A leading finance expert believes that the current growth stage of the Bitcoin price mirrors Google’s expansion in 2017, suggesting that the network is yet to reach its true potential. The expert’s comparison positions Bitcoin as a maturing digital system that has established core utility, with a larger phase of value capture still ahead. His remarks about BTC come at a time when its price is navigating sharp downside risks and heightened market volatility
Raoul Pal, the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Real Vision, has highlighted a compelling connection between Bitcoin’s current price growth and Google’s early years. In an X post this week, Pal argued that digital assets clearly follow a network-driven growth model, comparing the sector to major technology giants that expanded rapidly as their user base increased.
The Real Vision founder emphasized that crypto behaves like a Metcalfe’s Law network, similar to Google, Amazon, Meta, and Tesla, where value scales with the number of participants rather than traditional financial metrics. He stated that attempting to value cryptocurrencies using cash flow models overlooks the essence of what makes a network valuable.
In his view, the structure of blockchain ecosystems means that their worth is tied to usage, adoption, and the network effects generated by millions of users. This unique framework underpins Pal’s belief that Bitcoin’s price growth today is a reflection of Google’s position in 2017. The financial expert supported his argument with a GOOGL US equity chart, showing its multi-year growth curve on a logarithmic scale. During 2017, Google was already dominant in areas like search, yet many of its long-term value drivers, such as cloud and Artificial Intelligence (AI), were still developing.
While the Bitcoin network is secure, widely adopted, and increasingly integrated into the global financial system, Pal’s view suggests that the cryptocurrency’s long-term development and true potential are still far from realized. He added that Ethereum may be even earlier in its growth curve, suggesting the second-largest cryptocurrency could follow a longer trajectory as its technology and applications evolve.
Pal’s remarks on X, which compares Bitcoin to Google, were made in response to statements from Santiago Roel Santos, the founder and CEO of Inversion, a technology-first investment company. Santos initially argued that network effects in crypto have been overstated and are often misused to justify valuations resembling those of social networking companies.
Santos suggested that many cryptocurrencies have not demonstrated meaningful value capture and therefore resemble open source software systems like Linux rather than platforms such as Facebook, which benefit directly from rising user numbers. Pal challenged this view by insisting that crypto networks exhibit real and measurable network effects. His entire argument is built on the idea that user activity and transaction volume support the growing value of digital networks like Bitcoin.
The Cybersecurity Coalition, an industry group of almost a dozen vendors, is urging the Trump Administration and Congress now that the government shutdown is over to take a number of steps to strengthen the country's cybersecurity posture as China, Russia, and other foreign adversaries accelerate their attacks.
The post Cybersecurity Coalition to Government: Shutdown is Over, Get to Work appeared first on Security Boulevard.
When someone creates a US patent, they go through a review process to stop the most blatant copies from previous patents or pre-existing work. After this, you may still have bad patents get through, which can be removed through litigation or publicly accessible methods such as Inter Partes Review (IPR). The latter of which is planned to be changed as we know it in the near future.
IPR is a method where an individual can claim that an existing patent is invalid due to pre-existing work, such as something the individual should have creative ownership over. While there is always the litigation method of removing blatantly fraudulent patents, a small business or the average person is unlikely to have the funds.
New regulations are changing how IPRs can be filed in some substantial ways. Now, if someone files an IPR, they give up the right to future litigation on their rights over a patent. This is obviously not ideal for someone who may have their own products on the line if an IPR is to fail. Additionally, IPRs will no longer be able to be even tried if there are existing cases against the patent, even under poor previous cases. While this change is meant to increase the efficiency of the patent office, there are some serious consequences that must be looked into either way. The patent office also cites IPRs being beneficial to larger organizations rather than the smaller businesses, though you can make your own conclusions based on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s arguments here.
Hackaday certainly can not give any legal advice on how this change will affect you, but there are cases given by both sides that may persuade you to write to your legal representatives if you live in the States. Even still, we here at Hackaday have seen our fair share of patent trolls causing issues. If you want a case of blatant patent shenanigans check out these 3D printing layers that promise improved strength!
