Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

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raklian
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Re: Cryptocurrency

Post by raklian »

Nanotechandmorefuture wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:23 pm I'm not sure if this is the right topic area so my apologies. Is anyone looking into new cryptos for future viability to profit like Bitcoin? I love the fact this forum called Bitcoin way back.

I downloaded Pi and was wondering if anyone on here has Pi too. In my opinion it looks like something that could be useful though it requires an invite code.
I suggest you look into Safemoon. It is currently on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

They just launched a wallet called Safemoon Wallet. While they're still ironing out issues with it, it lets you buy Safemoon and other tokens using the Swap feature on it. Of course, you'll have to buy the blockchain coin first (BSC) before swapping it to acquire Safemoon and other tokens. A cool feature of this Wallet is that it lets you track your reflections in real time. Reflections are your static rewards in Safemoon from the tax other holders pay when they buy or sell their Safemoon.

Soon, they're going to consolidate the supply by 1000:1. Meaning, if you have 1 billion Safemoon, you'll have 1 million after consolidation. The reason for this is to pair Safemoon with more well-known coins such as Bitcoin or USDT for the Safemoon Exchange they will launch in December. To pair with these coins for trading in the exchange, you need a certain number of digits in the price to make it work.

The Safemoon Exchange will be the first of its kind in implementing cryptonomics for all tokens/coins listed on it. It means if you buy Bitcoin there and hold it, you'll get reflections in Bitcoin when other people buy or sell their Bitcoin, steadily increasing your Bitcoin holding without needing to buy more yourself. That's the power of cryptonomics and it's genius. Safemoon will be the gas fee for those transactions on the exchange, thus increasing volume for Safemoon which leads to more reflections for the Safemoon holders.

Around the same time or shortly after the launch of Safemoon Exchange, they're releasing the Safemoon blockchain on which smart contracts that support Safemoon-stylized tokenomics can be created. Hint: it is designed to support the Internet of Things (IoT) protocols.

Then, there's the The Gambia project. It's sort of Safemoon's raison d'etre. This is where the IoT portion of the Safemoon blockchain comes in. Safemoon is creating an ecosystem in the African nation, The Gambia, where renewable energy from wind turbines and solar is used to power the blockchain and to provide a means for the Gambian people there to utilize this renewable energy without a middleman to determine market prices and they'll pay for it in cryptocurrency (doesn't have to be just Safemoon). There is a lot more to this but you get the idea.

I suspect The Gambia is just the beginning. The Safemoon development team often talks about Dark Moon. It's basically an assortment of black projects that haven't been brought out into the light, but they've repeated the point all of them were designed with climate change in mind.

Safemoon is basically a Climate Change cryptocurrency.

P.S. - Ignore people or articles that call this a ponzi scheme. They're coming from a position of ignorance which isn't necessarily their fault. I will still tell you to do your own research and come to conclusions that only you can draw from. Trust your intuition.

Safemoon has a Discord community if you want to know more about it. I'm not going to type in the address in here. Just google "Safemoon discord" and it'll take you there very easily.

It also has Twitter and Reddit accounts you can look up.
To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
Nanotechandmorefuture
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Re: Cryptocurrency

Post by Nanotechandmorefuture »

raklian wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 3:52 pm
Nanotechandmorefuture wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 1:23 pm I'm not sure if this is the right topic area so my apologies. Is anyone looking into new cryptos for future viability to profit like Bitcoin? I love the fact this forum called Bitcoin way back.

I downloaded Pi and was wondering if anyone on here has Pi too. In my opinion it looks like something that could be useful though it requires an invite code.
I suggest you look into Safemoon. It is currently on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC).

They just launched a wallet called Safemoon Wallet. While they're still ironing out issues with it, it lets you buy Safemoon and other tokens using the Swap feature on it. Of course, you'll have to buy the blockchain coin first (BSC) before swapping it to acquire Safemoon and other tokens. A cool feature of this Wallet is that it lets you track your reflections in real time. Reflections are your static rewards in Safemoon from the tax other holders pay when they buy or sell their Safemoon.

Soon, they're going to consolidate the supply by 1000:1. Meaning, if you have 1 billion Safemoon, you'll have 1 million after consolidation. The reason for this is to pair Safemoon with more well-known coins such as Bitcoin or USDT for the Safemoon Exchange they will launch in December. To pair with these coins for trading in the exchange, you need a certain number of digits in the price to make it work.

