“The only way to stop data from ending up in the wrong hands is by not collecting it in the first place.” This is the claim included in an ad from one of the best VPN providers around that ran on Monday, January 20, 2025, in the New York Times.

Through a cartoon-style FBI agent, the Swiss company Mullvad seeks to shed light on the tensions between technologists and law enforcement around encryption.

TL;DR

• Pi Network developers have set the Open Network launch condition at 15 million KYC-verified users, with over 9 million already migrated, but some users continue to face verification challenges.
• The project’s popularity remains strong, especially in Asia, with millions of users and a large social media following that surpasses established crypto entities like Ripple.

What’s New?

Pi Network is one of the most controversial and yet most popular cryptocurrency projects. It claims to allow people to mine digital assets directly from their smartphones with minimal energy consumption. Despite being around for almost six years, Pi Network has yet to introduce its native token and open mainnet. 

Many community members have been frustrated by the lack of clarity surrounding the exact launch of those developments. However, Pi Network’s team has continuously assured these milestones are on the horizon.

Not long ago, the developers said the first major target was the launch of the Open Network. They said it will go live if 15 million users pass necessary Know-Your-Customer (KYC) verifications and migrate to the mainnet (known as the Grace Period) before the end of this month.

At the beginning of January, Pi Network claimed the project has been making “excellent progress,” with over 9 million successful migrations. Prior to that, the team maintained that 14 million people had completed the verification procedures.

Despite the claimed progress, some users complained they had experienced issues when trying to abide by the rules. To ease their efforts, Pi Network recently advised them to “either spend Pi to update their name or appeal to resubmit their KYC application.”

“Pioneers who have rejected KYC applications due to differences in their Pi account name and their real name in ID documents can now either spend Pi to update their name or appeal to resubmit their KYC application. Complete this action today if needed,” the full guidance reads.

Towards the end of last year, the team issued another advice to struggling users. Specifically, it urged people who can’t complete KYC procedures for some reason to join a dedicated Telegram chat “where there will be mods to answer your questions.”

How Popular is Pi Network?

As mentioned above, the controversy surrounding the project has not stopped it from increasing its popularity in the past few years. Its user base has been particularly on the rise in Asia, in countries like South Korea, China, Vietnam, Japan, Singapore, and others.

Last month, Wu Blockchain revealed that the number of Pi Network users in South Korea reached 1.34 million, which is more than the domestic client base of well-known crypto exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.

Meanwhile, the official X account of the project has more than 3.5 million followers. In comparison, established cryptocurrency entities such as Ripple, for instance, have fewer subscribers.

A surprising twist within the crypto market has seen TRUMP token trading volume surpass XRP, with a massive price correction. This behavior of the market in a very unpredictable manner points to the fact that the crypto space is quite unpredictable and that speculative tokens often see tremendous trading activity swings, even as their prices plummet. The trading volume surge by the TRUMP token is more interesting in this scenario of high volatility and uncertainty.

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Speculation Fuels TRUMP Token’s Rally

Despite its sharp decline in price (down 16% in the last 24 hours), the TRUMP token managed to outdo XRP in trading volume. The rally in trading activity in TRUMP’s token has piqued the interest of the entire cryptocurrency community, with speculation pointing towards a very strong reaction of traders to the token, probably fueled by its political branding or hype around its speculative nature.

Donald Trump, the 47th president of the United States, launched the meme coin Official Trump (TRUMP), which is based in Solana, over the weekend. Its price immediately reached highs close to $80, indicating that it was a huge success at launch.

At the time of writing, TRUMP was trading at $35.69, with a 24-hour trading volume surpassing XRP’s. In particular, according to CoinMarketCap data, the meme coin has experienced $8.7 billion in trade activity, compared to XRP’s $8.3 billion.

Since its inception on January 17, TRUMP has experienced an incredible $38 billion in trade activity, according to CryptoQuant data released on Wednesday. Notably, big sell-offs as momentum cools are probably the cause of the recent price’s sustained high trading volume.

According to Dexscreener data, sale volume has recently surpassed buy volume.

Meanwhile, XRP keeps growing steadily, while holding the number one spot of the top-ranked digital assets on the market. A short-term jump in trading volumes of the TRUMP token indicated a new shift in interest into tokens that bring more volatility and rewarding trading dynamics.

XRP Standing Strong

Although the TRUMP token managed to take a trading volume lead over XRP temporarily, it’s not easily replaced in the long run because of its years-long presence in the market. XRP, being an old cryptocurrency, has attracted followers and institutional investment and, thus, is relatively stable in the market.

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The TRUMP token is, on the other hand, a recently introduced and relatively speculative asset whose trading volume peak may prove transitory and reliant on the whim of speculative traders rather than being based on sustainable investment.

The contrast between the two tokens—one propelled by excitement and the other by solid fundamentals—illuminates the divergent forces at work in the cryptocurrency market. Although XRP may be more resilient, the TRUMP coin is presently experiencing a brief period of excitement and even controversy, which highlights the market’s unpredictable nature and the factors that influence trading activity.