Thanks [patentTrollsAreTheWorst] for the tip!
RealPage has agreed to settle an antitrust lawsuit raised by the Department of Justice, alleging that landlords used its tools to coordinate efforts to artificially raise rental prices across the US.
In a press release, the DOJ promised the proposed settlement “would help restore free market competition in rental markets for millions of American renters.”
For years since the pandemic started, rental prices outpaced inflation, and the DOJ suspected that RealPage was the dominant force driving a market that never favored renters. Recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data covering a 12-month period ending this September showed rents are still rising by 3.5 percent amid an affordability crisis, leaving some US renters in fear of housing instability.
© J Studios | DigitalVision
Interview transcript
Terry Gerton You’ve been tracking and reporting on the Trump administration’s cuts to advisory panels. Before we get into the details of what you’ve found, I’d love for you to just say, what are these panels? What are they supposed to do? How are they created?
Robert Iafolla Across the federal government, it’s something like 1,000 different federal advisory panels and they’re staffed by experts in the particular field. Some of them can be quite wonky and quite precise in the subject matter that they’re dealing with and they typically meet a few times a year. They help agencies develop their rulemaking agendas, you know, depending on the agency, Their, sort of, research agendas, the agency might task them with specific questions. Can you help us understand how to approach issue X, Y, or Z in a better fashion, a more efficient fashion? They will sometimes include members of the public on them. The meetings they hold are open to the public. But I think the most important thing when you think about these expert panels is that they bring expertise to agencies that agencies don’t have already and they do so for essentially free.
Terry Gerton And so what has your reporting turned up in terms of how the Trump administration is handling these and how many of them have been terminated?
Robert Iafolla Yeah, myself and a few colleagues dove into some data on a federal database called the FACA database. It’s named after the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which is the federal law that sort of governs these committees. And what we found was the Trump administration is terminating these committees at a historic clip. Essentially, there’s been about 160 of these committees formally terminated during the Trump administration so far. There’s data in the database going back to, I think, 1997. Past administrations would cull this herd of advisory committees as they became obsolete, but it would be more on the order of, say, 40 a year, whereas here we have 160. And then in addition to those that were formally terminated, we found that some of the expert panels were basically emptied out. All their members were either fired or those that their terms had expired and they were not renewed. Some are just sitting idle. And, you know, it is of a piece with sort of the administration’s approach towards the administrative state, sort of hacking at it at a rate that we hadn’t seen before.
Terry Gerton You mentioned that a number of these panels exist to provide technical expertise that might not be present in an agency itself. Are there particular departments in the executive branch that have a lot of these relative to some who have very few?
Robert Iafolla Yes. So the Department of Health and Human Services has the most. Some of these agencies are created by statute. Sometimes the agencies themselves will create them. With HHS, they have — or had — a load of panels that were in charge of reviewing grant applications for research or for continuing education and other matters. But I think it’s something like 50 or so agencies [that] have at least one advisory committee. You know, I think a good example of this is, at the Labor Department, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a few technical panels. One of them specifically helps the BLS figure out how to keep on top of [the] changing economy and also the intense funding shortfalls that the agency faces and helps them with, you know, statistical models and things like this on how to, how to to keep good data. The BLS, one of the — actually both of these BLS technical committees were among those terminated.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Robert Iafolla, he’s principal legal reporter for Bloomberg Law. Your reporting shows that a lot of these cuts happened despite agency opposition, like agencies wanted to keep them and the Trump administration terminated them anyway. What was the conflict there and why did they get terminated instead?
Robert Iafolla About a third of the terminated expert panels were ended over the advice of the agencies involved. As far as why these agencies were terminated, whether it be over the advise of the agency or not, there was a lot of different justifications given. We’re not exactly sure sometimes, like with HHS, the HHS secretary said that some of these panels had conflicts of interest. In other instances, members of these boards were told that it was a cost-cutting measure. In other instances, like with [one of] the BLS technical committees, they were told their mission was done. They were no longer needed. So we asked the White House directly for some more information on this and they were not forthcoming with that information.