The Safemoon Exchange will be the first of its kind in implementing cryptonomics for all tokens/coins listed on it. It means if you buy Bitcoin there and hold it, you'll get reflections in Bitcoin when other people buy or sell their Bitcoin, steadily increasing your Bitcoin holding without needing to buy more yourself. That's the power of cryptonomics and it's genius. Safemoon will be the gas fee for those transactions on the exchange, thus increasing volume for Safemoon which leads to more reflections for the Safemoon holders.

Around the same time or shortly after the launch of Safemoon Exchange, they're releasing the Safemoon blockchain on which smart contracts that support Safemoon-stylized tokenomics can be created. Hint: it is designed to support the Internet of Things (IoT) protocols.

Then, there's the The Gambia project. It's sort of Safemoon's raison d'etre. This is where the IoT portion of the Safemoon blockchain comes in. Safemoon is creating an ecosystem in the African nation, The Gambia, where renewable energy from wind turbines and solar is used to power the blockchain and to provide a means for the Gambian people there to utilize this renewable energy without a middleman to determine market prices and they'll pay for it in cryptocurrency (doesn't have to be just Safemoon). There is a lot more to this but you get the idea.

I suspect The Gambia is just the beginning. The Safemoon development team often talks about Dark Moon. It's basically an assortment of black projects that haven't been brought out into the light, but they've repeated the point all of them were designed with climate change in mind.

Safemoon is basically a Climate Change cryptocurrency.

P.S. - Ignore people or articles that call this a ponzi scheme. They're coming from a position of ignorance which isn't necessarily their fault. I will still tell you to do your own research and come to conclusions that only you can draw from. Trust your intuition.

Safemoon has a Discord community if you want to know more about it. I'm not going to type in the address in here. Just google "Safemoon discord" and it'll take you there very easily.

It also has Twitter and Reddit accounts you can look up.
Thank you! I appreciate your help. The Bitcoin story on here makes me chase the dragon to get in on a new crypto that will have future growth like Bitcoin had. Thankfully this time around crypto appears to be far more secure than the horror stories I heard about crypto in 2015-2016 or so. Yes I am aware I should have invested then but my mindset was completely different before 2018.

Finally a chance to do things right! :D
Nanotechandmorefuture
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

Post by Nanotechandmorefuture »

All this talk about Crypto has me thinking... If Crypto becomes very integrated in our lives how would you be able to use it for investments like for example E Trade? I'm sure you could say "the crypto you own" but as we see with the wild ones like Dogecoin and all it fluctuates. Would investment companies turn Crypto into a more common digital currency on their servers or maintain it as the Crypto you own invested into your desired stock?

To note: Currently working on getting a new job and planning to study again in college so I'm focusing on the future benefits of Crypto and investing when I am able to do so. I'm currently too broke for any serious Crypto investments so I was just curious about this since I have read up some stuff on CNBC and all but do not know everything about the Finance or FinTech sector.
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caltrek
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

The Ticking Bomb of Crypto Fascism
by Hamilton Nolan
January 4, 2022

https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-ti ... to-fascism

Extract:
(In These Times) Crypto is now worth trillions of dollars. All of that value is premised not on some fundamental utility, but rather on the idea that there will always be someone else who will come along and pay you more than you spent on your crypto. This is going to end badly.

They are called crypto “currencies,” but clearly they are not currencies. Their value fluctuates far too much to be a useful medium of exchange. So what are they? They are collectibles, pure speculative objects with zero intrinsic value. If you buy a stock, you own a portion of a business; if you buy a house, even if the price goes down, you still have a house. If you buy a Bitcoin, you have nothing but the title to a piece of computer code that can do absolutely nothing for you except to the extent that someone else can be induced to pay you money for it. In the midst of a mania, as we are now in, the price of these imaginary assets tends to rise, because the collective public sentiment is that the prices will rise. When that sentiment changes — whether due to fear, or some event that causes crypto holders to need to cash out — the price will plummet. This basic dynamic has been demonstrated a zillion times in financial history…

Crypto…is a poor replacement for the American dream. A functional nation would end gerrymandering, pass campaign finance reform, end the filibuster, abolish the undemocratic U.S. Senate, tax great wealth, institute public healthcare and build a social safety net to ensure that no one in our very wealthy country slipped all the way through the financial cracks of life and was ruined. But that’s not the American way. The American way is to cheer on the few lucky ultra-rich people, and fete them as heroes, and look for a way to emulate them, although such a thing is mathematically impossible. …Crypto is just a modern lottery ticket.

