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:
Bitcoin has an immense environmental footprint, using as much energy as corporations and countries, and scores low on ESG, says Bank of America.
Bitcoin uses more energy than American Airlines and each $1 billion in inflows is equal to owning 1.2 million cars, Bank of America says
https://trib.al/SsaxXZQ
Bank of America research shows bitcoin’s immense environmental footprint.
It is one one of the biggest carbon-emitting sectors, on a par with huge firms and even the US federal government.
Other less climate-related concerns include use of bitcoin in cybercrime such as money laundering.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New for subscribers: Bank of America believes there’s only one reason to own bitcoin: speculation on its rising price.
Bank of America says there’s no good reason to own bitcoin other than price speculation
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/17/bitcoin-bofa-says-theres-no-reason-to-own-it-other-than-speculation.html?utm_content=Main&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1616002212
Bank of America believes there’s only one reason to own bitcoin: speculation on its rising price.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“The world has gone terminally insane,” said Cleese.
John Cleese is auctioning a digital iPad drawing.
You can buy it now for the price of $69.3 million. Yes, that price does ring a bell.
Monty Python’s John Cleese Sells the Brooklyn Bridge as an NFT
“The world has gone terminally insane,” said Cleese.
https://decrypt.co/62217/monty-pythons-john-cleese-mints-brooklyn-bridge-nft
In brief
John Cleese is auctioning a digital iPad drawing.
You can buy it now for the price of $69.3 million. Yes, that price does ring a bell.
Cleese’s foray into crypto appears to be tongue-in-cheek, for now.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The debate about cryptocurrency and energy consumption
https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/21/the-debate-about-cryptocurrency-and-energy-consumption/
Energy consumption has become the latest flashpoint for cryptocurrency. Critics decry it as an energy hog while proponents hail it for being less intensive than the current global economy.
One such critic, DigiEconomist founder Alex de Vries, said he’s “never seen anything that is as inefficient as bitcoin.”
On the other side of the debate, research by ARK Investment Management found the Bitcoin ecosystem consumes less than 10% of the energy required for the traditional banking system. While it’s true the banking system serves far more people, cryptocurrency is still maturing and, like any industry, the early infrastructure stage is particularly intensive.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/crypto-art-in-the-digital-world-what-is-an-nft/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Case Against Bitcoin, According To Bank Of America Experts
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/03/18/the-case-against-bitcoin-according-to-bank-of-america-experts/
Booming institutional adoption has lifted the world’s largest cryptocurrency to meteoric new highs this year, but bitcoin’s underlying technology has also piqued the interest of central banks looking to forge their own digital currencies–a move that Bank of America warned Wednesday is bad news for the cryptocurrency market.
A growing number of central banks (about 86%, according to the Bank for International Settlements) are actively exploring the development of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in an effort to “defend their territory from cryptocurrencies,” Bank of America analysts said in a Wednesday note to clients.
CBDCs effectively combine the efficiency of cryptocurrency transactions with the safeguards of a central-bank-backed asset (like cash), and though “highly radical,” their implementation would also make it easier for governments to implement the monetary policy measures that have helped keep the economy afloat during the pandemic.
That’s not good news for private cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, the analysts note: Government-promoted CBDCs would likely displace cash and other cryptocurrencies in the long term by inevitably reducing the demand for both.
That’s particularly bad for bitcoin, whose booming prices have been “exclusively” dependent on heightened demand that’s outpaced the token’s fixed supply, Bank of America says, pointing out that bitcoin’s volatility makes it impractical as a store of wealth or payments mechanism—unlike the allure of a CBDC.
The European Central Bank has helped lead the charge on CBDCs, calling for a digital euro that “safeguards the role of sovereign money in the digital era,” while blasting other cryptocurrencies as “highly speculative assets.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackers stole NFTs from Nifty Gateway users
‘We have seen no indication of compromise of the Nifty Gateway platform’
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/15/22331818/nifty-gateway-hack-steal-nfts-credit-card
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Digital Currency Coming? Not Just Yet
https://www.forbes.com/sites/miltonezrati/2021/03/08/is-digital-currency-coming-not-just-yet/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold as an NFT for $2,915,835.47 on a service called Valuables; Dorsey says he sent all proceeds to GiveDirectly’s Africa fund as BTC — The winning bidder for the Twitter CEO’s first tweet was Sina Estavi — After it spent just over two weeks on the market …
Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold as an NFT for an oddly specific $2,915,835.47
The winning bidder for the Twitter CEO’s first tweet was Sina Estavi
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/22/22344937/jack-dorsey-nft-sold-first-tweet-ethereum-cryptocurrency-twitter?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
After it spent just over two weeks on the market, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has sold his first tweet as an NFT for the weirdly specific figure of $2,915,835.47. The winning bidder was Sina Estavi, who had held the high bid since offering $2.5 million on March 6th. He upped his bid to this number at the last moment (and if anyone can tell us what that figure represents, we’d love to hear your theories).
Dorsey put the tweet up for digital auction as an NFT — non-fungible token — a digital good that lives on the Ethereum blockchain, on March 5th. Bids were handled on a platform called Valuables by Cent that lets people make offers on tweets that are “autographed by their original creators.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joe Light / Bloomberg:
Boston Fed officials and MIT researchers, who have been developing prototypes for a digital dollar platform, plan to unveil their research as soon as July — – Boston Fed, MIT researchers plan to unveil platform work soon — Project could threaten banks, credit cards, cryptocurrencies
Federal Reserve’s Digital Dollar Push Worries Wall Street
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-22/federal-reserve-s-digital-dollar-momentum-worries-wall-street
The financial services industry, braced for what could be its biggest disruption in decades, is about to get an early glimpse at the Federal Reserve’s work on a new digital currency.
Wall Street is not thrilled.
Banks, credit card companies and digital payments processors are nervously watching the push to create an electronic alternative to the paper bills Americans carry in their wallets, or what some call a digital dollar and others call a Fedcoin.
As soon as July, officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which have been developing prototypes for a digital dollar platform, plan to unveil their research, said James Cunha, who leads the project for the Boston Fed.
A digital currency could fundamentally change the way Americans use money, leading some financial firms to lobby the Fed and Congress to slow its creation — or at least ensure they’re not cut out.
Seeing the threat to their profits, the banks’ main trade group has told Congress a digital dollar isn’t needed, while payment companies like Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are trying to work with central banks to make sure the new currencies can be used on their networks.
“Everyone is afraid that you could disrupt all the incumbent players with a whole new form of payment,”
U.S. and other countries seem committed enough to digitizing their currencies that it’s making financial industry executives nervous.
“The world is moving very quickly on these projects.”
At issue are forms of digital cash being considered by the U.S. and other governments. The growing popularity of Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies, whose market value has grown to more than $1 trillion, inspired the projects. Unlike those privately created tokens, the new currencies would be issued by central banks as an alternative to paper bills. Cash wouldn’t go away, but its use would likely decline.
Using the currencies could be as simple as holding up the screen of a mobile phone to be scanned. Behind the scenes, the digital cash would move from one account to another. This is similar to how most money already works — the majority of U.S. dollars are just digital entries in bank accounts — but the new currency could potentially avoid the go-between of a commercial bank or credit-card network. For vendors, settlement would happen almost immediately, without having to wait for the money or worry about fraud.
The U.S. effort got an extra push last month, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said such a project could help Americans who don’t have access to the banking system.
The Fed’s work is meant to show what’s possible without taking a stand on major issues that the central bank, Treasury and Congress must address, Cunha said. These include whether the Fed itself should host customer accounts, whether to allow anonymity, and what protections consumers would have in case of a cyber-breach or mistaken transaction.
“We think it’s important that we not wait for the policy debate because then we’ll be a year or so behind,” Cunha said. “This will take significant outreach to the industry and serious debate.”
