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Steven Mnuchin explains why nearly $1.5 trillion worth of $100 bills reportedly disappeared

Almost $1.5 trillion of the world's cash, with U.S. $100 bills making up a great deal of it, is reportedly unaccounted for. So what happened to the money?

"Literally, a lot of these $100 bills are sitting in bank vaults all over the world," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told FOX Business' Lou Dobbs during an interview on Tuesday.

Mnuchin pointed to the negative interest rates causing people to turn to American dollars as a solid investment.

"The dollar is the reserve currency of the world, and everybody wants to hold dollars," Mnuchin said on "Lou Dobbs Tonight." "And the reason why they want to hold dollars is because the U.S. is a safe place to have your money, to invest and to hold your assets."

Mnuchin said it's interesting that, in a increasingly digital world, "the demand for U.S. currency continues to go up."

"There's a lot of Benjamins all over the world," Mnuchin said.

There are more $100 bills – also known as C-notes – in circulation than $1 bills, according to data from the Federal Reserve, which found there are more $100s than any other denomination of U.S. currency. The number of outstanding bills featuring a picture of Benjamin Franklin has about doubled since the start of the recession.

In 2018, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago illustrated a correlation between low interest rates and high currency demand, though it also noted outside factors could help explain swelling demand.

The bank estimates that 80 percent of all $100 bills last year were actually in circulation in foreign countries. It explained that residents in other countries, particularly those with unstable financial systems, often use the notes as a safe haven.

FOX Business' Brittany De Lea contributed to this report.

For Bitcoin’s scaling solution, 2019 has gone by in a flash—of innovation.

It’s been a year of non-stop development for the Lightning Network—a super-fast payments layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain that allows users to send and receive bitcoin quickly and cheaply. 

“We got our first neutrino mobile wallet, first conference, first instant fiat-to-Lightning channel swaps, and first major exchange integration. Huge milestones,” said Ryan Gentry, lead analyst at crypto investment firm MultiCoin Capital.

Meanwhile, Samson Mow, chief strategy officer at Canadian blockchain services provider Blockstream, is excited by progress in multi-path payments, which enable larger sums to be transferred.

It’s easy to forget how far Lightning has come as it makes strides towards mainstream adoption, and that it’s not yet mature. So let’s take a step back and take in just what it’s accomplished in the last year.

A Lightning start

At its core, the Lightning Network is a decentralized system for instant and high-volume bitcoin micropayments—with payments as low as 1 satoshi (worth $0.0001) instantly recorded on the network. It's regarded by many Bitcoin fans as vital in enabling Bitcoin to scale in order to support millions of payments and users per day.

Launched in 2018, the Lightning Network consists of channels that allow users to move money between each other without needing to use the Bitcoin blockchain to verify the transaction. Instead, there’s a quick verification of funds from the buyer and the request from the seller, so the transaction can happen, but the actual settlement takes place later.

Great way to visualize how Atomic Multi-Path payments work on Lightning Network via this emulator by @robtexdotcom https://t.co/nR2FlrBEcf pic.twitter.com/aYemtdIltY

— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) September 29, 2018

“For the Lightning Network, 2019 was a year where the developers made a lot of progress getting the base layer rock solid,” said Blockstream’s Mow.

In the first six months of 2019, Lightning doubled its node count and capacity, making the network more robust. By September, the number of nodes on the network had hit 10,000. New tools, utility and UX innovations went live. Bugswere found and fixed; people lost their bitcoin on the network, and found it again.

Passing the Torch

Last week, Blockstream announced that a fix is very near for one of the biggest problems facing Lightning: sending larger payments across the network.

Tests to make so-called multi-path payments interoperable are now complete, Mow told Decrypt. “Multi-path payments allow for multiple channels to be used together in concert,” he explained. This will allow payments to be split into smaller chunks so that large amounts of bitcoin can be sent both quickly and cheaply. Channel capacity becomes less relevant, and routing options multiply.

In March, the Lightning Torch went around the world. During the process the torch—a symbolic payment of $100 in bitcoin—was passed from one person to another (including Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman,) with each recipient adding 10,000 satoshis before passing it on. While the experiment was hailed as a big success, it pushed the boundaries of bitcoin payments, and the Network hit liquidity problems within its channels, highlighting the challenges posed by larger payments.

That’s why for Mow, the progress made with multi-path is “the most significant development” of the year for Lightning.

Lightning goes mobile

The Bitcoin blockchain clocks in at 250 gigabytes—and it keeps on growing. That’s beyond most phones—even the HTC Exodus 1s “blockchain phone” needs to be plugged in and upgraded with a microSD card to run its much-vaunted full Bitcoin node. Taking the Bitcoin blockchain on the go isn’t an option, so you need a wallet or an app on your phone that checks Bitcoin transactions. 

