presidential election

Brock Pierce's Presidential Campaign Enlists Akon as Chief Strategist

Crypto entrepreneur and world-famous R&B and hip-hop singer Akon has announced that he will be endorsing Brock Pierce’s presidential election campaign and joining the crypto venture capitalist’s campaign team.

The Grammy-nominated artist is enthusiastic about this new partnership and will be serving as the chief strategist for Pierce’s campaign this election year. US Presidential election day is to be held on Tuesday, November 3 this year.

Brock Pierce for President

Brock Pierce’s announcement to run for president means big things for the crypto industry, as the former child star is a prominent influence in the world of technology and cryptocurrency. Being a huge entrepreneur himself, Brock Pierce has a track record of building companies up from scratch. In 2018, the former actor of Disney film “The Mighty Ducks” even made it onto Forbes list for wealthiest crypto investors in the world. According to a report by J.D. Durkin, the Bitcoin (BTC) billionaire disclosed his intentions behind running for president, during his campaign announcement:

“Entrepreneurs are essential to the rebuilding of this nation that we love, and I’m running in this race because I know that together we can help build a pathway towards the rebirth of the America we love so much.”

Brittany Kaiser, known for being the official whistleblower behind the Cambridge Analytica scandal of Facebook that erupted and helped the Trump campaign in 2016, touted Brock Pierce’s horn and said that it was “a breath of fresh air to have someone who has spent their life really understanding technology” running for President of the United States. A strong blockchain advocate, Kaiser vouched for Pierce and said that the crypto entrepreneur not only understood how to improve systems to make them more effective, but he also had a unique vision for creating a more inclusive, wholesome political platform.

Crypto Entrepreneur Akon to Build Akon City

Both Brock Pierce and Akon are happy to be collaborating for the crypto venture capitalist’s Presidential election run.

Akon, a huge crypto entrepreneur himself who is currently working on a massive crypto project in Senegal, seems to be the perfect chief strategist for Pierce, as they both have similar visions for crypto’s future. The Grammy-nominated singer and crypto philanthropist has been actively building a futuristic crypto city in Senegal. The crypto-run city, dubbed “Akon City” is to run on its full-fledged official cryptocurrency Akoin, as per the whitepaper released by Akon. Akon City will include a mall, a complex, a police station, residential units, hotels, a police station, a hospital campus, and more.

‘I Have a Dream’ – Akon and Brock Pierce

The addition of Akon to Pierce’s presidential campaign run may mean huge things for the cryptocurrency industry, as the spotlight will most definitely shine on digital assets and the benefits of blockchain for the advancement of world economy.

In speaking about his newly appointed position as chief strategist for Brock Pierce, Akon affirmed that Brock Pierce is a “real people’s person and he doesn’t operate between party lines.” He also said that both Pierce and he had the “same dream of pushing America forward for everyone without showing favoritism to one particular base.”

Bitcoin Eyes $12K, Experts Say It Will Surge Regardless of US 2020 Presidential Election Outcome

Bitcoin has been making power moves recently, recording gains over six consecutive days.

With the cryptocurrency currently trading at around $11,420, market analysts are already anticipating Bitcoin’s surge past the 12K point, saying that its price on the market will be unaffected by the outcome of the 2020 US presidential elections.

Why US elections will not affect Bitcoin pricing

Bitcoin has been increasingly viewed and touted as a safe-haven asset, undergoing surges on the market despite economic turmoil and inflation. With the presidential elections coming up next month, market analysts have asserted that Bitcoin’s price will continue surging despite the outcome of the US presidential run that will most likely see either President Trump re-elected or opponent Joe Biden taking over the wheel.

The logic behind Bitcoin’s continued momentum is that regardless of the presidential election outcome, the US Federal Reserve will need to roll out its second round of stimulus packages to deliver COVID-19 relief. This will push the US Federal Reserve to continue mass printing money, devaluating the US dollar.

