AMD today delivered its first graphics driver of 2021, providing support and optimizations for two games in particular: Hitman 3 and Quake II RTX. The newly released Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.1.1 driver also comes with a suite of bug fixes. It doesn't appear as though AMD is changing the branding of its driver just yet. IO Interactive's Hitman 3 launched yesterday, bringing back Agent 47 for another round of assassinations in the rebooted trilogy. According to AMD, this driver will provide performance improvements of up to 10% compared to the 20.12.1 driver. The testing had been done on an RX 6800 XT 16GB GPU and a Ryzen 9 5900X CPU with Hitman 3 running at 4K Ultra settings.

The fixed issues in this release detailed by AMD are as follows:

• The recording and streaming overlay indicator may sometimes reset itself to the default position.
• Performance Metrics Overlay size may intermittently reset or may not match values that are set in Radeon Software after performing a task switch.
• The Radeon Software installer screen can sometimes display the incorrect release date of the Radeon Software version you are installing.
• Performance Metrics Overlay may flicker during video playback on displays with HDR enabled.
• Reflections in Grand Theft Auto V may fail to appear when 'Reflection MSAA' is enabled in the game settings.
• PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds session timer may continue in Radeon Software even after the game has been exited.
• DOOM Eternal may experience an application crash while gaming and having Steam overlay enabled.
• Recorded content from Radeon Software may appear cropped or recorded at an incorrect resolution on Radeon RX Vega series graphics products.
• The Samsung Odyssey G9 C49G95T may experience display or corruption issues when set to 5120x1440@240hz.
• Anisotropic Filtering in Radeon Software graphics settings is not taking effect in DirectX 9 applications on RDNA graphics products.
• Some displays such as the Sceptre C series or Samsung Odyssey G9 series may experience an intermittent black screen on Radeon RX 6000 series graphics products.
• Oculus Link users may experience intermittent crashes on Polaris and Vega series graphics products.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, President Joe Biden is set to nominate Michael Barr as the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Barr served as the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions under President Barack Obama. He joined Ripple as an advisor on Jul. 19, 2015. He is no longer listed as an advisor, however. The official decision has yet to be announced, and The Wall Street Journal did not receive any comments from the White House, the Treasury Department, or Barr himself. Previously, Coinbase's former chief legal officer, Brian Brooks, was the head of OCC, but he stepped down on Jan. 14, 2020. Biden is also expected to name ex-CFTC Gary Gensler as the new Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Gensler was a professor at MIT Sloan, where he taught blockchain technology. He is also a senior advisor to the MIT Digital Currency Initiative.

Bitcoin's dominance is currently at 64.8% in comparison to 2017 in which its dominance was over 68%. The current crypto market cap is well distributed among top altcoins and stablecoins. After the price rallies in the current market cycle, nearly 100% of crypto wallet addresses are profitable. However, the same doesn't hold true for altcoins with lower market capitalization. Many altcoins are continuing their rebuttal to Bitcoin's months of dominance and the past hour has been a sea of green for most cryptocurrencies. There are many projects showing signs of whale accumulation, after nearly three years worth of crypto winter. XRP missed the 2018 mark by nearly 75% and having run into regulatory challenges, the altcoin may find it harder to bounce back. In contrast to XRP, projects like ADA, LINK, and DOT had double-digit gains. Ethereum, Synthetix, Yield Farming, Uniswap, and Compound are seeing notable accumulation across exchanges. Historically the Bitcoin rally has led to an alt season as investment flow into Bitcoin. However, the current Bitcoin chart signals that Bitcoin's supply is being withdrawn from exchanges at an all-time-high pace. Bitcoin bull cycles are known to end after the shift in the liquidity of the supply, once it turns positive, the price trend may reverse.

Ethereum's rally would be critical to altcoins hitting pre-2018 levels. And the key to Ethereum's rally is the success and TVL of top Defi projects. Most altcoins hit a new ATH but ones with low market capitalization are yet to bounce back and the burning question is, will that happen, and if yes then when. Whenever the alt season kicks in, it will have an impact on both the institutional and retail investment flow in Bitcoin. This may in turn affect Bitcoin's ongoing price rally and put a stop to it, in the short term.

In the past six months, Bitcoin's price hit a new ATH of $41000 and Ethereum hit a new ATH as well, and investment flowed into several altcoins in the top 25, based on data from CoinMarketCap. However, despite both these instances, Monero, Zcash, Dash have failed to match the rally. Ontology, a token that hit a high of $8.7 in the previous bull run is currently trading at $0.61 and there is less scope for the token to reclaim its lost market capitalization. Monero is another one in a long list of altcoins with the same fate during the current market cycle and it may be a challenge for most altcoins to regain lost market capitalization or hit the 2017 level again.

Adult entertainment website Pornhub has added four new coins to its list of supported crypto payment options - XRP, BNB, USDC, and DOGE - The Block has checked on Wednesday. The move means Pornhub's more than 120 million daily visitors can now pay for premium subscriptions in the four digital assets. Notably, Pornhub has removed the support of privacy-oriented coin Dash and PumaPay token, which were supported as of mid-December. That suggests that the changes have been made over the past month. The latest revisions increase the number of Pornhub's supported coins to sixteen from fourteen before (see screenshot). It should be noted that Pornhub only supports crypto as the payment option for some countries, including the U.S., the U.K., and Singapore. While for some EU nations, such as Germany, it supports bank wires.

