Holo Ventures × Kwaxala 🌲 Most investment in nature still treats a forest as an asset only because it can be cut down tomorrow. Kwaxala has flipped that logic right-side up again. It’s an Indigenous majority-owned regenerative forestry network and fund, established by a First Nation in British Columbia and now working globally. Its Living Forest Shares tie investment returns to the forest staying alive, so capital only thrives if the ecosystem does. Capital built to care. We’re collaborating with Kwaxala’s product team to explore how peer-to-peer value and identity tools can serve Indigenous Nations, supporting local self-governance and new ways to coordinate bioregional economies. Why #Holochain? Kwaxala’s model needs both sovereignty and coordination at scale. Control stays with the Nations and communities who nurture the forest. Each participant holds their own data, identity, and connections, and trust is built peer to peer, not handed to a central platform. Relation, not domination, built into the protocol. Unyt adds shared-ledger accounting, so value moves between participants without an intermediary taking a cut. Holo’s distributed infrastructure may follow as the work grows. Early-stage prototyping. More to come. Welcome to the Decent Directory, Kwaxala. 👇 holoventures.io/product/#dec…

🚨 In corporate law, guilt isn’t denied, it’s priced. When the ultra-rich pay hundreds of MILLIONS or BILLIONS to “settle” while denying liability, the transaction is the confession. The law and media may call it resolution; we know it’s purchased innocence. #TwoTierJustice Take Amazon and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. $2.5 BILLION in total: $1 BILLION civil penalty plus $1.5 BILLION in consumer refunds over deceptive enrollment and brutal cancellation “dark patterns.” Amazon called it pragmatic, slapped on the usual no-wrongdoing boilerplate, and moved on. But when you’re paying that much, you’re not proving innocence, you’re buying silence and closure. Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO of Amazon, has supported Republican causes and is widely seen as aligned with influential corporate and policy networks. This pattern is everywhere: - Trump University: $25 MILLION, no admission. - JPMorgan and Epstein-linked claims: $290 MILLION, no fault. This is a real two-tier justice system. If you’re rich enough, you can purchase narrative control, avoid formal guilt, dodge regulatory cascades, calm investors, and shut down copycat suits. Plaintiffs get paid faster. Courts clear their dockets. The public gets permanent ambiguity: did they or didn’t they? The “no admission” clause is the fig leaf. The scale makes it worse. In 2025, U.S. class-action settlements shattered records: 1,700+ deals totaling ~$79 BILLION. The top ten alone cleared ~$70 BILLION. Antitrust exploded to ~$46 BILLION (up from ~$8.4 BILLION in 2024), driven by monster deals like a proposed $38 BILLION payment-card interchange settlement (the largest ever). Products liability followed at ~$18 BILLION (PFAS, Roundup, talc). Add securities fraud, consumer fraud, government enforcement, and emerging AI/crypto cases, and nearly all come wrapped in no-liability language. Standouts: - Amazon/FTC Prime: $2.5 BILLION - Poultry wage-fixing: $398 MILLION - Disneyland living wage: $233 MILLION - NYC taxi license suspensions: $140 MILLION - DOJ False Claims Act recoveries (money the U.S. Department of Justice claws back when companies defraud the federal government, usually by overbilling, lying about compliance, or submitting fake claims for payment) also hit a record ~$6.9 BILLION, mostly via negotiated deals without full admissions. Meta and current/former officers reached a settlement in a massive shareholder privacy case in 2025, with Zuckerberg and other leaders agreeing to pay $190 MILLION to resolve claims they damaged the company by allowing repeated privacy violations. In early 2025, Meta agreed to pay about $25 MILLION to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump over Facebook and Instagram account suspensions after January 6, with most of that going to support Trump’s presidential library and related plaintiffs. Meta has also been involved in numerous other regulatory and privacy-related settlements and fines, including a $5 BILLION FTC settlement from 2019 (over user data practices) and various international penalties and privacy-related deals, many tied to longstanding class actions and regulatory claims. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Meta (Facebook), is a major tech billionaire and political donor. Google has repeatedly settled major lawsuits and regulatory claims, often while denying wrongdoing: - 2026 Google agreed to pay $68 MILLION to resolve a class-action alleging its Assistant illegally recorded private conversations; it denies any misconduct. - Google agreed to pay roughly $1.4 BILLION to settle state claims that it illegally collected user data without permission, the largest state privacy settlement of its kind. - Google agreed to pay about $48 MILLION (part of a $56 MILLION joint settlement) in a class action alleging improper sharing of sensitive health data. - Google agreed to a ~$700 MILLION settlement fund and changes to app-store policies to resolve antitrust claims involving its Play Store. - Alphabet agreed to spend $500 MILLION over 10 years on compliance reforms to settle a derivative suit over antitrust risk exposure. - Google has also settled past privacy and consumer claims (including refunds and compliance changes). Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google/Alphabet, are influential tech entrepreneurs and philanthropists who have supported both centrist and liberal causes. Major news media organisations have repeatedly resolved high-profile lawsuits through settlements, often without admitting wrongdoing. - Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News paid $787.5 MILLION to Dominion Voting Systems over false election claims, one of the largest media settlements ever. - Murdoch’s UK newspapers have paid out over £1 BILLION across various claims. In every case, the pattern is clear: large payments buy closure and risk management, not an admission of fault, leaving public perception of wrongdoing murky while the parties move on. Murdoch, executive chairman of News Corp, is a longtime supporter of conservative and right-leaning political causes, widely seen as aligned with influential GOP and global conservative networks. - Newsmax settled related defamation suits with Dominion and Smartmatic for $67 MILLION and $40 MILLION respectively. Christopher Ruddy, founder and CEO of Newsmax, was an early supporter and financial backer of Trump’s campaign and is widely seen as closely aligned with Trump and conservative political circles. - ABC News and Paramount/CBS (Larry Ellison is now a significant owner of Paramount, the media group that includes CBS) each reached multi-MILLION-dollar settlements with Donald Trump over reporting disputes, while the BBC quietly resolved journalist discrimination claims. Larry Ellison, co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle, is a major Republican donor and supporter of conservative causes, widely seen as closely aligned with influential right-leaning political and business networks. Even the richest man in the world is at it: Elon Musk’s companies have repeatedly settled major cases without admitting wrongdoing. There’s no single published “total” for everything Musk’s companies have paid in settlements, but we can sketch a ballpark from known major items: - Tesla and Musk settled with the SEC in 2018 over the “funding secured” tweet, paying $40 MILLION, forcing Musk to step down as Tesla chairman for three years (but remained CEO) and subjecting his public statements to oversight: sanctions regulators don’t impose on innocent defendants. - Tesla has also resolved multiple shareholder lawsuits tied to disclosures, governance, and the SolarCity acquisition, largely through settlements or pre-trial resolutions. - Tesla directors/excessive pay derivative settlement: directors agreed to return about $735 MILLION to Tesla (a type of settlement benefiting the company). - 2025 shareholder litigation derivative settlement: about $277 MILLION contributed by directors plus roughly $176 MILLION in legal fees recorded in filings. - Twitter/X employment/contract disputes: multiple settlements (e.g., ex-executives, severance cases), terms undisclosed but likely in the low-hundreds of MILLIONS collectively based on filings and reporting patterns. So in outright, publicly reported cash-value terms, Musk-led companies have settled at least ~$1.2 BILLION+ in identifiable fines and payouts, EXCLUDING confidential settlements, the value of returned stock options, or other liabilities that never reached court. The full costs likely run materially far higher when private settlements (especially at Twitter/X) and contested matters are included. No criminal convictions (YET) but a consistent pattern: pay, accept constraints, deny liability, move on. The UK is smaller but is beginning to catch up. Claimed values in pending group actions top £125–160 BILLION, though actual settlements lag. The biggest so far: Merricks v Mastercard, £200 MILLION approved in 2025 (down from a ~£14 BILLION claim), no admission, with class members getting ~£45–70 each after fees. Dieselgate, Big Tech app store cases, and the BHP dam disaster claims loom. The fig leaf holds because the system rewards it: defendants buy peace, plaintiffs get paid, courts move on. But as payouts balloon, especially in antitrust and tech, the pretence is wearing thin. Money doesn’t just buy outcomes anymore. It increasingly redefines guilt in public life. This is the REAL 'two-tier justice' that Reform UK figures and the billionaire-owned media work hard to conceal from voters. Darkly amusing. Until it’s your subscription, your wages, your data, or your life that’s fucked over. 🤑 #TaxTheUltrarich

“The Centree Token is a unit of account representing the intrinsic value of a protected natural ecosystem. Nothing more, nothing less and totally priceless.”

