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Koyfin

koyfin

The exchange-traded fund, or ETF, has become such as successful vehicle for investing that there is likely one for any situation you can dream of. From countries with economic freedom ( ) to the metaverse ( ), you might be paralyzed by the . How can you make sure to choose the appropriate ETFs for your portfolio? FRDM META abundance of choices Where Do I Find Good ETFs? When searching for ETFs, it’s best to first narrow it down with a specific type of objective in mind. Are you looking for a specific region (e.g. China, Europe, Emerging Markets, Domestic)? Are you looking for specific company size (e.g. large-cap, mid, small, micro)? Are you looking for certain themes, commodities, or sectors (e.g. technology, semiconductors, energy, gold)? I would suggest searching via Google rather than your brokerage because the latter will bias results in their favor. The is a popular website that displays a wide selection of ETFs. If you are looking for other options, I would suggest googling “ “. ETF Database ETF Screener If you are not finding what you are looking for, here is a list of some that I have encountered over the past few years. ETF providers Ark Blackrock Cambria Funds Charles Schwab Direxion Fidelity/iShares Invesco JP Morgan Roundhill Simplify State Street Vanguard Wisdomtree Where Will This ETF Fit In My Portfolio? Most investors, myself included, preach diversification of assets within a portfolio. If you adhere to this advice, then you need to establish where this ETF will fit in with your existing assets. This first step is establishing your objective for the ETF. Some key questions to ask yourself are whether this ETF will be: Short term/Tactical vs. Long term/Core holding? Held in a taxable vs. non-taxable account? Domestic vs. International Developed vs. Emerging Markets stocks? High vs. Medium vs. Low dividend/shareholder yield (i.e. value vs. growth stocks)? Large cap vs. Mid/Small Cap vs. Diversified cap size? One sector/industry vs. Diversified sectors/industries? What Does This ETF Contain? ETFs typically contain a basket of stocks or bonds; however, some will include other types of assets (e.g. commodities, crypto exposure, etc.). Using the as an example, we can locate their documentation to further understand what is in this ETF. Within this documentation, the assets being held are often described in the “Objective”, “Overview”, “Portfilo and Management” and “Holdings” sections. Within the documentation, you can find out the following characteristics of VTI: Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) “Seeks to track the performance of the .” CRSP US Total Market Index “Large-, mid-, and small-cap equity diversified across growth and value styles.” Top 10 holdings include Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, etc. 27.6 percent is in the technology sector 1.37 percent shareholder yield This information informs you that this is a diversified portfolio of U.S.-based stocks across all industries and sizes. If you want more details you could dive deeper into the that this ETF tracks. ETFs that track an index are “passively managed” (i.e. less active) than ones that are actively managed (e.g. ARKK fund). The active managed ones tend to change holdings more frequently and are often more expensive than the passively managed funds. market index With a shareholder yield of 1.37 percent (i.e. blend of value and growth), shareholders can expect a return of this amount of money for each share. refers to buybacks, debt paydowns, and dividends, while dividend yield only refers to dividends. Value companies tend to have higher shareholder yields and return more cash back to the shareholder, while growth companies tend to reinvest their earnings back into the company. Shareholder yield The objective of the fund is not something to be taken lightly. Because of the popularity of ETFs, there are many available that are more complex than your traditional index fund. If a fund factsheet mentions words such as “leverage”, “covered calls”, “managed futures”, “hedge”, “options wrapper”, or other advanced financial terminology, then you should probably avoid it unless you have a solid grasp or seek a financial professional’s opinion. How Active Do You Want To Be? Choosing ETFs that are more tactical require a pre-determined exit plan as opposed to the long term plays which you can HODL. There is a range of how active you need to be with each ETF. While leveraged ETFs are typically held less than year, target date funds could be held for your entire life. In general, ETFs designed to be core holdings in a portfolio (e.g. SPY, VEA, AGG) can be left alone for decades if the investor chooses to do so. How Liquid Is The ETF? Liquidity can be defined as the ease in which you can buy or sell the ETF (i.e. swap it with cash or for cash). While most funds are easy to buy via clicking a button, the level of liquidity will determine how much it costs to move in and out of these funds. Increased liquidity means it will be quicker and easier to buy the fund at a fair price. Lower liquidity will increase volatility in prices for those funds. There are three methods I use to understand the liquidity of an ETF: Spreads, Assets Under Management (AUM), and Volume. The bid-ask spread for a fund is the difference in the price that someone is willing to pay (the bid) versus the price where someone is willing to sell (the offer or ask). Whether the brokerage displays the bid-ask spread for a fund or not, these still exist under the hood. Brokerages like Robinhood opt for simplicity so they hide this detail, while traditional finance firms like Fidelity will display the information to the investor. A smaller spread (or difference) between the bid and ask means higher liquidity. Take a look at a few ETFs below to see how much this spread can vary from the most liquid (SPY) to the least liquid (TRTY) of the bunch. Another indirect method of determining liquidity is to identify how many assets are under management for that fund or the volume (i.e. activity) for the fund. The more popular funds tend to have higher AUM’s and volume, which correlates with higher liquidity. You can often find the AUM and volume for a fund in ETF screeners (see below). Source: ETFDB : A more advanced statistic related to fund performance and standard deviation is . Higher standard deviation means higher volatility, which is a tough thing to stomach in real time. Note sharpe ratio How Expensive Is This ETF? The expense ratio of a fund is the managerial cost for holding this fund. If the fund appreciates 5%, you will realize a gain of <5% because of this fee*. This fee is incredibly important because many of the funds you encounter are virtually identical. It would be akin to choosing between a white sedan and an off-white sedan where the latter is priced 5,000 dollars higher for no reason. Investing newbies, like myself in 2017, will often make their ETF selections solely based off of ETF expense ratios, and the managerial cost of holding the fund. While this is an incredibly important box to check off, it is not the sole consideration. When comparing funds that seem similar, it might be beneficial to see how correlated the funds are. If two funds have 95 percent correlation, or higher, over several years then you likely can choose the cheaper fund. The process for checking correlations is fairly simple. First, go to a website that calculates the correlation between two funds like . Then, enter two funds that you want to compare, such as the Schwab U.S. Small-Cap ETF (SCHA) and Vanguard Small-Cap Value ETF (VBR). I edited the dates to show a longer time period, going back to 2010. Over the past 12 years, these funds had a correlation of 0.98. Additionally, they had very similar monthly and annual standard deviations. Because they are strongly correlated had similar standard deviations, then it likely will not matter which one you pick. Below, you will see a chart of their performance over time and their correlation results. this one and Source: Koyfin Source: Portfolio Visualizer *There are some exceptions, such as the offered by Fidelity. zero-fee funds Applying The Process As you go through this fund selection process, there are many fantastic, free resources out there. Some of my favorite resources that I use frequently include the following: ETF Database/Screener Wisdom Tree Fund Comparison Tool Koyfin’s data research and analytics tools Thankfully, the cost of buying or selling funds is free or nearly free on most platforms. Therefore, it is easy enough to update your portfolio as you learn more over time. This framework should enable you to have a better understanding of the differences between various funds. Some logical next steps would be improving your understanding of sharpe ratios, risk, and modern portfolio theory in order to build your ideal portfolio. ~ The Data Generalist Financial Disclosure: Anything on this website is not financial advice.

