Saturday, February 10, 2018

Get Ready for Most Cryptocurrencies to Hit Zero, Goldman Says - Bloomberg

Get Ready for Most Cryptocurrencies to Hit Zero, Goldman Says
By
February 7, 2018, 3:22 PM GMT+11
From
Nouriel Roubini Says Bitcoin 'Much Worse' Than Tulip Mania
The tumble in cryptocurrencies that erased nearly $500 billion of market value over the past month could get a lot worse, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s global head of investment research.
Most digital currencies are unlikely to survive in their current form, and investors should prepare for coins to lose all their value as they’re replaced by a small set of future competitors, Goldman’s Steve Strongin said in a report dated Feb. 5. While he didn’t posit a timeframe for losses in existing coins, he said recent price swings indicated a bubble and that the tendency for different tokens to move in lockstep wasn’t rational for a “few-winners-take-most” market.
“The high correlation between the different cryptocurrencies worries me,” Strongin said. “Because of the lack of intrinsic value, the currencies that don’t survive will most likely trade to zero.”
Today’s digital coins lack long-term staying power because of slow transaction times, security challenges and high maintenance costs, according to Strongin. He said the introduction of regulated Bitcoin futures hasn’t addressed those concerns and he dismissed the idea of a first-mover advantage -- noting that few of Internet bubble’s high fliers survived after the late 1990s.
“Are any of today’s cryptocurrencies going to be an Amazon or a Google, or will they end up like many of the now-defunct search engines? Just because we are in a speculative bubble does not mean current prices can’t increase for a handful of survivors,” Strongin said. “At the same time, it probably does mean that most, if not all, will never see their recent peaks again.”
Strongin was more upbeat about the blockchain technology that underlies digital currencies, saying it could help improve financial ledgers. But even there he sounded a note of caution, arguing that current technology doesn’t yet offer the speed required for market transactions.
For more on cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin Draws Congress’ Ire as Regulators Bemoan Oversight Gaps
Wave of Crypto Scams, Bitcoin Crash Said to Spook Card Firms (1)
Bitcoin Snaps Slide as Crypto Markets Dodge Push for Regulation
Bitcoin Miners Face Shakeout as Only Strongest Survive at $6,000
For more on cryptocurrencies, check out the Decrypted podcast:

Autopsy report fails to give insight on motive in Las Vegas mass shooting - CBS News ( source : Associated Press )

February 10, 2018, 10:36 AM
Autopsy report fails to give insight on motive in Las Vegas mass shooting
Police say Stephen Paddock (inset) opened fire through two windows on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Oct. 1, 2017.
LAS VEGAS -- The much anticipated autopsy report on Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock did nothing to help explain why he carried out the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history -- his body didn't hold diseases or drugs or other substances that could have caused aggressive behavior. In fact, it showed he was a sober, healthy 64-year-old.
The report, which was released Friday in response to a lawsuit by The Associated Press and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, showed gunman Stephen Paddock had anti-anxiety drugs in his system but was not under the influence of them.
"It seems that based on the autopsy reports there were no physical excuses for what Steve did," his younger brother, Eric Paddock, said, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. "We may never understand why Steve did this."
Paddock unleashed a barrage of bullets from his high-rise hotel suite into a crowd at a country music festival below, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800 others on Oct. 1. He fatally shot himself before officers stormed his hotel suite after the mass shooting.
The autopsy showed the 6-foot-1 Paddock was slightly overweight at 224 pounds, had high blood pressure and bad teeth. But there was nothing unusual in his physical condition, even after a microscopic brain examination conducted by experts at Stanford University.
His cremated remains were released in January to his brother, who flew to Las Vegas to get the ashes, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Earlier Friday, Clark County District Judge Richard Scotti issued an unusual order to The AP and Review-Journal that an autopsy report about an off-duty police officer killed in the mass shooting, which was released by another judge last week, must be returned. The AP and Review-Journal are appealing.
The motivation for the shooting has been a mystery since Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel, despite intensive investigation by local police and federal authorities.
A preliminary report released last month by Las Vegas police said the high-stakes gambler had been on a losing streak, was obsessed with cleanliness, possibly bipolar and was having difficulties with his live-in girlfriend.
Investigators believe Paddock acted alone and he did not leave a suicide note or manifesto before he was found dead in the room. Police found 23 rifles and a handgun in his hotel suite and more than a dozen of the rifles were fitted with "bump stock" devices that allowed rapid-fire shooting similar to fully automatic weapons.
His live-in girlfriend, Marilou Danley, told investigators that Paddock had become "distant" in the year before the shooting and their relationship was no longer intimate, according to the preliminary report released in January.
Danley had described him as germophobic and told investigators he had reacted strongly to smells. Paddock told his friends and relatives that he always felt ill, in pain and fatigued, the report said.
His doctor suspected he may have had bipolar disorder but Paddock had refused to discuss that possibility, he doctor told police. The doctor offered him antidepressants but Paddock would only accept a prescription for anxiety medication. Paddock was fearful of medication and often refused to take it, the doctor told investigators.
In addition to ordering The AP and Review-Journal to return copies of Officer Charleston Hartfield's autopsy on Friday, the judge also barred the media organizations from further reporting on the autopsy's details.
The AP was filing an immediate appeal with the Nevada Supreme Court, said Brian Barrett, the news cooperative's assistant general counsel.
The autopsy record was one of 58 that another judge ordered the Clark County coroner's office to release last week to the two news organizations. The redacted documents had case numbers, names, ages, hometowns and racial characteristics of victims blacked out.

