Orchestration Is Not Music When AI Agents Work Together
February 13, 2025
Are multiple AIs better than one? Megaputer believes so. The data firm sent out a promotional email urging us to “Build Multi-Agent Gen-AI Systems.” With the help of its products, of course. We are told:
“Most business challenges are too complex for a single AI engine to solve. What is the way forward? Introducing Agent-Chain Systems: A novel groundbreaking approach leveraging the collaborative strengths of specialized AI models, each configured for distinct analytical tasks.
- Validate results through inter-agent verification mechanisms, minimizing hallucinations and inconsistencies.
- Dynamically adapt workflows by redistributing tasks among Gen-AI agents based on complexity, optimizing resource utilization and performance.
- Build AI applications in hours for tasks like automated taxonomy building and complex fact extraction, going beyond traditional AI limitations.”
If this approach really reduces AI hallucinations, there may be something to it. The firm invites readers to explore a few case studies they have put together: One is for an anonymous pharmaceutical company, one for a US regulatory agency, and the third for a large retail company. Snapshots of each project’s dashboard further illustrate the concept. Are cooperative AI agents the next big thing in generative AI? Megaputer, for one, is banking on it. Founded back in 1997, the small business is based in Bloomington, Indiana.
Cynthia Murrell, February 10, 2025
The Google: Tell Me, Please, What Is a Malicious App?
February 12, 2025
Yep, another dinobaby emission. No smart software required.
I suggest you take a quick look at an important essay about the data which flows from Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. The paper is “Everyone Knows Your Location: Tracking Myself Down Through In-App Ads” by Tim. The main point of the write up is to disclose information that has been generally closely held by a number of entities. I strongly recommend the write up, and it is possible that it could be made difficult to locate in the near future. The article says:
After more than couple dozen hours of trying, here are the main takeaways:
- I found a couple requests sent by my phone with my location + 5 requests that leak my IP address, which can be turned into geolocation using reverse DNS.
- Learned a lot about the RTB (real-time bidding) auctions and OpenRTB protocol and was shocked by the amount and types of data sent with the bids to ad exchanges.
- Gave up on the idea to buy my location data from a data broker or a tracking service, because I don’t have a big enough company to take a trial or $10-50k to buy a huge database with the data of millions of people + me.
Well maybe I do, but such expense seems a bit irrational.
Turns out that EU-based peoples` data is almost the most expensive.But still, I know my location data was collected and I know where to buy it!
Tim’s essay sets the stage for a Google Security Blog post titled “How We Kept the Google Play & Android App Ecosystems Safe in 2024.” That write up is another example of Google’s self-promotion. It lacks the snap of the quantum supremacy pitch and the endless backpatting about Google’s smart software.
The write up says:
To keep out bad actors, we have always used a combination of human security experts and the latest threat-detection technology. In 2024, we used Google’s advanced AI to improve our systems’ ability to proactively identify malware, enabling us to detect and block bad apps more effectively. It also helps us streamline review processes for developers with a proven track record of policy compliance. Today, over 92% of our human reviews for harmful apps are AI-assisted, allowing us to take quicker and more accurate action to help prevent harmful apps from becoming available on Google Play.
I want to ask one question, “Is Google’s advertising a malicious app?” The answer depends on one’s point of view. Google would assert that it is not doing anything other than making high value services available either for free or at a very low cost to the consumer.
A skeptical person might respond, “Your system sustains the digital online advertising sector. Your technology helps, to some degree, the third party advertising services firms to gather information and cross correlate it for the fine-grained intelligence described in Tim’s article?”
Google, which is it? Is your advertising system malicious or is it a benefit to users? This is a serious question, and it is one that smarmy self promotion and PR campaigns are likely to have difficulty answering.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2025
A Case for Export Controls in the Wake of Deepseek Kerfuffle
February 11, 2025
Some were shocked by recent revelations of Deepseek’s AI capabilities, including investors. Others had been forewarned about the (allegedly) adept firm. Interesting how social media was used to create the shock and awe that online information services picked up and endlessly repeated. Way to amplify the adversary’s propaganda.
At any rate, this escalating AI arms race is now top-of-mind for many. Could strong export controls give the US an edge? After all, China’s own chip manufacturing is said to lag about five years behind ours. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei believes they can, as he explains in his post, "On Deepseek and Export Controls."
