Blockchain technology is claimed to be according to blockchain proponents to be one of the most impactfull discoveries in the recent history. It is promised to have a massive potential to change how we handle online transactions. Despite some skeptics, the majority of experts agree that blockchain has the potential to disrupt the banking and financial industry, and many other ones! To put it simply, blockchain enables decentralized transactions across a P2P network. There are applications where those propertied can be very useful, but there are many cases where blockchain migh not be the best solution even though it is hyped to be solution for very many application (remember to ask Do you need a blockchain? often).
This 16 Blockchain Disruptions (Infographic) by bitfortune.net tries to help you understand how the blockchain technology can and will improve 16 different industries, from music to government.
Infographic by bitfortune.net
1,206 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2600net/permalink/3233593793530390/
Some people repeatedly sell themselves their own NFTs in an attempt to artificially inflate their prices..
Called “wash trading,” the practice has long been speculated as key to the NFT market’s steep rise to an estimated [$44 billion in sales](https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/nft-investors-owe-billions-in-taxes-as-u-s-officials-crack-down) last year, though it is difficult to definitively prove. But some examples are hiding in plain sight, according to a [report by Chainalysis](https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-report-preview-nft-wash-trading-money-laundering/), a company that monitors blockchain technology, the digital ledgers that act as the backbone for cryptocurrencies and smart-contract assets such as NFTs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is the whole thing an elaborate scam?
Evidence Is Piling Up That a Huge Number of NFT Sales Are Fake
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ffuturism.com%2Fthe-byte%2Fevidence-nft-sales-fake%3Futm_campaign%3DtrueAnthem_manual%26utm_medium%3DtrueAnthem%26utm_source%3Dfacebook&h=AT3Zjs-C9zgKpjCeCO2P9uVr7DcWRPhrU8QCWmgQfKcFaGgRng8U0AV8igjdVncvQP7ghDF9EyQFaxuMeU4R4TbHeYRvA13LOaJGhbakmbfIYVbEXPomN9ptiLbBZ2KNq-qsnEZN318FhGcSOg
If you’re completely confused why someone would pay tens of millions for a glorified JPG, you’re not alone. NFTs have seen a meteoric rise since bursting onto the scene early last year, and the trend has left many wondering why the hell buyers are shelling out so much for digital images.
Well, it turns out that a bunch of sales are actually sneaky traders buying their own NFTs in an attempt to artificially inflate their prices, in a tactic called “wash trading.” In fact, evidence is starting to build that shows that many of the most expensive NFT “purchases” are the result of the deceptive process.
For example, the 27 most expensive recorded NFT sales in January amounted to $1.3 billion — but came from just two crypto wallets trading on the NFT platform LooksRare, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the top 100 sales that amounted to $2.3 billion came from just 16 wallets.
“There is a lot of activity happening between a couple of wallets — let’s say wallet one selling to wallet two, and then wallet two reselling it,” Modesta Masoit, finance and research director of blockchain market data tracker DappRadar, told Reuters. “It’s quite likely that this is not real demand, that these trades are not organic.”
Shockingly — or perhaps unshockingly, if you’ve been following the chaos of the NFT scene for a while — there are currently no rules against this type of behavior. Unlike in the real world, where duplicitous financial transactions like this are illegal, regulators have yet to catch up with NFTs and other blockchain related assets.
Even as evidence piles up that many NFT sales are shams, there’s still not a lot of hard data, and by nature it’s hard to collect, especially if sellers are making a serious effort to cover their tracks. In fact, there’s some evidence that a lot of washed NFTs are hilariously likelier to lose money than gain.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says crypto has ‘disturbing’ parallels with subprime mortgage meltdown
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/28/paul-krugman-says-crypto-has-disturbing-parallels-with-subprime.html?utm_content=Main&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1644009385
“There are disturbing echoes of the subprime crash” in the cryptocurrency market, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says.
Krugman argues crypto investors are being sold speculative financial products without truly understanding the risks involved.
Bitcoin and other digital currencies have dropped sharply in recent weeks.
In an opinion piece for The New York Times on Thursday, Krugman said he’s “seeing uncomfortable parallels” between crypto and the U.S. subprime crash, which brought the whole housing market to its knees and triggered the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.
The subprime crisis was essentially the result of banks making loans out to people of higher risk, at a time when interest rates were low and house prices were soaring. Once the market became saturated, homeowners found themselves in negative equity unable to repay their loans, resulting in hefty losses for lenders.
Krugman argues crypto investors are similarly being sold speculative financial products without truly understanding the risks involved. It’s worth noting Krugman is a known bitcoin bear, having previously likened the cryptocurrency to a Ponzi scheme.
The Nobel laureate isn’t convinced cryptocurrencies pose a systemic risk, however: “The numbers aren’t big enough to do that.” The entire crypto market is worth roughly $1.7 trillion, according to CoinGecko data.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/opinion/cryptocurrency-subprime-vulnerable.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
A blockchain hustler and a cringey rapper have been charged with laundering $4.5B in stolen bitcoin
By Andy Chalk published about 7 hours ago
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-blockchain-hustler-and-a-cringey-rapper-have-been-charged-with-laundering-dollar45b-in-stolen-bitcoin/
Nearly 120,000 bitcoin were stolen in a 2016 hack of the crypto platform Bitfinex.
US authorities have arrested two people on charges of conspiring to launder $4.5 billion—yes, billion—in cryptocurrency that was stolen during the 2016 hack of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin prices fell after news of the seizure, which authorities called their largest ever.
Feds Seize $3.6 Billion In Stolen Bitcoin, Arrest Couple Five Years After Massive Crypto Exchange Hack
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fjonathanponciano%2F2022%2F02%2F08%2Ffeds-seize-36-billion-in-stolen-bitcoin-arrest-couple-five-years-after-massive-crypto-exchange-hack%2F%3Futm_campaign%3Dforbes%26utm_source%3Dfacebook%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_term%3DGordie&h=AT1OwYXlH1lhNC-j8_TrnuCZm0jjjUMLi8stF9YwNfdBMJQQJ8p8Pj4NvGmqQ-EWZVjJgSz21qjMl9pVTGZ2P0SpavGzeWBloFs5cCYk12zRfsUky7sJx1kvvvAbsXQhmg
U.S. authorities arrested a New York City couple Tuesday for allegedly conspiring to launder $4.5 billion worth of bitcoin stolen during a hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2016, $3.6 billion of which federal authorities have recovered in what the Department of Justice is calling the largest financial seizure ever.
According to the DOJ on Tuesday, special agents obtained court-authorized search warrants to go through the couple’s online accounts and were able to find files containing the private keys required to access a digital wallet containing 94,000 bitcoins representing about $3.6 billion in stolen funds.
The couple has been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and conspiracy to defraud the United States, which carries a maximum sentence of five years.
The price of bitcoin pared recent gains after the announcement, falling nearly 2% to $42,910.
“Cryptocurrency and the virtual currency exchanges trading in it comprise an expanding part of the U.S. financial system, but digital currency heists executed through complex money laundering schemes could undermine confidence in cryptocurrency,” U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves said in a Tuesday statement.