Terry Gerton As agencies lose this expert advice, what happens to their internal decision-making? Does that shift to other panels or committees? Does it fall more to political appointees or other members of the organization?
Robert Iafolla Yeah, yeah, I mean, again, the design of these committees is to give expert advice. The agencies were never required to accept the committee’s advice. So this is not a group of outsiders telling the agencies what to do, but instead, looking over the information and giving them insight on what may be the best policy, what may be the most feasible way forward as far as generating consensus around something, reducing the litigation risk, providing justifications that would make agency action more durable in court. So the political folks that are going to be making the decisions instead of doing it without that guidance will be doing it without it. I talked to some people who suggested perhaps you don’t want expert committees that might contradict what you already want to do. You know, when you have your mind set on something, you don’t want somebody telling you it’s a bad idea to do that. It’s unclear whether that’s the reason for these committees getting chopped, but it certainly seems feasible.
Terry Gerton You mentioned that some of these panels are statutorily created. Have we seen any legal challenges to any of these terminations?
Robert Iafolla I’m not aware of any legal challenges. I’m also not aware of the administration, as they have in other areas, going ahead and countermanding the will of Congress and trying to do something by executive fiat that actually needs legislation in order to do it. So there are some committees, like I said earlier, that have been emptied out or have been idled rather than formally terminated.
Terry Gerton As you look at this past, and if past is prolog, what are you expecting in the future? Will this trend continue?
Robert Iafolla That’s a great question. The data shows that there are sort of these periodic spikes in these committees being terminated, so we don’t know if there are more that are going to be on the chopping block. The administration has created a handful of new committees. It’s on a much smaller scale than previous administrations have done as far as creating new committees to deal with emerging issues. The pattern is certainly one of shrinking and generally hacking away at the administrative state and not necessarily placing a premium on expertise or experience. So it seems reasonable to think that this may continue a pace.
Terry Gerton You also mentioned that most of these panels are covered under FACA, and there’s a lot of reporting requirements and transparency requirements that go along with that law, reporting on the deliberations of the panels and sharing that. What does this administration’s approach to these panels and the termination of them mean for transparency and public access to this kind of information?
Robert Iafolla Yeah, you’re going to lose that guarantee of public access. In one sort of tranche of these committees that have been terminated at HHS, as I mentioned before, there’s a group of these HHS expert panels that review grant applications. And what our reporting told us was that the department has terminated some of these committees that had to comply with the strictures of FACA, including the transparency requirements. They didn’t get rid of the grant review process, but have instead shifted that work over to these more ad hoc working groups that are reviewing them that apparently are not subject to the same transparency requirements. So that is suggestive of work that’s being done in the public interest out of a place where the public can find out what’s going on and into something that’s more of a black box.
The post The Trump administration is eliminating expert panels at a historic pace, reshaping how agencies make decisions first appeared on Federal News Network.
© AP/John Minchillo
The SEC dismissed the remain charges in the lawsuit filed in 2023 against software maker SolarWinds and CISO Timothy Brown in the wake of the massive Sunburst supply chain attack, in which a Russian nation-state group installed a malicious update into SolarWInds software that then compromised the systems of some customers.
The post SEC Dismisses Remains of Lawsuit Against SolarWinds and Its CISO appeared first on Security Boulevard.
In letters sent to Apple, Google, and Microsoft this week, Pornhub’s parent company urged the tech giants to support device-based age verification in their app stores and across their operating systems, WIRED has learned.
“Based on our real-world experience with existing age assurance laws, we strongly support the initiative to protect minors online,” reads the letter sent by Anthony Penhale, chief legal officer for Aylo, which owns Pornhub, Brazzers, Redtube, and YouPorn. “However, we have found site-based age assurance approaches to be fundamentally flawed and counterproductive.”
