiment around the token as a result of Franklin Templeton, a $1.45 trillion asset manager, filing for a spot bitcoin ETF with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
However, as the market euphoria dies down, the premier cryptocurrency has experienced some market recorrection, with many investors now speculating on the token’s next movement. On this note, popular crypto analyst Ali Martinez has discovered a buy signal for BTC investors. However, there are certain conditions to be met.
According to an X post on Tuesday, Ali Martinez states that the TD sequential indicator has produced a buy signal on Bitcoin’s weekly chart. Therefore, BTC could be set for a price rally after losing about 10.85% of its market value in the last 30 days.
#Bitcoin | As we navigate a week with key financial events, it’s crucial to highlight that the TD Sequential indicator has signaled a ‘buy’ on the $BTC weekly chart.
For this to be validated, #BTC needs to close above the week above $25,600. If confirmed, targets could be… pic.twitter.com/0S06I5AndB
— Ali (@ali_charts) September 12, 2023
For context, the Tom Denmark (TD) sequential indicator is a technical analysis tool used to identify the exact time of trend exhaustion and price reversal. However, Martinez notes there is a clause to his latest prediction.
In order to confirm the buy signal generated by the TD sequential indicator, Bitcoin must close this week trading above $25,600. Upon fulfilling this condition, the analyst predicts that BTC could trade as high as $28,350-$31,800 in the coming weeks.
In other news, many BTC investors and crypto investors are likely on high alert, waiting for the United States to publish its monthly CPI data report, which is slated for release on Wednesday.
The Consumer Price Index, which measures the percentage change in the price of a basket of goods and services, is a popular indicator of inflation.
Related Reading: Bitcoin Price Signals Another Bearish Formation and Could Revisit $25K
If the upcoming CPI report presents a rise in inflation for the month of August, it may prompt the US Federal Reserve to hike interest rates, which is popularly known to induce a dip in the demand for risk assets such as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $26,136.30 with price gains of 1.64% in the last seven days, respectively. Meanwhile, the token’s daily trading volume declined 24.19% and is now valued at $14.83 billion.
Bitcoin trading at $26,135.86 on the hourly chart | Source: BTCUSDT chart on Tradingview.com
Featured image from CNET, chart from Tradingview.
