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The dramatic FBI search of Donald Trump's Florida home on Monday marked a sudden escalation of investigations into the former president.

It posed new legal questions that could - in theory - alter the course of the American presidency.

That's because if the inquiry - reportedly linked to Mr Trump's handling of classified presidential documents - ends with a conviction, some suggest he could be legally blocked from running for president again.

So let's take a deeper look at this. What does the FBI search say about how far the investigations into Mr Trump have progressed - and could he be stopped from running in 2024?

Joseph Moreno, a former justice department prosecutor, said the nature and sensitivity of the search at Mr Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach suggest the probe is moving toward potential charges.

"Someone at the FBI and a federal prosecutor believe there's a criminal violation of the Presidential Records Act or other acts that govern classified documents, and that's why they moved forward," says Mr Moreno.

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Much of the analysis in the wake of the search - and the critical element related to the election in 2024 - has focused on one obscure criminal law: Section 2071 of Title 18 of the United States Code.

This states that anyone with custody of government documents who "willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates or destroy any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or another thing, filed or deposited in any public office" can be fined or imprisoned for up to three years.


It says that anyone convicted under that law shall "be disqualified from holding" federal office. This is why some suggest a conviction could end Mr Trump's rumoured hopes of returning to the White House.

"That's a real law, and if Donald Trump violated that law … that has real penalties, including the fact that he may never be able to serve in the federal office again," presidential historian Michael Beschloss told MSNBC.


Some legal experts, however, quickly insisted that the law was unlikely to apply or survive any kind of appeal, as the only restrictions on presidential eligibility were citizenship, residence and age.

"The law would not pass muster under any sort of constitutional review," says Brian Kalt, a constitutional law professor at the University of Michigan.


Legal and constitutional experts also told the BBC there is no general prohibition against convicted criminals running for president. The most recent example is George W Bush, who had a drink-driving conviction, a minor crime, but went on to serve two terms.

The US Constitution sets the eligibility criteria for who can run for president. These eligibility requirements are simple: a candidate must be at least 35 years old and a resident of the US for at least 14 years.


So there's an apparent tension - between a federal statute that says those convicted under the above law should be barred from holding office, and the Constitution, which lays out precise requirements for who is eligible to run for president and makes no mention of criminal convictions.

"The fundamental principle of constitutional law is that the Constitution is supreme, and any law that conflicts with the Constitution is void," adds Mr Kalt.


Several legal experts have also suggested that Congress can disqualify a candidate from holding office through impeachment. Still, the US Constitution grants no such power for convictions made under ordinary criminal law.

"The only way he could be barred from running is if he were barred by Congress [using impeachment powers], but that would be very unusual," says Mr Moreno, the former justice department prosecutor.


Some experts suggest that if Mr Trump were charged and convicted under Section 2071, prosecutors could ask the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to consider the question of eligibility.

However, Prof Kalt says it is unlikely the former president would be barred from office in such an eventuality. "If I were advising Mr Trump, I would say you should not worry about this. You should be fine," says Mr Kalt.


While legal experts believe barring Mr Trump from seeking office through Section 2071 is a long shot, any attempt to do so could still significantly impact his electoral prospects and public perception.

Marc E Elias, a leading Democratic party elections lawyer, mentioned this in a tweet earlier. "I recognise the legal challenge that applying this law to a president would garner," he wrote.

"But the idea that a candidate would have to litigate this during a campaign is in my view a blockbuster in American politics."
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Gold prices held on to recent gains on Tuesday as volatility in stock markets ahead of a closely-watched U.S. inflation figure this week drove up safe haven demand.

As of 2150 ET (0151 GMT), spot gold was down slightly at $1,785 an ounce, while gold futures held around $1,801.

Both instruments had rallied nearly 1% on Monday, as uncertainty over upcoming U.S. CPI inflation data drove the dollar lower.

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Other precious metals also retained recent gains. Platinum Futures fell 0.1% after a 1.7% rally on Monday, while Silver Futures fell 0.4% after a nearly 5% rally.

U.S. stock markets saw a volatile session on Monday amid a mixed bag of earnings, which drove up safe-haven demand. Investors are also caught between the growth and value play, ahead of inflation data later this week.

The focus is now on U.S. CPI data for July, due on Wednesday. Analysts are expecting a year-on-year reading of 8.7%, down from the 9.1% seen in June.

A bigger-than-expected dip in inflation is likely to bring down expectations of steep interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and will be positive for gold prices.

But a stronger-than-expected reading could underpin U.S. Treasury yields, driving more traders into the dollar, and denting most metal markets.

Still, inflation is likely to remain at 40-year highs for the coming months, inviting continued monetary policy tightening by the Fed.

Among industrial metals, Copper Futures retreated 0.5% on Tuesday to $3.5680 a pound, after a 1.3% rally on Monday. Copper prices have largely tumbled this year amid signs of sluggish industrial activity across the globe.

But a surprise jump in Chinese export data this week helped ease some concerns over global demand.

Chinese appetite for industrial metal also remains strong, despite a decline in manufacturing activity caused by a series of COVID-related lockdowns.
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Sky Mavis co-founder and growth lead Jeffrey Zirlin says Axie Infinity wants to double down in South Korea, which they see as one of the most important gaming markets in the world.

Sky Mavis, the firm behind Play-to-Earn (P2E) heavyweight Axie Infinity is looking to “double down” in South Korea and ramp up adoption despite the regulatory hurdles.

Speaking with Cointelegraph at the Korea Blockchain Week on Aug. 9 (local time), Sky Mavis co-founder and growth lead Jeffrey Zirlin stated that despite the domestic ban on P2E games still being in place, the “Korean market is one of the most important gaming markets in the world, and we have tons of players in South Korea.”

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Zirlin added that the company is currently looking at ways to tailor the Axie Infinity game to its cohort of Korean gamers:

“I think you know, we want to double down. We want to localize, for example, Koreans don't speak much English, right? So there are actually a lot of barriers to actually getting the game into the hands of Korean players.”

“But a lot of our top players on the leaderboard are Korean [...] Koreans are some of the best gamers in the world,” he added.

South Korea Game Rating and Administration Committee prohibits the release of domestic blockchain P2E games as a result of strict anti-gambling policies.

In December, the government also moved to prohibit Google Play and the Apple Store from listing such games in Korea.

“In terms of the regulation, it's still quite early. It's similar to the app stores where you know, it's gonna be a process of negotiation and education,” Zirlin noted, adding that he hopes P2E adoption is enough to sway the government to walk back its hawkish regulation in the future:

“It's really Uber as an approach right? They just launched, they got it into the hands of as many people as possible and once they had a critical mass the regulators had to go with it.”

The Axie Infinity project is still in its early access stage and is yet to roll out an app via Google Play or the Apple Store.

According to Active Player, the game had roughly 766,000 people that logged in to play the game last month, a far cry from the heights of 2.7 million recorded in January this year.

As it stands, Axie Infinity is looking to ramp up adoption — in Korea and globally — by improving the gaming experience and expanding its ecosystem via new battle modes such as Origin, which topped more than 600,000 sign-ups as of mid-June.

“Origin is our main focus right now. So building that out and making it more immersive, adding in vertical progression, like runes and charms and body part upgrades to act as sustainable sinks [burning mechanisms] for tokens and making it more fun.”

“Origin crucially comes with three free starter Axies (NFT characters) so that people can fall in love with the game [without having] to make any economic or financial decisions,” he added.
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Here Are Some :

World’s greatest unsolved mysteries!

The world history is replete with mysteries and riddels that despite all the efforts of our most expert historians, determined treasure hunters, and great cryptographers, they have still remained unsolved. If you are also intrigued to know about then, here's our list of world’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

USA - Area 51

This remote US Air Force facility in the state of Nevada is full of mysterious secrets! As per the conspiracy theorists and UFO folklore, it is believed that the site serves as a storage site of an alien vehicle that crashed on earth, while it’s also believed that underground military facilities are researching about alien technology. What’s there and what’s happening there still remains an unsolved mystery.