The letter adds that site-based age verification methods have “failed to achieve their primary objective: protecting minors from accessing age-inappropriate material online.” Aylo says device-based authentication is a better solution for this issue because once a viewer’s age is determined via phone or tablet, their age signal can be shared over its application programming interface (API) with adult sites.
© ssuaphoto | iStock / Getty Images Plus
Google has filed a complaint in court that details the scam:
In a complaint filed Wednesday, the tech giant accused “a cybercriminal group in China” of selling “phishing for dummies” kits. The kits help unsavvy fraudsters easily “execute a large-scale phishing campaign,” tricking hordes of unsuspecting people into “disclosing sensitive information like passwords, credit card numbers, or banking information, often by impersonating well-known brands, government agencies, or even people the victim knows.”
These branded “Lighthouse” kits offer two versions of software, depending on whether bad actors want to launch SMS and e-commerce scams. “Members may subscribe to weekly, monthly, seasonal, annual, or permanent licenses,” Google alleged. Kits include “hundreds of templates for fake websites, domain set-up tools for those fake websites, and other features designed to dupe victims into believing they are entering sensitive information on a legitimate website.”...
The post Scam USPS and E-Z Pass Texts and Websites appeared first on Security Boulevard.
Last month, a DoorDash driver in upstate New York delivered an item to a local house in Oswego—only to find the front door open and a man apparently unconscious or asleep on a couch in the front room. The man was also quite naked, with pants and underwear around his ankles, and he was fully visible from the porch.
The DoorDasher was a 23-year-old woman named Olivia Henderson, and she felt like the whole situation was some kind of creepy exploitation play. Was this guy purposely exposing himself to her? Was he even asleep? Should she have to endure the sight of random male genitalia just to make a few bucks?
She did not think so, and she decided to do something about it. Henderson filmed the man from outside the home, and she later posted the video on TikTok to shame him. Naturally, it went viral.
© TikTok
After years of pushback from the Federal Trade Commission over Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, Meta has defeated the FTC’s monopoly claims.
In a Tuesday ruling, US District Judge James Boasberg said the FTC failed to show that Meta has a monopoly in a market dubbed “personal social networking.” In that narrowly defined market, the FTC unsuccessfully argued, Meta supposedly faces only two rivals, Snapchat and MeWe, which struggle to compete due to its alleged monopoly.
But the days of grouping apps into “separate markets of social networking and social media” are over, Boasberg wrote. He cited the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who “posited that no man can ever step into the same river twice,” while telling the FTC they missed their chance to block Meta’s purchase.
© Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg
On Friday, a US District Court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the United States government from halting federal funding at UCLA or any other school in the University of California system. The ruling came in response to a suit filed by groups representing the faculty at these schools challenging the Trump administration’s attempts to force UCLA into a deal that would substantially revise instruction and policy.
The court’s decision lays out how the Trump administration’s attacks on universities follow a standard plan: use accusations of antisemitism to justify an immediate cut to funding, then use the loss of money to compel an agreement that would result in revisions to how the university is run. The court finds that this plan was deficient on multiple grounds, from violating legal procedures for cutting funding to an illegal attempt at suppressing the First Amendment rights of faculty.
The result is a reprieve for the entire University of California system, as well as a clear pathway for any universities to fight back against the Trump administration’s attacks on research and education.
© Myung J. Chun
Bitcoin Magazine
Bitcoin Price Outlook for Reaching $1 Million Valuation
Bitcoin price long-term trajectory has been extraordinary. In just over a decade, it has risen from a few hundred dollars to more than $100,000, creating one of the most dramatic wealth transfers in modern history. But the question now dominating investors’ minds is whether BTC can extend this exponential growth, potentially even to seven figures. And if so, when?
Few models have generated as much controversy as Stock-to-Flow. Once hailed as the roadmap for Bitcoin’s price, it fell out of favor after failing to predict post-halving performance in recent cycles. But while the model itself may no longer hold predictive power, its core premise, that Bitcoin’s programmed scarcity drives long-term value, remains valid.