Ransomware attacks on Colonial Pipeline and meatpacker JBS, which sparked widespread gasoline shortages and meat-plant shutdowns, placed a massive spotlight on anonymity concerns last summer. In both instances, the companies paid millions in bitcoin to hackers taking advantage of the cryptocurrency’s anonymized transactions. “The only way you can begin to get on top of the pervasive” ransomware problem is “to develop a pattern,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said last summer after the DOJ seized $2.3 million in bitcoin as part of its investigation into Colonial Pipeline. At the time, Blunt called cryptocurrencies the “ransom payment of choice” for hackers and said lawmakers shouldn’t allow cryptocurrencies to operate “behind the scenes.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg:
As crypto tokens fall, FTX and Crypto.com will run Super Bowl ads, seeking new customers; research shows $112.9M+ has been spent on crypto TV ads since 2020
Crypto Exchanges Make Their Super Bowl Debut at Critical Time
FTX, Crypto.com will run ads during Sunday’s football game
Some 30-second Super Bowl ads sold for $7 million this year
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-08/crypto-exchanges-make-their-super-bowl-debut-at-critical-time
It’s a testing time for crypto exchanges to be making their Super Bowl ad debuts.
Recruiting new users can be simple when prices are skyrocketing. It’s a bit harder after tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum have lost some steam, now down 35% from all-time highs.
Still, FTX Trading Ltd. and Crypto.com are due to run spots during the matchup between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday when more than 100 million viewers are expected to tune in.
A Super Bowl ad can catapult a brand into the mainstream consciousness, which could help the exchanges boost crypto adoption coming off a painful downturn that’s made even some of the biggest advocates skittish about a potential bear market. A jump in new users after the game would help keep the platforms — dependent on trading volumes — growing.
That’s likely one reason they’re willing to pay top dollar for ad space with a 30-second slot this year costing as much as $7 million, an all-time high. But the companies are no stranger to the high cost of advertising. At least $112.9 million has been spent on national crypto-related ads since the start of 2020, according to iSpot.tv data provided by John Cassillo, a TVREV analyst.
Crypto.com has deployed about $65 million on its advertising campaign with actor Matt Damon. FTX has invested $21 million on multiple campaigns, including a handful with now-retired quarterback Tom Brady. And SoFi Technologies Inc. — the namesake of Sunday’s stadium — has spent roughly $18 million on ads. However, SoFi notably will not be running a Super Bowl spot this year, according to a spokesperson.
With Bitcoin now more than a decade old, cryptocurrencies may have exhausted their market for early adopters, R.A. Farrokhnia, a Columbia Business School professor, said.
“For these companies who are providing some foundational services — primarily exchanges or those who let you create a wallet — in order to grow, they need more volume,” said Farrokhnia, who is also executive director of the university’s fintech initiative. “You have to convince consumers to start coming into this ecosystem.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Justine Calma / The Verge:
The WWF hyped and then canceled plans to raise money for conservation with NFTs on Polygon’s “eco-friendly blockchain”, a fraught claim dismissed by experts
How the World Wildlife Fund tried — and failed — to create an eco-friendly NFT
WWF thought it picked a less polluting blockchain
https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/8/22923530/world-wildlife-fund-nft-polygon-layer-2-blockchain-energy-emissions?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
Within a few days last week, the World Wildlife Fund hyped up and then quietly canceled plans to raise money for conservation efforts by minting its own NFTs. The UK chapter of WWF unleashed a firestorm on itself by releasing “Tokens for Nature depicting 13 endangered species. The tokens look like glass cubes encasing each animal: a giant panda, Javan rhino, and Galápagos penguin, to name a few. And they really pissed off other environmentalists.
“My initial response [to World Wildlife Fund’s NFTs] was they must be joking … They’re supposed to be all for sustainable innovations, and they’re getting involved with one of the least sustainable things on the planet,” says digital currency economist Alex de Vries, who has been outspoken about the risks some cryptocurrencies pose to the environment.
The World Wildlife Fund seemed to believe it had found a solution to the climate controversy swirling around NFTs by working with the Polygon, a so-called Layer 2 blockchain that’s tied to the Ethereum network. But while Polygon claims transactions on its blockchain use very little energy, de Vries told The Verge that Polygon is responsible for some of the pollution generated by the notoriously energy inefficient Ethereum and isn’t counting it. Factoring in its relationship with Ethereum, de Vries estimates that a single transaction on Polygon is a whopping 2,100 times higher what WWF estimated.
At the heart of the discrepancy is whether — and in what circumstances — Layer 2 blockchains reduce energy use. While most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain, the way Ethereum verifies transactions is slow, expensive, and energy-intensive. As Ethereum gets more crowded, companies are looking for new ways to scale it up. You can think of a Layer 2 blockchain like Polygon as a sort of carpool lane added to the Ethereum highway.
Like a carpool lane, Layer 2 networks are supposed to be able to fast-track transactions. This ostensibly saves time, money, and — crucial for Polygon’s environmental claims — energy. In one blog post explaining its energy use, Polygon calls itself “the eco-friendly blockchain scaling Ethereum.”
But while passengers in the carpool lane might be individually responsible for fewer emissions than people driving alone on the rest of the highway, adding a new lane still makes room for more polluting cars on the highway. Likewise, Layer 2 solutions still work in tandem with their main blockchain, and when that blockchain is energy inefficient, that creates more pollution, according to de Vries.
And Ethereum is wildly inefficient when it comes to energy use. To validate transactions and mint new tokens, Ethereum “miners” race to solve ever-more-complex puzzles. All the computing required to solve those puzzles is what makes the blockchain’s energy use skyrocket. Bitcoin uses the same kind of process, called “proof of work.”
In contrast, many newer blockchains, including Polygon, use a process called “proof of stake” to validate transactions. Rather than solve complex puzzles, people need to lock up tokens they already have as collateral in order to be in the running to validate transactions and mint new tokens. No puzzles, no skyrocketing energy use. Experts critical of Ethereum’s and Bitcoin’s environmental impact have generally been much more optimistic about independent cryptocurrencies using proof of stake.
But since Polygon isn’t independent, its claims that it is an “eco-friendly blockchain” are fraught at best. De Vries points out that Polygon has contracts on the Ethereum network representing millions of transactions. Those contracts are necessary to move assets back and forth between Polygon and Ethereum and perform other critical functions for Polygon.
Ulrich Gallersdörfer, CEO of Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute, agrees that calculating the energy consumption of Polygon’s blockchain in isolation offers an incomplete picture. “While Layer 2 solutions can be seen as independent networks, they still rely on the security of the underlying Layer 1 network and therefore its electricity consumption and carbon footprint,” Gallersdörfer said in an email to The Verge.
Another argument for moving transactions to Layer 2 networks is that energy savings can be achieved by bundling several transactions together — say, two people exchanging several NFTs. But ultimately, those bundles are brought back to Ethereum’s ledger as a single transaction recorded on Ethereum’s energy inefficient blockchain.
On a more basic level, Layer 2 solutions help polluting blockchains get bigger. Polygon allows users to store, spend, and trade Ethereum-compatible tokens more cheaply. As one of the more advanced Layer 2 solutions, it also connects other Ethereum-compatible blockchains and apps to each other and to the main chain. All those capabilities might persuade someone to stick with Ethereum and Polygon rather than turn to a truly independent blockchain that runs on proof of stake. Ethereum says it will transition to proof of stake, but that move has been delayed for so long that de Vries and others are skeptical it will ever happen.