Pornhub doesn't support credit card payments anymore after facing a ban from Visa and Mastercard last month. The two payment giants cut ties with Pornhub following accusations that the pornographic website showed child abuse and rape videos. The allegations stemmed from an investigation by an opinion columnist of the New York Times. Pornhub has denied the allegations.

While XRP trades around $0.287, still down about 93% from its ATH, due to regulatory uncertainty surrounding it after the SEC sued Ripple and its top two executives for selling unregistered security, the company predicted regulatory clarity this year. With the UK, Switzerland, Singapore, and Japan miles ahead, Ripple's General Counsel Stu Alderoty predicts that crypto regulation will be a top priority for the Biden team. "Intelligent, well-thought-out regulations communicated effectively and uniformly applied can help level the playing field and unleash innovation and further mainstream adoption here in the U.S.," said Alderoty.

Besides the regulatory part, Ripple sees the line between banking and crypto blurring. General Manager Asheesh Birla anticipates more fintech competing with banks on a level playing field this year. "The tide is turning" Birla added that a fintech or crypto company might acquire a traditional financial institution. And with this, the decentralized finance (DeFi) will see more traction. But Ripple's Head of DeFi Michael Zochowski anticipated that many of the early DeFi projects would "fizzle out" or get acquired but says DEXs and wrapped assets will gain momentum. He even sees Ethereum losing ground as "at least 25% of the value deployed in DeFi by the end of 2021 will be on networks other than Ethereum." Here, he sees the XRPL ecosystem, such as Flare and XRPL Transaction Hooks, to "extend its leadership role in DeFi."

Brave Browser, a popular blockchain-enabled web browser, has integrated native support of InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS, to strengthen the access to the decentralized web. According to a Jan. 19 announcement, Brave has integrated IPFS into its desktop web browser for Windows, macOS and Linux, enabling users to install the protocol in a couple of clicks. IPFS is a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol designed to make the web faster, safer, and more open. The protocol aims to supplement or possibly even replace the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, which is a major client-based protocol used to transfer web pages across a network. In the announcement, Brave pinpointed some crucial issues associated with HTTP:

The underlying protocol of the web today is HTTP, which dictates where power exists in those applications. HTTP puts publishers in complete control of service availability and data access, making end users passive receivers instead of having agency in the relationship.

After ending 2020 facing a lawsuit from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under Donald Trump's administration, Ripple's leadership is looking to the new year and a new U.S. President to bring a change in regulations more favorable to the firm. According to a post on the Ripple website featuring comments from key executives, the firm is predicting the incoming Biden administration will most likely "bring a renewed focus on regulation and enforcement" in the crypto space. "As we've seen, a lack of a clear regulatory framework over the last four years in the U.S. especially has left fintech and blockchain players in a state of limbo," the post said. "Other countries like the UK, Switzerland, Singapore and Japan are miles ahead." Both Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen have been vocal about their criticism of the SEC's policy of "regulation through enforcement" prior to the lawsuit. Stu Alderoty, general counsel for the firm, was quoted in the piece as saying he believes the Biden administration would make crypto regulation a top priority over the next four years because it "understands its implications for public and private sector innovation."

Intelligent, well thought-out regulations communicated effectively and uniformly applied can help level the playing field and unleash innovation and further mainstream adoption here in the U.S.

Garlinghouse echoed this sentiment yesterday, praising Biden's nominee for SEC chair, Gary Gensler, as an individual more likely to be friendly to Ripple, and the crypto and blockchain industry as a whole:

Congrats to Gary Gensler! We're ready to work with SEC leadership and the broader Biden administration to chart a path forward for blockchain and crypto innovation in the US. https://t.co/EEloq4lwrG

� Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) January 18, 2021

In a blog post, the digital security firm Malwarebytes said that it had been targeted by the nation state actor implicated in the SolarWinds breach late last year that affected the U.S. government, Microsoft, Nvidia, VMware, and others. According to the computer security firm, it does not use SolarWinds but was attacked via another intrusion vector that leveraged applications that had privileged access to Microsoft Office 365 and Azure. Malwarebytes said that the attacker managed to get access to "a limited subset of internal company emails" but didn't find any evidence that their production systems had been compromised. Malwarebytes' incident response group worked with Microsoft's Detection and Response Team (DART) to find out how the attack happened. Explaining what the teams did, Malwarebytes CEO Marcin Kleczynski said:

"Together, we performed an extensive investigation of both our cloud and on-premises environments for any activity related to the API calls that triggered the initial alert. The investigation indicates the attackers leveraged a dormant email protection product within our Office 365 tenant that allowed access to a limited subset of internal company emails."

