Category Archives: Fiat/BTC interfaces

Dicamba Disaster Continues Destruction

Posted on by

As the story of the Dicamba Disaster in the United States begins finally reaching mainstream media outlets, the St Louis Post Dispatch brings us news that Dicamba Drift has threatened Missouri's largest peach orchard (archived). Two hundred and fifty acres of the orchard's peach trees are already irreparably harmed and as the damage continues to show that number could double by next spring as the injury progresses.1

Dicamba has been around since 1942. Until this year it had largely survived in its humble role as that thing you add as a tiny fraction of a percent to your tank mix as a little kicker to beat back broadleaf weeds. What it did, what it didn't do, and why it stayed that tiny fraction were established. Why it stayed the tiny fraction is that dicamba is volatile and the dicamba that doesn't get absorbed and bound will vaporize and spread.

The ascendancy of Roundup Ready in the 1990's inspired much panic. "Genetic modifications AND a super herbicide?" Glyphosate however turned out to be a kitten with the surfactants mixed with it carrying a greater hazard to fauna than the herbicide itself, flora was still fucked though.2

Monsanto opened a pandora's box with their latest offering, because when you offer desperate farmers soybeans that won't suffer any losses with two herbicides those farmers are getting as much mileage out of those two herbicides as they can. Bad behavior becomes mandatory, because fuck that other family's peach orchard which took a generation to grow. Also no one cares about the other stands of mature trees yellowing, defoliating, and in clear decline.3

It would likely have not made things much better even if Monsanto released their "less volatile" dicamba with the seeds4 so long as other people were selling classic Dicamba preparations for less. The competition between agriculture and chemistry is leaning decidedly in chemistry's favor with crops outside of the limited Monsanto supplied corns and alt-corns becoming environmentally impracticable. US agriculture at this point appears to on track to become a fiefdom of tort law in the same way US medicine is by this time next year. This is the story of your loss and imazapyr resistant crops can't come soon enough (archived).

  1. And even in the absence of further dicamba applications nearby it will continue to progress.  ↩

  2. But only if the glyphosate solution actually made contact with foliage.  ↩

  3. This phenomena is pointedly NOT limited to the portions of the Ozarks that US based media is suggesting it to be. ↩

  4. It seems likely they anticipated the destruction and didn't want their preparation taking the blame.  ↩

The "Your Loss" Playbook

Posted on by

Before we at Qntra can be sorry for your loss, someone else has to bake your loss first.When a "business" decides to live at the intersection of Bitcoin money and fiat currencies your loss tends to follow the same few steps. There may be a few variation on these steps depending on whether your chosen loser is BitInstant, MtGox, Mcxnow, Homero Garza, Buterin,1 or Bitfinex.

  1. Make, buy, or steal a thing to be calling your business. If you are a true pioneer like Intersango you make it. You buy it if you are Mt Gox or Butterfly Labs. If you are Bitfinex you just straight up steal it.2
  2. You start making noise. If you are Trendon Shavers you recruit "privileged insiders" to do your selling. If you are Butterfly Labs you buy a bunch of advertising. If you are Homero Garza you buy advertising from all the media outlets and do a bit of the privileged insider thing.
  3. You build some history for either spectacular returns and reliability. You paper over the complaints with lies and declarations of "This is just how we do things" to justify the insanity. You lean on your loyal bought and paid for noisemakers3 to toe your party line.
  4. Your Loss, we are sorry.4
  5. When the complaints get too loud the payment processor and all manner of accessories to the scheme start getting scapegoated. Mt Gox had Dwolla. BitInstant had numerous payment processors to blame. At this point the existence of the loss is clear, but some effort is made to conceal the loss is yours.
  6. Tokens! A market for them! See MtGox Bitcoins on Bitcoin Builder, BFX Tokens on Bitfinex, and the entire Paycoin scheme that emerged when GAW could no longer hold up the pretense of mining.
  7. The pretense is suddenly lifted. Every one is sorry for your loss.

History rhymes and this is the story of your losses. Just like the various color revolutions, your loss follows a pattern. We're sorry.

  1. The various altcoin scams invariably end up actually being fiat/Bitcoin interface scams when the scammers need to eat off of customer deposits and pimp their rides. ↩

  2. preferably from another scam that too moribund to care at the time  ↩

  3. Roger Ver and Andreas Derpolopolis are very popular and affordable choices.  ↩

  4. The steps following this case can be skipped in the event of Trendon Shavers  ↩

Bitfinex Freezes US Customer Accounts Following Another Loss

Posted on by

Reports are emerging that Bitfinex account holders in the United States have had their accounts frozen. They are powerless to trade and more importantly withdraw funds from Bitfinex. The present scapegoat appears to be a dispute between Bitfinex and the payment provider Synapse pay who services their United States customers. A loss is allegedly at the center of this dispute. Sorry for yours.

