— “What it has nurtured, though, are Skarlatos’ political ambitions, providing $65,000, records show, to his 2022 bid for a rematch with longtime Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio,” who is one of a number of members being targeted by the GOP for the midterms. Skarlatos, who became famous after he helped disrupt an attack on a train bound for Paris by an armed Islamic State sympathizer, started his nonprofit a month after losing to DeFazio. He named it “15:17 Trust — a reference to the train attack. It was registered in Virginia, with his campaign treasurer also serving as the group’s treasurer, records show.”
As its name suggests, you can use cryptocurrency to make purchases. But your purchasing power is limited; crypto isn’t yet widely accepted among retailers and other businesses.

About 15 years later, an accomplished software engineer named Wei Dai published a white paper on b-money, a virtual currency architecture that included many of the basic components of modern cryptocurrencies, such as complex anonymity protections and decentralization.
OK perhaps that’s a little far-fetched. But what is behind crypto’s crazy climb over the past 18 months, we hear you ask? We don’t mean to suggest that the pandemic hasn’t been involved, because we think it has, but not in the way that this chart criminal implies — not, in other words, because it’s some kind of safe haven that traders flock to when they are worried about Covid cases rising; the data don’t bear that idea out.