2014 has been a whirlwind for me. I’ve been working with cryptocurrency and encrypted messaging (EMP) for a full year now. I watched the shutdown and persecution of Lavabit‘s owner, Ladar Levison with great curiosity and trepidation. A quick check of google trends shows that the term “encrypted messaging” is on an upward trajectory: While “email” is relatively flat: Google searches suggest that email has reached near maximum market penetration. Email’s inherent insecurity is also becoming more pronounced as cyber-criminals become more advanced. The State Department was targeted several weeks ago. Today the New York Times reported that several biotech …continue reading

There’s been a lot of concern over Ghash reaching over 51% of the bitcoin network. Previously I’ve written about why this doesn’t bother me. There’s a very reasonable solution to all of this — location based domain were huge in the 90′s and early 2k’s. They make a lot of sense for mining pools. If mining pools are geographically they should be essentially equal, with a nexus around Lake Moses, WA. If you’re in the geo-domain community and this is something that interests you please send me an email: x (at) chicago.com.

There are some serious advantages to bitcoin for both consumers and merchants that have been seriously overlooked. Bitcoin is more than some strange technology, but rather a paradigm shift in the banking industry. Bitcoin turns banking into a commodity, thus allowing the free market to select payment processors on a basis of efficiency and nothing else. The banking industry drains hundreds of millions of dollars off of the economy every year. This cannot and should not be the case. Bitcoin encourages the very conceptual framework that my country of residence (USA!) was built upon, and they just sold 29k BTC. …continue reading

I’m moving. This is the 6th time I’ve moved in my adult life, it’s always a pain point. To get the best deal you have to search a million sites; I’ve had tabs open on hot pads, craigslist and domu for an embarassing number of days. Then there’s the junk that you have to sort through, half the adverts are fake or spam for apartment brokers while many of the good ones may go un-noticed. Here’s a simple solution: use a blockchain, ala bitmessage. Realtors could provide streams, and, by way of these streams a longer than default hosting and …continue reading

I Do this every year. It happens to make resolving tax disputes very easy, and is certainly better than using GameStop as a bank. The United States Government is one of the longest running financial institutions in the world. Your money is probably far safer there than in a bank or any non-traditional mechanism. They won’t give you a great interest rate (roughly 3%) but at least your money is safe.