The potential that the central bank could cut banks out of their middleman role in the lucrative U.S. payments system is causing angst among banks.
Some of the profits of credit-card companies, such as Visa and Mastercard, could be at risk if the new currencies let Americans more easily make transactions without their involvement and fees.
Spokespeople from both companies say their firms are working with central banks to ensure the new currencies can run over their networks. Mastercard in February began to issue pre-paid debit cards loaded with the “Sand Dollar,” a digital currency issued by the Bahamas.
Other countries are further along. China is currently piloting a digital yuan in several cities. Lipsky said there’s a chance its currency could be ready for a broader debut at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, which he said could cause tensions if American athletes are asked to use a currency that the Chinese government can completely track.
Advocates of existing cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, have mixed feelings about the Federal Reserve muscling into the industry.
A Fedcoin could acclimate Americans to purchasing Bitcoin, said Jerry Brito, who heads Coin Center, a cryptocurrency advocacy group. But depending on the government’s direction, such a currency could be used to track Americans’ spending, destroying the partial anonymity that was once the promise of crypto, he said.
A U.S. digital dollar could also put the final nail in the coffin for Bitcoin as a means of exchange, Brito said. Crypto enthusiasts have already started to acknowledge that’s happening anyway, and instead tout the currency as a store of value or “digital gold.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:
A look at the impact of NFTs on the music industry, with sales of $42.5M since June, as most musicians are splitting their proceeds evenly with visual artists — Artists are connecting with fans and generating revenue by selling digital collectibles, even if they are hard to value
Musicians Turn to NFTs to Make Up for Lost Revenue
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nfts-are-music-industrys-latest-big-hit-11616491801?mod=djemalertNEWS
Artists are connecting with fans and generating revenue by selling digital collectibles, even if they are hard to value
After a year with no live performances, musicians are hoping to connect with their fans on the blockchain and make up for lost revenue by selling them nonfungible tokens.
Electronic-music artist Justin Blau, known as 3LAU, has fetched $17 million in the past month from NFTs, helped in part by a tokenized release of his three-year-old album “Ultraviolet,” which grossed $11.6 million and briefly held the record for the highest price paid for a single NFT, $3.6 million. (A record since broken by the artist Beeple.)
“It’s a way to monetize your fan base in a way that’s never been possible,” said Mr. Blau, who doesn’t expect the exorbitant prices to last. “I think this technology will definitely change the world, but I’m cautiously optimistic because no one really knows how to value this stuff.”
NFTs, digital collectibles that are authenticated or “minted” using blockchain technology and purchased with cryptocurrencies, have burst into the worlds of art, sports and sneakers. The frenzied new market has excited musicians, who have auctioned off digital art, music, merchandise, tickets and experiences for hundreds to millions of dollars.
“ ‘It’s a way to monetize your fan base in a way that’s never been possible.’ ”
— Justin Blau, known as 3LAU
So far, most buyers are crypto-savvy speculators helping send prices soaring. The music business is hoping the market will develop for real fan participation—at fan-accessible valuations.
From June through Friday, some 29,800 NFTs involving musicians have generated $42.5 million in primary sales, with an average per-unit transaction value of $1,427, according to a database compiled by music-technology researcher Cherie Hu.
NFTs act as virtual deeds, conveying ownership of a digital asset. Each one gets uploaded to a digital ledger where it tracks information such as the date it was created, when it was sold, for how much and to whom. The original creator can set the terms of this digital certificate of authenticity, called a “smart contract,” and it allows the creator to take a cut—in music, usually 10% to 30%—of any resales. Owning an NFT doesn’t equate to owning the copyright to a given asset, music or otherwise, but scarcity has helped push up valuations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NFTs Are Fueling a Boom in Digital Art. Here’s How They Work
These Cryptocurrencies Make Owning Memes Possible
https://www.wsj.com/video/series/wsj-glossary/nfts-are-fueling-a-boom-in-digital-art-heres-how-they-work/F5BA93AD-3DCD-4EFA-B064-C9143C81CB88?mod=series_nonfungibletokens
Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, have exploded onto the digital art scene this past year. Proponents say they are a way to make digital assets scarce, and therefore more valuable. WSJ explains how they work, and why skeptics question whether they’re built to last.
Want to Buy an NFT? Here’s What to Know
Art lovers, basketball fans and collectors alike are pouring money into ‘nonfungible tokens,’ known as NFTs
https://www.wsj.com/articles/want-to-buy-an-nft-heres-what-to-know-11615647601?mod=series_nonfungibletokens
NFTs are digital assets that use the technology behind cryptocurrencies to create unique tokens, each with its own identification that isn’t replicable. These tokens serve as a digital deed for original editions of online art, music, and memes.
NFTs—short for nonfungible tokens—are acquired by bidding online, then paying in U.S. dollars or cryptocurrency. These tokens have taken off in popularity in recent weeks following the sale of digital art for millions, and celebrities and business leaders jumping in.
The major risk of buying any cryptocurrency, including NFTs, is that value is largely based on speculation. Buyers are hoping their NFTs will be the future of collecting without guarantee.
If you’re thinking about purchasing an NFT, here are a few key things
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sam Shead / CNBC:
Elon Musk says people can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin in the US and later this year outside the US — – The automaker last month revealed that it had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin. — People outside the U.S. will be able to buy a Tesla with bitcoin “later this year.”
Elon Musk says people can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/24/elon-musk-says-people-can-now-buy-a-tesla-with-bitcoin.html
The automaker last month revealed that it had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin.
People outside the U.S. will be able to buy a Tesla with bitcoin “later this year.”
In order to accept the payment, Elon Musk said Tesla is using “internal” and “open source software.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced late Tuesday that it is now possible to buy Tesla vehicles in the U.S. with bitcoin.
“You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin,” tweeted Musk, who was officially made the “Technoking of Tesla” this month.
A support page on Tesla’s website explains how customers can pay for a Tesla using the digital currency. The company’s electric vehicles typically cost between $37,990 and $124,000 before tax.
People outside the U.S. will be able to buy a Tesla with bitcoin “later this year,” Musk said, without specifying which countries.
In order to accept the payment, Musk said Tesla is using “internal” and “open source software.”
He added that Tesla “operates bitcoin nodes directly.” Nodes are computers on bitcoin’s network that work to verify transactions and avoid the cryptocurrency from being spent twice.
Musk embraces bitcoin
Tesla’s image as an environmentally-friendly car company sits at odds with the bitcoin network’s colossal carbon footprint. Researchers at the University of Cambridge found that it uses more electricity on an annual basis than the whole of Argentina. A 2018 paper published in Nature, arguably the most prestigious academic journal in the world, found that bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2 degrees Celsius.
Despite its poor environmental credentials, Musk has embraced bitcoin more than any other major tech CEO. He has been tweeting about the cryptocurrency on and off over the last few months, raising alarm bells in some corners. He’s also been tweeting about other coins like ether and dogecoin.
Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, told CNBC last month that Tesla’s share price is now directly tied to the value of bitcoin.
“Musk is now tied to the bitcoin story in the eyes of the Street and although Tesla made a billion paper profit in its first month owning the digital gold, it comes with added risk,” Ives told CNBC via email.
Tesla’s share price and the value of bitcoin have seen huge gains over the last 12 months, with Tesla shares rising from around $100 to over $600, and bitcoin rising from around $7,000 to over $55,000.
Some investors, however, are convinced that Tesla and bitcoin are both in bubble territory.
Tomi Engdahl says:
To Kill A Blockchain, Add Naughty Stuff To It?
https://hackaday.com/2021/03/25/to-kill-a-blockchain-add-naughty-stuff-to-it/
Even if not all of us are blockchain savants, we mostly have a pretty good idea of how they function as a distributed database whose integrity is maintained by an unbroken chain of conputational hashes. For cyryptocurrencies a blockchain ledger stores transaction records, but there is no reason why the same ledger can not contain almost any other form of digital content. [Bruce Schneier] writes on the potential consequences of content that is illegal or censored being written to a blockchain, and about how it might eventually form a fatal weakness for popular cryptocurrencies.