Greece - Antikythera mechanism

It’s believed that the Greek scientists might have made this ancient computer-like device sometime between 150 BC and 100 B., which was was found in the wreckage of a 2000-year-old ship off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera.

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Science historian Derek J. de Solla Price from Princeton University in 1959 found that the said device could be used to predict eclipses and even astronomical positions. However, the mysterious thing about this is that the technology to make such an object was not seen again till the 14th century, and the reason still remains unknown.

Bermuda Triangle

It’s a mysterious area where over the past 500 years, airplanes and ships have gone mysteriously missing. Reason why it’s called the Bermuda (or Devil's) Triangle. This area is bounded by the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda; Florida, Miami, United States; and the American territory of Puerto Rico.

A lot of theories have been floated by scientists and experts, such as from unidentified flying objects (UFOs) to sea monsters, yet nobody has been able to decode the mystery.

Scotland - Loch Ness monster

Do you think a monster like Loss Ness exist? Well, as per the legends, it’s a mythical aquatic creature that can be found in Scotland, while some experts opine that it’s a large animal that represents a line of dinosaurs.

The first photographic evidence of the monster was believed to be found in 1934, which was later found to be a fake in 1994. In 2008, there were reports that the creature might have become extinct due to global warming, while in the recent times[, scientists are in talks to use environmental DNA to establish the existence of the said monster.

England - Shugborough inscription

This 18th-century Shepherd's Monument in Staffordshire, England, looks like and normal monument from afar, but if one gets closer, they will notice a curious sequence of letters: DOUOSVAVVM — which is a code that has remained unresolved for all these years.

Some experts speculated that the code could likely be a clue that has been left behind by the Knights Templar regarding the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, others have tried to crack the code, but all in vain.
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You need to learn from an expert who is making money trading forex.

Do you know there is a cryptocurrency website where you can get up to 20% profit on investment every 10 days? Well, instead of just sitting at home making no money during this Covid-19 situation, why can you just sit at home and let the investment website handle the business.

Before I continue, In case you are worried about what all these cryptocurrencies might be heading to, DON’T GIVE UP!!! I almost gave up too until I came across CryptoFXnetwork Cryptocurrency Investment Platform (www . cryptofxnetwork . com) where I get profit on my invested cryptocurrency after 10 trading days. Don’t be left out. Be like me. I still believe in Cryptocurrency.

I tried back in 2013 to learn how to trade forex. I spent months and months reading and trying out demo accounts.

In the end, I realized just how difficult it is to make regular money, well no actually how difficult it is to make any money.

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I was about to give up but I was 56 years old at the time and have run several businesses and done pretty well through good and bad times and am not a quitter.

So I did what I usually do when I get stuck and that is finding someone who is doing OK and making money doing what I am failing at.

There are traders making regular good money trading forex so I realized that if you could copy them you could make money as well.

Now, this is where it gets interesting because copying a successful trader is very difficult and usually results in you blowing your account.

One thing I am good at though is assembling systems using proprietary parts that take information on one end and process it and spit out results at the other end as I have a background from many years ago in systems analysis and programming.

It can be rather like assembling an automobile from bits you find in a scrapyard, bolting them together, and making a car that works after a fashion. I had a few failed attempts but by April 2014 had a workable system.

I wrote a Quora blog post on how it all works when hooked up. Space Post Ever since I have made regular money on my forex account and you can do the same if you want you can watch and learn from an expert while they make money for you.

The alternative is to bust a gut and do it all yourself and believe me it will cost you a lot of time and money. So you do not have to re-invent the wheel just get smart and copy someone who knows what they are doing.
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Here are 10 of the most evil to have ever been born:

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

The chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Führer of the Nazi Party, Adolf Hitler was perhaps the most intelligent, creative and brutal dictators of them all. He was largely responsible for the holocaust and the second World War.

He believed that Jews were the root cause of all problems and set out to eliminate them. His actions resulted in death of over 50 million people. Hitler committed suicide in his bunker on 30th April 1945. Hard to believe that he was once a talented artist and part of a Bohemian community.

Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)

Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin was dictator of the Soviet Union from 1922 till his death in 1953. As a young man, he was a robber and an assassin. For almost 30 years, he reigned with terror and violence in the Soviet Union.

His decisions led to a famine that killed millions. Forget enemies, he even killed families of people who were fond of him. Under his rule, more than 1.5 million German women were raped and in all, he easily killed over 20 million people. He once said, "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is simply a statistic." Ironically, he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 & 1948. He died of a stroke in 1953.

Vlad the Impaler (1431-1476/77)

Vlad the Impaler was also known as Vlad Dracula. The character of Dracula was loosely based on Vlad, due to his sadistic personality and cruel acts done to the people of Wallachia, where he reigned as prince three times between 1448 to 1462 and killed about 20% of the population.

He impaled the victim through the buttocks till the stake came out of the mouth. A German pamphlet once read: 'He roasted children, whom he fed to their mothers. And (he) cut off the breasts of women, and forced their husbands to eat them. After that, he had them all impaled.'

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Pol Pot (1925-1998)

Pol Pot was the leader of the Cambodian revolutionary group the Khmer Rogue, which had orchestrated the Cambodian genocide. Pol Pot believed in destroying the Cambodian civilisation in order to start a new regime and usher in a new age. He is probably the only man is history who ordered mass genocide on his own country.

During his reign as Prime Minister from 1976 to 1979, his policies led to the death of around 2 million people which was 25% of the entire population. He liked to keep the skulls of people he had killed and he went as far as ordering babies to be torn limb by limb. He died of natural causes.

Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945)

He was head of the SS and the brain behind the Final Solution to the Jewish question, that is extermination of all Jews in Europe. Himmler had ordered the killing of about 6 million Jews, 2 to 5 lac Russians and many other groups that the Nazis believed were unworthy of living.

It is believed, not verified, that he had furniture made from the bones and skins of Jewish victims. He committed suicide and is buried at an undisclosed location.

Idi Amin (1952-2003)

Idi Amin, who was the Chief of Army Staff, had taken control of Uganda while President Obote had gone to Singapore to attend a meeting. He promised to bring prosperity to Uganda. But a week later, he declared himself President of Uganda.

As dictator, he came to be known as the 'Butcher of Uganda'. He killed people by feeding them to crocodiles, claimed he was a cannibal, mutilated one of his wives and rearranged her limbs. He killed and tortured around half a million people between 1971 to 1979 as ruler. He died of natural causes.

Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584)

Ivan was the first Tsar of Russia. As a kid, he used to throw animals from the top of tall structures. Though he was intelligent, he had bouts of rage due to mental illness. During one, he even killed his own heir to the throne.

He loved impaling, beheading, burning, strangling, frying, blinding and disemboweling people. Even in friends, he saw his enemies. In the Novgorod Massacre, more than 60,000 people were tortured to death. Ivan died while playing chess with his friend.

Leopold the IInd of Belgium (1835-1909)

When king, he ruled over the Congo Free state which was approximately 76 times the size of Belgium. He made the entire world believe that he was going to help Congo. But under his regime, between 1885 to 1908, the country was subjected to a reign of terror. Over 500,000 died of diseases and many died of starvation as well.

He killed over 10 million Congolese, which was 50% of the population of Congo. All this, just to gain money and more power.

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Here are some “Costliest Mistakes” ever happened in history.

1. Chornobyl disaster

Cost: $590 billion

The Chornobyl disaster is the worst, most deadly nuclear accident of all time. The worst part is, it occurred due to some totally preventable mistakes. On April 25, 1986, a drill simulating a power outage at Chornobyl led to uncontrolled reactions and a steam fire that burned for nine days.

134 workers were hospitalized due to radiation exposure, and 31 of them died in the following few weeks.

2. Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Cost: $61 billion

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is considered the worst oil spill in history. 210 million gallons of oil were spilled following an explosion on the drilling rig.