WWF sang Polygon’s praises when its Germany and UK arms first decided to mint NFTs. “After extensive research and appropriate due diligence, we firmly believe that the benefits to our organisation and to our work brought about by entering the NFT space are worth the limited environmental impact of minting NFTs on Polygon,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Protecting Cryptocurrencies and NFTs – What’s Old is New
https://www.securityweek.com/protecting-cryptocurrencies-and-nfts-whats-old-new
Five steps that end-users can take to protect themselves against cryptocurrency losses
There has been quite a bit of chatter around cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of late. As with most topics these days, some of that chatter has been around the topic of security. Specifically, there seems to be quite a bit of interest around how attackers and fraudsters can compromise cryptocurrencies and NFTs. In particular, one topic of keen interest is how attackers and fraudsters can profit from illicit or fraudulent activities around cryptocurrencies. I would like to take a look at that along with the security of cryptocurrencies in this piece.
I should preface all of this by noting the obvious – I am no expert in cryptocurrencies. That being said, when I look at threats to cryptocurrencies, I see a case of what’s old is new again. What do I mean by that? While there is always the possibility that a cryptocurrency itself will be compromised, that is not likely to be where we will see the vast majority of fraud loss and theft. Why is that? Attackers and fraudsters are opportunistic and coin-operated. If they can easily make money targeting weaker links than the cryptocurrencies themselves, they will do so.
Given this, what are some steps that end-users can take to protect themselves against cryptocurrency losses? While not an exhaustive list, here are five steps end-users can take to protect themselves:
1. Use MFA: Wherever possible, enable multi-factor authentication (MFA). Stolen credentials abound on the darkweb, and some of those credentials likely belong to you. Requiring one or more factors in addition to a username and password can help reduce the risk of attackers and fraudsters gaining unauthorized access to your accounts.
2. Use known, reputable exchanges: Cryptocurrencies are not regulated like national currencies. This includes the exchanges used to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Thus, it is best to be cautious when choosing an exchange. Choose a reputable, reliable, and respected exchange, preferably one that clearly and openly outlines its security measures.
3. Choose your cryptocurrency wisely: There are many different types of cryptocurrencies, and not all cryptocurrencies are created equal. Each has differing levels of security. Should you choose to purchase cryptocurrency, be sure to invest in one that is reputable.
4. Beware of social engineering: Phishing and other scams are a great way for attackers and fraudsters to steal credentials. Those credentials give them access to what they are after. The easiest way to gain access to the cryptocurrencies of others is to flat out ask them for the usernames and passwords to the resources that hold those assets. Don’t fall victim to it.
5. Guard your wallet: The end-user is likely the weakest link in the cryptocurrency chain. As such, access to the end-user digital wallet is exactly the type of target attackers and fraudsters eagerly pursue. Take steps with your digital wallet provider to ensure that you’ve leveraged their ability to help you lock down your account.
Although cryptocurrencies are relatively new, the strategies used by attackers and fraudsters to profit from them don’t appear to be. By understanding that end-users and intermediaries, rather than the cryptocurrencies themselves are the most likely targets for theft and fraud, end-users can take steps to protect themselves. The time invested in considering the points above and others is sure to pay dividends and help avoid fraud loss.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Michael Wayland / CNBC:
Alfa Romeo plans to mint an NFT for each of its new Tonale SUVs to record vehicle data and verify proper maintenance on a blockchain during the car’s life cycle — – Alfa Romeo’s new subcompact Tonale SUV will include a NFT and blockchain technology, the company said Tuesday.
Alfa Romeo unveils new electric-hybrid SUV with NFT, blockchain technology
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/08/new-alfa-romeo-suv-equipped-with-nft-blockchain-technology.html
Alfa Romeo’s new subcompact Tonale SUV will include a NFT and blockchain technology, the company said Tuesday.
The company said the NFT will record vehicle data, generating a certificate that can be used to assure the car has been properly maintained, with a positive impact on its residual value.
The 2023 Tonale, including a plug-in electric hybrid, is the beginning of the end for Alfa Romeo vehicles with an internal combustion engine.
The brand plans to go all-electric by 2027.
Italian auto brand Alfa Romeo is bringing NFTs, which recently rose to popularity in digital art, to its new Tonale SUV, the company said Tuesday for the vehicle’s unveiling.
NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are unique digital assets that can’t be replaced with something else and are verified and stored using blockchain technology, which makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system.
NFTs have become common with digital artwork but can be used for everything from music to a website domain, and now cars.
Alfa Romeo – owned by Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler) – says the Tonale NFT, which it claims to be an industry-first, certifies the car upon purchase then essentially records and stores data during the car’s life cycle.
“Digitalization is a key enabler of our metamorphosis. Tonale is the first car ever to keep a blockchain, non-fungible token. NFTs are based on the same distributed information logic that protects your Bitcoin,” Francesco Calcara, head of Alfa marketing and communication, said during a media briefing. “It records all data on the blockchain.”
Alfa Romeo said the NFT will record vehicle data, generating a certificate that can be used to assure the car has been properly maintained, with a positive impact on its residual value. However, the car must be serviced by a certified Alfa Romeo dealer to record the data.
Alfa Romeo said orders for the Tonale open in the fourth quarter, followed by availability in the first quarter of 2023. The company did not announce pricing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Tampa Bay home is being sold as an NFT
https://www.tampabay.com/news/real-estate/2022/02/04/this-tampa-bay-home-is-being-sold-as-an-nft/
A Gulfport house will sell at auction next week to transfer the property rights “instantaneously” over the blockchain in a first for the region and maybe the nation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NFTs Are a Grift; NFTs Are the Future—Gamers, Over to You The much-hyped cryptocurrency tokens might at least shake up how games are made
https://spectrum.ieee.org/non-fungible-tokens-gaming?share_id=6906010
Tomi Engdahl says:
Crypto is very good at showing Melania’s NFT team bought her own NFT
https://boingboing.net/2022/02/09/crypto-is-very-good-at-showing-melanias-nft-team-bought-her-own-nft.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
NFT Domains
No Renewal Fees Ever
https://unstoppabledomains.com/?utm_campaign=m-pro_2021.10–L2_consumer_paid_fbig_social_prospecting_KPI-purchases-roas-%7E_%7E_%7E_AO&utm_term=interests_eth–altcoins_T1_en_2021.10–L2_%7E&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_source=FB&fbclid=IwAR0DicIbFkV5Ox4NWkyga8tIQ082bqt9SvAJAgzrYWPldzkFk7lT9jPyjDA
Tomi Engdahl says:
Akayla Gardner / Bloomberg:
Messari: NFTs account for 1%, or $16B in value, of the ~$2T cryptocurrency ecosystem; 46.6% are avatar NFTs, 19.8% are game NFTs, and 13.5% are collectible NFTs
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-10/seemingly-ubiquitous-nfts-make-up-only-1-of-crypto-universe
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elizabeth Culliford / Reuters:
OnlyFans launches NFT profile pictures minted on the Ethereum blockchain; creators’ NFT profile pictures will show an Ethereum symbol to mark them as authentic — (Reuters) – OnlyFans, an online subscription platform known for adult content, has launched a feature for users to display verified NFTs …
OnlyFans jumps into NFT profile pictures
https://www.reuters.com/article/onlyfans-nft-idUSKBN2KF2CZ
OnlyFans, an online subscription platform known for adult content, has launched a feature for users to display verified NFTs as profile pictures, it said on Thursday.
The UK-based company, which said it introduced the feature in December, joins social media companies such as Twitter and Reddit that have explored ways to incorporate the digital tokens on their platforms.
