Crypto-Anarchist Shot Dead in Mexico’s Murder Capital Ahead of Anarchapulco
A crypto-anarchist who went by the name “John Galton” was gunned down and killed in his home in Acapulco, Mexico two weeks ahead of the Anarchapulco conference in what seems like a drug trade-related killing.
Crypto-Anarchist Is Killed in Acapulco
While cryptocurrency enthusiasts may know Acapulco primarily as the host city of the popular anarcho-capitalist conference, , it has been referred to as due to the high number of drug-related homicides in the coastal town. Unfortunately, crypto-anarchist John Galton suffered the same fate as many Acapulco residents who were involved in the drug trade.
According to by The Washington Post, Galton was living in Acapulco with his girlfriend, Lily Forester, after the couple fled the U.S. to escape drug-related criminal drug charges when a group of gunmen entered his home and shot him and his friend Jason Henza.
Henza survived the shooting after he was taken to a private hospital. He reportedly had bullet wounds in an armpit, leg, and hand but was able to check out on the same day. Galton was less fortunate and died during the shooting.
In , the Guerrero State attorney’s office said that it had located a marijuana laboratory on Galton’s premises, which included white lights and gas tanks. No suspects have yet been named and the motive of the murder is currently still unknown.
Shortly after the attacks, Jason Henza posted on YouTube stating that he thinks the attack was “backlash,” which suggests that he, Galton, and Forester may have gotten on the wrong side of a local drug gang. Anarchapulco organizer, Jeff Berwick, in a Facebook post that Galton was “killed by the Cartel in Alcapulco,” thus confirming this theory.
Acapulco’s Anarchist Expat Community Loses a Member
Galton and Forester – both cryptocurrency enthusiasts – were reportedly helping to attract speakers to the Anarchapulco conference as well as hosting their own supplementary anarchist conference, aptly named , which is scheduled to take place in Acapulco right after Anarchapulco. They have been living peacefully in Acapulco since 2016. In a 2017 with Press for Truth, the couple said:
“They don’t seem to mind us living here. We’ve lived here a year with no issues.”
While Acapulco’s anarchist community and wants to ensure that Forester is being taken care of, Galton’s mother, Judith, has launched a to bring the body of her dead son back home.
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A report by Cambridge University’s CCAF reveals that the number of people using cryptocurrency today has seen significant growth and rivals the population of small countries.
Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study
The has recently published a research paper called , which examines several sectors of the global cryptocurrency industry, including exchanges, wallets, payment providers, mining and more.
The study was led by Dr.Garrick Hileman, senior research associate at the CCAF and a researcher at the Centre for Macroeconomics. According to the CCAF, it’s the first global research of its kind to systematically investigate all key cryptocurrency industry sectors based on non-public “off-chain” data.
The paper makes several key findings that challenge some of the erroneous concepts that many have regarding the cryptocurrency space and shows that digital currencies are becoming an increasingly important part of our society. Dr.Garrick Hileman wrote:
“The growing usage and range of capabilities we document in this study indicate that cryptocurrencies are taking on an ever more important role in the lives of a growing number of people (and machines” around the world. As we show in this study, the number of people using cryptocurrency today has seen significant growth and rivals the population of small countries.”
According to Dr. Hileman, a second paper by the CCAF focusing will also be launched in the following weeks. The paper is centered around the use of blockchain technology by more established industry players as well as at public sector institutions such as .
What’s in it
The study collected data from nearly 150 cryptocurrency companies and individuals, covering 38 countries from five world regions, including names like from Blockchain.info, from bitcoin.com and companies like , , , Unocoin, and others.
The CCAF carried out four online surveys from September 2016 to January 2017 and communicated with the companies and individuals involved in order to collect this data. For companies that did not contribute to the study, the dataset was supplemented with additional research and web scraping using commonly applied methods.
The counts with four sections, each covering one of the aforementioned industry sectors: exchanges, wallets, payments and mining. There are also three appendixes; the first one is an introduction to cryptocurrencies, the second offers a more detailed intro to the cryptocurrency industry and the third covers the geographical dispersion of cryptocurrency users.
Key Findings
The CCAF highlights the following findings as the key points of the paper:
The current number of unique active users of cryptocurrency wallets is estimated to be between 2.9 million and 5.8 million. (The majority of which are located in North America and Europe)
The lines between the different cryptocurrency industry sectors are increasingly blurred: 31 percent of cryptocurrency companies surveyed are operating across two cryptocurrency industry sectors or more, giving rise to an increasing number of universal cryptocurrency companies.
At least 1,876 people are working full- time in the cryptocurrency industry and the actual total figure is likely well above two thousand when large mining organizations and other organizations that did not provide headcount figures are added.
Average security headcount and costs for payment companies and exchanges as a percentage of total headcount/operating expenses are similar but significantly higher for wallets.
Exchanges
The exchanges sector has the highest number of operating entities and employs more people than any other industry sector covered in the study; a significant geographical dispersion of exchanges is observed.
52% of the small exchanges hold a formal government license compared to only 35% of large exchanges.
On average, security headcount corresponds to 13% of total employees and 17% of the budget is spend on security.
Wallets
The lines between wallets and exchanges are increasingly blurred; 52% of wallets surveyed provide an integrated currency exchange features, of which 80% offer a national-to-cryptocurrency exchange service. In contrast with exchanges, the majority of wallets do not control access to user keys.
Payments
While 79% of payment companies have existing relationships with banking institutions and payment networks, the difficulty of obtaining and maintaining these relationships is cited as this sector’s biggest challenges.
On average, national-to-cryptocurrency payments constitute two-thirds of total payment company transaction volume, whereas national-to-national currency transfers and cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency payments account for 27% and 6% respectively.
Mining
70% of large miners rate their influence on protocol development as high or very high, compared to 51% of small miners.
The cryptocurrency mining map shows that publicly known mining facilities are dispersed, but a significant concentration can be observed in certain Chinese provinces.
Do you think cryptocurrency use is growing? Have you seen indicators of increased mainstream adoption? Let us know in the comments below!
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