It’s prompted by the news that some botnet operators have been spotted using the Bitcoin ledger to embed command and control messages to hide the address of their control server. There have already been cases of illegal pornography being placed within blockchain ledgers, as well as leaked government data.
[Schneier] uses these two content cases to pose the question as to whether this might prove to be a vulnerability for the whole system. If a government such as China objects to a block containing censored material or a notoriously litigious commercial entity such as Disney objects to a piece of copyrighted content, they could take steps to suppress copies of the blockchain that contain those blocks. Being forced by hostile governments or litigious corporations to in effect remove a block from the chain by returning to the previous block would fork the blockchain, and as multiple forks would inevitably be made in this way it would become a threat to the whole. It’s an interesting possible scenario, and one that should certainly be ready by anyone with an interest in blockchain technologies.
Illegal Content and the Blockchain
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/03/illegal-content-and-the-blockchain.html
Security researchers have recently discovered a botnet with a novel defense against takedowns. Normally, authorities can disable a botnet by taking over its command-and-control server. With nowhere to go for instructions, the botnet is rendered useless. But over the years, botnet designers have come up with ways to make this counterattack harder. Now the content-delivery network Akamai has reported on a new method: a botnet that uses the Bitcoin blockchain ledger. Since the blockchain is globally accessible and hard to take down, the botnet’s operators appear to be safe.
It’s best to avoid explaining the mathematics of Bitcoin’s blockchain, but to understand the colossal implications here, you need to understand one concept. Blockchains are a type of “distributed ledger”: a record of all transactions since the beginning, and everyone using the blockchain needs to have access to — and reference — a copy of it. What if someone puts illegal material in the blockchain? Either everyone has a copy of it, or the blockchain’s security fails.
To be fair, not absolutely everyone who uses a blockchain holds a copy of the entire ledger. Many who buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum don’t bother using the ledger to verify their purchase. Many don’t actually hold the currency outright, and instead trust an exchange to do the transactions and hold the coins. But people need to continually verify the blockchain’s history on the ledger for the system to be secure. If they stopped, then it would be trivial to forge coins. That’s how the system works.
Some years ago, people started noticing all sorts of things embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain. There are digital images, including one of Nelson Mandela. There’s the Bitcoin logo, and the original paper describing Bitcoin by its alleged founder, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. There are advertisements, and several prayers. There’s even illegal pornography and leaked classified documents. All of these were put in by anonymous Bitcoin users. But none of this, so far, appears to seriously threaten those in power in governments and corporations. Once someone adds something to the Bitcoin ledger, it becomes sacrosanct. Removing something requires a fork of the blockchain, in which Bitcoin fragments into multiple parallel cryptocurrencies (and associated blockchains). Forks happen, rarely, but never yet because of legal coercion. And repeated forking would destroy Bitcoin’s stature as a stable(ish) currency.
The botnet’s designers are using this idea to create an unblockable means of coordination, but the implications are much greater. Imagine someone using this idea to evade government censorship. Most Bitcoin mining happens in China. What if someone added a bunch of Chinese-censored Falun Gong texts to the blockchain?<
What if someone added a type of political speech that Singapore routinely censors? Or cartoons that Disney holds the copyright to?
In Bitcoin’s and most other public blockchains there are no central, trusted authorities. Anyone in the world can perform transactions or become a miner. Everyone is equal to the extent that they have the hardware and electricity to perform cryptographic computations.
This openness is also a vulnerability, one that opens the door to asymmetric threats and small-time malicious actors. Anyone can put information in the one and only Bitcoin blockchain. Again, that’s how the system works.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin Plunge Erases $100 Billion In 24 Hours–Here’s How Long The ‘Bloodbath’ Could Last
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/03/25/bitcoin-plunges-100-billion-in-one-dayheres-how-long-the-bloodbath-could-last/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoinin sääntelyuhan ajankohtaisuus (ja sen mahdottomuus)
https://www.sijoitustieto.fi/sijoitusartikkelit/bitcoinin-saantelyuhan-ajankohtaisuus-ja-sen-mahdottomuus
Bitcoinin olemassaolon jatkuvuutta on suuri osa sijoittajista epäillyt jo pitkään. Syitä on monia. Bitcoinilla ei heidän mukaan ole käyttöarvoa, uusia ja parempia teknologioita tulee löytymään ja ne syrjäyttävät Bitcoinin. Hallitukset tulevat kieltämään sen käytön. Riskit ja epävarmuus eivät ole perättömiä, mutta Bitcoin jatkaa kulkuaan viime vuosikymmenen parhaana sijoituksena.
Nyt kun sen arvo on yli 50 000 dollaria, alkaa se tosissaan herättää kiinnostusta myös päättäjissä.
Useimmat Bitcoin-maximalistit eivät hyväksy muuta kuin Bitcoinin täydellisen dominoinnin markkinoilla ja he odottavat Bitcoinin olevan ainoa ratkaisu maailman taloudellisiin ja talouspoliittisiin ongelmiin. He odottavat dollarin niiaavan Bitcoinin voitonmarssin edessä.
Oma kantani on maltillisempi, sillä en usko Bitcoinin kilpailevan fiat-valuuttojen kanssa maksun välineenä, vaan enemmänkin kullan kanssa arvon säilyttäjänä. Bitcoin-verkon päälle tullaan toki rakentamaan maksujärjestelmä, kuten Lightning Network, joka kykenee toteuttamaan transaktioita erittäin nopeasti ja joustavasti.
Bitcoinin arvo on tällä hetkellä noin yhdessä biljoonassa taalassa, kullan on noin 10 kertaa suurempi ja kiinteistöjen markkina-arvo on noin eräiden arvioiden mukaan noin 100 kertaa suurempi. Kiinteistöt ovat myös arvon säilyttäjiä kullan tapaan, joten potentiaalia Bitcoinin hinnalla on reilusti ylöspäin pelkästään muihin arvonsäilyttäjiin verrattuna.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ylen ensimmäinen NFT myytiin 1,3 etherillä – Mitä opimme matkasta kryptotaiteen maailmaan?
Viikko sitten lohkoketjuun lyöty uutinen on yksi maailman ensimmäisistä journalistisista NFT:istä.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11857336
Ylen tekemä uniikki digitaalinen tokeni uutisesta on myyty huutokaupassa 1,3 etherillä, eli reilulla 1 800 eurolla. Kryptotaidetta käsittelevästä artikkelista luotu NFT on yksi ensimmäisistä journalistisesta työstä luoduista kryptotokeneista.
Ylen NFT:n hinta nousi lopulta hieman korkeammaksi kuin talousjulkaisu Quartzin(siirryt toiseen palveluun) viime viikolla kauppaaman NFT:n, joka vaihtoi omistajaa yhdellä etherillä. Mutta kauas jäätiin New York Timesin NFT:stä(siirryt toiseen palveluun), joka myytiin eilen 350 etherillä, eli noin 480 000 eurolla.
Mutta lohduttavana voi pitää sitä, että Ylen NFT:stä maksettiin enemmän kuin yhden kalenterivuoden pieruista(siirryt toiseen palveluun).
NFT:n luominen on helppoa, mutta kallista
NFT:n luominen on lopulta helppoa. Hankalin vaihe oli kryptolompakon hankkiminen ja rahojen siirtäminen sinne.
Helppous näkyy siinä, että lohkoketjuun heitetään tällä hetkellä myyntiin ihan mitä tahansa. Kryptoteoksista maksetut suuret summat ovat houkutelleet niin sijoittajia, huijareita kuin humoristeja.
