Jour : 21 décembre 2024

Between January and November, authorities cracked 19,459 cases involving black market cigarettes, representing a 65 per cent increase over the total for all of last year
Cigarette smuggling activities in Hong Kong have surpassed pre-pandemic levels, with the value of seizures reaching HK$2.24 billion (US$288 million) in the first 11 months of this year, 15 times the record before the Covid-19 outbreak five years ago.
Customs attributed the surge in seizures to ramped up enforcement efforts following increases in tobacco duty, as well as the move to hunt down warehouses where gangs hid the cigarettes.
With regular travel over the border back to normal following the end of the pandemic, smugglers had switched to a strategy of hiding illegal cigarettes in smaller batches, according to customs.
“We believe that the smugglers switched back to ‘ants moving home’ strategies that they adopted before the pandemic, meaning that they brought illicit cigarettes into Hong Kong in smaller batches,” said Samuel Hui, senior inspector at the revenue crimes investigation bureau at the Customs and Excise Department.
Between January and November, authorities cracked 19,459 cases involving black market cigarettes, representing a 65 per cent increase over the total for all of last year. By comparison, customs solved 17,368 cases in 2019, 3,159 in 2020, 4,009 in 2021 and 3,438 in 2022.
In the first 11 months of this year, 18,780 people were arrested for smuggling, storing, distributing or peddling illicit cigarettes, a 71 per cent increase over the 10,995 arrests made during all of 2023.

source

Team Beef, the modding group behind a slew of unofficial VR ports of classic games, announced their next project is Tomb Raider (1996), which will bring the action-adventure game to standalone headsets Quest and Pico VR.
Unlike the version playable through CitraVR, Team Beef says the BeefRaiderXR version will be a full VR port, which aims to include everything you’d expect: full 6DOF tracking, an immersive first-person POV, dual wielding weapons, and motion-triggered actions.

The modding group, which is known for standalone VR ports such as Duke Nukem 3D, Prey, and Quake 4, says BeefRaiderXR will also release publicly once development is finished. Like its other Quest-native ports, the game is expected to come via SideQuest.
You may be asking yourself how it’s possible that Team Beef can release a port of a copyrighted game? At least in this case, BeefRaiderXR is based on the original game’s unofficial remake OpenLara from Timur Gagiev (aka ‘XProger’), whose in-browser version of the 1996 classic completely recreates the original’s game engine for WebGL. Notably, Gagiev was also the Technical Director of the official Tomb Raider I-III Remastered (2024) game, which released on Steam earlier this month.
To boot, Team Beef says its upcoming VR port “does not contain any copyrighted assets from the original game,” and that the original Tomb Raider is required to play. As usual, if you want to follow along with development to learn more, or get early access to in-development builds, the modding team runs its own Patreon.
This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.
Awesome! I was recently thinking of going back and playing Tomb Raider. Glad I hadn’t gotten to it yet. I do wish they would take the time to go back and fix the myriad of bugs on some of their other ports, though… QuestZDoom, Prey, Quake and Raze XR are all buggy as heck. I’m sure it’s more fun to make the ports than go back and fix issues, but still…
Agreed- I strongly suspect porting is more fun that squishing bugs. I’ve nearly finished Prey (which I gave up on halfway though in 2006 for some reason) and that works well enough, but I’ve never managed to get RTCW working on Quest 3 even after multiple reinstalls and different ISO PAK files (bombs out after briefing intro), so just wish the ports got more attention to bug fixing after release.
I have to say though, Jedi Knight II was spectacular with touch controlled lightsabres…!
It takes either a certain level of obsession or the experience of having been badly burned by them for a developer to enjoy finding and fixing bugs, cleaning up code or properly documenting it, because all this does is keep things going (slightly better), while implementing new functionality that visibly changes things feels more rewarding (and appreciated).
Which is one of the reasons why there are so many open source projects with horrible UI out there, because once they perform the basic function the developers aimed for, investing more time into polishing them is tedious. And there is no money incentive like with commercial products that may sell worse if left in such a state.
I understand. It wasn’t an intention to come across as being ungrateful either, I guess I should have caviated my statement with ‘in an ideal world’. This are released for free after all.
JKII was quite polished and not a bug found (by me), but equally evolving popularity and Patreon testing might have resulted in a better output upon release.
I don’t think any developer would take your comment as ungrateful, instead they’d just agree with you assumption that porting is more fun than squishing bugs. Most developers are very aware that there are still lots of bugs to be fixed, test to be written and horrible hacks to be addressed, and are as conscious about it as others are that they should clean up, be more active or eat less junk food. It only gets annoying when people suggest that fixing bugs is easy and that developers are just lazy for not doing it or don’t care.
The first Tomb Raider titles ran on PlayStations lacking analog sticks, so they relied on tank controls with 45° turns. Which help with aligning Lara for e.g. jumps, apparently making the remaster harder to play with now also available free movement. But this of course would allow for one of the most 1:1 VR translations, with the usual snap turning VR comfort option being the original movement type, and go/stop as the only two movement speeds getting rid of any nausea through acceleration.
This is fantastic news and a poster child for the sort of game you always wished you could play in VR. I hope they include a level skip.
I also think that third person games where you watch the character as you control them work incredibly well in VR, and feel a lot more anchored in the environment than gliding along yourself at a continuous speed. In a first person game you will see the character interacting with the flooring and the environment and it will work really well, just like Edge of Nowhere did.
As I understand from the trailer, it is fpg.
Bravo to Team Beef!
Love it! But my dream is playing „Battlefield Heroes“ (still available on RisingHub) in VR one day!

