What is a Waspi woman and what happened to them?
Back in the 1990s, a row was brewing over the state pension.
After it was introduced for everybody back in 1948, men were entitled to receive it when they hit 65, but women started getting the payments from the age of 60.
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With more women heading to work and longer life expectancies, many argued it was time to even out the playing field and bring women’s retirement age in line with men’s.
And come 1995, John Major’s Conservative government introduced the Pensions Act, setting out a timetable to make the change.
The legislation said the qualifying age for the state pension would slowly increase over 10 years between 2010 and 2020.
John Major introduced legislation to even out the pension age in 1995. Pic: PA
But come 2010 and the entrance of David Cameron’s coalition government, there was a desire to make cuts and save cash.
In 2011, a new Pensions Act was introduced that not only shortened the timetable to increase the women’s pension age to 65 by two years but also raised the overall pension age to 66 by October 2020 – saving the government around £30bn.
The changes in the law led to a backlash from the women affected – namely those born in the 1950s.
They complained many women weren’t appropriately notified of the changes by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) back in 1995, with some only receiving letters about it 14 years after the legislation passed.
Others claimed to only have received a notification the year before they had been expecting to retire, aged 60, while more said they never received any communication from the department at all.
And when the law changed again in 2011, there was again little or no notice from the government as women had to re-plan their retirements once more.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s coalition focused on saving cash. Pic: PA
Come 2015, a group of women impacted by the situation set up Women Against State Pension Inequality – or Waspi for short – to campaign on their behalf.
The group took no issue with plans to equalise the pension age, but they claimed millions of women had suffered financially because of the lack of time they had to plan their retirements.
By October 2018, Waspi had secured a full scale inquiry into the actions of the DWP by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).
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It took five years for them to carry out their work, but when they released their report in March 2024, it was damning.
The PHSO said thousands of women might have been impacted by the DWP’s “failure to adequately inform them” about the change to their state pension age, and they ruled compensation was “owed”.
The report suggested the compensation figure per person – based on the sample cases its authors have seen – should fall between £1,000 and £2,950.
But the ombudsman’s chief executive, Rebecca Hilsenrath, said she had “significant concerns” the DWP will not act on its findings and its recommendations – which are not legally binding – so PHSO had “proactively asked parliament to intervene and hold the department to account”.
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Both the DWP and Number 10 have said they will consider the ombudsman’s report and respond to their recommendations formally “in due course”.
But the Liberal Democrats are calling on the government to confirm payouts for “these courageous women, who have tirelessly campaigned for justice after being left out of pocket”.
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Source: Web.archive.org
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Related: Bitcoin at 16: From experiment to trillion-dollar asset
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
Related: Bitcoin’s next catalyst: End of $36T US debt ceiling suspension
Is Satoshi Nakamoto wealthier than Bill Gates?
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
Satoshi’s new addresses. Source: Conor Grogan
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
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The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Source: Anthony Scaramucci
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
Trump said the reciprocal tariffs will be roughly half the rate US trading partners impose on American goods.
Related: Bitcoin bulls defend $80K support as ‘World War 3 of trade wars’ crushes US stocks
Meanwhile, the crypto industry has pointed out that while the stock market continues to decline, Bitcoin (BTC) remains stronger than most expected.
Crypto trader Plan Markus pointed out in an April 4 X post that while the entire stock market “is tanking,” Bitcoin is holding.
Source: Jeff Dorman
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
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