Oil threatened marine and wildlife habitats from Louisiana to Florida, and the spill continued for months as workers attempted time and again to stop the flow of oil.

3. Columbia disintegrated on re-entry

Cost: $13 billion

The space shuttle Columbia crash of 2003 will sadly go down in history as another spacecraft accident that should never have happened.

The shuttle was torn apart upon re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere because of a piece of foam that fell from the shuttle’s external tank, breaching its wing. All seven astronauts on board Columbia were killed.

4. Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Cost: $12 billion

Fukushima Daiichi was a nuclear power plant on the coast of Japan that unfortunately gained worldwide notoriety in March of 2011. An earthquake caused the reactors at the plant to shut down, but it also caused a tsunami.

The tsunami shut down the plant’s backup generator, preventing the necessary cooling process from taking place.

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5. Challenger explosion

Cost: $5.5 billion

On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger was scheduled to take off. It was supposed to be the Challenger’s last flight, and the mission included scientific objectives and satellite deployments. Unfortunately, unpredicted temperatures caused a tragic malfunction.

6. Stealth Bomber crashed on takeoff

Cost: $1.4 billion

In 2008, the B-2 stealth bomber was the most expensive plane in the Air Force arsenal. There were only 21 of the bombers made at that time. Despite the plane’s tremendous cost, it could still be brought down by a simple mistake…

7. Russia sold Alaska

Cost: $700 million

In 1867, Alaska was a Russian territory that was rapidly bleeding money. Russian merchants and bureaucrats had found some early financial successes there, but demand for higher salaries among officials was making Alaska more costly than it was worth despite newly discovered gold mines.

8. Crashing the Titanic

Cost: $168 million

Before she set sail on her maiden voyage, the Titanic was known as an unsinkable ship. It was the largest ocean liner built at the time and was specially designed to make the long journey from England to America. Unfortunately, as we all know, the Titanic did not live up to its unsinkable reputation.

9. Mars Climate Orbiter lost

Cost: $193.1 million

The Mars Climate Orbiter was a NASA space probe launched in 1998. It was supposed to orbit Mars and study the red planet’s atmosphere and surface, but due to a miscommunication, it was lost in space forever.

10. Trains too wide for the rail

Cost: $68.4 million

In 2014, French train operator SNCF ordered 2,000 new trains for their lines in Paris and throughout France. Unfortunately, the trains were too wide to fit into the platforms at some of the older stations in France.

The mistake arose because SNCF officials had measured stations built 30 years ago but failed to account for stations that had been built 50 or more years prior when trains were much thinner.
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Knowledge is like glue that sticks information as well as learning together. When we have prior knowledge about a topic, we understand it better.

It plays an important role in students’ life, especially in school. If they don’t have related knowledge, they face difficulties in understanding the text.

Four Types of Background Knowledge

Well, there are four types of background knowledge that need to be instilled in students from a very early age

1. General Knowledge

It helps children in developing their knowledge about what is happening in the world. Its main advantage is that they can relate background knowledge with contextual one.

It is essential for understanding a normal language. The meaning of a word in the mind depends on the knowledge and the background of the reader. Reading is a good source of knowledge. It not only increases the meaning of words but also makes comprehension easier to read.

2. Vocabulary knowledge

As already said, reading is the best source of knowledge. It is also a key to developing the vocabulary skills of students.

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The more they read, the more they learn different words and how & where to use them. The importance of prior knowledge in education can be understood. Background knowledge enables the readers to have more options between multiple meanings of words.

3. Concept-based knowledge

Prior background knowledge about a subject can also be taken by the means of conceptual understanding. Giving hands-on experiences is a great source for understanding concepts while reading.

In other words, it takes students away from the classroom and brings them closer to the outside world. Discussions and envisagement are also helpful in developing the conceptual knowledge of students. This helps in collecting different views and information about the world.

4. Knowledge from books

Many good books are filled with a lot of information which consists of deep meanings of the words and are filled with a good amount of knowledge.

Background knowledge about the geographical settings of a place, history, political movements, and religious and cultural environment of the world might not be learnt in the textbooks being taught in schools. Even the languages used in these books make a huge difference in understanding the text.

Thus, parents play a vital role in providing prior knowledge to their children. It is due to the fact that a child’s education starts at home and their parents are their first teachers. After parents, teachers play an important role in the learning process of a child. It is essential for them to understand, evaluate and analyze what the students already know about a topic.

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"NFTs can create models of scarcity and exclusion that conflict with our Guidelines and the spirit of Minecraft," says the entity.

On Wednesday, Minecraft's developer Mojang Studios said that it would be excluding the integration of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, alongside blockchain technology as a whole, in its popular namesake game. In explaining the decision, Mojang wrote:

"Like any digital file, NFTs can be copied, moved, or even deleted. Additionally, NFTs and blockchain have also been associated with price speculation.

These uses of NFTs and other blockchain technologies create digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion, which does not align with Minecraft's values of creative inclusion and playing together."

As told by Mojang: "To ensure that Minecraft players have a safe and inclusive experience, blockchain technologies are not permitted to be integrated inside our client and server applications, nor may Minecraft in-game content such as worlds, skins, persona items, or other mods, be utilized by blockchain technology to create a scarce digital asset."

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The company also criticized the "speculative pricing" and "investment mentality" around NFTs that take away from the game experience and encourage profiteering to the detriment of long-term game playability.

Furthermore, it pointed to rug-pulls surrounding certain third-party NFT integrations as well as NFT wash trading, or fraudulent price manipulation to support the ban.

Under the new rules, third-party blockchain technologies cannot be integrated with client and server applications within Minecraft.

Nor may they be utilized to create NFTs associated with any in-game content, including worlds, skins, persona items or other mods.

Although the changes do not affect most Minecraft gamers, it is likely to have significant consequences for a small subset of gamers who are also profiting from in-game NFTs.

Third-party for-sale NFT collections digitizing Minecraft in-game assets may therefore be in violation of such terms and could potentially face legal consequences.
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As the case against Ripple rages on, the SEC wants to see certain “friends of the court” in support of Ripple be barred from providing legal aid to the defense.


The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is attempting to block XRP holders from aiding in Ripple’s defense, and prohibit attorney John E. Deaton from any further participation in proceedings.

In its official objection submitted on July 19, the regulator opposed the decision to recognize 1,746 XRP holders as "amici curiae" along with attorney John E. Deaton.


Amici (plural: amici curiae) means “friend of the court” an individual or organization not a party to a legal case but is permitted to assist a court by providing information, expertise, or insights. In this case, in support of Ripple’s defense.

Deaton has 3,252 affidavits signed by the token holders essentially stating that they are victims of the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple as a result of lost profits.

Holders claim in the affidavits that they either did not assume legal responsibility for purchasing XRP, they bought the tokens for utilitarian purposes instead of investment purposes, or they did not buy based on promises made by the company and its representatives.

However, in its objection to XRP holders, the commission claimed that they are attempting to operate outside of strictly legal issues. The SEC wrote:“Movants do not propose briefing on legal issues. Instead, they wish to present arguments based on 3,252 affidavits “attesting” to certain facts.”

The commission has cited alleged threats by Deaton against former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton as reasoning to dismiss him as amicus.The SEC included a redacted letter dated June 7 to Judge Torres that cites a YouTube video from 2021

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Which Deaton stated he “might have to walk over and slap the [profanity] out of former SEC Chair Jay Clayton.”The XRP holders and Deaton as amici are required to submit a public reply to the SEC’s objection by July 25.


Ripple is a blockchain company that issues the XRP token. The SEC has alleged in an ongoing court case that started in 2020 that Ripple and its executives Brad Garlinghouse and Christian Larsen sold XRP as unregistered securities.

Deaton Queries SEC's Treatment Of McCaleb

Meanwhile, Deaton has claimed that the SEC has been inconsistent with its application of the law against Ripple, Garlinghouse, and Larsen.In a July 19 thread on Twitter, the lawyer explained that if the SEC truly thought XRP was a security.