The crash of crypto is bound to happen for the same reason that all Ponzi schemes eventually crumble: There is not an infinite supply of new people willing to pay ever-increasing prices for the stuff that you currently own.
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Yuli Ban
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

Post by Yuli Ban »

Bitcoin took a hit on Thursday after the internet in Kazakhstan was shut down amid intensifying violence.

The central Asian nation in recent days has been rocked by violent clashes between protesters, police and the army. The protests began in the west of the country over the weekend, after a sharp rise in fuel crisis, and quickly spread through cities across the nation.

The internet was shut down nationwide on Wednesday. And though the intent appeared to be to disrupt the protesters’ communications, the effects of the blackout have spread further.

Kazakhstan is a power player in the bitcoin world. Last year, the nation became the world’s second-largest center for bitcoin mining after the United States, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, after China, a major hub, clamped down on crypto mining activity. As of August, Kazakhstan was hosting 18% of global bitcoin mining, according to Fortune.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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caltrek
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

Post by caltrek »

Regulating Crypto Could Create American Super Apps
by David Donovan
January 7, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/07/regul ... uper-apps/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) Much of Chinese society has come to depend on so-called super apps like WeChat to do multiple tasks, from making a medical appointment to hailing a taxi to getting a loan, all on one platform.

But such one-stop shops have not taken off in the United States. Now, the time may finally be ripe — and the best contenders for super apps come from the fintech world, especially those platforms dedicated to cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency is quickly growing in popularity amid sky-high equity prices, record-low interest rates and fear of inflation on the horizon, and they could, perhaps, gain more legitimacy if the U.S. government decides to fully regulate them, a topic Congress is currently exploring.

Dedicated crypto platforms like Coinbase or even Paypal, Venmo and Stripe, which recently added abilities to use crypto for payments, could evolve into the U.S. versions of super apps, assuming crypto issuers can work with regulators to find a middle ground between protecting the consumer and creating new financial and investment opportunities. If consumers see crypto as secure and legitimate — and easy to use — it could become the base of super apps.
Conclusion:
If crypto remains an unregulated gray zone, and its platforms remain isolated from the rest of economic and daily life, rather than evolve into super apps, the United States will miss the opportunity to build a new and innovative mobile- and digital-first financial ecosystem.
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

Post by wjfox »

Comparing the Carbon Footprint of Gold and Bitcoin

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/compar ... d-bitcoin/

:o
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caltrek
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

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A Hard Raid is Coming for Britain's Crypto Boom
January 19, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/19/a-har ... ypto-boom/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) The UK’s ad-fuelled boom in crypto trading looks to be headed for major speed restrictions: The country’s financial watchdog said it will beef up rules around marketing of crypto assets and could even put limits on who can invest, following government confirmation yesterday that it will extend the regulator’s remit to cover crypto.

In recent years, ads for crypto have been plastered over billboards across the UK capital — fuelling a boom in trading that has led to a few slaps from the advertising standards watchdog.

In December, the Advertising Standards Authority banned seven crypto ads for “irresponsibly taking advantage of consumers’ inexperience and for failing to illustrate the risk of the investment” — saying it hoped to produce new guidance on crypto advertising.

But the financial watchdog’s intervention looks set to put a more significant dampener on the UK crypto bubble.

In an announcement trailing the proposed changes, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it’s acting in response to concerns about the “ease and speed” that people can make high risk investments — in line with a Consumer Investment Strategy it published last year.
Don't mourn, organize.

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Nanotechandmorefuture
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

Post by Nanotechandmorefuture »

Yuli Ban wrote: Fri Jan 07, 2022 5:28 pm
Bitcoin took a hit on Thursday after the internet in Kazakhstan was shut down amid intensifying violence.

The central Asian nation in recent days has been rocked by violent clashes between protesters, police and the army. The protests began in the west of the country over the weekend, after a sharp rise in fuel crisis, and quickly spread through cities across the nation.

The internet was shut down nationwide on Wednesday. And though the intent appeared to be to disrupt the protesters’ communications, the effects of the blackout have spread further.

Kazakhstan is a power player in the bitcoin world. Last year, the nation became the world’s second-largest center for bitcoin mining after the United States, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, after China, a major hub, clamped down on crypto mining activity. As of August, Kazakhstan was hosting 18% of global bitcoin mining, according to Fortune.
This is why one hopes the internet will be secure in the future if everything will be digital. No wonder a bit of a civil war was occurring! 18% of global bitcoin mining and it shuts down during a crisis? That is a shock that is hard to overcome.
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

Post by wjfox »

Crypto Crash Erases More Than $1 Trillion in Market Value

January 21, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC Updated on January 21, 2022, 11:11 PM UTC

For Bitcoin, there’s only been one constant recently: decline after decline after decline. And the superlatives have piled up really quickly.