Helppouden vastapainona on hinta. NFT:n luominen ei ole halpaa. Tokenin luominen Ylen uutisesta maksoi lopulta reilut 120 euroa. Eli muutaman kympin teoksia lohkoketjuun ei ole ehkä järkevää lyödä.
Ja kun kauppa toteutui, OpenSea otti vielä erilaisia korvauksia yhteensä 12,5 prosentin arvosta.
NFT:t eivät pelasta journalismia, mutta ne herättävät mielenkiintoisia kysymyksiä.
Lopulta tämänkaltaiset esimerkit ovat mediatemppuja, jotka paljastavat vain jäävuorenhuipun mahdollisuuksista.
NFT:iden käyttötavat eivät nimittäin rajoitu keräilykortteihin tai taideteoksiin. Tulevaisuudessa konserttiliput voidaan myydä NFT:inä. Asunnon osakekirjat ja vastaavat asiakirjat taipuvat helposti lohkoketjuun.
Villeimmissä ennusteissa ihmiset luovat itsestään NFT:itä. Esimerkiksi nuori lahjakas urheilija voisi luoda itsestään NFT:n ja myydä näitä kolikoita tukijoilleen. Kolikot oikeuttaisivat osaan urheilijan mahdollisista ammattilaistuloista. Miksei saman voisi tehdä kirjailija tai näyttelijä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
WILL CLEAN ENERGY HELP BITCOIN SURVIVE THE GREEN REVOLUTION?
https://www.euronews.com/living/2021/02/24/could-renewable-energy-help-bitcoin-clean-up-its-carbon-footprint
Earlier this year, electric car company Tesla announced that it had bought €1.2 billion of the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.
It also simultaneously became the first major car manufacturer to take payments for its products using the cryptocurrency. It was a big investment for the company, which said it wanted “more flexibility to further diversify and maximise returns”.
The value of the digital asset surged, reaching a high of nearly €48,000 per coin.
With announcements that its value had reached an all-time high, however, came concerns that the electricity consumption of the cryptocurrency was getting out of hand. As prices increased, so did the energy it used up.
The potential for Bitcoin’s carbon footprint to increase grew astronomically.
Bill Gates said that Bitcoin “uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind”. The Billionaire philanthropist called himself a “bitcoin sceptic” saying “it’s not a great climate thing”.
Some estimates state that every year, the cryptocurrency alone could emit around the same amount of carbon dioxide as New Zealand. For many, it has called into question the environmental credentials of companies that choose to invest, but are there alternatives that could turn this virtual currency green?
HOW DOES BITCOIN MINING WORK AND WHY DOES IT CONSUME ENERGY?
Bitcoin ‘miners’ use highly specialised computers, connected to the cryptocurrency network to solve complex mathematical puzzles. This process verifies transactions, preventing the global record from being edited fraudulently. As a reward, these miners occasionally receive a small amount of Bitcoin.
Since it was created in 2009, Bitcoin mining has become a lucrative business. But, as the rewards are a bit like a lottery, you need a lot of computers to make it profitable. Massive warehouses around the world filled with specialised machines run round the clock and, as you might expect, these consume large amounts of energy.
So much so that in the last few years, the cryptocurrency has grown to consume more energy than the Netherlands, Argentina or Switzerland.
The team behind the tracker say that Bitcoin needs to be inefficient in order to be secure. If mining were efficient then it would be easy for a “single entity or colluding group of actors to dominate the network”.
With efficiency out the window, to be cost-effective, mining operations are often located where energy is cheap. There’s profit to be made when electricity costs less and Bitcoin’s value is high. That has meant that in the past, miners have often taken advantage of inexpensive coal power in countries like China.
As Bitcoin has grown, the amount of computational power being used to mine is thought to have more than doubled over the last year.
Critics of the electric car giant’s investment have said that this potential jump in carbon emissions from electricity use could wipe out its environmental efforts.
But – the future of Bitcoin doesn’t have to be in cheap, dirty energy.
WHAT ABOUT USING RENEWABLE ENERGY?
“It’s important to understand that energy consumption is not necessarily equivalent to carbon dioxide emissions and environmental pollution,” the Cambridge team says on its website.
“For instance, one kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity generated by a coal-fired power station has a substantially different environmental footprint than one kWh of electricity produced by a solar park.”
In October, a report from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance estimated that on average nearly 40 per cent of the total energy used by cryptocurrencies’ complex calculations came from renewable sources. 76 per cent of all miners were using renewables as part of their energy mix.
This was a more than 10 per cent increase from 2018 and hydroelectric is now one of the most common sources of energy for miners.
The internet has the potential to serve as a critical foundation for sustainable economic growth, but its expansion needs to be powered by clean energy sources.
Travis Nichols
Greenpeace USA Media Director
“The problem is that, at the moment, only about a fifth of the electricity used in the world’s data centers comes from renewable sources, and that’s not good enough,” adds Nichols. He says that Greenpeace is focusing efforts on governments and big corporations like Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon to change electricity grids for all users.
“First of all, every miner needs cheap power,” says Genesis’s Regional Manager for North America, Tillmann Korb. “And especially in Iceland, and in Sweden, the power is cheap.”
Korb explains that the decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies also means that you can mine them anywhere.
You don’t need a strong internet connection and you could theoretically do it from your phone. Companies like Genesis or even individuals can take advantage of any country that has an excess of cheap renewable energy.
The flexibility of mining rigs also means that Genesis can stop using electricity whenever they are asked. They can shut down for as little as 20 seconds with no consequences to balance out demand on an electricity grid.
Cryptocurrency mining can also help electricity grids operate more efficiently and increase their use of renewables, Korb adds.
He believes that renewables are the natural future for cryptocurrencies.
“If you just look at the incentives, it doesn’t make too much sense to use coal.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Without maintenance, an NFT’s art could disappear
YOUR MILLION-DOLLAR NFT CAN BREAK TOMORROW IF YOU’RE NOT CAREFUL
Without maintenance, an NFT’s art could disappear
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/25/22349242/nft-metadata-explained-art-crypto-urls-links-ipfs
OpenOpen up the $69 million NFT that Beeple sold at Christie’s, and you won’t find much. The name of the artwork isn’t there. The name of the artist is missing. And crucially, you won’t even find the actual piece of art.
That’s not a flaw in Beeple’s NFT — it’s just how the system works.
It turns out, the house of cards that is the NFT system is even more precarious than it first appears. NFTs are fundamentally built on trust — trust that a seller won’t screw you over, trust that these tokens magically have value — and that holds true even at the deepest level of the system. Ultimately, you’re buying a collection of metadata defining what you own.
“THAT’S AN AWFULLY EXPENSIVE 404 ERROR FOR BUYERS OF THESE NFTS.”
But there’s one significant gap in the system ensuring that an NFT is held together: NFTs use links to direct you to somewhere else where the art and any details about it are being stored. And as anyone who has browsed the internet before should know, links can and do die. So what happens if your NFT breaks down and points to nothing?
“That’s an awfully expensive 404 error for buyers of these NFTs,”
The system usually relies on the Ethereum blockchain, which ensures a few things: it keeps an unalterable record of everyone who has owned the NFT, and it keeps the NFT from ever changing. That means someone who buys an NFT and then resells it can’t misrepresent what they own. It’s all there in the NFT, just how it was when they bought it. You can think of it like the papers that authenticate a thoroughbred: they’re not the horse, but they certify the provenance and history of one.
Very little data is stored directly inside an NFT, though. The NFT includes information on where you can find a description of the artist’s name and the title of the work, but that information is not typically on the blockchain itself. NFTs include information on where you can find the artwork they represent, but the actual artwork is still a link away.
