35 Burst results for "Arkham"
Crypto Banter
A highlight from You're Running Out Of Time To Buy Bitcoin! (PROOF!)
"I know we're not supposed to celebrate fake news in crypto or in media anywhere but I actually do want to speak about this tweet and the effect that it had on the market because There is one way of looking at it to actually say that even though we're very upset with Cointelegraph for publishing fake news They may have had a good effect on the market And what I mean by that is they may have drawn attention to everyone That there are only 85 days maximum for you to actually buy a Bitcoin. That's what I want to talk about today I want to talk about why you only have 85 days and why yesterday was the big wake -up call That should have shown the market this and maybe we shouldn't be that upset with Cointelegraph Then I want to talk about what happens after we get a Bitcoin Spot ETF. So let's talk about what happens after Bitcoin gets a spot ETF and I've got some great data to show you Then I want to talk about this because I never ever thought that we would see Larry Fink Shilling shilling Bitcoin, isn't this this rally is way beyond the rumor I think the the rally today is about a flight to quality with all the You know all the issues around the Israeli war now Global terrorism and I think there's more people running into a flight to quality whether that is in treasuries Gold or crypto depending on how you think about it, and I believe crypto will play Larry Fink is now shilling Bitcoin and crypto not Bitcoin actually crypto as the flight to quality never in my wildest dreams And I think it will get Larry Fink shilling it We're gonna look at why Larry Fink needs Bitcoin because as this tweet He says what if BlackRock needs Bitcoin more than Bitcoin needs BlackRock then very very very very important In the SPF case yesterday. We had some testimony which could put SPF in prison again But I want to talk about something else if you had money on FTX and you withdrew your money within the last month of FTX's Exchange actually working you need to listen to the show because you may have to give the money back I'm gonna talk about at the end what this actually means and how much trouble you're actually in if you're in any kind of trouble So lots to talk about I also want to talk about uni swaps new fees. I want to talk about finance I want to talk about finance that us lots to talk about. Let's get the show on the road guys on our new channel All Let's go right, welcome welcome welcome welcome to the new channel welcome to crypto banter plus I see a lot of you are here since yesterday if you haven't yet subscribed go subscribe to our new channel There we go. There we go. Let's get the numbers going 80 ,437 subscribers that means more than 6 ,000 of you subscribe between yesterday and today I'm going to be doing all my shows here on the new channel So if you want to see the new shows subscribe the channel, let's watch a subscriber can't go up together Also, listen help us help us get the show out there. I can see the whole day There are a whole lot of people want to show you something really funny There are a whole lot of people that are sitting in the waiting room of the other show I mean get this okay get this some people didn't follow the memo yesterday we even said live on our new channel and Then there's still 165 people waiting in the waiting room for us to go live So I don't get a message to them tell them to go live tell them tell them where we are actually live On this channel over here and we're not we're not on the old channel anymore So if you are here for my first daily show on this channel, welcome, welcome. Welcome. You are definitely part of the the community I remember we created this channel so we'd have more space to bring you more amazing programming and that's why it's called banter plus It's gonna be all the premium content is starting off with my show It's gonna be a whole lot of other stuff. So if you're not already a subscriber smash the subscribe button And if you are here just like this content, let's see if we can get on our first day Let's see if we can get over 1500 likes. I know that we can and we've got a massive show today So number one, I want to talk about yesterday's intern mess up and for those of you who missed the mess up Let's quickly understand what happened. Here is a real -time I'm running out of ideas how to generate revenue for my news company I don't I don't really know what to do somebody's spreading fake news about the SEC approving I shares Bitcoin spot ETF. All right, you know what I can work with this. I'm gonna go on roll bid and Take out a long. I mean surely Surely no one else will be doing that. You know what? I'm gonna tweet about it too. Why not? Oh Man, we are killing it. I just made two million dollars in an hour Somebody just called me out for misinformation. I'm gonna I just delete it. No one will care. Oh Everybody's tweeting about us Roll bid just called us out. I didn't know they were allowed to share that information Okay, maybe I'll do a quick apology. I Mean if I say I'm sorry, and I didn't realize that it was fake news surely Nobody will be mad then So that's I mean, let's put the jokes aside yesterday was actually an absolutely crazy day for crypto and it all started with this Tweet by the coin intern coin telegraph, apparently the intern we're going to talk about exactly what happened So what is that? What is the actual story now? So what they've done is they've blamed it on an intern and we'll talk about what they actually said But what they did was they first wrote this breaking SEC approves. I shares Bitcoin spot ETF We were live when that actually happened. Someone says present plus. Let's go guys. Let's go Then they said reportedly and then eventually what happened is they landed up deleting the tweet But what actually happened to the market? So what actually happened to the market is you can see that this wick up liquidated all the short position So you had like a 10 % drop in in open interest because everyone was short This got them completely completely completely off guard and we liquidated a large amount of the shorts You can see that the estimated leverage ratio dropped by like 5 % as soon as this happened And so now what you're getting is you're getting everyone Petrified of this market as someone says I hope you all survived this nightmare with the fake news traders are now scared and disorientated Well, if you were short you're scared and disorientated and a lot of people lost a lot of money So I saw this tweet over here, but there's many many tweets. So this one a well spent 613 ,000 201 to buy 20 .5 WBTC and quickly sold it for five hundred sixty three thousand that happened Yesterday as well, but so a lot of people lost a lot of money But a lot of people actually landed up making a lot of money. So it looks like there could have been huge market manipulation We see massive buying volume in derivative by but hours before today's false announcement, which kind of means that maybe maybe maybe this whole thing was actually a a Orchestrated Pump and dump and we'll talk about that in a second I'll show you what Cointelegraph actually said but we do need to be open to idea that this was a Brutal case of market manipulation that a lot of people actually made a lot of money And there was also a sudden surge in Bitcoin market buying on coin base yesterday before it happened Which stopped right before the fake news week? This is I can't imagine someone with insider trading by slamming the spot market buy button on coin base Although it's not it's it's also not all getting sold back and maybe that's one of the things that happened One of the things that actually did happen what what what the result of what actually happened yesterday I mean, it's actually not that bad and I'll show you why the first thing is we have Bitcoin not giving up all the gains So you've got Bitcoin at twenty eight thousand two hundred and thirty five and you can see that bitcoins actually challenging it There's 200 week moving average. So you see this little red line here most of most of there We've actually been about what we've just just just broken down below it. And if you look on the weekly We have been under this 200 week moving average for for quite a while now Interesting to see that this fake news pump and the fact that people still remain in is actually getting us to potentially Break this 200 week moving average The other thing which we're seeing is we're seeing some of the bubbles that are still Live or still green for the week as a result is now I see that now in the last hour I guess this last hour has been pretty brutal For alt but some of the the alt actually didn't manage to keep their gains and I'm gonna show you Some of those alts and maybe that's an indication of what's actually gonna happen when the real Bitcoin ETF Does eventually get approved and as I say, it's a win It's now not really an if and that's something that we we're gonna talk about the other thing that we have is We have Bitcoin Through this trend line and as a red capital says the weekly close about twenty eight thousand and fifty would bring Bitcoin one step closer To confirm breakout we have Bitcoin now up four point eight one percent in the month of October and remember October supposed to be A good month of Bitcoin. We really are expecting a very good month for Bitcoin Okay but let's talk about Why I think that maybe and I'm not gonna celebrate Fake news because I think that spell of writing fake news is not really good But let's talk about what happened and why I think that it actually could be so good for Bitcoin. So Let's quickly start off with what actually happened because I think that that's what everyone's what everyone's looking at so they Cointelegraph are Claiming that it was an intern or someone that posted the tweet without actually doing all the verification so here's the official statement Cointelegraph apologizes to its readers and Discusses its investigation into what led the posting of the unverified news on X about a spot Bitcoin now you ask me This is a case of market manipulation But let's listen to what they had to say They said we are incredibly grateful support and trust you have placed in our publication the last ten years We strive to deliver the most thoughtful engaging and impactful news in the cryptocurrency space Even though sometimes we may deliver it before the time Earlier today during the routine coverage Cointelegraph social media team posted a message on X without prior editorial approval That this that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission had approved black rocks I shares spot Bitcoin ETF. This was false the result of misinformation the news led Originated the news lead originated from an unconfirmed screenshot posted by an ex user who claimed it was from the Bloomberg terminal So this just shows you how scary Their their verification procedures are their their interns not even an intern They actually don't use the word intern here, but their social media team was allowed to post stuff on X without actually A it Verifying Cointelegraph did not ultimately publish an article with this incorrect information But we deeply regret posting this in error on X and the impact that it caused an internal investigation revealed that our standard Procedure for posting breaking news on social media wherein sources are required to be verified on social media was not followed and they actually show a picture of this chat No, no, you can you can choose to buy What they're saying or you can choose to question what they're saying I'm questioning what they're saying because I think that this must have been manipulation and the reason why I said that is well, you can see the buying before the time I showed you guys a whole lot of Metrics that actually show that on Derebit people actually bought on by but people actually landed up buying there was a spot buyer on on Coinbase which actually started buying to me this this just reeks of market manipulation and and and news getting out That's not it's not supposed to get out and then these guys actually trying to To Purposefully manipulate the market. Anyway be that as it may where are we now? They took the original tweet. They changed it to from breaking SEC approves ashes bitcoins party TF to Reportedly and then they deleted the tweet completely. So they're not now the tweets completely gone Later on in the day The editor -in -chief that editor -in -chief was on a panel with Mario Norfolk in Dubai they had a live event in Dubai and I want you guys to listen to what she actually said because I think that that's Like like the craziest thing that I've ever heard in my life to be honest I mean, let's watch and you tell me what you think Yes this was Disastrous and this is an example of what? Cannot happen, but this is what happens when we are Having constant pressure to be the first with every news and This is not a problem of of journalism Percept it's a problem of the society that and all the technology I'm talking about Indexation of Google and talking about social media where if you're not the first You're the boss There is no second third Instead of taking responsibility what she's saying is look You know This is because society puts so much pressure on us to actually be the first people to break the news. We have an excuse Because if we're not the first to do something on Google, you're the last But what about credibility because I think who's gonna believe this publication? When it's not the first time that this publication has actually given us fake news before I'm gonna remind you that they were also the Publication that said SpaceX sold 373 million worth of Bitcoin acquired in 2021 and 2022 and that turned out to be fake news, right? And this is the the fake coin telegraph article luckily though we had our Analyst we had Eric ball Jonas and James Safer who kind of said look, you know this this is This is complete nonsense We haven't seen anything like it and the truth is if the SEC had broken or had approved the ETF There would be some kind of post on the SEC's website There would be some kind of I don't think it would be done in in in in this room away in this Intelligram chats and that's I think I mean thank God that these guys caught it early because what you had yesterday was you had this Incredible pump and you know if people hadn't come out early enough this pump actually could have continued we were 30 on ,581 on this exchange But this pump would have actually continued and and that would have been pretty that would have been pretty scarce when I get fixed my my charts here So that would have actually been pretty scary if if if if the if the pump had continued Crazy and I actually wanted I want to show you guys a whole list of fake news story So this is of course the biggest fake news story that we've had the Bitcoin ETF approval The second one was the government selling the BTC dump and that was Arkham Intel remember that they had that fake alarm That was set on an account.
The Breakdown
A highlight from An Analyst Warns on TUSD, stUSDT, and Huobi/HTX
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, N .L .W. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Sunday, October 8th, and that means it's time for Long Read Sunday. Before we get into that, however, if you're enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello friends, welcome back to The Breakdown. As you might imagine, a huge portion of people's commentary and op -ed writing this week is about SPF and the trial, but man, we are doing a lot of coverage around that, and I kind of get a chance to editorialize constantly about it. So I wanted to do something different, although it may be a little less unrelated than it might at first seem. Today's Long Read is going to come from Twitter. It's around a viral thread by analyst Dylan LeClair, which has some pretty serious allegations around Justin Sun and Huobi. Now, I am not presenting this as definitive. I'm not presenting this as smoking guns. I'm presenting this because I think it's imperative in the world that we live in now, the post -Sam world, to be just a little bit more cautious, to pull on threads that seem strange, to explore and dive in and use the tools of on -chain analysis that we have available to us, to ask if the leaders in the space are behaving the way that they're supposed to be behaving. I think, unfortunately for exchange owners and for basically any other leaders in the space, they're just going to have to answer more questions now than they might have needed to in the past. I think that many of us have a sense that had we asked harder questions of people like Sam, we might not be in the situation that we're in now. I certainly feel that on a deeply personal level. So, like I said, the spirit that I present this to you is one, a desire to see a cleaner, better, more above board crypto space in general, and two, an offering for you to do your own investigations, to go explore what Dylan has to say and come to your own conclusions. On October 4th, Dylan tweeted, Thread on the web of deception with Justin Sun around Huobi, STUSD -T, and TUSD, as well as the TUSD relationship with Binance and the drain of real USD liquidity from the crypto ecosystem. In late 2022, Justin Sun reportedly acquired a controlling stake in Huobi, now named HTX, which had over 1 .5 billion Tether deposits at the time. Over the summer, deposited Tether funds started getting replaced by STUSD -T. This substitution has been largely unnoticed by Huobi users. What is STUSD -T? STUSD -T, controlled by Justin Sun, claims to provide a yield by investing in quote real world assets, such as treasury bills, while the actual flow of funds from Huobi's USDT to STUSD -T, and then to just lend DAO, indicates that no such investment into real world assets occurs. We can follow these swaps very clearly on chain, and let's remember that STUSD -T and USDT are considered as the same asset natively on Huobi, as evidenced by their lack of STUSD -T trading pairs. Instead, it goes to just lend under Sun's control, and the USDT is not burned. Huobi wallets have been found to transfer significant amounts of USDT to STUSD -T's staking contract, then STUSD -T circles back to Huobi. As seen in Bloomberg, you can see a shift in Huobi's reserves from July 1st to September 15th. On July 1st, USDT made up 18 .8 % of reserves, but by September 15th, this had dwindled to just 4 .7%, while Sun's STUSD -T grew to represent 14 .5 % of reserves. As an NLW aside here, Bloomberg was actually looking at the complete set of Huobi reserve assets and found that on July 1st before STUSD -T was introduced, tokens associated with Sun, which include Tron, made up around 38 .7 % of Huobi's reserves, and now tokens that are linked to him make up about 60 % of Huobi's reserves. This is obviously very top of mind, given the fact that FTX's collapse was associated with people realizing how much of Alameda's balance sheet was just SAM coins. Now back to Dylan's thread. Huobi USDT gets staked for STUSD -T, which then moves to just lend, a platform Sun controls. The USDT never invests in RWAs, but just sits in just lend, while Huobi users end up with STUSD -T instead of the USDT they thought they owned. Looking at just lend, currently there is 1 .3 billion STUSD -Ts supplied, earning 4 .23%, with only 15 .15K of borrowing, earning 0 .01%. The real -world asset story is a lie. However, it isn't uniquely USDT this is happening with. TUSD, which is also controlled by Sun, plays a part. Over the past six months, a significant portion of TUSD burns have been attributed to just two wallets, both associated with Sun. So, isn't it convenient that you can now quote -unquote stake TUSD to mint STUSD -T? In theory, the TUSD slash USDT is burned, so that the supply decreases, and the supposed cash -backing it invests in T -bills that earn a yield that's passed on to the holders of STUSD -T, i .e., 500 million of TUSD is minted, sent to Huobi, then sent to Sun's wallets, parked in just lend, mints STUSD -T, STUSD -T goes to Huobi, TUSD gets burned, STUSD -T on Huobi remains. TLDR? Use the Tether or USDT brand and its reputation internationally, swap it for fake STUSD -T, while it appears as regular USDT in the UI -UX on Huobi. And then what? What's the end goal? Why create an IOU of another stable and trick your users behind the user interface? For one, selling the USDT, which is actually mostly STUSD -T, for USDC, on Huobi. Data from Keiko shows this clearly through the USDC -USDT cumulative volume delta on Huobi, with 350 million of Tether being sold off for USDC in just over two months. Data from just over the last few days shows every single transaction over 100k is swapping USDT for USDC on the pair. To reiterate, it's mostly STUSD -T under the surface, being sold in hoards for USDC, which can then be redeemed for US dollars at Circle. This is not unique to just HTX -slash -Huobi, though. We have seen similar developments on Binance, albeit without the STUSD -T sleight of hand, since the SVB collapse, CVD shows an $8 .9 billion difference for the USDC -USDT pair, indicating $8 .9 billion of USDC buying while selling Tether on Binance. Even if you remove the first month post -SVD collapse, the CVD for the pair is still plus $4 -5 billion of net buying for USDC. Also according to Arkham, Binance wallets preceding the SVB crash to today are minus $4 .27 billion USDC and up $384 .1 million Tether. Let's also note Binance's curious relationship with TUSD. On March 15th, mere days after the SVB collapse and Binance re -enabling USDC trading on the platform, 0 % fee trading on little -known TUSD was enabled for the Bitcoin, ETH and BNB pairs. While zero fee trading is obviously anything but organic, the chart comparing Bitcoin to Tether pairs versus Bitcoin to TUSD pairs is something to behold. Dylan then shows a chart of Bitcoin TUSD volume absolutely leaping up. He then adds, but to be fair, it was an expected development from the 0 % fee trading promo. The real interesting chart, Dylan continues, is a look at the TUSD outstanding supply and the timing of its largest mints. Convenient timing for billion dollar increases in the stablecoin sent directly to Binance at a time where zero fee trading is enabled. Quite the timing, isn't it? Never mind that TUSD attestations are blatantly unreliable and shady, and its largest mints are coincidentally timed perfectly with market sell -offs. But the world's largest exchange is promoting said stablecoin with zero fee trading for its largest pairs? By the way, let's note the token distribution for TUSD, shall we? Dylan then shares a chart from Arkham that shows the vast, vast majority of TUSD controlled by either Binance or entities associated with Justin Sun. Dylan wraps up, One, Sun is creating a web of deception in order to siphon USD liquidity out of crypto using a multitude of fake stablecoins. And dare I say, he is a fraud. Two, CZ and his embrace of TUSD, despite it being very suspect, is also ominous and reeks of desperation. Three, TUSD minting patterns during sell -offs are suspect and must be noted. Four, Huobi users get out of USDT into another asset and withdraw immediately. Number five, it's no wonder the Chief Strategy Officer for Circle is saying that the crypto ecosystem is blatantly counterfeiting USD. Alright guys, back to NLW. Now Justin Sun for his part responded to this just by blocking Dylan. I haven't seen any commentary specifically addressing this, and I also haven't seen any follow -up reporting from other outlets like Blockworks or Coindesk, but what I do see is a lot of people retweeting this, quote -tweeting this, and saying basically, this is something that needs to have an eye kept on it. Travis Kling said, read this. Now imagine a world where we collectively held our leaders to some semblance of accountability, where Justin Sun would actually have to respond to this thread thoughtfully and with evidence rather than post four. Why don't we demand a world like that? Well, friends, it is in that spirit that I share this Long Read Sunday. Go check it out, and let's see if we can't start the next bull run in a much cleaner, better, more above board kind of space. Until next time, be safe and take care of each other.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Huobi Changes Name to HTX and Almost Immediately Gets Hacked
