BC CRYPTO
Saved by @Alex1Powell

A personal update: Monday was my last day at Business Standard and I can truly count the past 3 years as the golden phase of my career, where I got the opportunity to not only report but also break some of the biggest news stories during this period.

 From January, I will be writing for the @BloombergQuint.

Even though I will miss the adrenaline rush of finding my byline in the paper every morning, I am really excited about starting a new journey with a digital platform.
In this thread, I am sharing some of the work that I did at @bsindia, which is close to my heart.
I wrote a series of stories with @dilasha on how the cryptocurrency players in India are surviving in a hostile regulatory climate.

https://t.co/NJAcIwAgmC
In Feb 2018, I exposed how the government secretly commissioned a survey to two independent economists, giving them unauthorised access to private data of citizens only to establish ‘robust’ job creation.

https://t.co/JmN7VjQxkC
State-owned PNB was hit by the country's biggest banking fraud.

This letter written by the finance ministry to the RBI became the first point of friction between the govt and the regulator. (Ultimately, Urjit Patel had to step down as the RBI Guv)

https://t.co/Z4oFEDZUr8
In Apr 2018, I broke the story about a currency crunch at ATMs in at least 8 Indian states. Why did this happen? Hint: demonetisation

This was followed by extensive coverage on the issue (the govt did acknowledge publicly that there was a cash crunch).

https://t.co/KU67ulaTMO
I continued to dig into the PNB fraud & found this gem:

I reported how PNB (of all banks) didn't receive a crucial directive sent by the RBI in 2016 asking all lenders to strengthen their risk mechanism to avert fraud.

The story about a missing e-mail

https://t.co/My6Ll42Bp0
The RBI vs government tussle was heating up. I wrote a series of stories on the friction points:

https://t.co/IREwm8LeOU

https://t.co/3801yfOJRg

https://t.co/BYCVe5kcpq

https://t.co/O3jIuI0dpM

https://t.co/YXDTiarSFh

https://t.co/JCcyzd75gD
In September 2018, I reported how the government has found over 60% of the money deposited in 37 million Jan-Dhan accounts in the weeks following the note ban announcement in 2016 as “suspicious”

https://t.co/gwsYVOQnle
Politics of data was a project I took up in the past 3 years. The following stories aptly throw light on an ever-important issue:
A day before leaving office as NITI Aayog vice-chairman in 2017, Arvind Panagariya submitted the final report of the task force he chaired for recommending improvements in jobs data. The final report never saw the light of the day. Here are the details:

https://t.co/FyagN0UMrY
An official survey on jobs conducted in 2016-17 by the Labour Bureau (part of the labour and employment ministry) was never made public. Here are the findings of the report (this survey has been officially junked since then):

https://t.co/4A2uw3gppj
The biggest scoop of my career (yet). The unemployment rate rose to a 45-yr-high, a year before India went into elections. Shockingly, the Modi govt didn't officially release the findings of the report until it came back to power in the 2019 elections.

https://t.co/FBcV5VTggg
Some important analysis from the hidden report in the run up to the national elections:

https://t.co/NZGwD4EUpI

https://t.co/9YsxMzBlqr

https://t.co/qMluVa4rLP
Of course, the government initiated an inquiry to find out my sources but it was to no avail :)

https://t.co/GLfNOlEhv0
Months later, I brought out the findings of another hidden survey report that showed consumer spending falling for the first time in over four decades.

https://t.co/zejgxPn4MI
The data hasn't been made public till date as the government decided to scrap the survey report the day we published the results.

More in this thread:

https://t.co/5Kur6wiMyf
I also did some ground reporting during the 2019 national elections:

https://t.co/ibihPxveAS

https://t.co/6FUJaLAwHv

https://t.co/fNh0ltutDe
I added on to @nit_set's stellar investigative work on electoral bonds to report how the finance ministry knew that there was a hidden serial number which could reveal the donor's identity

https://t.co/tX2sCof3Ki
Last winter, I covered the anti-CAA protests. I went to the protest sites across Delhi almost everyday and wrote on the many voices leading the protests

https://t.co/TFMEXfArWD
I visited the riot-affected areas in Delhi with @ari_maj to bring out the horror stories of alienation, distrust and exodus that loomed in parts of the national capital early this year (the most difficult reporting assignment till date for me)

https://t.co/0xbfbf4qmI
Then of course, there was a (COVID-19) lockdown.