It would have filed an injunction against Ripple and issued a cease and desist order against the two executives and Jed McCaleb from selling their tokens.Ripple cofounder Jed McCaleb has sold nine billion XRP since leaving the company in 2014.

The outcome of this case could determine whether XRP is a security. If the judge rules in favor of the SEC, it could be the precedent the commission needs to pursue legal action against other crypto projects that sold tokens similarly to Ripple.
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After 73 days of "extreme fear" on the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, investors can breathe a very small sigh of relief.

Bitcoin (BTC) on Tuesday finally escaped the “extreme fear” zone after a whopping 73 days, coinciding with a 19% weekly increase in Bitcoin (BTC) as bulls make their way back to the market.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index increased from “extreme fear” to merely "fearful" on July 19, reaching a score of 30 out of 100.

It has gained slightly since then to the current index score of 31.

The Index analyzes the current sentiment of the overall crypto market, scoring between 0 to 100.

The index is based mainly on Bitcoin market volatility, volume and dominance, social media sentiment, surveys, and search trend data.

On-chain metrics firm Santiment on Twitter noted that traders are “changing their tune” and are starting to look towards a long-term breakout of the cryptocurrency.

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According to the firm, BTC’s average funding rate on exchanges has hit its highest levels in the last two months as BTC’s price rises above $23,600 — which could indicate a level of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is present.

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz continues to tout optimism for the lead cryptocurrency, telling a Bloomberg conference on June 19 that he expects BTC to surge above $500,000 within the next 5 years.
“This is a story of two things — it is about adoption and global economics. And while this is a bump in the road in adoption, it is certainly not a U-turn”.

"We continue to see institutions […] that haven't gotten involved yet, who see this as an opportunity,” he added.

Novogratz also believes “the worst has happened” and “now we’re rebuilding with a couple of good days in a row. He also noted that there is "a good story with Ethereum and the Merge, the global macro markets are at max bearishness.”

On the other hand, Grayscale’s “Bear Markets in Perspective” report suggests that the current bear market may last for another 250 days.

Product-comparison platform Finder made a similar prediction as part of a Bitcoin prediction survey on July 12.

Five Fintech professionals at Finder and 53 industry experts suggest that BTC will bottom out at $13,676 before making an uptrend towards $100,000 before 2025 and $300,000 by 2030.

Bitcoin is priced at $23,318 at the time of writing.
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ETH has gained 48% over the past week, leaving most of its crypto brethren behind — though it's still risky days ahead given the macroeconomic factors still at play.

Ethereum is outperforming the broader cryptocurrency market as the highly anticipated Merge approaches, but the bigger picture is still largely bearish.

Ethereum (ETH) has gained a whopping 48% over the past seven days, outperforming its big brother Bitcoin, which has only managed to achieve 19% in the same period.

It's also up 66% from its market cycle bottom of $918 on June 19, reaching its current price of $1549.

However, the current Ethereum rally could be a bull trap with the macroeconomic clouds darkening.

A bull trap is a signal indicating that a declining trend in a crypto asset has reversed and is heading upwards when it will actually continue downwards.

The primary driver of recent momentum for the asset has been linked to announcements regarding its final switch to proof-of-stake, which has been slated for September 19.

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The Merge will reduce the network’s energy consumption by more than 99%.

However, it will not necessarily reduce transaction fees significantly as this will occur when scaling takes place via sharding which is expected sometime next year.

On July 19, a Coinbase report on the Merge explained that the next major step, and last dress rehearsal, is the Goerli testnet Merge which has been planned for August 11.

Goerli is the most battle-tested Ethereum environment with the most user activity and the closest simulation of the real thing.

While the major upgrade is the fundamental driver of current Ethereum market sentiment, the asset is still trading down 68% from its November 2021 all-time high.

There have also been concerns that a significant amount of ETH may flood the market after the Merge and its release from its staking smart contracts.

However, the director of research at 21Shares, Eliézer Odinga, told Cointelegraph that this is unlikely to happen:

“The withdrawals of Ether won't occur until 6-12 months post Merge after the Shanghai upgrade. The withdrawals will be limited to six validators every epoch or ~ 6 minutes to avoid bank runs and keep the network secure.”

A recent survey by Finder, conducted before the most recent rally said there is still a lot of negative sentiment regarding short-term Ethereum prices.

The panel of 54 industry experts polled thought ETH would be worth $1,711 by the end of 2022, climbing to $5,739 by 2025, before hitting $14,412 by 2030. However, they also thought it would dump to $675 before the year was out.

Finder said there are a couple of macroeconomic factors that could cause this retreat.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to hike rates again by 75 basis points during their July 26-27 meeting, which is generally bearish for crypto markets. If Bitcoin takes a dive, Ethereum is sure to follow.

Additionally, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) will release its advance estimate of second-quarter GDP growth on July 28.

Another negative quarter, which is expected, will mean that the country is in a technical recession which is also very bad for risk-on assets such as Ethereum.
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Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest cryptocurrencies, are leading the charge as the broader market rebounded on Monday.

After weeks of frustration for investors, Bitcoin (BTC) soared to a monthly high of $22,430 on Monday morning, bringing some minor relief to what has been a dramatic crash in prices of late.

Although the leading cryptocurrency has cooled somewhat at the time of writing, trading at $22,280, Bitcoin is still up 3.6% over the past 24 hours and almost 9% in the last seven days, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Bitcoin’s latest price action also comes amid soaring trading volumes, which rose by 15% in the last day to exceed $31.6 billion.

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Ethereum (ETH), which is expected to merge from its current state as a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain to an energy-efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) network in September, is outpacing Bitcoin with a 7.7% surge over the last day.

After hitting a daily high of $1,486, ETH backtracked to $1,475 by press time, a level is last seen on June 12, data from CoinMarketCap shows.

Ethereum, which is now eyeing the next psychological level of $1,500, is also up an impressive 28% over the last week.

Bitcoin and Ethereum pull crypto back across $1 trillion.

As both Bitcoin and Ethereum posted gains, the rest of the market is also largely in the green today, with the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies jumping back above $1 trillion for the first time since June 13.

Some notable gainers of the day include Polygon (MATIC) and—somewhat surprisingly—Ethereum Classic (ETC), which are both up 16% in the past 24 hours, Avalanche (AVAX) with a 9% price jump, and Polkadot (DOT), which rose 4.5% over the span.
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"Countries with high debt levels and limited policy space will face additional strains. Look no further than Sri Lanka as a warning sign," said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Saturday.

She said developing nations had also been experiencing sustained capital outflows for four months in a row, putting their dreams of catching up with advanced economies at risk.

Sri Lanka is struggling to pay for crucial imports like food, fuel and medicine for its 22 million people as it battles a foreign exchange crisis. Inflation has soared about 50%, with food prices 80% higher than a year ago.

The Sri Lankan rupee has slumped in value against the US dollar and other major global currencies this year.

Many blame ex-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for mishandling the economy with disastrous policies whose impact was only exacerbated by the pandemic.

Over the years, Sri Lanka had built up a huge amount of debt - last month, it became the first country in the Asia Pacific region in 20 years to default on foreign debt.

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Officials had been negotiating with the IMF for a $3bn (£2.5bn) bailout. But those talks are currently stalled amid the political chaos.

But the same global headwinds - rising inflation and interest rate hikes, depreciating currencies, high levels of debt and dwindling foreign currency reserves - also affect other economies in the region.

China has been a dominant lender to several of these developing nations and therefore could control their destinies in crucial ways. But it's largely unclear what Beijing's lending conditions have been, or how it may restructure the debt.

Where China is at fault, according to Alan Keenan from International Crisis Group, is in encouraging and supporting expensive infrastructure projects that have not produced major economic returns.

"Equally important has been their active political support for the ruling Rajapaksa family and its policies... These political failures are at the heart of Sri Lanka's economic collapse, and until they are remedied through constitutional change and a more democratic political culture, Sri Lanka is unlikely to escape its current nightmare."

