jbz
boosted
Traditionally, #Xfce is newsworthy perhaps once every other year.
It's part of the reason I've been using it for 20+ years and volunteering with the project for...um *cough* 13+(!) years. Quiet, stable, predicatble. Boring, even. I prefer that in my Desktop Environment.
It's not even the end of January and we've already had one big announcement with #Xfwl4 and there are probably two more on the way this year:
1. The initial development release of Xfwl4 sometime mid-year.
2. The probable release of Xfce4 4.22 in December(Our release roadmap still needs to be updated, real soon now).
I hope that I handle this much Xfce excitement this year. 🤣 🚀
![The crypto industry’s “educational nonprofit”, the American Innovation Project [I91, 98], has launched a program to fund Congressional staff positions on the House Financial Services and Agriculture Committees — committees responsible for crypto oversight — after they go through weeks of “training” on “emerging technologies like crypto, AI, biotech, and defense tech”. The program will target young, [begin strikethrough] impressionable [end strikethrough] eager to learn college graduates.](https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/115/980/739/667/641/833/original/aa6701f9d367b1b3.png)
![SEC
The SEC has dismissed with prejudice its case against the Winklevoss twins’ Gemini cryptocurrency exchange. Filed in January 2023, the agency alleged that the company had violated securities laws with its Earn program, in which Gemini partnered with the Genesis crypto lender to offer Gemini customers up to 7.4% APY on assets they loaned through Genesis. When Genesis suffered major losses on loans to Three Arrows Capital [W3IGG] and Babel Finance [W3IGG], the company went under, and around $900 million in Gemini customers’ assets were suddenly locked up in bankruptcy proceedings [I17, 18, 42]. Now, the SEC has evidently decided no harm, no foul, stating: “The 100 percent in-kind return of Gemini Earn investors’ crypto assets through the Genesis Bankruptcy and the settlements noted above, and in the exercise of its discretion, the Commission believes the dismissal of the claims against Defendant is appropriate.”26](https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/115/980/741/060/144/757/original/3766b7e443e551f9.png)
![While “but we gave the money back” isn’t normally a successful defense (just ask Sam Bankman-Fried), contributing around $4.4 million to Trump’s campaign,27 donating an undisclosed amount to Trump’s ballroom project,28 spending $1 million to be among the first members of the Trump family-run Executive Branch club,29 investing in Donald Trump Jr.’s American Bitcoin venture,30 and committing $22 million to political projects backing pro-Trump crypto advocates in the midterms seems to have gone a long way. The SEC case was paused back in April [I81], and, as I wrote then, “it’s widely understood that these [pauses] mark the end of SEC scrutiny for these companies.” Two months later, as the Winklevoss twins stood behind Trump in the Oval Office as he signed the GENIUS Act stablecoin bill, Trump remarked about the crypto industry: “I got you guys out of so much trouble”. Thanking the Winklevosses specifically, he added: “They’ve got plenty of cash, and it’s great that you’re on our side.” [I89]](https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/115/980/743/593/883/124/original/a991b0955a5b44b5.png)
![The dismissal of the Gemini Earn enforcement action adds to a long list of crypto-focused cases and investigations that the SEC has paused, dismissed, or otherwise ended. That list also includes: Aave [I99], Binance [I85], Coinbase [I78], ConsenSys [I78], Crypto.com [I81], Cumberland DRW [I79], Dragonchain,31 Gemini (a separate investigation) [I78], Hex [I82], Immutable [I80], Kraken [I79], Ondo Finance [I98], OpenSea [I78], PayPal [I83], Ripple [I80], Robinhood [I78], Tron [I78], Uniswap [I78], Yuga Labs [I79], and the ZCash Foundation [I99].](https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/115/980/744/467/963/330/original/1dd8f4c922ef8249.png)