I went to the ground to cover the plight of migrants:

https://t.co/6XSOHu5TDa

https://t.co/wIym1nCfbH

https://t.co/cEA9TmcWaB

https://t.co/Dshk24AcZG

https://t.co/YYY6N284aV

https://t.co/rNMyZpedLj
Many states swung into action to do away with labour laws this year. Here's an extensive coverage:

https://t.co/1NyDcish0A

https://t.co/EGH3qvWJVZ

https://t.co/IPapM0bzog

https://t.co/kv252xNHwE

https://t.co/m6QCiNEEYK

https://t.co/j3AkQ7ihHY

https://t.co/Bn7Kn0W02V
I wrote extensively on the labour law changes and its impact....

https://t.co/LaGJPOQ3pC

https://t.co/Zx2ZI1uzHJ

https://t.co/3q39YKHJqQ

https://t.co/ox3TMwbSR5

...while also highlighting the issues in the labour laws:

https://t.co/IqiVrt0ri4

https://t.co/lzzeLVL3h0
I am thankful to everyone - my present and former colleagues and editors at @bsindia, industry colleagues, readers, whistle-blowers and everyone who helped give shape and add value to my work. I look forward to your love and support as I embark on this new journey :)

More from Crypto

\U0001f42e Mikko Ohtamaa
🐮 Mikko Ohtamaa...
@moo9000
1/ Welcome to #DeFi Wednesday.

Let's talk about how interest-bearing cash on a blockchain is going to revolutionise boring corporate treasury management that concerns every company is is a larger business than all crypto trading in the world.

Enter the thread

👇👇👇


2/ Blockchain community is often seen as toxic maxis and redditors who shill other their weekly favourite shitcoin in the hope of getting Lambo.

Sometimes we also do things that progress humanity towards the better future and interest-bearing cash is one of those things.


3/ Less chad and more things that actually matter:

My incomplete theory of interest-bearing cash is also available also as a blog post:

https://t.co/uiG0fZiVyu

It is 15 pages. Pick your slow poison or die fast by continue reading here.

4/ First time in the history we have an ability to create interest-bearing cash-like instruments.

Interest-bearing cash ticks up dollar (euro) balance real-time in your wallet.

Here is a demonstration using @aaveaave aDAI, based on @makerdao DAI, and @TrustWalletApp


5/ Interest-bearing cash is not like your bank's saving account. Your money in a bank is not yours, but bank's. There are some flaws in the current banking system causing a headache for Chief Financial Officers (CFOs)
CRYPTO
Alex Kr\xfcger
Alex Krüger
@krugermacro
Options used to be close to irrelevant for bitcoin's price.

Until now.

At current price levels, hedging large option notionals has a major impact on price.

Here's a quick thread on options 👇

Let's start with the meaning of delta.

Delta is the rate of change of an option's price relative to a change in the price of its underlying.

For example, the price of a 50 delta option will move 50% as much as the underlying.

For practical purposes, think of it as how much of the underlying you have:

- if long 50 delta call on 1 BTC => long 0.5 BTC
- if long 50 delta put on 1 BTC => short 0.5 BTC
- if short 50 delta call on 1 BTC => short 0.5 BTC
- if short 50 delta put on 1 BTC => long 0.5 BTC

An option where the option's strike (i.e. exercise price) is equal to current spot price is known as an at-the-money option (ATM). ATM options have a delta of 50, while deep in the money options have a delta of close to 100.

Can also think of delta as probability. A 50 delta option has a 50% chance of expiring in the money.

For a call, the higher price goes => the more in the money the call => the higher the delta.

Once delta gets close to 100, odds are ~100% the option will expire in the money.
CRYPTO , CRYPTO TRADING
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Ryan Watkins
Ryan Watkins
@RyanWatkins_
Excited to share our 2020 #Bitcoin review.

2020 will be remembered as the year the long fabled institutions finally arrived and #Bitcoin became a bonafide macroeconomic asset.

Below are the top highlights of each month for Bitcoin’s historic year.

1/


Bitcoin is now at all-time highs capping off an extremely successful year.

But it was by no means stable ride up.

2020 was a historically volatile year.

@YoungCryptoPM and I provided a detailed overview of every month of 2020 in all its

Jan.

3 days into the new year the US assassinated Iran’s top general Soleimani.

BTC surprisingly reacted to the events behaving like a safe haven as the risk of war increased.

The events provided the first hints of BTC potentially having graduated to a legitimate macro asset.


Feb.

COVID-19 reached a tipping point causing markets to crash.

BTC’s correlation with the S&P 500 reached an ATH in the following weeks.

This is when everyone learned BTC was not a recession hedge, it was a hedge against inflation and loss of confidence in fiat currencies. https://t.co/JB7dJ3qp6M


Mar.

Financial markets in free fall.

The liquidity crisis was so severe BTC experienced one of it’s worst days ever.

Now known as Black Thursday, on March 12, BTC plummeted as much as 50% to below $4,000 at its lowest point on the day.

BTC closed the day down 40%
CRYPTO
Cory Doctorow RIGHT-CLICKING WORDCEL MENTALITY
Cory Doctorow RIGHT-CL...
@doctorow
I've just read one of the most lucid, wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary critiques of cryptocurrency and blockchain I've yet to encounter. 1/


It comes from David "DSHR" Rosenthal, a distinguished technologist whose past achievements including helping to develop X11 and the core technologies for Nvidia.

https://t.co/tkAMShno4k 2/

Rosenthal's critique is a transcript of a lecture he gave to Stanford's EE380 class, adapted from a December 2021 talk for an investor conference. 3/

It is a bang-up-to-date synthesis of many of the critical writings on the subject, glued together with Rosenthal's own deep technical expertise. He calls it "Can We Mitigate Cryptocurrencies' Externalities?"

