Code repositories for the Ethereum-based mixer Tornado Cash were relisted on GitHub on Thursday. CoinDesk reports: The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets (OFAC) banned Americans last month from using Tornado Cash, a decentralized privacy service that mixes cryptocurrencies together to obfuscate the original address. The mixer was blacklisted and designated under the Specially Designated National list because the North Korean hacking group Lazarus had used it in the past.

GitHub is a centralized internet hosting service for software development often used by Ethereum developers. Within hours of the OFAC announcement, GitHub, along with other platforms, removed Tornado Cash from their sites in order to comply with the new U.S. regulation. Ethereum developers -- believing that computer code is protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution -- have called for platforms that host the Tornado Cash code to reverse their bans. In particular, Ethereum core developer Preston Van Loon asked for GitHub to relist the mixer's code on Sept. 13. Further reading: Treasury Says Sanctions On Tornado Cash Don't Stop People From Sharing Code

Coinbase is being sued by Veritaseum Capital LLC, which alleges that the crypto exchange has infringed on a patent awarded to Veritaseum founder Reggie Middleton. CoinDesk reports: According to Veritaseum, Coinbase has used the patent for some of its blockchain infrastructure, and the company is seeking at least $350 million in damages. Middleton and Veritaseum in 2019 settled a case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), paying nearly $9.5 million over charges surrounding the initial coin offering (ICO) for the company's VERI token/ "Veritaseum's website says it 'builds blockchain-based, peer-to-peer capital markets as software on a global scale,'" adds Reuters, which first reported the lawsuit. "Thursday's lawsuit accuses Coinbase features including its website, mobile app and Coinbase Cloud, Pay, and Wallet services of infringing a patent covering a secure method for processing digital-currency transactions."

"Veritaseum Capital's attorney Carl Brundidge of Brundidge Stanger said Friday that Coinbase was 'uncooperative' when they tried to settle out of court."

Compute North, one of the largest operators of crypto-mining data centers, filed for bankruptcy and revealed that its CEO stepped down as the rout in cryptocurrency prices weighs on the industry. CoinDesk reports: The company filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas and owed as much as $500 million to at least 200 creditors, according to a filing. Compute North in February announced a capital raise of $385 million, consisting of an $85 million Series C equity round and $300 million in debt financing. But it fell into bankruptcy as miners struggle to survive amid slumping bitcoin (BTC) prices, rising power costs and record difficulty in mining bitcoin. The filing is likely to have negative implications for the industry. Compute North is one of the largest data center providers for miners, and has multiple deals with other larger mining companies.

"The Company has initiated voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings to provide the company with the opportunity to stabilize its business and implement a comprehensive restructuring process that will enable us to continue servicing our customers and partners and make the necessary investments to achieve our strategic objectives," a spokesperson told CoinDesk in an emailed statement. CEO Dave Perrill stepped down earlier this month but will continue to serve on the board, the spokesperson added. Drake Harvey, who has been chief operating officer for the last year, has taken the role of president at Compute North, the spokesperson said. Compute North has four facilities in the U.S. -- two in Texas and one in both South Dakota and Nebraska, according to its website.

Five luxury cars, including two BMWs, two McLarens, and a Lamborghini, have been seized from 23-year-old Aiden Pleterski, the self-described "crypto king" of Canada, during bankruptcy proceedings according to a new report from the CBC. But those cars are only worth a fraction of the $35 million that Pleterski allegedly took from investors who thought he'd make them rich in the cryptocurrency market, and it's not clear whether they'll ever see their money again. Gizmodo reports: Pleterski and his company AP Private Equity Limited are facing at least two civil lawsuits after 140 people have come forward to say they invested a combined $35 million with Pleterski. Those people believed they were investing in cryptocurrency, and Pleterski's online presence -- including photos of the 23-year-old on private jets and next to luxury cars-- helped create the image that he knew what he was doing.

Pleterski's YouTube channel and Instagram account have been deleted but it appears he purchased articles on websites like Forbes.mc (the top level domain for Monaco) and the far-right news outlet Daily Caller to get his name associated with success in crypto investment. The Daily Caller article from December 2021 includes a photo of Pleterski looking at his phone in what appears to be a private jet. Notably, December 2021 was a time when cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum were trading near all-time highs. The headline reads, "Aiden Pleterski: Meet the Young Canadian Investor Who Is Taking the World of Crypto By Storm."

