Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this week's Flagship Friday! We do apologize for last week's absence but Brent had to scramble off to NY and Karim and Adam just couldn't figure out a recording time. Lovely lads. Anyway, enough about our inability to function - today we're looking at topics like Brave 1.0 and the Samsung Blockchain being released, Bitcoin's all time highs going under investigation, scams galore (who would've thought?) and much, much more. Bonus: we don't talk about Libra OR Craig Wright. This is truly an exceptional episode. Dive into the cryptoverse with us on this week's Flagship Friday. * Rapid Fire * Brave 1.0 has been released ( https://brave.com/brave-launches-next-generation-browser/ ) * Iphone and Ipad users now have full access to Brave 1.0 which now gives access to Brave Rewards, Brave Ads, and Brave Shields. * Previously in beta, Brave has 8.7 monthly active users and 300k verified publishers already. * Ledger Vault secures $150 mil Crime Insurance Policy ( https://cointelegraph.com/news/ledger-vault-secures-150-million-crime-insurance-policy-for-digital-assets ) * Ledger Vault, the custody are of hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger has developed a crime insurance policy with broker and risk advisory firm, Marsh and insurance company, Arch Insurance Unlimited * Ledger now provides a crime insurance program and protects against third-party theft of the master seed and private keys—even insider theft caused my collusion * Iran Offering Bounties For Illicit Mining Operations ( https://cointelegraph.com/news/iran-offers-bounty-for-illicit-cryptocurrency-mining-operations ) * Previously reported, Iran is a hot spot for crypto mining with low costs per kilowatt per hour. The Iranian government had to slap a tariff to stop exporting electricity. * Now they are offering bounties for up to 20% of damages to anyone who reports illegal mining operations within the country. * Coinbase has announced new confirmation requirements. ( https://blog.coinbase.com/announcing-new-confirmation-requirements-4a5504ba8d81 ) * Basically your transactions will get faster for most coins they changed. BTC cut in half, Zcash cut 33%, ETC cut about 40%ish (But still a ton of confirmations) * LTC has doubled. * Pornhub models were all blocked from using Paypal and had to switch their payout methods. ( https://imgur.com/jJMxtUH ) (Use Case) * John Mcafee Launches WHACKD — An Epstein didn't kill himself crypto ( https://cointelegraph.com/news/john-mcafee-launches-whackd-an-epstein-didnt-kill-himself-crypto ) * It will be launched on McafeeDex.com ( http://McafeeDex.com ) , his own exchange lol. * Was BTC manipulated to reach its historic highs? ( https://www.newsweek.com/bitcoin-bitfinex-tether-cryptocurrency-market-manipulation-historic-value-fraud-1469640 ) -K * Peer-reviewed study ( https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3195066 ) "Is Bitcoin Really Untethered) by UTexas John Griffin, and Ohio state U Amin Shams * Bitfinex appears to have massively manipulated the price of Bitcoin in 2017 * "By mapping the blockchains of Bitcoin and Tether, we are able to establish that one large player on Bitfinex uses Tether to purchase large amounts of Bitcoin when prices are falling and following the printing of Tether." * One player associated with more than half of the USDT/BTC exchange * One of the authors' main hypotheses posited that Bitfinex creates Tether regardless of demand from cash investors. As such, any "additional supply of Tether can create an inflation in price of Bitcoin * Bitfinex of course denied, said paper lacked academic rigor "updates or not" * Coin telegraph has a counter article ( https://cointelegraph.com/news/3-reasons-why-one-trader-didnt-manipulate-bitcoin-price-to-20k ) Circle CEO tweeted response * “Exchanges use omni-bus wallets that pool all customer balances and transactions