The AI maestro begins with some groundwork. First, he describes certain ways AI development scales and shifts. He then looks at what makes Deepseek so special—and what does not. See the post for those details, but here is the key point for our discussion: AI developers everywhere require more and more hardware to progress. So far, Chinese and US companies have had access to similar reserves of both funds and chips. However, if we limit the number of chips flowing into China, Chinese firms will eventually hit a proverbial wall. Amodei compares hypothetical futures:
"The question is whether China will also be able to get millions of chips. If they can, we’ll live in a bipolar world, where both the US and China have powerful AI models that will cause extremely rapid advances in science and technology — what I’ve called ‘countries of geniuses in a datacenter‘. A bipolar world would not necessarily be balanced indefinitely. Even if the US and China were at parity in AI systems, it seems likely that China could direct more talent, capital, and focus to military applications of the technology. Combined with its large industrial base and military-strategic advantages, this could help China take a commanding lead on the global stage, not just for AI but for everything."
How ominous. And if we successfully implement and enforce export controls? He continues:
"If China can’t get millions of chips, we’ll (at least temporarily) live in a unipolar world, where only the US and its allies have these models. It’s unclear whether the unipolar world will last, but there’s at least the possibility that, because AI systems can eventually help make even smarter AI systems, a temporary lead could be parlayed into a durable advantage. Thus, in this world, the US and its allies might take a commanding and long-lasting lead on the global stage."
"Might," he says. There is no certainty here. Still, an advantage like this may be worthwhile if it keeps China’s military from outstripping ours. Hindering an Anthropic competitor is just a side effect of this advice, right? Sure, in a peaceful world, international "competition and collaboration make the world a better place." But that is not our reality at the moment.
Amodei hastens to note he thinks the Deepseek folks are fine researchers and curious innovators. It is just that bit about being beholden to their authoritarian government that may be the issue.
Cynthia Murrell, February 11, 2025
Google Goes Googley in Paris Over AI … Again
February 10, 2025
Google does some interesting things in Paris. The City of Light was the scene of a Googler’s demonstration of its AI complete with hallucinations about two years ago. On Monday, February 10, 2025, Google’s “leadership” Sundar Pichai alleged leaked his speech or shared some memorable comments with journalists. These were reported in AAWSAT.com, an online information service in the story “AI Is ‘Biggest Shift of Our Lifetimes’, Says Google Boss.”
I like the shift; it reminds me of the word “shifty.”
One of the passages catching my attention was this one, although I am not sure of the accuracy of the version in the cited article. The gist seems on point with Google’s posture during Code Red and its subsequent reorganization of the firm’s smart software unit. The context, however, does not seem to include the impact of Deepseek’s bargain basement approach to AI. Google is into big money for big AI. One wins big in a horse race bet by plopping big bucks on a favorite nag. AI is doing the big bet on AI, about $75 billion in capital expenditures in the next 10 months.
Here’s the quote:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a "fundamental rewiring of technology" that will act as an "accelerant of human ingenuity." We’re still in the early days of the AI platform shift, and yet we know it will be the biggest of our lifetimes… With AI, we have the chance to democratize access (to a new technology) from the start, and to ensure that the digital divide doesn’t become an AI divide….
The statement exudes confidence. With billions riding on Mr. Pichai gambler’s instinct, stakeholders and employees not terminated for cost savings hope he is correct. Those already terminated may be rooting for a different horse.
Google’s head of smart software (sorry, Jeff Dean) allegedly offered this sentiment:
“Material science, mathematics, fusion, there is almost no area of science that won’t benefit from these AI tools," the Nobel chemistry laureate said.
Are categorical statements part of the mental equipment that makes a Nobel prize winner. He did include an “almost,” but I think the hope is that many technical disciplines will reap the fruits of smart software. Some smart software may just reap fruits from users of smart software’s inputs.
A statement which I found more remarkable was:
Every generation worries that the new technology will change the lives of the next generation for the worse — and yet it’s almost always the opposite.
Another hedged categorical affirmative: “Almost always”. The only issue is that as Jacques Ellul asserted in The Technological Bluff, technology creates problems which invoke more technology to address old problems while simultaneously creating a new technology. I think Father Ellul was on the beam.
How about this for a concluding statement:
We must not let our own bias for the present get in the way of the future. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve lives at the scale of AI.