With the US dollar depreciating, retail and institutional investors have been flocking to Bitcoin as a hedge.

Stimulus deal inconclusive, Biden ahead of Trump

The stimulus package is rumored to be worth $1.8 trillion, and the news comes after President Trump reversed his initial intention of postponing stimulus talks until after the November 3 US elections. The Trump administration proposed a $1.8 trillion stimulus package for COVID-19 relief, but discussions seem to have been stalled as Republics and Democrats have been unable to reach an agreement.

Currently, Biden, Barack Obama’s former vice-president, is ahead of Trump in the 2020 national election polls. The outcome of the presidential run on November 3 will see either Donald Trump remaining in political power for another four years or Joe Biden taking over the White House.

Institutional firms set the example for Bitcoin

In addition, with growing institutional participation, market experts have predicted that Bitcoin’s price will only go up from here, as corporate giants have incorporated BTC in their treasury reserve. The latest surge of the cryptocurrency came after payments company Square purchased $50 million worth of Bitcoin.

Market experts have said that this would only be the beginning of Bitcoin mass adoption, with firms setting the example by acquiring a piece of the Bitcoin pie. Bitcoin’s total supply sits at 21 million. With investors’ increased interested in the asset, its value will only go up.

Cryptocurrency Hackers Target Trump Presidential Campaign Website with Monero Scam Addresses

US President Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign website was briefly compromised yesterday in an attempt by hackers to gain cryptocurrency funds.

Investigators clamp down on presidential hack

On the presidential campaign website, it read:

“This site was seized. The world has had enough of the fake news spreaded [sic] daily by president donald j. trump.”

Within the announcement, hackers linked two Monero cryptocurrency wallet addresses, both serving different purposes. According to Forbes, one demanded cryptocurrency assets to allegedly unlock sensitive information pertaining to the US president, while the other wallet was for platform users who would want confidential info regarding Trump hidden.

Shortly after the breach, US regulators caught on and took down the scam announcement. According to state officials, no sensitive information has been detected to be stolen so far. Investigators are still unsure of how hackers were able to access the presidential campaign website, but investigations are currently still being carried out. The identities of the hackers have not yet been revealed, and the reason behind the cryptocurrency scam is still unknown.

Source: Twitter

Investigators are speculating on whether the cryptocurrency hack was an attempt to interfere with the upcoming US presidential elections, to be held on November 3. Another explanation may simply be that hackers were looking to benefit financially from the scam. The only definitive conclusion investigators seem to have reached is that the culprits are not English natives, as the message was riddled with grammatical errors.

Speaking about the security breach, Trump’s communication director Tim Murtaugh said:

“The Trump campaign website was defaced, and we are working with law enforcement authorities to investigate the source of the attack. There was no exposure to sensitive data because none of it is actually stored on the site.”

History in the making – More than 70 million US voters

The security breach comes as the US presidential election is nearing and tensions between Joe Biden and Donald Trump have been escalating. According to a Reuters report, the number of American voters has surpassed the recorded amount in 2016 by more than 50%, as more than 70 million US citizens have cast their ballots in light of this year’s elections. A reason behind this may be due to the coronavirus pandemic.

US President Donald Trump has been critical of the system of mail-in votes on more than one occasion. He said:

“It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate and I don’t believe that that’s by our laws.”

Could Blockchain be a Solution for Mail-In Voting Issues and Election Ballot Counting Fraud?

Amid the misinformation circulating in response to the US presidential elections, voter fraud has been a growing hot topic. With digital innovation on the rise, many have pondered the question of whether the time has come to trade in paper ballots and mail-in votes for a more efficient system powered by blockchain technology.

USPS files for blockchain patent to power US voting

The USPS postal office had already previously submitted a patent requesting a blockchain-powered voting system, as it would be beneficial for security purposes and increase efficiency in multiple aspects. Though everything seems to point towards the use of blockchain for voting as an eventuality, the danger may be that with ballots becoming digital and running on a blockchain, this may expose them to potential hacks.