Traditional URLs pose real problems for NFTs. The owner of the domain could redirect the URL to point to something else (leaving you with, perhaps, a million-dollar Rickroll), or the owner of the domain could just forget to pay their hosting bill, and the whole thing disappears.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin price 2021: Record-breaking run still far from peak but ‘90% crash and crypto winter’ will follow, expert warns
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/bitcoin-price-2021-record-latest-prediction-b1819094.html?utm_content=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1616590270
Analysts predict cryptocurrency could rise 500 per cent before market turns
The next major bitcoin price crash will wipe up to 90 per cent from its value and cause it to stagnate in a years-long “crypto winter”, a market expert has warned.
Mr Lee predicted that bitcoin’s price could rise to $100,000 “by the summer” and eventually reach up to $300,000 by the end of the year.
“Bull market cycles come and go and after a bull market peak, inevitably it could go down by quite a bit, and that’s when the bubble bursts. It can last from two to three years.
“After it peaks out – whether it’s $200,000, $100,000, or even $300,000 – people should be aware that it could fall by 80-90 per cent of its value from its all-time peak.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The NFT market is just getting started, but where is it headed?
Part 1 of 3: Building a new economy on the blockchain
https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/15/the-nft-market-is-just-getting-started-but-where-is-it-headed/
Every once in a meme-ified blue moon, the wildly irrational cryptocurrency ecosystem gives birth to something that might outlive the hype.
The crypto art hype may be silly and expensive, but it might also empower artists from emerging economies and underrepresented groups to access the global art market in ways that they couldn’t before.
A new world coming under compliance
It remains to be seen if that type of market activity is sustainable, with regard to compliance across jurisdictions.
In any case, companies can delist artists and pieces, which means anyone who isn’t fluent in command-line Ethereum tricks can lose access to their NFTs. It will still exist “on the blockchain,” yet it would be quite a stretch to call NFTs “permissionless” art, as many blockchain advocates do.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anna Irrera / Reuters:
PayPal says it has started letting US customers use cryptocurrency holdings to pay millions of its online merchants globally — LONDON (Reuters) – PayPal Holdings Inc will announce later on Tuesday that it has started allowing U.S. consumers to use their cryptocurrency holdings to pay …
Exclusive: PayPal launches crypto checkout service
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currency-paypal-exclusive-idUSKBN2BM10N
PayPal Holdings Inc will announce later on Tuesday that it has started allowing U.S. consumers to use their cryptocurrency holdings to pay at millions of its online merchants globally, a move that could significantly boost use of digital assets in everyday commerce.
Customers who hold bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and litecoin in PayPal digital wallets will now be able to convert their holdings into fiat currencies at checkouts to make purchases, the company said.
The service, which PayPal revealed it was working on late last year, will be available at all of its 29 million merchants in the coming months, the company said.
“This is the first time you can seamlessly use cryptocurrencies in the same way as a credit card or a debit card inside your PayPal wallet,” President and CEO Dan Schulman told Reuters ahead of a formal announcement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin adds $150 Billion as payment processors “buy the dip” https://trib.al/KSfEfXo
Bitcoin Adds Back $150 Billion As Visa, PayPal Rev Up Crypto Offerings And Institutions ‘Buy The Dip’
https://trib.al/KSfEfXo
After a stark plunge Thursday that wiped out $100 billion in market value, the world’s largest cryptocurrency is back near all-time highs Tuesday as corporations like Visa and PayPal join other institutional players in expanding their crypto offerings.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Enjin, a blockchain startup that created the NFT standard used by Microsoft and Nike, raises $18.9M to build a Polkadot-based blockchain network — Quick Take — Enjin has raised $18.9 million to build a Polkadot-based blockchain network, dubbed Efinity, with a focus on non-fungible tokens or NFTs.
Enjin raises nearly $19 million to build Polkadot-based blockchain for NFTs
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/99980/enjin-polkadot-based-blockchain-nft-funding
Quick Take
Enjin has raised $18.9 million to build a Polkadot-based blockchain network, dubbed Efinity, with a focus on non-fungible tokens or NFTs.
The network’s Phase 1 is expected to launch around the end of this year or the beginning of 2022, Enjin CTO Witek Radomski told The Block.
Blockchain development firm Enjin has raised $18.9 million to build a Polkadot-based blockchain network, especially for non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
The network, dubbed Efinity, will have its own token called Efinity Token (EFI), Enjin CTO Witek Radomski told The Block. And the funding has been secured via selling EFT tokens, said Radomski.
Crypto.com Capital, DFG Group, and Hashed Ventures led the funding round, with participation from BlockTower, Blockchain.com Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, Arrington XRP Capital, and several others.
Enjin is not new to the NFT space. It created the ERC-1155 standard for NFTs in 2017, and it is used by companies like Microsoft and Nike.
Microsoft uses ERC-1155 to reward the Azure developer community with “provably scarce, unique NFT badges based on their contributions and achievements,” Enjin’s VP of operations Bryana Kortendick told The Block. As for Nike, it has patented a system for tokenizing shoes on Ethereum using the ERC-1155 standard, said Kortendick.
The new Efinity blockchain will be purpose-built for NFTs and is being developed as a parachain on Polkadot, Radomski told The Block.
When asked how Efinity will be different from Ethereum and Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain, Radomski said Efinity aims to resolve the friction points that users and developers hit with the two blockchains.
When interacting with Ethereum-based NFTs, frictions like “transaction fees, the requirement of ether (ETH), account security, disjointed applications, problematic multisig security” are present, said Radomski. While Flow is tackling some of these issues, they have built the blockchain from the ground-up, along with their own scripting language, which could pose challenges, according to Radomski.
“Flow may see challenges if they aren’t able to attract enough nodes to become sufficiently decentralized, and they might also face an uphill battle convincing developers to learn their proprietary language,” he said. “On Efinity and Polkadot, developers can use Rust which is a well-established language, and every parachain will benefit from the combined security of the entire Polkadot network.”
Efinity’s Phase 1 is expected to launch around the end of this year or the beginning of 202
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lohkoketjujen järjettömään virrankulutukseen löytyi ratkaisu – ”99 % bitcoinia ja ethereumia tehokkaampi”
https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/lohkoketjujen-jarjettomaan-virrankulutukseen-loytyi-ratkaisu-99-bitcoinia-ja-ethereumia-tehokkaampi/a5d07db9-7bcf-44dc-ba7f-07da3d0c2220
Nft-taidekauppaa voi tästedes käydä myös vähemmän energiasyöpöllä Palm-alustalla.
Digitaalinen taidekauppa on viime aikoina noussut isosti otsikoihin useiden miljoonien arvoisten nft-kauppojen ansiosta. Nft eli non-fungible token on lohkoketjuun tallennettava virtuaalinen todistus teoksen omistusoikeudesta ja siksi sitä on kutsuttu myös kryptotaiteeksi.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Bitcoin suurella todennäköisyydellä kielletään” – miljardööri varoittaa riskeistä
https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/bitcoin-suurella-todennakoisyydella-kielletaan-miljardoori-varoittaa-riskeista/4aa02551-a8a5-4c3a-a5c2-e8da431b6b7a
Miljardööri ja sijoittaja Ray Dalio arvelee, että bitcoin saatetaan kieltää kuten kulta aikoinaan.
Maailman suurimman hedgerahaston Bridgewater Associatesin perustaja Ray Dalio arvelee, että bitcoin voidaan suurella todennäköisyydellä kieltää.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Holy s—, that’s a lot of taxes,” digital artist Beeple told CNBC after he found out how much he’d have to pay in taxes on his $69 million NFT sale.
Crypto-art investors could face a surprise on tax day since NFTs can lead to a hefty tax bill
https://trib.al/EH5l2lD
Crypto art is taxed when it is purchased and sold, as well as through the cryptocurrencies used to buy the NFTs.
NFTs are not yet subject to the same sales taxes as physical art pieces.