Laos
The landlocked East Asian nation of more than 7.5 million people has been facing the risk of defaulting on its foreign loans for several months.

Now, a rise in oil prices because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has put further strain on fuel supplies, pushing up the cost of food in a country where an estimated third of people live in poverty.

Local media outlets have reported long lines for fuel, and said some households had been unable to pay their bills.

Laos' currency, the kip, has been plunging and is down by more than a third against the US dollar this year.

Higher interest rates in the US have strengthened the dollar, and weakened local currencies, increasing their debt burden and making imports costlier.

Laos, which is already heavily in debt, is struggling to repay those loans or pay for imports like fuel. The World Bank says the country had $1.3bn of reserves as of December last year.

But its total annual external debt obligations are around the same amount until 2025 - equivalent to about half of the country's total domestic revenue.

As a result, Moody's Investor Services last month downgraded the communist-ruled nation to "junk", a category in which debt is considered high risk.

China has loaned Laos huge amounts of money in recent years to fund big projects like a hydropower plant and a railway. According to Laotian officials speaking to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Beijing undertook 813 projects worth more than $16bn last year alone.

Laos' public debt amounted to 88% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2021, according to the World Bank, with almost half of that figure owed to China.

Experts point to years of economic mismanagement in the country, where one party - the Lao People's Revolutionary Party - has held power since 1975.

But Moody's Analytics has flagged increased trade with China and the export of hydroelectricity as positive developments. "Laos has a fighting chance of avoiding the danger zone and the need for a bailout," economist Heron Lim said in a recent report.

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Paraguayan lawmakers have deliberated for a year on a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework that includes considerations for businesses and traders.

The Paraguayan Senate passed a bill on July 14 establishing a tax and regulatory framework for businesses operating in the cryptocurrency and the crypto mining sectors.

The bill, introduced last July by Senator Fernando Silva Facetti and passed in.

Congress in May before reaching the Senate, calls for the formation of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC) to oversee crypto industry service providers.

The bill is now one step away from being ratified as law by President Mario Abdo Benítez.

A notice from Congress in May stated that the bill pertains specifically to crypto mining, commercialization, intermediation, exchange, transfer, custody, and/or administration of crypto assets or instruments that allow control over crypto assets.

Local news outlet ABC reported on July 14 that companies that operate in the crypto industry would be treated the same as those dealing with securities for tax purposes.

As a result, they will be exempted by the Undersecretary of State for Taxation from paying a Value Added Tax (VAT) but will be included in the income tax regime.

The bill reportedly considers how crypto miners should interact with local power suppliers.

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Prospective mining operations will be required to report their energy consumption schedule to the National Electricity Administration (ANDE), Paraguay’s national electricity regime. If miners are found to be consuming more electricity than planned,

ANDE may cut off their electricity supply. While the bill stipulates that energy costs for miners will be subsidized, they will pay a rate 15% higher than other industries.

According to reports, Senator Facetti said that modifications made to the bill over the last year “improved the original project.”


Detractors to the bill, such as Senator Enrique Bacchetta, reportedly stated that while regulating the crypto industry would lead to greater profits, he questioned whether it would actually create jobs for his fellow citizens.

Senator Esperanza Martinez seconded Senator Baccetta’s concerns, claiming that the energy consumption rate from miners far outpaces the number of jobs they would create.

This makes Paraguay the latest LATAM nation to take a leap forward in crypto adoption and regulation.

El Salvador adopted Bitcoin (BTC) as legal currency in 2021, and the governments of Brazil, Argentina, and Panama are all working on their own crypto legislation.
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Releasing the results of its first credit score on the Aave Protocol, a decentralized credit scoring mechanism called Cred Protocol is set to expand to Compound and MakerDAO.

Cred Protocol, a decentralized credit scoring startup has unveiled the results of its first automated credit scoring system for users of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Cred Protocol CEO Julian Gay, outlined the results in a Twitter thread which showed how Cred successfully utilized past transaction behaviour on the Aave protocol to assess the creditworthiness of future borrowers based on on-chain behavior in the DeFi space.

By using machine learning to assess time-based account attributes and analyze the user’s past transaction behavior Cred Protocol generates a health factor score that predicts the likelihood of future liquidation for a single address.

Which according to Gay, was one of the strongest baseline creditworthiness predictors.

Cred Protocol claims to make decentralized finance more accessible to the world by implementing trustworthy credit scores that would see “anyone with an internet connection” and “a good financial reputation” gain access to loans.

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Where borrowers and lenders have their loan worthiness assessed by a central authority such as a credit bureau, DeFi makes it possible to run financial services with a peer-to-peer (P2P) system, eliminating the idea of an intermediary or central authority.

Prominent DeFi researcher Chris Blec raised concerns that a borrower could use multiple Ethereum addresses to skirt credit scoring — to which Gay responded that a potential solution was in Beta.

Cred Protocol is a small nine-person team based out of San Francisco with additional “hubs” in New York and London, however, Gay says that he aims to bring DeFi technology to more than one billion people.

In a Medium post, Cred outlined its plans to grow from the Aave protocol and expand its data analysis to other lending protocols like Compound and MakerDAO.

Two years ago, blockchain lending protocol Teller raised $1 million in a seed funding round to incorporate traditional credit scores into DeFi.

In November 2021, Credit DeFi Alliance (CreDA) officially launched a credit rating service that would ascertain a user’s creditworthiness with data from multiple blockchains.

CreDA was developed to work using the CreDA Oracle by evaluating records of past transactions carried out by the user across several blockchains with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).

Recently, P2P lending protocol RociFi labs concluded a seed funding of $2.7 million in partnership with asset management firm GoldenTree, which is aimed towards expanding on-chain credit ratings for decentralized finance.
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Finzer said affected workers would receive severance and health insurance until 2023 alongside an accelerated equity vesting.

Leading non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer has revealed that the crypto firm laid off about 20% of its staff on July 14.

According to the announcement, the company reduced its staff strength because of the “unprecedented combination of crypto winter and macroeconomic instability” that could last for a long time.

The announcement did not reveal the exact number of affected employees; however, the figure is expected to be in the hundreds. The company’s LinkedIn profile showed it has a workforce of 750 individuals.

Meanwhile, Finzer said he believes OpenSea would be going through this process only once because the firm has “built a strong balance sheet” through its raised funds.

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The changes we’re making today put us in a position to maintain multiple years of runway under various crypto winter scenarios and give us high confidence that we will only have to go through this process once.

Finzer added that affected workers would receive severance and health insurance until 2023 alongside an accelerated equity vesting.

Rival NFT marketplaces like LooksRare and NFT.com responded to Finzer’s tweets with revelations that they were hiring more hands.

OpenSea’s trading volume has dropped to new lows after starting the year strongly. According to data from DappRadar, the NFT marketplace recorded a transaction volume of $491 million in the last 30 days.

However, this reflects a broader decline in the space data from Cryptoslam.io shows that NFT sales volume has declined by around 50% in the last 30 days.
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The latest data release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed what Americans are feeling in their wallets: Things are still really, really expensive.

If you've tried to fill up your car recently, you probably know why your budget is feeling squeezed with gas prices still sky-high. And the spike in energy prices is powering the 41-year high inflation we're seeing right now.

Last month, the Consumer Price Index rose by a seasonally adjusted monthly rate of 1.3% from May and also saw a 9.1% climb for the year ending in June using not seasonally adjusted numbers.

That's higher than estimates from economists surveyed by Bloomberg, who anticipated seeing a year-over-year increase of 8.8%. It marks the highest rate of inflation since November 1981.

So, when inflation seemed like it may have peaked and prices were cooling off, why did inflation rise even higher than expected? The answer: Sky-high gas prices. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the energy index — which includes gas — rose by a seasonally adjusted 7.5% over the month of June.


That means that rising energy prices alone made up almost half of the increase in inflation. On its own, the gasoline index rose by a seasonally adjusted 11.2% over the month, far higher than the 4.1% in May.