To ensure that none of its products and systems were compromised, it carried out an analysis of the Malwarebytes source code, build and delivery processes and even reverse-engineered its software. This, coupled with the fact that none of its internal systems were compromised, led the company to declare that its software remains safe to use. To combat these sophisticated attacks, Malwarebytes has called on other security companies to continue sharing information so that responses are effective. It also thanked the security community for working over the holiday period to respond to the hack.

The privacy-focused DuckDuckGo search engine has seen tremendous growth recently surpassing 100 million daily searches on January 11th 2021. DuckDuckGo distinguishes itself from competing search engines by not customizing ads to a specific user instead showing ads purely based on the search term. Since DuckDuckGo was launched in 2008 they have grown from processing 100,000 searches a day to now over 100 million searches daily. For comparison, Google processes roughly 5.5 billion searches a day and Bing 200 million so while DuckDuckGo still has a long way to go to becoming a household name they have made remarkable progress. This latest round of growth can be attributed to the upcoming WhatsApp privacy policy changes which have reminded consumers of the importance of internet privacy and security.

Top upcoming sci-fi movies for the first half of 2021

Bitfinex general counsel Stuart Hoegner has dismissed the notion that only 74% of the tether stablecoin in circulation is fully backed. Hoegner insists the stablecoin is fully backed by assets that include cash, cash equivalents as well as bitcoin. However, both Hoegner and the company's CTO Paolo Ardoino, are pushing back against the narrative that Bitfinex is engaged in a conspiracy to pump the price of bitcoin. In an interview with Peter McCormack, the Bitfinex general counsel claims the misconception that USDT is not fully backed stem from a sworn affidavit which he says has been taken out of context. The contents of the affidavit, which Hoegner submitted on April 30, 2020, as part of the "New York litigation with Attorney General", became public knowledge when the USDT's market capitalization was only $2.1 billion. According to that affidavit, about 74% of tether backing was in the form of "cash and cash equivalents on hand." On the other hand, the remaining 26% was in the form of a $550 million loan to the company which it "is fully servicing." The general counsel explains that since the stablecoin's total market capitalization has gone up from $2.1 billion to the current $22 billion, the loan's share of the USDT reserves shrunk to 2.5%. In the meantime, both Hoegner and Ardoino have confirmed that bitcoins are part of the reserves assets that Bitfinex uses to back the stablecoin. Nevertheless, both men still refuse to divulge the exact makeup of assets in reserves. However, Ardoino does reveal the only time Bitfinex acquired the bitcoins which now form part of tether's reserves: The CTO says:

The bitcoins in reserves are a good amount remaining from the past acquisition that we likely did in 2015/16. The bitcoins, which we bought for a good price in 2015/16, will probably be enough for perpetuity.

The CTO also dismisses the idea that Bitfinex is actually issuing tethers just to buy bitcoins. He says this narrative does not make sense especially when the company can simply buy the BTC using the fiat money which it has.

Meanwhile, when asked why the company is not hiring outside auditors to conduct a full audit, an evasive Hoegner says some steps have been taken in this direction as a show of "good faith." Such steps include consulting reports produced by one accounting firm, and a law firm as well as a report from Bitfinex bankers. Nevertheless, the general counsel reveals Bitfinex is continuously "looking for ways to share information with the community, to be more open and to be transparent."

XRP has traded sideways for the last few days, with its lack of meaningful upside action allowing Polkadot (DOT) to overtake it as the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Ripple's underperformance since the SEC filed a lawsuit against the company and its top executives meant that it was always likely that its position would be taken by top performers like DOT. However, Ripple may be back in the top three if its price breaks out of consolidation and moves towards retesting the 50-day simple moving average on the daily chart. If this happens, XRP could then rally to new year-to-date highs. At the time of writing, Ripple's native token is up by 3.2% and is trading around $0.28. The technical outlook for XRP also suggests a potential buy signal on the daily chart. If the signal flashes in the form of a red nine candlestick in the next session, an influx of buyers on surging volumes will likely propel XRP/USD higher. That means breaking above $0.36 has the prospect of catalysing further upside action. If this happens, XRP could retest resistance at the 50-day SMA ($0.40). The flipside of the above bullish picture will be a dip to initial support at $0.25. if bearish pressure increases around these price levels, it could mean a further retreat to the long term support zone near $0.20.

Apple TV+ has dropped the trailer for the second season of For All Mankind, its science fiction drama about an alternate history where the space race never ended. The series was the linchpin of the Apple TV+ launch in 2019, and proved popular enough with viewers to warrant a second season.

U.S. banking powerhouse Goldman Sachs has issued a request for information (RFI) to explore digital asset custody, according to a source inside the bank. When asked about timing, the Goldman source said the bank's custody plans would be "evident soon." Goldman's digital asset custody RFI was circulated to at least one well-known crypto custody player toward the end 2020. The Goldman insider said the bank's digital assets initiative was "part of a broad digital strategy," citing stablecoins in relation to recent missives from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). A tectonic shift took place in the world of crypto custody this week, as San Francisco-based Anchorage attained conditional approval from the OCC to become a national digital bank and "unequivocally" meet the definition of "qualified custodian" in the process. Anchorage President Diogo Monica said in an interview this regulatory approval will invite many large and risk-averse institutional players into crypto. When asked about JPMorgan, Goldman and Citi - the three big U.S. banks most are watching in relation to crypto custody - Monica said: "We are talking to all these guys." There has been chatter about Goldman perhaps offering something akin to prime brokerage services involving crypto. However, the Goldman insider said the bank is looking at custody but not prime brokerage.