With the Federal Reserve intending to withdraw stimulus from the market, riskier assets the world over have suffered. Bitcoin, the largest digital asset, lost more than 12% Friday and dropped below $36,000 to its lowest level since July. Since its peak in November, it has lost over 45% of its value. Other digital currencies have suffered just as much, if not more, with Ether and meme coins mired in similar drawdowns.

Bitcoin’s decline since that November high has wiped out more than $600 billion in market value, and over $1 trillion has been lost from the aggregate crypto market. While there have been much larger percentage drawdowns for both Bitcoin and the aggregate market, this marks the second-largest ever decline in dollar terms for both, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

“It gives an idea of the scale of value destruction that percentage declines can mask,” wrote Bespoke analysts in a note. “Crypto is, of course, vulnerable to these sorts of selloffs given its naturally higher volatility historically, but given how large market caps have gotten, the volatility is worth thinking about both in raw dollar terms as well as in percentage terms.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... rket-value

Unpaywalled: https://archive.is/B10Sq
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

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caltrek
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

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The International Monetary Fund Tells El Salvador it Shouldn’t Use Bitcoin as Legal Tender
by Mitchell Clark
January 22, 2022

https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/25/2290 ... und-crypto

Introduction:
(The Verge) The International Monetary Fund’s executive board has recommended El Salvador no longer use Bitcoin as a legal tender, citing potential risks to financial stability and consumer protection. The country’s use of Bitcoin could make it difficult for it to get a loan from the IMF, according to Bloomberg.

The recommendation comes as part of the organization’s consultation, where staff members visit a country and prepare a report that’s discussed by the IMF’s executive board. The summary from the board looks at and discusses El Salvador’s economic policies as a whole, but the country’s 2021 adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender got a lot of attention.

The IMF’s board agrees with its staff’s recommendations from November that the country change its law because of the “large risks associated with the use of Bitcoin on financial stability, financial integrity, and consumer protection, as well as the associated fiscal contingent liabilities.” Some board members “also expressed concern over the risks associated with issuing Bitcoin-backed bonds,” according to the IMF. Amid its concerns, it did commend one of the government’s stated goals of using Bitcoin and its Chivo wallets and ATMs to make financial services available to more Salvadorans.
El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender in September 2021, after passing its Bitcoin law in June the same year. The law does a variety of things in addition to establishing Bitcoin as a legal tender alongside the US dollar — for example, it means that citizens can pay their taxes in Bitcoin and that shopkeepers can display prices in Bitcoin. The IMF isn’t recommending that the law be done away with completely, just that El Salvador should narrow its scope so that it’s not a legal tender anymore.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, is a strong proponent of Bitcoin — he announced the country’s Bitcoin law at a conference in Miami for the cryptocurrency and frequently tweets about investing in Bitcoin (sometimes somewhat caustically). The country’s coffers include over 1,500 Bitcoin, according to calculations based on Bukele’s public statements. The president has also proposed the idea of creating a $1 billion Bitcoin bond that investors can buy a stake in.
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R8Z
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

Post by R8Z »

caltrek wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 3:30 pm The International Monetary Fund Tells El Salvador it Shouldn’t Use Bitcoin as Legal Tender
by Mitchell Clark
January 22, 2022

https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/25/2290 ... und-crypto

Introduction:
(The Verge) The International Monetary Fund’s executive board has recommended El Salvador no longer use Bitcoin as a legal tender, citing potential risks to financial stability and consumer protection. The country’s use of Bitcoin could make it difficult for it to get a loan from the IMF, according to Bloomberg.

The recommendation comes as part of the organization’s consultation, where staff members visit a country and prepare a report that’s discussed by the IMF’s executive board. The summary from the board looks at and discusses El Salvador’s economic policies as a whole, but the country’s 2021 adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender got a lot of attention.