Rather than relying on rigid mathematical projections, a more grounded approach is to look at Bitcoin’s production cost: the estimated electrical expense required to mine one BTC. Historically, this metric has acted as a structural floor beneath price. Each halving doubles that cost, tightening the available supply and setting a new base for future appreciation.
Based on current efficiency trends and average energy prices, the production cost is expected to rise to around $175,000 per BTC by early 2028, following the next halving. This level has aligned closely with past cycle lows, suggesting that if Bitcoin remains above its cost basis, its fair valuation could approach $200,000 by that time.
Extending this trend, the projected cost to mine one BTC could reach approximately $675,000 by 2032, assuming moderate improvements in miner efficiency and no dramatic changes in Global energy costs. Historically, Bitcoin’s price has peaked at multiples of its production cost, around 9x in 2017, 4.5x in 2021, and roughly 2.25x this cycle. If that diminishing pattern continues, even a 1.5x multiple during the 2032 cycle would place BTC at around $1 million, suggesting that the next major peak could arrive sometime in the mid-2030s.
Looking at Bitcoin’s compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) since its early exchange listings shows a consistent but gradually slowing curve. When modeled as a linear regression, this trend points to a BTC price of roughly $2 million by 2035, with diminishing returns thereafter. By 2040, the model places Bitcoin somewhere between $5 million and $10 million, depending on the starting data window used.
However, these regression-based models, like the “Power Law” or logarithmic growth curves, all suffer from the same flaw: they are backward-fitted. Their accuracy only exists in hindsight, not necessarily foresight. Even small deviations in data or timeframes can shift long-term projections by years or millions of dollars, making them useful for context but unreliable for precision.
While models can provide rough frameworks, Bitcoin’s price ultimately depends on the balance of supply and demand. As new issuance continues to fall and adoption grows, the production cost floor and liquidity environment are likely to remain the strongest long-term anchors. Macroeconomic forces, particularly real yields, monetary expansion, and capital rotation from traditional assets, will continue to determine the pace and scale of Bitcoin’s appreciation.
If Bitcoin follows its historical rhythm, the mid-2030s could mark the era where a seven-figure price becomes reality. But as every cycle has shown, models can guide expectations, they cannot dictate them. The best strategy remains the same as always: react to the data, don’t predict it.
For a more in-depth look into this topic, watch our most recent YouTube video here: Realistically, Could This Be When Bitcoin Reaches $1 Million
For deeper data, charts, and professional insights into bitcoin price trends, visit BitcoinMagazinePro.com.
Subscribe to Bitcoin Magazine Pro on YouTube for more expert market insights and analysis!
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Always do your own research before making any investment decisions.
This post Bitcoin Price Outlook for Reaching $1 Million Valuation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Matt Crosby.
Cannabis beverages are moving beyond traditional ready-to-drink can to innovative formats like shots and stick packs.
Convenience meets innovation in evolution of cannabis beverages is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Microsoft has rolled out a huge Patch Tuesday update bundle for October 2025, addressing 175…
Microsoft October Patch Tuesday Is Huge With 170+ Fixes on Latest Hacking News | Cyber Security News, Hacking Tools and Penetration Testing Courses.
A Michigan cannabis company is trying to thwart a unionization effort using a novel tactic: claiming federal marijuana prohibition leaves workers unprotected.
Does federal marijuana prohibition mean cannabis workers can’t unionize? is a post from: MJBizDaily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs
Cisco recently addressed multiple vulnerabilities in IOS XR, one of which could allow image signature…
Cisco Patched Multiple IOS XR Vulnerabilities on Latest Hacking News | Cyber Security News, Hacking Tools and Penetration Testing Courses.
Microsoft has released the scheduled Patch Tuesday updates for September 2025, addressing 81 security vulnerabilities…
Microsoft Fixed 2 Zero-Days Amid 80+ Patches With September 2025 Patch Tuesday on Latest Hacking News | Cyber Security News, Hacking Tools and Penetration Testing Courses.
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