After his $70 million NFT sale, Beeple likely faces taxes worth tens of million of dollars.
In March, a crypto art piece by digital artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, made history when it sold for nearly $70 million. When told how he would be taxed on the sale, Winkelmann expressed surprise.
Winkelmann may be facing a tax bill worth tens of millions of dollars. As an artist, Winkelmann will also have to pay federal and state income taxes on his earnings from the sale, in addition to reporting the cryptocurrency gains on his 2020 tax return.
The Internal Revenue Services sees buying and selling NFTs as a realization of investment gains, and therefore subject to the capital gains tax.
There are multiple ways you can get taxed when buying and selling an NFT. Capital gains taxes apply to NFTs, in much the same way they apply to selling stocks. However, because NFTs are considered collectibles they are also taxed at an even higher rate of 28%.
NFT buyers and sellers also need to be aware of how the cryptocurrency they used to buy the NFT will be taxed.
Most crypto-art pieces are bought using digital currencies, including ether and WAX. These cryptocurrencies are also subject to a capital gains tax, depending on how much they’ve gained in value since they were originally purchased and how long the buyer held the digital currency.
In short, NFT buyers and sellers will be taxed when purchasing an NFT using a digital currency, selling an NFT for another NFT, selling an NFT for a cryptocurrency, as well as when converting the cryptocurrency used to buy and sell the item back into US dollars.
On the other hand, NFTs are not yet subject to the sales tax that would be applied to a physical piece of art — an issue that art law expert Diana Wierbicki told ArtNet state tax laws could soon catch up to.
Many NFT buyers and sellers likely do not know the hefty tax fees they will face. Shehan Chandrasekera, head of tax strategy at CoinTracker, told CNBC that there’s so many unknowns when it comes to the emerging market of NFTs that many people probably won’t know what to expect on tax day.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin price closes in on new record high as analysts predict ‘permanent hike’ in 2021
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/bitcoin-price-record-high-2021-prediction-b1825480.html?utm_content=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1617315800
Bitcoin is in the middle of its fourth major price surge of 2021 and is close to hitting a new all-time high, with some analysts predicting that this rally could be different to ones that have come before.
The cryptocurrency was trading close to $60,000 on Thursday – up by more than 1,000 per cent since March last year and just $1,500 off the record it hit on 14 March this year.
The market movement has been spurred on by massive institutional investment in recent months, which has led experts to claim that the gains made so far will be sustained for the long-term.
“Bitcoin has been on an epic rally since last October. Almost week-on-week, the price has been smashing through barrier after barrier, reaching new highs,” said Nigel Green, CEO of financial advisory firm deVere.
“However, this momentum has been slowing down… This temporary bitcoin price slowdown could trigger a new surge in institutional investment, leading to prices going up permanently.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The gap between humans and robots has just been partially bridged.
A Robot’s Self-Portrait Has Sold For Almost $700,000 As An NFT
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/a-robots-selfportrait-has-sold-for-almost-700000-as-an-nft/
The gap between humans and robots has just been partially bridged, thanks to the artistic vision of an artificial intelligence (AI) unit called Sophia. A self-portrait created by the robot was recently sold at an auction for $688,888, exploring the capacity of our mechanical companions to appreciate the subtleties of art.
Developed by Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, Sophia has received a great deal of media attention since being activated back in 2016. However, the people behind Sophia have been criticized by AI experts for exaggerating her abilities and overhyping how sophisticated the AI actually is.
Having been awarded Saudi Arabian citizenship and named as an Innovation Champion by the United Nations, the human-like robot has already notched up a number of significant milestones for robot-kind – yet the ability to generate art represents an unprecedented leap forward.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin Mining Will Soon Pump Out More Carbon Than Czech Republic, New Study Says
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/bitcoin-mining-will-soon-pump-out-more-carbon-than-czech-republic-new-study-says/
A new study estimates that the energy-hungry process of bitcoin mining in China could soon generate 130.50 million metric tons of carbon emission each year – that’s more than the annual output of the Czech Republic in 2016.
As reported in the journal Nature Communications today, researchers from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences predicted that the annual energy consumption of the Bitcoin blockchain in China is expected to peak in 2024. At this point, bitcoin mining will require around 297 terawatt-hours of energy and will pump out around 130.50 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually. This emission output beats the total greenhouse gas emission output of whole medium-sized countries, including the Czech Republic or Qatar.
Bitcoin mining is the process of verifying bitcoin transactions in the network and recording them in the public blockchain. To do this, a computer must solve complex math problems. As a reward for contributing their computing resources to the network, the “miner” is given freshly minted bitcoin.
These mathematical problems become increasingly harder to solve, making it increasingly more difficult to earn fresh bitcoins through mining. Early adopters of the cryptocurrency used to generate bitcoin on their home computer, but it now requires a mind-boggling amount of computational power and whole warehouses’ worth of computers. This requires a colossal amount of electricity to power, while even more electricity is also used to cool down the furiously working computers.
China accounts for more than 75 percent of bitcoin mining operations around the world, as per the new study
The researchers conceded that their predictions are not foolproof, since they didn’t consider potential changes of the Chinese energy sector or any “unforeseeable uncertainties… that could cause the reality to deviate from the prediction.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The nation’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is set to go public April 14.
Coinbase Posts Record $1.8 Billion In Revenue As Crypto Market Shoots Past $2 Trillion
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/04/06/coinbase-posts-record-18-billion-revenue-as-crypto-market-shoots-past-2-trillion-direct-listing/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie
Ahead of its long-anticipated public market debut next week, crypto-brokerage Coinbase previewed results for its best quarter ever, pulling in $1.8 billion in first-quarter revenue, as booming interest in cryptocurrencies pushes the market to meteoric new highs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Would be interesting to see what happens when the founders coins are pulled out… if they ever do…
https://www.coindesk.com/paypal-co-founder-bitcoin-investor-thiel-says-bitcoin-could-be-chinese-weapon?fbclid=IwAR1qAZJtj32wGPCgGu_AriESryoF9JJKROjhdRxymO5-cjwna-E-CxrHaEw
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eastern Caribbean becomes the first currency union to issue blockchain-based digital currency
https://www.euronews.com/2021/04/06/eastern-caribbean-becomes-the-first-currency-union-to-issue-blockchain-based-digital-curre
The Eastern Caribbean has created its own form of digital currency meant to help speed transactions and serve people without bank accounts.
The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank said its “DCash” is the first such blockchain-based currency introduced by any of the world’s currency unions, though some individual nations have similar existing systems.
It became available Wednesday, March 31, in a year-long pilot programme in four island nations: St. Lucia, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis.
DCash was created by Barbados-based fintech company Bitt in partnership with the central bank. Unlike cryptocurrencies, it is issued by an official central bank and has a fixed value, tied to the existing Eastern Caribbean dollar used across much of the region.
“(It) is a milestone in the history of monetary instruments,” said Bitt CEO Brian Popelka during a press conference broadcast online.
The system allows users even without bank accounts – but with a smartphone – to use a downloaded app and make payments via a QR code. Those without bank accounts would go to a previously approved agent or nonbanking financial institution who would verify a person’s information and then approve a DCash wallet.
That person would then go to a supermarket or other store and give the cashier physical cash which would then be deposited as digital currency in their wallet
Fears of financing terrorism and fraud
While many in the Eastern Caribbean cheered the historic move, some experts worry that digital currency issued by smaller countries could end up being used as a conduit for illicit activities, including terrorism financing and money laundering, said Eswar Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell University.
He noted that the Bahamas last year became the first country to roll out its digital currency nationwide, and that the Marshall Islands is considering its own cryptocurrency.
The project aims to see a 50 per cent reduction in the use of physical cash by 2025, said Sharmyn Powell, chairperson of the bank’s fintech working group.
“It’s safer, faster and cheaper,” Powell said.