How To Identify A Good ETF

People on social media love to talk about investing, but few will do the due diligence for their investments. Throwing money at companies without doing any research is closer to gambling than investing. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but the gambler is much more likely to sell when an investment has a large drawdown than the investor. Due diligence enables investors to have high conviction in an investment, which helps prevent them from selling during a large drawdown. Until late last year, I was more of a gambler than an investor. So what changed? The perfect opportunity fell into my lap. I learned about a small-cap company at the intersection of my interests and knowledge in public policy, sports, gambling, and technology. The stars aligned when I realized that their mobile app had been on my phone for years. The company was called Score Media and Gaming (SCR/SCR.TO). To say I became obsessed might be an understatement. In late 2020, I officially became a shareholder in the company. On March 23, 2021, I published my first analysis supporting a public company. My long thesis for SCR was now public knowledge for the world. To summarize my research, I had high conviction in this company for the following reasons: Founder led Huge TAM being unlocked in sports betting by new legislation in North America Governments are always looking for new tax revenue sources, especially in times of budget crises (i.e., COVID spending). Sin taxes, such as gambling, are easier to gain public support. Asset light company Strong user base for their sports media app, which I had been using for years. This could lead to a low customer acquisition cost (CAC) in their future sports betting ecosystem. Access to first-party data via their media app –> more important with the IDFA/Apple advertisement changes A proven history of building mobile apps and websites (i.e., a tech company). Potential to vertically integrate with the technology stack for their sports betting product, improving margins and adding control over the recommendation engine. An established brand in Ontario, one of the largest sports betting markets in North America History of being ahead of technology and market trends, such as shifting to mobile apps and starting an online eSports brand Free social media advertising from a few Barstool accounts and personalities because PENN had a minority stake in SCR Future TAM expansion opportunities in iGaming After doing the due diligence, I truly believed I found a potential multi-bagger. Around the time I published my article, I managed to convince almost a dozen friends and family to put some money in as well. As soon as everyone did, the stock tanked. Lesson #1: You should not rely solely on fundamental analysis for investment. All of my research was based on fundamentals but ignored one of the most important elements of investing: timing. Four weeks after my publication, SCR was down 31 percent. Eight weeks after my publication, it was down 47 percent. You will notice the huge drop from March 2021 through May 2021 in the chart from Koyfin below. After such a huge drawdown, what do you think happened next? As any normal shareholder would do, my friends and family began questioning my advice. Doubt and skepticism filled the air in every text or discussion. Their questions and concerns continued for months. Lesson #2: Be extremely cautious about giving investment advice to anyone. Their money and your reputation are at stake. Throughout this time, I had to repeatedly explain my reasoning for being long SCR. Often this had to be conveyed over a short text or a quick phone call. I constantly reiterated that huge drawdowns are normal for small caps and the long-term thesis remained largely intact. Lesson #3: You should be able to explain your investment thesis in a simple story to anyone, regardless of their background in investing. During this time of poor performance, I doubled down on my bet. I continued to dollar cost average my position and encouraged everyone to follow suit. This lowered our average price of purchase but shifted everyone’s portfolio allocation heavily towards one company. At times, SCR was more than 10 percent of my portfolio. For my friends and colleagues, it represented a sizeable percentage, too. Lesson #4: If you can’t do technical analysis, strongly consider dollar-cost averaging into a position for an individual stock. Meanwhile, we were all waiting for the one political event that would significantly impact the company’s future TAM. This was bill C-218 that proposed the legalization of single-event sports betting in Canada. Having 10 percent of your portfolio dependent on one unpredictable event is gut-wrenching. Anyone can tell you what uncertainty means, but living it every day can have a material impact on your mental state. There were days where my anxiety levels were very uncomfortable. Lesson #5: Drawdowns are incredibly painful no matter your conviction. Finally, we made it to the day of the Canadian Senate vote. SCR had been performing well during the weeks leading up to the event. I was optimistic about the future, but in the back of my mind knew about the term “sell the news. “ In the days after the bill was legalized, the stock declined 20 percent. Four weeks after the legislation had passed, the stock was close to the lowest point since their Nasdaq listing. Lesson #6: Sell the news events are a strange market phenomenon. The market is capable of declining no matter how positive the catalyst might be. After so many months of emotional pain, I began to wonder how long it could take for SCR’s price to reflect my thesis. If this huge, positive catalyst couldn’t maintain a higher market price, then what would? The next obvious catalysts on the horizon appeared to be earnings calls in 2022. This would show whether SCR could capture a large market share of sports betting in the Ontario market. While I still believed in this outcome, I was not blind to the bear thesis. What happens when the top competitors (e.g., DKNG, FanDuel, MGM) are willing to spend limitless amounts of advertising dollars to acquire customers? If these companies can sustain losses for years, then SCR’s theoretical low CAC advantage might remain just that. A theory. Lesson #7: No matter how much research you do, your thesis could take years to play out. Days will feel like weeks, weeks will feel like months, and months will feel like years. Throughout this period, I noticed a pattern among SPACs and many of the exciting, futuristic stocks. This included my beloved SCR. The pattern was the following: Lesson #8: Speculative earnings often mean temporary boosts in stock prices. Realized earnings will sustain higher stock valuations more permanently. Most of SCR’s future revenue was unproven; therefore, it was uncertain. And the market HATES uncertainty. With such a large drawdown, I began to debate whether to sell most of my position for tax harvesting and reenter in 30 days. After much internal debate, I chose not to and voiced my slight hesitation to my fellow shareholders. Lesson #9: Be extremely careful about tax harvesting during large drawdowns for volatile stocks. Anything can happen during the 30 day period where you are not holding a stock. On Aug 5, 2021, I awoke to a barrage of texts, missed calls, and notifications. I ignored the calls and texts because I saw a strange email subject flash across the screen. After opening the email, I learned that PENN had acquired SCR. The stock opened at 29.55, an incredible 63 percent increase from the previous day’s close. Because of months of depressing performance, it took me a couple of days to process how good of a result this was. Lesson #10: It only takes one other person, or company, to agree with your thesis to potentially change everything. In this case, PENN must have put the same premium on SCR’s theoretical low CAC ecosystem as I did. After collecting my thoughts, I summarized the result of the investment recommendation to my family and friends. Below is the performance breakdown for our SCR investment compared with the S&P500 and domestic small caps from March 22, 2021, through August 6, 2021. Additional cost bases are displayed since we continued to add to our SCR position as its price declined. S&P 500 (VOO): 12% Small cap (IWM): -1% SCR ($27 cost basis): 22% SCR($24): 37% SCR($22): 50% After seeing these results, some readers might think I’m a good investor. After seeing all of my mistakes, some readers might say that I was lucky. Lesson #11: It is incredibly difficult to evaluate whether someone is a good investor. It could take years to come to any sort of conclusion. ~ The Data Generalist *Approximate calculations, assuming VOO, IWM, and SCR $27 cost basis) were purchased on March 22, 2021. SCR continued to be purchased at different cost bases as it declined. All percentages are based on selling the respective shares on August 6, 2021. Image Source: Tabitha Turner on Unsplash Also Published On: https://thedatageneralist.com/lessons-from-my-first-high-conviction-investment/

