You just said it: buying reputation. By adding cost to the system, a hurdle has been added to weed out a significant portion of bad actors, because spamming then costs money.

The reason phone scams took off in the 1990s is because the cost to make calls dropped to basically zero. And numbers are easily spoofed, so verification isn't easy.

With an identity that can't be spoofed, and takes time to become valuable, a lot of the low-end spam would disappear. Either because the spammers would need to spend years developing reputation, or because they'd need to pay for stolen identities. There would still be spam, but less of it.

Not sure why the parent is modded "Troll"; it's the most substantive comment so far.

There are good examples of organizations that provide their seal of approval as an aid to consumer purchasing: UL, IIHS, OU.

It would have been nice if the administration proposed a "spinoff" of Energy Star instead of trying to kill it, but that's not their style.

It can certainly matter. For instance:

The sales tax rate isn't the same for all purchasers. Non-profit organizations are often exempt from paying sales tax. The price on the shelf is the price they pay.

Sales tax holidays. States routinely have "sales tax holidays" wherein the sales tax is suspended for a period of time.

Sales tax is an itemizable deduction on federal income taxes. Filers utilizing that deduction need to know how much sales tax they paid throughout the year.

Store coupons almost always exclude the taxable amount ("$5 off $25, excluding taxes").

Backing by the full faith and credit of a government is not a requirement for a currency. That just happens to be how modern fiat currencies are "backed".

Yet even after Bretton Woods, central banks still hold gold. Gold is a reserve asset, but not backed by any government.

Does that happen often, where ultra-high density housing is build amongst low-density housing?

The problem is, NIMBYs block any amount of densification. Allowing duplexes or fourplexes in areas zoned for single-family would measurably increase the housing supply, without the need for skyscrapers. But NIMBYs block those as well. In my town, they even block mother-in-law suites.

"may as well invest in the USD" is not so easy in much of the world. Billions of people live under monetary oppression, forced to use the fiat (and non-convertible) currencies of their own governments. People aren't dumb -- they know when their savings is evaporating -- but actually exchanging for USD is non-trivial for many people. Some can't have bank accounts: women in some parts of the world, or displaced refugees. And those that do have such accounts face restrictions on the amount they can hold in USD, if USD deposits are permitted at all. So people turn to physical cash, which if often brought (or smuggled) into the country by family members working abroad. It's not scalable, reliable, or secure.

So tokenized USD is a solution to that problem. Access to crypto doesn't require an account: anyone with an Internet connection can get a wallet. Someone can relatively easily begin receiving remittances from family members abroad.

As for this stablecoin... well, no, I'm not seeing anything special about it.

Comparing the Bosch product spec sheets between the US and Ireland (in the EU), they both disclose this.

The US product sheet lists the number of wash options as: "3 + 2 additional in Home Connect" at the top of page 1.
The IE product sheet lists out the options only available via HomeConnect, which is better, albeit in smaller font on page 2.

Facilitating crime is only a bad thing if the crimes are bad.

Billions of people in the world live under oppressive monetary regimes, with governments forcing people to save and spend in a local currency that the government devalues overnight (Zimbabwe, Egypt, Nigeria). Transacting in USD or some other stable currency is illegal. Bitcoin allows them a way out, as it's permissionless and hard to stop. These people using Bitcoin are able to prevent their government from stealing their savings.

As for illegal drugs, consider mifepristone. This drug is unavailable to women in many places, including 52 of the 54 countries in Africa and in some parts of the US. Purchasing and selling are illegal, but the transaction can happen when facilitated by a method of payment without a gatekeeper. These women using Bitcoin are able to take back control of their bodies.

Starting three years ago, young Russian men were forced into taking up arms and shooting Ukrainians. Those that fled Russia were limited (either by law or by "enhanced pat downs") in how much money they could bring with them. Western sanctioned restricted accessing their Russian bank accounts outside of Russia. But by converting those rubles to Bitcoin, the money becomes accessible anywhere, and is unconscionable by border control. These men are using Bitcoin to avoid committing violence.

Amazon buying out iRobot would have saved the company, but the FTC and EU regulatory reviews caused the deal to be dragged out for years, until Amazon gave up and walked away. What was the point of such an extensive review of a trillion dollar company buying a $1.4B vacuum company? Year after year, iRobot was losing market share to competitors. Amazon didn't have a line of robovacs, so the deal wasn't a form of consolidation. The UK regulator approved the deal based on these findings.

Allegedly, the FTC had a fear that Amazon learning people's home floor plans would be a breach of privacy (you know, because the P in FTC stands for "privacy"). But Amazon walked away, so.... victory? As a result, iRobot will go under. People will lose their jobs. And Chinese robovac companies will be learning American's floor plans, for whatever that's worth. Much better.

Their lack of change fees is still a differentiator. And cancellation of even the low-end fares gets you a flight credit. For now.

The US government seized bitcoins from The Silk Road a long time ago. They've been sitting on them for a while. "Immediately" is long gone.

From the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO):

Advancing Equitable Workforce Development and Job Quality Objectives

A skilled workforce is critical to meeting infrastructure buildout timelines under the
Infrastructure Act and connecting households across the country to reliable, affordable, high-
speed broadband. A highly skilled workforce will also allow for the safe deployment of
sustainable networks. To meet the workforce needs of this program, Eligible Entities and their
subgrantees should make appropriate investments to develop a skilled, diverse workforce for the
jobs that the subgrantees need to fill.

"UnitedHealth said it has not detected misuse of the stolen data..."

Yeah, well, they didn't detect the hackers in their system either, so.....

Double life + 40 years without the possibility of parole is quite a bit longer than a couple decades.

People actually selling drugs on Silk Road got 3 years.

The founder of Silk Road 2.0 got 6.5 years.

I'd bet that Trump blocks this sale and claims that these 69,370 Bitcoins are now that Bitcoin Reserve he promised his crypto bro supporters.