OnlyFans, which was launched in 2016, boomed during the pandemic as it became a way for creators to earn money selling content directly to subscribers.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a type of digital asset that exist on the record-keeping technology blockchain. They have surged in popularity over the last year, with people buying artwork and videos of sports highlights as NFTs.
“Our mission is to empower creators to own their full potential,”
OnlyFans said it only supports NFTs minted on the ethereum blockchain. It said creators’ NFT profile pictures would show an ethereum icon to mark them as authentic.
Alphabet’s YouTube this week elaborated on its own plans around NFTs, saying it could offer ways to verify the legitimacy of digital assets using its video library. Sales of NFTs soared last year, but critics have said scams, copyright theft and other predatory behavior are too common.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Local governments have been interested in cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum for years, and some have begun accepting it as a form of payment for certain transactions. But come places are taking it a step further
The Cities Turning To Crypto For Grassroots Fundraising
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftrib.al%2FyjAgNGz&h=AT2U06hKsb0rSzvb6GqXhvNj7kYHWRBgSh27S885mULBgOXoTyEws59g0iHgBNG8c5y18ycHus-_LnwnefDlvg5UzWadeHfmyLdUIJVNlYR_AM6d4SR6FV_zPo_OSFnUhQ
Local governments have been interested in cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and Ethereum for years, and some have begun accepting it as a form of payment for certain transactions. But come places are taking it a step further.
“In expanding access to community investments by way of microbonds, Berkeley will simultaneously crowdsource additional funding for public projects while providing more individuals with investment opportunities,” Arreguín said in a statement.
Meanwhile, CityCoins offers cities a different approach to raise revenue with digital currency. The nonprofit has a platform that allows its users to mine for new tokens and then select a participating city to support. A computer program allocates 30% of the mined cryptocurrency to that city, while users get the other 70%.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paul Alcorn / Tom’s Hardware:
Intel forms a Custom Compute Group to build blockchain hardware and plans to ship cryptocurrency mining chips in 2022; Block, Argo, and Griid are customers — Intel has officially entered the cryptomining business. — Intel’s Raja Koduri penned a blog post that officially announces …
Intel Announces Bitcoin Mining Initiative, Bonanza Mine Chips Ship This Year
By Paul Alcorn published about 8 hours ago
Intel has officially entered the cryptomining business.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-announces-bitcoin-mining-initiative-bonanza-mine-chips-ship-this-year
Intel’s Raja Koduri penned a blog post that officially announces the company’s plans to enter the cryptomining/blockchain market with a roadmap of specialized energy-efficient accelerators. Intel will begin delivering the new chips, comprised of the Bonanza Mine ASICs that we recently unearthed, this year to several large customers as it enters the Bitcoin mining market that it expects to grow by $2.8 billion from 2021-2025. Intel’s first customers include BLOCK (formerly known as Square and helmed by CEO Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame), Argo Blockchain, and GRIID Infrastructure. We’ll provide a bit more detail on those relationships below.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Announces Bitcoin Mining Initiative, Bonanza Mine Chips Ship This Year
By Paul Alcorn published 1 day ago
Intel has officially entered the cryptomining business.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-announces-bitcoin-mining-initiative-bonanza-mine-chips-ship-this-year
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Launches Crypto Mining Initiative; Argo, Block to Get First Chips This Year
The chipmaking giant is ramping up its crypto mining offerings with a lineup of energy-efficient accelerators.
https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/02/11/intel-launches-crypto-mining-initiative-argo-block-to-get-first-chips-this-year/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/08/new-alfa-romeo-suv-equipped-with-nft-blockchain-technology.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
250 000€ JPG kuvasta?!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rJVlBTVyrEI
Mikä on NFT? Ja entä Metaverse? Mistä NFT:ssä on kyse ja miksi jpg-kuvista maksetaan satoja tuhansia? Tällä videolla käydään aihetta perin pohjin läpi ja selitetään helposti ymmärrettävästi NFT:n ja Web3:n salat!
Tämä video on osa kolmiosaista NFT:hen ja Metaverseen keskittyvää videosarjaa, jossa pyrin selittämään kaiken niihin liittyvän tiedon mahdollisimman yksinkertaisesti. Neljä kuukautta, 16 sivua käsikirjoitusta ja yli sata työtuntia myöhemmin olet nyt näiden videoiden äärellä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
In his post, he detailed the “Unbridled Optimism” attack that would have allowed any attacker to mint an arbitrary number of coins on any blockchain that supports the Optimism Virtual Machine.
Infinite Ethereum Bug Discovered In Optimism By Hacker Behind iPhone Jaibreaks
https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cryptocurrency/22/02/25573169/infinite-ethereum-bug-discovered-in-optimism-by-hacker-behind-iphone-jaibreaks
Jay Freeman — the core developer of iOS Jailbreak and Cydia tools and founder of decentralized virtual private network solution Orchid
OXT
— discovered a bug in the Ethereum
ETH
scalability solution Optimism that would enable attackers to create infinite Ether.
What Happened: Freeman pointed out the vulnerability in a Thursday Twitter thread in which he also disclosed that he won a $2,000,042 bounty for its discovery.
In his post, he detailed the “Unbridled Optimism” attack that would have allowed any attacker to mint an arbitrary number of coins on any blockchain that supports the Optimism Virtual Machine.
Freeman’s explanation of a hypothetical exploit notes the attacker would have to trigger the “selfdestruct” function of Optimism system’s smart contract on the Ethereum main network multiple times to increase their token holdings without limitations. Optimism-based forks such as Boba and Metis were vulnerable to similar exploits.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tein oman NFT kokoelman!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GliF0t0clbg
Tässä videossa kerron, kuinka tehdä NFT ja oma NFT-kokoelma. Lisäksi käydään muun muassa läpi, miten sisällöntuottajat ja vaikuttajat voivat hyödyntää NFT:eitä omassa työssään. Muista katsoa koko video, sillä lopussa ollaan jännän äärellä!
00:00 – Pohjustus
00:35 – NFT musiikkifestarit
03:16 – Digitaaliset museot
03:51 – Miten NFT toimii artisteille
04:43 – Rojaltit
05:23 – NFT:n hyödyt vaikuttajalle
06:30 – Yleisiä kysymyksiä
08:33 – Miten tehdään NFT?
13:51 – Mun oma NFT kokoelma
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fixed a major flaw that would have permitted an illegal and continuous creation of ETH tokens. Ethical Hacker, Jay Freeman, who discovered flaws in the code and saved the network from significant theft risks. He explained that any developer on Ethereum’s chain could automatically use one of its forks to create new tokens. Specifically, a continuous regeneration is triggered by running a SELF-DESTRUCT opcode command on a smart contract that once held ETH tokens.
Daami PK
11 February 2022update 11 February 2022
38.5 k views
White Hat Hacker Awarded $2 Million for Fixing ETH-Creation Bug
https://cryptoadventure.com/white-hat-hacker-awarded-2-million-for-fixing-eth-creation-bug/
Ethereum layer-2 solution, Optimism, fixed a major flaw that would have permitted an illegal and continuous creation of ETH tokens.
According to sources, Optimism might have just solved a significant system vulnerability issue. The potential glitch got the attention of developers at Ethereum through an Ethical Hacker, Jay Freeman, who discovered flaws in the code and saved the network from significant theft risks.
