Benjamin Powers

Powers is a tech reporter at Grid. Previously, he was privacy reporter at CoinDesk where he focused on data and financial privacy, information security, and digital identity. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, and the New Republic, among others. He owns bitcoin.

Benjamin Powers

Latest from Benjamin Powers


Tech

Privacy Coin Firo Temporarily Disables Protocol to Investigate 'Suspicious Transactions'

Core devs have activated their emergency switch to temporarily disable Lelantus.

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Tech

New Social Media Platform Instars Leverages Privacy-Enhancing Cryptography

Instar leverages blockchain and multiparty computation to protect user data.

MPC

Tech

Opera Adds In-Browser Crypto Options With Simplex Integration

Integrating a crypto on-ramp lets users pay fiat for crypto.

The Opera browser has added Simplex integration.

Tech

Brave Browser Was Exposing Addresses in Tor Mode for Months

Not only were .onion domain requests observable but so were all domains in Tor tabs. And they had been for months.

brave

Tech

Ideamarket Is a Literal Marketplace for Ideas (and Online Reputation)

The goal is to relieve social media platforms of the task of making judgments on behalf of the public.

How would you rate your information providers?

Tech

SecretSwap Is the Secret Network’s Answer to DeFi Privacy

SecretSwap works similarly to Uniswap or SushiSwap but also has privacy benefits.

Secret contracts allow encrypted data to be used without revealing it on a public blockchain, or even to the nodes involved.

Tech

Popular Crypto App Found to Have Ties to Data Tracking Company: Report

Bitcoin Ticker Widget and a clone of Steemit were found to contain data trackers.

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Policy

How a Lawsuit Against the IRS Is Trying to Expand Privacy for Crypto Users

Why is the IRS trying to keep this case out of court? Because it may have widespread implications for privacy laws involving cryptocurrency users if the IRS loses.

The lawsuit is challenging the IRS' ability to access crypto user data without cause.

Policy

US Senate Bill Re-Introduces Suspicious Activity Reports for Social Media

The bill would create “suspicious transmission activity reports” for tech platforms.

The bill, proposing Suspicious Transmission Activity Reports from tech platforms, has bipartisan support.

Markets

Square-Led Consortium Challenges Craig Wright's Bitcoin White Paper Claim

The response asks general questions regarding Craig Wright's claims.

Jack Dorsey, chief executive officer of Twitter Inc. and Square Inc.