What I Learned From Going "All In" On My First High-Conviction Stock Investment

This is by (source: ). Kofinas is the host of Hidden Forces. Twitter thread Demetri Kofinas @kofinas 03-21-2023 When says he is "ideologically driven," he's not lying. He and his comrades have an explicit political agenda to replace the Dollar and bring about a new world order run by a plutocratic elite of free agents who remain removed from the obligations of citizenship & place. @balajis As ridiculous as this may sound to some people, it needs to be taken seriously and the deeper motivations and causes behind it need to be understood. Balaji's claims about the US banking system failing while Chinese banks are "soaring" is a lie. His claim that the USD is about to go into hyperinflation is both ideologically-driven and ignorant. I’m happy to debate both of these claims with Balaji and have invited him on the Hidden Forces podcast for a frank conversation about it, but that is not the point of this thread. Balaji is nonetheless right to be upset about what has happened to our country over the last several decades. We know that there are many people to blame and some are more to blame than others. So, my question is what do we want to do about it? Balaji and other members of this new class of elite are clear on what they want to do. They are lobbying for a future that is plutocratic, where they can act like free agents by using their wealth to exercise political influence over governments around the world while remaining removed from the obligations of citizenship and the identity of place. Their exit strategy is a pyramid scheme: “Buy Bitcoin before it’s too late! Buy it or you will end up impoverished and without a voice.” Their sophistry and sense of entitlement remind me of the very political culture that they claim to want to upend. Except that their future lacks even the most elemental constitutional safeguards of our imperfect democratic world. I believe that we all need to get clear on what is happening in our societies today, especially in America and whether we want to be part of the solution or if we are with those like Balaji who choose “exit.” If you want to own Bitcoin, you should absolutely have the right to do that. In fact, participating in society through our existing democratic institutions is the only way to protect your right to own it and anything else. Balaji’s world promises you none of that. His vision is a chimera. We are at a turning point and we have to choose. Do we reform our societies from within, building on the institutions and traditions that we inherited over hundreds of years from generations that paid for them in some cases with their lives or do we jump into the abyss of uncertainty and chaos that is the world that Balaji and his comrades seek to bring about? It’s a choice that begins with rejecting golden calves and chimeras. What comes out of that is unknowable, but at least it forces us to contend with the deeper inequities, corruption, and betrayal of liberal democratic values that is partly responsible for our disillusionment with modernity. Our abandonment of tradition has left us casting about in open waters where hucksters and frauds present themselves as our saviors, when in truth we are the only ones who can save ourselves. Again, the choice begins with rejecting false idols, abandoning cynicism, and having faith. Deep down its faith that has been missing. Faith in each other and in ourselves to know that we can come out of this. That we know the way. That others have done it before and that we can do it again. Feature image generated via prompt of ‘A Debate’ HackerNoon Stable Diffusion