The bug, now curtailed, was reportedly triggered by an Etherscan employee. Had the issue not been promptly resolved, malicious users on the chain could have exploited the flaw.
blog post, Jay described precisely how this vulnerability could lead to the infinite duplication of the second most-valued cryptocurrency in the world.
Attacking an Ethereum L2 with Unbridled Optimism
https://www.saurik.com/optimism.html
The Summary
On 2/2/2022, I reported a critical security issue to Optimism—an “L2 scaling solution” for Ethereum—that would allow an attacker to replicate money on any chain using their “OVM 2.0″ fork of go-ethereum (which they call l2geth).
Quickly, Optimism—whose platform currently uses a centralized “sequencer”—moved to both fix this bug on their nodes and infrastructure, as well as arrange for downstream projects that used their codebase (Boba and Metis) to get patched.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bjarke Smith-Meyer / Politico:
European Commission says it is planning to propose a bill for a digital euro in early 2023; the ECB expects to start working on a prototype at the end of 2023 — The European Commission announced Wednesday it’s planning to propose a bill for a digital euro early next year.
Digital euro bill due early 2023
https://www.politico.eu/article/digital-euro-bill-due-early-2023/
The legislative process is timed in lockstep with the European Central Bank’s in-house experiments on virtual currency.
The European Commission announced Wednesday it’s planning to propose a bill for a digital euro early next year.
The bill will serve as the legal foundation for the European Central Bank’s ongoing technical work on the virtual version of a euro banknote or coin.
Central banks across the world are developing virtual money to ensure they’re not undermined by the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, which has inspired Big Tech to eye ways to enter the payments market. One of the biggest jolts was when Facebook, owned by Meta, announced a few years ago that it would launch a virtual currency with 25 other companies.
Although political and regulatory pushback on both sides of the Atlantic killed that project, that broader push has spooked policymakers into action.
“If we don’t satisfy this demand, then others will do it,” ECB Executive Board member Fabio Panetta told MEPs in mid-November. “As co-legislators you will play a key role in any changes to the EU legislative framework that may be necessary to introduce a digital euro.”
The ECB is currently carrying out in-house experiments with the digital euro and expects to start working on a prototype at the end of 2023. Eurozone governors will then decide whether minting a digital euro is worth the trouble. If they do, the virtual currency could be ready by 2025 — at the earliest.
That timetable works fine for the EU’s legislative process. The bill will have to go through negotiations within EU capitals and Parliament before it can become law.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Bored Ape Yacht Club members, who have full IP rights for the ape character they own, are pursuing licensing deals to put ape characters on cannabis packaging — When Richard Lee first brought his business proposal to Backpack Boyz, he could sense skepticism from the California-based cannabis company.
Bored Ape Yacht Club members want to build an empire, starting with weed
https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/11/22925408/bored-ape-yacht-club-cannabis-copyright?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
What do you do with the IP rights to your very expensive cartoon primate? Put him on cannabis packaging
WhenWhen Richard Lee first brought his business proposal to Backpack Boyz, he could sense skepticism from the California-based cannabis company.
“‘You’re gonna put an ape on this bag, and you’re gonna make a new flavor, but like, who’s gonna buy this?’ is kind of what they were thinking,” Lee says.
The ape in question is the Bored Ape Yacht Club #768 NFT, a wide-eyed primate with white fur, a blue hat, and a silver hoop earring. Lee had purchased his ape, which he’s named Crypto Painter, in May 2021 for 1.15 ETH (about $3,000 USD today). Now he wanted to license Crypto Painter out, and Backpack Boyz was his first stop.
The finished product was an ice blue, Matrix-style cannabis flower package with Lee’s ape emblazoned over the name of the new strain: Crypto Gelato.
First, the product was a bestseller at the grand opening of the San Diego Backpack Boyz store in December. And when Crypto Gelato was sold at the Rolling Loud music festival a few days later, a younger, more crypto-knowledgeable crowd cleared the shelves. Since then, the strain has been a consistent hit at all three Backpack Boyz shops in California, and at times, supply hasn’t been able to keep up with demand.
“It kind of blew up,” says Lee, a former Hollywood visual effects artist who goes by @cryptopainter online. At one point, he had to post a PSA on Instagram asking people to please not acquire Crypto Gelato illegally. Lending out his ape was the first test in the grand vision he’s held since the beginning: to make Crypto Painter a star.
Lee seems to be at least one step closer to his goal — since the Backpack Boyz deal, he’s secured another cannabis-related licensing agreement with a large weed company, to be announced soon. Another two non-cannabis deals are also underway, Lee says. Oh, and he wants to license his ape to a local political candidate.
“It’s kind of like, hey, this does work, and it works really well,” Lee says of licensing his BAYC character. “So let’s go bigger now.”
Owning a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT naturally comes with perks. There’s the flex of having something inaccessible to most, a ready-made network of thousands of other ape owners to connect with, invites to exclusive (or not-so-exclusive) parties, and, if you play your cards right, the ability to resell your ape for a sum of money that would change the lives of most of us. But for many in the club, having an ape represents a different kind of promise, separate from the Blockchain and nonfungibility and betting on JPEGs: you can slap your ape on all sorts of stuff and sell it.
NFT purchases come with specific usage rights to the art depicted — the original artist typically retains ownership of the copyright, but buyers can set the NFT as their profile picture, for example. But Bored Apes are different: when you buy an ape, you also get the rights to it. You can put your ape with pink fur and a military-inspired hat on a skate deck, as streetwear brand owner Nicky Diamonds did. Or lend your closed-eyes, pierced-ear ape to a music video.
The Yacht Club members pursuing cannabis deals describe an array of perspectives within the larger BAYC ecosystem. Some people just want to collect their apes, meet other enthusiasts, and watch the space grow. But there are others — often self-described as “entrepreneurs” or “business-minded people” — who see the apes as a launching pad for something bigger than even the Yacht Club.
“You see Mickey Mouse or Alvin and the Chipmunks — these characters that have come along and been able to stand the test of time. I really think that could be where my ape goes,” Rob says. “That’s why I’ve been very cautious on actually licensing it out and actually using it.”
The comparison to Disney has been made before but hasn’t proven itself out yet. Aside from a few apes backed by celebrities, most ventures haven’t broken into the mainstream consciousness — ask your mom to name a bored ape off the top of her head, quickly. But the possibility of your ape being a household name one day buoys the hustle.
Lee’s energy and faith in his ape and other NFT projects have perhaps converted a few. He says he’s introduced other BAYC members to companies looking for apes to partner with to show them that they, too, can make their apes work for their bottom line without selling. And after the success of Crypto Gelato, Backpack Boyz are moving deeper into crypto and NFTs, says Harry Yim, digital product manager. The company had wanted to get into the space, and a collaboration with Lee felt natural.
“When you have a tangible product and a following, then I think if you’re smart about it, the NFTs and the metaverse can really accentuate and expand that business,” Yim says. He says Backpack Boyz is also exploring how it can make NFTs part of its business through special deals, new strains or other perks for owners.
“I had no understanding of the IP,” he says. It wasn’t until he started engaging with other ape owners — and saw a statement about licensing from the BAYC founders — that he started to see the potential.
Joey’s company Money Trees Cannabis will soon have bored ape products of its own: his ape with a yellow fisherman’s hat and diamond grills will appear on packages in California and Michigan in the next few months. He’s taking his packaging a step further, incorporating augmented reality artwork featuring his apes. “The ape will take a hit and then smile,” he says.