When Apple first launched its subscription video on demand streaming service in November 2019, customers were given a year of free TV+ trials if they purchased an iPhone, an iPad, a Mac, or an Apple TV from that day. The free access was supposed to expire on November 1, 2020, but Apple extended it to February 2021. Today, the tech giant is giving some of its TV+ customers a few extra months of free trials again. Users with subscriptions that were scheduled to expire between February and June can continue to access TV+ shows and movies for free until July 2021, assuming they haven't canceled their subscriptions. Those eligible for the extension will receive notification via email over the next couple of weeks. Existing TV+ subscribers with a monthly plan as of January 15 are also set to receive a $4.99 store credit from February to June. This is also available to those who have an Apple One bundle subscription. It remains to be seen, though, whether the second extension will persuade more people to subscribe to the service.

Cryptocurrency stablecoins could become systemically important overnight, says United States Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and that's why the Fed is determined to get its own central bank digital currency right. CBDCs are the banking industry's answer to cryptocurrency stablecoins. While they are often hosted on the blockchain, they share little in the way of philosophical parity with their decentralized counterparts. CBDCs will be overseen by the banks that issue them and will be regulated under the laws of their respective jurisdictions. Speaking in an interview with Yahoo Finance, Powell said advances in technology had enabled private entities to create their own money - and that history had shown this was something to be avoided:

Technology has made this possible and effectively private sector actors can create the equivalent of digital money. We know in the past with private sector money, the public sometimes just thinks of it as money, and then at some point they find out it's not money. That's a very bad thing we need to avoid.

Powell can envision a scenario where stablecoins are suddenly relevant to a large enough number of people to become "systemically important" overnight. He said the Fed still doesn't know how it might respond to such an occurrence, and admitted that it isn't even close to understanding the risks:

[Stablecoins] could become systemically important overnight and we don't begin to have our arms around the potential risks, how to manage those risks - and the public will expect that we do, and has every right to expect that [...] It's a very high priority.

As high a priority as launching a CBDC may be, the Fed won't fall into the trap of trying to be the first. Russia, China, Sweden, Australia and the European central bank have all taken steps towards launching a CBDC (some are further along than others), but according to Powell, the U.S is always going to have first-mover advantage because of the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency:

Since we are the world's reserve currency, we actually think we need to get this right and we don't feel an urge or a need to be first. Effectively it means we already have a first-mover advantage because we're the reserve currency.

Following backlash from users, many of whom have been moving to alternate messaging apps due to security concerns, WhatsApp is delaying the enforcement of its privacy terms by three months. The new data-sharing policy won't be enforced until May 15, so people can "review the policy at their own pace before new business options are available."

We will make sure users have plenty of time to review and understand the terms. Rest assured we never planned to delete any accounts based on this and will not do so in the future.

— WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) January 15, 2021

WhatsApp informed users through an in-app alert earlier this month to agree to new terms of condition, which granted the app the consent to share some personal information with Facebook. Information being shared includes the phone number and location of users. WhatsApp has repeatedly clarified that the change won't cause users' chats and other profile information to be shown to Facebook. Instead, the change pertains to business chats with a company's representatives through WhatsApp. The firm added that it "never planned to delete any accounts" based on users not agreeing to new terms of the agreement, and no such action will be taken in the future. WhatsApp recognized that there's been "much confusion" surrounding its recent update, so it's "going to do a lot more to clear up the misinformation around how privacy and security works on WhatsApp."

According to data shared by the popular tracking service Whale Alert, over the past 20 hours, blockchain decacorn Ripple and two major exchanges Bitfinex and Coinbase have transferred a whopping 99.2 million XRP. Whale Alert has noticed two major crypto transactions, carrying 30 million and 69.2 million XRP. The first one was performed by the Ripple behemoth, while the second was used by Bitfinex to move nearly 70 million XRP to the U.S.-based Coinbase. Ripple has moved 30 million coins between its wallets, which is likely to be funding for its operational expenses.

According to court documents, Ripple has put forward a group of twenty-one lawyers to defend the company and its former and current CEOs. Four of them will be working with Brad Garlinghouse and another four will represent Chris Larsen, cofounder and former CEO. The rest of the legal team will be representing Ripple itself. Ripple and two of its highest-ranking executives have been accused by the SEC of trading unregistered securities (XRP) to investors over the past seven years and making over a $1 billion on those sales. The regulator filed a legal action against the company and executives. The aforementioned Coinbase exchange has also been sued by the regulator for allowing illegal XRP sales and charging trading commission fees on them. Jay Clayton, the SEC chairman who initiated the lawsuit against Ripple on Dec. 21, resigned from his position later the same week.