Responding to Balajis

The grassroots cypherpunk movement that gave birth to Bitcoin intended for $BTC to be a censorship resistant and immutable, fungible currency . for the everyday person Bitcoin’s best value proposition is its scarcity and perceived demand. However, these are the same characteristics that have turned it into another tool of Wall Street as a commodity. In 2020, we heard about the multitude of Wall Street institutions jumping on the bandwagon. Within a six month period, commonly recognized names such Square, Paypal, Mass Mutual and most recently Tesla/Elon Musk announced their BTC purchases. These public pronouncements only serve one purpose, to induce fomo (fear of missing out) and more buying so as to keep driving up the price. Michael Saylor of Microstrategy is probably one of the loudest evangelists in this space. Notably, Michael favors government regulation and is also one of the first to denounce the privacy and censorship resistance aspects of BTC (1). "It is not surprising in my view that some prominent promoters of Bitcoin, like Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, are trying to change the narrative from “Currency” to “Asset”, in some way trying to avoid direct conflict with the Fed. Wishful thinking in my view." ~ Diego Parrilla, Engineer, Economist, and Best-selling author "The Energy World is Flat" and "The Anti-Bubbles". Portfolio Manager Global Macro, Volatility, and Tail Risk. (2) A core feature of BTC is its immutability and vital to this is the transparent public ledger. In fact, transparency is key to bitcoin’s trustlessness. All transactions and addresses are stored on a publicly viewable database that is replicated and verified by every miner globally. However, this lack of privacy makes it a terrible medium of exchange. No one is interested in the gallon of milk you buy at the grocery store every week, but health insurance companies may deny your health insurance application or charge a high premium if they can see from your blockchain transactions that you spend half your paycheck on cigarettes every month. Since both parties of a transaction know each other’s wallet addresses, would you want a stranger who you met on craigslist to buy a crockpot from, know that your wallet has a $10,000 balance on it, or that it is connected to your savings wallet that has $100,000 in it? Privacy is an immensely critical feature of everyday money. Cash today is the acme of anonymity. Credit cards provide a modicum of pseudonymity from the public imparted by the the credit card company. Some BTC developers are trying to build a second layer on top of Bitcoin that provides optional privacy as a patch. However, we already know that optional privacy is no privacy at all. For instance, ZCash is often erroneously touted as a privacy coin. Privacy on ZEC is optional. Less than 1% of ZCash transactions are private. As a result, crypto tracking companies such as Chainanalysis are able to document over 99% of ZCash transactions based on the resulting metadata (3). "We’re not really here to pitch bitcoin to the moon or as digital gold, all of those conversations are interesting philosophically. Of course if bitcoin rallies, let’s assume a rising tide lifts all boats. That’s great, but we view this simply as another asset class to trade, and I think that is a little bit disarming for folks, but also differentiating as to how we’re going about things.” ~ Matt Edwards, CEO and CIO of Dalpha Captial, on Between 2 chains podcast, episode 12 (4). Wall Street does not like the privacy aspect because it generates revenue based on asset flow. It matters more to Wall Street that $100 billion worth of transactions are conducted in BTC valued at $10k, than $1 million worth of transactions valued at $100k. Institutions earn their keep not by hodling, but by making money as the middleman. “Bitcoin started out as an ideological construct…but now it has run into wall street. And the ideological construct of Wall Street is ‘let’s make money’. Period. ‘We don’t care how we do it and we don’t care who gets in the way, let’s make money’” ~ Grant Williams, host of The Grant Williams podcast, co-founder of Real Vision, senior advisor to Matterhorn Asset Management AG in Switzerland, and a portfolio and strategy advisor to Vulpes Investment Management in Singapore (5). Wall Street also needs regulatory approval. We have already seen that governments will never condone private currencies that they cannot control. The latest U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulations sparked outrage from privacy concerned groups (6). Similar call for regulations were issued from Christine Lagarde of the European Central Bank (7) and Janet Yellen, Secretary of the U.S. Treasury (8). Regulations will likely outlaw any private usage of BTC. This will inevitably create an environment of colored coins, effectively splitting BTC into a class system of "white-listed" vs. "colored" bitcoins. Want to use BTC in government regulated environments? Well, only white-listed ones will be allowed. Want to store your BTC privately? Well, you will only be able to use it outside of countries that ban unregistered addresses. Alex Gladstein, a champion of human rights and Bitcoin maximalist, laid out his thesis on the NLW podcast (9). Unfortunately, it is inevitable that Bitcoin becomes a speculative tool of Wall Street, in a two class system of registered and unregistered Bitcoin addresses. Bitcoin will also always retain its transparency that is required for its immutability. "We’re not building a new financial system through bitcoin, bitcoin is being financialized." ~ Demetri Kofinas, Host and Editor-in-Chief of Hidden Forces podcast, on an interview with Ash Bennington on The Ground Floor Consensus podcast (10) It is unlikely that bitcoin will be a global reserve asset anytime soon. There are two primary reasons today. First, we are in a nationalistic world, can you see any country giving up the power of their sovereign currencies? Second, 2% of wallets hold 95% of Bitcoin (even if you remove the centralized exchange wallets, there’s still over 90% of Bitcoin held by those wallets). Think about that, would you want to hold your life savings in an asset that can be manipulated by the bitcoin two-percenters? Returning to the original intent of a currency for the people of the world, privacy coins are the best option. Digital currencies with mandatory privacy such as Monero (11) and Pirate Chain (12) are the only two plausible options that can function as currencies for global citizens. There is no doubt that Bitcoin’s value will continue to rise exponentially. Although BTC likely will not become a government sanctioned reserve asset, it has a high probability of being the primary underlying asset of an exponentially growing parallel economy. Key to a currency of daily use is privacy, along with fungibility and ease of use. Privacy is what Pirate Chain is best at amongst all the digital currency options in crypto (13). Pirate Chain is the closest digital iteration of cash and is the best form of digital currency available to date (14). With regards to Pirate Chain as a “transaction asset”. The United States Dollar accounts for 80% of the world’s transactions whereas it only contributes to 25% of global gross domestic product. From an investment perspective, people were rewarded for hoarding USD as a savings over the last few decades. We now know that the monetary policy behind USD is fatally flawed. Pirate Chain is an excellent medium of exchange and because of both its programmed scarcity and privacy, it also has a tremendous value proposition as an “asset” that should be in everyone's portfolio. References Crypto Regulation Will Accelerate Stampede of Money Into Bitcoin, Says Michael Saylor. https://dailyhodl.com/2021/01/21/crypto-regulation-will-accelerate-stampede-of-money-into-bitcoin-says-michael-saylor/ Bitcoin: Bubble or Anti-Bubble? Diego Parrilla. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bitcoin-bubble-anti-bubble-diego-parrilla/?mc_cid=629d8884be Introducing Investigation and Compliance Support for Dash and Zcash. https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/introducing-chainalysis-investigation-compliance-support-dash-zcash Digital Assets through an Institutional Lens (w/ Matt Edwards). Between 2 Chains podcast, episode 12. https://www.realvision.com/podcast/between2chains/episode/991023a8-7a96-11eb-9691-db3eb133e41d The Grant Williams Podcast. Both Sides Of The Coin: A Civilized Bitcoin Debate. https://www.grant-williams.com/gw_podcast/both-sides-of-the-coin-featuring-mike-green-and-nic-carter/ U.S. Department of Justice issues legal framework for Bitcoin and crypto. https://www.crypto-news-flash.com/u-s-department-of-justice-issues-legal-framework-for-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrencies/ ECB Chief Christine Lagarde Calls for Global Bitcoin Regulation. https://news.bitcoin.com/ecb-christine-lagarde-global-bitcoin-regulation-btc/ Janet Yellen suggests 'curtailing' cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, saying they are mainly used for illegal financing. https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/janet-yellen-suggests-curtailing-cryptocurrencies-such-as-bitcoin-saying-they-are-mainly-used-for-illegal-financing/articleshow/80366701.cms NLW Podcast. Will Wall Street Ruin Bitcoin. December 16th, 2020. The Crypto Narrative (w/ Demetri Kofinas). Ground Floor Consensus Podcast Episode 11. https://www.realvision.com/podcast/realvisioncrypto/episode/05d5c78c-75eb-11eb-8d31-b3743365fc9f https://www.getmonero.org The most anonymous cryptocurrency. Pirate Chain https://pirate.black/ What Should You Expect From A Truly Private Digital Cash? https://hackernoon.com/what-should-you-expect-from-a-truly-private-digital-cash-u0g732gm An Open Letter to Coin Center: Introduction to a Fully Private Zero-Knowledge Proof Digital Currency. An Open Letter to Coin Center: Introduction to a Fully Private Zero-Knowledge Proof Digital Currency