For comparison, the index measuring food rose by just 1.0% over the month, according to seasonally adjusted numbers. In the year through June, food prices have risen by a non-seasonally adjusted 10.4%. Meanwhile, energy prices have soared by 41.6% year-over-year.

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But gas prices have been falling. Weekly gas price data from the US Energy Information Administration shows that after hitting a record high of $5 per gallon mid-June, gas prices are actually coming down.

Gas price data from AAA similarly shows prices declining.


"Usually, more people buying gas would lead to higher pump prices," Andrew Gross, AAA spokesperson, said. "But the price for oil, the main ingredient in gasoline, has fallen and is hovering around $100 a barrel. Less expensive oil usually means less expensive gas."

Americans have been contending with elevated gas prices for months. Part of that is linked to the war in Ukraine, with President Joe Biden banning gas and oil imports from Russia.


"We will not be part of subsidizing Putin's war," Biden said in March, referring to rising gas costs as "Putin's price hike." The end of the US's fracking boom has also exacerbated pressures to produce fuel — and driven prices up.

Now, there could be some relief on the horizon and that should help cool the headline inflation figures for July when they're released next month.

"Today's data does not reflect the full impact of nearly 30 days of decreases in gas prices, that have reduced the price at the pump by about 40 cents since mid-June," Biden said in a statement on the June CPI report. "Those savings are providing important breathing room for American families."

For the week ending July 11, the average price per gallon of regular all formations gas slid to $4.646, according to the Energy Information Administration. AAA has the current average for a regular gallon at $4.631, just under yesterday's average of $4.655.

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, previously tweeted that prices could tumble below $4 in some states. On Wednesday, he reiterated that prices were still falling, saying in a tweet that gas prices had declined for 29 days in a row.

According to De Haan, that means that Americans are currently spending $150 million less on gas today than they did on June 14. He also added that over 10,000 stations have a gallon at $3.99 or less. But don't expect prices to tumble down to the lows seen before the war in Ukraine for some time.

When asked when "we get back to Trump gas prices," De Haan replied: "Not until a regime change in Russia and more refining capacity to make up for what was lost due to Covid." Source: BusinessInsiders

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Civil Procedure Rules in the U.K. have previously allowed for lawsuits to be served using Instagram, Facebook, and a contact form on a website.

According to a Tuesday notice from U.K. law firm Giambrone & Partners, a case brought by Fabrizio D’Aloia against Binance Holdings, Poloniex, gate.io, OKX, and Bitkub over allegations someone was operating a fraudulent clone online brokerage has resulted in a legal precedent offering a digital solution to serving someone.

On June 24, the judge in the case allowed parties to be served by airdropping NFTs into wallets originally held by D’Aloia but stolen by unnamed individuals.

Until now, Civil Procedure Rules in the U.K. allowed lawsuits to be served by personal services, mail, dropped off at a physical address, or by means of a fax or another type of “electronic communication.”

However, using electronic methods to serve someone has usually been in cases where the parties agreed in advance to such the delivery, or a court authorizes it for a “good reason.”

According to Giambrone & Partners, these methods have included Instagram direct messages, Facebook messages and a contact form on a website.

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“This order is a noteworthy development in the area of service of court documents and a welcome example of a court embracing new technology,” said the law firm.

“This judgment paves the way for other victims of cryptoasset fraud to pursue persons unknown who have misappropriated their cryptocurrency in situations where they otherwise would not be able to.”

Demetri Bezaintes, an associate at Giambrone & Partners, added:

“I am confident that this latest judgment using NFT service has the potential to show the way to digital service over the blockchain, with all the benefits of immutability and authentication, becoming the usual practice in the future on legal matters related to the digital world.

It is clear that this method of service has a far greater level of success over conventional means of service, such as post, in this sector.”

In addition to the precedent set by serving individuals via the blockchain, the court said crypto exchanges were responsible for ensuring the stolen assets were not moved or withdrawn.

A judge in the United Kingdom has authorized a party in a lawsuit to serve legal documents using nonfungible tokens, or NFTs.

In June, a law firm in the United States also served a defendant using an NFT in an $8-million hacking case involving Liechtenstein-based cryptocurrency exchange LCX.

The legal team airdropped the NFT as a temporary restraining order into a hot wallet when the name of the served party was unknown.

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The malware targets Zcash and Ethereum wallets alongside Electrum, Atomic Wallet and Coinomi, it takes your browser extension and login data and reads your chat logs.

A new strain of crypto-malware is being spread via YouTube, tricking users to download software that’s designed to steal data from 30 crypto wallets and crypto-browser extensions.

Cyber intelligence company Cyble in a June 30 blog post said it had been tracking the malware known as “PennyWise” — likely named after the monster in Stephen King's horror novel “It” — since it was first identified in May.


“Our investigation indicates that the stealer is an emerging threat,” wrote Cyble in a blog post on June 30.

“In its current iteration, this stealer can target over 30 browsers and cryptocurrency applications such as cold crypto wallets, crypto-browser extensions, etc.”


Data stolen from the victim's system comes in the form of Chromium and Mozilla browser information, including cryptocurrency extension data and login data.

It can also take screenshots and steal sessions of chat applications such as Discord and Telegram.

The malware also targets cold crypto-wallets such as Armory, Bytecoin, Jaxx, Exodus, Electrum, Atomic Wallet, Guarda, and Coinomi.

As well as wallets supporting Zcash and Ethereum by looking for wallet files in the directory and sending a copy of the files to attackers, according to Cyble.


The cybersecurity company noted that the malware is being spread on YouTube mining education videos purporting to be free Bitcoin mining software.

The cybercriminals, or “Threat Actors” upload videos instructing viewers to visit the link in the description and download the free software.


Whilst also encouraging them also to disable their antivirus software which enables the malware to run successfully.

Cyble said the attacker had as many as 80 videos on their YouTube channel as of June 30 however, the channel identified has since been removed.


A search by Cointelegraph found similar links to the malware remain on other smaller YouTube channels, with videos promising free NFT-mining, cracks for paid software, free Spotify premium, game cheats, and mods.

Many of these accounts have only been created within the last 24 hours.

Interestingly, the malware is designed to stop itself if it finds out the victim is based in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

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Cyble also found that the malware converts the victim’s stolen timezone data to Russian Standard Time (RST) when the data is sent back to the attackers.

In February, malware named Mars Stealer was identified as targeting crypto wallets that work as Chromium browser extensions such as MetaMask, Binance Chain Wallet, or Coinbase Wallet.


Chainalysis warned in January that even “low-skilled cybercriminals” are now using malware to take funds from crypto holders, with cryptojacking accounting for 73% of the total value received by malware-related addresses between 2017 and 2021.

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The Maker Protocol could extend yet another arm into the traditional finance space if a proposed integration with a Pennsylvania-based bank passes this week.

MakerDAO is voting on a proposal that will bring a traditional bank into its ecosystem for the first time, allowing the bank to borrow against its assets using decentralized finance (DeFi).

Currently, 83% of voters are in favor of the proposal. Voting ends at 12 pm ET on July 7.

The proposal involves creating a vault with 100 million Dai (DAI) for Huntingdon Valley Bank (HVB) as part of a new collateral type in the Marker Protocol.

This will essentially allow the Maker Protocol to begin issuing real-world loans to borrowers through a fully backed traditional institution by meeting the bank’s standards.

The move to integrate the bank follows hot on the heels of another decision to become more closely entwined with traditional finance after MakerDAO members voted in favor of spending $500 million DAI investing in treasuries and corporate bonds last week.

MakerDAO governs the Maker Protocol, which issues U.S. dollar-pegged DAI stablecoins in exchange for user deposits of Ether (ETH) and nearly 30 other cryptocurrencies.

Huntingdon Valley Bank (HVB) is a traditional bank from Pennsylvania founded in 1871.

The deal with HVB is important for the Maker Protocol because it is not currently allowed to issue U.S. dollar loans directly to borrowers.

However, a special entity will be established by MakerDAO to make integration with the traditional bank possible.