source

A sprig to care for  Down To Earth Magazine
source

Watch CBS News
Updated on: December 21, 2024 / 7:40 AM EST / CBS/AP
Germans on Saturday mourned the death of at least five people – including a small child – who were killed, and at least 200 others who were injured after a Saudi doctor intentionally drove into a busy Christmas market in Magdeburg on Friday.
The driver of the car – a 50-year-old man who arrived in Germany in 2006 – was arrested and taken into custody for questioning, authorities said. Magdeburg police said their current assumption is that the man, who had indefinite permission to stay and work in the country, was a “lone perpetrator.”
Authorities said the driver had no criminal record, and the possible motive is unknown. The area surrounding the vehicle was sealed off by investigators.
The state premier of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, described it as “a lone attack.” He told reporters on Saturday that the death toll rose from two to five and that more than 200 people in total were injured.
It is “astonishing, unimaginable, that something like this could happen in Germany,” Haseloff said.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that nearly 40 of them “are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”
German media outlets identified the suspect as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws. They reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy who practiced medicine in Bernburg, about 25 miles south of Magdeburg.
Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect shared dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who left the faith.
He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he said was the “Islamism of Europe.” Some described him as an activist who helped Saudi women flee their homeland. He has also voiced support for the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Recently, he seemed focused on his theory that German authorities have been targeting Saudi asylum seekers.
Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on a cold and gloomy day. Several people stopped and cried. A Berlin church choir whose members witnessed a previous Christmas market attack in 2016 sang Amazing Grace, a hymn about God’s mercy, offering their prayers and solidarity with the victims.
The violence shocked Germany and the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that’s part of a centuries-old German tradition.
Bystander footage shown on German news outlets showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road.
“It was a real chaotic situation,” Lars Frohmüller, a reporter for German public broadcaster MDR, told CBS News partner BBC.
“We saw blood on the floor, we saw people sitting beside each other … and we saw many doctors trying to keep people warm and help them with their injuries,” he said.
“Everywhere were ambulances, there were police, there were a lot of firefighters.”
The sounds of sirens from first responders clashed with the market’s holiday decorations, including ornaments, stars and leafy garlands festooning the vendors’ booths. Footage from the scene of a cordoned-off part of the market showed debris on the ground.
“This is a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas,” Haseloff said.
Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old manicurist from Vietnam whose salon is located in a mall across from the Christmas market, was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs and thought at first they were fireworks. She then saw a car drive through the market at high speed. People screamed and a child was thrown into the air by the car.
The number of injured people was overwhelming.
“My husband and I helped them for two hours. He ran back home and grabbed as many blankets as he could find because they didn’t have enough to cover the injured people. And it was so cold,” she said.
Chancellor Scholz posted on X: “My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives. We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also sent condolences and wrote, “This act of violence must be investigated and severely punished.”
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the attack on X.
Following the incident, the New York Police Department said it deployed resources to various Christmas markets and other locations around the city “out of an abundance of caution”. Still, it said it had not identified any specific or credible threats.
Magdeburg, which is west of Berlin, is the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt and has about 240,000 residents.
The suspected attack came eight years after an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin. On Dec. 19, 2016, an Islamic extremist plowed through a crowded Christmas with a truck, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said late last month that there were no concrete indications of a danger to Christmas markets this year, but that it was wise to be vigilant.
She said Friday on social media, “The news from Magdeburg is deeply shocking. The emergency services are doing everything they can to care for the injured and save lives.
Chancellor Scholz and Faeser traveled to Magdeburg on Saturday. In the evening, a memorial service will take place in the city cathedral. Faeser ordered flags lowered to half-staff at federal buildings across the country.
The attack prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss. Berlin kept its markets open but has increased its police presence at them.
© 2024 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright ©2024 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