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, September 22nd, and today we are talking hacks, hacks, hacks. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, today we start this show talking about Ben Armstrong, better known as BitBoy, who was arrested last night after he won, posted to his YouTube that he was going to confront a former business partner about the Lamborghini that he said was his, two, went to said person's door and rang the doorbell, three, did this with a gun and illegal narcotics in the back of his car, along with another business and affair partner to boot, and then four live streamed himself getting arrested. Just kidding. I'm not going to talk about that ever at all. In fact, I will only say this. The crypto space gets exactly the level of influencers it deserves. So perhaps as we think about where we want to be heading into the next bull market, we might want to choose who we listen to with just a hint more discernment. Now, what we're actually going to be talking about today is the plague of this bear market. Well, outside of Gensler, of course, and that is hacks. A wave of hacks impacted crypto firms starting over the weekend. On Friday, Nansen disclosed a security breach at a third party software vendor. The attacker was able to gain access to admin rights of a Nansen account in charge of facilitating client access to the platform. Nansen claims it, quote, managed to stop the unauthorized access shortly after learning about it and launched an immediate investigation. According to Nansen, wallet funds were unaffected. All affected users had email addresses exposed, while smaller user cohorts had password hashes accessed and wallet addresses revealed. Nansen urged all users to double check emails claiming to be coming from the company and be vigilant for phishing attempts. So that was Friday. Then on Saturday, OpenSea disclosed that one of its third party vendors, quote, experienced a security incident that may have exposed information. They warned that user API keys were compromised. The company noted that the incident was not expected to impact any programs which use an OpenSea API key, but that external parties using exposed keys could experience rate and usage limits. OpenSea plans on shutting down existing keys by next Monday and asked users to rotate their keys. A third exploit was disclosed early on Monday morning. Mixin Network, which is a nominally decentralized wallet service, said it lost $200 million in customer assets during an attack early on Saturday morning. Crypto developer Lawrence Day at Function Zero writes, Also, respectfully, how are you losing $200 million from a cloud breach? So this company Mixin was founded in 2017 and had nearly $400 million in protocol funds across 48 chains. The service allows users to send digital assets assigned to phone numbers and its biggest market appears to be Hong Kong. Now the firm said that it can guarantee the safety of around half of user assets, but that guarantee seems to be in the form of a corporate backstop rather than the product of successful threat mitigation. During a livestream on Monday addressing the attack, Mixin founder Feng Xiaodong said, No matter what your assets are, whether it's Bitcoin or Ethereum, we will ensure that half of it is unaffected. We're trying to find a way to recover the compromised money, but that is very difficult. For the other half of the assets, Mixin is considering offering what they are calling bond tokens for users to claim. The firm would later buy back the tokens, making them similar to other token -based recovery schemes seen in the past during events like the Bitfinex hack. A security firm called Slowmist is involved in the investigation and stated that the incident occurred when a cloud service provider database was attacked. Now if this feels like just the latest in a string of big hacks, that's because it is. In 2022, we had the record of $3 .1 billion in funds lost from hacks. And estimates this year include TRMLab saying that $400 million was stolen in Q1, Immunify saying that $700 million was lost in the first half of the year, and then just in Q3 we've had a 126 multi -chain hack in July, a $61 .7 million market -based protocol exploit of Curve Finance in July, $41 .3 million hacked from Stake .com in September, and another July hack of $37 million at CoinsPaid. So from estimates, it looks like this might be the largest hack of the year, roughly the same size as Euler in March. Still, even though it wasn't the biggest, the most high -profile hack of the weekend was disclosed on Monday as well, and that was from HTX. HTX, formerly known as Huobi, suffered the loss of 5 ,000 ETH worth around $8 million on Sunday evening. Justin Sun claimed in a Twitter thread that, quote, HTX has fully covered the losses incurred from the attack and has successfully resolved all related issues. Sun added that, quote, all user assets are SAFU and the platform is operating completely normally. Now, in addition to disclosing the loss, Sun downplayed the impact of the attack, stating that, quote, $8 million represents a relatively small sum in comparison to the $3 billion worth of assets held by our users. It also amounts to just two weeks of revenue for the HTX platform. Sun disclosed the wallet address of the hacker and added, We are willing to offer 5 % of the stolen amount, $400 ,000 USD, as a white hat reward to encourage the hacker to return the stolen funds. If the hacker returns the funds, we will also hire them as a security white hat advisor for HTX. However, they said, if the funds are not returned within seven days, we will transfer the information to law enforcement authorities for further action and to prosecute the hacker. In an on -chain message to the hacker, HTX claimed to have discovered their, quote, true identity. Now, according to Arkham Analytics, the attack affected an HTX hot wallet, which was created in March. Since then, the wallet has received $500 million in deposits from Binance, and on -chain analysts confirmed that funds have now been migrated to a new wallet. Now, there were a lot of comments relating to the name change of this exchange. Crypto Kaleo writes, Huobi changes its name to HTX and gets hacked for $8 million in the first month? Coincidence or tempting fate? Lawrence Day again said, I'm sorry, but renaming Huobi to HTX and then immediately losing millions of dollars is so effing funny that I might have a stroke. Even Binance's CZ said, A week after you rename your exchange after FTX... Jokes aside, our security team will help in tracking hacker funds in all cases where we can. Now, in addition to just the jokes about the HTX name, there are lots of questions floating around about Huobi solvency. To get a sense of some of those theories, go check out Adam Cochran's account. It's a little bit out of the scope of this particular episode, but it's obviously something that we're watching closely. Now it's unclear at this stage whether these attacks had any sort of links, but the small amount of detail available does show some common features. The first three hacks all blamed a third party service provider. While the provider was not named, Nansen did urge them to disclose the security breach. These attacks come just weeks after crypto custody firm Fortress Trust suffered a $15 million attack, which was also related to a security failure at a third party cloud provider called Retool. In that attack, an employee at the software provider was the victim of a phishing attack. The attacker used an AI -synthesized voice clone of an IT support worker to replicate the employee's credentials to access Retool's systems. In their write -up of that attack, Retool said that 27 customer accounts were compromised. All 27 were crypto companies. So the method of attack here, which uses a combination of social engineering and a bypassing of security measures, also bears a striking resemblance to the write -ups of the recent cyber attack on MGM and Caesars casinos. The casino's systems were hacked two weeks ago with customer and corporate data compromised. Postmortems of the attack claimed that hackers used a voice replication of IT workers to gain access. Identity management firm Okta confirmed that the casinos had been using their systems to credential employees. In an August blog post, Okta said that their customers were seeing, quote, consistent pattern of social engineering attacks against their IT service desk personnel, in which the caller's strategy was to convince service desk personnel to reset all multi -factor authentication factors enrolled by highly privileged users. The casino attacks were attributed to a threat actor known as Scattered Spider using malicious software developed by Alfie or Black Cat. Now if these attacks are all part of the same cybercrime spree, it could speak to a group of hackers going after high -value targets like crypto firms. The vulnerability seems hard to address as it involves security training for employees at third -party software providers. And one of the implications is, if these kind of attacks become a systemic threat to the industry, it could mean more crypto firms need to bring sensitive software in -house. That higher barrier to secure operations could make it more difficult for smaller startups to compete in the industry. Now of course for any of you who are listening to the AI breakdown, you'll also recognize that this is not going to be a problem that's unique to the crypto industry. The casino attacks speak to that as well, but the reality is that voice cloning technology is incredibly advanced and just getting more so all the time. Individuals and companies are going to need to develop entirely different modes of operation that recognize the fact that you simply can't trust a voice on the other line of a call anymore. Now when it comes to the impact of these hacks on the industry outside of just the ramifications for the people who lost money themselves, it's hard exactly to know what the real impact is. On the one hand, it certainly lends to a perception of immaturity overall, but at the same time, when it comes to the geopolitics and regulation of crypto, the hacks that are most important to keep an eye on are those that have some sort of geostrategic ramifications, particularly those emanating from the Lazarus Group in North Korea. Still, being this deep into a bear market and trying to match all -time records for hacks is not necessarily the place we want to be overall. The one other story that I wanted to cover on today's show is a bit of a dust -up around the Celsius restructuring. In short, the Celsius bankruptcy could be coming to a close after creditors have voted in favor of the current recovery plan. 98 % of creditors gave the thumbs up to a plan which would see the sale of assets to crypto consortium Fahrenheit Holdings. The acquiring group includes Errington Capital and miner US Bitcoin Corp. Fahrenheit plans to retain and operate mining equipment owned by Celsius under a new corporate structure. The new company also plans to stake Ethereum and monetize other Celsius assets. Some large creditors will receive equity in this new company. And in addition, another $2 billion in liquid crypto will be distributed to creditors. Overall, the plan is projected to provide a 76 -85 % recovery. Now one remaining snag in the plan is an objection from the SEC. The regulator filed its objection last Friday to express concerns with Coinbase's involvement in the process. Celsius receivers plan to use Coinbase as an intermediary to distribute crypto to creditors. The SEC claimed the agreement could require Coinbase to The SEC filing claimed that However, this court should not be asked to approve a deal where their material terms are missing or inconsistent. The regulator also appears concerned about an additional agreement with Coinbase, which Celsius have attempted to file under seal and have not yet disclosed. Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal hit back at the SEC's objection in a Twitter post stating, Now, Wayne Vaughn had a very simple explanation, saying, And of course, this isn't the first time we've seen the SEC stand in the way of a bankruptcy distribution agreed to by creditors. In March, the SEC objected to Voyager using Binance US to distribute crypto to its creditors, which was of course months before the regulator had filed its lawsuit against Binance but still based their objections on claims that the exchange was an unregistered securities brokerage. A very unimpressed judge in the Voyager case called it This time around, of course, the SEC at least does have an ongoing lawsuit that they can point to regarding Coinbase's brokerage services, but the objection does still seem odd given that the regulator didn't seek an injunction to prevent Coinbase from operating as normal in the interim. The Celsius case will return to court next Thursday to hear the SEC's argument and see if the judge is inclined to allow the plan to go ahead. Now one interesting line of discussion are the implications for the spot ETF applications that are outstanding. Adam Cochrane writes, Now, speaking of ETFs, Bitwise filed an amendment to its spot Bitcoin ETF application on Monday, adding 40 pages of research on Bitcoin market structure. The research aimed to preempt arguments from the SEC, which could be used to reject the current batch of ETF applications. Bitwise claimed to show that Bitcoin futures are the primary market for price discovery with spot prices following futures. According to Bitwise, this would mean that the well -regulated CME futures market should be the primary consideration when looking for evidence of market manipulation. They argued that this trading venue should count as a regulated market of significant size for market surveillance purposes. As part of their argument, Bitwise also cited a previous study from 2019, which suggested that Bitcoin's spot market mainly consisted of fake volume, making the relative size of the regulated futures market much larger in comparison. Regarding the price impact of futures, Bitwise found in 2021 that futures markets accounted for between 52 .97 % and 68 .03 % of Bitcoin's price discovery. Now this isn't the first time Bitwise have dropped large amounts of Bitcoin research on the SEC to dispute their claims. They have produced at least two 100 -page -plus reports in support of previous Bitcoin ETF applications. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hogan explained his firm's strategy in a Twitter thread stating, That's the happy case. The question is, what happens if the SEC appeals the court decision? In short, we return to the status quo. We're back to needing to prove that the CME Bitcoin futures market leads price discovery over the spot market such that it can serve as a regulated market of significant size for the purpose of surveillance. Unfortunately, existing filings do not include substantively new arguments or research addressing this question head on. Until now, today's amendment aims to address point by point each of the major objections the SEC has raised in prior disapprovals for spot Bitcoin ETFs. In particular, we try to clear up the significant confusion around the growing body of academic literature on price discovery in the Bitcoin market and demonstrate that every well -designed academic study supports the finding that the CME is significant. So friends, there you have it, a little bit of hacks, a little bit of the SEC objecting to something that seems reasonable from the outside. In other words, a quintessential 2023 crypto day. Appreciate you guys listening, as always. And until next time. Peace.
The Breakdown
A highlight from ByBit Vacates United Kingdom as "Crypto Hub" Dreams Falter
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Monday, September 25th, and today we are updating ourselves on the geopolitical landscape of crypto. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello, friends. Hope you had a great weekend. There are lots of interesting things to catch up on. And today, a slight theme in some of these stories is where different countries are positioning themselves vis -a -vis crypto. Now, the UK has had an interesting relationship with the industry. They were for a time very harsh. The Financial Conduct Authority in the UK has never seemingly been that into the whole space. But then when Rishi Sunak became chancellor of the exchequer, he declared that the UK would be open for crypto business. He wanted to make the UK the most crypto friendly jurisdiction in the world. Well, of course, over the next few months, through a variety of weird ups and downs, Rishi eventually ended up the prime minister. And of course, it might be reasonable then to ask, is the UK getting friendlier for crypto companies? Well, on that front, Bybit have announced that they will suspend service to UK customers next week in response to regulatory changes. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority, or FCA, will begin enforcement of new marketing regulations starting on October 8. The regulations require crypto firms to ensure advertising is clear, fair, and not misleading, as well as presented alongside a risk warning. Advertisements are required to be certified by firms, but this process requires crypto firms to be registered in the UK. So far, UK licenses have been difficult to obtain for non -domestic exchanges. The rules also require a number of technical changes to exchange business operations around new customers. For example, exchanges need to implement a 24 -hour cooling -off period before a new customer is allowed to make transactions. They are also required to put in place client appropriateness testing and client categorization features. These measures could involve limiting the size, for example, of crypto investments based on the customer's net worth. Now, penalties for non -compliance in these new rules are harsh, with unlimited fines and even criminal charges available as punishments. As you might imagine, the crypto industry has been highly critical of these elements, especially those that require technical changes to platforms. In response to those critiques, the FCA said that they would provide a transition period for firms that request it, potentially giving exchanges until January to come into compliance. Last week, however, the regulators said that they are alarmed at the lack of engagement with foreign firms. Only 24 firms have responded to a survey sent to over 150 companies. In response, the FCA wrote, "...this lack of engagement gives us serious concerns about unregistered firms' readiness to comply with the new regime." Now, in their announcement that UK services would be suspended, Bybit claimed their "...primary objective is to operate our business in compliance with all relevant rules and regulations in the UK." Bybit said that they were making "...a choice to embrace the regulation proactively and pause our services in this market." They said that the "...suspension will allow the company to focus its efforts and resources on being able to best meet the regulations outlined by the UK authorities in the future." Practically, this means that from Sunday, Bybit will no longer be accepting new accounts from UK users. Existing users would be barred from making new deposits or increasing existing positions from October 8th. They will have until January to manage and wind down their existing positions. Bybit, as you might imagine, is not currently registered in the UK and is based in Dubai. Importantly, Bybit is not the only firm suspending service to UK customers in light of the new regulations. Last month, PayPal announced that it would temporarily pause crypto services in the country until next year. On top of that, crypto exchange LUNO said that it would be restricting some customer accounts from being able to invest on the platform until further notice. Bybit CEO Ben Zhao had flagged the firm's exit earlier in September warning of how overly broad the regulations are. He said, "...FCA has explicitly contacted all the major players — us, OKEx, Binance, everyone — and asked what our plan is to deal with this new law. And the new law is that if you use English as a language, they will see you as trying to solicit their users, so you cannot claim that you are in reverse solicitation. Everyone is in trouble. So everyone is thinking of plans of how to deal with this new law." George Morris, a partner at Simmons & Simmons, explained that the marketing regulations had been enforced for securities firms for decades but were now being expanded to cover the crypto industry. He said, "...the rules are extremely complicated and they're quite wide -ranging. It's not just UK firms that are subject to these rules. Anyone with a website that can be accessed in the UK is subject to these requirements." So there are a lot of different elements of this. One challenge is, yes, these advertising standards. But the bigger issue is this whole need to evaluate client suitability and potentially restrict investments. Practically, that either means a ton of financial disclosures from customers that they would have to manage and verify, or there's simply some self -attestation checkbox, which might not be that effective. Basically, with a set of marketing regulations, the FCA have figured out how to limit small retail's ability to buy crypto in the country. Now, one thing that is notable is that we haven't heard anything from the really big international exchanges yet in terms of how they're dealing with this. But in any case, it seems like a big detriment for UK crypto. As Leon TK put it, so much for the UK being a crypto hub, failing already. Now, speaking of places where there is more optimism, last week was, of course, the token 2049 conference in Singapore. And that led to a lot of different discussion around how different the Asian environment for crypto felt as compared to the US and European environments. Indeed, while Western jurisdictions seem to be bogged down with regulations that are unclear at best or hostile at worst, the vibes in Asia are reportedly immaculate. Major conferences around Asia during September saw an uptick in attendance, and regulatory regimes across South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan appear to be giving the crypto industry a clear set of workable rules to allow firms to re -establish themselves coming out of crypto winter. The block's Frank Shapiro spoke with some conference attendees and reported on an optimism emerging in the East. One conference attendee said that South Korean retail is flocking back to crypto. They argued that young investors in particular view real estate and equities as massively overvalued and out of reach, so are instead opting to buy cryptocurrency. They said they don't buy houses, but they can buy tokens every week. There is a huge market. Another attendee spoke about the difficulty of accessing the Korean market due to South Korea's notoriously tough corporate climate for international firms. They said the liquidity is insane, but it is siloed and protectionist. You have to speak Korean. On that front, crypto custodian BitGo recently partnered with domestic juggernaut Hana Bank due to the difficulty in accessing the market without a local connection. What's more, one anonymous trading firm said they had been waiting five years to operate as a liquidity provider on domestic exchanges in South Korea. They said when they open up, we can be first in line. It's a great retail market. To get a sense of scale, the largest Korean exchange, Upbit, regularly outperforms Coinbase in terms of spot trading volumes. Then there is of course Hong Kong. Their new regulatory regime is off to a tough start in some ways with fraud investigations into crypto exchange JPX becoming public earlier this month. The most recent update is that there have been 11 suspects brought in for questioning and losses have been estimated at 178 million across 2 ,265 victims. Local police have said that the ringleaders of the operation are still at large and have enlisted the help of Interpol. Some are referring to JPX as the largest financial fraud to ever hit the city. Yet despite the major investigation, there are currently no signs that Hong Kong regulators are seeking to reverse course on unexpectedly open crypto regulations. Indeed, on Monday, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission said that it would be releasing the full list of current applicants to ensure that users are able to identify false claims from exchanges. The theme appears to be the same across multiple Asian jurisdictions. Basically, that individual incidents of fraud and malpractice haven't tarnished enthusiasm for the industry as a whole. Another conference attendee told Chiparo, This Asia trip blew my mind. The excitement in Korea and Singapore is the polar opposite of what's going on in the U .S. Alex Vannevik of Nansen wrote, Vannek portfolio manager Pranav Kannadi added some color around how local investors are thinking about the space as well. On September 14, Pranav tweeted, Conversations were mostly positive and a key question was, We're in a crypto winter right now, but when should we expect the next bull run? Not a single convo mentioned the merits of the tech or whether the space survives, feeling optimistic. Now, hopping from Asia over to Europe again for a moment. According to a report from Fortune, Coinbase considered acquiring FTX's European business in the wake of FTX's November bankruptcy. Apparently talks never progressed to a late stage, but the preliminary interest highlights how important international expansion is to Coinbase, particularly regarding its derivatives products. Before the bankruptcy, FTX Europe was the only European firm registered to provide perpetual futures trading. And while derivatives trading remains heavily restricted in the U .S., both Coinbase and Gemini have launched offshore trading venues this year to provide derivatives markets to international customers with a keen eye on Asian regions. For Coinbase, the pivot to derivatives could provide a much needed boost to flagging spot volumes. According to Kiko Research, derivatives volumes in Quarter 2 of this year were six times large than spot. Now, the entity that became FTX Europe was originally acquired in late 2021 for 376 million. The firm was already licensed in Cyprus at the time, which allowed it to access European markets. Since the bankruptcy, the entity, along with its valuable license, have attracted interest from Crypto .com and Trek Labs as well. According to documents viewed by Fortune, Coinbase expressed interest immediately after the FTX bankruptcy and again as recently as last month. That said, FTX Europe has also been in the crosshairs of the U .S.-based FTX bankruptcy team for clawbacks. The estate launched a lawsuit against FTX Europe executives claiming that the original acquisition was a horrendous business decision, arguing that FTX effectively paid 376 million for a $2 million operating license, and on top of this, the sale of FTX Europe seems like a difficult task with active litigation surrounding the firm. In July, the U .S.-based FTX estate said, The FTX debtors' professional advisors have concluded that there is no realistic possibility of a sale. However, last Thursday, they said, The FTX debtors are committed to maximizing the value of FTX's assets to drive customer recoveries. As such, the FTX debtors are continuing to evaluate whether there are viable options for the sale of some or all of the assets of the FTX Europe business. Now one small aside on Coinbase. Arkham Intelligence claimed to have mapped Coinbase's bitcoin wallets and according to Arkham, Coinbase holds almost 1 million bitcoin worth around $25 billion at current market prices. This would amount to almost 5 % of the bitcoin in circulation, similar to the amount held in wallets believed to be owned by Satoshi Nakamoto. Arkham's report showed that Coinbase's largest cold wallet holds around 10 ,000 bitcoin, and the firm believes that Coinbase has additional bitcoin holdings which are not yet labeled and could not be identified. According to data published by CoinGecko, Coinbase only owns around $200 million worth of this gigantic bitcoin stash, with the rest attributable to client custody. However, staying on the Europe question and how valuable this Cyprus license actually is, with Europe's MICA regulations coming into force from June of next year, some firms are beginning to warn that a clear lack of guidance could lead to disruption. The MICA rules were intended to provide a comprehensive framework, but there are still numerous grey areas. One of the major problems surrounds stablecoins. There is currently no guidance on how MICA stablecoin regulations will apply to foreign and decentralized issuers. The default scenario seems to be a ban in Europe unless these issuers can obtain the appropriate licensing, with no arrangement to recognize approvals in other jurisdictions. The European Banking Authority has warned that there will be no grace period for coins already on the market. The EBA and its sister agency, the European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA, are currently taking public consultation on how the MICA regulations should be implemented. Relatedly last week, the head of legal at Binance France said during a public hearing hosted by the EBA, we are heading towards a delisting of all stablecoins in Europe on June 30th. This could have a significant impact on the market in Europe compared to the rest of the world. Now, Binance CEO CZ quickly walked back the comments claiming, it was a question taken out of context. In fact, we have a couple of partners launching Euro and other stablecoins in fully compliant manners of course. A blog post from Binance explained further, stating that they would be required to delist stablecoins that fail to gain registration in Europe and that no licenses have been granted to stablecoin issuers currently. Binance wrote, While we are confident that there will be constructive solutions in place before the mid -2024 deadline, if left as is, this could have an impact on the European crypto market and the competitiveness of European crypto exchanges in the global market. Now the requirement that stablecoin issuers are EU -based could cause further problems for decentralized organizations. Thomas Vogel, a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins said, So, this is sort of the challenge with MICA. As comprehensive as the regulations are written, how they get implemented is still fairly up in the air. There was commentary around the time that MICA was being voted upon that it could either be a big step in giving the crypto industry a clear set of rules to function, or work as a de facto crypto ban depending on how it was implemented and whether enough licenses were granted. Now, with a little over nine months until MICA comes into force, there is still time to ensure that rules are workable for existing firms, but it appears that there is a lot of work left to do in that regard. Anyways, it's definitely a story to keep an eye on, as something that was seen as largely positive could become quite bad quite quickly. However, friends, that is where we're going to wrap for today. Lots going on in this fascinating world of crypto. Wherever you are enjoying it from, I appreciate you listening. And until next time, be safe and take care of each other.