The IMF’s board agrees with its staff’s recommendations from November that the country change its law because of the “large risks associated with the use of Bitcoin on financial stability, financial integrity, and consumer protection, as well as the associated fiscal contingent liabilities.” Some board members “also expressed concern over the risks associated with issuing Bitcoin-backed bonds,” according to the IMF. Amid its concerns, it did commend one of the government’s stated goals of using Bitcoin and its Chivo wallets and ATMs to make financial services available to more Salvadorans.
El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender in September 2021, after passing its Bitcoin law in June the same year. The law does a variety of things in addition to establishing Bitcoin as a legal tender alongside the US dollar — for example, it means that citizens can pay their taxes in Bitcoin and that shopkeepers can display prices in Bitcoin. The IMF isn’t recommending that the law be done away with completely, just that El Salvador should narrow its scope so that it’s not a legal tender anymore.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, is a strong proponent of Bitcoin — he announced the country’s Bitcoin law at a conference in Miami for the cryptocurrency and frequently tweets about investing in Bitcoin (sometimes somewhat caustically). The country’s coffers include over 1,500 Bitcoin, according to calculations based on Bukele’s public statements. The president has also proposed the idea of creating a $1 billion Bitcoin bond that investors can buy a stake in.
Nothing like negative pressure from the ruler's of the world, as was rightfully expected.

It's unfortunate Bitcoin as a whole isn't as good as it should be (tech & stability-wise) to displace these jackals in-mass, but at least some countries are trying. :geek:
And, as always, bye bye.
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R8Z
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Edit: "This tweet is unavailable" -- Snowden's account is probably on a black list.
And, as always, bye bye.
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Re: Cryptocurrency & Blockchain News and Discussions

Post by erowind »

R8Z wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 6:43 pm Nothing like negative pressure from the ruler's of the world, as was rightfully expected.

It's unfortunate Bitcoin as a whole isn't as good as it should be (tech & stability-wise) to displace these jackals in-mass, but at least some countries are trying. :geek:
Indeed. I'm disappointed in the direction that bitcoin development and community governance has taken over the past half decade or so. It started with blockstream becoming the dominant development force and pushing against larger blocks which has made transaction fees prohibitively expensive for general use as a currency. The focus on the lighting network as a scaling solution is a problem too because lighting sacrifices decentralization for scaling.

Satoshi Nakamoto outlined very clearly in the original white-paper that bitcoin was meant to be a scalable system. Ethereum has taken on some of that onus by remaining true to decentralization in its development path, but I'm skeptical of layer-2 scaling solutions on ethereum to be honest. I think they will be successful in helping the blockchain grow, and providing transaction bandwidth for many of ethereums use-cases without sacrificing decentralization.

The issue I have with layer-2 scaling is that it's confusing to use for the average person and I'm concerned that relying on it for cheap transactions will cause a greater use of third-party custodial services instead of people directly managing their own cryptocurrency. The whole point of cryptocurrency is that individuals can be their own banks and interact with financial protocols with the same equal access that institutions can. By offloading responsibility and custody to an institution that freedom is partially curtailed.

Layer-1 scaling is in the development pipeline too but it's not prioritized enough in my opinion nor will the upgrades planned provide enough bandwidth soon enough. It seems that for the foreseeable future settling a transaction on a secure blockchain like Bitcoin or Ethereum will remain well above the cost of using existing corporate services like SWIFT. What cryptocurrency can offer right now is greater security and fungibility than fiat. Which is enough for some use-cases. Volatility isn't an issue either if ethereum is chosen as there are decentralized stable coins that solve that problem.
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Despite Bumps, Crypto Investment Starts 2022 with a Roar
by Alex Wilhelm
February 1, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/01/despi ... th-a-roar/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) Regardless of your perspective on blockchain-centered projects, venture capitalists appear to have made up their minds about the sector: Investments into crypto-themed companies — the web3 space, as its supporters call it — set records in 2021, records that could be beaten in 2022 if early data indicates where capital will flow this year.

Data from a new venture capital fund and recent funding rounds underscore the pace of deal flow the crypto market has ahead of it, indicating that bets placed on blockchain-related startups will continue despite some wobbly indicators from the decentralized market.

That there are believers in crypto in the market is not a surprise. The pace of investing may prove to be. For example, early PitchBook data relating to startups it categorizes in the “Cryptocurrency/Blockchain” sector raised around as much this January as all startups in Africa did last year — despite the fact that the African startup investment market is accelerating, as TechCrunch has noted.
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How Texas is Becoming a Bitcoin Mining Hub
by Leigh Cuen
February 11, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/11/how-t ... ining-hub/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) There are thousands of pounds of bitcoin mining equipment still in transit from China to Texas, part of a multi-month caravan, as Texas Governor Greg Abbott makes courting the bitcoin industry a pinnacle part of his re-election campaign in 2022.