The question remains whether Pleterski actually invested any of the money in crypto to begin with, and speaks to just how strange the crypto market has been over the past year. For all anyone knows, Pleterski may have actually invested the money and lost it like so many others since the peak of November 2021. Bitcoin is down 56% since its price a year ago, while ethereum is down 57%. Pleterski insists he invested the money but that he's just bad with record-keeping. But some investors suspect Pleterski didn't even bother investing the money, instead pocketing it for himself, according to people who spoke with the CBC. Investors are trying to get their money back through the bankruptcy court and two civil lawsuits, but criminal charges haven't been pursued, even though some have reported their incidents to Toronto police, according to the CBC.

Jamie Dimon didn't mince words when a US lawmaker mentioned the executive's history of criticizing cryptocurrencies. From a report: "I'm a major skeptic on crypto tokens, which you call currency, like Bitcoin," the JPMorgan Chase chief executive officer said in congressional testimony Wednesday. "They are decentralized Ponzi schemes." Stablecoins -- digital assets tied to the value of the US dollar or other currencies -- wouldn't be problematic with the proper regulation, and JPMorgan is active in blockchain, Dimon said. The comments represent the latest criticism leveled against digital currencies by Dimon, who once called Bitcoin "a fraud" before eventually saying he regretted the comments.

Coinbase Global has been searching for new ways to make money. One business it flirted with was controversial: using its own money to speculate on cryptocurrencies. WSJ: Last year, Coinbase -- which operates a large cryptocurrency exchange that handles bitcoin and other digital coins -- hired at least four senior Wall Street traders and launched a group to generate profit, in part, by using the company's cash to trade and "stake," or lock up, cryptocurrencies, according to people close to the matter. The activity was described as "proprietary" trading by the people at the company. Earlier this year, the team completed a $100 million transaction that the group viewed as a test trade of the new effort, according to the people. The transaction came after Coinbase executives testified to members of Congress last year that the company didn't buy and sell digital currencies for its own account. The monthslong effort to launch the Coinbase Risk Solutions group underscores how Coinbase, which has seen its shares tumble about 70% over the past year, has entertained more aggressive strategies as it tries to develop new businesses. Coinbase says some at the company examined pursuing proprietary trading but decided against it.

Jesse Powell, co-founder of crypto exchange Kraken, is planning to step down as CEO, Kraken confirmed with CoinDesk. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the news. From the report: Kraken's current chief operating officer, Dave Ripley, will take over as CEO once someone is hired to fill Ripley's position. According to a press release issued by the company, Powell plans to remain involved with Kraken. He will become chairman of Kraken's board and will continue working on product development and crypto industry advocacy.

The outspoken Powell, an early advocate of bitcoin (BTC) who founded Kraken in 2011, has been at the center of several company-related controversies this year. In June, Powell criticized a contingent of "woke activists" inside the company and told unhappy employees to quit, sparking a social-political debate that roiled the crypto industry and beyond. In July, reports emerged that Kraken was being investigated by the U.S. Treasury Department for allegedly allowing Iranian users to use the platform -- a violation of international sanctions against the Iranian regime.

Powell has denied that these controversies spurred his decision to step down as CEO, telling Bloomberg that he informed Kraken's board of his impending departure over a year ago. Instead, he chalked up the decision to something much more banal -- boredom. "As the company has gotten bigger, it's just gotten to be more draining on me, less fun," Powell told Bloomberg.

Craig Wright told a Norwegian court on Wednesday that he "stomped on the hard drive" that contained the "key slices" required to grant him access to Satoshi Nakamoto's private keys, making it "incredibly difficult" to cryptographically prove he is the creator of Bitcoin -- a title he has claimed but failed to prove since 2016. From a report: Wright's inability to back up his claims with acceptable evidence is the issue at the center of his trial in Norway, one of two simultaneous legal battles between Wright and crypto Twitter personality Hodlonaut (real name Magnus Granath) over a series of tweets Hodlonaut -- then, a public school teacher with roughly 8,000 Twitter followers -- wrote in March 2019, deeming Wright a pretender and calling him a "scammer" and a "fraud."