The Breakdown
A highlight from UPDATED: How Big A Deal Are The Changes to Crypto Accounting Standards?
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, September 7th, and today we are asking how big a deal are new crypto accounting rules? Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on The Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Now, reiterating that point, I said this on my AI show as well, but today you are listening to a birthday episode. Yes, 39 years ago today I was born, and if you would like to give me a beautiful gift, leaving a rating or a review for this show wherever you happen to listen to it would be an awesome, awesome thing to do. I appreciate all of you listeners and participants, and so let's talk new crypto accounting rules. The Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, have changed their recommendations for how crypto holdings should be recorded in corporate financial statements. The FASB oversees reporting and accounting standards for companies that follow generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP guidelines. On Wednesday, the FASB unanimously passed a vote to recommend fair value accounting for crypto assets held on corporate balance sheets. This means crypto will be marked at the prevailing market price in financial reporting. Previously, corporations were recommended to record impairment losses on their balance sheet when the price of crypto fell. This impairment was not removed if crypto prices recovered, making it difficult to quickly determine the value of corporate crypto holdings using this method. Michael Saylor, the chairman of MicroStrategy, has been railing against this recommended accounting for years, claiming that it made little sense it was misleading to investors. MicroStrategy and some other companies worked around this problem by providing an alternative accounting within their financial disclosures, which included the current fair value of crypto holdings. Now, the FASB kept the proposed changes simple and elected not to address NFTs, wrapped tokens, or stablecoins for now. Companies may begin using this method in their official accounting immediately, with the rules officially changing in 2025. FASB member Christine Bodasan said, It's not very often that we can both take cost out of the system and improve the decision usefulness of information, and it makes it a really easy vote to do both of those. Jeff Runlet, the head of accounting strategy at accounting software company Cryptio, said, It's a great step forward for the entire crypto market. I think it's a great step towards mainstream adoption. I can see finalizing this proposal to help large corporations that are maybe scared to hold crypto on their balance sheet because they're scared of the technical complexities. Now, by and large, the community greeted the news as something that was unlikely to cause big widespread attention, but which was quietly significant. Michael Saylor tweeted, Fair value accounting is coming to Bitcoin. This upgrade to FASB accounting rules eliminates a major impediment to corporate adoption of Bitcoin as a treasury asset. Stack Hodler says, Huge FASB votes in favor of fair value accounting for Bitcoin on corporate balance sheets. Most public corporations couldn't stack Bitcoin without this rule change. Now, cash rich companies have a way to ensure their bond portfolios against debasement. Dr. Chris Dark said, They voted unanimously to change the rules to fair value accounting, which is logical by the end of the year. FASB rule change for crypto matters for corporates a lot. It's boring and wonky, but it fixes one of the most silly accounting rules where it was an indefinite lived intangible asset. TLDR, corporates will be able to hold Bitcoin or ETH or crypto, and in quarterly accounts it will be valued at its fair value, not by the current rules, which is at its purchase cost minus impairment. Genuinely big news that no one will care much about. Well, Dr. Dark, we care about it here at The Breakdown. Next up, another bit of news along the same theme of institutionalization, which really one could joke, pretty reasonably, that the perpetual bull narrative in crypto is institutions just around the corner. Anyway, a pair of asset managers filed applications for Spot Ethereum ETFs on Wednesday. ARK, in partnership with 21Shares as well as VanEck, will try their luck to get the first of their kind products approved by the SEC. Now a reminder about process, once the regulator acknowledges the applications, that will start the clock on a 240 -day deadline for a final SEC decision. The first interim deadline for the regulator comes after 45 days, and these Spot ETH filings join 16 existing applications for products offering exposure to Ethereum futures. Now if you want a little more insight into 21Shares and their parent 21 .co, go check out my interview with CEO Hani Rashwan on Bitcoin Builders. We talk about how much the company and the industry has changed since they got their first -ever crypto exchange -traded product approved in December of 2018. Now back to this news, both of the applications filed on Wednesday featured a surveillance sharing agreement with Coinbase. This feature is intended to monitor Spot crypto markets for manipulation and has been seen as a key difference in the latest round of Spot Bitcoin ETF applications. Coinbase will also serve as the custodian for the ARK 21Shares ETF, although VanEck has not yet named a custodian. Up until now, the SEC has always summarily requested the withdrawal of Spot ETF applications. And yet, Grayscale's recent courtroom win has been widely viewed as making the SEC's continued rejection of Spot crypto ETFs for major tokens, if not untenable, then certainly at least on borrowed time. One of the key rulings is that there was no fundamental difference between how futures -based and spot -based ETFs should be considered, given that the markets are 99 % correlated. When all is said and done, Bloomberg analysts expect additional Spot ETH ETF applications to pour in over the rest of the week. Bloomberg analyst James Safard tweets, The Spot Ethereum ETF race is officially on. It's early, but I'd estimate a final deadline on these applications to be around May 23, 2024. Now, all the same, many crypto traders noticed that, once again, a bullish piece of news had basically no impact on price. ETH pumped an anemic 2 % on the news and then fully retraced. Based Carbon tweeted, We used to pump coins harder on fake Grayscale trust filings than we did on a real ETH ETF filing. Still, I think analyst Ilo has it when they write, Price action still looks like it's going to be bleak in the short term. No liquidity, no volume, everything basically dead. But 2024 is shaping up like this. Approved ETH futures and spot ETFs, hard to ask for a better setup. You get to buy the lows before all the flows are with us again. Shoot your shot. However, because we are in this in -between moment, that means that any day that has a bunch of good news is also going to have, if not bad news, then at least news of the cleanup and fallout of last year. On that front, bankrupt crypto lender Genesys have sued parent company Digital Currency Group for payment of over $620 million in loans, which came due in May. These loans have been at the center of the Genesys bankruptcy, with allegations that they were made in an attempt to paper over problems within the DCG empire after the collapse of Three Arrows Capital in May of last year. And yet, despite their notoriety, relatively little has been known about the details of these loans until this lawsuit was filed. According to the complaint, Genesys loaned DCG almost 19 ,000 Bitcoin in June 2022 under the terms of an open loan agreement first signed in 2019. In November, the loan was converted to a fixed term due on May 11th this year. The filing states that the loan was partially repaid with a balance of 4 ,550 .5 Bitcoin outstanding. The two parties underwent mediation, which ended in August, but continued to negotiate. According to a separate document also filed on Wednesday, Genesys extended four cash loans to DCG throughout 2022 worth a total of $500 million. DCG claimed that it was able to convert the loans back to open term loans under the prior agreement, but Genesys disagreed. Genesys is seeking the repayment of principal without late fees. Now, it's unlikely that this lawsuit will move forward anytime soon, as Genesys has stayed the court process. A DCG spokesperson said, Genesys has agreed to stay the turnover action so that we can move forward with documenting the deal in principle that was reached with Genesys, the Unsecured Creditors Committee, and DCG. We are documenting a forbearance agreement and expect to file it with the court shortly. At that point, we will initiate the distribution of funds and continue on the path to significant recovery for Genesys creditors. Now, you'll remember that this in -principle agreement was filed in late August and promised repayment of 70 -90 % on unsecured creditor claims. The deal was widely panned as a bad deal by commentators, and Gemini, who are the largest creditor in the Genesys bankruptcy, do not support the agreement. Roe Rider tweets, SEC needed a new reason to deny Grayscale ETF. Well, they just got it. Pending litigation against a parent company from lenders involving substantial underlying shares and assets is all the excuse they'll need. DCG can only hide behind its entity structure for so long. Now, one more smaller side story staying in the DCG world. Arkham Intelligence believes that they have identified a Bitcoin wallet cluster belonging to Grayscale. The on -chain tracking platform has flagged over 1 ,750 wallet addresses linked to Grayscale's Bitcoin trust holdings. Each wallet holds less than 1 ,000 Bitcoin worth around $25 .7 million. In total, the wallet cluster sums to $16 .1 billion in Bitcoin holdings, matching Grayscale's public disclosures. Arkham did not disclose the full list of wallet addresses. In addition to the Bitcoin wallets, though, Arkham has also identified Grayscale wallets containing other assets including $4 .9 billion in ETH. Moving on to other Fallout stories. The assets of former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky have been frozen according to a court order unsealed on Wednesday. The order was originally issued on August 16th, and the list of assets included accounts held with Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and SoFi Bank, as well as a property in Austin, Texas. It included assets held in the name of companies Koala LLC and AM Ventures Holdings, as well as in the personal names of Alex Mashinsky and his wife Christine. Financial institutions are no longer permitted to facilitate transactions to and from the listed accounts. Mashinsky was of course arrested in July in relation to criminal fraud charges surrounding his operation of Celsius. Prosecutors claim Mashinsky defrauded customers and lied about Celsius's profitability. Mashinsky has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges, which his lawyers have called baseless. He was released on bail after posting a $40 million bond. Mashinsky also faces civil lawsuits from the SEC, the CFTC, and the Federal Trade Commission. Over in FTX world, SPF's request for immediate release from jail has been rejected, pending appeal. Sam is currently appealing a decision to revoke his bail made last month by the Federal Circuit Judge assigned to his criminal case. The Court of Appeals denied a motion for immediate release on Wednesday, but will hear the appeal before a panel of three judges at the next available opportunity, although it's unclear how long that will take. Now, Sam's trial is set to begin in less than four weeks. Defense attorneys have been protesting Sam's lack of access to a suitable laptop to review volumes of evidence, which have been disclosed by prosecutors in discovery. They've complained of low -quality internet access on a laptop with insufficient battery life when Sam is brought to the courthouse to look over documents in a holding cell. But according to a joint letter filed by the DOJ on Tuesday, Sam now has an upgraded battery and access to the laptop seven days a week, with copies of the discovery documents downloaded to hard drives. The letter also claimed that the internet access provided is sufficient for most internet review activities. Sam's defense team has until the close of this week to apply for a delayed start to the trial on account of the claimed difficulty accessing documents. That said, during a hearing last week, the judge made no indication of whether they were likely to grant a delay on the information currently disclosed. Now, earlier this morning, Bloomberg also reported that Ryan Salem was going to be pleading guilty, but as of recording, we don't have more info as to what, so we'll have to circle back to that later this week. Lastly today, tornado cash developer Roman Storm was arraigned on Wednesday. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to operate a money transmitter, facilitate money laundering, and sanctions evasion. Storm was released on a $2 million personal recognizance bond secured by his residence in Washington state immediately after his arrest last month. The tornado cash co -founder will remain on house arrest with limited travel allowed in central California, as well as to New York and New Jersey to attend court hearings. A Russian passport was seized from Storm who maintains dual citizenship. Fellow tornado cash co -founder Alexei Perseve is facing similar charges in the Netherlands and remains on house arrest awaiting his trial, and a third co -founder Roman Semenov has been charged by the DOJ but remains at large. Authorities allege the trio knowingly facilitated over $1 billion in money laundering through tornado cash without mitigating its illegal use. Tornado cash was for a time believed to be the primary money laundering system used by notorious North Korean hackers the Lazarus Group. Storm's lawyer, considered one of the top criminal defense attorneys in the crypto legal community, has said that authorities are In that, this case will be much more significant than just whether this set of people happen to do wrong. Anyways friends, that is going to do it for this birthday edition of The Breakdown. I appreciate you listening as always. Until tomorrow, be safe and take care of each other.
Daily Crypto Report
"Elon Musk's X obtains money transmitter licenses in multiple US states " Aug 31, 2023
"It's 8 a .m. Eastern, August 31st, and this is your Daily Crypto Report. Bitcoin is up 0 .5 % at $27 ,313, ETH is up 0 .5 % at $1 ,713, and Binance Coin is up slightly at $224. While Sam Beckman -Friede's lawyers argued against the government's use of millions of pages of documents for evidence claiming that they received them too late and that SPF can't properly review them in jail, the judge expressed skepticism and gave the lawyers until Friday to request a trial postponement, but there is no guarantee that it will be granted. The documents in question were obtained from Google due to a production error, but the judge noted that most of them were from SPF's own Google accounts. The judge stated that there's no evidence of the government acting in bad faith. Elon Musk's social media platform, X, formerly Twitter, has obtained money or currency transmitter licenses in multiple U .S. states, including Rhode Island, Maryland, and New Hampshire. These licenses allow for broader payment services, including processing crypto payments. Musk has expressed interest in supporting cryptocurrencies on the platform and has plans for X to expand beyond social media. The licenses obtained by X indicate that Musk may have intentions to offer payment processing services nationwide, similar to Venmo or PayPal, a company he was responsible for helping start. Other companies like Western Union and PayPal hold similar licenses in the states they serve. Coinbase is planning to list the newly launched PayPal stablecoin PiUSD pending sufficient liquidity. Coinbase will initially support PiUSD with an experimental label which is applied to new or low -volume assets on the platform. Sam Altman's Worldcoin has experienced a surge in signups in Argentina despite an ongoing investigation by local authorities. In a single day in August, approximately 9 ,500 Argentinians verified their World ID, averaging one verification every nine seconds. The project still faces pressure from Argentine authorities regarding data privacy. And finally, crypto data tracking platform Arkham Intelligence has identified Robinhood as the owner of the fifth -largest Ethereum wallet. The wallet holds approximately $2 .54 billion worth of ETH. Notably, these funds are held in custody for user balances. Robinhood has recently seen a decline in crypto trading activity with second -quarter revenue falling to $31 million compared to the previous quarter. Well, that's all for us today. Visit us at dailycryptoreport .io for sources and links. Listen to us everywhere else you podcast under Daily Crypto Report. that shares stories of the changing American South brought to you through the foods we eat. It's produced by the Southern Foodways Alliance and distributed by APT Podcast Studios. Listen to Gravy on your porch during happy hour to hear about the mystery of the missing Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. Don't miss out. Follow Gravy wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, welcome to the collective. I'm Brianne Helfrich, a 26 -year -old bioethics PhD student and clothing brand CEO. Welcome to my podcast where we talk all things health and wellness, navigating your 20s and becoming the best version of yourself. So sit down, play that episode and join the collective.