“In the grand scheme of things, definitely, it’s more valuable as an IP asset than as an NFT,” Joey says.
“Unfortunately, because there are a lot of folks that don’t understand this stuff, [companies will] throw stuff out there, and people are going to get excited because there is money attached to it,” he says. Not every project takes off, either, instead staying in the insular NFT communities and on Discord servers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gian M. Volpicelli / Wired UK:
A profile of OpenSea, whose Web3 credentials have been called into question by crypto hardliners, as it tries to deal with security incidents and copycat NFTs — Security issues and endless copycat listings are rife, but the platform’s attempt to stop them is angering everyone. — What is a real ape?
Why OpenSea’s NFT Marketplace Can’t Win
Security issues and endless copycat listings are rife, but the platform’s attempt to stop them is angering everyone.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/opensea-nfts-twitter
What is a real ape? On OpenSea, the internet’s most popular NFT marketplace, answering that question incorrectly can be costly. Last year, Bored Apes—cartoon primates linked to unique cryptocurrency tokens—skyrocketed in popularity. Now the cheapest cost $309,000, and OpenSea is crawling with imitations and rip-offs. Two projects featuring flipped versions of original Bored Apes, called Phunky Apes Yacht Club (PAYC) and PHAYC, vied for the title of authentic knockoff of the coveted simians; other apes, of which there are many, were just straight-up copypastas.
In December OpenSea banned PAYC and PHAYC, a step that elicited grumbles from the crypto crowd whose splurge has fueled the recent NFT craze. The move went against OpenSea’s self-styled image as a champion of Web3, a decentralized version of the internet free from censorship or gatekeeping. A few days later, a blog post by former Signal CEO Moxie Marlinspike, whose experimental NFTs were removed by OpenSea, gave the impression that OpenSea risked becoming another traditional tech platform, the “How do you do, fellow kids?” to the edgy Web3 insurgency.
OpenSea is trapped between a rock and a hard place: Its phenomenal growth has brought it more revenue, partnerships with tech giants like Twitter, and funding, but also a cartload of headaches as the company struggles to keep up with emerging security incidents and endless copycat NFTs. If OpenSea gets around to handling those issues, it could face a scornful backlash from cryptocurrency hardliners, which has already resulted in the launch of a rival NFT marketplace overtly designed to poach its customers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elizabeth Howcroft / Reuters:
NFT marketplace Cent halts most transactions, citing users minting NFTs of content they don’t own, selling unauthorized NFT copies, and more — The platform which sold an NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet for $2.9 million has halted transactions because people were selling tokens of content …
Marketplace suspends most NFT sales, citing ‘rampant’ fakes and plagiarism
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/nft-marketplace-shuts-citing-rampant-fakes-plagiarism-problem-2022-02-11/
LONDON, Feb 11 (Reuters) – The platform which sold an NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet for $2.9 million has halted most transactions because people were selling tokens of content that did not belong to them, its founder said, calling this a “fundamental problem” in the fast-growing digital assets market.
Sales of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, soared to around $25 billion in 2021, leaving many baffled as to why so much money is being spent on items that do not physically exist and which anyone can view online for free.
NFTs are crypto assets that record the ownership of a digital file such as an image, video or text. Anyone can create, or “mint”, an NFT, and ownership of the token does not usually confer ownership of the underlying item. read more
Reports of scams, counterfeits and “wash trading” have become commonplace.
The U.S.-based Cent executed one of the first known million-dollar NFT sales when it sold the former Twitter CEO’s tweet as an NFT last March. But as of Feb. 6, it has stopped allowing buying and selling, CEO and co-founder Cameron Hejazi told Reuters.
“There’s a spectrum of activity that is happening that basically shouldn’t be happening – like, legally” Hejazi said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paul Alcorn / Tom’s Hardware:
Intel forms a Custom Compute Group to build blockchain hardware and plans to ship cryptocurrency mining chips in 2022; Block, Argo, and Griid are customers
Intel Announces Bitcoin Mining Initiative, Bonanza Mine Chips Ship This Year
By Paul Alcorn published 3 days ago
Intel has officially entered the cryptomining business.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-announces-bitcoin-mining-initiative-bonanza-mine-chips-ship-this-year
Intel’s Raja Koduri penned a blog post that officially announces the company’s plans to enter the cryptomining/blockchain market with a roadmap of specialized energy-efficient accelerators. Intel will begin delivering the new chips, comprised of the Bonanza Mine ASICs that we recently unearthed, this year to several large customers as it enters the Bitcoin mining market that it expects to grow by $2.8 billion from 2021-2025. Intel’s first customers include BLOCK (formerly known as Square and helmed by CEO Jack Dorsey of Twitter fame), Argo Blockchain, and GRIID Infrastructure. We’ll provide a bit more detail on those relationships below.
Intel also announced that it had created a new Custom Compute Group, folded under Koduri’s Accelerated Computing and Graphics (AXG) Business Unit, to design and build its blockchain hardware. The group will also build other unspecified custom accelerated supercomputing hardware based on Intel’s existing IP blocks. It’s unclear if those products could address other types of cryptocurrency mining, or if the unit will also serve as an adjunct to Intel Foundry Services (IFS).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tom Mitchelhill / Cointelegraph:
Ethereum L2 scaling project Optimism fixes bug that left it open to unlimited ETH token creation in its accounts; $2M+ bounty given to Jay Freeman of Cydia fame — Ethereum scaling startup Optimism disclosed a “critical bug” fix in the project’s Geth fork that would have allowed malicious hackers to create infinite ETH
iOS jailbreak dev wins $2M bounty for finding critical Optimism bug
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ios-jailbreak-dev-wins-2m-bounty-for-finding-critical-optimism-bug
Optimism disclosed a “critical bug” in its Geth fork that would have allowed malicious hackers to create infinite ETH — it has been fixed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/10/create-a-social-media-punch-list-for-cryptocurrency-marketing/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tein oman NFT kokoelman!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GliF0t0clbg
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Block:
SEC fines crypto lending company BlockFi $100M, which will register its high-yield crypto savings product and offer it as a security as part of the settlement — The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that it fined crypto lending firm BlockFi $100 million …
With $100 million settlement confirmed, BlockFi aims to register Yield with SEC
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/134165/with-100-million-settlement-confirmed-blockfi-aims-to-register-yield-with-sec
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that it fined crypto lending firm BlockFi $100 million, and now the firm plans to register with the agency to offer clients its popular high-yield crypto savings product.
As a condition of a $100 million settlement with the SEC as well as state securities regulators, the firm has announced plans to file an S1 to offer BlockFi Yield to US investors as a security.
“We intend for BlockFi Yield to be a new, SEC-registered crypto interest-bearing security, which will allow clients to earn interest on their crypto assets,” BlockFi CEO Zac Prince said in a press release.
Starting last summer, a series of state securities regulators filed actions against BlockFi, which is one of the largest such yield platforms in the country. Around the same time, the federal SEC shut down Coinbase’s attempt to launch its own yield offering. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong lashed out at the SEC on Twitter over the commission’s decision and opacity in its decision making.