Wright previously attempted to prove he was Satoshi in 2016 by demonstrating "proof" that he controlled Satoshi's private keys -- first, in private "signing sessions" with Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen and former Bitcoin Foundation Director Jon Matonis (Andresen later said he'd been "bamboozled" by Wright and Matonis went on to work for a company owned by Wright), and later, in a public blog post offering "proof" that was thoroughly debunked by several well-known cryptography experts. In Norway, however, Wright is no longer attempting to convince the court he is Satoshi with cryptographic evidence -- partly because he claims to have intentionally destroyed his only proof shortly after attempting suicide in May 2016, following his signing session with Andresen, and partly because he now claims cryptographic proof is inconclusive and that "identity is not related to keys."

Poolin, one of the world's biggest crypto mining pools, is suspending bitcoin and ether withdrawals from its wallet service due to "liquidity problems." From a report: "As you may have known, Poolin Wallet is currently facing some liquidity problems due to recent increasing demands on withdrawals. But please be assured, all user assets are safe and the company's net worth is positive," the firm said in an announcement Monday. Poolin said that it would "make a snapshot of the remaining BTC and ETH balances on pool on September 6th to work out the balances." "The daily mined coins after September 6th will be normally paid out per day. Other coins are not affected. The details of payout schedule for remaining balances will be released when details are set," the post continued. The Beijing-based company is among the latest industry firms to suspend withdrawals due to liquidity problems amid this year's decline in crypto asset prices. Lenders Voyager Digital and Vauld both halted withdrawals in July. Voyager has since begun restoring some access to customers.

It's the one-year anniversary of El Salvador's adopting Bitcoin as a legal tender, so Bloomberg follows up, finding a country where "Adoption has moved slowly, and steep declines in Bitcoin's price from those lofty levels last fall have dampened the early euphoria that swept across the nation."

"Bitcoin hasn't replaced El Salvador's hard currency, the U.S. dollar — it's not even close — but it also hasn't brought the financial ruin that some warned of either. Or not yet anyway." "No one really talks about Bitcoin here anymore. It's kind of been forgotten," said former El Salvador central bank chief Carlos Acevedo. "I don't know if you'd call that a failure, but it certainly hasn't been a success...."

As part of the rollout, Salvadorans were offered government-issued digital wallets preloaded with $30 worth of Bitcoin to help kick things off. Under the law, taxes can be paid in Bitcoin and businesses should accept it as a form of payment, unless they are technologically unable to do so. But the coin's volatility has spooked users, and cryptocurrency has seen broader acceptance in countries with poor payment networks or strict currency controls, such as Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba, Acevedo said. "In El Salvador we have a good payments network, so why transfer money with cryptocurrency?" he said.

Most Salvadorans haven't poured large amounts of money into Bitcoin, saving many from the recent bear market, Acevedo said. The same can't be said of the government itself, which started purchasing the token last year in the run-up to its launch as legal tender and has continued to add to its stockpile, conspicuously "buying the dip" during periods when Bitcoin declined. The result? It's sitting on losses. [Later the article points out "The government's 2,381 Bitcoin bought with public funds are worth $47.2 million at current prices, less than half what the administration paid for them."] A series of recent surveys found that only a relatively small minority of respondents continue to use digital wallets and few businesses have registered transactions in Bitcoin. And the central bank says only 2% of remittances have been sent via cryptocurrency wallets.

The government is still claiming victory, however. Bitcoin has attracted foreign investment and tourism and increased financial access to a largely unbanked population, according to Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya. The government says its digital wallet, Chivo, has more than 4 million users. Tourism is on pace to surpass pre-pandemic levels this year and the central bank says 59 cryptocurrency and blockchain companies have registered offices in El Salvador.
Other observations from Bloomberg:

• While El Salvador's president remains popular, a May poll by a local university found 71.1% of respondents said the Bitcoin law didn't improve their family's finances.... "If you go to any market in El Salvador, you're more likely to receive an insult than be able to purchase something in Bitcoin," said the director of the university's public opinion institute. "It's not a part of people's daily routine."