Wall Street's Bitcoin Vs. Reddit's Bitcoin

We are all taught to share as children. What happens when we become adults? The Sharing economy is commonly defined as “the peer-to-peer-based activity of obtaining, giving, or sharing the access to goods and services, coordinated through community-based online services” *. The market is currently worth over $100 billion but it is predicted to grow to at least $335 billion by 2025*. When we all start to realise the potential of sharing assets and services, the impact will be life changing for both the Western world and the developing countries. Not only shall it lessen our global footprint, decrease our costs, open up avenues for extra income, “it also has the potential to address long-term societal challenges such as making cities more inclusive and building social connections between groups that might otherwise never have interacted.” (Cheryl Martin, World Economic Forum writes in “Collaboration in the Cities”) We are all aware of the consumerist society in which we live, but the time has now arrived to start becoming less throwaway and more responsible. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations “Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted” *. This is a horrifying statistic and can easily be changed. There are various apps that have been created to combat this, diverting food from being unnecessarily thrown away. This is a great step in the right direction but it is still early days. Food wastage is just one example, there are plenty more. With the rapid development of technology, we will soon be able to fully embrace sharing and start differentiating between what we actually need to personally own and what we can simply borrow or rent. The sharing economy has been brought into the limelight with Uber and Airbnb in the last few years. Airbnb has enabled extra income for the house owner and Uber has provided a vast amount of jobs for freelancer drivers who are free to work whenever they wish. Both companies have revolutionised the providers and users lives. They have created opportunity, income and freedom for the provider, and choice, ease and security for the user. There are thousands of other companies that exist but similarly they specialise in one particular niche. There are some major issues with all of these clever start-ups. Firstly, you must sign up to each individual company, download each individual app and give over your bank details every time. Secondly, there are so many of these apps but many are localised. Thirdly, you may incur international transaction fees and exchange rates if you are using an app in a foreign country. All of these negatives have been realised and taken into consideration for a new app called ShareRing, which has the potential to change the whole sharing economy and is due to launch in November this year. Tim Bos (Co-founder and CEO of ShareRing) Melbourne start-up, ShareRing, has been deemed to be ‘the Amazon of the sharing economy’. Tim Bos (CEO) recognised how fragmented the industry has become and saw its potential. It is based around blockchain technology and uses a dual token system, which means you will not incur any exchange rates or international fees. The beauty of ShareRing is that you will not need to understand any jargon to simply use it when it is launched towards the end of this year. Bos has in fact made a point of not focusing on talking about the technology side, stating that its everyday user will not need to know anything about its clever tech. All that needs to be known is that you will be able to simply sign up to one platform, have one username and password, and be able to share anything you could possibly dream of; from a car to a wedding dress to a pet sitter to food. There will also be geolocation so you will be able to source the closest asset or services to you. ShareRing has already secured some impressive partnerships and is in line to raise $38million by the end of its ICO. BYD (Chinese based automobile company), DJI drones (market leader in drone technology), GTI Holdings (a major investment fund) are a few names to mention but ShareRing has also recently joined the new mobility consortium MOBI that consists of 70% of the top automakers of the world including BMW and Ford. This company means business. Bos (appropriate name!) and business partner Peter David founded global carsharing platform Keaz, which has offices in Australia, Hong Kong, Vietnam and the USA. Their experience is quite apparent, as the delivery of their new venture has been impeccable. The sharing economy is here to stay and is soon to explode. It’s an exciting time for us all. Hopefully we shall be able to turn round the drastic situation and global waste we have put on our planet. Time to practice the act of sharing that we so strongly preach to our children. Read more about ShareRing: https://sharering.network/en Follow the ShareRing community: _The latest Tweets from ShareRing (@ShareRingCo). The world's first trusted token for sharing services. One way to pay…_twitter.com ShareRing (@ShareRingCo) | Twitter _You can view and join @ShareRing right away._t.me ShareRing (SHR) Sources: 1. www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/sharingeconomy_032017final.pdf 2. www.brookings.edu/research/the-current-and-future-state-of-the-sharing-economy 3. http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/