With blockchain technology, a definite winner is that it will enable the transition from paper ballots to digital votes. This will prevent a loss of votes that may potentially occur during the mailing process, and eliminate human counting error, as everything will be encrypted and recorded on a blockchain.

With a digital voting system, the number of voters may also increase with access to voting facilitated by the option of doing it digitally. This may be increase efficiency and make the whole experience more effortless, especially during the pandemic. This past US election is proof that a transition to an online voting system may be beneficial, as a record number of voters have participated in determining the outcome of the presidential race. Introducing a blockchain-powered voting system may additionally serve to onboard more voters, as voting would be made available to anyone with access to an internet browser or a mobile phone.

A blockchain voting system could guarantee that ballots are not lost, that all votes are accounted for, and recorded on a distributed ledger technology. It will also redirect the power of centralized authorities towards decentralized ledger systems. Also, the results of the elections would be made known instantaneously, something that has been a problem this election.

Blockchain could benefit politics, but there is still work to be done

For the advantages of blockchain technology to be leveraged in full, however, votes must be recorded on the chain, as opposed to just using it to record the number of votes.

Cryptography experts such as Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Binance’s Changpeng Zhao (CZ) have also vouched for blockchain-powered voting systems. On the matter, CZ said:

“If there is a blockchain based mobile voting App (with proper KYC of course), we won’t have to wait for results, or have any questions on its validity. Privacy can be protected using a number of encryption mechanisms.”

However, there may be a few steps to implement before a blockchain-based system could come into play. Vitalik Buterin said:

“The technical challenges with making a secure cryptographic voting system are significant (and often underestimated), but IMO this is directionally 100% correct.”

With a blockchain-powered system, this may also eliminate censorship that has come with political posts circulating on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms, since everything will be recorded on nodes running on the chain.

What are the cons of using blockchain technology for votes?

The downside of digital voting may be that with technology, this may potentially attract hackers seeking to manipulate the votes. Though blockchain-based systems are known to be pretty robust, cryptography would have to be on par to secure electronic ballots.

It has previously happened that loopholes and weak areas of blockchain-based voting systems have been exploited in targeted attacks. In Russia, its digital voting network was attacked. A report had also unveiled that votes could be decrypted by retrieving keys through the HTML code of the electronic ballot.

Twitter and Facebook Grilled in Senate Hearing Over Social Media Censorship of US Presidential Election

Facebook and Twitter are facing heat from US Congress for how they handled political misinformation circulating on social media platforms during the 2020 US presidential elections.

In a congressional hearing with the US Judiciary Committee, Facebook Chief Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey were called to testify virtually for the way political posts were handled on the platforms during the presidential campaign opposing Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Numerous political posts were flagged on both Facebook and Twitter as misinformation and taken down on numerous occasions, much to the fury of political leaders.

The US Judiciary Committee vehemently declared that the tech giants had too much power in their hands, with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham remarking:

“It seems like you’re the ultimate editor. When you have companies that have the power of governments and have far more power than traditional media outlets, something has to give.”

During the US presidential elections opposing Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, a New York Times article exposing Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s alleged scandal in Ukraine had circulated on Twitter and Facebook. The story was immediately taken down, under the pretext that it promoted misleading information.

In addition to this incident, Twitter has increasingly limited and flagged President Donald Trump’s tweets concerning election fraud and political misinformation, with a disclaimer under Trump’s tweets which read, “Multiple sources called this election differently.”

More than 300,000 tweets flagged during US election

The actions of the tech giants have left political parties on both ends infuriated, as both Republican Senators and Democratic representatives alike have called for a reform of Section 230. This section protects online platform hosts like Facebook and Twitter from being held accountable for content that social media users upload.

While Senator Graham argued that tech giants had too much power in their hands and that this needs to be changed, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said that more actions needed to be taken against the political misinformation prompted by President Trump’s tweets.