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Yaffe-Bellany / New York Times:
As bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies appreciate in value, tracking and valuing holdings is becoming a major source of contention in US divorces
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/13/technology/divorce-bitcoin-crypto.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Bets on Blockchain
https://www.eetimes.com/intel-bets-on-blockchain/
Does blockchain have a future beyond selling digital NFT trinkets like Melania Trump’s watercolors and short video clips of great moments in sports? Intel says yes. In his recent online editorial titled “Blockchain and the New Custom Compute Group,” Intel’s senior vice president and general manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics Group, Raja Koduri, announced that Intel has created a new accelerator group called the “Custom Compute Group” and will be shipping a custom blockchain accelerator designed by this group later this year. Why is this a big deal? Because blockchain is the foundation of a distributed ledger system that holds out the best promise for protecting all sorts of assets – digital and physical. Intel is working with Argo Blockchain, BLOCK (the company formerly known as Square), and GRIID Infrastructure as initial customers for this product.
If you think blockchain is all hoopla, I can’t blame you. There is far too much hype surrounding blockchain, thanks to Bitcoin, and Koduri’s editorial invokes the Metaverse and Web 3.0, which gives even more digital spin to this announcement. Certainly, there are plenty of digital assets that benefit from blockchain protection, in the metaverse or otherwise.
However, blockchain technology can be used to solve real-world problems too, besides creating alternative currencies and NFTs for privileged, first-world, wannabe investors. Blockchain can manage any real resource, whether you’re talking about diamonds, spare parts, pharmaceuticals, or food. Whenever you need to track material ownership and possession throughout a supply chain whenever many different business organizations are involved in the resource workflow, blockchain is a great technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reports of scams, swindles, and counterfeits have become commonplace in the burgeoning world of NFTs.
Popular NFT Market Halts Sales Due To Rampant Plagiarism And Fakes
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/popular-nft-market-halts-sales-due-to-rampant-plagiarism-and-fakes/
A popular non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace has pulled the plug on most transactions after discovering people were selling tokens of plagiarised or stolen content.
The platform, called Cent, gained prominence after an NFT of the first-ever tweet by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey was sold there for $2.9 million. In a statement on February 6, the company said they’d become aware of “bad actors” using Cent for the purpose of “tricking others into purchasing counterfeit work.”
“Our response has been to ban the offending accounts, but we believe that this approach is not sustainable. That’s why, effective today, we’re removing the ability to sell NFTs here,” they added.
At the moment, much of the hype is around pieces of digital art, like Bored Ape Yacht Club or Cryptopunks
If you purchase an NFT – which can sell for the equivalent of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency – it’s effectively a digital receipt of ownership of the digital item, as opposed to physical or intellectual ownership. You can copy a digital file as many times as you want by, for example, right-clicking and saving the image. However, NFTs are designed to give people ownership of the work, which in essence can’t be replicated. Needless to say, many people are skeptical of this concept.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Canada’s Trudeau invokes Emergencies Act to include crypto transactions
https://finbold.com/canadas-trudeau-invokes-emergencies-act-to-include-crypto-transactions/
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergency Act, for the first time since the Act was introduced in 1988, to respond to the ongoing anti-government trucker protests.
The law defines a national emergency as “an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The offer to give $15 worth of free bitcoin to new sign-ups turned out to be explosive.
Cryptocurrency Platform Crashes After Airing Super Bowl Advertisement
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/crypto-currency-platform-crashes-after-airing-super-bowl-advertisement/
The Super Bowl famously decides the champions of the US National Football League, and is now a historic tradition akin to a national holiday. Something equally exciting to look forward to is the Super Bowl commercials. Costing a cool $7 million for a 30-second slot, the Super Bowl ads is a place to show off, from the latest movie trailers and TV series to consumer products. This year has seen an increase in ads about cryptocurrency and one of them was particularly effective. Actually, it might have been too effective.
Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase crashed after its commercial featuring just a QR code aired. The ad was a homage to the DVD screensavers that used to bounce around on many TV screens before streaming was a thing. A QR code, which even managed to hit the corner perfectly, bounced around the screen for about a minute with music playing in the background.
The over 90 million viewers expected to be watching the game and an offer to give $15 worth of free bitcoin to new sign-ups turned out to be an explosive combination that took down Coinbases’s app and website. In a way, they organized their own distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), although that was not their aim.
The irony of paying millions for a Super Bowl ad but not doing enough to ensure your website is robust enough to deal with it clearly tickled people.
One thing highlighted online was how the high number of crypto advertisements were eerily similar to the dot-com bubble, the prolonged market crash that followed the massive growth of online companies in the late 1990s. Others poked fun at Coinbase, suggesting that if it can’t plan for an influx of people signing up, how could it be trusted with their money? Only time will tell if truly there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aislinn Keely / The Block:
A coalition of crypto companies, including Coinbase, Circle, and Robinhood, announce TRUST, an anti-money laundering platform for securely sharing customer data
Coalition of US crypto firms unveils travel rule compliance platform, TRUST
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/134408/coalition-of-us-crypto-firms-unveils-travel-rule-compliance-platform-trust
Quick Take
A coalition of US crypto firms has created a centralized solution to the information sharing requirements of the travel rule.
The solution, TRUST, is a platform governed by the participating exchanges that allows members to securely transmit customer information.
The group plans to expand the solution globally over time.
A coalition of some of the US’s largest crypto firms is rolling out a solution to heightened anti-money laundering standards.
The so-called Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology, or “TRUST,” allows crypto firms to securely collect and transmit customer data in accordance with the travel rule.
Last year, the Financial Action Task Force recommended that participating nations implement a travel rule for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) — essentially entities that facilitate transactions — in its finalized guidance. The travel rule seeks to curb money laundering and terrorist financing by requiring VASPs to gather and transmit names, account numbers and location information for both the sender and the recipient in a transaction.
The travel rule has long been part of the banking world, but until recently, crypto lacked the infrastructure to comply.
Now, a group of the US’s biggest crypto players have rolled out their solution in the form of TRUST. Anchorage, Avanti, Bitgo, bitFlyer, Bittrex, BlockFi, Circle, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital AssetsSM, Gemini, Kraken, Paxos, Robinhood, Standard Custody & Trust, Symbridge, Tradestation, Zero Hash and Zodia Custody make up the founding members.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the multi-trillion-dollar wealth management industry is opening up to bitcoin
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/134362/how-the-multi-trillion-dollar-wealth-management-industry-is-opening-up-to-bitcoin
Tomi Engdahl says:
Another NFT marketplace, x2y2, begins vampire attack on OpenSea
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/134450/another-nft-marketplace-x2y2-begins-vampire-attack-on-opensea
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘You appear to be operating under the mistaken assumption that the project would be legal’
Magic: The Gathering-Loving Crypto Losers Fail To Understand Copyright Law
https://kotaku.com/magic-the-gathering-mtgdao-wizards-of-the-coast-crypto-1848544744?rev=1644972414414&utm_campaign=Kotaku&utm_content=1644972442&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=facebook
‘You appear to be operating under the mistaken assumption that the project would be legal’
A group of Magic: The Gathering fans, assembled under the name the “mtgDAO,” have announced plans to create what’s essentially their own platform/version of Wizards of the Coast’s game, taking digital versions of actual Magic cards and minting them as NFTs.