Ripple is looking for a new Managing Director for its European market. The company is doing this in spite of the ongoing challenges it is facing in the United States. The SEC filed a lawsuit against the company in December 2020 and so far there has been no judgment on the matter yet. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse had in October 2020 said that the company was considering moving its headquarters to London because it is a friendlier environment towards XRP. The company's native token, XRP has been referred to by the SEC as an unregistered security, and Ripple with its top executives is standing trial for the sale of it. Garlinghouse says XRP is not regarded as a security in Europe hence is a better environment for Ripple to thrive in. Searching for a new managing director for the region may be an indication that Ripple has not given up on XRP and plans to go through with pursuing the case to the end. The new managing director will be in charge of partnerships with businesses in the continent and government relations as well as representing the company in the media. As the U.S is becoming more unfriendly to Ripple, this is an attempt to expand the company's presence in Europe. Garlinghouse has accused the U.S government of not making clear regulations for the cryptocurrency industry and the suit against Ripple is an attack on the entire industry. On Wednesday, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde called for the regulation of Bitcoin. As Bitcoin is the number one cryptocurrency, it may just be a matter of time before the entire industry is considered for similar regulation. It may not be the kind of regulation that Garlinghouse wants though as Lagarde seems to be calling for a check on the use of Bitcoin rather than guidelines for the operation of the industry.

ARMY OF THE DEAD Trailer Teaser (New 2021) Zack Snyder, Dave Bautista

Brian Brooks, who was named the acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) last summer, made it official a day after he was rumored to be departing. His departure will come a day after the federal banking regulator granted crypto custodian Anchorage a conditional trust charter, making it the first crypto-native national bank. "It has been a great honor to serve the United States as Acting Comptroller of the Currency," Brooks said in an emailed statement through a spokesperson. "The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is the most extraordinary of federal agencies filled with the most dedicated, professional and gifted staff any executive can hope to have. I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished together through what have been extraordinary times by any measure."

Under Brooks, the OCC published a number of interpretative letters surrounding how national banks can interact with the cryptocurrency space, with particular attention paid to stablecoins and their issuers. However, he said during a public seminar hosted by analysis firm Elliptic that much of this work began prior to his arrival at the agency last March. The former chief legal officer at Coinbase has said multiple times he believes digital assets and blockchain technology can form the basis for the future of the financial system, a view he reiterated during the seminar.

Check it out!

Samsung today officially unveiled its Galaxy S21 series of flagship phones for 2021. All three models sport a distinctive new "Contour Cut Camera" design where the metal frame extends around one corner to surround the rear cameras. Each of the three new phones has a starting price a full $200 lower than last year's models. Samsung achieved this on the S21 and S21+ by reducing RAM from 12 to 8 GB and switching from curved QHD-resolution displays to flat FHD displays. Also, none of the S21 series has a memory card slot nor ToD depth camera. Naturally the processor has been updated on all models to Qualcomm's new flagship chip, the Snapdragon 888. Samsung is also using Qualcomm's new Gen 2. ultrasonic in-display fingerprint reader, which offers a 70% larger sensing area and is 50% faster. The phones ship with Android 11 and have a number of software improvements to the camera, such as Director's View, Vlogger View, and multi-mic recording. Samsung has also used AI to improve Single Take, Portrait Mode, and Space Zoom. The camera hardware on the S21 and S21+ is nearly identical to that on the S20 series. The S21 Ultra has the most-upgraded specs of the three, despite starting at a lower price than last year's model.

• Galaxy S21: The specs are very similar to last year's S20, including 4,000 mAh battery, 120 Hz refresh display, 64-megapixel main camera, 8K video capture, IP68 water resistance, fast wireless charging, and Wireless PowerShare. Unlike the S20, the S21 will come with mmWave 5G (including support for Verizon's "Ultra Wideband" network) from day one. It will come with 128 GB of storage, in Phantom Violet, Phantom Gray, Phantom Pink, and Phantom White, for $800. A 256 GB version will also be available in Phantom Gray for an extra $50. Phantom Gold and Phantom Red colors will be available exclusively from samsung.com.
• Galaxy S21+: Its 4,800 mAh battery is larger than that in both the S21 and last year's S20+. It also adds UWB for directional tag-finding and wireless car keys. This is the first time Samsung has put UWB in its S-series. It retains all of the other specs and features of the S21, with a larger 6.7-inch display like the S20+. It will come with 128 GB storage, in Phantom Violet, Phantom Silver, and Phantom Black, for $1,000. A 256 GB version will also be available in Phantom Black for an additional $50. As with the S21, samsung.com will be exclusive seller of Phantom Gold and Phantom Red colors.
• Galaxy S21 Ultra: This top-end model keeps the curved-edge, QHD-resolution display, 12 GB RAM, 108 megapixel main camera, and 40-megapixel front camera of last year's model, while adding several new features, all for a lower $1200 starting price. New this year is Wacom technology bringing full support for Samsung's S Pen, previously only offered on the Note series. The S Pen is an optional accessory. It also adds UWB, Wi-Fi 6e, adaptive display refresh from 10 - 120 Hz for power efficiency, and the ability to use 120 Hz refresh at QHD resolution. The telephoto camera system now includes dedicated 3x and 10x cameras, both 10 megapixel with OIS and dual-pixel auto-focus. All five cameras (front and back) can now shoot 4K video at 60 fps. The 108mp main sensor now has 12-bit HDR and can capture 12-bit RAW photos. It also has laser auto-focus. Pricing starts at $1,200 for 12 GB RAM / 128 GB storage in Phantom Silver or Phantom Black. Versions with 12 / 256 GB (for an extra $50) or 16 / 512 GB (for $1,380) will also be available, in Phantom Black only. Samsung.com exclusive colors will include Phantom Titanium, Phantom Navy. and Phantom Brown.