As shared by several sources, Blumenthal said:

“The president has used this megaphone (social media) to spread vicious falsehoods in an apparent attempt to overturn the will of voters.”

Jack Dorsey confirmed that Twitter had flagged more than 300,000 tweets in order to stop misinformation from spreading on the platform during the 2020 election period. He said:

“More than a year ago, the public asked us to offer additional context to help make potentially misleading information more apparent. We did exactly that, applying labels to over 300,000 tweets from October 27 to November 11, which represented about 2.2% of all US election-related tweets.”

Facebook and Twitter stand by their actions

Both the Twitter CEO and Facebook’s Zuckerberg were open to the idea of amending Section 230. However, they said that the social media platforms were not to be treated as publishers or as traditional media websites. Both tech moguls stood by their company’s action, with Zuckerberg asserting:

“We strengthened our enforcement against conspiracy networks and other groups to help prevent them from using our platform to organize violence or civil unrest in the period after the election.”

Facebook had displayed a disclaimer warning of false claims for more than 150 million posts flagged, and also removed incorrect posts reporting additional information on the situation surrounding voting polls.

Is blockchain the answer to misinformation and centralized power?

The congressional hearing comes at a time when US authorities and global legislations have increasingly attempted to curb the monopoly of tech giants, namely the Big Tech – Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple. Antitrust hearings have been conducted with US Capitol Hill to address the ways in which Big Tech leveraged their power to thwart competitive companies in the tech industry.

With the rise in power of these tech corporate giants, the question of whether decentralization is the answer has come to light. With blockchain technology, information is regulated by everyone using the chain, and there is no central power. As the concentration of power on distributed ledger technology is technologically impossible, blockchain may provide more security in an environment where the trust in centralized authorities is questioned.

Previously, Dorsey has hinted that Twitter was moving towards becoming an open-source media protocol, where content would be regulated by platform users. Dorsey has been known to be bullish on Bitcoin and to favor blockchain as a transformative technology. When discussing security in a technological age, he previously said:

“The more we’re giving the individual the keys, the safer we’re going to be.”

Taiwanese Authorities Caution Against Crypto Betting for 2024 Presidential Election

In light of the fact that Taiwan is getting ready to hold its presidential election on January 13, 2024, a crucial advice has been given to the people of Taiwan about betting on cryptocurrencies. A thorough investigation into the use of cryptocurrency platforms for betting on the result of the presidential election has been begun by the authorities in Taiwan. This inquiry has brought to light the ethical and legal considerations that are associated with such behaviors.

There is a significant amount of anxiety among the authorities in Taiwan over the use of bitcoin betting websites. In the midst of the enthusiasm surrounding the impending election, this notice is being sent with the intention of discouraging locals from participating in gambling activities that might possibly be unlawful. This warning is being issued as a result of events in which Taiwanese individuals have purportedly utilized such platforms, which has led to a more comprehensive examination into these activities.

A total of seventeen people have been put into custody as a direct consequence of the serious action taken by the Taiwanese authorities against internet betting on the presidential election. Over five thousand five hundred dollars worth of USD Coin, a cryptocurrency that is tied to the United States Dollar, was taken away from people who were jailed as a result of the raid. This action demonstrates the government’s commitment to combatting unlawful internet gambling, particularly in situations where it crosses with the electoral process.

The utilization of Polymarket, which is a decentralized betting platform, is at the heart of this matter of contention. It has been determined that Taiwanese residents consistently choose it as their preferred option when it comes to putting wagers on the presidential election. The absence of a central authority or control mechanism that these platforms possess presents regulators with a unique set of issues due to the decentralized structure of these platforms.

The caution against the use of cryptocurrency betting platforms serves as a reminder of the legal limitations and ethical issues that are involved in activities of this kind. This warning comes as the presidential election in Taiwan begins to draw closer. A increasing worldwide trend of analyzing the junction between cryptocurrencies and conventional industries, including as politics and gaming, is reflected in the aggressive position taken by the government of Taiwan.