The project comes more than two months after the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Swedish Riksbank, and the Swiss National Bank created a group to study whether they should issue digital currencies.
The Swedish central bank already has commissioned a pilot program. Meanwhile, China rolled out a digital currency in four cities in April 2020 as part of a pilot program that has since expanded to more than two dozen cities.
I approach it with a sense of skepticism because this technology has been around for over 10 years now but has not taken off as a broad medium of exchange.
Lee Rainers
Fintech law and policy professor, Duke University
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paying with cryptocurrencies: These are the major companies that accept cryptos as payment
https://www.euronews.com/2021/04/07/paying-with-cryptocurrencies-these-are-the-major-companies-that-accept-cryptos-as-payment
Cryptocurrencies are never far from the headlines these days. If it’s not news that the value of Bitcoin has breached a record high threshold of $60,000 (€50,500) for the first time, it’s news that Tesla founder Elon Musk is investing billions in it.
While buying and selling cryptos is becoming increasingly mainstream, the opportunities to spend virtual currencies is somewhat limited in comparison due to its volatility.
There are, however, a growing number of companies across a plethora of industries – from big tech to airlines – who are embracing cryptocurrencies, allowing customers to use them as an official method of payment for their goods and services.
As one of the largest software companies in the world, it is significant that Microsoft accepts Bitcoin payments
Following an extensive trial, Starbucks customers can now use the new Bakkt app to pay for drinks and goods at the coffee chain with converted Bitcoin.
Electric carmaker Tesla became one of the latest companies in recent weeks to announce it would accept Bitcoin payments for vehicle purchases in the US. It comes off the back of a $1.5 billion (€1.2 billion) investment in the cryptocurrency by Elon Musk’s company in February.
It was reported earlier this year that Amazon was joining the ranks of other tech giants, including Facebook, in laying the groundwork for its own exclusive cryptocurrency.
Credit card company Visa confirmed at the end of March that it was piloting a scheme with platform Crypto.com to accept cryptocurrency to settle transactions on its payment network. It will now accept USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin crypto that is pegged to the value of the US dollar.
PayPal users can now buy, sell or hold a select few cryptos, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. In addition, you’ll be able to track cryptocurrencies through the PayPal app. The only drawback is that money can’t be transferred out of the company’s digital wallet.
Latvian airline airBaltic became the first aviation company in the world to accept Bitcoin as payment for fares back in 2014. According to the company, it has processed more than 1,000 Bitcoin transactions
Amatil, the drinks’ giant’s bottler and distributor in the Asia-Pacific region, has enabled cryptocurrency as a method of payment through its partnership with the Centrapay platform. As of 2020, there are now over 2,000 vending machines in Australia and New Zealand which are geared to accept cryptos to pay for drinks.
Following in the wake of airBaltic, LOT Polish Airlines announced in 2015 that it would also accept Bitcoin as a payment method for flights.
Travel giant Expedia is one of the most prominent travel agencies to accept Bitcoin through its partnership with crypto-friendly travel booking platform Travala.
Lush was one of the first global companies to adapt to the use of cryptocurrencies, fully embracing them in 2017
Tomi Engdahl says:
Max Chafkin / Bloomberg:
Peter Thiel says he is a pro-Bitcoin maximalist, but Bitcoin threatens fiat money and might be used by China to undercut the US dollar’s reserve currency status — Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and conservative political donor, urged the U.S. government to consider tighter regulations …
Peter Thiel Calls Bitcoin ‘a Chinese Financial Weapon’ at Virtual Roundtable
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-07/peter-thiel-calls-bitcoin-a-chinese-financial-weapon-at-virtual-roundtable
Peter Thiel is “pro-crypto” and “pro-Bitcoin maximalist,” but he also thinks the cryptocurrency may be undermining America.
Thiel, the venture capitalist and conservative political donor, urged the U.S. government to consider tighter regulations on cryptocurrencies in an appearance on Tuesday. The statements seemed to represent a change of heart for Thiel, who is a major investor in virtual currency ventures as well as in cryptocurriences themselves.
“I do wonder whether at this point, Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.,” Thiel said during an appearance at a virtual event held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation. “It threatens fiat money, but it especially threatens the U.S. dollar.” He added: “[If] China’s long Bitcoin, perhaps from a geopolitical perspective, the U.S. should be asking some tougher questions about exactly how that works.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will Gottsegen / Decrypt:
Robinhood says 9.5 million customers traded crypto on its platform in Q1 2021 compared to 1.7 million in Q4 2020, an increase of 458% — That’s up 458% from just 1.7 million in Q4 of 2020. — In brief — Brokerage app Robinhood said 9.5 million of its customers traded crypto in Q1 of 2021.
Robinhood Says 9.5 Million People Traded Crypto on Its App in Q1
That’s up 458% from just 1.7 million in Q4 of 2020.
https://decrypt.co/65924/robinhood-crypto-trading-9-million-q1
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Crypto exchange Kraken is considering going public via direct listing in 2022; Kraken is the fourth-largest crypto exchange by trading volume with 6M+ clients
Bitcoin exchange Kraken considers going public after record trading volumes in the first quarter
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/08/bitcoin-coinbase-rival-kraken-may-go-public-via-direct-listing.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Olivia Raimonde / Bloomberg:
Cryptocurrency mining company Riot Blockchain says it will buy Texas-based Bitcoin hosting facility Whinstone for $80M in cash and around $570M in stock
Crypto Miner Riot Blockchain to Buy Whinstone for $651 Million
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-08/crypto-miner-riot-blockchain-to-acquire-whinstone-for-651m
Cryptocurrency-mining company Riot Blockchain Inc. said it will buy North America’s largest Bitcoin hosting facility, Whinstone U.S. Inc., for about $651 million in cash and stock.
Riot Blockchain will purchase all of Rockdale, Texas-based Whinstone’s assets and operations for $80 million in cash plus a fixed 11.8 million shares of Riot common stock, according to a statement released Thursday. Whinstone will be the “foundation” of the company’s Bitcoin mining operations, Riot Chief Executive Officer Jason Les said in the statement. Riot anticipates the purchase will make it the largest publicly-traded Bitcoin mining and hosting company in North America, measured by total developed capacity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Whinstone’s facility has a power capacity of 750 MW, with 300 MW currently developed, an important asset for energy-intensive Bitcoin mining.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-08/crypto-miner-riot-blockchain-to-acquire-whinstone-for-651m
Tomi Engdahl says:
China First Major Economy to Issue Digital Currency
https://www.statista.com/chart/24571/central-bank-digital-currencies-around-the-world/
Tomi Engdahl says:
With NFTs, the art market goes crypto
https://www.editorx.com/shaping-design/article/nft-art-design?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=fb_pp%7Cp_edx-c_en-tof-content-blog-traffic-interest-broad-3%2F24%2F2021&experiment_id=23847064676860429%E2%80%8B&fbclid=IwAR2eYHRGbgAk-_zGP3ZqHCNybE5JmQg3EMJsoYkwcpLI3eEuoXjbDeuctZw
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Something like that could really hurt crypto and kind of kill the original use case, which was to just make financial services accessible to everyone.”
CEO of a top bitcoin exchange warns a crackdown on cryptocurrencies may be coming
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/12/bitcoin-kraken-ceo-jesse-powell-warns-of-cryptocurrency-crackdown.html?utm_content=Intl&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1618242443
Jesse Powell, CEO of bitcoin exchange Kraken, said there “could be some crackdown” on cryptocurrencies.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other officials have warned about the use of cryptocurrencies for illicit transactions.
Cryptocurrencies have surged in value lately, with bitcoin hitting a record high price of more than $61,000 last month.
Governments around the world may start to clamp down on the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the CEO of a top crypto exchange has warned.