Enter the Neutrino light client, or LND, which provides access to a very basic version of the Bitcoin blockchain, but can fetch a relevant block when data needs to be checked, keeping data usage to a minimum.

This year, Tel Aviv-based bitcoin wallet and payment services provider Breezwas the first to introduce a Neutrino-based client for its app, for both Androidand iOS.

“We want Bitcoin to be adopted by the masses, but we don’t want to lose the core Bitcoin values of being a decentralized platform [that’s] censorship resistant,” Breez co-founder Roy Sheinfeld told Decrypt. “The fact that we were able to bring Lightning to mobile without compromising privacy or security, using Neutrino, is the big advance, for me.” 

Other Lightning clients are adopting Neutrino, including wallets Zap and Nayuta. And sending bitcoin tips on Twitter also got easier as tippin.me, a platform that enables micropayments in bitcoin via the Lightning Network, launched a mobile version in September.

Lightning fast fiat to Bitcoin conversion 

A year ago, Lightning users had to take their fiat to an exchange, go through all the hassle of know-your-customer (KYC), deposit their bitcoin into an on-chain wallet, and then transfer it to an off-chain Lightning wallet. 

The process of changing fiat directly into bitcoin on Lightning has come on in leaps and bounds over the past year. Services like Olympus from wallet-developer Zap, Sparkswap and Escher, have created a rapid on-ramp to the Lightning Network, so that users can buy BTC with fiat and have it deposited directly into their Lightning channels.

In August, department store Pricerite started accepting bitcoin at its new concept store at the popular MegaBox shopping centre in Hong’s Kong’s Kowloon Bay area. It converts crypto payments into Hong Kong Dollars in real time at its cash registers. With Lightning, that’s now possible in a matter of seconds, according to Pricerite. 

Lightning Service Providers

To use Lightning, users have to open a payment channel with a counterparty node. But how to choose from the thousands that are out there? Some have better connections, others have superior channel liquidity. 

To provide for simplified channel management, this year, developers at Lightning Labs turbocharged Autopilot, a helpful aid to getting started on Lightning. It uses heuristics to help new users choose a node, and is built into the protocol.

Another way to easily connect to the network is through plug-and-play Lightning Service Providers (LSPs,) which have come to the fore this year. LSP’s such as Breez, LightningTo.Me, LNBIG.com, and Bitrefill's Thor provide services such as customization options, immediate liquidity, robust connections with other LSPs for effective routing options, even rebalancing payment options with other LSPs to ensure payments move freely.

Lightning’s Submarine Swaps get out and about

It’s been a big year for Submarine Swaps, which make it much easier to jump between the Bitcoin blockchain and payment channels. They allow Lightning users to transfer funds between a payment channel and their on-chain wallet without having to close and re-open the channel.

In 2019, Submarine Swaps were integrated directly into several mobile Lightning clients, making it much easier to do things like top up a payment channel in order to make purchases. 

This year, Lightning Labs also released Lightning Loop: a service to perform Submarine Swaps that’s ready right out of the box. It allows users to receive bitcoin in increasing quantities without having to close and reopen new payment channels.

Submarine Swaps can now be made both on-chain (with the Munn wallet, for instance) and off chain with Breez, which lets users top up their Lightning payment channels from an on-chain wallet.

Building Lightning Watchtowers

This year saw the introduction of so-called Watchtowers—third-party nodes to which a user delegates the responsibility of monitoring their channel activity. 

The Lightning protocol has a built-in mechanism to punish anyone who tries to cheat their counterparty by publishing an out-of-date channel state. But, until this year, there was no recourse if the cheated party was offline, or if their client was not monitoring their channel activity. 

Watchtowers ensure that users’ channels, and the network as a whole, are safer. Since they only receive transaction data in case of an actual attempt to cheat, the added security comes at a low cost in privacy.

New tools and plugins make it easier to get to Lappland

Lapps, the decentralized apps of the Lighting Network, are proliferating. 

There’s an impressive list here and here, but two popular new ones include Paywall.Link, which gives content creators a direct-to-Lightning paywall so they can get paid for blogs and other content, and Sats 4 Likes, which allows users to buy followers or likes in return for satoshis on Lightning. These days, it’s even possible to order pizza via Lightning, with the Fold web app. 

With new tools and plugins, lapps are getting easier to create, too: this year, a seven-year-old (and his dad) built a zombie hunting game that takes bitcoin Lightning payments.

We want to obfuscate complexity, and make it a seamless experience, like with the Internet.

Roy Sheinfeld

In February, a new code release from Blockstream gave developers an interface and plugins that makes it even easier to build their own features into Blockstream’s open source c-lightning software.

“For Blockstream’s c-lightning, 2019 was the Year of Plugins, where Rusty Russell and team made everything modular and customizable,” said Mow.