Featured image from Gearbest, chart from TradingView

If Ryan Gregory turns up on your doorstep, chances are you’re about to inherit some money.

For more than two decades, Ryan has been working as an heir hunter, tracking down distant relatives from around the world and reuniting them with money they didn’t even know they were in line to inherit.

When someone dies without a will or an obvious next of kin, it is up to heir hunters to locate distant relatives or the money goes to the government and the King.

Now the international manager at Finders International, one of the bigger firms in the business, which was previously featured on the BBC’s Heir Hunters, Ryan began working for the company aged 18 when it was only a handful of people working out of a converted flat in South Kensington.

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But business is booming in the world of unclaimed estates. The company now employs more than 150 people and the amount of money involved is getting bigger each year.

“When I started, it probably took five years to get a £1m estate. That was a big deal at the time, there would be a sense of gravitas to it,” he said.

“And now, as a company, we probably get million-pound-plus cases many times a week – I would imagine that is due to the vast increase in property prices.”

He is working on a case in New York that is processing through probate. After spending several years tracking down a missing nephew, one heir is now $5m richer.

‘I inherited a windfall from a stranger’

When Allan Reay, 74, died alone in Gateshead in 2022, there was no next of kin to inherit his estate, worth £28,000. Finders International quickly established that Allan was an only child who had never married or had children of his own.

When a retired North Yorkshire teacher, now living in France, got a call to say she was in line to receive part of the inheritance, she assumed it was a scam.

Joan, 82, a distant cousin of Allan’s (her father and Allan’s mother were siblings) was sceptical at first, she said. “It’s not the type of phone call that I would expect – I was definitely suspicious.”

But after her son confirmed Finders International was legitimate, she “inherited a windfall”.

“I wasn’t expecting it and I was utterly surprised. You just don’t expect something like that to happen to you. My husband and I plan to spend it on a holiday or maybe even a cruise,” she said.

Joan hadn’t seen Allan for many decades and was one of 10 beneficiaries who were tracked down. She remembered her distant cousin as chatty and amicable.

“I am quite startled at the entire process and how Finders tracked me down in France, along with several other relations of Allan’s from both sides of his family,” she said.

Lost siblings reunited

In 2023, two siblings who didn’t know the other existed were both handed £12,000 from a complete stranger.

Raymond and Brenda Ward received unexpected letters telling them they would inherit the estate of 90-year-old George Potter, who had died alone in a nursing home three years before with no obvious next of kin – and no recipient for his estate.

Finders International discovered that although George had no children, he did have an “illegitimate” half-brother, born 11 years before him, named Dennis Ward.

Raymond and Brenda were Dennis’s children, but from two separate relationships, which meant neither realised they had a half-sibling.

The pair now write to each other regularly, enjoying the connection their uncle has brought them, as well as the inheritance.

How does an heir hunter track you down?

When a case comes across their desk, Ryan’s first step is to visit the deceased’s last known address.

“We speak to the neighbours, the person at the corner shop, the local pub. If they have a particular religion, is there a community centre near by?” he said.

They then look to see if there are any marriage records or birth certificates that may help them find any children. The UK, he explained, has pretty extensive records, but other countries may not.

“We have to cast our net pretty wide and try and find out as much as possible – especially now we are living in an age where people have children outside of marriage.”

The target for closing a case is up to three months – they have even managed to find heirs before the funeral took place – but some are more complicated, and Ryan recently clocked out a case that was 10 years old.

They use all public sources at their disposal – from public records to the British Library and open social media accounts.

When they do find someone, the reaction can be mixed.

“Sometimes there is a guilt from inheriting money from someone you didn’t know,” Ryan said.

How does the King get hold of your assets?

Half of Britons don’t have a will, according to research by Canada Life last year – and 41% of those who don’t have one aren’t worried about it.

But if you die without one, and if there’s no clear next of kin, all your assets could be given to either the King or the government.

There are more than 6,000 unclaimed estates in England and Wales.

Claims must be made within 30 years of the death of the individual.

Due to a rule that dates from the Middle Ages, if a person in Cornwall dies without having made a will (also known as dying intestate), and with no surviving relatives, then the estate automatically goes to the Prince of Wales.

A similar rule is in place in Lancaster for the Duchy of Lancaster – an estate owned by the King.

According to the most recent accounts, the duchy received £4.1m from intestate estates (before costs were taken out) in the year to September 2023.

But the duchy has previously denied that these unclaimed funds go into royal income, saying they are given to charities or used for environmental projects or to maintain properties on the estate.

For the rest of the country, if someone dies without a will and next of kin, it is passed over to the Treasury.

How do heir hunters make money?

Just under 50% of the work Finders International does is pro bono, and for the rest, they work on a commission basis.

Sometimes the lawyer handling the deceased person’s estate “can authorise a fee”.

“But we normally do the research to find people, track them down, link them to the estate and then we ask them to sign a fee agreement,” Ryan said.