source

After topping $100,000, Bitcoin supporters see the cryptocurrency soaring even higher.
Bitcoin has proven to be one of the best-performing assets in modern history.
The value of the cryptocurrency has increased some 1,000 times over the past decade, far outpacing US stocks and real estate.

Buoyed by United States President-elect Donald Trump’s crypto-friendly stance, Bitcoin’s record rally hit a new high of $107,000 on Monday after the Republican reiterated his intention to create a Bitcoin strategic reserve.
Bitcoin, the first decentralised digital currency, was invented by the pseudonymous figure Satoshi Nakamoto in the wake of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.
Nakamoto introduced the blockchain system – a digital ledger that stores transactions in a network of computers – to enable anyone to make financial transactions without the involvement of banks, financial firms or governments.
Once widely derided as a speculative asset with no intrinsic value, Bitcoin is being taken increasingly seriously by governments, financial institutions and investors alike.
Boaz Sobrado, a London-based fintech analyst, said Bitcoin has transformed from being a niche asset favoured by political dissidents and criminals carrying out Illicit transactions “to something that central banks have to keep in mind and consider”.
“The IMF has put very firm anti-crypto political guidelines into place when negotiating with countries that might require its own assistance. It’s gone from being an academic question to a practical, real one and one that central banks are taking very seriously now,” Sobrado told Al Jazeera.
In January, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds), allowing investors to have exposure to the asset on the stock exchange for the first time.
In an October report, the US Department of the Treasury referred to Bitcoin as “digital gold”, noting its use as a store of value.
A number of countries have made big bets on the cryptocurrency.
El Salvador has accumulated some $600m worth of Bitcoin reserves and is one of just a handful of countries, along with the Central African Republic, that accepts the asset as legal tender.
Other countries, including the US and the United Kingdom, have acquired large holdings of Bitcoin through the seizure of assets implicated in criminal activity.
The US has seized at least 215,000 Bitcoins, valued at almost $21bn at current prices, since 2020, according to an analysis by crypto firm 21.co.
With Trump returning to the White House, Bitcoin supporters are hopeful that cryptocurrencies will gain unprecedented legitimacy after years of government-led crackdowns on the sector.
Despite once labelling Bitcoin “a scam”, Trump has emerged as arguably the world’s most powerful advocate for the asset.
After pledging to make the US “crypto capital of the planet”, he has picked several high-profile crypto enthusiasts to join his incoming administration, including former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as crypto tsar and Paul Atkins as SEC chair.
Trump’s pro-crypto stance has found allies in the US Congress, such as Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, who earlier this year introduced the BITCOIN Act of 2024, which would include Bitcoin among reserve assets such as gold and oil as a long-term store of value.
Under Lummis’s plans, the government would buy roughly 200,000 Bitcoins every year for five years, and then hold the assets for 20 years as a hedge against inflation.
“If we did that with five percent of all the Bitcoin that will ever exist – which is roughly a million Bitcoin – we could cut our debt in half in 20 years,” Lummis said in a television interview with Fox Business.
On Wall Street, derision and mockery have also given way to more positive appraisals.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who once described Bitcoin as an “index of money laundering”, in January said the commodity was “no different than what gold represented for thousands of years” and an “asset class that protects you”.
The key attribute of Bitcoin that makes it revolutionary is that it separates money from the state, according to Max Keiser, senior Bitcoin adviser to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.
“This is the first time in history that this has ever happened – money exists that has no central authority controlling it. This is what makes it unique, very powerful,” Keiser told Al Jazeera.
“There’s now this growing feeling that the 21st century will be the century of Bitcoin.”