The presence of "externalities" in Rosenthal's title is key. 4/

Rosenthal identifies blockchainism's core ideology as emerging from "the libertarian culture of Silicon Valley and the cypherpunks," and states that "libertarianism's attraction is based on ignoring externalities."

This is an important critique of libertarianism. 5/
CRYPTO
Prateek Singh
Prateek Singh
@PrateekLearnapp
We should be proud about @0xPolygon. But don't invest if you don't understand what they do just like any other asset class.
CRYPTO

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Raman Shalupau
Raman Shalupau
@ksaitor
Maker movement is doing to startups what startups did to corporations.

Here is why 👇

Startups fixed the problem of innovation, that corporations lack.

In big, slow corporations, innovation is a RISK and distraction from the core $$$ profitable business.

Agile startups could launch, iterate fast and eventually stumble upon new growing market opportunities.

However,

When a startup reaches product-market-fit, it has to 🚀 "grow at all costs" and reach market dominance before some giant corporation can replicate their new product and distribute it to their existing giant customer base.

Startup's "growth at all costs" often means growth at the expense of charging customers $$$ money.

Hence, to be sustainable, startups have to constantly chase investor money.

Startup teams spend more time finding and pleasing investors, than finding and pleasing customers.

95% of startups die because they run out of (investor) money + no business model + crazy investor expectations.

Same way corporations die, when unable to adjust to new technology and market shifts.
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Elizabeth May
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This is NONSENSE. The people who take photos with their books on instagram are known to be voracious readers who graciously take time to review books and recommend them to their followers. Part of their medium is to take elaborate, beautiful photos of books. Die mad, Guardian.


THEY DO READ THEM, YOU JUDGY, RACOON-PICKED TRASH BIN


If you come for Bookstagram, i will fight you.

In appreciation, here are some of my favourite bookstagrams of my books: (photos by lit_nerd37, mybookacademy, bookswrotemystory, and scorpio_books)
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Christina Warren
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A brief thread on Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, the crazy con man who is now claiming to have hacked into the Georgia voting machines in Fulton County. 90s kids and tech aficionados might remember Jovan as the inventor of the CueCat, the dumbest gadget of all time.

Also, for anyone who wants to claim that Jovan Hutton Pulitzer (not his given name, but one he changed legally after the CueCat debacle) invented QR Codes: he did not. Like that other right-wing crazy man who claimed to have invented email, Jovan didn’t invent QR Codes.

He did invent the CueCat, a product that somehow raised $185 million dollars for a tethered barcode scanner for magazines and newspapers, so you could get ads from your ads. As I said, the dumbest product of all time. Good backup barcode scanners after they were hacked, however

Oh, that’s another thing. When CueCat was a thing, its systems were hacked. I guess that’s what makes Jovan a security expert. His bankrupt company from 20 years ago was hacked and widely mocked. He’s a genius.

In recent years, Jovan pivoted to being a treasure hunter who was featured on and widely mocked on Curse of Oak Island, because the man is insane.
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sriram
sriram
@SriramKannan77
'Treasure Gods' - Sangha Nidhi' and 'Padma Nidhi', Tirumala, Tirupati.

------------------------------------

These are the two guards guarding the Wealth and Treasure of Lord Sri Venkateswara.

They are representatives of two treasures of Kubera, the God of Wealth.


One guard who is holding shangam (conch) on both the hands is known as Shanka Nidhi ('nidhi' means wealth).

On the other side, the guard who is holding Lotus flowers on both the hands is known as Padma nidhi.

Shangu is from the ocean which includes all types of wealth like pearls and corals.

Why shagam in his hand? Because shangam only gives the sound of 'omkaram'.

'Padmam' is the symbol of water sources in land like river, lakes, tanks etc. which is very important for all living beings.

As per the tradition, these guards are installed at the third entrance of the temple.

One enters the holy shrine after saluting the first protection threshold - Sankha Nidhi and Padma Nidhi.
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श्रीमाली हितेश अवस्थी...
@HiteshAwasthi89
Sri Parasurameswara Swamy Mandir, Gudimallam, Andhrapradesh

Gudimallam is a small village located in Chittoor district. It is seven miles away from Tirupati. This small village came to significance,due to it's very beautiful Shiva Mandir with history of thousands of years. 1/n


The main importance of the mandir lies in the Linga which is housed in the Garbhagriha of the temple & considered as the only one of such type. It is the earliest Linga discovered so far and it has been assigned to the 3rd century BCE.(Satavahana period) 2/n
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