How could sharing create a better world for us all?

Net Neutrality — The Time to Fight is Now Over the coming days, two arms of the US government will hold votes that could decide the future of free speech and commerce. The votes will be on — the set of rules that prevent the likes of Comcast or AT&T (so-called Internet Service Providers or ‘ISPs’) from blocking the content you see or requiring payment to prioritize what comes through their wires into your home or business. Since enactment in 2015, Net Neutrality has turbocharged investment in digital services and unleashed an unprecedented wave of citizen engagement. . ‘Net Neutrality’ It is now under assault The first vote may come as early as Monday Oct. 2. That is when the Senate is scheduled to vote on the re-confirmation of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai, . The second is the FCC’s vote to finalize their that would formally remove the Net Neutrality protections. That vote will likely come before the end of the year and has been the subject of over (and much controversy over those comments). Because Republicans have majorities both in the Senate and at the FCC, defeating Pai’s nomination and the rule will be a struggle, but it is struggle on which our prosperity and the First Amendment depend. who has vowed to destroy Net Neutrality proposed rule 22 million comments [1] In order to counter the lobbying clout of the cable industry, yesterday a group of advocates led dozens of citizens from all over the country (including from as far away as Alaska, Colorado Oregon and California!) to the Capitol in order to ask our lawmakers directly to vote against Pai’s confirmation and to oppose all attempts to weaken Net Neutrality. [2] This kind of action works — but only if it is combined with large numbers of fellow citizens petitioning their representatives closer to home. [3] Emails are better than nothing, calls are better than emails and visits are better than calls. : There are several petitions circulating, including . To email Fight for the Future’s “Fire Pai” Petition : (it comes with a script) To call Get your elected representatives’ numbers here : . If you don’t see one near you, or simply show up. To visit Find upcoming district office visits here organize your own Tell your Representatives your own story. How is that you rely on the internet and how will you be affected if your ISP can decide what you see and what you dont’? If you live in a blue district, chances are your Representatives already support the current Net Neutrality framework and oppose Pai’s agenda. If your Rep has been vocal, thank them. Ask Senators to vote against Pai’s confirmation and to make any vote in favor as politically difficult as possible. Ask both House members and Senators to use their weight to call the FCC to task in committee and to oppose any weakening of Net Neutrality. It may be useful to point out to Democrats that internet freedom has been crucial to the successes they have had so far in opposing the current administration and the congressional majority. For example, without social media and aggressive online reporting, there would not have been any effective opposition to Trumpcare. If you are in a red district, explain to your Representative that the current policy of Net Neutrality is incredibly popular, . It may suffice merely to ask them, “who outside of Washington actually supports the FCC’s proposal?” even among Republicans If your Representative is an intellectually honest believer in free markets (they do exist), it may help to point out that the proposed rule is contrary to that philosophy. Pai’s first argument — that ISPs should not be subject to ‘utility-style’ regulation — is a red herring. The current protections do not dictate rates, nor do they restrict activity in the way utility regulation does. [4] His second argument — that the Net Neutrality protections have reduced investment by ISPs — is demonstrably false, even according to the . And even if it were true (which it isn’t), it would not be relevant. ISP’s own SEC filings You can make a coherent case that free markets produce the best economic outcomes. But you cannot measure the success of that theory by the investments or profits of a single industry. What matters is investment, competition and wealth creation throughout the entire economy. Ask your Rep, “How will a small business in your district compete if they cannot pay the same prioritization fees as Uber or Amazon?” The evidence is irrefutable: Net Neutrality protections have massively increased investment across the internet ecosystem. Entirely new industries like streaming video on demand have been created. Others like cloud computing have grown exponentially. Consumer choice has improved — 22mm Americans will ‘cut the cord’ this year. These two votes will determine whether or not the internet as we know it continues to exist. Be heard today — If you‘re not, the outcome is certain. Like so many things in America, Net Neutrality has become a partisan issue even though it ought not to be and hadn’t been until recently (should the NFL be a partisan issue?!?). [1] and . For perfect clarity, I do not represent any of those groups. I speak only for myself. [2] Electronic Frontier Foundation , The Center for Media Justice , Common Cause , Consumers Union , Fight for the Future , Free Press Action Fund , Writers Guild of American West , Public Knowledge I can speak from experience. Despite having virtually unlimited resources and expertise, large bank lobbying against financial reform failed more than it succeeded because of the combination of citizen action and professional activists like . In part this was because banks were so unpopular (cable companies are ) but it was also because when voters make themselves heard, the government actually does respond. [3] Better Markets even more unpopular Even granting that ISPs are regulated like utilities (and they are not), most Americans view internet access as a necessity, more similar to water and power than to legacy cable television. [4] http://www.incompas.org/files/IMGEInsights-Presentations-KeyFindings-1c.pdf