Keiser spotted Bitcoin’s potential early on and advised people to buy it when its value was only $1 in 2011. That year, he and his wife, television presenter Stacy Herbert, called Bitcoin “the currency of resistance”, and predicted it would top $100,000.
One of the reasons Bitcoin has gained strength in value is the poor performance of economies such as Argentina, where inflation last year skyrocketed more than 200 percent, according to Gerald Celente, founder and director of the New York-based Trends Research Institute.
“People were seeing their currencies being devalued… People were saying: ‘I’m losing all my money, what am I going to do?’ They can’t afford to buy gold, so they started buying whatever they could in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, so that kept it strong,” Celente told Al Jazeera.
Since Trump’s election, Bitcoin’s price has risen by more than 50 percent and with an incoming pro-crypto administration, Celente predicts an even greater rally.
“[The value] could go through the roof, but we don’t see [Bitcoin] going down much at all,” he said.
Crypto supporters argue that Bitcoin’s winning advantage is that its global supply is capped at 21 million.
Unlike central banks that can print money indefinitely, Bitcoin’s supply stays constant no matter the demand, which has helped boost its value against the dollar.
Armando Pantoja, futurist and tech investor, believes that Bitcoin will appreciate in value “forever”, likening the purchase of the asset to buying real estate in Manhattan.
“Bitcoin has value not because of the currency, but because of the technology that governs it, blockchain technology,” Pantoja told Al Jazeera.
“In Bitcoin’s blockchain, there’s a certain supply of Bitcoin that comes out every 10 minutes, and every four years they cut it in half. Over time there is less and less Bitcoin being generated.
“Once it reaches the limit, no more can be created… That’s why it’s going to keep going up, every four years when they cut the supply, it has to respond positively. It has to keep going up to supply the demand.”
Keiser predicts Bitcoin will reach $1m in value in the coming years, with a market cap at least equal to gold’s market cap of $20 trillion.
“That would be $1m a coin. I think that would be a conservative estimate for the price for the next three to four years,” he said.
Bitcoin’s stellar rise, however, has not convinced everyone.
Despite its recent rally, the commodity continues to be extremely volatile.
After hitting $107,000 at the start of the week, the asset had by Friday plunged below $97,000.
Many financial analysts continue to view Bitcoin as a bubble with little to support its stunning rise.
“The more resources Americans misallocate to #Bitcoin and #crypto-related businesses, the fewer resources will be available to devote to making stuff we actually need,” Peter Schiff, chief economist at Euro Pacific Capital, said in a post on X last month.
“The end result will be larger trade deficits, a weaker dollar, higher inflation, and a lower standard of living.”
Even as Trump’s positive stance towards Bitcoin has thrilled crypto enthusiasts, some pro-crypto governments have reined in their support of the sector.
El Salvador announced this week that it would privatize or close its cryptocurrency wallet “Chivo” as part of the terms of a $1.4bn loan deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Bukele’s government also agreed to make acceptance of Bitcoin by businesses voluntary, within steps to assuage the IMF’s concerns about Bitcoin-related risks.