Trump Jr. Escalates Twitter War Against Probe and Father’s Foes - BLOOMBERG

Trump Jr. Escalates Twitter War Against Probe and Father’s Foes
By
February 9, 2018, 8:00 PM GMT+11
The president’s eldest son is his fiercest proponent online
Trump Jr. is channeling the beliefs of his father’s supporters
Donald Trump Jr.'s Life in His Father's Shadow
Donald Trump Jr. is tweeting like a man with nothing to fear from Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Never shy about defending his father on Twitter, the younger Trump dialed up his outrage starting Jan. 19. That’s the day after Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee drafted a memo alleging misconduct by the FBI and Justice Department in the Russia probe. Since then, he has tweeted or retweeted more than 200 times about the GOP memo, the Democratic response, warrants issued by secret intelligence courts, the FBI and Mueller’s Russia investigation.
His statements channel the sentiments of President Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters -- and possibly the president himself -- who believe the Russia investigation has been engineered by Democrats to undermine his presidency. In tweets and on television, Trump Jr. has compared the Russia inquiry to McCarthyism, the Salem witch trials and “the stuff you read about from banana republics.”
He called House Republicans’ release of the memo after his father declassified it “a little bit of sweet revenge” for the Trump family, in a Feb. 3 appearance on Fox News.
Follow the Trump Administration’s Every Move
Central Figure
Trump Jr., who declined to comment, is himself a central figure in the Russia saga. The special counsel is investigating a meeting he held with Russians at Trump Tower in June 2016, as well as a misleading statement the White House issued a year later in defense of that meeting. House and Senate lawmakers on committees conducting their own Russia investigations want Trump Jr. to testify in public.
On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said his panel would release in "a few weeks" the testimony of the younger Trump and others about the Trump Tower meeting.
Kushner, Trump Jr. May Escape Public Hearings With Help From GOP
While his father has the power to pardon, the younger Trump isn’t acting as if he thinks he or anyone in his family have done anything wrong to begin with. And his words do not suggest any concerns that the tweets could make him legally vulnerable. There’s also no indication that Mueller has sought to interview him.
“Weird what happened to Dems screams about transparency etc now that it’s clear they have something to lose,” Trump Jr. told his nearly 2.6 million Twitter followers on Jan. 19, a day after the date on the GOP memo and two weeks before the committee released it.
“We have been nothing but open despite being maligned for a year over a BS 20 min meeting," he said, an apparent reference to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. "Now it’s your turn!!!
@DonaldJTrumpJr
Weird what happened to Dems screams about transparency etc now that it’s clear they have something to lose. We have been nothing but open despite being maligned for a year over a BS 20 min meeting. Now it’s your turn!!!
1:10 AM - Jan 20, 2018
Advice for Dad
Trump Jr.’s public statements can sometimes seem directed at his father. On Feb. 1, he tweeted: “#releasethememo and not the nonsense redacted version to protect the perpetrators. People need to see who is involved and at what level if we want to stop this from happening in the future.”
@DonaldJTrumpJr
and not the nonsense redacted version to protect the perpetrators. People need to see who is involved and at what level if we want to stop this from happening in the future. https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/959114831583330304 …
7:22 AM - Feb 2, 2018
The president was at the time deciding whether to declassify the Republican memo, against the advice of the FBI, and whether to redact any part of it. The memo was ultimately declassified and released unredacted.
On Feb. 2 Trump Jr. tweeted that the basis for a FISA warrant for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had been “shady AF,” using an abbreviation for an expletive.
@DonaldJTrumpJr
Pretty sure that's shady AF https://twitter.com/dbongino/status/959470755347083264 …
4:22 AM - Feb 3, 2018
Trump Jr.’s public statements reflect his family’s frustration with the Russia investigations, which the Trumps say won’t implicate the president or any of his relatives and should be soon concluded. The son also echoes his father’s philosophy that, when punched, he should always punch back.
Little Risk
His public statements probably don’t leave him substantially more vulnerable from a legal perspective, so long as he sticks to opinion and not facts, legal experts say.
“The amount of legal risk is very, very small,” said Craig Engle, founder of the Arent Fox firm’s political law practice. “A tweet that says, ‘I was in San Diego on the 15th’ versus a tweet that says ‘He’s an idiot for thinking I was in San Diego on the 15th’ are two very different things.”
“A lawyer would say there is little legal risk in tweeting your opinions,” Engle said.
David Alan Sklansky, a Stanford law professor and co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, said that Trump Jr. could be hurt “if he makes statements that are false.” But the recent body of work by the president’s son “looks like theater to me. I don’t think these tweets are going to have any effect on his legal position.”
There may be one political pitfall for Trump Jr., however. His advocacy for full transparency in the Russia inquiry leaves him open to criticism if information emerges that he’d rather not see the light of day, Sklansky added.
“If there are people who are looking to him to be consistent, the fact he’s saying he wants transparency would make it harder for him to later clam up or say he shouldn’t release information,” he said.
— With assistance by Shannon Pettypiece, and Jennifer Jacobs