All three phones will launch on major US carriers as well as unlocked on January 29th. Pre-orders start January 14th at 11am ET. All pre-orders will include a free Galaxy SmartTag, and consumers who pre-order the S21 Ultra get a $200 credit to use on samsung.com or the Shop Samsung app.

First trailer for Bliss starring Salma Hayek, Owen Wilson.

The top securities watchdog in Japan told The Block Wednesday that it does not consider XRP to be a security, siding against its U.S. counterpart in the debate roiling the token's issuer, Ripple Labs.

Grayscale Investments has started the dissolution of the Grayscale XRP Trust after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against certain third parties contending that XRP is a security under federal securities law.

After the SEC action, some significant market participants announced measures, including delisting XRP from major digital trading platforms.

That led Grayscale, the sponsor of the XRP Trust, to conclude that it will likely be increasingly difficult for U.S. investors, including the trust, to convert XRP into U.S. dollars.

In connection with the dissolution, the sponsor has liquidated the trust's XRP and intends to distribute the net cash proceeds to trust shareholders, after deducting expenses and providing appropriate reserves and subject to any applicable withholding.

The trust will terminate following distribution of the net cash proceeds.

XRP is currently trading at about 30 cents, down from as high as high as 77 cents on Nov. 24.

Alongside today's CES-centric announcement of their new GeForce RTX 30 series parts for laptops, NVIDIA also offered an in-depth reveal of their next desktop graphics card, the GeForce RTX 3060. Reflected the continued progression of the Ampere architecture into smaller and cheaper video cards as NVIDIA continues its product stack rollout, the RTX 3060 marks the introduction of Ampere into their popular mainstream-enthusiast 60-series video card tier. Long the backbone of NVIDIA's desktop sales in North America and elsewhere, the 60-tier cards typically strike a solid balance between price and performance. And with prices set to start at $329, at launch the RTX 3060 will become the cheapest RTX card that NVIDIA has ever offered!

At any rate, the 3060's biggest selling point (aside from its sub-$350 price tag) is its 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM. That figure surpasses last gen's RTX 2080 Ti, and even this gen's RTX 3080, which have 11 and 8GB of VRAM, respectively. The 3060 was built with a 192-bit memory bus, and it's set to feature 3,584 CUDA cores and a base clock speed of 1.32 GHz (boost clocks go up to 1.78 GHz). It's expected to draw around 170 W of power on average over a PCIe 8-pin connector, which should fit into most modern builds quite nicely.

Nvidia promises up to twice the raster performance of the GTX 1060, and 10x the RT performance. That's a rather useless and frankly puzzling comparison, given that the 1060 is two generations old and doesn't even support RTX in the first place. According to Nvidia's calculations, the RTX 3060 is can push somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-64 FPS in Watch Dogs: Legion at 1080p with RT and DLSS enabled (it's unclear what RT and DLSS settings were used, however). The 2060, however, sinks to the low 40s, which is no surprise given the generational differences here. The 1060's performance is listed as well, but again, it's an irrelevant comparison.

The GeForce RTX 3060 will be launching in late February.

Gary Gensler, a Washington and Wall Street veteran who has closely studied the cryptocurrency field, is expected to be named chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the next several days by President-elect Joe Biden, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

At CES 2021, Intel allegedly announced its 11th Gen Core Rocket Lake-S series during the CES 2021 press briefing. Official announcement slides have been leaked as well, which shows almost 14% IPC Boost with 11th Gen CPU lineup. According to Intel the 8C/16T Core i9-11900K reclaims the gaming performance crown from AMD's Ryzen 9 5900X at 1080p, albeit even by a small margin. Intel ran these tests with an EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 graphics card, and the company claims the lead ranges from 2% to 8%. AMD's new Zen 3-based Ryzen 9 5900X actually has more cores but it appears that Intel's IPC performance is shining through, even on a refined 14nm process Node. Intel clocked its new Core i9-11900K processor at all the way up to 5.3GHz which is a pretty high clock speed for a CPU, thus helping it beat AMD's Ryzen CPU in the end.

Rocket Lake will deliver desktop users up to eight cores and sixteen threads on the high-end, which means two cores and four threads less than the current Comet Lake processor lineup. But the reduction in core count could also mean that Intel plans to rely on increased single-threaded performance, thus boosting overall system performance through single-threaded gains. Single-threaded performance will help Intel to compete more in the CPU market segment, even if AMD can deliver higher core count SKUs. Not all applications or tasks are highly multi-threaded in nature, which makes the single-threaded performance all the more important. Intel claims that Rocket Lake's IPC and frequency improvements offset the removal of the two cores, implying the chip will offer the same performance as the previous gen ten-core 10900K CPU. Rocket Lake 11th Gen core series CPUs are expected to hit retail shelves by the end of March 2021. The RKL lineup will share the same LGA 1200 socket and motherboard compatibility as the current 10th Gen Comet Lake processors, thus providing an upgrade path even for those rocking the flagship Core i9-10900K Comet lake CPU.