They’re not creating something in the same genre, or loosely based on Magic. They want to simply take representations of existing Magic cards, from the design to the text to the illustrations, and move them onto the blockchain. In a hilarious attempt to try to dodge Wizards of the Coast’s lawyers, they added a note that players would only be able to use cards they already owned across the game’s various formats:
Players will need the actual card in order to legally play the game, whether that be a paper card, a card on Arena, or a card on MTGO. The NFTs aren’t meant to establish ownership of the card, it will only be used to allow that card to be played in the mtgDAO format.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tom Metcalf / Bloomberg:
Global financial watchdog FSB warns digital assets could soon threaten financial stability as they become more interconnected with the wider financial system — Global financial regulators said digital assets could soon threaten global financial stability due to their scale …
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-16/cryptoassets-threaten-financial-stability-top-regulator-warns
Tomi Engdahl says:
“It’s still all fairy dust and very vulnerable to higher interest rates,” JPMorgan strategist David Kelly said of cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies will suffer massive losses as the Fed ends ‘crazy’ speculation by hiking rates, JPMorgan strategist says
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftrib.al%2FNU1aV19&h=AT1bG5D_F6DLoQgnaHT5mWSTk-DBbdzODIBRJPhIuuMY28J5sv9I-9mKCIdc9A8PPYbaBL5_JdsCsqJjJuLMCUWjS2CmbMacIWMFl22_qCl9iReySK9KGt6c-HXb40rUvg
Cryptocurrencies are likely to plunge even further as the Fed hikes interest rates, a senior JPMorgan strategist said.
“At some stage, I expect to see massive losses in crypto, because there is nothing there,” David Kelly told Insider.
Kelly’s crypto skepticism may not be universally shared at JPMorgan, which ventured into the metaverse Tuesday.
“At some stage, I expect to see massive losses in crypto, because there is nothing there,” David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, told Insider.
Cryptocurrencies have already dropped sharply, with bitcoin tumbling from a high of above $68,000 in November to around $44,000 on Wednesday. The market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has slumped from above $3 trillion in November to less than $2 trillion today.
Investors have pivoted away from riskier investments, given the Fed prepares to hike interest rates numerous times in 2022 in an effort to tame inflation.
The Fed’s pandemic-era stimulus forced bond yields down to ultra-low levels, which prompted investors to turn to highly speculative investments such as cryptocurrencies and unprofitable tech stocks, according to the veteran strategist.
“If you push real interest rates up to a positive level, you will starve the crazy ideas of cash and funnel money towards projects that actually have a positive, real economic return,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Super Bowl ads boosted crypto app downloads by 279%, led by Coinbase
https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/17/super-bowl-ads-boosted-crypto-app-downloads-by-279-led-by-coinbase/
Those Super Bowl ad spots paid off for a number of tech companies not just in terms of exposure, but also app installs, a new report indicates. But Coinbase’s viral ad — which just bounced a QR code around on a black screen like the old DVD screensaver — outperformed the group, with installs jumping 309% week-over-week after the ad’s airing Super Bowl Sunday, February 13, and it continued to climb by another 286% the following day.
Coinbase, as it turned out, wasn’t the only crypto app to do well. Among the top five apps whose ads delivered strong download growth, three were crypto apps. In addition to Coinbase, crypto trading platform eToro grew app installs by 132% week-over-week on Feb. 13, and by 82% on Feb. 14. Meanwhile, Cryptocurrency exchange FTX, whose ad featured “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David, saw a 130% boost in downloads week-over-week on Feb. 13, followed by 81% growth the next day.
Combined, Coinbase, eToro, and FTX saw their U.S. installs grow by a collective 279% on February 13 compared to the week prior. This continued into the following day, when week-over-week download growth reached 252%.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jennifer Schonberger / Yahoo Finance:
Source: Biden is expected to issue an EO next week directing agencies to study crypto and a CBDC, and come up with a strategy to regulate digital assets
Biden seen issuing crypto oversight exec order next week
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/biden-order-on-crypto-oversight-expected-next-week-source-says-173452499.html
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Yahoo Finance
Biden seen issuing crypto oversight exec order next week
Jennifer Schonberger
Jennifer Schonberger·Senior Reporter
Thu, February 17, 2022, 8:14 PM·3 min read
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President Biden is expected to issue an executive order next week directing agencies across the government to study cryptocurrencies and a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and come up with a government-wide strategy to regulate digital assets.
According to an administration official familiar with the matter, the forthcoming directive will commission a study of a CBDC and ask a range of agencies – including the Departments of Treasury, State, Justice and Homeland Security – to develop a report on the future of money and payment systems. Meanwhile, the Director of the Office of Science and Tech policy will do a technical evaluation of what might be needed to support a CBDC system.
The move comes as Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday that a rift has developed between the White House and Treasury over crypto regulation, but a Treasury official disputed the account as “inaccurate.” The administration is engaged in a wide-ranging effort to regulate the sector, with the FBI forming a new crypto unit led by a seasoned computer crimes prosecutor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chris Strohm / Bloomberg:
DOJ establishes the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team to investigate illegal schemes run by criminals and countries like North Korea and Iran — The Justice Department named a veteran cybersecurity prosecutor to lead a new team dedicated to investigating and prosecuting illicit …
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-17/doj-amps-up-crypto-scrutiny-naming-head-of-new-enforcement-team
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chainalysis:
Analysis identifies 4,068 “criminal whales” holding over $25B worth of stolen cryptocurrency, following a major jump in illicit balances in 2021
Criminal Whales Hold over $25 Billion in Cryptocurrency From Multitude of Illicit Sources
https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-report-preview-criminal-balances-criminal-whales/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Norton Crypto. It’s EVEN WORSE than you think….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi_xedWzfqU
Norton has made an Ethereum mining pool that comes with Norton 360… is it any good? Is it a scam? Let’s find out!
CHAPTERS
—————————————————
0:00 Intro
1:03 Norton Crypto
1:41 Mining Pools
3:43 Cons
5:53 Testing
7:23 Get rid of it
8:30 Conclusion
10:30 Outro
Viewer comments:
I love how their software has turned from anti-malware into actual malware & scam. And then they charge you for it. Lol.
I love how Norton is just “pay for what you already have for free, but worse” software
- Windows Defender comes with Windows and has actually matured really well, often having less false results and detecting more malware than paid services (Norton) – not to mention it doesn’t hog up your system resources whatsoever
- Literally most other mining software is free and has minimal to no fees.
Norton: There is no malware because I am the malware.
Mcafee: We should step up our game to be the best ransomware.
Ah yes Norton…my dad recently noticed his laptop feels really hot to the touch, and the fans seemed to be constantly running at full speed. I checked his CPU and memory utilization. Memory was a little high, so I pull out Task Manager and noticed most of the memory was used by Norton. I thought it’s just Norton running some scans, so I opened Norton. I was surprised to see Norton Crypto turned on and running. I am pretty tech saavy so I know what this is but my dad has no idea what is crypto mining. He don’t even remember turning Norton Crypto on. He subscribed to Norton just to protect his computer. Personally I won’t be pissed if Norton release a seperate application for Norton Crypto, but to include it into Norton 360 is just…that made me reconsider letting my dad continue his Norton subcription.
It sad right, seeing these non IT iterate being tricked by anti virus company.
Bro, just cancel the subscription, get a better AV like Kaspersky or Bitdefender, even Windows defender is better
Tomi Engdahl says:
Notes from the Crypto Underground
For two days in a Denver nightclub, believers in the blockchain explored the reaches of a whole new kind of organization. Going to space is just the beginning.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/17/colorado-crypto-conference-dao-ethereum-denver-00009825