• The IMF "has held off on approving a $1.3 billion program for the country citing risks from Bitcoin."

• Plans are still on for a Bitcoin-backed "volcano token".

Faruk Fatih Ozer, the founder and CEO of the now-defunct crypto exchange Thodex, has been arrested in the Albanian city of Vlore. PC Gamer reports: Ozer fled following the collapse of Thodex in April 2021: he initially claimed a halt in trading was due to cyberattacks, and that investors' money was safe, before disappearing. Almost immediately afterwards, Turkish police arrested dozens of Thodex employees and seized the firm's computers. It subsequently emerged that, in April 2021, Thodex had moved approximately $125 million worth of bitcoin to the established US crypto exchange Kraken. Given the number of investors in Thodex left with nothing, this looks like straightforward theft from a failing business.

It's not the whole story, either. Cryptocrime analysis firm Chainanalysis addressed Thorex specifically in its overview of 2021, in the wider context of a total $2.8 billion worth of crypto scams over this year being 'rug pulls': wherein a seemingly legitimate business is set up, operates as normal for a while, then suddenly all the money is gone. It's large-scale fraud. "We should note that roughly 90% of the total value lost to rug pulls in 2021 can be attributed to one fraudulent centralized exchange, Thodex, whose CEO disappeared soon after the exchange halted users' ability to withdraw funds," says the Chainanalysis report. That works out at an estimate of around $2.5 billion of crypto.

Six people have already been jailed for their role in Thodex, including family members of Ozer, while 20 other prosecutions are ongoing. The Turkish daily Harriyet reports that state prosecutors are out to set an example: "A prison sentence of 40,564 years is sought for each of these 21 people, including Ozer, as over 2,000 people are included in the indictment as complainants."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Partha Ranganathan came to realize about seven years ago that Moore's law was dead. No longer could the Google engineering VP expect chip performance to double roughly every 18 months without major cost increases, and that was a problem considering he helped Google construct its infrastructure spending budget each year. Faced with the prospect of getting a chip twice as fast every four years, Ranganathan knew they needed to mix things up. Ranganathan and other Google engineers looked at the overall picture and realized transcoding (for YouTube) was consuming a large fraction of compute cycles in its data centers. The off-the-shelf chips Google was using to run YouTube weren't all that good at specialized tasks like transcoding. YouTube's infrastructure uses transcoding to compress video down to the smallest possible size for your device, while presenting it at the best possible quality.

What they needed was an application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC -- a chip designed to do a very specific task as effectively and efficiently as possible. Bitcoin miners, for example, use ASIC hardware and are designed for that sole purpose. "The thing that we really want to be able to do is take all of the videos that get uploaded to YouTube and transcode them into every format possible and get the best possible experience," said Scott Silver, VP of engineering at YouTube. It didn't take long to sell upper management on the idea of ASICs. After a 10-minute meeting with YouTube chief Susan Wojcicki, the company's first video chip project was approved. Google started deploying its Argos Video Coding Units (VCUs) in 2018, but didn't publicly announce the project until 2021. At the time, Google said the Argos VCUs delivered a performance boost of anywhere between 20 to 33 times compared to traditional server hardware running well-tuned transcoding software. Google has since flipped the switch on thousands of second-gen Argos chips in servers around the world, and at least two follow-ups are already in the pipeline.

Bitcoin represents 40% of the $1 trillion outstanding crypto assets, according to Forbes' director of data and analytics. "An estimated 46 million adult Americans already own it according to New York Digital Investment Group..."

"But can you trust what your crypto exchange or e-brokerage reports about trading in the most important digital currency?" One of the most common criticisms of bitcoin is pervasive wash trading (a form of fake volume) and poor surveillance across exchanges. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission defines wash trading as "entering into, or purporting to enter into, transactions to give the appearance that purchases and sales have been made, without incurring market risk or changing the trader's market position." The reason why some traders engage in wash trading is to inflate the trading volume of an asset to give the appearance of rising popularity. In some cases trading bots execute these wash trades in tokens, increasing volume, while at the same time insiders reinforce the activity with bullish remarks, driving up the price in what is effectively a pump and dump scheme. Wash trading also benefits exchanges because it allows them to appear to have more volume than they actually do, potentially encouraging more legitimate trading.