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What to do if you are contacted by an heir hunter

There are hundreds of amateur sleuths, hoping to capitalise on the prominence of TV shows like Heir Hunters.

So before you sign any paperwork (which may ask you to give away a chunk of any inheritance) do your research on the firm – is it legitimate?

Ryan said the first thing to do is check and see if you recognise the name the heir hunter is giving you.

“If you’ve got a letter from overseas and someone is telling you that you’ve won an amount of money that is probably too good to be true and you don’t recognise the name, I say it is a real warning sign,” he said.

You can always consult the Bona Vacantia, the unclaimed estates list, to see if you know the person who died.

If it is a distant relative you haven’t met, you may be best employing the services of an heir hunter, but make sure you know exactly what you are signing up for.

“Pocketpair Publishing provides comprehensive support for game development through funding, development assistance, and publishing for indie game developers and small studios,” Pocketpair wrote in its press release.

We don’t even have to wait long for the company’s first game. Pocketpair Publishing has teamed up with Tales of Kenzera: Zau developer Surgent Studios to produce its next title, a horror game slated for release later this year. Surgent Studios was founded by video game voice performer and on-screen actor Abubakar Salim. After launching Tales of Kenzera, an afro-futuristic metroidvania, the company was forced to furlough its games division due to lack of funding — a common occurrence that’s become endemic over the last two years.

The indie game space has not been insulated from the effects of the layoff crisis that’s plagued the game industry. The big publishers, from which smaller indie outfits typically receive funding, are tightening their belts, choosing to either keep their cash or only dole it out to projects they believe are sure to make money. And even the publishers known for supporting quality indie games, like Annapurna Games, are having a hard time staying in operation.

However, Pocketpair Publishing joins a group of new companies that have entered the indie games space via non-traditional means. In 2022, YouTube video game critic and content creator videogamedunkey, created his own publishing company Bigmode which published its first game, Animal Well, to critical acclaim last year. Also last year, Innersloth, developers of the wildly-popular murder mystery multiplayer game Among Us, established Outersloth, which is an indie game fund rather than a traditional publisher. Like Outersloth and Bigmode, Pocketpair Publishing is seeking to parlay its commercial success into an avenue for more indie games like Palworld to get made.

“Game development comes with many challenges,” said Pocketpair Publishing head John Buckley. “But we want to ease that process as much as possible and provide an environment where creators can pursue their dreams.”

The crypto industry is desperate to see crypto action from U.S. President Donald Trump, now a few days into his new presidency, but there hasn’t yet been a confirmation from the White House that an executive order is pending.

It’s not entirely off of Trump’s radar, though, because he did mention the crypto industry in his address on Thursday to the World Economic Forum, saying that an increase in domestic oil and gas production will secure U.S. manufacturing dominance and make it “the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto.”

Still, he spent much more of the speech talking about U.S. AI commitments and didn’t mention digital assets again.

The sector will likely be watching closely at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, when Trump is again scheduled to sign executive orders. The White House has already issued an extensive array of such orders. While they don’t carry the weight of law, such directives can steer the federal government’s priorities.

Trump is also scheduled to speak with crypto-friendly El Salvador President Nayib Bukele at 3:30 p.m., news which sparked another rally in Bitcoin’s price.

In other corners of the federal government, the Senate Banking Committee established its first digital assets subcommittee on Thursday, with Wyoming Republican Cynthia Lummis running it alongside other crypto-friendly lawmakers. And the Securities and Exchange Commission, newly led by Republican Mark Uyeda, announced a crypto task force this week.

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Donald Trump has called on Opec to push down global oil prices and insisted that central banks around the world lower interest rates “immediately” afterwards.

In a speech to executives in Davos on Thursday, the US president urged Saudi Arabia and other producers to lower the cost of crude oil, expressing dismay that they had not done so already.

“I’m going to ask Saudi Arabia and Opec to bring down the cost of oil. You gotta bring it down. Which frankly I’m surprised they didn’t do before the election,” he said.

“Right now the price is high enough that that war will continue,” he said, referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“You gotta bring down the oil price, that will end that war. You could end that war,” he added.

The US president also used the speech to insist that companies around the world manufacture their products in the US — or face sweeping tariffs on imported goods entering the American market.

He touted his economic agenda of radical deregulation and the “largest tax cut in American history” to business chiefs and global leaders, calling it “nothing less than a revolution of common sense”.

This is a developing story

Voyager Technologies has filed its confidential paperwork to go public, according to multiple media reports. The defense and space company has raised over $215 million from investors like Afterburner Capital and Balerion Space Ventures, according to PitchBook. The Denver-based company will likely be valued between $2 billion and $3 billion, and Morgan Stanley and Latham & Watkins are expected to lead the IPO, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

The company, founded in 2019, has a wide set of offerings, from propulsion technologies for defense purposes to building in-space infrastructure. Voyager has also forged powerful partnerships in the industry, linking up with Palantir to integrate Palantir’s AI into Voyager’s offerings.