Texans are broadly looking to pick up on China’s missed opportunity, as the Chinese government forces bitcoin mining operations to relocate or go underground, ensuring that Texas will have a major role to play in the cryptocurrency industry.

“We have launched our first bitcoin mine in downtown Fort Worth, which will be a showpiece for our larger mine located right outside the city,” Geosyn Mining co-founder Caleb Ward described a new Texas facility that opened in January 2022. “We’re using income from this 20,000-square-foot facility outside of Fort Worth to bootstrap a significant solar power build.”

By the end of March, Ward expects to have roughly 530 bitcoin mining machines operating in his facility alone. And he’s not the only bitcoin miner turning an eye toward Texas. There are reportedly 27 local bitcoin mining companies tallied by the Texas Blockchain Council. Abbott’s challenger in the upcoming election, Don Huffines, a Republican real estate developer and candidate for Texas governor, recently said that he would look to opportunities beyond the mining industry and be even more pro-bitcoin than Abbott. Huffines said he would make bitcoin tender if he’s elected.

Across the board, Texan politicians appear to be pro-bitcoin. Republican Senator Ted Cruz said in October 2021 that bitcoin mining could help “strengthen our energy infrastructure.” There are, however, critics in Congress who doubt the bitcoin mining industry would benefit the power grid. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., pointed out in January that bitcoin’s proof-of-work mining process requires massive amounts of power.
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Bitcoin Miners Revived a Dying Coal Plant – then CO2 Emissions Soared
by Oliver Millman
February 22, 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ons-soared

Introduction:
(The Guardian) Critics say the enormous electricity consumption needed to sustain cryptocurrency is fueling the climate crisis and now threatens a partial resurrection of coal in the US.

Environmentalists in Montana called it the “death watch”. Following years of financial losses one of the handful of remaining coal-fired power plants in the state appeared doomed, its likely fate offering a small but noteworthy victory in the effort to avoid disastrous climate change. But then a bitcoin mining company stepped in to resurrect it.

The Hardin generating station, a 115-megawatt coal plant located a dozen miles from the historic site of the famous battle of Little Big Horn in southern Montana, was slated for closure in 2018 due to a lack of customers only to somehow limp on, operating on just 46 days in 2020. “We were just waiting for this thing to die,” said Anne Hedges, co-director of the Montana Environmental Information Center. “They were struggling and looking to close. It was on the brink. And then this cryptocurrency company came along.”

In a deal struck in late 2020, Marathon, a bitcoin “mining” company, became the sole recipient of the power station’s electricity. It established an elongated data center on 20 acres of land beside the facility that is packed with more than 30,000 Antminer S19 units, a specialized computer that mines for bitcoin. Such thirst for power is common in crypto – globally bitcoin mining consumes more electricity than Norway, a country of 5.3 million people.

As the bitcoin miners moved in last year, Hardin roared back to life. In the first nine months of 2021 alone, the plant’s boilers fired up on 236 separate days. Planet-heating emissions from the burning of Hardin’s coal soared too, with 187,000 tons of carbon dioxide emitted in the second quarter of last year, more than 5000% more than was expelled in the same period in 2020.
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New proposal for a layered, conceptual, NFT-based patent framework
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-02-lay ... ework.html
by Li Yuan, Chinese Academy of Sciences

By taking advantage of blockchain technology, digital assets are broadly grouped into fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFT). NFT refers to those with unique and non-substitutable properties.

A research team led by Prof. QU Qiang from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Prof. Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini Bamakan from Yazd University has proposed a layered, conceptual, NFT-based patent framework.

The study was published in Scientific Reports on Feb. 9.

Although NFTs have had many applications so far, it has rarely been used to solve real-world problems.

Applying for a patent and trademark is time-consuming and costly. With the help of unique features of NFT technology, it is possible to accelerate this process. In fact, tokenizing patents would provide more transparency, traceability, and cost-efficiency of commercialization. NFT-based patents may facilitate reliable information sharing among offices and patentees around the world, reducing the burden on examiners and perhaps even accelerating harmonization efforts.

NFTs can offer IP protection while an applicant waits for the government to grant his/her more formal protection. By using hash and asymmetric cryptography, IP owners can record a claim, such as hash or ciphered claims in the blockchain network. The IP owner can prove his/her property right using the original document and its hash or private key without third-party involvement.
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