There is no universally accepted method of calculating bitcoin daily volume, even among the industry's most reputable research firms. For instance, as of this writing, CoinMarketCap puts the latest 24-hour trading of bitcoin at $32 billion, CoinGecko at $27 billion, Nomics at $57 billion and Messari at $5 billion....

As part of Forbes research into the crypto ecosystem using 2021 data, we ranked the 60 best exchanges in March. More recently we conducted a deeper-dive into the bitcoin trading markets.... Our study evaluated 157 crypto exchanges across the world. Here are our main findings:


- More than half of all reported trading volume is likely to be fake or non-economic. Forbes estimates the global daily bitcoin volume for the industry was $128 billion on June 14. That is 51% less than the $262 billion one would get by taking the sum of self-reported volume from multiple sources....

- The biggest problem areas regarding fake volume are firms that tout big volume but operate with little or no regulatory oversight that would make their figures more credible, notably Binance, MEXC Global and Bybit. Altogether, the lesser regulated exchanges in our study account for approximately $89 billion of the true volume (they claim $217 billion).
Forbes adds that their report "builds on top of the important work done by other digital asset researchers such as Bitwise, which estimated in a March 2019 white paper that 95% of CoinMarketCap's bitcoin trading volume was fake and/or non-economic."

Their article includes some other interesting findings, including an observation that Tether "continues to be a dominant player in the crypto trading economy, especially when it comes to trades against bitcoin. Its current market capitalization is $68 billion, despite questions about its reserves."

Thanks to Slashdot reader rrconan for sharing the article...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Hackers are breaking into unsuspecting victims' Cash App accounts, a massively popular payment app, and stealing hundreds of dollars, according to victims Motherboard spoke to. In one person's case, they said, Cash App has not reimbursed them for the stolen funds. "It's scary!" Liz Shelby, who said their son was a victim of the hacking, told Motherboard in an online chat. "My son saved up some cash for a small vacation with his grandma. We put it in his Cash App before he left. He called me on Aug. 9, and told me that his money was gone." Shelby said that after she looked at the account she found that someone else had logged into it and sent themselves the money. Shelby said she's been emailing Cash App support, without success. Marvis Herring, another target, told Motherboard that hackers attempted to steal $1,400, in the form of two installments of $700. In those cases, Herring believes his bank blocked the fraudulent transactions.

Motherboard saw many other people reporting on social media that their Cash App accounts had been compromised in some way. "The main thing I thought was weird is that I went to change my account password and there really isn't a password for Cash App accounts," Herring added. When users sign up to Cash App, they can use either an email address or a phone number to open an account. After doing so, they receive a login code sent to either of those. On fraud websites, dark web marketplaces, and social media, multiple people appear to be selling login details associated with Cash App accounts. Some of these peoples' listings specify that the logs contain the email address and password for a linked email account. Some of the listings may be scams, but those on the dark web marketplaces come from fraudsters who have received positive feedback from alleged customers, according to the review system that is common on such sites. One listing for hacked Cash App accounts said the vendor has sold that specific item multiple times.

Fraudsters also appear to be offering Cash App accounts for another purpose: laundering money. Motherboard found multiple listings on a dark web marketplace offering these newly created and verified accounts. Cash App requires users to verify their identity to use some features, and this can require them providing their Social Security Number with the platform. These already verified accounts will allow fraudsters to buy Bitcoin through the Cash App without having to verify their identity, the listing suggests. [...] On its website, Cash App encourages users to make sure their linked email address has two-factor authentication enabled. The app also has an extra feature called Security Lock which means that each transfer requires the user to enter a PIN. "Preventing fraud is critically important to Cash App. We continue to invest in and bolster fraud-fighting resources by both increasing staffing and adopting new technology. We are constantly improving systems and controls to help prevent, detect, and report bad activity on the platform," a Cash App spokesperson told Motherboard in a statement. "For those who believe they have fallen victim to an identity-theft or account take-over scams, we encourage them to reach out to Cash App Support where we will review the account in question. If deemed fraudulent, we will take the necessary action starting with account closure and disablement of all applicable products."

