Square’s Cash App Blocks Account of Social Media Site Gab’s Founder: Report
-based payments firm Square’s Cash App has reportedly blocked the personal account of the founder of controversial social media site Gab, according to a from Gab Jan. 8.
The move was reported just after Gab announced that the firm had sent an email to its user base promoting Cash App and bitcoin BTC (). In a today, Gab announced that it has sent over 850,000 emails to its users, introducing them to “free speech money: bitcoin BTC.” The screenshot of the firm’s email generally describes alleged censorship measures that have been taken against “influential alternative media personalities and companies,” but also calls on users to use BTC as a “censorship-resistant free speech money and payment processing.”
Further in the letter, Gab also directly recommends and evidently links to Square’s Cash App for transactions with BTC. The firm also announces it has begun accepting BTC for its GabPro premium service.
In a several minutes later, Gab reported that Cash App had blocked the personal account of Gab’s founder, Andrew Torba. About twenty minutes later, Gab further :
“Yes, we know who owns Square. We realize our accounts have been blocked for unknown reasons.”
On Jan. 6, Gab it had started using Cash App to transact and receive BTC donations after its corporate account on major U.S. crypto exchange was reportedly . Prior to that, Gab had also been reportedly banned both by the Apple and Google app stores.
Established in 2016, Gab presents itself as a “free speech social media platform,” but is widely criticized as a “” for alt- or far-right views. Gab drew particular in fall 2018 after it was that the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, Robert Gregory Bowers, had posted on Gab indicating his immediate intent to do harm prior to the crime.
In another today, the social network referred to itself as “the most censored website in history,” providing a list of services that have allegedly blocked or censored it.
In April, WikiLeaks Shop, the merchandise arm of international anonymous publishing non-profit WikiLeaks, on Twitter that their account with Coinbase had been blocked. WikiLeaks Shop’s tweet contained a screenshot from an alleged email from Coinbase that states the organization violated their Terms of Service and therefore “can no longer [receive] access to [their] service.”
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There are few people who have worked in the blockchain technology space for so long and maintained such a seemingly disinterested and skeptical perspective on the emerging technology as Tim Swanson. Through numerous books and a blog, Tim has shown a knack for going out of his way to do deep within the blockchain space.
This week on Let’s Talk bitcoin, Tim Swanson, Director of Research at Post Oak Labs, talked with Epicenter’s Brian Fabian Crain and Sebastien Couture.
His most notable work within the space has happened as Director of Market Research at R3, the first blockchain enterprise consortium for the financial services industry. During his time at R3, Tim assessed several hundred entities — companies, startups and universities — working on some type of blockchain initiative. His experience gave a full range of good, bad and ugly business operations and blockchain propositions that existed in the early stages of this industry.
Whether you agree with his stoic perspective or not, it may be a good remedy for the mania that has resulted from bitcoin’s phenomenal price increase this year. As new investors flood in the crypto community and more and more people begin talking about blockchain technology, it’s never a bad idea to be reminded of how the industry has developed.
“Historically, we’ve seen a lot of manias happen in tech: social media, solar panels, AR, VR, etc. I don’t see the benefit in becoming a fanboy in anything at this early, early stage.”
On the current state for the enterprise blockchain market
Swanson proposed that there has been a significant shift of attention in 2017 from enterprise blockchain to Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), due in large part to the amount of money that has been raised this way. Referencing the , Swanson believes blockchain enterprise adoption is currently in the “trough of disillusionment.” This stage comes after the initial peak of expectations where interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. This is also where many producers of the technology either give up or receive continued investment for improving the products to the satisfaction of early adopters.
“The problem as a whole for the enterprise blockchain space is that it hasn’t managed any of the expectations it initially set out to accomplish. In the beginning, there were brash claims like putting the entire United States equities market on a blockchain in less than a year. Over time, it became clear that something like that was not possible. Because of the unmanaged expectations coupled with the retail enthusiasm coming from the consumer side seeing how blockchain could help them, where in reality, enterprise is a long-term cycle and build-out, many people lost interest once they realized they could make money much faster through ICOs.”
Swanson listed a number of startups working on the enterprise blockchain side in New York, London and the west coast, including , , and , among others, as well as and , both of which Swanson still advises.
“If you look at funding for those companies — as an aggregate they’ve raised maybe $400-450 million dollars. For comparison — and it’s not an accurate comparison — ICOs in the month of June raised over $600 million dollars. It was a shift in enthusiasm from people who wanted to get very rich, very quickly. The fact of the matter, even for ICOs, is that you can’t bypass the requirement-gathering necessary to build a platform that can work with existing institutions and existing regulatory and industry requirements.”
“You can’t just build an aeroplane, convert it into a helicopter then sell it to a bunch of helicopter enthusiasts. Ultimately, somebody will have to build applications and that’s why building an ecosystem and community is so important.”
Why Aren’t There Any New Enterprise Blockchain Companies?
Swanson attributed the lack of new enterprise blockchain companies to the difficulty new startups face in working against the existing competition within the space. Established companies have a head start in acquiring the essential ingredients for success in the enterprise blockchain space: capital and some kind of partnership with regulators or players of the existing infrastructure.
Furthermore, Swanson suggested that most of the obstacles encountered by enterprise blockchain companies could be easily surmounted by larger players:
“Large enterprises like Oracle, IBM, Sap, Microsoft have the capacity and budgets to acquire any of the enterprise startups. Oracle alone could acquire all the enterprise startups themselves and not blink much of an eye.”
Transitioning from Proof of Concept to the Pilot Stage
Swanson stated that one of the most critical obstacles for enterprise blockchain startups to be mindful of are the (PFMI). These are a set of standards adopted after the 2008 financial crisis which the international community considers fundamental to strengthening and preserving financial stability.
“These principles are intended to prevent a snowball/domino affect where a local problem could potentially take down an entire system,” said Swanson. Due to the nature of these principles and how they interact within existing financial infrastructure, changing legacy infrastructure by integrating a blockchain that does not comply with these principles is far more time consuming and costly.
“Within these large corporations, you can’t just turn off legacy infrastructure, then turn on your blockchain version and continue production. Things have to be run in parallel for a while. It takes time and talent.”
The future of the blockchain in enterprise is not necessarily tied to more infrastructures, Swanson concluded. “Instead of building out more infrastructure, I am much more interested in seeing applications built on top of existing infrastructure.”
to hear Swanson on busting hype, the recent ICO spike and the rise of cryptocurrencies as a new asset class among other things.
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