Some crypto supporters see governments and central banks taking a leading role in the global march towards digitised money with the development of their own currencies.
Celente of the Trends Research Institute said the US, for example, could create its own digital currency as a way to pay off its federal debt.
“There’s no way the US can pay off their $36 trillion worth of government debt. They may come up with a new cryptocurrency as part of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency),” Celente said.
“You’re seeing more and more of the central banks talking about CBDCs, they’re definitely going to go into that direction,” Celente added.
“They’re going to use this as an excuse to come up with a coin because they cannot pay off the debt that they have now. They’re going to say, ‘This [digital currency] is worth a lot more than the dollar, yuan, the euro,’ and use that to pay off their debt.”
Some observers have warned that the introduction of CBDCs would open a Pandora’s box of problems related to government control and surveillance of people’s finances.
Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, is the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, which manages the stockpile of US Treasuries that back Tether, the largest stablecoin by market cap.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are pegged to a traditional commodity or currency to maintain a stable price. They have reached record volumes of more than $200bn in total market cap.
Sobrado said there could be an opening for Tether to become the national de facto privatised CBDC for the US, and for smaller economies such as the UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland to issue their own CBDCs.
“The pro-crypto voices and Fed-critical voices have never been louder in the White House,” Sobrado said.
Celente said he had no doubt that the future of money is digital.
“There’s no question at all,” he affirmed.

Follow Al Jazeera English:

source

‘Shantyboats and Roustabouts’ book reveals river life from 1875-1930 | John Dunphy  Alton Telegraph
source

With the next cryptocurrency bull run approaching, analysts forecast huge returns for some altcoins. A $104 strategic investment in five of the coins: Rexas Finance (RXS), Pepe Coin, Dogecoin, Algorand, and Virtual Protocol might generate $1,040,000 by 2025. This comes at the back of their impressive performances in recent weeks and the potential for more gains. Here is what each offers. 
Rexas Finance (RXS) tokenizes real-world assets (RWAs) using blockchain technology. The idea emphasizes democratizing real estate, commodities, and art assets through RWA tokenization in a trillion-dollar market. This allows both regular investors and institutions to acquire fractional ownership of a high-priced asset with a minimal cost. The ongoing RXS presale result demonstrates significant investor confidence, as nine previous stages sold out ahead of schedule. RXS is currently valued at $0.15 and is expected to grow to $0.175 in the following phase, having already completed 92% of Stage 10. To date, Rexas Finance has raised $29 million and sold over 352 million tokens, indicating significant demand. Following the presale, RXS will be listed on at least three Tier-1 exchanges at an initial price of $0.20 per token, representing an easy 33% return for early investors. One factor driving this rapid adoption was its decision to bypass venture capital funding, allowing investors to access 42% of its total supply.

Whales Have Accumulated RXS
Rexas Finance also provides an innovative ecosystem with a no-code token builder, AI-powered NFT creation tools, and multi-chain yield optimization via Rexas Treasury. Its verified security protocols and adherence to regulatory norms create additional trust. To further prove its reliance, Rexas Finance recently completed its audit done by Certik. This thorough assessment ensures the platform’s smart contract is safe for transactions.  Meanwhile, early investors can participate in the ongoing $1 million giveaway, placing them in contention to be among the 20 top participants and win $50,000 worth of RXS. Analysts see Rexas Finance as a potential leader in combining traditional finance with decentralized solutions, securing its spot among the top millionaire-making altcoins by 2025.