A group of hackers managed to impersonate Binance chief communications officer (CCO) Patrick Hillmann in a series of video calls with several representatives of cryptocurrency projects. The attackers used what Hillman described as an AI hologram, a deepfake of his image for this objective, and managed to fool some representatives of these projects, making them think Hillmann was helping them get listed on the exchange. From a report: Hackers and scammers are refining their methods by including more technological tools in their schemes. Binance chief communications officer (CCO), Patrick Hillmann, reported last week about a new and sophisticated way in which attackers have used his image to perform a listing scam operation. Hillmann stated that hackers managed to program an AI (artificial intelligence) hologram of him, a kind of deepfake that was used to scam representatives of several cryptocurrency projects in Zoom calls. The hologram was able to fool these projects into believing that they were being considered for listing on Binance and that Hillmann was part of this operation. The listing scheme was discovered when these members contacted Hillmann to thank him for his help in the alleged listing opportunities. However, he had no knowledge of these meetings because he is not part of the listing process at Binance.

Gary Gensler, the chair of SEC, writes in an op-ed: We can dispense with the idea that crypto lending isn't subject to regulation. On the contrary, the rules have been around for decades. The platforms aren't following them. Noncompliance isn't the inevitable result of the crypto business model or underlying crypto technology. Rather, it is as if these platforms are saying they have a choice -- or even worse, saying "Catch us if you can." As I said in a speech last year, "Make no mistake: If a lending platform is offering securities, it ... falls into SEC jurisdiction." On many occasions, the commission and state regulators have addressed how the relevant case law implicates crypto assets, including crypto lending.

There are costs of complying with securities laws, just as there are costs to car makers of adding seat belts. Platforms that offer crypto lending need to comply anyway, not merely because that's the law, but also because it helps protect investors and increase trust in our markets. Fortunately, there is a path forward. I encourage platforms offering crypto lending to come in and talk to SEC staff. Getting these platforms into compliance with the securities laws will benefit investors and the crypto market. In the meantime, the SEC will serve as the cop on the beat. As with seat belts in cars, we need to ensure that investor protections come standard in the crypto market.

Matt Damon's pitch to invest in crypto has disappeared from US television sets. Same goes for glitzy commercials starring LeBron James and Tom Brady. From a report: The drop in national TV marketing by the industry in the US has coincided with the selloff in Bitcoin and other crypto assets, according to the TV-ad measurement company ISpot.tv, which tracks the spots. Damon's commercial for Crypto.com, which ends with him uttering "fortune favors the brave," last aired in February during the Super Bowl. The four-month national campaign cost an estimated $65 million, according to ISpot, exceeding the outlays by others in investment services, including giants such as Fidelity and Vanguard, over the same stretch.

"Ad sellers shouldn't expect growth in this vertical the remainder of the year due to the crash in crypto valuations and emerging allegations of fraud among companies in the crypto market," said Eric Haggstrom, director of business intelligence at Advertiser Perceptions, an industry researcher. "Crypto has been a boom and bust industry since its inception, and advertising budgets will follow the same trajectory." Spending by major crypto firms, including the trading platforms Crypto.com, Coinbase and FTX, fell to $36,000 in July in the US, according to ISpot. That's the lowest monthly total since January 2021 and is down from a high of $84.5 million in February, when the industry flooded the airwaves around the Super Bowl.

An anonymous reader shares a report:Back in November 2021, cryptocurrencies, which saw a huge surge during most of the pandemic, suddenly began to nosedive. Joe Hovde, a New York-based data scientist, decided that this might be his moment to buy into crypto: He took a risk on the price plunge and bought some Ethereum, the next most popular crypto asset after Bitcoin, on Coinbase, a crypto exchange. A couple of months later, Hovde started getting emails from Coinbase notifying him of swings in the prices of Ethereum, Bitcoin, and other tokens. Though already a steady consumer of financial news and current events, Hovde used the notifications to passively keep tabs on his investment while juggling other things. So when crypto assets began to take another nosedive in April 2022, Hovde noticed that at some point, the emails seemed to have stopped coming.