Daily Crypto Report
A highlight from "Arkham Intelligence says $3B whale wallet belongs to Robinhood." Aug 28, 2023
"It's 8 a .m. Eastern, August the 28th, and this is your daily crypto report. Bitcoin is up slightly at $26 ,064, ETH is down slightly at $1 ,648, and Binance Coin is up slightly at $217. Well starting from September, South Korean crypto exchanges are required to set aside a minimum of the equivalent of $2 .3 million in reserves held in bank accounts as part of enhanced consumer protection measures. This move is in accordance with guidelines issued by the Korean Federation of Banks in July. Major exchanges like Upbit and Bithumb are reportedly on track to meet these new requirements. The guidelines aim to ensure that exchanges can cover potential liabilities to users in the event of risk events. The Financial Services Commission also announced that domestic companies will need to disclose crypto holdings starting next year under new accounting rules. LabTX founder Sam Bankman -Fried's defense team has submitted a new motion seeking his temporary release or more frequent meetings with his defense team, emphasizing his right to assist in preparing his defense. The defense argues that SPF's ability to review necessary documents is hindered by his incarceration since the documents are accessible only online. The judge has directed prosecutors to respond by August the 29th and scheduled a virtual hearing for August the 30th on discovery matters. According to data from Arkham Intelligence, investment platform Robinhood may be the third largest holder of Bitcoin with over $3 billion in a single wallet. This place is Robinhood just behind Binance and Bitfinex in terms of Bitcoin holdings. The wallet had gained attention recently due to speculations about the owner. The holdings were accumulated through transfers of around 118 ,000 Bitcoin from various smaller wallets over a three -month period. These tokens are under the custody of Jump Trading. Wolfenix International, the parent company of OnlyFans, has disclosed that it invested part of its working capital into Ethereum. The investment was reported in the company's financial statements for the year ending November 2022. The investment was part of intangible asset purchases, but the company also reported an impairment loss of $8 .46 million due to Ether's price decline. The firm reported over $1 billion in revenues and $525 million in pre -tax profits. And finally, Decentralized Exchange Balancer has confirmed an exploit that occurred over the weekend shortly after revealing a critical vulnerability in some of its V2 pools. Despite taking steps to reduce risks and advising users to withdraw funds, the exploit still happened as Balancer could not pause the affected pools in time. Around 4 % of the platform's funds were at risk during the initial warning. The financial impact of the exploit is not known yet, but around 900 ,000 in funds were noted to have moved from Balancer pools, possibly due to the exploit. That's all for us today. Visit us at dailycryptoreport .io for sources and links, and listen to us everywhere else you podcast under Daily Crypto Report. And join the collective. That's all the gravy wherever you get your podcasts.
Tech Path Crypto
A highlight from 1226. Crypto Technical Analysis | Evan Aldo Bullish!
"All right, so today we're going to dive into, of course, the charts and, of course, it's going to be fun because we've got one of our friends and neighbors back in the house. Great to be on. It was boring for July, very flat, but finally some action, so it's exciting. All right, you guys are going to love it. I think you guys are going to get some big alpha today, so make sure and tune into the whole show. My name is Paul Beran. Welcome back in the Tech Path. All right, let's get into it today. Evan, first thing I want to jump on to is all of this noise around the most recent wallet moves around Bitcoin. I'll jump to this first tweet. This was a little bit around the Bitcoin wallet that had accumulated a lot of Bitcoin since May. A lot of people were jumping to conclusion that this was a BlackRock wallet, that there was a lot of scenarios that were playing out, but it's basically $3 billion over about three months. Now, there is also some indicators that this may have been actually a Robinhood wallet. And if you look at this chart right here, it shows the actual accumulation layer of Bitcoin for the Robinhood wallet, which goes right in line with, as you'll notice right up there in the top left hand, this came from Arkham Intelligence. If you guys have used Arkham before, it's basically kind of like reverse engineering wallet address, so it can track wallet movements. And sure enough, $3 billion over the last three months. So maybe a little Bitcoin, a little bit of the Bitcoin FUD out there to drive the market, maybe it worked today. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. That's interesting. I didn't see that. But yeah, I mean, there's always a lot of those, sometimes they'll show you something, sometimes not. Exactly, exactly. When you look at the charts right now in terms of Bitcoin, and you look at where the markets, because we just are having a pump currently as we're recording this, what do you see right now in the short term versus, say, maybe over the next 30 to 60 days? Yeah, I'll start with the short term here because it's a little bit more interesting. Obviously we have, if you're looking at real short term timeframes, the two hour looks pretty good. You have a nice double bottom that you saw here, right around a big area, right around 25, which is a huge area. Money flow coming up on the two hour, you get your little trigger wave right down there. So most likely, if we kind of map out from our double bottom pattern, technical target could bring us up to approximately around high 26s, almost 27K. If we move our spiral lines a little bit, this area, low 27Ks could be huge. I would say to be safe, take some profits at high 26s, which does seem pretty likely. The other thing I'm looking at for the short term here is actually on the 10 hour, that's a nice bullish div. We have momentum waves coming down as price is coming, momentum waves coming up as price is coming down on Bitcoin. That usually does break upward and the fact that we got above this point, this is a huge area at 26 .3, a volume area low, that's pretty bullish because we're breaking back through that point. So it's a bullish sign. If we lose this though, that's where things get more bearish. That's a good place below, leave some wiggle room below here is a good place for a stop loss if you're trying to go long. I was looking at the sentiment basically on Bitcoin. If you guys are following our CPI, this was an interesting level off period because right here over the last 10 days, we saw sentiment, of course, coming down from this drop, which we were really pegging almost back to that high around 63. This was back in early August, back to now where we are now. And the interesting thing was is that amplification kind of leveled off here, which was a good indicator that we might start to see some upward movement because typically what we've seen is when amplification starts to level off like that, there's only one place in most cases for it to go and it's usually been up. So right now with it being up a little bit, you're longing this right now. I am longing this. But don't get mad at me if it gets stopped. I made a lot of money shorting. So if this one fails, it's not a big deal. All right. So longing Bitcoin right now. Okay. So a couple of things that play into this. Macro we're going to get into in a second. We'll break down a few things that are kind of leaning into where the overarching markets are. Before we jump over to that, I want to go back to Robinhood for a second because I was looking at this story right here. Robinhood turned profitable. This was in quarter two, but their crypto revenues are and are declining, even though now we could be actually seeing some accumulation in Robinhood's wallet. If you look at hood, the stock, where do you see that stock going in comparison, I'd look at it versus say if you wanted to leverage against say Coinbase? That's an interesting one. Let's go to the chart real quick with Robinhood. I think it's a real good thing. I think ultimately the fundamentals are pretty good, becoming profitable. That's really good. When I look at the charts, I think we're still really struggling. So right here when you see this is some type of kind of like off accumulation pattern, first bottom, second bottom, kind of third bottom right there, making higher lows, which is pretty good. If you do break out of this point, you're able to break back above, what is it, around $11, you might have a technical target up here around $18. Keep in mind some of these high wicks around $16 could be pretty big as well. We look at market side for a little bit kind of on the macro, what could happen here. Does look like you may have some more downside momentum, especially with the weekly, if that money flow wants to come down and the S &P 500 comes down more. I would say it's likely that we would do what we've always done, come back down to potentially $8. But I do think eventually you're going to break upward, whether it's a year from now or six months from now, wherever it may be, you're eventually probably going to break up to around that target at $18. So long term, next couple of years, very bullish. Yeah. So hood trading right now at $10 .50, about, but has had a nice little move over the past couple of days. When you look at that low right there, we're talking about 6%, almost 7 % on that move. In to comparison Coinbase, of course, having a little bit of a spike, this is on the four hour right here. So again, is this a good spot for you to maybe to enter into something like a Coinbase? If you look at Coinbase, it has been on the decline with Bitcoin because it goes kind of like the way of Bitcoin. If you were investing in Bitcoin or hood, because that's kind of the comparison here, which one would you take? Bitcoin or hood. I mean, if I like the fundamentals of Bitcoin. When I say Bitcoin, I mean Coinbase. Coinbase or hood. Oh, man, that's tough, Paul. Whatever has a lower market cap, probably, in terms of more upside potential. That's going to be Robinhood, I think. Probably Robinhood a little bit. But if you look at Coinbase, let's take a look at the chart right here in Coinbase. This one's interesting because we broke out of this reverse head and shoulders and we had our technical target, which was a little bit higher. It was right around $137, however, we zoom in here, look at this major point where we rejected back in August of 22, 114. About a year later, we couldn't come back above that point. So that's kind of a bearish sign, at least for the macro, the short term, next few months. Potentially if we do lose this $68 area, that's where it gets more bearish to potentially come back to $50. I think there's a good shot that January bottom could be kind of the bottom. Keep in mind, this does kind of follow Bitcoin. So if Bitcoin goes back to the low 20s, it wouldn't surprise me if this comes back to around $50. If we look at the weekly here, yeah, this was more bearish. I drew this on the weekly. See how these RSIs are coming down? A lot of times when they come down, they continue to come down and you come deeper into the money flow on the red one last time here. And if we're going to estimate kind of where that could bring us up to, down to, it would probably be that 55 point area. I'd say bad recession. Sure, you can make a double bottom or something likely back to the 50s, I would guess. What are your thoughts right now on Bitcoin holding its current, say, in the 25, 28 range right now? Because that's been a trading range that we've had here for quite some time. What's your thought on that one right now? If you look at what kind of pressures we are seeing here from the macro side. So let's take a look at the macro chart right now. I think it's kind of unlikely that we're, for the next week or so, we do have Powell speaking on Friday, that could kind of wrench into the pump up, my guess here. But kind of what we're seeing is, I just look at the macro here, what normally happens. This bear market 2015, double bottom. This is very interesting here. In August of 2015, you came down 37 % for Bitcoin, but that was it, you were done. So if we do dump down farther, potentially, in the next week or so, next couple of weeks, that could be kind of it theoretically. Sometimes these big moves happen quickly. I think the 300 weekly moving average is a big place right here. And what I want to show you is on the three week right here, we have a trigger wave to the down point, very similar to this three week trigger wave to the down point last September of 2019. If we map it out like this, I'm not going to count the pandemic, but if we map it out like this, that would bring us right to around 21K. Your 300 weekly moving average, let's get that up right here, is going to be around that same area, low 20s, which we could potentially hit that September, October. Keep in mind, pre -election years, Bitcoin and traditional markets towards the end of them are very bearish. And then in the election year, you do better. So I would say more downside potential next few months. And then into the halvening, we're going to do a lot better, I think. Yeah, interesting. A couple of things that could cause more pressure on Bitcoin, along with other traditional assets out there. Right now, just in from the COBEECY letter, interest rate cuts now no longer expected to begin until June 2024. That's quite a bit longer into the cycle of 2024. Also times well with the halvening, which is in May.
The Financial Guys
"arkham" Discussed on The Financial Guys
"Zeke, but I'm honored to have Zeke Arkham a sergeant in the New York City police department. Zeke, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So we always, you know, we've had Jan once before. We talked about the idea of the growing crime in this administration. I don't mean specifically the administration, but in the cities run by liberal Democrats. Now, I guess we'll call it empowered by the president and the vice president.
TFG Truth
"arkham" Discussed on TFG Truth
"George Floyd the patron saint of Black Lives Matter now. It doesn't make him representative of what goes on out there on a daily basis. And he probably doesn't represent me or a lot of people that I know. It's part of the job now. You know, people are going to film you. People, people now are actually going up to cops with their cameras out and picking fights because they want to, they want to get a bad reaction from the cops that they can play the victim. Thankfully, a lot of people are seeing through it, but it still happening. I think there's a guy on YouTube now. His entire channel is him walking into government buildings while walking into police precincts and picking fights with them. That's all he does. He picks fights with them. And or picks arguments with them and presents himself as the victim. He's getting views on it and he's going to keep doing it. And I think what's crazy is we always joke that you and I are not the two toughest guys in the world. But I couldn't imagine and the heat of the moment with a criminal pointing economy having a knife in his hand, screaming at me threatening me, whatever it may be. I couldn't imagine trying to make the decision that split second. Do I put him down or do I not? Am I going to get in trouble if I do something right now or that's not a good way? It's like the military, right? Could you imagine telling the military? Hey, when you're in Iraq or Afghanistan, just be careful that you don't do something you shouldn't. You know, you can't. You gotta be on your toes every 22nd. You never every second. You never know, right? That's what's so scary to me for you guys that you guys just, there's no winning. It's a lose lose in every decision you make. I mean, basically, you know, a policing is a lot of splits, I can decisions or it's a lot of, like I said, ugly situations. And you have to be prepared to deal with that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Zeke, we just honestly, this has been great to get your perspective on this. You're on the streets. You've seen the good times and now the bad times in New York City. We hope that you and all your brothers and sisters in blue stay safe, protect each other, protect yourself, make it through yet another day. And we hope to have you back on our podcast again, Zika Arkham, he's a New York City cop, but also host of reasonable suspicion and leaning right. Zeke, thanks again, man. We really love to have you back on and again, stay safe. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I had a great time. Thank you. You bet. All right. Folks, this has been a special edition of TFT truth. We will be back again next week. My friend here, Mike spiza, and I'm like, hey flick. Thanks for joining us. I hope you found this worthwhile. I know we did. We'll see you next week..
TFG Truth
"arkham" Discussed on TFG Truth
"Illegal guns and she's got it all figured out. Just give her time. She'll get there. But Zeke is an interesting question. I didn't even think about ask until now, 'cause cohan got brought up. Did the NYPD or New York police or anybody throughout you guys was getting the vaccine? Was that ever going to be a requirement or anything like that? Yeah. Yeah, especially on the de Blasio. De Blasio threatened all city workers. If they weren't vaccinated by a certain time that they would be there would be suspended without pay. So lose your job, the thing you really love doing, serving, protecting people. And we're not going to pay you. That's almost unprecedented, right? People get caught doing things in their corporations, their institutions, whatever colleges universities, whatever. And they often go on a paid leave. So they were like, he was going to really hammer you guys. Now, who stepped up then, who stepped up to defend you, your leadership? Yeah. The unions stepped in and did everything and I mean, you can tell how this is going because these mandate happens struck out all across the country. As unconstitutional, as they should be. And they're losing these battles, but you've got, you know, like you say, you got Biden who is saying, will ignore these rulings, ignore the judges, do what we say instead. Which is which if we're at a place like this in America, we're in trouble. We recently probably have several months ago now. We had an interviewed Rudy Giuliani. And of course, he's got quite a history in New York City and I mean, is it can leadership like the Rudy Giuliani approach of come on common sense policing, let police do what they do, a good presence out there that seem to work. I mean, crime went down, significantly. Is it really just about the leadership like the top down deal or can you as a cop on the streets kind of make changes? Can you collectively make differences when you have someone like de Blasio or now in Eric Adams? Well, I mean, when the Giuliani was mayor, New York City did better than it's ever done before. You know, I'm not a fan of Giuliani like, I don't go around singing his praises, but I'll give him his credit, his accolades. New York City did better than his ever done before. Business was booming. People were coming in, you know, stores were being built up Times Square was the safest that's ever been. Everyone prospered. Everyone prospered. And that's one thing I will always give Giuliani credit for. And then Bloomberg came in and Bloomberg basically kept the status where it was. He continued everything. He basically went from de Blasio's blueprint. And then de Blasio came in and de Blasio, you know, it's almost like you have a house that you built up, you renovated house is great. No one comes moves in. They keep the house as is, they leave it alone. And then you have someone that moves in that goes it, tear this all down. And builds it in a way where the foundation isn't great. He doesn't have enough nails, so he tries to compensate, you know. I tell everybody de Blasio all he had to do was not be crazy. And he came in and he was crazy. You're right. You're right. They turned it into a frat house. I mean, just a bunch of wax that want to just party destroy the place. And he's destroyed the place. I mean, I think he really has. I mean, a lot of these liberal cities have, right? You look at Chicago. It's an absolute dumpster fire there. You look at LA, you look at San Francis. The model is there. If you want to destroy your city, do this, right? If you want your city to come back and you want to flourish again like you said, again, you're right. It doesn't have to be a Giuliani that does it, but just what you want safety in your industry, right? You want businesses to flourish and into prosper. You want all those things. You don't want the opposite. Who wants to live in a place where you're afraid to walk outside? Or there's no businesses open or the local McDonald's can't even serve you. I mean, who wants that, right? And see, you said it, you said, you know, they want to favor or reward the people, like the criminals, instead of rewarding the business owner who took on all the risk, getting all the loans, they're the ones getting up at four in the morning. They're the ones opening their doors and doing something good for their community. They're not protecting those people. It's like they're saying, well, you took all the risk. You put all the money into this. You're the moron. Yeah, and you got to make a living with your business being open and get sales. But you know what? That's your deal. Our deal is we're going to be the we're going to give we're going to give the American Dream to these people. We're going to rehabilitate on it's just crazy. It's crazy. Well, it's interesting you say that because here in New York City, they decide to stop resting or stop prosecuting fair invaders for the subway. So you could basically just hop the tournament style running into the train and ride the subways for free. Meanwhile, you had people paying for the subways. So as soon as they announced that they were no longer prosecuted, people were like, well, why am I paying for this? Yeah, yeah, trying to figure out, like, okay, when I use the subways there, it's like, all right, where do I get the tickets? And how do I do this, which machines and I'm asking people and all that? And then you're trying to figure out what signs, you know, what's taking me, which direction? I'd still be stuck paying this. I can't help. But it is. It's really amazing that they think that's a good answer. But it actually incredible. Now, if any of us were wanting to go to New York City right now, you being there, you being a cop there, would you say it's a safe place to go? Well, it's funny 'cause my sister in law wanted to.