Billionaire Mark Cuban said that recent trading of bitcoin BTCUSD, 5.12% and other cryptocurrencies reminds him of the internet stock bubble of the late 1990s. Cryptocurrencies have been on a meteoric rise in recent months, as the market cap of bitcoin and other cryptos topped $1 trillion last week, according to CoinDesk. Bitcoin, which has risen nearly 300% in the past 12 months, was mentioned by Cuban as an equity that could survive a potential bubble bursting among cryptocurrencies - similar to how companies like Amazon AMZN, -2.15% and EBay EBAY, -1.01% survived during the internet stock bubble. The internet stock bubble, also known as the dot-com bubble, saw U.S. internet-based company valuations grow exponentially in the 1990s before entering a bear market in the early 2000s. At that time, many dot-com stocks plummeted and the technology-dominated NASDAQ COMP, -1.25% crashed.

Cuban sold his company Broadcast.com to Yahoo at the height of the dot-com bubble in a deal valuing the company at over $5 billion. Cuban's comments come as the U.K.'s financial regulator issued a warning about the rise of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, saying people should "prepare to lose all your money."

Bitcoin slid as much as 21% over Sunday and Monday, its biggest two-day decline since March, under pressure from investor risk aversion that also undermined equities while the dollar rallied.

The possibility of a second impeachment for President Donald Trump encouraged safe-haven flows into the dollar, which rose to two-week highs.

Bitcoin is still up roughly 89% over the past month.

Cryptocurrencies tumbled on Monday, wiping off nearly $140 billion in total market cap, as traders took profits on the spectacular rally so far this month in light of a stronger dollar and growing political uncertainty.

Investors will be keeping a close eye on a possible impeachment of President Donald Trump and a surge in COVID-19 cases in Asia.

Bitcoin plunged as much as 21% over Sunday and Monday, its biggest two-day decline since March, though the cryptocurrency is still up roughly 89% on a trailing one-month basis. Ethereum fell 12%. The smaller coins XRP and Litecoin shed about 18% each.

The fall in cryptocurrencies on Monday wiped nearly $140 billion off the entire market. Last week, the overall cryptocurrency market rose above $1 trillion for the first time.

Bitcoin last week hit a record high above $41,000, swept up by the combination of a weaker dollar, economic optimism, and a wave of bullish sentiment toward cryptocurrencies as big-name investors and investment banks touted a potential for huge gains this year.

Over $2.4 billion worth of Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and other coins has been liquidated on derivatives exchanges, according to data provided by Bybt. This came after the largest cryptocurrency collapsed to its one-week low of $33,447 at 03:38 UTC on the Bitstamp exchange. Bitcoin was down 20.5 percent from its all-time high of $42,000 that it hit on Jan. 8. Altcoins have been delivered even a bigger blow, with Ethereum plummeting to $1,010 after falling short of toppling its long-standing all-time high of $1,448. Long positions account for 88.42 percent of the wipeout ($2.16 billion). Only $282.63 million worth of shorts got liquidated during the most successful 24 hours for the bears in 2021. Binance has the highest liquidation volume ($903.31 million) followed by Huobi ($523.53 million), and Bybit ($494.55 million). While BitMEX only accounted for $132.11 million worth of liquidated long contracts, its trader recorded the largest one-off loss of a whopping $10 million.

Very excited, South Korean Sci-Fi! Everyone set notifications for Feb 5th.

Investing.com - XRP was trading at $0.33465 by 16:14 (21:14 GMT) on the Investing.com Index on Saturday, up 10.10% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage gain since January 7. The move upwards pushed XRP's market cap up to $15.06829B, or 1.38% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, XRP's market cap was $31.58403B. XRP had traded in a range of $0.30626 to $0.33465 in the previous twenty-four hours. Over the past seven days, XRP has seen a rise in value, as it gained 51.34%. The volume of XRP traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $7.33678B or 5.27% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $0.2154 to $0.3688 in the past 7 days. At its current price, XRP is still down 89.83% from its all-time high of $3.29 set on January 4, 2018.

Why has a chilly island in the north Atlantic become a crucial frontier in the occult, high-stakes world of crypto currency mining? An unremarkable looking cluster of sheds on the western cluster of the Nordic nation might just hold the answer. So join us today as we follow the money and take a peek inside Iceland's insane bitcoin super mine.

If you're using an Android device-or in some cases an iPhone-the Telegram messenger app makes it easy for hackers to find your precise location when you enable a feature that allows users who are geographically close to you to connect. The researcher who discovered the disclosure vulnerability and privately reported it to Telegram developers said they have no plans to fix it. The problem stems from a feature called People Nearby. By default, it's turned off. When users enable it, their geographic distance is shown to other people who have it turned on and are in (or are spoofing) the same geographic region. When People Nearby is used as designed, it's a useful feature with few if any privacy concerns. After all, a notification that someone is 1 kilometer or 600 meters away still leaves stalkers guessing where, precisely, you are.