First, a Multi-Bank Participation Trust (MBPTrust) will be established by MakerDAO in Delaware to link the capital available at HVB with the Dai stablecoin that Maker provides.

The trust would ensure that DAI minting and destruction from the vault is carried out properly and would manage commercial issues with HVB.

At first, HVB would own 50% of the loans issued through this scheme but would petition MakerDAO to incrementally reduce its ownership down to a minimum of 5%.

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The remainder would be owned by MBPTrust. This measure would mitigate the bank’s risks as it would essentially be issuing loans through the Maker Protocol under Pennsylvania law.

Maker Protocol (MAKER), which has been trying to find strategies to weather the bear market, would be able to earn revenues through vault stability fees associated with maintaining the vault and minting DAI.

Revenue would also come from yield, which is estimated to be as much as 75 basis points above the 30-day average Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) of 0.083%.

HVB benefits by effectively increasing its legal lending limit beyond $7 million per borrower.

Assuming the HVB integration is a success after a period of time, MakerDAO believes the same MBPTrust could be used to onboard other banks.

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Bankruptcy would usually be considered bad news, right? Apparently not for Revlon, whose stock price has risen over 600% from its all-time low.

It's been a rocky few years for the cosmetics company, as it's struggled to compete against a new wave of influencer brands such as Kylie Cosmetics and Rhianna's Fenty Beauty.

Revlon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week under the weight of mountains of debt and very little cash to support it.


They've secured court approval for even more debt, with an additional $375m on the way to help buy time to restructure the business.

On the face of it, that story doesn't lend itself to a stock price that's rising double digits almost every day.


There's a lot going on behind the scenes making Revlon an attractive bet for retail investors, including posters on Reddit's infamous WallStreetBets subreddit.

This year has been savage for Revlon's stock price. At the beginning of the year, Revlon was trading at $11.66 a share but has since tumbled to $1.95 after their bankruptcy announcement. Since then, the price has surged and closed up another 34.32% to $8.14 on Wednesday 22nd June.

Why is Revlon struggling?
Revlon is an OG in the cosmetics game. The company was started back in 1932 and was, for many years, second only to Avon in global cosmetic sales. It's been a dramatic fall from grace for the once industry heavyweight.

Revlon has been going through such a rough time for many reasons. As a brand that started well before the internet was a thing, its business model has relied heavily on retail stores and space in other retailers like Walmart and Bed Bath & Beyond.

As with all bricks-and-mortar retail, it's been a constant battle to keep up with upstart, online-first brands.

This is particularly true in the cosmetics space, which is now dominated by influencers like Kylie Jenner. It's not just billionaire reality stars taking pieces of the pie from Revlon; it's also countless smaller influencers who garner audiences on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

Of course, there's been plenty of other challenges not unique to Revlon. They've suffered from the same supply chain issues that have impacted many businesses in the cosmetics industry and beyond, increasing the cost of their ingredients and making it difficult to source some of them altogether.


The global lockdowns didn't help either. Vastly reduced opportunities to leave the house meant less demand for makeup, and this has persisted somewhat in a post-Covid world where working from home has become much more mainstream.

While all of this has had an impact, Revlon's biggest problem is debt. They're drowning in it. This is a company with over $3.3 billion in debt and a market cap of just over $400 million, even after the recent price rise.


High debt and low cash flow are an even bigger problem for a company like Revlon because they have little in the way of assets.

Broadly speaking, their only tangible assets consist of their current physical makeup inventory (makeup they've made but not yet sold) and some invoices they've sent out that haven't yet been paid to them.

All in all, these assets total less than $1 billion, which is still a mile off their current debt levels.
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The conflict may harm Ukraine’s richest figures in financial terms and hand Zelenskyy victory in his battle against their influence.

The Azovstal steelworks has become an almost mythical symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s aggression.

Bird’s-eye view footage from drones, along with photos by Azov Regiment soldiers holed up in the industrial complex in the southern city of Mariupol for 82 days, showed how Russian bombers, multiple rocket launchers, and heavy artillery methodically and mercifully annihilated Azovstal.

The plant occupied 11 square kilometers (four square miles), provided tens of thousands of jobs, churned out two-fifths of Ukraine’s steel, and had its own port on the Sea of Azov to ship metal slabs worldwide.

The odorous smog from Azovstal and its smaller sibling, the Ilich steel plant, blanketed the city of 480,000 people for decades.

In the 1930s, Moscow boosted steel production in Ukraine – and made its steelworkers and coal miners the poster boys of the Communist way of life.

Moscow also ordered the construction of bomb shelters and service tunnels under Azovstal in case of war, and this is ultimately where thousands of Azov fighters and civilians hid from the pummelling this year.

And while news reports about Azovstal’s defense were often front page and top of the hour, one name was rarely mentioned – that of its owner.

Azovstal belongs to Metinvest, a group of mining and steel companies controlled by Rinat Akhmetov, the richest and mightiest of Ukraine’s oligarchs.
Metinvest controls huge business assets and has influence over individual politicians and, in some cases, entire political parties.

At 55, Akhmetov owns Shakhtar Donetsk, a football club, and hundreds of companies in Ukraine, including energy producers, telecom, and a media holding.

He made his fortune after privatizing Soviet-era plants and factories at cut-rate prices, mostly in the southeastern Donetsk region that includes Mariupol.

And the Azovstal and Ilich plants were the pillars of his business fiefdom.

On May 26, Akhmetov said he would sue Moscow for between $17bn and $20bn for the destruction and takeover of the plants and his other assets in the areas controlled by Russian forces or Russia-backed separatists.

“We will for sure sue Russia and will demand proper compensation for all losses and lost business,” he told a local news website.

Akhmetov’s office declined Al Jazeera’s interview request for this article.

Although Bloomberg reported that as of mid-June, Akhmetov’s fortune stood at $6.69bn, he reportedly has lost two-fifths of his fortune since the war began.

And Mariupol’s fall may upend his position as Ukraine’s richest oligarch, some observers say.

“Economically, he’s no longer an oligarch,” Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch told Al Jazeera.

But others disagree.

According to Vadim Karasev, a Kyiv-based economist, Akhmetov’s assets are diversified and stable enough to compensate for the loss of the metallurgical assets.

“Even with such losses, he will remain the richest and resourceful Ukrainian national,” he told Al Jazeera.

One thing is certain, however: the fall of Mariupol changes the ways Akhmetov and his backers are seen in Ukraine

“The city itself has for eight years been the capital of Akhmetov’s business empire, so there aren’t just financial losses, but political and image-related ones,” Karasev said.

The sad irony is that Akhmetov appears to have fallen on his own sword.

For years, he has thrown his immense financial weight behind politicians from Ukraine’s Russian-speaking, rust-belt southeast that gravitated towards Moscow politically and culturally, Kushch said.

“He reaped the whirlwind,” he said.

Akhmetov’s backing helped propel pro-Moscow politician Viktor Yanukovych to the presidency in 2010 and he served two terms as a politician with Yanukovych’s Party of Regions a leaked US diplomatic cable once described as a “haven of Donetsk-based mobsters and oligarchs”.
Akhmetov was a key financial backer of Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s future campaign manager, who helped with the Party of Regions’ political makeover and rebranding.

Akhmetov then went on a shopping spree, buying energy companies throughout Ukraine and diversifying his investments.

By the time Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014, after the months-long Euromaidan popular protests, Akhmetov controlled most of Ukraine’s power networks.

Many protesters saw Akhmetov as the deposed leader’s “grey cardinal” – and even brought a “blood-stained” Christmas tree to his home in the city of Donetsk.

“I live in Donetsk, and the biggest punishment for me would be the inability to walk on this ground and breathe this air,” Akhmetov reportedly told them.

Within months, he would no longer be able to walk that ground.

Moscow used the political chaos in Ukraine to annex Crimea and back pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk.

The rebels seized and “nationalized” Akhmetov’s assets after he refused to pay taxes to the new “authorities”.