TFG Truth
"arkham" Discussed on TFG Truth
"Where each and every week we report facts exposed to hypocrisy and espouse common sense we're happy to be here for a special edition with an exceptionally special guest. New York City cop and host of podcast reasonable suspicion and leaning right, zik Arkham. Thanks for joining us today, zinc. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is a great thing that we're doing here today because crime is it seems unprecedentedly high in this country, only one year into the Biden and Harris administration. And I mean, I know they don't run every city, but man, there are many, many cities experiencing things that they've never experienced before. People being shoved off a subway trains, a seemingly every week, people getting randomly attacked, people not basically these guys and women not getting caught. If they do get caught, they seem to be taken into custody and immediately released. What the hell is going on with crime in our country seek? I mean, it's coming from weekdays that want to have a soft approach on crime. They think that criminals can be rehabilitated before they can be sentenced. And it's the opposite. You know, you've got to make penalties tough for crimes. You know, I remember growing up. Every DA, every mayor, every politician was like, hey, I'm tough on crime. And it appealed to the common good. It appealed to citizens who were law abiding. And you've got DAs, you've got politicians, all the way down from governor to mayors to district attorneys who now almost all in a criminal side. You know, they want to defund the police. They want to treat the cops as if we're the bad guys. And the criminals are just these misunderstood, good souls who just need a good talking to and is to complete the opposite and people need to start voting better if a DA tells you that they're going to be soft on crime and they're going to stop prosecuting crime is going to go up because criminals aren't going to be afraid of penalties anymore. And that's what's gotten down to, you know, Biden himself has well, not so much Biden to his credit, not so much Biden. But Harris certainly has sided with criminals, you know, she had the whole fundraiser for people that were writing last year. And now you've got governors who are on the same page mayors who are on the same page. New York City just got Bill de Blasio. So, you know, and he was the most out there sort of soft on crime kind of guy. So people have to start voting better. If you want crime to go down, vote better. Talk to us about a little bit about this battle stuff because I think people in the public is here. No, no bail, people are getting off. What types of crimes are people getting away with that Nobel or that really low bow for? And they say it's nonviolent crimes, but a lot of times you see some of these crimes are violent, right? Well, I mean, that depends on these politicians, definition of violence. Here in New York City, we've got Alvin Bragg, who basically said that if you, if you hold someone up with a firearm, but you don't discharge the fire on, it's a misdemeanor. You know, if you discharge a firearm and it doesn't, the bullet doesn't hit anyone. It's a misdemeanor. You know what I mean? That sounds violent to me. You know what I mean? So yeah, let's put ourselves in a situation like that. I'm sure you've been in these where someone's shooting or pointing a gun at you, pointing a gun. Pulls a gun and says, I want everything you've got behind that register. I want you to show me where the safe is. I'll blow your head off if you don't. Someone that might be trying to defend themselves might pull out their own gun from behind the register. They might grab the guy or do something to prevent their own death. What happens then? Then a gun gets discharged. And a death occurs. It's like, don't they realize that one if one action might lead to another to another to another? And then it could be a complete bloodbath. Absolutely. Like you said, it's irresponsible on a part of the DA's who are being very soft on crime. As a district attorney as a prosecutor, your job is literally to fight for the law. And you've got these DAs now who think they can sort of pick and choose which laws they want to fight for and defend. And that's why crime is going up. Look at San Francisco. Chessa bowden, crime is spiraling out of control there. And he's got no answer for it. He's gotten to answer for it because his narrative, his ideals are getting in the way of doing his job. You know, I've already said, if you are an activist before you are whatever your job is, whether it's governor DA or anything else like that, you can't perform your job because you're activism is going to get in the way of performing your job. Right. What is the actual reason that these DAs think that that's the way to do this? What is their goal? Why would they want to let people that are committing crimes back on the streets? Don't they fear for their own lives? Don't they fear for their own families and friends lives? I mean, what is the fundamental reason that they would do this? I wish I could tell you. It seems absurd to me. It seems like, you know, going to New York City and just putting a blindfold on and walking out into the middle of the road. Not watching for traffic. Nobody I thought would think that that's insane. But now some people think insanity is like the way to go. Like it's normal. I don't get it. And I have a two part question to that Zeke. So first part is at what point do we learn lessons from all of this stuff, right? I mean, we let somebody go and then they end up coming out and raping somebody. We let somebody go, they end up coming out and killing somebody. If you look at the situation and maybe I have my facts wrong on this, those poor officers that were killed last week will won the past way yesterday. That guy was out on a bail, right? Correct. It killed those two officers. I mean, how many more times do we have to see the sad sad story? I mean, I agree with you a 100%. You know, I think the problem is that these people, they pay no consequence for being wrong. You know, they can have these cash bail laws. They can have these bail reform laws. They can be soft on crime. And it's not their doorstep. They walk around with armed security. They walk around with a detail. You know, Cory bush, congresswoman, I'm St. Louis, is spending, I think, I think she spent $70,000 on security for herself. Meanwhile, she's one of the most open advocates for defunding the police. Most of these politicians, if not all of them who want to defund the police or who are solved on crime, who want these barrel form laws, had their own security details. So this will never be at their doorstep. This will never affect them. So they pay no consequence for being wrong. Like I said, the problem is the people that are employing them in. People have to be sick and tired of the crime in the community. People have to be tired of open drug use, urination, defecation on their doorsteps. You know, people their neighbors being robbed. Then themselves being robbed. People have to vote better. The problem is, is that certain elements paint a best scenario picture? Oh, you know, we're going to release this guy and he'll be rehabilitated. So crime goes down. We're going to have violence and represent the neighborhood. So we don't need as many police officers, you know, we're going to have cash bail because it affects low income people. Don't you want to help low income people? And they pull the wool over people's eyes and that's.
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"No i just want to experience the way you know. This brilliant detective is figuring out. I don't need game. I don't need to be the one making the choice. It's so good though like that whole the whole introduction of late everything single black math where cobb hot shows up and i go well. How did he do it. He was just here and someone else did it. Somebody broke through the window. Like that's all somebody who was in a chair in what's going on like we talked about this during mask of the phantasm episode to that. We just liked detective batman. And you know we got it in that movie. And i think this is probably like the first time in the game where felt like detective. Batman says yeah in arkham city. You figure out where the trajectory of jokers bullet came from and always in the church. This felt different though they would always try to incorporate that aspect of batman. Persona into games but in arkham asylum. It was oh Gordon led the literal breadcrumb trail look tobacco to follow and then in city you have the League of assassins member you cut them in you. The blood trail and this is okay. We'll i mean it's just fast rewinding but it's a simple gameplay elements just had to kind of do this without being overly uncomplicated. Like say that anna robin were the playstation one where you have to actually find clues places certain times and stuff like that. That doesn't sound fun. Awful and also shocked about that sounds amazing and we can find out one day and also the technicians. I thought were cool that you get random. Little crime he get to solve to throughout the game aside quest. You don't have to do with our there if you want to do. I thought that was cool to one. Where the the dead shot. One is is also define him as a little detective thing. He shot a helicopter. Then you follow the bullet and you find headshot because he tells you weren't find him and there are a couple one or some guy like killed you know blue killed somebody with them all with a little on fire or something or there was a fire unit. go track that dally. It was cooled. They were there. Like i liked the fact that i got to be detected batman for a bit. Yeah and carry that into night as well so as much as people kind of dismissed this as kind of the black sheep because it's not rock steady..
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"We'll find out where we're covering that in. Don't remember i know as israel's in it so i may just be getting confused next year with but the anarchy stuff like i thought it was amusing this time like after playing these like i'm going to blow up the bank and i'm gonna do this and we're people we're just doing the the mind to five work in paying off their mortgages like that and i was just gonna laugh nat from like okay. I i get where you're going for mr anarchy. Even though you're doing it wrong. I get it like it was fine. I mean yes. It's a it's a stupid side that the fights nothing special. You said it earlier. One of you guys did us a fight where you find a guy in a crowd. But i didn't have a problem with that because it was just more me being batman in me leveling up in megan achievements. I didn't i was enjoying myself. I had no problem with with any of the side missions. really yeah. they're not terribly long. Which like it drag on. Like i think the the head shot one might be just a detective secrets. Then the dead shot fight. And that's it. It's really fast but it was. It was cool. I liked the fact that a couple of the assassins are not even people. You have to take out side at all goalie too. I think she's a an shot. Dead shot the only two that are optional mad hatter oh he's not one of the assassins he's basically well he's not on the list of eight assassins all right fair enough fair. We can talk about matter. So i when i was we were arkham city. I kept remembering that. There was a girl that got kidnapped. He was calling alice and it was this game that i was thinking of. Yeah and i. I liked that. I liked the mad hatter. Seen this i like when the guys come on we want to play a game and they're all like fizzing alka. The mass aren't really that work in that well and all that was really good. I felt that had always one of the ones that i like. I i enjoy manhattan hatter like is he terribly threatening. No but it's fun. Mad hatters really diversion. Anarchy ones are on the only thing that really really made me upset about. This game was the way they treated. Alberto falconi is he. Oh that's a son right yeah okay. Penguins light got tied up and he's crying the whole time. I think i'd be you. Don't treat alberto falcone. Holiday from the long. Halloween are all k- no wonder you're okay now. I understand why you're and it's the mad hatter stuff it's to me all of these games than even the most recent spiderman everyone always tries to capture that scarecrow moment from arkham asylum lighting. A bottle that you can't duplicate knows. I think that's what the mad hatter now not matter fits kinda kinda have that feeling. It does have a little bit of like platform level where you just kind of jumping across stuff it. It's not the same scarecrow like he doesn't have the same like to two point five d type environment but it is the same idea what they were going for. Yeah i mean. I personally thought was cool against an optional side. Quests you put something on your map says go here if you wanna do this if not avoid. It doesn't matter. But of course. I into immediately after i got it 'cause i was excited to go and i was excited to know that this was my memory was and i liked that when he tells her..
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"This kind of condensed. Then i mean it's arkham city like if you want to the ridler stuff you can or the enigmas rather you can. And that's you know is okay and with arkham city you had that big section of middle review say at the place where the penguin is the museum and you have to get to the industrial complex. You have to fly. All the way around enemy in the air was like two ridler off for fight. Some bad guys Always people around here and they're constantly throwing up the street crimes as well so if you wanna go do those it get some extra experience life. That's that option. Is there even though. That's one of the things. I don't like about this game. Is how like the the the levels of challenge and broken up in like stealth predator and something else. I believe. i can't remember. there's like three tiers. Enders fifteen challenges but like they don't open until you get to them so if you restrict crime in every district and then you get to the point of the challenge where it's do a street crime in every district all the ones you did before. That doesn't count okay. Yeah that's what i know you're talking about. Yeah you have to do in order. So it's not like arkham city where you had all the challenges where was like do this glide for so many meters without using the boosts or whatever but you can just do them at your own pace but this is like if you're playing it the further first time you might do it but every time after that like i completely or the st street crimes is. It's just the distraction. I only did what i was trying to. Level up for district fight. After that. I stopped doing them. I just really. I was really scared of this fight. I was just. Because i remember getting my ass pete. I remember having such a hard time with it. So that was the only time that i really like. I was trying to prepare after that. I didn't i stopped. I voted the street crime. But i did like you. Get to fight the cops that didn't amuse me in because it fits the story the nursing. I am about the open world map. That fun fact for me is back when i when this game came out my son was i wanna say six or so when i was playing this and what i did is because he liked to play game. You've just run around moral map. This game was perfect for him. Just to fly as batman fight once in a while. i'm just fly. 'cause it was open. There wasn't a whole lot going on perfect..
Capes & Lunatics: Sidekicks
"arkham" Discussed on Capes & Lunatics: Sidekicks
"Your favorite trump. And i've no idea why everything. Fun Back at arkham batman at night wing bypass the security cameras and sneaking the jeremiah arkham office batman explains. It's it's like actual lucky casinos. I don't know if it goes back to the ninety point lucky. Yeah selects to gamble. Why would you name them that money in that slot machine you all people Okay now we get the explanation. Batman explains the night wing that detective kitchens fine and the entire plot was staged to get into arkham without raising jeremiah suspicions. I think anyway gordon. Who's gonna go batman in jail. But i mean. I could have committed batman for anything. And what about it and i. Yeah he just never been trying. That beats up criminals no due diligence. I mean maybe i mean. The elliott believable. Unbelievable thing would have been like oh. They captured the batman. Bigger confident that says has found a way to escape the asylum. They begin searching jeremiah's fouls to find some sort of clue batman learns of a connection between zaza and fellow patient. evert mallet they. They accidentally set off an alarm and sent his orderlies to his office. You know there's something wrong with arkham sleep at the asylum. That'd be on. Call that the on. Call twenty. Four seven afterlife bro. Really in gotham in. Gotham iram runs out of luck at the plug lucky casino. Wow that's false advertising The managers warned extent his credit line. He leaves the casino and runs into za`z. Commissioner gordon discovers hiram body hours later so that happened At arkham batman and light wink fight off a horde of orderlies night wing escapes back through the vents. But back at man gives himself up. Arkham has batman taken to the punishment room. What is little hellfire is second bedroom one here. He is forced to contribute third one. The second one is simpson chains in the third. Okay gotcha Arguments about me. Anybody ask guys it's a it's a cat woman. A cast playroom for tax purposes. Here he is forced to confront a full of his most dangerous adversaries including a new photo known as a de la. Oh yeah they get a marble a yellow box. Go checkout the issues by know this so yes so this arc not at least the first appearance za`z but also the make daloa i your later people well with with Zazie intimate delay feather in your cap for nightfall true while old villains watch from behind. Glass wall Freezing batman fights fights against the mig bella. He eventually defeats him. But jeremiah arkham monitoring the entire affair from his office pushes a button that raises the class wall the other patients descend upon batmans through. So yes. uh-huh the okay. So the list of the Of all all all the rogues amid the love first appearance black mask cavalier. Cornelius turk crazy. Quilt joker mad hatter. Mr wait will. Mr zuma's wasn't there. But he's in this issue. Poison ivy ridler scarecrow spook. Tweedle dum and tweedle over mr quote. Really what. Mr quilts crazy quilt. Yeah i mean. That's basically batmans rose galleries so deep all we can do joker in phase in crazy. Quilts been jokes as they want. I mean basically robbins punching bag. Exactly tweedle dum and twenty. He actually doesn't deserve to be arcos actually deserves to be in a real job because he's just the terrorists. Maybe just like the power set or whatever i don't know but tweedle dum and tweedle dee. I mean this is one of the few appearances i guess. Post crisis care. I know and then rounding out to face in the ventriloquists. There you go so you think about like i said i mean they pull out all the stops for this. You know the stop this book. The creative team go crazy as you want. They're like Old roads night wing way. Did they really like him. Because i feel gets the most lake under gets phone under the bus office earlier. I know it's basically like oh. Yeah tim stolen the city night. We thought the kids were preferred wing. Because again at this point. Yeah he's stolen. The titans folks gas just bringing night wing. I mean would it be have been believable. You know tim. i mean. Tim was still pretty new. Job breaking in the arkham and shown to be an exceptional boy. Wonder if you will you know so this would a colic solidified that. But maybe they would've the boys would have felt. He was too gary stew at that point. Maybe had alfred. Saying i don't see alfred is having a party Lock them up in the asylum. Hough weekend the party seriously. See the dogs like shut up dog. Freaky do third bedroom outside the rain. All all right sushi we get to the last one. Oh my dad. Yes finally not on a date. I just knew that the reveal its last night. This is really good. Yeah so yes. Batman shadow the bat number. Four the last arkham part for from september nineteen ninety-two over all. The inmates at arkham asylum attack batman en masse battered in torn he manages to persevere and defeat them all passionate against the go off. I mean i figured none of them have their weapons and you know batmans highly trained to the point of you know we know back on thing we know the i mean. This is the start of back. God oh yeah. Germany literal Actual leg modern day gods so they had to give him something. He's gonna have a complex about again. This is i mean. We're six years after dark knight returns as basically like smack superman around on a daily basis. You know it's like you scared a crazy quilt.
Capes & Lunatics: Sidekicks
"arkham" Discussed on Capes & Lunatics: Sidekicks
"One bill for the picking public with a doctor that after told me the smile basically in this story somehow hardly like doctors. I think i why i mean. They did announcer doing to part me long allah. We got a lot of stuff in the pipeline for the newly app up more. And how it's all downhill from there. Because i really did like that first superman movie that they did really tyler day. But i'm just like. I don't let the animation in the story was kind of platte so i never watched it. Did you watch that. Batman kung fu finger. Now hell now after batman ninja. Whatever i will never watch something batman. No that was awful scarred for life for that we couldn't even discuss it on the podcast. Was that bad guy. I know like i watch is if you want to discuss it. It's just a hard no. Don't it to yourself pro yes. It is the mark of all the animated movie even batman in harley quinn movie where she You know has some fun time with robin nightly so seriously. That's where like any other time. You know i asked her. If it's it's like now this was just know in all capitals clear. Underlying or picture with gun is just like no but thank goodness. We have something better to discuss. The s batman the last arkham from batman shadow of the bat the poops and giggles. I wish this book. I mean yeah some some way better than azriel fan. Well it's it's more batman that'd be like we've talked spiderman and stuff it's like when you get to like the third monthly book for character or third or fourth. Sometimes the quality can go down. But no i like shadow of the bat. Yeah there were to focus on spending out. Everybody from the batman family to to to the detriment at the time was the nineties. Pull a lot of apple. They did pull a lot of stories from the animated series from this low keys. So that's one thing that nice that came out of. Yes because all this batman shadow the bat number one from june nineteen ninety. Two this was this. Was the shave. Really cool guy. I mean. this was the heyday. I mean this. This was the year of batman returns. Batman the animated series was premiered. So oh but our creative team who we've never discussed before alan grant writer Insular g they've those guys. Hey look at this. I mean in the nineties for the bat books. I mean basically became the time mcfarlane. I mean they basically gave these guys their own. You know senior I never have complaints about this team. So they were into it. They went to giving us new staff. The awesome exner with late disguised stuff. Which i can appreciate a Number did this a lot. But the norma inked his own pencils yet he did that a lot. Yeah colorist adrian. Roy lederer todd. Klein editor scott peterson and denny. O'neil guinea be on the lookout for something fishy. He always let something slip through the cracks. No shave just the last or comport one of four. Let's get into it. Oh my lord the feature quote for batman. I am not insane. Are you sure you dress up. Like a bat buddy to the community and fixing the systemic problems are you shore. Batman says. i'm not saying you're up there this down. I don't know what you should sit here. And there this down But yeah issue one is jeremiah. Arkham administers the final resolution. Renovations for arkham asylum. Construction workers under hit hiram con contractors dispense with various debris and bric a brac from the old rooms after ordering the workers to burn the old thousand needless refuse jeremiah reflects upon the events that i drove him. Toward his chosen vocation he then makes the rounds inspecting various patients such as cornelius turk the scarecrow and ever mallet. Which is we'll find out. Too on the nose arkham then lead several orderlies to inspect the asylum's more dangerous patients. The first is mr zaza. I so fancy with him mr zaza battle. You call me mista somerset. Before he become a scar on his body. Why no oh kids. This is his first appearance on delays. With the start of a new book. It's the sort of a new villain five only five eight one. Fifty baby members bro. Skip gym a deranged. Serial killers surprises jeremiah. Asking if he has inherited the same media that once claimed his uncle. Amadeus amadeus soak accounts. That's a great. We'll be by the way. Never see please. Lush beat me and to that joke as ready locked and loaded. I was gonna say yeah me. And then we're going back and forth with songs on the one green lantern episode a few back. We'll just screen land lease to own nobody jordan suck on it Even more bizarre than zaza however is arms more recent patient batman they duck bidding episode about this in the batman hand. Oh yeah technically. They kind of the episode of the issue. Well oh yeah i mean. There's the one member yet he gets. You know he side. I guess it was infected with scarecrows. Fear gas and got a blocked up. go stop scarecrow. Just a break away but you belong to hear from the first minute we leave. Act you chained to a wall while still garbed in his costume. The batman shouts at arkham declaring. I am not saying arkham is confident. Though that through his therapeutic techniques he will convince batman to willingly show him his true identity and abandon his life has dark night of gotham. So then for that boy. Oh no eight and lithium in the world for that.