Not Quite News Roundup Xtend (TM)(R)

Posted on by

Welcome to the Qntra Not quite News Roundup Xtend (TM)(R). Below are collected things that happened this week which did not independently achieve newsworthiness:

  • The United States Marshalls service announced another auction, this time only ~3 Bitcoins constituting the pot were stolen from Ross Ulbrict. The remainder come from other cases.
  • Gawker Media has celebrated their last week before becoming part of Ziff Davis by pantomiming the high school tradition of "Senior Week" and by opening an online "Men's Magazine" called "The Cuck." The Cuck's first post was:

    The Politics of Sitting Down To Pee

  • Bitfinex reopened trading as was planned. Trading included their non-consensual debt instrument.
  • Tradehill's Jared Kenna opened yet another Bitcoin "dark trading" pool.
  • Coinbase has continued their apology and solvency tour repeatedly offering that the number of Classic Ethereum tokens they lost was 40,000 United States dollars, a number denominated in a unit other than that of the actual things they lost.
  • The Huffington Post's David Seaman started off a round of Herpity Derping that supposes Barry Silbert did Ethereum Classic.
  • Barry Silbert's Coindesk announced plans to double its staff (archived).

Sorry For Your 36.067%

Posted on by

Bitfinex made an updated announcement on the status of their Socialization plan, with users set to take a 36.067% loss in the ass when the exchange re-opens in 24-48 hours. (archived) Party officials said they will need a few more days to hatch excuses to "explain in full detail the methodology used to compute these losses". Delusional party members thanked their wise leaders for the haircut in the comments section, praising Buttfinex's decision to redistribute wealth as they saw fit. Losses are reported to be distributed against all asset classes "held" on Bitfinex. They are the 36.067%!

Magnr Pauses Trading Stirring Worry

Posted on by

Magnr "Savings and trust" announced in an email to customers today that it was pausing trading to review it's security measures. (archived) The letter stated:

"In the past 24 hours, Bitfinex has announced that their exchange has been victim of
a security breach resulting in the suspension of activity on their website until
further notice.

As a result, we have placed a temporarily pause on Magnr Trading. During this time,
clients will have the ability to liquidate existing open trades on Bitstamp and
itBit but will not be able to open new trading positions."

While Magnr says they monitor their service 24 hrs daily, users of the platform do not have control of any private cryptographic keys and therefore have little hope of recovering any funds stored therein were the company's servers to experience a breach.

Bitfinex Embraces Socialism In Losing

Posted on by

Buttfinex released yet another cryptic statement this evening, calling the so-called hack a "socialized loss" which likely translates into more sorry for your loss for their customers. The statement simply said there are no hard figures yet officially released, but the company promised an amended FAQ and more information regarding the extent of the breach tomorrow. Bitfinex, making socialism great again since 2013.

Blog Post On Insurance Disappears From BitGo Website

Posted on by

On February 25th 2015 BitGo, the firm which "held" the recently liberated Bitfinex customer coins in a sort of deviant escrow demanded by the United States Commodity and Futures Trading Commision, published a blog post on how they were insured against theft. That blog post is no longer available on BitGo's website. Bitstamp reportedly also uses BitGo in a similar capacity though they assure customers that the particulars of their arrangement are so different this could never happen to their customers.

P2SH considered harmful, sorry for your loss.

Bitfinex Director Claims 119,756 Bitcoins Lost

Posted on by

Reddit user zanetackett, Director of Community and Product Development for Bitfinex, is now claiming that losses total 119,756 BTC in the hack reported on earlier today. Attackers were apparently able to obtain the offline keys used for the multisig setup used by the exchange, though Buttfinex officials have yet to comment on the exact attack vector. The company further states that "their insurance does not cover these losses" and that "Any settlements will be at the current market prices as of 18:00 UTC" which was just at $600 per coin.

Yet Another Underwhelming Effort To Fork Bitcoin Unveiled

Posted on by

After the grossly underwhelming reveal of last month's "Terminator Plan" hard fork buzz this month brings yet another social engineering attempt. A new subreddit named "btcfork" was publicly announced and it swiftly filled with a bunch of activity from people who won't attach names to the positions they are trying to advance. Apparently having people with names was the problem this whole time! This latest attempt comes after Ethereum hard forked with substantial lulz. The nameless posters however insist that this will be different and successful. Sorry fork, your loss.