The Daily Populous

Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000

Researchers Neil Gandal, JT Hamrick, Tyler Moore, and Tali Oberman have written a fascinating paper on Bitcoin price manipulation.

Entitled “Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem” and appearing in the recent issue of the Journal of Monetary Economics the paper describes to what degree the Bitcoin ecosystem is controlled by bad actors.

To many it’s been obvious that the Bitcoin markets are, at the very least, being manipulated by one or two big players.

“This paper identifies and analyzes the impact of suspicious trading activity on the Mt.

Gox Bitcoin currency exchange, in which approximately 600,000 bitcoins (BTC) valued at $188 million were fraudulently acquired,” the researchers wrote.

The team found that many instances of price manipulation happened simply because the market was very thin for various cryptocurrencies including early Bitcoin.

“Despite the huge increase in market capitalization, similar to the bitcoin market in 2013 (the period examined), markets for these other cryptocurrencies are very thin. »

Japan broadcaster sends false North Korea missile alert

Authored by edition.cnn.com

Tokyo (CNN) Japanese national broadcaster NHK issued an on-air apology Tuesday after issuing an alert incorrectly claiming that North Korea had launched a ballistic missile.

North Korea likely to have launched missile.

The broadcaster apologized for the error, adding "the news alert sent earlier about NK missile was a mistake. »

North Korea Calls Trump Nuclear Button Tweet the 'Spasm of a Lunatic'

Authored by newsweek.com

North Korea's state-controlled press has hit out at President Donald Trump’s tweet boasting about the size of his nonexistent nuclear button.

“Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

The North Korean media has often used epithets related to senility or mental health issues to undermine Trump's words and behavior. »

Britain's Next Megaproject: A Coast-to-Coast Forest

Authored by citylab.com

The plan is for 50 million new trees to repopulate one of the least wooded parts of the country—and offer a natural escape from several cities in the north.

[Like CityLab on Facebook] The goal of a thick green ribbon is still a long way off, of course.

So far, the government has pledged just an initial £5.7 million of the £500 million needed to fully realize the project. »

Monkeys use trees to catapault themselves out of Japanese laboratory

Authored by telegraph.co.uk

A group of 15 monkeys at Kyoto University's primate research institute in Aichi Prefecture, which are the focus of a string of high-profile scientific studies, escaped from their forest home which is encased by a 17ft high electric fence.

The monkeys made their bid for freedom by using tree branches to fling themselves one by one over the high voltage electric fence located nearly three metres away.

"We think that maybe there was some kind of dispute among the monkeys in the forest and so this group decided to leave. »