https://medium.com/helloitsmagic/why-most-blockchain-projects-are-bullshit-2e3918439270
And How to Spot the Ones That Aren’t
This is a good overview to blockchains and mountains of bullshit talk circulating around it:
“The key to separating uses with promise from bullshit projects is asking what can onlybe done with the specific features blockchains provide, and whether those things are worth doing or having. In almost all useful cases, blockchains don’t solve technological problems, they solve people problems.“
187 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
US Fed Chair Says Private Entities Should Not Help Design Central Bank Digital Currencies
https://www.coindesk.com/us-fed-chair-says-private-entities-should-not-help-design-central-bank-digital-currencies
Private entities aren’t needed to build central bank digital currencies, said the head of the U.S. central bank on Wednesday.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, speaking before the House Financial Services Committee, said the idea of a digital dollar – referring to a blockchain-based version of the current world reserve currency in response to a line of questioning from Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) – is complex, and one that the Fed takes seriously, but also that the idea needs to be studied further before one can be created and implemented.
Powell said he believed private entities did not have a role in designing a digital dollar.
“I do think this is something that the central banks have to design,” he said. “The private sector is not involved in creating the money supply, that’s something the central bank does.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
A new patent has been filed by the U.S. Postal Service to use blockchain technology to make mail-in voting safer following recent comments from Trump concerning the mail service’s funding as part of his fight against mail-in voting. The patent laid out voting operations based on a blockchain, complete with ballot codes, electronic signatures and other intricate points, working in tandem with two databases. The patent also included various other frameworks and concepts around its central idea of blockchain-based voting.
US Postal Service Files Blockchain Voting Patent Following Trump Cuts
https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-postal-service-files-blockchain-voting-patent-following-trump-cuts
Tomi Engdahl says:
“out of over 86,000 blockchain projects that had been launched, 92% had been abandoned by the end of 2017″ https://it.slashdot.org/story/20/08/22/1816216/is-blockchain-the-amazing-solution-for-almost-nothing
Tomi Engdahl says:
well, it allows you to waste enormous amounts of electricity while putting money into someone else’s hands, in exchange for a token nobody actually wants
Tomi Engdahl says:
What is the advantage of crypto of they can just “move to seize” it anyway?
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-moves-to-seize-cryptocurrency-accounts-linked-to-north-korean-heists-11598564571?mod=e2tw](https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-moves-to-seize-cryptocurrency-accounts-linked-to-north-korean-heists-11598564571?mod=e2tw)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethereum smart contract vulnerabilities can lead to millions in losses
https://cybernews.com/security/ethereum-smart-contract-vulnerabilities/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin is irrelevant to financial markets and investors ‘are going to weep’ if regulators come down hard on crypto, says Kevin O’Leary
https://trib.al/UCYSn92
Kevin O’Leary told CNBC on Thursday bitcoin is irrelevant to financial markets and at risk of regulation.
His comments come as an increasing number of institutions like Guggenheim and SkyBridge capital invest millions into the cryptocurrency, driving a rally of over 200% in 2020.
“I’m waiting for the day that one of these regulators comes down hard on bitcoin. Grown men are going to weep when that happens. You’ll never see a loss of capital like that ever in your life. It will be brutal,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is proposing new regulation that would require certain cryptocurrency traders to provide more information about their identities and cryptocurrency transactions.
Kevin O’Leary told CNBC on Thursday that bitcoin is irrelevant to financial markets and too at risk of regulations to be taken seriously by institutional investors.
“Is this a nothing burger? It’s not even a single cell amoeba,” the O’Shares chairman said, “I love to talk about it, it’s fun to watch it go up and down, but during the day, when the bell rings, I don’t talk to anybody that’s worried about this. They do not put capital to work in bitcoin.”