A number of officials — from U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde — have sounded the alarm about the use of bitcoin for money laundering, terrorist financing and other illegal activities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ari Levy / CNBC:
Coinbase shares open at $381 in its Nasdaq debut, valuing the company at around $99.6B; Nasdaq listed shares at $250 — – Coinbase’s market cap exceeded $100 billion after its debut on the Nasdaq Wednesday morning. — Nasdaq provided a reference price late Tuesday of $250 …
Coinbase valued at close to $100 billion in its Nasdaq debut
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/14/coinbase-to-debut-on-nasdaq-in-direct-listing.html
Coinbase shares opened at $381 on the Nasdaq Wednesday morning, giving the cryptocurrency exchange an initial market cap of $99.6 billion on a fully diluted basis.
The shares quickly shot up as high as $429, valuing the company at $112 billion, before dropping back below the debut price and reaching a low of around $310. The price was still well above the reference price of $250 set Tuesday night, though no shares changed hands at that price.
Skirting the traditional IPO process, Coinbase listed its stock directly, allowing employees and existing shareholders to sell shares immediately at a market-based price. In pursuing a direct listing, Coinbase followed tech companies like Spotify, Slack, Palantir and Roblox, which helped standardize the process.
Excluding options and restricted stock units, Coinbase’s initial market cap was about $80 billion at the opening price. Adding in options and shares, Coinbase is already one of the 85 most valuable U.S. companies.
Coinbase is hitting the public market as a record amount of cash pours into cryptocurrencies and tech investors are thirsty for high-growth stories. Snowflake, Palantir, DoorDash, Airbnb and Roblox have all gone public in the past six months and have market capitalizations ranging from $45 billion to $106 billion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Joke’ Dogecoin Hits All-Time High With $48.3 Billion Market Value
https://www.forbes.com/sites/palashghosh/2021/04/16/joke-dogecoin-hits-all-time-high-with-483-billion-market-value/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie
The Dogecoin cryptocurrency surged to an all-time on Friday morning – almost tripling its value in just 24 hours – and is now the seventh largest cryptocurrency in terms of market value.
The Dogecoin began as a “joke” in 2013 and is based on the “Doge” meme which depicts a cartoon version of a Shiba Inu, a breed of Japanese hunting dog.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Bitcoin Could be Banned or Criminalized in the Coming Years
Monetary system changes could become a big problem for Crypto fans
https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/why-bitcoin-could-be-banned-or-criminalized-in-the-coming-years-278b46b9fe86
Tomi Engdahl says:
The market is already on the mend, but bitcoin prices are still down about 10%.
Crypto Flash Crash Wiped Out $300 Billion In Less Than 24 Hours, Spurring Massive Bitcoin Liquidations
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/04/18/crypto-flash-crash-wiped-out-300-billion-in-less-than-24-hours-spurring-massive-bitcoin-liquidations/?utm_campaign=forbes&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie
After a run-up in prices ushering in Coinbase’s long-awaited market debut earlier in the week, the cryptocurrency market plummeted early Sunday after blackouts in China led to massive declines in bitcoin’s mining rates—tanking prices and spurring billions of dollars in liquidations.
An overnight crash that started late Saturday tanked the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies around the world by about $310 billion in less than 24 hours, shrinking the market from more than $2.2 trillion to less than $1.9 trillion at around 8 a.m. Eastern, according to crypto-data website CoinMarketCap.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kiintolevypulan vaara lähestyy – Uusi kryptovaluutta kerää suosiota
Joona Komonen17.4.202121:37KRYPTOVALUUTATKIINTOLEVYTSSDBITCOIN
Kryptovaluutta chia on kerännyt suosiota Kiinassa. Louhijat ovat aloittaneet valuutan louhimiseen käytettävien kiintolevyjen hamstraamiseen.
https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/kiintolevypulan-vaara-lahestyy-uusi-kryptovaluutta-keraa-suosiota/891dfc4d-7486-411c-b876-8de76e77ab6b
Uuden chia-kryptovaluutan ilmaannuttua Kiinalaiset louhijat yrittävät ostaa kaikki löytävänsä kiinto- ja ssd-levyt, Tom’s Hardware kertoo. Syy hamstraamiseen on chian erilainen toimintatapa, sillä sitä ei louhita muiden kryptovaluutoiden tapaan näytönohjaimella tai muulla suorittimella vaan tallennustilalla.
Toisin kuin työntodistukseen perustuva Bitcoin, chia käyttää aika- ja tilatodistusta. Chian on tarkoitus olla ympäristöystävällisempi vaihtoehto kryptovaluuttojen maailmassa. BitTorrentin luojana tunnettu Bram Cohen loi chian ajatuksena hyödyntää tallennuslaitteissa oleva tyhjä tila. Kryptovaluutta perustuu siihen, että tallennuslaitteet ovat halvempia, helpompia ostaa ja kuluttavat vähemmän sähköä.
Louhijat massaostavat kiintolevyjä, joissa on neljästä teratavusta kahdeksaantoista teratavuun tallennustilaa. Paniikkiostaminen johtaa todennäköisesti komponenttien puutteeseen ja hintojen nousuun.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hard Drive and SSD Shortages Could Be Imminent If New Cryptocurrency Blooms
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hard-drive-ssd-shortages-imminent-if-new-cryptocurrency-blooms
With the emergence of the Chia cryptocurrency, miners in China are reportedly frantically snatching up every hard drive and SSD they can find. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, you don’t mine Chia with a processor, graphics card or ASIC miner. Instead, you farm Chia with storage space, which is where hard drives or SSDs come in. Chia isn’t officially available for trading yet, therefore, it’s too early to start hoarding hard drives or SSDs.
Unlike Bitcoin, which is based on proof of work, Chia utilizes a proof of space and time model. Chia reportedly arrives as an eco-friendly cryptocurrency. Bram Cohen, who’s best known as the inventor of BitTorrent, created Chia to leverage the free space on storage devices.
According to HKEPC’s report, miners are mass purchasing hard drives that span from 4TB to 18TB in capacity. The panic buying will ultimately lead to a hard drive shortage and price hikes.
Many cryptocurrencies come and go so it’ll be interesting to see how Chia pans out. A few years ago, no one took Bitcoin seriously, and today it’s worth over $62,000.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Did a massive Chinese power outage cause Bitcoin’s crash down to $50K?
https://cointelegraph.com/news/did-a-massive-chinese-power-outage-cause-bitcoin-s-crash-down-to-50k
On-chain analyst Willy Woo argues a massive power outage in Chinese mining hub Xinjiang drove Bitcoin’s violent crash down to $50,000.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NFTs and AI Are Unsettling the Very Concept of History
Non-fungible tokens and artificial intelligence make tracing the origins of a digital object more fragile. What are the world’s archivists to do?
https://www.wired.com/story/nfts-and-ai-are-unsettling-the-very-concept-of-history/
As an archivist, I’m excited about what disruptive innovations like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and artificial intelligence may mean for archives. But I’m also worried. These developments pose existential threats to our field, and by extension, to the survival of human history and culture.
In 1999 the future of our archives was to be consumed, to enrich public memory with new evidence without hassle. I wanted our archives to be as ubiquitous as infrastructure, to work their way into every corner of the net, to propagate everywhere without need for attribution or credit. I wanted our archives to vanish in the web.
But now the survival of archives as we know them is uncertain. Whether we know it or not, we all rely on a patchwork of chronically underfunded public and private institutions that hold the world’s histories and cultural heritages in trust for all of us and make them accessible. Every time we see an old photo, hear a historical recording, see a news clip, or find a family history document, it likely originated in an archive. While we see and touch massive digital archives online, most archives are still largely undigitized collections of physical media like film, video, music, photographs, and paper documents. By design, archives are deliberate and thoughtful, with a timeline designed to preserve culture “forever.” They’re not built to nimbly weather disruption.