The upgrade also introduced innovations such as monitoring tools, which run alongside a node to check if it’s alive and kicking. There’s also a “probing” plugin that pings random Lightning nodes on the network, to judge their reaction and establish the health of the network. The list is a work in progress. 

Fold and Casa incentivize Lightning

Companies working with the Lightning Network are increasingly incentivising users, in order to ensure network security and entice new users on board.

Through Lightning, Fold enables spending bitcoin and offers cashback rewards, in bitcoin, to shoppers who use its mobile app at Amazon, Starbucks, Uber and more.

Hardware manufacturer Casa released its second generation Bitcoin and Lightning node in October. The Casa Node 2 is simple to set up, requires no specialist knowledge and offers users rewards by validating the blockchain themselves, thus increasing its decentralization and security.

In the same month, Casa also released a companion app, Sats App, which enables users to send and receive bitcoin; it also rewards users for network-boosting actions such as connecting the app to their own node, proving that it’s active.

Ever more user friendly Lightning

Lightning's UX has been questionable in the past, but it’s made significant progress in the last year. Protocols like lnurl, introduced in January, help to simplify Lightning’s UX; Inurl streamlines the process of communication between Lightning wallets and third-party services in common situations, such as employing channel services.

For example, users can now withdraw funds from a lapp by simply clicking on a link or scanning a QR code, rather than have to manually create a Lightning invoice as before.

The protocol is rapidly being adopted by clients and lapps, so things are bound to get even easier. 

And even busier, no doubt. Progress this year has been astounding and developers such as Sheinfeld, show no signs of letting up. 

“We want to obfuscate complexity, and make it a seamless experience, like with the Internet."  Ultimately, he said, "we want to change the world."

First of all, the fundamentals of Bitcoin are excellent and the revolution it is leading continues to advance month after month, block after block. The number of Bitcoins that can be put into circulation is known to all. Thus, in 2030, the maximum supply for Bitcoin will always be 21 million.

The demand for Bitcoin will increase in the coming years and with 8.6 billion people on Earth, the scarcity of Bitcoin will cause a sharp increase in its price.

8,600,000,000 population on Earth

21,000,000 bitcoin

Fundstrat's Tom Lee says bitcoin could be poised for a huge breakout. With CNBC's Brian Sullivan and the Fast Money traders, Pete Najarian, Brian Kelly, Dan Nathan and Tim Seymour.
 

I think his being fat was the root cause of why the world around him ended up shaming him instead of hailing him as a hero.  
 

then i think of paul blart mall cop and watch the entire nation poke fun at fat white men who are nice people. 
 

while everyone loves people like snoop dog who are always too high to remember to eat and promote drug use and a life of crime. 

The music video for Lionel Richie's "Hello" directed by Bob Giraldi, attracts attention as it tells the story of a music teacher (played by Lionel Richie) who falls in love with his blind student.

ronan keating singing a song from the film notting hill

Keith Whitley - When You Say Nothing at All

This song does make you want to "hustle" in whatever you are doing. 😉

Wow  she died of melanoma at the age of 33!!

This version seems to have so much more feeling than the original

Friday, Dec. 6 — crypto markets have continued to rebound after a sharp sell-off on Dec. 4, with Bitcoin (BTC) briefly reclaiming $7,500.

The bullish momentum is observed across all the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, with just Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC) and Unus Sed Leo (LEO) seeing some losses at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, Chainlink (LINK) and Cosmos (ATOM) are reporting the biggest gains among the top 20 over the past 24 hours, both up around 4%, according to Coin360.

Market visualization. Source: Coin360

After trading around $7,400 price point for the better part of the day, Bitcoin spiked to hit an intraday high of $7,576 in a matter of minutes. At the time of publication, the major cryptocurrency is up 1%, trading at $7,450.

Despite renewed upward movement, Bitcoin is still down over 3.5% on the past seven days as it failed to retest $7,800 on Nov. 30. Over the past 30 days, Bitcoin is still down around 20% from $9,286.

Major U.S. financial regulator approves a new BTC futures-focused fund

The new spike in Bitcoin’s price comes alongside news that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission approved another Bitcoin derivatives fund. As reported by Cointelegraph, BTC futures-focused NYDIG Bitcoin Strategy Fund is now allowed to offer its shares to institutional investors.

The upward movement on crypto markets may be caused by the approaching Christmas holidays, according to a new report from analysts at crypto exchange SFOX. According to the researchers, Bitcoin searches on Google usually peak before holidays, not after. As such, on Nov. 28 — Thanksgiving in the U.S. — Bitcoin saw three consecutive days of price growth, the firm stated.

Meanwhile, Twitter crypto personality Bitcoin Macro recently predicted that 2020 will be a “mind blowing year for crypto,” while “2019 was, and still is, the year to accumulate.”

...

The total market capitalization accounts for $202.5 billion at the time of publication.