Scale. Isn’t that what Deepseek demonstrated may be a less logical approach to smart software? Paris has quite an impact on Google thought processes in my opinion. Did Google miss the Deepseek China foray? Did the company fail to interpret it in the context of wide adoption of AI? On the other hand, maybe if one does not talk about something, one can pretend that something does not exist. Like the Super Bowl ad with misinformation about cheese. Yes, cheese, again.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2025
Microsoft, Deepseek, and OpenAI: An Interesting Mixture Like RDX?
February 10, 2025
We have smart software, but the dinobaby continues to do what 80 year olds do: Write the old-fashioned human way. We did give up clay tablets for a quill pen. Works okay.
I have successfully installed Deepseek and run some queries. The results seem okay, but most of the large language models we have installed have their strengths and weaknesses. What’s interesting about Deepseek is that it caused a bit of a financial squall when it was publicized during a Chinese dignitary’s visit to Colombia.
A short time after a high flying video card company lost a few bucks, an expert advising the new US administration suggested “there’s substantial evidence that Deepseek used OpenAI’s models to train its own.” This story appeared X.com via Fox. Another report said that Microsoft was investigating Deepseek. When I checked my newsfeed this morning (January 30, 2025), Slashdot pointed me to this story: “Microsoft makes Deepseek’s R1 Model Available on Azure AI and GitHub.”
Did Microsoft do a speedy investigation or is the inclusion of Deepseek in AzureAI and GitHub part of its investigation. Did loading up Deepseek kill everyone’s favorite version of Office on January 29, 2024? Probably not, but there is a lot of action in the AI space at Microsoft Town.
Let’s recap the stuff from the AI chemistry lab. First, we have the fascinating Sam AI-Man. With a deal of note because Oracle is in and Grok is out, OpenAI remains a partner with Microsoft. Second, Microsoft, fresh from bumper revenues, continues to embrace AI and demonstrate that a welcome mat is outside Satya Nadella’s door for AI outfits. Third, who stole what? AI companies have been viewed as information bandits by some outfits. Legal eagles cloud the sunny future of smart software.
What will these chemical elements combine to deliver? Let’s consider a few options.
- Like RDX a go-to compound for some kinetic applications, the elements combust.
- The legal eagles effectively grind innovation to a halt due to restrictions on Nvidia, access to US open source software, and getting in the way of the reinvigoration of the USA.
- Nothing. That’s right. The status quo chugs along with predictable ups and downs but nothing changes.
Net net: This will be an interesting techno-drama to watch in real time. On the other hand, I may wait until the Slice outfit does a documentary about the dust up, partnerships, and failed bro-love affairs.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2025
What Does One Do When Innovation Falters? Do the Me-Too Bop
February 10, 2025
Another dinobaby commentary. No smart software required.
I found the TechRadar story “In Surprise Move Microsoft Announces Deepseek R1 Is Coming to CoPilot+ PCs – Here’s How to Get It” an excellent example of bit tech innovation. The article states:
Microsoft has announced that, following the arrival of Deepseek R1 on Azure AI Foundry, you’ll soon be able to run an NPU-optimized version of Deepseek’s AI on your Copilot+ PC. This feature will roll out first to Qualcomm Snapdragon X machines, followed by Intel Core Ultra 200V laptops, and AMD AI chipsets.
Yep, me too, me too. The write up explains the ways in which one can use Deepseek, and I will leave taking that step to you. (On the other hand, navigate to Hugging Face and download it, or you could zip over to You.com and give it a try.)
The larger issue is not the speed with which Microsoft embraced the me too approach to innovation. For me, the decision illustrates the paucity of technical progress in one of the big technology giants. You know, Microsoft, the originator of Bob and the favorite software company of bad actors who advertise their malware on Telegram.
Several observations:
- It doesn’t matter how the Chinese start up nurtured by a venture capital firm got Deepseek to work. The Chinese outfit did it. Bang. The export controls and the myth of trillions of dollars to scale up disappeared. Poof.
- No US outfit — with or without US government support — was in the hockey rink when the Chinese team showed up and blasted a goal in the first few minutes of a global game. Buzz. 1 to zip. The question is, “Why not?” and “What’s happened since Microsoft triggered the crazy Code Red or whatever at the Google?” Answer: Burning money quickly.
- More pointedly, are the “innovations” in AI touted by Product Hunt and podcasters innovations? What if these are little more than wrappers with some snappy names? Answer: A reminder that technical training and some tactical kung fu can deliver a heck of a punch.
Net net: Deepseek was a tactical foray or probe. The data are in. Microsoft will install Chinese software in its global software empire. That’s interesting, and it underscores the problem of me to. Innovation takes more than raising prices and hiring a PR firm.