Jay Anxious Podcast
"arkham" Discussed on Jay Anxious Podcast
"Podcast. I have a very special guest here with us. today. I am talking with. Zeke arkham at zeke arkham on twitter. The notorious c w a cobbled attitude zeke. Welcome show thanks for being on. Thanks for having me thinks. We have an honor and pleasure. Thank problem so we were doing this. Podcasts a little bit and then we got interrupted. So we're just starting all over again. I'm gonna ask you the same question. I asked you the first time and you can reiterate or expand if you want. What's on your mind right now. You know like i said before is no my mind Between lebron james and his expert opinion on the police tactic saying abilities between joy. Behar view offering her expert tease on on police tactics. And use of force in hand to hand and gun combat. And everything else between your some kids in his mom's basement that's only watched a couple of episodes on tv. Maybe he's watched all couple of all however many seasons of law and order You know everyone's got something to say. Everyone's got their opinion on what should and shouldn't happen during the makiya macaire bryant. I don't have time for name but You know between that between work life between family life. I've got a full plate. Good yeah. I mean you know i'm very i don't i i'm not a cop so i don't really comment on what what what i saw in ohio is. I don't know what that cop had had a choice. I don't think he had a choice. Inches my opinion old grand total of nine seconds from the time he got out of the car to the time he You know made his decision to assess what was going on. He saw her running at this person with a knife and he took action. You know anyone saying oh you know he could have fired a warning shot which is stupid because warning shots or illegal in all fifty states now. Tv where you can just do it. And everybody's okay i. I don't think people understand what goes on. Really police work as far as usa force between making the decision to fire your weapon and now they've all got opinions. Oh he could have fired a warning shot. Oh he could have shot the night of her hand me tell you something if any cop successfully shoots the weapon of someone else's hand that means that they missed they made a million dollars shot and there's a reason why they call it a million dollars shot because you're not going to make that shot ten ten times a hundred one hundred times. Even hundred times are hardest do that. Especially when someone's moving. So i mean like i said just. Now everybody's got their opinion on what should and shouldn't happen the last the loudest of all his lebron james who pretty much docks the cop on twitter. So i've got everyone commenting and i'm trying to respond much camping and it's almost overwhelming sometimes. Well i have another podcast. That i do it. My brother it's sports related. Podcast called the podcast. And i have a segment in that podcast. Were i bring up something that from the week. That's got me so so so and so put called stitched up right for the week. Something's bothering.
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"You for mcintyre up. oh best movie ever. it's pretty great free. Clay faces the only thing that can hurt him as freezing him because what else can hurt them. Like the makes sense fire. fire him. Clay bring klay just dry them out just turned into a vase or something here. We go put them in. Okay is so cool you get to use a sore. Because you know. Batman couldn't use a sort because we slice them. They're going to die but he's just clay so he doesn't kill him talk about like really trying to make something work like batman doesn't kill but this guy's klay so it's alright the justice league with superman. I feel like i were a car. I in reference that all the time. But it's assigned freaking awesome good. It's the best. Superman seen ever on. Tv and i agree with that. You can take you can take it inch guy. It's got to go watch that again after this up so you be klay face. I think jokers dies because he doesn't have a key writer. These damn sulfur. I can't batman take some of the cure and choker comes up and stabs batman and makes them drop it. Oh yeah and like you know. Yeah exactly the funny thing is. I would gave you some again. That is pretty fun in any days. You think joker would have known that it is your so yeah schefter stead jokers done. He won't be back in any shape. Way shape or form sure absolutely. Now we've seen the last joker he's dead forever. Arkham nights starts with you and center eight. You push the by to answer. It has body so shirley which is mess up serious other episode would like after he died like a whole thing of the carried his body out of the theater. All the like. We're gonna get batman we're gonna let me just stop 'cause they joke carrying joker some just gonna say. I can vouch for the truth of this statement that seen as a million times. Funnier if you play selene diaz my heart will go on over that same. What's what's the whitney houston. One from the bodyguard. Would its plan what he's carrying her. Yeah the dolly parton cover. I would always up you. That's the one you just opened. The gates and leaves arkham city body out puts joke. Gordon's cars like go got you present. Jim like what happened in their by banda's locks off even even disappear fly wage. Like he died. I've been flying all night. I'm tired you deal with this i. It's still cool like harley. Quinn starts crying..
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"Like this cost millions of dollars just go to people. Come on norman avenue to build all this to get to get to the point. Where people you list so you'd have to orchestrate multiple emergencies happen to make this happen like it's a lot of work for often. You got you give you strange money to give quincy sharp money to get elected as mayor to get all this. Oh yeah it's it's quite the money laundering like really. That's the only way that this would be worth all of this effort for that. We're going to give you all this money just so we can kill all these bad people while again just kills the bad people north africa. Yeah shut up doctor strange. I'm the real doctor strange. Kills them talking about it. The guys like juice protocol levin password way up the tower that you're in this is a cool scene where they're falling in batman never killed anybody. He takes the sword shelves. It roz gruel. Under fallen the no Race goes to stab himself. Threw himself stabbed batman. Let's go and let's involve okay. That's what i thought. He thought him. It's like no by but he didn't have to save him. he also talked about that. The reason why he was working rows because he is hugo. Had figured out wayne's identity and told ross and that's why you'll be able to join the group until he wasn't allowed anymore. It's less dumb than how it happens. In the batman hush movie so but i'm not going to spoil that here i need and then Racial delegates hans gruber there on the fencepost. Y'all a good a fitting end and then you have to go was also funny. 'cause missing at this time. Talia was captured by joe garage. Don't even give it shouldn't yeah. Who cares yeah. Because batman when he will cat cattleman savings like i'm going to get tullia. Everyone's like no. You're not you're going to go stop this madness. I like how much he does shows that. He loves her in this Batman willing to put her before his his ultimate mission which is not like that man now always poison of course not like batman. Fair isn't at this point. Isn't he heard he take the finally. No that's the very last thing that happens. Got for a long time. Then well he gets the blood of the demon. That's supposed to give them a few more hours. Oh yeah that help. Save them or sutton returns that challenge. The whole joker seen so jokers at the theater and saying hey come the theater you know we got a special guest for you. Because you're gonna kill tally if he doesn't get there. And you have the take all these snipers before you go land in the door and open it in the whole while jokers like. Why aren't you here. You should be or by like dude. You're the one that put on a half dozen or a dozen snipers out here. It's going to take a minute. It's a fun part okay. That's the word. I enjoy taking off the same. That was part indian. That happened in this game. Just filler but didn't feel like filler to me like if i just enjoyed it but i i know what you saw and then you get. You finally get theater and you see joker and everything's okay and i forget what happened..
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"Three games three games have never gone out of my way to get ridler trophy. Because i i don't have the patients i've done it and asylum. I had everything. Except three joker teeth asylum zillow and i haven't done it in the easiest one all the hard ones i guess origins if you count that because i never beat it. I don't know if it has rather trophy so he axes like going by ending then is a name phillies in the game. Yeah i teaching. We have bombs on them. You have to like okay. that's weird. It's odd it's cooled all that it's in. The game is the one cycles. i won't do his and night other than the dumb races is a lot better or your plan with women. I get an asylum because an asylum. It's all like actually just find riddles on the ground and stuff out of these puzzles. It's batman see teacups. Okay here this is then. He's still do that tickets. Were not as much. It's more stupid like us. Your and get this hustle. It helps the map so much more condensed on that one to our world. And then you back to jokers hideout 'cause you're trying to cause joker has to hear this is when this when you know you're thing is after the big the big reveal but going there was a part. That really made me laugh when you go back here. You're trying to find joker. You find harley. Clinton tied up and gagged. That made me laugh. You can engage your. She'll say somebody and you can rieger and his walkaway ninja turtles to let me get the ropes. I it was it was it was funny. I was like this is. This is interesting like this for reasons but okay who who tied her up. I'm assuming joker or the other joker. Yeah this is this is also when you come back here doesn't when you fight. Joker a big boss fight where he's running around all normal looking up and he took care and he's okay and a bunch of goons but if you put on detective vision. He doesn't have a skeleton for some reason. What yes no bones. I didn't ever catch this. Because i don't think i must have not done it during this fight. It wasn't watching a easter egg meal. They said yeah he. Ah yes yes if you if you look at him during his part yours is great but it just completely destroys skeletal system. So you know salo's this is a this is a fun right to It's okay. I enjoyed it. It's got everything you want. It's got goons. It's got trains. Scott mr hammer oregon there. No beim saw there are titan infected gar or a prisoner serapis elvis. But not like. It was in arkham asylum. Oh yeah also staying guard. The titan the titan villains are lot harder when you don't when you don't know you can lock onto their face a lot harder when you play the game like that What has ever done have don but who.
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"Hi everybody episode one hundred eighteen of game my mom i my government and who's who's trapped in a city with me tonight so michael kate hughes and you of all people should know there's plenty wrong with me and this is kenneth to sanity snow line. I want to faith line wasn't it. Yes aided drew guns batch. That was funny. I don't know why that was really funny. You said it larry. I should introduce what we're talking about. Because i'm pretty sure this is my pig. Yep okay i couldn't remember this is this wasn't originally on the on the season but rechange it because i wanted to play it. So we are talking about batman arkham city developed by rockstar studios. Came out in twenty eleven and man. What a game. What came so first thing. I should say if you do want the lead up to arkham city. Go check out. The comic episode came out a day or two days before. You're hearing this. Oh go check that out. We're not gonna go that route convention. Could we already did that. But it's there s companion episode. My i try at doing companions. We'll see sticks dollar now you feel great. Yeah but not where. I releasing the day before. That's why new plants. If i can really stuff like as an extra extra right alongside the works we have done companions stuff that went along later but not at the sex meantime. It's a crazy idea that We'll see so. We did knuckles. Chaotic and percy jackson an episode. Does those two things people like those but the other thing that has to be stayed about back. Markham city one. We did play the game of the year edition into a half the talk about before we get far a half the talk about the stupidity what was going on in twenty eleven with gaming where the the whole pat or ye pass thing or does not even. Ea pass with the thing..
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"Okay that's cool. That's not in here. Because i'm just looking at the digital trade version. I don't have. I don't have what you have but you got You got prototype ryan's for mr freeze and certain somebody who's hiding under the floorboards and you got some great drawings of two phase which just makes me happy because to face one of my favorite villains some very cool character designs of harley joker hugo strange and a certain demons daughter who may or may. And there's also a bane issue a robin issue in then stuff as scarface for some reason joker which looking at glancing as we're talking but there's a lot of interesting little extra stuff. They added mutual comics. Which i unfortunately did not read because i saw the art and i had turned away. Didn't want nothing to do with them. They're i mean they're not done in the same. Art style is the main comics. It looks it. Looks like a digital comic honestly never been read digital everything now for the most part. I don't i don't like digital only comics. I feel like that's a waste kind or something where maybe just insane pedigree regular book. Because you're not willing to print. Also mr fringes you to wrap it up all the arkham city comics and it's you know it's they're fun little side stories. These ones don't feel as much like hanan as the main five issue series. But they're they're you. Know fun. I i should have read them all cable. That about wraps up this part. I think we should go to shelf stacking box. And i will i. This is going to go in the stack. Because it wasn't something that i'm really going to recommend. People means a cool add on. If you enjoy arkham city you and you loved the batman arkham world is something definitely worth reading because it adds more insight to what's going on gives you a little bit more excitement and extra little small things for arkham game so i'm going to put me back..
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"And say you can talk to the man downstairs. Forgotten without reference was until recently. I wanted to say it but i forgot. Okay i like this. Yeah that That's definitely a happy little thing and you know what he's going down there to deal with in. You're not happy about it. i'm not happy about it. i what's happening shows. It shows this. This thug go much penguin. Henchman to go. Stop one of the tiger vehicles. That you weapons still in arkham city. Because they're still transporting things before. Our committee is officially closed off and finished. And you have the joke thugs also saw. Because that's who told you information to and i. I liked the scene where the guy ends up destroying the ends up. Throwing the grenade at the joker throws janine the gun. I mean both of all the guns and things like you destroyed. The gun was the only way to save your man. But you destroy the good that i like that. Penguins doesn't give a shit at all about is people. i mean. at least it doesn't kill him. He just cuts snugs to half pay and put on you know on point lead strike on jokers hideout essentially to kill. Its then is right here. Where things like. He ends up escaping nelson. You notice this whole time. It was batman. Oh yeah i was like okay. I didn't i it. It seems really simple. I should've put two and two together by did not for some reason. Yeah well i mean. It's the beard. The beard in the big mustache can't possibly think it's gonna be bad. Man like biker. And you don't get that. Batman jaw line and then there's also shows a. He had a huge an old tug boat where he hid his bat one of his bat boat in the old tug borough bat saw. And then he. That's how you get in and outside arkham city at first so he was able to do surveillance on what's going on with also again leads the way the game of the way it does and i thought that was really strange is watching him. Like train is watching everything that he's doing in watching and learning about batman because batman's doing surveillance he can't possibly be the only one more ha ha issue for that starts off with just an exploding boat and batman in the air like blown up and be like well that didn't work because it shows that strange figured out about his little hiding and into blowing up the boat so he couldn't come and go anymore and the even like right out ways start. Well no more. Lester kurtz which was the thugs name in the last one..
GamesMyMomFound
"arkham" Discussed on GamesMyMomFound
"Must be another person involved and he ends up going to the mayor's office because now the the mayor's mansion has become the office in city hall was destroyed in the first issue with explosion. I think this is very interesting because you kind of get the sees the detect division in the to an in case you forgot to this was based on the games you absolutely get the same color scheme in detective vision that you do in the game but in the comic book. Yes which. I like. But i do that. You know it has the fingerprints and temperature scans same stuff that you could do in the game with almost the same font exactly. Yeah and i have gotten because there's a there's in kinda they talk about. How sharp was you know. Kinda believe tells me. The spirit of amadeus arkham which is a reference. If you scan all of the arkham little statute things in the game. That's you get that plot point where he was the one that put them there and made all the morton's which you don't get if you don't do it which i only i've read. I've done it once. And i was like okay. That's cool. I forgot completely about it and it goes hunting batman to keeping track of him. This is their first. His first encounter with hugo strange. Doesn't know who he is yet. But i never even heard of until arkham city of never familiar with him. Oh man i part of me wants to wait for the game episode to talk about how much i absolutely love hugo strain. We can't wait to the game episode because that's the bigger. It'll be a bigger one than this. But if you don't know who hugo strange is you can see that it is the same character with the round glasses that was talking to quincy sharper during the interview. So if those if the glasses and the beard out beard outlined. Don't do it for you. At least you can connect those two okay and i like how like the whole office was all trapped. They have they have like a gas sleeping gas they tried to do they shooting with rubber bullet. They try to electrocute him late. The whole point of it all is to test his abilities and see what they can give his style. And none of it is lethal. All of it is very just meant to annoy so that they can see what what tricks. Batman has up their sleeves and bisley. This is important because they wanna a batman can do and i really like that when he's shutting the systems down it's the same interface from the game when you're trying to hack something. Yeah you're right. Look at that is cool. That made me so happy. It was such a little thing. But i loved it and then it wraps up our look. I one thing. I'll probably do here. They show airing cash from the first game. His only real thing of this congress shows some random guy who is probably kind of insane. Who is in arkansas in there..
Short Wave
Fueled By Climate Change, Hurricanes Are Causing Industrial Accidents. Who's Liable?