Hovde, who has worked on projects culling trends and patterns from large data sets for both tech companies and media outlets, scraped his inbox and confirmed that he'd received no emailed price notifications from the end of February to when they started back up again at the beginning of June; during that time period, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other currencies lost dozens of percent worth of value in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. Coinbase's decision to stop email notifications in the middle of a dramatic cryptocurrency crash has not been previously reported. But academics who spoke to Mother Jones note that Coinbase's decision likely contributed to losses for retail crypto investors who may otherwise have sold their holdings ahead of further devaluation. The change to price updates could run afoul of federal or state consumer protection laws, they said, particularly if it hurt the wallets of any of the relatively inexperienced traders who flocked to crypto in droves during the pandemic.

Union-organizing startup "Unit of Work" received a $1.4-million pre-seed investment led by the venture capital arm of billionaire Mike Bloomberg, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The startup's outside investors "have made fortunes backing technologies such as artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies and video games. One is among California's foremost critics of public-sector labor unions." But the head of the startup's lead investment firm says that "whenever a community has a want that's going unfilled, there's an opportunity for companies." [T]hese people used to multibillion-dollar sales and IPOs see a big opportunity in the atomized, restive condition of America's workforce and the possibility of transforming it through a new era of unionization. "We only invest in areas where we think we can get a return," said Roy Bahat, head of Bloomberg Beta, the venture arm of billionaire Mike Bloomberg's media empire.

Unit's business model works like this: The startup's organizers provide free consulting to groups of workers organizing unions within their own workplaces — helping them build support to win elections, advising them on strategy in contract-bargaining sessions, guiding them through paperwork filings and around legal obstacles. Once a contract is in place, members of the new union can decide to pay Unit a monthly fee — similar to traditional union dues — to keep providing support.... Once the company starts earning income, it plans to buy out its investors and give their equity to the unions it helped organize, effectively transitioning corporate control to the customer base.

The approach has attracted some strange bedfellows. The second investment firm in the round, Draper Associates, is led by Tim Draper, a third-generation venture capitalist, bitcoin evangelist and outspoken critic of organized labor... [H]e launched a ballot initiative to ban public-sector unions in California.... "Unit of Work is making unions decentralized," Draper wrote in an email explaining his investment. "That will be awesome. Centralized unions tend to restrain trade, and government unions create bloated bureaucracy and poor government service on the whole.... "

Despite Draper's enthusiasm for independent unions, as opposed to nationally affiliated labor organizations, Unit's leaders and its website make clear that they support their clients if they decide to affiliate with a larger union.

In preliminary second-quarter financial results announced today, Nvidia's year-over-year growth is "down from a previously forecasted $8.1 billion, a miss of $1.4 billion," reports Ars Technica. "Nvidia blamed this shortfall on weaker-than-expected demand for its gaming products, including its GeForce graphics processors." The full results won't arrive until the end of the month. From the report: Nvidia pointed to "a reduction in channel partner sales," meaning that partners like Evga, MSI, Asus, Zotac, Gigabyte, and others were selling fewer new GPUs than anticipated. This drop can be attributed partly to a crash in the value of mining-based cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum -- fewer miners are buying these cards, and miners looking to unload their GPUs on the secondhand market are also giving gamers a cheaper source for graphics cards. "As we expect the macroeconomic conditions affecting sell-through to continue, we took actions with our Gaming partners to adjust channel prices and inventory," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. That means we may see further price drops for existing GeForce GPUs, which have already been dropping in price throughout the year. Some cards still haven't reverted to their originally advertised prices, but they're getting closer all the time.

In better news for Nvidia, the small overall increase in revenue [$6.7 billion] is driven almost exclusively by the company's data center business, including GPU-accelerated AI and machine learning applications and GPU acceleration for cloud-hosted virtual machines. Nvidia's data center revenue is projected to be up 61 percent from last year, from $2.37 billion to $3.81 billion. Nvidia will supposedly launch its next-generation RTX 4000 series GPUs later this year. Based on the new Lovelace architecture, these GPUs may appeal to some gamers who originally sat out the RTX 3000 series due to shortages and inflated prices and are now avoiding the GPUs because they know a replacement is around the corner.