Dogecoin (DOGE) is no stranger to rapid gains, and new data suggests it may be poised for another run. According to IntoTheBlock, 60.9 billion DOGE were shuffled in huge transactions over the last 24 hours, representing a 41.12% surge in whale activity. Historically, such rises have preceded substantial price increases. As of this report, DOGE trades at $0.3973, below its all-time high (ATH) of $0.7376, providing plenty of improvement possibilities. The social momentum generated by Elon Musk’s continuous support and the expanding inclusion of Dogecoin in mainstream payment options drives investor sentiment higher. Analysts believe DOGE can reach $4 during the next bull cycle, mainly as it follows previous bullish trends.
Pepe Coin (PEPE) has grabbed headlines for its staggering 2,500% gain from year-lows. PEPE is currently trading at $0.00002362 and has created a cup-and-handle pattern and an inverted head-and-shoulders formation on the charts, all of which are strong technical signs of continued higher momentum. The planned Binance $1 billion token burn is estimated to lower PEPE’s circulating supply by 10%, resulting in a deflationary effect that might significantly increase its value. Analysts predict that PEPE will reach $0.00002770 in the short term, although bullish estimates allow more price increases. If PEPE’s volume continues to outperform that of Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, its growth potential might be significant by 2025.
Algorand (ALGO) is riding strong technical signs and record open interest. A 28% increase in open interest to $81 million in 24 hours indicates traders’ confidence and demand. ALGO recently rose 29% to $0.34, a two-year high. A positive crossing of the MACD indicator confirms the rising trend.  Analysts predict $0.47 and $0.50 resistance levels, followed by $1. Increased scalability and adoption position Algorand to capitalize on the next bull run. If Bitcoin keeps rising, ALGO’s $5 route becomes increasingly likely.
Virtual Protocol is the main power at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology. Recently listed on Binance, Virtual has increased by 40x in the past three months to reach an all-time high of $2.61. VanEck’s most recent cryptocurrency projection cites AI agent technology as a significant growth driver, with Virtual Protocol at the forefront of this innovation. VIRTUAL’s decentralized AI tools empower non-technical users to construct AI agents for on-chain jobs, generating long-term usefulness and money. Analysts remain optimistic, predicting further development as AI usage spreads across industries. VIRTUAL’s distinct posture secures its spot among the millionaire-making cryptocurrencies of 2025.
The next bull market could bring life-changing profits for strategic investors. With solid fundamentals, market activity, and technical indicators, these five altcoins—Rexas Finance, Dogecoin, Pepe Coin, Algorand, and Virtual Protocol—stand out as leading candidates. Rexas Finance remains the front-runner in RWA tokenization. Its presale performance and upcoming Tier-1 exchange listings solidify its position as one of the most potential investments in the cryptocurrency sector for 2025.
 
For more information about Rexas Finance (RXS) visit the links below:
Website: https://rexas.com
Win $1 Million Giveaway: https://bit.ly/Rexas1M
Whitepaper: https://rexas.com/rexas-whitepaper.pdf
Twitter/X: https://x.com/rexasfinance
Telegram: https://t.me/rexasfinance
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.


Δ
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Blockchain News is a publisher of news, opinion, crypto and job opportunities in the blockchain innovation sector. Kicking off in 2015, This project was born of the desire to create an online repository and community for news and opinion about blockchain technology and theory. Today we continue to bring you the best and latest news items on the subject of Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Contact info: [email protected] (guest posts and other enquiries) and [email protected] (pressreleases only)

source

Moo Deng to Haggis: Fascinating animals that made waves in 2024  Hindustan Times
source