Mariupol was one of the cities they took over, but Akhmetov ordered the Azovstal and Ilich plant workers to stand up to the rebels.

Clad in protective uniforms and hard hats, the successors of the Soviet-era poster boys helped Akhmetov’s staunchest critics, the nationalist Azov Regiment, to chase the separatists away.

But bigger problems loomed for him and other oligarchs in Kyiv.

The new, pro-Western government in Kyiv pledged to investigate the privatization deals that created Ukraine’s oligarchs – along with their alleged corruption.
However, new President Petro Poroshenko, another oligarch who once worked in the government of overthrown Yanukovych, failed to tackle corruption.

Oleh Gladkovsky, Poroshenko’s childhood friend and a former defense official during his leadership, was reported to have run a scheme selling used military equipment smuggled from Russia to Ukraine’s defense ministry.

And it was those reports that largely contributed to Poroshenko’s losing the presidency to comedian and political rookie Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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Bitcoin fell as low as $17,628 under pressure from central bank rate rises.

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Crypto investors and executives are bracing themselves for further pain after the price of bitcoin tumbled over the weekend, worsening the credit crunch hitting the industry.

Bitcoin, the world’s most actively traded cryptocurrency, fell as low as $17,628 on Saturday before rebounding, according to data from CryptoCompare.

Investors and executives have been anxiously watching the token’s price, fearing a drop below $20,000 may prompt forced liquidations of large leveraged bets.

Bitcoin, which acts as the main benchmark for the broader cryptocurrency market, has come under acute pressure in recent months as central banks and governments shifted from a prolonged period of ultra-low interest rates to a fight against surging inflation.

“This is a dark winter ahead for crypto as the era of free money comes to an end with this weekend another brutal sell-off across the board.

Risk assets are all getting thrown out the window,” said Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities.

The hunt for returns has shifted as big central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve, boost borrowing costs and bring to an end the pandemic-era efforts to stimulate economic growth.

Traditional financial markets have been rattled this month as traders fretted that the aggressive action could snarl global growth or even trigger a recession.

Last week was the worst for global equities since the darkest days of the pandemic in March 2020.

Bitcoin has fallen about 70 percent from its all-time high of nearly $70,000 last November to just above $20,000 as of Sunday afternoon eastern time.

Ether, another actively traded token, dropped as low as $900 over the weekend, meaning its price has fallen by four-fifths since its peak late last year.

That has contributed to an escalating credit crunch in the digital asset industry that threatens to engulf many of its major actors.

In the last month, so-called stablecoin terra and its sister token luna — popular with crypto traders seeking ultra-high yields — collapsed, two lending platforms prevented depositors from withdrawing their assets, and crypto hedge fund Three Arrows failed to meet margin calls in the wake of lender demands.

The weekend’s sell-off prompted more than $600mn worth of leveraged positions to be liquidated, according to data from Coinglass, as traders who had borrowed money to take supercharged market bets failed to post more collateral and were wiped out.

Analysts expect these losses will put further pressure on traders' and lenders’ balance sheets because many users took out loans against their crypto asset holdings.

However, dogecoin, the “joke” cryptocurrency, rose after Elon Musk, chief executive of electric car maker Tesla, posted a tweet of his continued support for the token.

Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador and a bitcoin champion, told investors on Sunday to “stop looking at the graph and enjoy life”.

Bukele, who spearheaded El Salvador’s adoption of bitcoin as legal tender last year, has dismissed warnings from the IMF over the policy.

The troubles in the crypto market have rippled back into corners of the mainstream financial market.

US-listed MicroStrategy, a tech group that is a major investor in bitcoin, has tumbled almost 70 percent this year.

Shares in crypto miners, which earn fees for validating crypto transactions, have also dropped sharply.

Crypto exchanges — platforms that sit directly in the teeth of the unrelenting market crash — have been forced to reverse hiring plans.

The list includes Coinbase, Gemini, Mercado Bitcoin — a popular exchange in South America — and Celsius rival lender BlockFi, which cut 20 percent of staff this month.
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The price of the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Bitcoin (BTC), has dropped below $20K for the first time since 2020 as the selloff in the cryptocurrency market deepens.

BTC’s price drops below $20k for the first time since 2020. The market leader’s price dropped as low as $17,593 at one point throughout the weekend.

Investors may have a lot to look forward to if the crypto selloff does not deepen in this bear market.


At one point on Saturday, BTC’s price had dropped to as low as $17,593, which is around a 13% plunge in price, according to crypto market tracker CoinMarketCap.

The price of BTC then pulled back up to $18,556. However, this is still a 9.22% drop in price. As a result, Bitcoin has now lost more than 70% of its value since peaking at $68,000 in 2021.

Looking at the weekly chart for BTC/USD, the price of BTC has recently breached the $20k level, which has seen the crypto selloff continue.

The last time the market witnessed a similar price movement on the weekly chart was between July 2019 and March 2020, as indicated on the chart.

If the previous occurrence of this type of price movement on the daily chart is any indication of what will happen next following the latest occurrence, then investors may have a lot to look forward to.

Following the previous pull-down of this magnitude in BTC’s price was a 7-month rally in BTC’s price.


In this period, BTC set new all-time highs and had massive deleveraging across the board, as its price climbed from around $4.5K to its peak of $68,000 during this period.

Even though the current crypto market landscape is looking horrendous at the moment, there may be a lot to look forward to from the current price levels onwards.

The best strategy may just be to wait for this bear market out.

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Bitcoin is really futile. However, gold is as well.

Gold's worth comes from its BRAND and shortage. That brand has required millennia to construct.

Notwithstanding, the world is changing quickly - one could contend that gold served an actual world well, we currently live in a more computerized one. The world continues on - I mean, ponies were THE method of transport for THOUSANDS of years - and that finished pretty suddenly.

Presently, consider this, Bitcoin has gone beyond an obstacle the majority of us never figured it would - investment banks are encouraging their clients to get it, foundations are getting it, and HNW investors are unloading the gold and making it work.

This is monstrous. This is BRAND.

Disregard Bitcoin's characteristic use, nobody at any point thought often about gold either, yet as additional refined investors get involved with Bitcoin, which will prod on others, it will dig in itself as computerized gold.

Bitcoin endure the accident of 2018, it'll continue to endure each accident long into the future, each time more grounded, each time getting investors that become familiar with it. It's no cash and will be far-fetched at any point to become one, yet it is computerized gold - an advanced store of abundance based on its BRAND, as most stores of riches.

The complete worth of all Bitcoins in presence is a change in outlook away from fundamentally surpassing that of gold, for example, US$500k a Bitcoin, and remaining there for a supported period.

That paradigm shift seems to be happening.

While there are a few legitimate motivations not to purchase stocks, the potential gain potential offsets the gamble for the vast majority. So it's quite often really smart to invest in stocks in any event, when the market is at an unsurpassed high.

Studies have shown that what's a higher priority than timing the market is an investor's time in the market. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to purchase stocks can be exorbitant on the grounds that a huge part of gains comes from a few days.

In the meantime, stocks will generally recuperate from financial exchange rectifications or procuring declines of over 10%, very quickly. The more extended an investor is in the market, the lower the likelihood of losing cash.

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Similarly significant is picking the right stocks to purchase. You can continuously contact an expert like Stacy Marie Filkins to be of incredible assistance to you.

Stock Broker, puts it, "It doesn't make any difference when you invest on the off chance that you are investing in extraordinary organizations." A minority of stocks represents a larger part of the market's general return.

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For the vast majority, an opportunity to purchase stocks is at the present time

Individuals who have cash they won't require for a couple of years ought to consider investing in stocks since it has the capability of procuring the most significant yields.

Holding back to invest that cash is bound to adversely affect an investor's profits than a positive one. That is the reason the best chance to purchase shares of an incredible organization is quite often at the present time.

If you have any desire to fabricate an arrangement of stocks utilizing Stockbroker, Stacy Marie Filkins could be the right home for your portfolio.

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Hope this helps!