Net Neutrality — The Time to Fight is Now

A DevOps transformation without implementing Infrastructure as Code will remain incomplete: Infrastructure Automation is a pillar of the modern Data Center. With tools like SaltStack and Docker things are becoming easier. This tutorial is part of a . Painless Docker Course If you are interested in discovering our new courses about AWS, and we will be sharing interesting stuff with you ! register using this form Update: After sharing this story to Reddit, I read some comments saying that I am reinventing AWS Lambda or a serverless system in general. I’d like to say yeah ! why not !? After all, the purpose of this course is educational and you can consider it as a reverse hack. Happy Hacking ! Introduction We are going to use a set of tools like SaltStack, Boto3 (Python3), AWS CLI, EC2 in order to create a master and some minions running a Docker container each. This diagram explains a lot of what we will do. Creating the First EC2 Machine Using AWS CLI We will need the ID of the VPC, the ID of the Security Group, the ID of the Subnet, the name of the key pair and the AMI of the OS we are going to use (Ubuntu 16.04). The latter depends on the zone. Describing VPCs Let’s see what we have as VPCs: aws ec2 describe-vpcs You should get a detailed list of your active VPCs: {"Vpcs": [{"DhcpOptionsId": "dopt-xxxxxx","CidrBlock": "172.31.0.0/16","InstanceTenancy": "default","State": "available","IsDefault": true,"VpcId": "vpc-xxxxx"},{"DhcpOptionsId": "dopt-xxxxx","CidrBlock": "172.20.0.0/16","InstanceTenancy": "default","State": "available","Tags": [{"Key": "xxxxx","Value": "xxxxx"},{"Key": "xxxxxx","Value": "xxxxx"},{"Key": "xxxxxx","Value": "xxxxxx"}],"IsDefault": false,"VpcId": "vpc-xxxxxx"}]} Listing the Security Groups aws ec2 describe-security-groups You should get a list: {"IpPermissionsEgress": [{"IpProtocol": "-1","IpRanges": [{"CidrIp": "0.0.0.0/0"}],"UserIdGroupPairs": [ \],  
      "PrefixListIds": \[  
          
      \]  
    }  
  \],  
  "Tags": \[  
    {  
      "Key": "Name",  
      "Value": "xxxxxx"  
    }  
  \],  
  "OwnerId": "xxxxx",  
  "GroupName": "xxxxxxxx",  
  "VpcId": "vpc-xxxxxxx",  
  "Description": "xxxxxx",  
  "IpPermissions": \[  
    {  
      "IpProtocol": "-1",  
      "IpRanges": \[  
        {  
          "CidrIp": "0.0.0.0/0"  
        }  
      \],  
      "UserIdGroupPairs": \[  
          
      \],  
      "PrefixListIds": \[  
          
      \]  
    },  
    {  
      "IpRanges": \[  
        {  
          "CidrIp": "0.0.0.0/0"  
        }  
      \],  
      "ToPort": 22,  
      "UserIdGroupPairs": \[  
          
      \],  
      "PrefixListIds": \[  
          
      \],  
      "IpProtocol": "tcp",  
      "FromPort": 22  
    },  
    {  
      "IpRanges": \[  
        {  
          "CidrIp": "0.0.0.0/0"  
        }  
      \],  
      "ToPort": 2376,  
      "UserIdGroupPairs": \[  
          