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim plans to press on in gathering support for investing in digital currency, despite the skepticism of the provincial minister, whom he needs on board.JACKIE DIVES/The New York Times
British Columbia’s Municipal Affairs Minister responded with a flat no this week to a suggestion by Vancouver’s mayor that the province allow the city to hold some of its reserves in the best known of the cryptocurrencies, bitcoin.
“I certainly won’t be moving anything. It’s just not a priority. We’ve got way too many important issues – health care, housing – to deal with,” Ravi Kahlon said.
A local economist who specializes in the social and environmental effects of bitcoin mining has said somewhat dismissively that the current enthusiasm of people such as Mayor Ken Sim for the digital currency is “a thing in the manosphere.”
“It’s popular among young males,” said UBC Sauder School of Business professor Werner Antweiler.
But that isn’t stopping Mr. Sim from pursuing the idea and talking about it with excitement.
It’s an incredible holder of value, the mayor said in an interview with The Globe and Mail, before listing the benefits of the currency: It’s the top-performing asset of the past 16 years. It’s better than gold. It can’t be captured by a military force. It can put Vancouver on the map as a world leader in bitcoin innovation.
“If we are able to incorporate bitcoin, that could set Vancouver up for the next 100 years,” he enthused. The price of Bitcoin surpassed $100,000 earlier this month compared with about $300 10 years ago.
So he plans to press on, despite the skepticism of the provincial minister, whom he needs on board to make his idea a reality.
“It would be irresponsible not to look at the merits of this. What we’re asking is for the residents of Vancouver and B.C. and Canada to do this work,” Mr. Sim said after getting city council to agree last week to have staff explore the idea of allowing people to pay municipal bills in bitcoin and have a small portion of the city’s financial reserves held in the currency.
It’s a proposal that has attracted buzzy media attention, along with both bitcoin critics and fans weighing in on the idea.
For the general public, though, it’s mostly a mystifying subject.
More than three-quarters of Canadians surveyed for a 2023 Ontario Securities Commission report said they have never owned cryptocurrency. Almost half cited concerns over potential risk as the top reason for that, while others said they lacked knowledge about digital currency or worried about being scammed. As for the “manosphere” thing, the survey showed the most enthusiastic group using it is men between 25 and 44 years of age – 53 per cent of those surveyed owned crypto funds or assets.
Comparatively, only 17 per cent of Americans have ever invested in or used any kind of cryptocurrency, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center study. Two-thirds of the American public isn’t confident about its safety or reliability, fearing that it can be used by criminal organizations or that it’s little more than Monopoly money. As in Canada, men led the demographics – 42 per cent between 18 and 29 years of age have invested in it or used it.
Complicating things is the fact that any discussion of it tends to be shrouded in baffling language.
A Wikipedia explanation of how bitcoin was created by an anonymous inventor in 2008 notes that it started with the innovation of a “complex interplay resulting in the first decentralized, Sybil-resistant, Byzantine-fault-tolerant digital cash system.”
Or there’s this entry on the Investopedia website: “Bitcoin mining is the process by which transactions are officially entered on the blockchain. It is also the way new bitcoins are launched into circulation. Mining is conducted by miners using hardware and software to generate a cryptographic number that is equal to or less than a number set by the Bitcoin network’s difficulty algorithm.”
It tends to be understood for the most part by people who are comfortable arguing the merits of fiat currency or the centuries-old reliance on gold as a financial reserve for state governments.
It also can’t be spent easily and, technically, is supposed to be reported in Canada as a capital gain if it is used.
Enthusiasts say it’s a powerful new technology that brings the kind of transparency and access to the monetary system that doesn’t exist in state-controlled banking systems.
“Crypto is the way of recognizing the value of data,” said James McKee, the head of digital strategy at the Vancouver arts group 221A. He described it as a “teenage technology” that is currently going through its rambunctious phase, but argues it opens up the financial system to more democratic controls.
He recommends, though, that the city not try to use bitcoin as a way of paying for day-to-day operational services. Instead, he said, it should be held as a financial asset on the books.
Victoria Lemieux, a co-lead at UBC’s Blockchain@UBC research cluster, dismissed the popular idea that it is more prone to being used by criminal or terrorist organizations.
“City policy should not be based on the faulty premises that criminals choose bitcoin and, relatedly, that bitcoin is primarily used for crime,” she said.
But those cautioning against a fulsome embrace of the currency say it is risky because it has no underlying value.
It’s not a rent-generating property or an energy source or a mine producing real metals. Instead, they say, it’s more like art or Dutch tulip bulbs: something that appears to have a lot of value because many people say it has value.
“The value is entirely what people think it will produce in the future,” said Prof. Antweiler, who has a blog on the topic and emphasizes how environmentally harmful bitcoin mining is because of how much electricity it uses.
Mr. Sim doesn’t care. He said he, too, was a skeptic about it all a decade ago, when one of his sons got interested in cryptocurrency and talked to him about it. Now he’s convinced “it’s an incredible invention.”
Report an editorial error
Report a technical issue
Editorial code of conduct
Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.
© Copyright 2024 The Globe and Mail Inc. All rights reserved.
Andrew Saunders, President and CEO