"So, you just got back from the Gulf coast where you were covering Hurricane Laura. How was your trip? The, hurricane damage was really bad. You know a lot of people down there have lost their homes, which is hard to see. Yeah and just to remind everybody Laura was the one that hit the Texas Louisiana border in August. This storm is clearly roaring. You're reaching that critical moment here. This now joins an elite group. It's in the top ten, a small elite group of the most dangerous hurricanes to ever make landfall into the US residents along the Gulf coast are bracing for potential devastation, Hurricane Lara and that area is so flat. It is so full of petrochemical facilities to their these refineries, a lot of new natural gas infrastructure, their chemical plants that manufacture all sorts of things like plastics and solvents actually even the raw materials for p. p. e., a lot of them are manufactured. Rubber gloves and surgical masks. So so what happened when the hurricane of hit all of that a lot of them shut down and when petrochemical facilities shutdown they usually release a lot of pollution right stuff that can't safely sit in pipes. So it has to be released or burn and preliminary estimates just in Texas showed that more than four million extra pounds of pollution were released. That was actually before the storm even made landfall. But the reason I wanted to talk to you is because one chemical plant caught fire because of the storm that is a look at I ten, which has now been shut down as these plumes of smoke emerged about an hour ago. The governor now is confirming this as a chemical fire has made an emergency crews responded to the inferno at via lab in Lake Charles which manufacturers pull supplies. Okay. So we've we've talked about this on the show before it didn't chemical plant in Texas catch fire after another hurricane Hurricane Harvey. Ago Yes and we talked about it on this very podcast because that fire in Texas started this totally new kind of legal battle, a climate change criminal lawsuit, and I have to say so far there is no indication that this most recent fire will lead to similar litigation but with this really active hurricane season that we're having in the super hot water in the Gulf of Mexico hoping spawn these strong. Storms head right for America's petrochemical centers I thought it might be a good moment to revisit that story and the questions that raises. So this episode, we're going to hear that story. It's a story that asks this question can companies and the people who work for them be held responsible, even sent to prison for failing to adequately prepare for climate change, you're listening to shortwave the daily science podcast from NPR. Okay Becky, take us back to the beginning of this story. So it's a story that happened in twenty seventeen at a chemical plant near Houston Texas, and it's when this major hurricane struck. We are coming on the air for breaking news. This is Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Harvey barreling into the Texas coastline as a category four storm with one hundred and thirty mile an hour winds. It's yeah, I remember. Hervey was kind of unique because it made landfall and then it just kind of stopped and sat on top of Texas, just dumping and Dumping Rain. Some places got as much as sixty inches of rain. There was a lot of flooding obviously, our primary layer of protection was our power supply. When the storm hit we lost our primary power. You're hearing a guy who is a division president at one of those petrochemical companies that was overwhelmed by the flooding. His name is Richard. Rendered the company he helped run it's called Arkham. We brought in emergency generators to provide backup power. So what he's describing his in the aftermath of the storm, those generators were compromised. There's this intense effort to keep the power on at the Arkansas plant outside Houston. The plant is near a major highway. It's in a relatively residential area. So why were they fighting so hard to keep the power on basically because the plant was full of chemicals that have to be refrigerated Otherwise they catch fire. We do have that breaking news that we've been bringing you throughout the five o'clock hour this brand new explosion and a fire burning. As we speak the Arkham plant in Crosby, you can see that plume of black smoke billowing into the air. In fact, you can see it for miles and miles away. So they make organic peroxides which are. Volatile Chemicals, they're used to manufacture plastics and other stuff and organic rock sides are pretty hazardous because they can catch fire if they get warm right and they don't even need a spark, right. So organic peroxides contain both fuel and oxygen and when they become unstable, they heat up on their own and catch fire. Yeah. I can really hear that PhD coming through. So the Arima plant, it had a lot of refrigerated warehouses and buildings to keep these chemicals cold, and they also have a bunch of refrigerated trailers outside those warehouses. Okay. So talk me through it. What happened that resulted in the accident so harvey was stalled over the Houston area, just dumping rain for days and the refrigerated warehouses, the buildings they were flooding as the warehouses flooded. The employees were using forklifts to move containers of these chemicals from one refrigerated warehouse to another to try to keep them dry and cool, and the water just kept getting higher and higher and the electrical generators for the buildings started. Flood that's not good and then the forklift flooded. Okay. So would you do when you're forklift floods? So according to the US chemical, Safety Board investigation employees at the plant started carrying individual jugs of these highly flammable liquids in the dark my chest high water while it was still raining to get it to the refrigerated trailers we talked about because only the trailer still had power. Yeah. I read this report and it was terrifying like I can't imagine being one of those people still there as they're in like deep water trying to move these chemicals at one point, one of the trailer started to turn over. On their side. It was really like super scary. Yeah and you might be able to guess what happens next the trailers flooded they weren't refrigerated anymore the chemicals got warmer and warmer until they caught fire. So did people get hurt when the fire started in the plant? Well, the plant had been evacuated. So the employees were okay that we know of but there were some first responders who say they were injured while they were patrolling the area that had been evacuated specifically that there is and respiratory tracts were urinated by air contamination and there were some people who live nearby who also say they were injured. By the smoke and the ash from the fires. So we knew the chemicals themselves can be toxic was the smoke from them toxic as well. That's a good question. So when the chemicals burned, they actually just turned into carbon dioxide and water, but I talked to multiple organic chemists and they explained that the problem is actually the containers that were being burned a chemist at Bryn Mawr. College Name Michelle Francis explained it this way everything from the labels on things to whatever plastic or metal that the containers are made out of all that stuff is GonNa absorb other chemicals that didn't burn entirely. So the ashes nasty. The ashes nasty so that ash is made up of container junk and chemicals that didn't totally burn. That's the stuff that potentially could have harmed the first responders and the people close by and it's not something you ideally want in the air or water right so much. So that in two thousand, eighteen, the district attorney's Office for Harris County Texas announced criminal charges against the plant manager who was actually one of the people carrying those chemicals through the water. And Armas North American CEO, and later they also filed charges against a third person and executive at the company which was really surprising to a lot of people because in general, the criminal courts aren't used to punish companies in their employees for polluting the air and water especially when it happens during big storms and I went down to Houston interviewed the district attorney about it. Her name is Kim Og-. The. Charges are environmental. They are reckless emission of an air contaminant and endangerment of persons. Reckless emissions of an air contaminant feels like a bunch of words that be polluting lawyers like. Big Words. So why did she say she was filing these charges you mentioned that there were a lot of petrochemical plants around Houston that flooded and leak stuff during Hurricane Harvey is there something about these fires that was worse? Yeah I asked her that and one argument she made is that the fires happened because people at Arkham ignored the risk of flooding like they should have known that their plant could flood like that and prepared better. For example, the plant is in a flood plain and even though Harvey dumped more rain than any US storm on record the argument the county is making. Is that there were signs that flood risk was increasing before harvey because of Climate Change we've had new normal in Houston. We've had three five hundred year floods in just a short period of time, and it's true that flooding is getting more frequent and severe in. Houston as it is in many parts of the country and something climate models have been predicting for a long time that extreme rain will get more likely as earth hotter including rain from hurricanes. So in this case, the county is basically arguing that the company had a responsibility to recognize that flood risk was increasing and do. More to keep their chemicals from catching fire. So obviously, the company doesn't agree or they wouldn't be in the middle of a trial right now what is the company say? So after the indictments for announced, I interviewed two of the layers representing Komo and its employees. One of them is pretty well known in Houston been working for a really long time. His name is Rusty Harden Arkham did everything they were supposed to do here hardened says the company followed all the regulations it's required to follow. He seemed pretty galled that employees were facing criminal charges trying to find scapegoats and calling individuals felons. Are you kidding me this is outrageous. It's morally legally ethically wrong and the point he made is that if the current regulations for chemical companies in flood prone areas aren't enough. Then the regulations should be changed by legislatures not by courts and especially he argues by criminal courts sometimes bad things happen that there's no crime. There's no responsibility is not anyone's fault we need to look forward to. The future and make sure that we are prepared for these kinds of things if this is going to be the new norm in many think it is. Okay. So becky, like what is at stake in this trial if the county wins and the company loses will that change how we think about climate change in the law it could actually yeah, I talked to this Guy David Omen he's. A law professor at the University of Michigan, and one thing he said that I think is really interesting is that environmental laws and regulations are generally based on this underlying assumption that the future will look like the past today. Already, we expect companies to be prepared to handle what I might call ordinary rainfall. What climate change is going to do among other things is change our definition of what is ordinary rainfall. Another way to understand it in a legal context is that you can be held accountable and punished. If you don't prepare for something, you should have seen coming. It's the idea of foreseeability so. Like if you know that climate change is happening, does that mean it's foreseeable and you should prepare for it yet that's the big question exactly and how foreseeable extreme weather is hinges in part on how businesses inform themselves about the climate science that's available to them, right? Yeah. Like I talked to an environmental lawyer at the Conservation Law Foundation Alina Mehalle that foreseeability isn't just a question of did you personally know that this could happen but it's really what kind of maps were available to you. What kind of experts did you hire to inform yourself about this decision? What kind of modeling
Gaming Ride Home
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is self-explanatory
"Suicide Squad kill the justice. League is about the suicide squad trying to kill the Justice League. The other big video game news from D., C. Fan Dome was learning a lot more about suicide squad kill the Justice League from rock steady games the developer of Arkham asylum city night. Suicide Squad kill the Justice League is officially its title and game is about the suicide squad trying to kill the Justice League the trailer for the game opened up on a decimated metropolis. There was a weird glowing giant purple skull ship in the distance and it cuts to Harley Quinn on a rooftop goofing off and making jokes in response to just the General Radio Chatter. Then the rest of the suicide squad was revealed along with Harley Quinn. This game will also feature Captain Boomerang with a pretty intense Australian. Dead Shot and King Shark they had some comedic banter making fun of dead shot for claiming he never misses well King Shark absent mindedly popped green lantern and Batman balloons, which is interesting to me because there have been side quests about popping balloons in the past arkham games. And then Amanda Waller came on the line telling them they had to get to work or she would blow them up. Was All pre rendered but the next part of the trailer gave a pretty good idea of what to expect in terms of Gameplay Harley Quinn zipped around using some kind of Hook Shot zip-line thing and used her bat mainly to attack these weird purple enemies. King Shark looked slow but carried a big machine gun dead shot had a jet pack did a lot of shooting and Captain Boomerang had some kind of quick teleporting ability while he was also throwing boomerangs and other weapons. And all of this happened while outkast's B O b bombs over Baghdad played on top of it. After finishing off the group, they quipped that what they did probably will knock a few years off the sentence and then Harley remembered that there was an Alpha target they needed to pursue. And that's when Superman showed up with his classic Yellow Belt and red. Underwear look. At first, it seemed like he saved a helicopter pilot from a crash, but then his eyes start glowing purple and he killed the pilot prompting these suicide squad to realize they are meant to kill the Justice League, the trailer ended with. Superman. Not really reacting to getting hit in the head with some kind of pipe that guess King Shark through and it revealed a twenty twenty to release window for playstation five. Series. Exit PC. After that trailer host will Arnett revealed a few more details about the game with the voice cast from suicide squad who were in character Harley. Quinn specifically referenced getting excited about killing Batman and Captain Boomerang mentioned the flash. After that game director Sefton Hill showed up. There was this whole silly conceit that will Arnett was being transported around to his hosting duties and Hill had joked that they had just shipped him a green screen which was pretty good joke but he answered a few more questions. The game does play S- in the chronology. So it is technically a sequel to Batman Arkham night it's going to be a lot different, but narrative is moving the plot forward. They decided to do a suicide squad game because they consider their games character-driven and the suicide squad highlights. One of the things DC has always been particularly good at villains they appreciated how flawed they were. It also gave them the opportunity to create an interesting impossible scenario, which is, of course, hunting down the Justice League. The gameplay will be a hybrid of hero empowerment action and Gunplay, which is definitely a unique for rock steady Batman does not use guns. The game will offer up to four player Co op, but will totally be playable single player. If you're playing alone, the AI will handle your other members and you will apparently be able to swap between them seamlessly. You can also go back and forth between single and multiplayer over the course of game it is also an open world. That world being metropolis. The twenty twenty to release window really surprised me. Batman Arkham night released in two thousand fifteen they lent it a lot of support post release but I think it's pretty safe to assume they have been working on it at some capacity since that game released since arkham night released. A suicide squad game was also teased as early as two thousand thirteen where there was something at the end of Batman Arkham origins. So to learn it is nearly two years away. Surprised me. I'm not really disappointed. Honestly, I'm happy to wait just surprised I would have assumed it would be
Gaming Ride Home
Gotham Knights doesn't have Batman in it and Suicide Squad
"Gotham Knights is the next game from the developer behind Batman Arkham. And Batman isn't in it? DC held its massive DC fan dome event this weekend where they shared all kinds of panels and trailers for DC related stuff. They talked about wonder woman nineteen eighty-four, which looks cool and the Snyder cut of Justice League which look you know I am ecstatic for you. If you're excited about that I don't think making that movie longer it's going to make it any better, but you know that has nothing. To do with video games. They also showed a trailer for the Robert Patents and Matt Reeves Batman Movie, which I thought looked pretty great. I'm excited for that. But the most exciting news for me was learning about what WB Montreal was working on and learning a lot more about rock steadies suicide squad game. So finally, officially, WB Montreal revealed it is working on a game called Gotham knights the trailer for the. Game Open with a newscast revealing that Bruce Wayne is dead and then a cut to a video. Batman had recorded in case of his death and what needed to be done in his absence, and then we got to see back girl night wing Red Hood and Robin basically stepping it up to be the new protectors of Gotham from there it looked a lot like a Batman Arkham game which I am. Saying as a complement, each of the four heroes appears to have a distinct set of abilities and are able to drive bat cycles around Gotham. Bad girl seems perhaps the closest to playing as Batman. As we know him in the Arkham Games, a brawler uses a zip line to move around night wing was playable on a few occasions in the Batman Arkham Games and he looks similar here uses batons as weapons. Red Hood. Who sometimes bad guy. But seems to be a good guy in this instance uses guns. He is former Robin Jason Todd who was resurrected, and now you know very angry general. And finally, we saw robin the Tim Drake version. Of Robin, who appears to use a lot of tech gadgets I was certain. We were looking at Damian Wayne Bruce Wayne's biological son during the trailer who is Robin in the current Comic Book Canon. But after the fact, it was made pretty clear that this is Tim Drake. The trailer ended with a tease we have been expecting for long time with the Court of owls taking center stage. We saw familiar locations from the Court of Appeals, comics people wearing court of appeals, masks, and hundreds of coffins that store the immortal superhumans at the Court of Appeals tends to use to do its dirty work. After the trailer premiered, they showed about seven minutes of Gameplay. The game play footage took place about a dozen hours into the game and focused on a part of the story revolving around Mr Freeze we saw back girl wearing a different costume than what was shown in the trailer running around the city, zipping up to rooftops and attacking enemies from above Robin joined her similarly wearing a different outfit than the one seen in the trailer, and they made their way into Mr Freezes. Fort I guess you could say where he had this crazy weather machine going multiple approaches to taking out enemies were shown bat girl was more of a brawler uninterested in a stealthy approach but robin was shown sneaking up on enemies Alford called the duo to give them advice and we also saw and bat girl team up for a single attack it culminated with a boss fight confrontation Mr freeze before too much progress could be made against him. The video came to a close the game going to be an up to two player coop game and will apparently have lots of leveling up options over the course of the game and enemies will level up with you. Implication is you tackle things just about any order as a result if you're level five when you fight freeze, he's level five. But if you love of fifteen, then he is little fifteen in that changes things. Afterward. Zachary Levi. She's Zam himself asked WB Montreal a few questions. They didn't offer a whole lot of additional information. They did say the mystery is bigger than the court of owls though and later it was also confirmed that the game is separate from the Arkham universe it's a standalone new Batman Universe the game is planned for next year I love the narrative conceit of Batman being dead I. Hope they lean into that and it's not just a big endgame twist that he's been alive the whole time I, liked the. Idea of that crew of four trying to figure out how to protect Gotham without Batman I. think that's really cool I. also love the Look of writing the bat cycle through the city and how at least at this point it it does look close to Arkham game play.
Latest In Tech News
Batman: The Court of Owls Explained
"Okeydokey so Batman, the Court of ours explained you see. Those of you knew view well-versed in all things DC. Batman has a well known in timeless gallery villains but one of his more recent adverts, adversaries poses one of the greatest threats to Gotham city. The merciless group is known only as the court of owls a secret society with comedy. Britain's revealed a pages of the new fifty, two relaunch in twenty eleven in fact there. So secret, you might not even know who they are when Batman down to down to cowl. Guidance of the creative team of Scott Snyder and Greg. Capello a team that will quickly be considered one of the best ever to take on Cape Crusader. The ruthless cabal proved to be a match for the dark knight with a news at. Wb Montreal's Batman Video. Game, will finally revealed at DC fan dome this weekend and May pit the player against the sinister secret society. Let's get to know this dangerous foe and formidable edition, two Batmans rogues gallery and. We got images to go along with it as you can see here, he's Duke, it out. Bingo. Yeah. APP. Pretty. Good. So Spoilers follow read or listen or watch at your own risk but I, I have a feeling that this'll set a good foundation or framework for maybe what to expect from the next game coming out. Later this year or at least announced this weekend. But what is the court of owls while the court als has long been legend in Gotham City beware the court of ours began a local nursery rhyme that watches all the time ruling Gotham from shadowed perched behind granite and lime. When Bruce Wayne was placed in a crosshairs of an assassination plot, he learned to court and it's assassins are very real. Some of Gotham wealthiest and most well-connected families make up the court vowels for centuries they used their power and influence to turn the tides of politics and control the city according to their designs often resorting to the use of highly trained assassins called talents to achieve their nefarious goals. The Wayne Family was one of the is a longstanding rivals Alan Wayne one cities, builders, and Bruce's great. Great Grandfather. was plagued by the quarterback until they tortured him to death in nineteen, twenty, two as Bruce himself had heated a legend suspected the court having a hand in his parent's death believing that their murder was bit too random to be mere coincidence in many ways. It was my first case as a detective. He told Dick Grayson Bruce found no trace of them or their involvement in Wayne's death. He's sporadically looked into society is he honed his skills as an adult court alluded his site until he became a target himself Yeah Kinda interesting The story then continues on I'm not GonNa read all about it but I do go over the court of orgin. Notable members of the Court of Appeals and then powers and abilities or read about that a little bit not only to court of Alice Asan's talents strong enough to take on Batman and some of his enemies in the night of the owls tying issues they were able to return from mortal wounds and death itself. Thanks to a chemical compound at gave them Meta. Human regenerative abilities. The judgment to bring them back in a service was made by the court who awaken the assassins when Anita rose to help them reclaim their power in Gotham city towns are also skilled combatants, stealthy and lethal. They wielded clawlike blades as their signature weapons to pierce target in specific parts of the body to make their death as painful as possible Keep in mind the court TV and video games. Wow. If you've been watching TV shows or movies or anything they kind of had. Mentions. Some just GONNA wrap it up here by saying the Corvallis most notably made an appearance in television series Gotham where they worked their machinate machinations behind the scenes until rising to the forefront in series third season The court has also made a brief appearance in the form of a talent assassin in twenty eighteen lego DC super villains, and then two thousand fifteen animated film Batman Versus Robin introduced a court hours and talent as Bam next for the idea of the shadowy group behind the death of his parents film is loosely based on the story of the Comics Ping Bruce and daming against each other as a clash over the distant print personalities and crime fighting. Fluffy's the triumph over to Corvallis on that assassins Damian was left questioning who he is and how he fits into his father's white life. But how does it fit into the next Batman game while Scotsman himself teased the first line of the nursery rhyme before the court of owls in a tagline capture the night not that much of a stretch to guess that the secret society will be playing a role in an ex Batman game whether it's a shadowy group themselves or the assassins they unleash. Batman will certainly have a lot to contend with in his next battle to save Gotham city and I for one after reading that, and now very interested in what's happening this weekend. What is the game that is coming out? I? Mean I know that it's going to be the suicide squad Kill the Justice League that seems kind of interesting I'll be keeping nine net but the next Batman. Game. All man if you guys can make something to top Arkham night. I will be impressed
Kinda Funny Games Daily
Rocksteady faces backlash for inaction regarding alleged sexual harassment
"Batman developer rock steady has been accused of failing to address sexual harassment this from Ethan Gotcha at Kotoka female staff members at rock city studios best known for Batman Arkham series sent a letter to management in twenty eighteen complaining about sexual harassment according to a new report by The Guardian the letter reportedly signed by ten of the sixteen women on staff at the time cited a number of persistent issues including transphobic slurs derogatory sexually. Explicit remarks about women and sexual harassment that included unwanted advance unwanted advances leering at parts of a women's body and inappropriate comments in the office. The Guardian reports. This misconduct reportedly also filtered into rock games which include hyper sexualize versions a Batman. Characters like poison ivy and cat woman according to one of the Guardian sources to address the issues raised in letter rock steady held a single company-wide hour. Long Training Seminar employees had to sign a statement confirming the pre. Dated in the training, but according to the source nothing else appeared to be done to address the problems quote. It felt that it was just a way for them to cover their asses and quote said the
In Defense of Plants Podcast
Restoring the American Chestnut
"Things got yeah. This novel pathogen ideas terrifying especially when it comes to like with covert. It's got some twenty billion people to work its way through. And the chestnut, almost being jack-of-all-trades in being widespread was probably one of the perfect recipe. Check boxes to say like okay. This is how you have. An invasion meltdown caused the collapse of species. It's scary and it's so sad, but at the same time. Is Much as I've never seen a large chestnut tree, or been able to appreciate them, for what they were were lucky and very fortunate that there are still sprouts there are these these trees are still on the landscape in some capacity. I mean it is kinda functionally extinct. I. Don't know if that's the proper scientific way of putting it, but. There's chestnuts still out there today. Where did the American Chestnut Foundation kind of say? We have to do something. What was the impetus for that and kind of winded it happen, and what was those early stages Kinda like for it? Sure so so functionally extinct. That's that's the term I think for for the American, just not in words Aso a lot of people think it's extinct or endangered or threatened. It's none of those things it doesn't fit any of those categories, because there are so many sprouts out the wild, so it was estimated before billion in the eighteen hundreds at the height of the species population. The blight swept through reduce them to basically sprouts, and the under story so most hardwoods. If you've got them down, they die of the blight bill re sprout. Sprout burn readily just not does that, so they sprout. They get the blake usually by age seven fifteen. They Divac, they re sprout. They get the blame back. They re sprout so so that's what you see in the forest today, the eastern us on their an estimated four, hundred thirty five million trees, so so lot still a lot, but most of them do not reach flowering stage. We think about two million, or so are probably still flowering on somewhere around point, five percent of the population is probably still flowering and producing knots. And that's what's been used at a lot of different breeding programs and eastern us when the blight I went through the USDA's stepped in a sense implant explorers to China to say hey, finding replacement for the great American Chestnut, and so they brought over. Chinese chestnut, so that's about Chinese just nuts on the landscape. They are all over the place. You see them on farms. The USDA real big push for people to plant Chinese chestnuts. My popol planted them on his farm, but they they couldn't replace the just the American chestnut, because they typically they have been bred for Russian. Typically don't grow as tall as the American chestnut. They are very branchy, so the timber isn't as of high quality all as America's. And so that was one of the first attempts to try and save the American chestnut, or restore it or replace it, and then, since then since the thirties on through, people have tried various breeding techniques. They've tried spraying. The fungus was something they've tried systemic fungicides in the fifties when nuclear radiation Israel real huge people were taking chestnuts and throwing them in nuclear reactors to get them to mutate totally serious. And, so you've got plantations of irradiated ulmer radiated chestnuts. Most of them are in Maryland. Okay up ground where a lot of that defense. Stuff was happening, so makes us. That might be another podcast, but but there's this uranium question to try and find resistance within native. American chestnuts and people went pretty much given hope in the seventies and eighties stuff still going on, but at a much lower rate, and in the early eighties there was a corn geneticist Charles Burnham. He said Hey. Trees or plants? Why don't we use plant breeding the we using corn and things like that and use that for trees as well to impart resistance. So, that was the start of the American nomination. Arkham Burnham and some other founders I got together they the various, all nonprofit, scientifically minded organizations and say hey, let's try something called back crossbreeding to get a light resistance, and who the American chestnut and when they started, they thought that blight resistance was very simple traits that it was only two or three genes that controlled this trade, and therefore back crossing would work after you get above three genes back. Crossing really isn't active. The the numbers required too high and astronomical talk about exponential. You need exponentially large. Populations as you increase the number of genes for traits, so it was a it was a noble thought and would that it that be that resistance was only controlled by three. We know now that light resistance is controlled by many martines than three so a while back crossing itself isn't the end all be all American chestnut restoration, TCI the American Chestnut Foundation has embarked on other avenues to try and restore the American chestnut, and but but that was what what began the foundation
Climate Connections
Hurricanes and hazardous chemicals can be an explosive combination
"In twenty seventeen Hurricane Harvey soaked Houston with record-setting downpours. At the nearby Arkham Arkansas chemical plant flooding knocked out the power and disabled Refrigeration Systems. That were Cooling Hazardous Chemicals. The chemicals decomposed and combusted and the trailers where they were stored caught fire more than two hundred nearby residents were evacuated for an entire week. Susan Annenberg is with George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. She says climate change causes extreme weather to grow more common similar incidents. Become more likely. This is a really under studied problem that is growing and potentially disastrous and future in recent research Annenberg identified. Almost nine hundred highly hazardous chemical facilities within fifty miles of the Gulf Coast. A region likely to see more dangerous hurricanes. She found that more than four million people live close enough to one of those facilities to potentially need evacuation during a disaster. She says stronger. Regulations can help reduce the of dangerous incidents with proper planning and infrastructure and management. They are preventable.