Stephen E Arnold, February 10, 2025
Deepseek: Details Surface Amid Soft Numbers
February 7, 2025
We have smart software, but the dinobaby continues to do what 80 year olds do: Write the old-fashioned human way. We did give up clay tablets for a quill pen. Works okay.
I read “Research exposes Deepseek’s AI Training Cost Is Not $6M, It’s a Staggering $1.3B.” The assertions in the write up are interesting and closer to the actual cost of the Deepseek open source smart software. Let’s take a look at the allegedly accurate and verifiable information. Then I want to point out two costs not included in the estimated cost of Deepseek.
The article explains that the analysis for training was closer to $1.3 billion. I am not sure if this estimate is on the money, but a higher cost is certainly understandable based on the money burning activities of outfits like Microsoft, OpenAI, Facebook / Meta, and the Google, among others.
The article says:
In its latest report, SemiAnalysis, an independent research company, has spotlighted Deepseek, a rising player in the AI landscape. The SemiAnalysis challenges some of the prevailing narratives surrounding Deepseek’s costs and compares them to competing technologies in the market. One of the most prominent claims in circulation is that Deepseek V3 incurs a training cost of around $6 million.
One important point is that building and making available for free a smart software system incurs many costs. The consulting firm has narrowed its focus to training costs.
The write up reports:
The $6 million estimate primarily considers GPU pre-training expenses, neglecting the significant investments in research and development, infrastructure, and other essential costs accruing to the company. The report highlights that Deepseek’s total server capital expenditure (CapEx) amounts to an astonishing $1.3 billion. Much of this financial commitment is directed toward operating and maintaining its extensive GPU clusters, the backbone of its computational power.
But “astonishing.” Nope. Sam AI-Man tossed around numbers in the trillions. I am not sure we will ever know how much Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft — to name four outfits — have spent in the push to win the AI war, get a new monopoly, and control everything from baby cams to zebra protection in South Africa.
I do agree that the low ball number was low, but I think the pitch for this low ball was a tactic designed to see what a Chinese-backed AI product could do to the US financial markets.
There are some costs that neither the SemiAnalytics outfit or the Interesting Engineering wordsmith considered.
First, if you take a look at the authors of the Deepseek ArXiv papers you will see a lot of names. Most of these individuals are affiliated with Chinese universities. How we these costs handled? My hunch is that the costs were paid by the Chinese government and the authors of the paper did what was necessary to figure out how to come up with a “do more for less” system. The idea is that China, hampered by US export restrictions, is better at AI than the mythological Silicon Valley. Okay, that’s a good intelligence operation: Test destabilization with a reasonably believable free software gilded with AI sparklies. But the costs? Staff, overhead, and whatever perks go with being a wizard at a Chinese university have to be counted, multiplied by the time required to get the system to work mostly, and then included in the statement of accounts. These steps have not been taken, but a company named Complete Analytics should do the work.
Second, what was the cost of the social media campaign that made Deepseek more visible than the head referee of the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagle game? That cost has not been considered. Someone should grind through the posts, count the authors or their handles, and produce an estimate. As far as I know, there is no information about who is a paid promoter of Deepseek.
Third, how much did the electricity to get DeepSeek to do its tricks? We must not forget the power at the universities, the research labs, and the laptops. Technology Review has some thoughts along this power line.
Finally, what’s the cost of the overhead. I am thinking about the planning time, the lunches, the meetings, and the back and forth needed to get Deepseek on track to coincide with the new president’s push to make China not so great again? We have nothing. We need a firm called SpeculativeAnalytics for this task or maybe MasterCard can lend a hand?
Net net: The Deepseek operation worked. The recriminations, the allegations, and the explanations will begin. I am not sure they will have as much impact as this China smart, US dumb strategy. Plus, that SemiAnalytics’ name is a hoot.
Stephen E Arnold, February 7, 2025
VPNs May Become a Problem for Bargain Hunters
February 7, 2025
Do you love online shopping? What am I talking about, you’re on the Internet, so, of course, you do. If you’re in the mood to shop and you use a VPN, I have some bad news to you via PC Mag: “Holiday Shopping? These Sites May Block VPN Users, Cancel Purchases.” The holiday season is over and everyone is recovering from their credit card bills, but that doesn’t stop you from buying groceries and other essentials online.
Valentine’s Day is almost upon us. Will VPN blocking kill Cupid’s ardor for clicking?