source

With College Football Playoff action underway, analysts across the country are making their first-round predictions.
The games started Friday with Notre Dame beating Indiana and continue with three matchups Saturday. The middle game — Texas football versus Clemson — pits the ACC championship game winning Tigers against the Longhorns, who finished the regular season first in the SEC before falling the title game.
Texas, the No. 5 seed, is hosting Clemson, the No. 12 seed, on what is supposed to be a beautiful day at Royal-Memorial Stadium in Austin.
The winner moves on to face Arizona State at the Peach Bowl.
CFP action Saturday starts with an 11 a.m. matchup between 11th-seeded SMU and sixth-seeded Penn State at Beaver Stadium. It ends with No. 9 Tennessee visiting “The Horseshoe” and No. 8 Ohio State.
Texas opened as a heavy favorite over Clemson, but let’s see what writers and analysts around the country think will happen in the first-round CFP matchup:
Here are predictions from ESPN, CBS and other outlets for the first-round CFP matchup in Austin:
The Statesman has been covering the Longhorns since day one this season and our team of writers have drawn a consensus on the game, even if they differ, slightly, on the margin of victory.
Danny Davis: Texas. At the end of the day, Texas has been a top-five team for much of this season while Clemson needed a 56-yard field goal to squeeze into the playoffs. I don’t expect Texas to cover Vegas’ big spread — the Longhorns rarely do — but I do expect UT to advance and return to Atlanta next week.
Cedric Golden: Texas 31, Clemson 21. Quinn Ewers gets a bit of revenge against Cade Klubnik but more important, the Longhorns rediscover their offensive groove. It’s back to the ATL. 
Thomas Jones: Texas 35, Clemson 24. Texas QB Quinn Ewers bids farewell to Royal-Memorial Stadium with one of his best games of the season as the Longhorns fend off a spirited effort from home-grown Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik.
David Eckert: Texas 24, Clemson 17. Clemson’s offense is comparable to Texas’ — maybe even a little bit better — but the Tigers can’t match what the Longhorns bring on the defensive side of the ball. The best defense in college football earns Texas the right to play another game.
RELATED:Quinn Ewers, Steve Sarkisian focused on CFP run, not QB’s future
Six out of seven CBS analysts picked Texas to win. Here’s how their picks went:
Dennis Dodd: Texas
Tom Fornelli: Texas
Shehan Jeyarajah: Texas
Richard Johnson: Texas
Brandon Marcello: Texas
Chip Patterson: Clemson
Jerry Palm: Texas
When it comes to the betting odds, the team is even more split. For those putting some money on the game, here’s what those same guys think of Texas being favored by 11½:
Dennis Dodd: Texas to cover
Tom Fornelli: Clemson to cover
Shehan Jeyarajah: Clemson to cover
Richard Johnson: Texas to cover
Brandon Marcello: Clemson to cover
Chip Patterson: Clemson to cover
Jerry Palm: Texas to cover
The self-dubbed “Worldwide Leader in Sports” has a clean sweep in its predictions. On “College GameDay,” broadcaster Rece Davis gave his reasons for his pick and in his playoff prediction story, Adam Rittenberg explained why he likes Texas in the matchup.
The website’s predictor, available for nearly all Football Bowl Subdivision games, gives Texas an 80% chance of beating Clemson.
Andrea Adelson: Texas 28, Clemson 14
Kyle Bonagura: Texas 31, Clemson 21
Bill Connelly: Texas 35, Clemson 16
Rece Davis: Texas
David Hale: Texas 45, Clemson 27
Adam Rittenberg: Texas 24, Clemson 16
Mark Schlabach: Texas 24, Clemson 20
Jake Trotter: Texas 24, Clemson 12
Pablo Uggetti: Texas 27, Clemson 14
Odds are provided by Bet MGM.
Follow the American-Statesman on Facebook and X for more. Your subscription makes work like this possible. Get access to all of our best content with this tremendous offer.
We occasionally recommend interesting products and services. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. USA TODAY Network newsrooms operate independently, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.

source