Gaming Ride Home
Animal Crossing Writer Explains The Background Of That Sea Bass Joke
"Animal. Crossing is different the AC aesthetic is cute. I've seen people here observing that even the Tarantulas are cute. Even the chairs are cute. But it's more than cuteness as comfort. It's positively it's a retreat if you've played the game you're tired of the sea bass joke I get it. I'm tired of the Sea Bass joke and I wrote it. But here's a secret about the sea bass joke. It was originally. I caught a sea bass. Well maybe a C. MINUS BASS and when we were workshop jokes. Someone pointed out that as a joke people were going to see. Many many times generally along with disappointment. They didn't catch something better. Maybe it would be better to spin it. Positive make it a C plus instead from a comedy mechanics perspective. It's the same joke. Relying on the HOMOPHONES C. S. A. And see the letter. C. To change how you perceive the description of the animal and let's be honest. It would work better as verbal joke than it does in print but that fish has sailed anyway. My point is we were doing our very best down to details. You might not have considered to make this the most positive comforting funny game we could and I know the DEV team was doing the same. It's a testament to Nintendo's localization efforts that so much thought went into a small joke like that it's one of those elements that we kind of take for granted as English speakers playing Japanese Nintendo Games. That there is a dedicated team of folks who are making sure all the texts and dialogue and the Games are interesting and worth reading. And even if it's just a tiny little bit of insight I appreciate highlights twitter thread and I hope Nintendo will be open to talking more about that kind of stuff in the future.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind
Explaining Occam's Razor
"Today we're going to discuss a problem solving principle that many of you probably heard of and we've we've definitely referenced on the show before and that is autumn's razor that's right. It's it's one of the classics one of the hits of like the skeptical toolkit and I think it's a really one to get into because it's something that is widely known but in different ways and often To whatever extent it actually does have value. It often gets deployed in ways that do not actually make use of its value right like like an actual razor blade. It may be misused from time to time. Yes now. What one specific place that. I know we've talked about it before. Is that is in the context of Carl? Sagan's recommendations for the the tools of skeptical thinking he these out and one of them is autumn's razor. He writes all comes razor this convenient rule of thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler. Okay now why did we end up talking about this today? We we were in the studio the other day Discussing upcoming episodes. And you said that. Seth had mentioned this our producer Seth Yeah. I was in here and set a nickel Johnson was working on. A crossword puzzle was at the New York. Times he tells us it was the New York Times And he he asked me how to spell. Autumn is in razor and I took a guess at it and I can't I can't remember. I was correct. I was probably wrong but also probably hit one of the multiple acceptable spell things for razor But anyway we started talking about it and I was like. Oh Yeah we we could do that as an episode and so here we are. I'm very glad we picked this because I think one of my personal favorite genres of of critical thinking is is being skeptical about the tools of skepticism. You know is sometimes people who identify skeptics can ca- can I get a little cocky. You know they get a little too sure of themselves about what the reasoning tools they use and it's worth putting those tools to the test. Giving them a closer look. Yeah absolutely now I have to say I definitely remember. The first time I encountered the concept of outcomes raise or at least the first time I encountered it and it on some level stuck with me and that was when viewed the Nineteen ninety-seven film adaptation of Carl Sagan's novel contact the movie. I can't watch without crying. Oh Yeah Yeah Yeah well. Why does it make you cry? Oh God there's no point especially the first part where you know it. Zooms out from the earth and you're hearing the radio signals go back in time and then and then it shows the young. L. E. Airway experimenting with the Ham Radio and her dad's helping her and get so emotional. Yeah Yeah it's it's been a very long I. I haven't seen it since initially came out and in fact the main thing I remember from it is seen in which jodie foster's character. Eleanor Airway has having this conversation with Matthew mcconaughey as character. Who How old was Matthew mcconaughey at this point? I don't even know how old he is. Now is this ageless demon but anyway. Here's this character He's scared Palmer. Joss in the scene in question foster's character brings up autumn's razor in a discussion on the nature of God she. She says well which is ultimately the simpler hypothesis that an all powerful God exists or the human beings made got up in order to feel better about things and then this ultimately comes back around is kind of flipped on her later on film regarding her characters encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence right. Is it more likely that she really had the experience? She thinks she had with With all these aliens or that. She like hallucinated. Something that would give her emotional closure. Yeah and so. Yeah I think I was in high school at the time so it was. It was interesting concept especially in the context of of atheism verses of faith in a creator deity inserted to suddenly have this tool from the chest. Skeptical thinking just thrown up on the table and you and seemingly used by both sides. Well Yeah I think this is funny. This is a great example because it highlights some of the most common features of all comes razor as it is actually used to like. It's often invoked in a kind of fuzzy way without an objective measure Just kind of invoked to back up your intuitions about the probability of something right but another thing is that this example shows how. It's not always easy to find a way to compare the simplicity of two different propositions like is the existence of God a simple hypothesis or a complicated one that I think that really depends on kind of how you feel about it like like what kind of objective measure can you come up with to evaluate that question right. It's GonNa depend so much on your like your background your culture what you grew up with. And you know how you how you've come to view the possibility of Of God's existence. Is it just kind of the bedrock of your your worldview or is it this thing from the outside that you are contemplating and also how do you view it at like the coherence of the idea? Do you view it as something. That's like That's full of all these little kind of ad hoc accommodations or something that is a holistic coherent Sort of like fact about nature. Yeah you know I it's I I think this is a perfect example. That shows like win. People used the idea volumes razor in a way that is not helpful and doesn't really doesn't really get you any closer to figuring out what's true now if you're if you're still questioning what the concept really means. Don't worry we will get to some. I think some very understandable examples of how it can be a used properly and used improperly. But let's go ahead and just start about the concept itself the the word autumn You know where this comes from. We'll get to the origins of autumn's razor so Oxfam's razor is also known as the principle of parsimony and parsimony means a tendency towards cheapness or frugality. So I like that. It's like the principle of parsimony is like you. You want to be cheap with your with your logic right yeah. I don't need more than two steps of logic between me and the solution. Don't give me one with four or five. And it was named after the Medieval English philosopher William of autumn. Of course William of Arkham So he he lived in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries from twelve eighty five to either thirteen seven or thirteen forty nine. I've seen different death dates given forum. I've seen different birthdates as well. Eighty seven twelve. Eighty eight looking at That's interesting so he was a prolific scholar. Franciscan friar we'll get more into his ideas in a minute. I you know one thing I've always wondered is where the heck is awesome. I've never heard of that. Well yeah because the word sound has kind of like a remoteness to it. It sounds alien in some ways. Autumn is very much a real place. It is a rural village. In Surrey England. You can look it up online. You can find that the website for the church in Oxfam for example and this area has been occupied since ancient times. It's about a day's ride south west of London and it was the birthplace of the individual who'd come to be known as William Volume now beyond that beyond the fact that he was born here. We don't know a lot about William's life We don't know what his social or family background was or if his native language was French or Middle English. As Paul Vincent Spadea explains in the Cambridge companion to Arkham he was likely given over to the Franciscan order as a young boy. Before the age of fourteen and here Latin would have quickly become his language of not only writing but also just conversation Grey Friars Convent in. London was likely his home convent but later he traveled he visited Avalon he visited Italy and he lived the last two decades of his life in Germany. Now philosophically William was a Nominal List and spayed writes that the two main themes of this for William were the rejection of universals and ontological reduction in these two teams are are not necessarily interconnected like you can you. Could you could believe in one but not the other and vice versa but basically like let's get into what these mate so the first rejection of universals is perhaps best considered and this is very brief and broad Certainly you can find so much written in instead on this topic but basically think of it as a rejection of the tonic idea of the realm of forms. So that idea that all chairs that we might make design and carve a symbol are an attempt to create the perfect chair which doesn't reside in our world but only resides within this realm of forms. So all chairs that we create our like an aspiration for the ideal chair another way. I've thought about it at least as I understood it was. The nominalism is kind of the idea that there is no such thing as a chair. There's only this chair and that chair in this chair over here. There is no chair right like this. This is the kind of the situation gets too. When you you get into the genre classifications of say albums artists or movies. You care a great deal about and someone tries to limit it to a classification and say oh well that's classic rock where that's alternative rock near like. No no no no no. Don't don't try and fit there is there. Is these categories. Do not apply. There is there is only you know whatever. Your band of choice happens to be. There is only tool. There is only primis or whatever right there yeah there. There is only things not category right. Now let's move onto the second theme here. Ontological reduction this is as Britannica defines it quote the metaphysical doctrine that entities of a certain kind are in reality collections or combinations of entities of simpler or more basic kind. I think your classic example here is molecules atoms. Yeah so another example. Here's while our aristotle defined ten categories of objects that might be apprehended by a human mind. These would have been translations vary on on how you wanted to find these but substance quantity quality relative place time attitude condition action and affection. William cut these down to two substance and quality. He's really getting in there. That's the razor. That's what a razor Dutt. Cia slices away. It cuts off the fat and gets down to the meat. Spayed writes quote. Although these two strands of thinking are independent. They are nevertheless often viewed as joint effects of a more fundamental. Concern the principle of parsimony known as Oxfam's razor okay. So we're getting to the razor. Yeah so William. Devoted a lot of energy to arguing against What spade calls the bloated onto logical in inventories of his contemporaries and became well known to his peers for this as such either towards the end of his life or shortly after his death a kind of greatest hits album came out on his thoughts and ideas titled On the Principles of Theology? Now it wasn't actually by William of Arkham but it featured his doctrine as well as verbatim quotes there is no ascribed author either so later generations would often just attribute it to him as well as the notion of outcomes razor however the specific phrase was apparently never actually used by him. He never said autumn in the house. I'M GONNA get the razor out and started carving on some some some some some ideas
Game Scoop!
'Jedi: Fallen Order' Shows That a Good Star Wars Game Doesn't Have to Be Original
"Talk about what might be my favorite game of the whole year star Star Wars Jedi fallen. I haven't walked back. He came in two three days ago and so game of the year hasn't finished it so he says journalist so I played it for about a week now and who ooh I love it David. Lexus Game Tomb Raider. It is a lot like tomb. Raider little uncharted and then apparently a little dark souls. But I wouldn't know. Oh will you like Neil and save at points so yes that's right yeah so it is very tomb raider but but I think it controls like more like an action game which looks kind of goofy over the shoulder and you're watching somebody play still bouncing around like an idiot but it makes sense for doing that but I also downs around like and and it's also because the only time you've watched well watched other people. Maybe yeah well mainly combat the Jevon driven around like an idiot probably okay Salmon Tina. You're both playing just. Nasim played it yet to hear how RPG like it is uh-huh this say it's very RPG. Excited I don't mean to derail I had heard was that has a really big really involved skill tree which I didn't know it has the skill tree that pretty much every game released. Okay this Asan's creed got it it's less RPG as isis greenhouse so it's like everything is RPG like in some way so it falls on the RPG scale somewhere. Yeah these are the distinctions. We need to make before twenty question. No that's one of the greatest things about it has all of these like little elements five different games and different genres and kind of come together in a cohesive way so excited it should decorate. Yeah we're actually recording this before a review goes up Dan Is Handling Review. I I don't know what's so I don't know what score is GonNa come down on but I know he's very very high on he's bullish on one thing I like about The the combat so far has been frustrating. Although I know you solve it when we were the three demo and you've got through a bunch of the stuff but right now it's like I'll have a group of enemies around me and it's actually like tough enough that I'm dying a lot. And I've had moments in Batman Arkham asylum. It like that but what I like about it is that while I'm doing that you are constantly deflecting shots being shot at you from faraway really really fun and I know so. It's because like the lasers are slower than bullets which is like the stupidest thing like me a human see the blazers. It's coming at me. I feel like really cool like doing it. But if that was really how lasers work that I could probably do that. They just slowing it down the human you but the jet I you in the game actually sees it much whole games running et exactly the just showing you what a Great Lakes game design challenge feel like lasers but be slow to deflect all the other game design challenge too. Is You have a lightsaber. That should be able to push through most anything but there's like really big pots into but other ones. Okay no the really big ones. You can't do all you can't through any walls and the game either Tori really great. Yeah you're always on the other side of like three like metal bars looking through it's like you and it has actually for sure they have you looking indication later you'll be able able to get through here like Metro and you know just melt bars you got but you are in Jeddah temple so maybe it's Anti Jetta made made from some metal. What's the DELOREAN's metal armor made out of? I don't know I just watched a whole episode about it. I can't tell you I love hearing how metro-wide Vania e it is or Metro chime specific measure prime which which the developers were up front about that multiple planets that are way more intricate. And you you know. Non Linear and and sort of loopy pathways than kind of expected that so an expected and cousteau metro prime was famous for this Big Three d map that you kind of see really needed needed to go or you haven't had been yet and it's really good and it was like feels like super futuristic and stuff this game has that Matt but I don't know if I'm like like if it's just like because it's less boxy unlike more organic. It's so hard to use for me right now but you say you wrap your mind. Map has a learning curve that was it was confusing at first. But now I'm used to it and I can I know. Ah If there's something on the map that I want to get to. I can usually get to it and you can. I love how the robot a BBDO sorry droid projects in math in real time. It's like in dead space when you have like your health package just like lights on your armor and there's a lot of stuff in this game really doing the work early beating the flashlight. That's true and that's also he's also your health bar on your back yes. It's so like dead space magnate and also a tip since beatty one is projecting your map in real time. It doesn't pause the game you can. It'll be a ten. Oh yeah the hard way giant rats around. Yeah don't look run for your life is i. Don't want any stories. Spoiler the rats kill you is your killer viciously. It's a big threat to a jet here right now is that are you. Is your character cool. I think so. He's likeable and it's not like super every other characters better. I mean he's just like he's like a pretty vanilla hero but it doesn't bother me. I will say this there are some really funny moments. I forget what it was. What was one of the early comments? Oh because he's a yeah exactly like they're like no trashes allowed here something and he makes a joke about how he's actually trash. So there's like these little funny cute goofy moments that he just didn't make him more likable. That's another thing that I've heard just around the office is that You know that doesn't come through in the trailers just seems like incredibly generic and I've heard this game has better writing in dialogue expected surprising to me and this is not a spoiler. He's just really young. So it's like all the characters that are interesting around him are adults and he just doesn't know a lot and doesn't do a lot because he's like a teenager so I think they they don't. They didn't do a good job of sabotaging that outside the game. Now that I'm in the game like oh he's just like his whole he's just a kid. Yeah I've come to a decision I'm GONNA play it that's good. I think you're going to be happy with their. I've been joking on scoop for weeks about how I don't play anything but that's just you know I wasn't interested in call of duty and wasn't interested. Trust in-depth stranding. So this is this is the one this is the woman.