This is the most serious 48 hours in cybersecurity history. "Black October" they're calling it It seems every *hour* there's a new incident, that in a typical year, would be one of the biggest incidents of the *entire year* SUMMARY OF THE LAST 48 HOURS: YEAR-LEVEL INCIDENTS (In a typical year, these would be among the biggest incidents of the year): 1. PHP2Shell: a hole in the software behind ~70% of websites. Governments took sites offline. 2. eMudhra: the master keys that prove websites are real were cracked. One was the number 4. 3. California: data on every public school student since 2023 stolen, including disability status 4. Railway: hackers stole customers' secret keys from a hosting platform used by millions of developers 5. Zeabur: 321,810 accounts breached. The company is shutting down. 6. LiteLLM: an AI tool downloaded 3.4 million times a day was poisoned with a password stealer 7. GitLab: a 10-out-of-10 severity hole in every version since 2014 8. Cairn: criminals used an AI hacking tool to break into 100+ companies 9. Ahold Delhaize: hackers knocked the owner of Food Lion and Stop & Shop offline 10. Onamae: malware planted on up to 26,739 customer servers in Japan MONTH-LEVEL INCIDENTS (In a typical month, these would be among the biggest incidents): 11. Signal: a bug could leave your mic and camera on after you hang up 12. NGINX: 3 critical holes in software running ~1/3 of websites 13. HTTP/3: a single connection can crash 7 of the 10 web server types tested 14. Plex: hackers breaking into home media servers 15. SafePay ransomware: FBI warns it has hit 600+ critical infrastructure organizations 16. Palo Alto: ransomware gangs breaking in through company firewalls 17. Bullhorn: platform used by 10,000+ companies knocked offline 18. Medi-Cal: 970,000 patients' data stolen 19. WordPress: hackers stole a plugin maker's keys and used them to plant backdoors on websites 20. AOMEI: backup software's update server handed out a backdoor 21. Meta Muse: Meta's AI agent exposed users' personal and business secrets 22. Tor: 333 relays hijacked to steal logins 23. TiDB Cloud: database company's cloud breached Also serious: 24. State Bank of India: India's biggest bank confirms a data breach 25. OVHcloud: hackers slipped a password stealer into a cloud company's official tool 26. Siemens: a software hole being used to spread malware 27. North Korea: state hackers launch a new attack campaign on South Korea

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Bit of free advice for Democrats: Forgive student debt and you'll have FDR level loyalty from Millennials & Gen-Z for a generation. Unless you really plan on marching into your grave with the Boomers.

The vandalism and destruction at the Capital One branch on 86th Street is deeply disturbing and unacceptable. I have been in contact with the NYPD regarding this incident and have urged an immediate investigation, including whether this is a potential antisemitic hate crime. There is no place for hate, intimidation or violence in New York City.

What is happening in France and elsewhere has an 'iron rationality': thomasfazi.com/p/fasten-your…? "Plebs raised like beasts of burden, to be fed the occasional panem et circenses, shit jobs and televised snake oil, are not — and will not be — receptive, on the day this game breaks down, to arguments about public decorum, respect for property, reverence for monuments and so on. Those burning cars, historic buildings and shops are culturally and morally deprived. But the real culprits, the ones who should be made to pay, are the elites at the top who cultivated and wanted that deprivation, thinking it served their purposes. Today the pressure cooker is about to blow. Even if this wave subsides, this is only the beginning, because Europe’s ruling classes are in no position — neither materially nor culturally — to change course. So fasten your seatbelts: we are heading for a crash."