Independent researcher Ahmed Hassan, however, has shown how the feature can be abused to divulge exactly where you are. Using readily available software and a rooted Android device, he's able to spoof the location his device reports to Telegram servers. By using just three different locations and measuring the corresponding distance reported by People Nearby, he is able to pinpoint a user's precise location. Telegram lets users create local groups within a geographical area. Hassan said that scammers often spoof their location to crash such groups and then peddle fake bitcoin investments, hacking tools, stolen social security numbers, and other scams. "Most users don't understand they are sharing their location, and perhaps their home address," Hassan wrote in an email. "If a female used that feature to chat with a local group, she can be stalked by unwanted users." A proof-of-concept video the researcher sent to Telegram showed how he could discern the address of a People Nearby user when he used a free GPS spoofing app to make his phone report just three different locations. He then drew a circle around each of the three locations with a radius of the distance reported by Telegram. The user's precise location was where all three intersected.

In a blog post, Hassan included an email from Telegram in response to the report he had sent them. It noted that People Nearby isn't enabled by default and that "it's expected that determining the exact location is possible under certain conditions." Telegram representatives didn't respond to an email seeking comment.

In a major move against a sitting U.S. president, Twitter today announced that it has permanently suspended the account of Donald Trump. The suspension comes after a violent protest at Capitol buildings on January 6. Twitter said in a blog post that the President's account, @realDonaldTrump, has been banned for good "due to the risk of further incitement of violence". The social networking company explained that it reviewed Trump's recent tweets based on the context around "how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter". In the aftermath of the violence that unfolded at Capitol Hill, Twitter suspended Trump's account for 12 hours and required him to remove his three tweets that were seen as promoting or glorifying the insurrectionist attack on the Hill. The suspension ended on Thursday, after which Trump returned to the micro-blogging site on Friday and tweeted:

"The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!"

To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th."

Twitter noted that the two tweets "must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President's statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks." Several factors have been taken into consideration before Twitter kicked Trump out of its platform forever. The service explained that his refusal to attend President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, set to take place on January 20, as having "being received by some of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate". In addition, Twitter also sees Trump's use of the words "American Patriots" as an act of support for those who stormed the Hill. In general, his tweets are viewed as inciting others "to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021". The service determined that these tweets violated its Glorification of Violence Policy, thus the permanent suspension.

In the words of Ryan Lizza, "You might not fully understand what happened Wednesday until you watch this video." This 39 minute video documents the storming of the Capitol building leading up to the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. Viewer discretion is advised.

WhatsApp recently updated its privacy policy, with users being notified that their data would be shared with Facebook and other companies. While people can opt out for now, this will become a mandatory requirement to accept after February 8. The service received a lot of criticism for the move, especially considering that it stated that no such thing would happen when it was acquired by Facebook back in 2014. Prominent figures including Elon Musk are now urging the public to move to Signal, with the platform seeing a massive spike in new registrations. Now, Microsoft's social media team has poked fun at the fiasco as well, and recommended that users migrate to Skype. In a tweet from the official Skype account, Microsoft has boasted that it keeps the personal data of users private and does not share it with third-parties:

Skype respects your privacy. We are committed to keeping your personal data private and do not sell to 3rd parties: https://t.co/FLGwMmSNHv pic.twitter.com/dupbfejr7m

— Skype (@Skype) January 8, 2021

Additionally, the URL points to Microsoft's privacy policy statement, which outlines what kind of data the firm collects from users and how it is used. It's a lengthy page that most people will ignore, but it's recommended that you go through it if you are indeed considering migrating from WhatsApp due to privacy concerns. Despite all the backlash, it seems a bit unlikely that WhatsApp will reverse course. The firm probably anticipated this feedback, and is likely banking on the furore to die down within the next few weeks.

Microsoft? Privacy? Since when? :-D

According to the data shared by Whale Alert cryptocurrency tracker, a mammoth-sized amount of XRP - over half a billion coins. This eye-popping sum came in several transactions, conducted by Ripple, its cofounder and executive chairman and trading giant Coinbase. Curiously, all the three players have been sued by the SEC over XRP sales. Whale Alert posted several tweets about a massive amount of XRP moved by Ripple, Chris Larsen and Coinbase - $168,279,114 worth of XRP (520.8 million coins). It took six transactions to wire that amount. The transfers were made between Ripple's wallets, including the company's OTC wallet and addresses set up during Ripple's early days when it stil carried the name OpenCoin. 71,789,758 XRP was moved from the Ripple OTC Distribution wallet. 75,095,833 XRP was shifted by Chris Larsen. Coinbase wired a whopping 199,999,980 XRP between its wallets!

Despite the recent wave of delistings announced by multiple crypto exchanges, including large platforms, like Coinbase, Bittrex, Binance US, Bitstamp, etc, XRP has managed to recover above the $0.30 price mark. At the time of writing, the coin is changing hands at $0.32.