Keep track of top crypto markets in real time here

Speaking at ELEV8CON in Las Vegas on Dec. 10, founder and CEO of Celsius Network Alex Mashinsky said that there is a war brewing between centralized and decentralized networks.

"The centralization of the Internet by companies such as Facebook and Google has created a distorted reality where fake news and blatant lies get the same treatment as documented truths,” said Mashinsky.

Mashinsky said that the rise of centralized social media networks has resulted in an increase in fake news, causing a great deal of confusion regarding the basic facts of issues and events.

Mashinsky also noted that fake news stories tend to increase reader engagement, which is then gets converted into huge profits for companies like Facebook and Google.

“If such lies bring engagement (which is immediately converted into huge profits) then they deserve to be pushed and promoted by the world’s best algorithms, which work tirelessly to extract every dollar out of them. No need to worry about our democracy or human rights, corporate mega-profits can cure all ills if we just issue PR that we donated 1% of what we made to a school or the disabled,” said Mashinsky.

A blockchain-based solution

Mashinsky told Cointelegraph that a blockchain-based data platform is the only solution capable of combating fake news. A system such as this can verify the identity of users and the authenticity of data, bringing a much-needed layer of transparency to the online world.

Mashinsky mentioned that a project like EOS Voice, which uses blockchain technology to record the inner operations of its network, will be one of the first decentralized applications to bring trust to the internet. EOS Voice is a social media platform that was unveiled by EOS creator Bock.One. The beta version is scheduled to launch on Feb.14, 2020.

Unlike centralized social media networks that extract personal user information without permission, all operations across EOS Voice are recorded on the blockchain. Moreover, while Mashinsky noted that social networks are vulnerable to fake news due to the fact that anyone can post whatever they please, EOS Voice users must verify their identities. This provides a way to decrease fake accounts and illegitimate content, as everything posted can be traced back to specific people.

Yet while platforms like EOS Voice are being brought to market, Mashinsky pointed out that gaining user traction remains a challenge.

“Platforms designed to protect us and act in our best interest already exist. We are just waiting for 7 billion people to discover them. When they do, the entire internet will become an application on the blockchain” said Mashinsky.

Blockchain economics

To his point, Mashinsky presented a slide during his keynote entitled, “Blockchain Economics.” Written on the slide was “E=MC2”. In this case, E stood for Ethereum, M stood for members, and C stood for Consensus.

“If you want the Ethereum blockchain to ever be valuable you need members and consensus,” explained Mashinsky.

Mashinsky ended his keynote by explaining that we already went through the blockchain hype curve, but that we still need to cross the chasm. He noted that stable coins are a great stepping stone to get people to understand the potential of cryptocurrency. He also recommended to stop using centralized networks entirely:

“The amazing thing is that if we stop this addiction, Facebook will lose their power and disappear just as fast as they got hold of it. How do I know that? I helped make the old phone companies that charged $700 a month to disappear. Now, it’s free because [Voice over IP] allows us to take the power back and leave these toll collectors behind. It is up to us to decide if the future will be more centralized or decentralized.”

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-briefly-breaks-above-7-500-after-sec-approves-btc-fund

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/12/queensland-school-water-commercial-bottlers-tamborine-mountain

The future of privatized water is here

Question: What is a TV show that ruined the lives of many people in general?

If we are actually talking about shows that have ruined tens of thousands of lives then there’s no way to avoid bringing up televangelists.

These individuals have had people so desperate to help, to healed or to be “saved” that they have:

1. Drained their pensions and retirement accounts
2. Mortgaged their homes
3. Liquidated their assets
4. Borrowed money from family, friends and even financial institutions.
5. Gone without food and medication

Some of the worst offenders are:

This Is Your Day - Benny Hinn

Hinn has been controversial for decades and is only now receiving the scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service and the Postal Inspectors that he’s deserved for years.

Your World With Creflo Dollar - Creflo Dollar

A Georgia-based pastor who actually begged his followers for a $65 million private jet to help him “minister to the faithful”.

Believer’s Voice of Victory - Kenneth Copeland

Basically instructs people NOT to seek medical assistance, and states that prayer will help them overcome illnesses.

Enjoy Everyday Life - Joyce Meyer

Has been under investigation for many years for possible misuse of collected funds. Has been on air for nearly 30 years and has collected tens of millions of dollars during that time.

Paula White Today - Paula White

Both White, and her ex-husband Randy White, take in millions of dollars annually and have been under scrutiny by tax officials for decades. The Whites are actually one of the most subdued of televangelists, although they are also some of the most successful.

Frankly, so many people have given, and will give, their money to these individuals that they easily are among the worst predators ever to be aired on American television.

there are caveats of course. 

I must say the show has made me view Prince Charles in a much more friendly light.

Growing up in that family is difficult despite the obvious advantages....

What a voice!