      \],  
      "PrefixListIds": \[  
          
      \],  
      "IpProtocol": "tcp",  
      "FromPort": 2376  
    }  
  \],  
  "GroupId": "sg-xxxxxx"  
}      
... Describing Availability Zones & Choosing the AMI: aws ec2 describe-availability-zones Even if we’re not going to use this directly but to find the AMI, we should get this information first: {"AvailabilityZones": [{"Messages": [],"RegionName": "eu-west-1","ZoneName": "eu-west-1a","State": "available"},{"Messages": [],"RegionName": "eu-west-1","ZoneName": "eu-west-1b","State": "available"},{"Messages": [],"RegionName": "eu-west-1","ZoneName": "eu-west-1c","State": "available"}]} Since I am going to use Ubuntu, I used this website: https://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/locator/ec2/ Describing the Subnets aws ec2 describe-subnets And you get a similar list to this: {"AvailableIpAddressCount": 4091,"MapPublicIpOnLaunch": true,"AvailabilityZone": "eu-west-1b","VpcId": "vpc-xxxxxx","State": "available","DefaultForAz": true,"CidrBlock": "172.31.0.0/20","Tags": [{"Value": "xxxxxxxxxx","Key": "Name"}],"SubnetId": "subnet-xxxxxxxxxx"} Getting the Key Pairs aws ec2 describe-key-pairs And it will show the list of existent key pairs: {"KeyPairs": [{"KeyFingerprint": "xxxxxxxxxxx","KeyName": "xxxxxxxx"},{"KeyFingerprint": "xxxxxxxxx","KeyName": "xxxxxxxx"}]} Let’s Create the Machine aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-785db401 --count 1 --instance-type t2.micro --key-name .xxxxx --security-group-ids sg-xxxxx --subnet-id subnet-xxxxx --associate-public-ip-address --query 'Instances[0].InstanceId' --output text This should show us the id of the instance: i-0ed688fc95b1feeb2 Get the Public DNS In order to connect using SSH, we should get this ! aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-0ed688fc95b1feeb2 --query 'Reservations[0].Instances[0].PublicDnsName' --output text And the output was: ec2-34-253-201-12.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com Let’s Try the Public IP ! Same as DNS, type: aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-0ed688fc95b1feeb2 --query 'Reservations[0].Instances[0].PublicIpAddress' --output text Output: 34.253.201.12 I Need the Private IP In my case I am going to connect the Salt Minion to the Salt Master using the private IP, you can do the same if you will create both machines in the same VPC. If you want to use the private IP : aws ec2 describe-instances --instance-ids i-0ed688fc95b1feeb2 --query 'Reservations[0].Instances[0].PrivateIpAddress' --output text Output: 172.31.4.106 Installing the Master Using the public DNS and your Key Pair connect to the created machine: apt install salt-master Creating & Provisioning Multiple Minion Machines Using Boto3 & Cloudinit To use Boto3 (Python), you can create a Python virtual environment if you don’t want to install it to your machine. This is what I do in all cases. virtualenv -p python3 learning cd learning/. bin/activatepip install boto3mkdir app && cd app Now let’s create the Python script: import boto3import sys AWS_ACCESS_ID = "xxxxxxxxxx"AWS_SECRET_KEY = "x/xxxxxx"ImageId = "ami-785db401"KeyName = ".xx"InstanceType = "t2.micro" MinCount = 1MaxCount = 1SubnetId = "subnet-xxxxx"SecurityGroupIds = ["sg-xxxxxx"]UserData = open('init.sh') conn = boto3.client('ec2',aws_access_key_id=AWS_ACCESS_ID,aws_secret_access_key=AWS_SECRET_KEY) for i in range( int(sys.argv[1]) ):reservation = conn.run_instances(ImageId=ImageId,KeyName=KeyName,InstanceType=InstanceType,MinCount=MinCount,MaxCount=MaxCount,SecurityGroupIds=SecurityGroupIds,SubnetId = SubnetId,UserData=UserData.read()) This is the user data file: #!/bin/bash # exec > >(tee /var/log/user-data.log|logger -t user-data -s 2>/dev/console) 2>&1echo BEGIN https://alestic.com/2010/12/ec2-user-data-output/ sudo apt-get update -ysudo apt-get upgrade -y # Install saltstacksudo apt-get install salt-minion -y # Set salt master location and start minionsudo sed -i 's/#master: salt/master: 34.253.201.12/g' /etc/salt/minionsudo salt-minion -d # Install Dockercurl -fsSL | sudo apt-key add - https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg sudo add-apt-repository \"deb [arch=amd64] \$(lsb_release -cs) \stable" -y https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu sudo apt-get update -y || :sudo apt-get install docker-ce -y sudo apt install python-pip -y && sudo pip install docker-py -y echo END It will provision the machine on its startup by installing Salt Minion and Docker. Note in the script above that we already set the server of the minion to the private IP address of the master. sudo sed -i 's/#master: salt/master: 34.253.201.12/g' /etc/salt/minion To create 5 machines, just type: python <script_name> 5 To run 1000 machines, just type: python <script_name> NO WAY :) Now we have 5 machines where Salt Minion and Docker are installed and a a Salt Master. Connecting the Minions to the Master On the Master type: salt-key -L and you’ll get the Minions waiting to be accepted: Accepted Keys:Denied Keys:Unaccepted Keys:ip-172-31-5-169.eu-west-1.compute.internalip-172-31-5-168.eu-west-1.compute.internalip-172-31-5-167.eu-west-1.compute.internalip-172-31-5-166.eu-west-1.compute.internalip-172-31-5-165.eu-west-1.compute.internalip-172-31-5-164.eu-west-1.compute.internal..etc Rejected Keys: Accept all using: salt-key -A then uncomment the following part from /etc/salt/master: file_roots:base:- /srv/salt We will have a file server for Salt states and Salt high states in the location mentioned above. Now restart the Master: pkill salt-mastersalt-master -d In order to install Docker containers on the Minions, you should not forget this: salt * pip.install docker-py>=1.4.0 This command will install a superior version to 1.4.0 of Python docker package. Now create two files, the Top file In Salt, the file which contains a mapping between groups of machines on a network and the configuration roles that should be applied to them is called a . top file And the SLS file: The core of the Salt State system is the SLS, or a t tate file. The SLS is a representation of the state in which a system should be in, and is set up to contain this data in a simple format. This is often called configuration management. S L S (both quotes are taken from the official Salt documentations) Here is the structure of file tree: tree /srv/salt/ /srv/salt/├── top.sls└── webserver.sls Starting Docker Containers We are going to run multiple Nginx containers. Nginx is just an example here, you can run whatever image you want. Let’s modify the content of the webserver.sls and tell the Master to run Nginx: my_service:dockerng.running:- name: nginx- image: nginx Now let’s modify the content of the Top file and tell the Master to apply the state to the servers having Ubuntu as an OS. This is a targeting technique, you can choose any other targeting pattern. (read this for more information: ) https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/targeting/ #top.sls file base:'os:Ubuntu':- match: grain- webserver In order to start the containers, type: salt '*' state.apply and you will get the execution logs: [...]ip-172-31-5-169.eu-west-1.compute.internal:----------ID: my_serviceFunction: dockerng.runningName: nginxResult: TrueComment: Container 'nginx' is already configured as specifiedStarted: 01:03:40.062033Duration: 28.66 msChanges: Summary for ip-172-31-5-169.eu-west-1.compute.internal------------Succeeded: 5Failed:    0------------Total states run:     5 This Combination of Salt, Docker, Boto3 and AWS could be used in different automation scenarios and even for self-healing and auto-scalable infrastructures. You can find similar tutorials in my . Painless Docker Course That’s all folks ! Connect Deeper If you resonated with this article, you can find more interesting contents in . Painless Docker Course If you liked this course, subscribe to one or more of our newsletters: : The DevOps Ecosystem is Growing Fast. Each Week, We Hand-curate Must-read News, Tutorials, Reviews and More ! DevOpsLinks : An Independent Newsletter Focused On Serverless, Containers, FaaS & Other Interesting Stuff Shipped : A #Kubernetes Community Hub, Hand Curated Newsletter, Team Chat, Training & More Kaptain You can find me on , or my and you can also check my books: . Twitter Clarity website SaltStack For DevOps Don’t forget to join our jobboard ! Jobs For DevOps If you liked this post, please recommend it and share it with your followers.

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