What else are you going to do during a snowy day? Your beloved VPN that protects your IP and allows you to watch shows unavailable on Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming Web sites could prevent you from buying more stuff.
Why?
Kate Irwin investigated this issue when she was in the market for a new laptop case. She purchased one over her VPN using her Proton Mail account from Corsair. Proton Mail allows users to have an alias, which is what Irwin used during her first attempt. The order was canceled. She used her real account, but her order was canceled a second and third time. Her attempts ended with:
"Corsair may be blocking VPNs because scammers use them when attempting credit card fraud. They might also cancel orders that don’t get text confirmations from the buyer (though using text verification isn’t all that secure because of SIM-swapping attacks). Corsair also said in its automated email that trying to send an order to a shipping company’s address could get it cancelled, but I hadn’t done that (and I reached out to Corsair for comment).”
Amazon, eBay, and other popular Web sites might be blocking VPNs. Many of these Web sites don’t prohibit using a VPN, but they block them because of security reasons. Bad actors use multiple accounts and VPNS to engage in fraudulent activity, such as scams, fake listings, and fake purchases.
The VPNs are blocked because you’re using a “dirty” IP. There are a limited number of IPs and the one you’ve selected is tied to malicious activities. You can get around the issue with a dedicated IP, using an IP within your country, or turn it on and off while you’re shopping. That’s probably the easiest method.
VPNs may be viewed as a problem which must be solved by a mysterious online intermediary blocking and filtering to make life better for shoppers everywhere. And the merchants? Oh, the merchants will benefit too.
Whitney Grace, February 7, 2025
China Smart, US Dumb: The Deepseek Foray into Destabilization of AI Investment
February 6, 2025
Yep, a dinobaby wrote this blog post. Replace me with a subscription service or a contract worker from Fiverr. See if I care.
I have published a few blog posts about the Chinese information warfare directed at the US. Examples have included videos of a farm girl with primitive tools repairing complex machinery, the carpeting of ArXiv with papers about Deepseek’s AI innovations, and the stories in the South China Morning Post about assorted US technology issues.
Thanks You.com. Pretty good illustration.
Now the Deepseek foray is delivering fungible results. Numerous articles appeared on January 27, 2025, pegged to the impact of the Deepseek smart software on the US AI sector. A representative article is “China’s Deepseek Sparks AI Market Rout.”
The trusted real news outfit said:
Technology shares around the world slid on Monday as a surge in popularity of a Chinese discount artificial intelligence model shook investors’ faith in the AI sector’s voracious demand for high-tech chips. Startup Deepseek has rolled out a free assistant it says uses lower-cost chips and less data, seemingly challenging a widespread bet in financial markets that AI will drive demand along a supply chain from chipmakers to data centres.
Facebook ripped a page from the Google leadership team’s playbook. According to “Meta Scrambles After Chinese AI Equals Its Own, Upending Silicon Valley,” the Zuckerberg outfit assembled four “war rooms” to figure out how a Chinese open source AI could become such a big problem from out of the blue.
I find it difficult to believe that big US outfits were unaware of China’s interest in smart software. Furthermore, the Deepseek team made quite clear by listing dozens upon dozens of AI experts who contributed to the Deepseek effort. But who in US AI land has time to cross correlate the names of the researchers in the ArXiv essays to ask, “What are these folks doing to output cheaper AI models?”
Several observations are warranted:
- The effect of this foray has been to cause an immediate and direct concern about US AI firms’ ability to reduce costs. China allegedly has rolled out a good model at a lower price. Price competition comes in many forms. In this case, China can use less modern components to produce more modern AI. If you want to see how this works for basic equipment navigate to “Genius Girl Builds Amazing Hydroelectric Power Station For An Elderly Living Alone in the Mountains.” Deepseek is this information warfare tactic in the smart software space.
- The mechanism for the foray was open source. I have heard many times from some very smart people that open source is the future. Maybe that’s true. We now have an example of open source creating a credibility problem for established US big technology outfits who use open source to publicize how smart and good they are, prove they can do great work, and appear to be “community” minded. Deepseek just posted software that showed a small venture firm was able to do what US big technology has done at a fraction of the cost. Chinese business understands price and cost centric methods. This is the cost angle driven through the heart of scaling up solutions. Like giant US trucks, the approach is expensive and at some point will collapses of its own bloated framework.
