Depleted by mainstream technology but welcomed by bitcoins: Rubin Report, Sam Harris, Gab.ai

• While Sam Harris leaves Patreon, should individuals be depleted for cryptocurrency?

The year 2018 was a year of greater scrutiny on social media as platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Google, PayPal, Patreon have clearly decided to take a more active role in the supervision of public opinion. As a direct result of this, we have seen several influential individuals depleted by these forums.

Personalities like Lauren Southern, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Carl Benjamin (a YouTuber known as Sargon of Akkad), Ethan Ralph, popular whistleboling platform Wikileaks and even the alternative Fast-growing Twitter Gab have all the ability to communicate with the general public, as well as the possibility of earning money by doing so, limited or completely revoked by business conglomerates who did not like their controversial opinions.

Things came to a head yesterday when the famous American intellectual Sam Harris announced his intention to voluntarily close his Patreon account. Mr. Harris explained that he made this decision because he believes that Patreon's recent actions against his fellow creators were probably motivated by political bias. Being himself a bit controversial, he decided to bite the bullet and leave the platform before he could even pull the carpet under him.

pic.twitter.com/SKcydQJbYq

– Sam Harris (@SamHarrisOrg) December 17, 2018

Just to better understand the extent of this, Harris's account was the fourteenth largest on Patreon (with nearly 9,000 customers who presumably earned him over $ 60,000 a month) when it was canceled. History has resounded quite loudly among the populous, as over 17 thousand people have appreciated the Twitter ad of the author at the time of writing.

Putting aside the debate on freedom of expression that surrounds this problem, it is clear that certain individuals and ideas with significant developments are becoming marginalized by the currently established social media elite. In such an environment, alternative financial solutions like Bitcoin can exploit these disgruntled masses and develop into important market players. This relationship is mutual because the masses can exploit those alternative financial solutions to create what they want to create and consume what they want to consume. After all, cryptocurrency was initially conceived as something that should help people who have been harmed by traditional financial systems; it is not allowed to monetize / pay for the content, ie with all legal definitions, adapt that description to t.

A decentralized blockchain behind the media cryptocurrency is by its very nature unchangeable and independent, meaning that a community can support its interests and creators without worrying about a third party like Patreon or PayPal interfering with the process. No one can prevent this community from sending BTCs to the Bitcoin address of their favorite creator in an economic and peer-to-peer manner. Even though the law states that it is illegal to send Bitcoins to anyone, you can still send it and he will receive it. You will probably have to face legal consequences, but this is a different story. Most of the time, these communities have certain "individualistic", rebellious traits, including the demand for the abandonment of traditional exploitative financial structures. As such, they will be familiar with the topic of cryptocurrency more than the average person and probably have / know how to use them.

After all, the ball sits in the court of the individual who seeks to receive support from his community. The social media platform mentioned Gab has already heavily supported Bitcoin as the "money of freedom of speech", calling it a clear solution for the deplatformed and silenced. They dedicated their attention to Bitcoin (which came from the need rather than being "hit by technology") clear only a couple of days ago, when the platform announced that it will start accepting Bitcoin payments. Another popular and controversial commentator Dave Rubin left Patreon at the start of this year and began accepting Bitcoin donations from people willing to support his cause.

With this, the general usability of BTC should receive a decent boost. More importantly, other advocates of free speech might consider the actions of their peers and adopt Bitcoin or even some privacy-focused assets like Monero. The Internet is becoming much more sensitive and more censored every day that passes; It remains to be seen whether others unjustly deplored to decide to turn to cryptocurrency as their alternative or even main source of funding in such a restrictive environment.

• Release of the financial executive report VeChain vol.5

The popular cryptocurrency supply chain management VeChain has released the fifth rendition of its financial executive report. Citing transparency, fairness and openness as their motto, the VeChain Foundation used the report to detail its activities from August 2018 to October 2018. According to them, most of the financial expenses made during this period were related to the mainnet launch / token VeChain swap and "System initialization and optimization to support future growth of the platform and the ecosystem".

The team confirmed that much less money was spent on corporate strategic partnerships, with "only" 166 million VET used for this purpose. Even with a reduced focus on partnerships, they apparently received "more investment offers from renowned institutions and Venture Capitals" and are about to evaluate them.

530 million IFPs have been distributed as quarterly rewards to the team, with an additional 13 new team employees sharing the wealth with those already in circulation. The executive team has blocked 100% of its awards for the next two years, so it will take a while before seeing these tokens on the market.

Finally, the team provided a more in-depth overview of the funds spent on operation, technical and commercial development. Confirming that the general focus was on the launch of tokens and the launch of mainnet, they added as the global development work towards VeChainThor's Blockchain, documentation and tools, community building and academic and business collaboration " do not slow down ". You can check the detailed report here.

• Coinbase releases the Convert feature

Coinbase, as part of its "12-day Coinbase" initiative, has released a feature called Coinbase Convert.

Citing the importance of "building features that allow people to exploit the unique attributes of cryptocurrency", Coinbase Convert will allow users of this exchange to convert one cryptocurrency into another.

"Initially, customers can convert between Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Litecoin (LTC), 0x (ZRX) or Bitcoin Cash (BCH) .The conversion is available on Coinbase.com and iOS and Android apps: Conversions are completed instantly and at a lower cost than when they are done via two separate transactions " confirmed the exchange in an official announcement.

The ability to convert cryptocurrencies will be implemented gradually in each of the 34 countries in which Coinbase operates. The functionality will be evaluated on the fly through customer feedback and potential problems will be adjusted accordingly.

• Tron Odyssey released v3.2.2

The popular Chinese suitor Ethereum Tron has released the version 3.2.2 for his main Odyssey network.

Justin Sun has retweeted the news today, confirming that the update has been officially launched. The update modifies the transmission interface of the platform and offers numerous improvements that will simplify data management for developers. Apparently, improvements to block processing speeds have been made (especially on older computers) and the transaction size has been compressed, reducing the required database space by 25%.

Overall, v3.2.2 offers optimization of the Tron node software which should mean greater stability in the future. The project promises to offer even more similar optimizations in the future. Take a look at their GitHub commit for Odyssey 3.2.2 here.