- The foray has been broken into four parts: [a] The arXiv thrust, [b] the free and open source software thrust which begs the question, “What’s next from this venture firm?”, [c] the social media play with posts ballooning on BlueSky, Telegram, and Twitter, [d] the real journalism outfits like Bloomberg and Reuters yapping about AI innovation. The four-part thrust is effective.
China’s made the US approach to smart software look incredibly stupid. I don’t believe that a small group of hard workers at a venture firm cooked up the Deepseek method. The number of authors on the arXiv Deepseek papers make that clear.
With one deft, non kinetic, non militaristic foray, China has amplified doubt about US AI methods. The action has chopped big bucks from outfits like Nvidia. Plus China has combined its playbook for lower costs and better prices with information warfare. I am not sure that Silicon Valley type outfits have a response to roll out quickly. The foray has returned useful intelligence to China.
Net net: More AI will be coming to destabilize the Silicon Valley way.
Stephen E Arnold, February 6, 2025
Telegram Speed Dates a Bad Actor: Pavel Durov and Judgment or Lack Thereof
February 5, 2025
Another non smart software write up from a real, authentic dinobaby.
Pavel Durov has had a rocky start to 2025. He may have about 100 loving children. He has his brother Nikolai’s support. He has pals from his days at VKontakte. And he has new friends from the French judiciary urging him to embrace some opportunities for freedom. That private jet is waiting. The sunny skies of Dubai beckon.
But another decision may come to haunt him. Telegram and the TON Foundation’s BFF has been busted. According to the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the outfits shepherding the Ku Group and its KuCoin operations said, “Yep, we are guilty of unlicensed money transmitting business.”
As a dinobaby, I think the statement in “KuCoin Pleads Guilty to Unlicensed Money Transmission Charge and Agres to Pay Penalties Totaling Nearly $300 Million” means in rural Kentucky speak something like “money laundering.” The official news release explains:
U.S. Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon said: “For years, KuCoin avoided implementing required anti-money laundering policies designed to identify criminal actors and prevent illicit transactions. As a result, KuCoin was used to facilitate billions of dollars’ worth of suspicious transactions and to transmit potentially criminal proceeds, including proceeds from darknet markets and malware, ransomware, and fraud schemes. Today’s guilty plea and penalties show the cost of refusing to follow these laws and allowing unlawful activity to continue.”
Pavel Durov’s proxy outfit the Open Network Foundation showcased Ku Group at the November 2024 Gateway Conference in Dubai. Ku Group’s then-CEO (apparently not called out in the official statement issued on January 27, 2025, by the southern district) sparkled with optimism about the tie up between the owner of the Messenger mini app and the Peken Global Limited / Ku Group operation.
The news release points out:
KuCoin was founded in or about September 2017. Since its founding in 2017, KuCoin has become one of the largest global cryptocurrency exchange platforms, with more than 30 million customers and billions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency in daily trading volume. Between in or about September 2017 and in or about March 2024, the date of the Indictment, KuCoin served approximately 1.5 million registered users who were located in the U.S., and earned at least approximately $184.5 million in fees from those U.S. registered users.
Some of Ku Group’s services included, according to the official AG statement placing:
orders for spot trades in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others, and orders for derivative products, including futures contracts, tied to the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As a result of its operation of this business, KuCoin has, at all relevant times, been a money transmitting business required to register with FinCEN and reported suspicious transactions.
The November BFF moments between Ku Group and Telegram’s proxy organization make clear that the Messenger app is a clever and versatile technology system. It is also now clear that the intent of some of Telegram’s announcements is possibly going against the established financial systems methods of serving their customers.
For now, Chun (Michael) Gan and Ke (Eric) Tang have suffered a set back. Will the Peken Global and Ku Group disappear? Possibly. However, the Ku Group’s and Telegram’s vision of a Web3 financial services entity is likely to thrive. Will the French judiciary amp up their discussions with Pavel Durov? Will the United Arab Emirates take a closer look at the Telegram operation which has a nominal headquarters in Dubai? Will the Swiss authorities pay a visit to the TON Foundation’s office in Zug, Switzerland? Will bad actors change their ways of hiding money in digital form?
Good questions. I think the French are on the job. The other entities may be reluctant to rock the good ship Telegram too much more. Could those folks have a vision for a financial system cut loose from traditional ways to do money business?
My thought is that BRICS, Russia, China, and some influential people have a goal. Telegram and the Ku Group were players, not leaders.
Stephen E Arnold, January 5, 2025
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