His comments come as more institutional players are piling in, validating bitcoin’s legitimacy as a store of value and hedge against inflation. Earlier this week, SkyBridge Capital invested $25 million into a new bitcoin fund, while last month, Guggenheim filed to reserve the right for 10% of its $5.3 billion Macro Opportunities Fund to invest in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
O’Leary said that the concept of a digital currency will likely come to fruition in the future, but investors should be careful glorifying bitcoin while it has yet to fulfill a defined role in financial markets and while it could still be regulated. This year, bitcoin has skyrocketed over 200%, and many crypto bulls are forecasting an explosion of growth in 2021.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ian Allison / CoinDesk:
Sources: IBM has drastically downsized its blockchain team after missing revenue targets by 90%; IBM says the unit is “doing well” — “There is not really going to be a blockchain team any longer,” said a source. — IBM has cut its blockchain team down to almost nothing …
IBM Blockchain Is a Shell of Its Former Self After Revenue Misses, Job Cuts: Sources
https://www.coindesk.com/ibm-blockchain-revenue-misses-job-cuts-sources
“There is not really going to be a blockchain team any longer,” said a person familiar with the situation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cryptocurrency Hedge Fund Founder Admits to Massive Fraud
https://www.theaegisalliance.com/2021/02/04/crypto-hedge-fund-fraud/
On Thursday, a founder of two New York-based cryptocurrency hedge funds, age 24, with greater than $100 million in investments made a guilty plea to securities fraud.
Stefan He Qin was charged with duping investors by claiming he used a buying and selling algorithm to reap the benefits of value variations for various cryptocurrencies, federal prosecutors announced.
Qin stole investor dollars from his Virgil Sigma Fund LP and tried to dip into his VQR Multistrategy Fund LP to pay back investors from the first fund, prosecutors mentioned. He admitted to attempting to steal from one more fund he managed to cover VQR fund redemption demands, the statement reads.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A crypto kid had a $23,000-a-month condo. Then the feds came
He bragged that the fund he had created returned 500%, a claim that produced a flurry of new money from investors.
https://fortune.com/2021/02/14/crypto-fraud-virgil-capital-convicted/amp/
dropped out of college in 2016 to start a hedge fund in New York he called Virgil Capital. He told potential clients he had developed an algorithm called Tenjin to monitor cryptocurrency exchanges around the world to seize on price fluctuations. A little more than a year after it started, he bragged the fund had returned 500%, a claim that produced a flurry of new money from investors.
He became so flush with cash
In reality, federal prosecutors said, the operation was a lie, essentially a Ponzi scheme that stole about $90 million from more than 100 investors to help pay for Qin’s lavish lifestyle and personal investments in such high-risk bets as initial coin offerings. At one point, facing client demands for their money, he variously blamed “poor cash flow management” and “loan sharks in China” for his troubles.
“I knew that what I was doing was wrong and illegal,” he told U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni, who could sentence him to more than 15 years in prison.
Eager Investors
The case echoes similar cryptocurrency frauds, such as that of BitConnect, promising people double-and triple-digit returns and costing investors billions. Ponzi schemes like that show how investors eager to cash in on a hot market can easily be led astray by promises of large returns. Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX collapsed in 2019 as a result of fraud, causing at least $125 million in losses for 76,000 investors.
While regulatory oversight of the cryptocurrency industry is tightening, the sector is littered with inexperienced participants.
A number of the 800 or so crypto funds worldwide are run by people with no knowledge of Wall Street or finance, including some college students and recent graduates who launched funds a few years ago.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2600net/permalink/2960200457536393/
Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day
It turns out that the SHA-256 algorithm used for mining is pretty simple and can in fact be done by hand. Not surprisingly, the process is extremely slow compared to hardware mining and is entirely impractical. But performing the algorithm manually is a good way to understand exactly how it works.
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://disciples.technoslug.org/satoshi.htm
Hundreds of thousands of people are building very powerful, expensive, specialized computers to run code that mysteriously appeared on the internet a decade ago, and no one is really sure who created it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raju väite: ”bitcoin tulee korvaamaan kaikki maailman valuutat”
https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/raju-vaite-bitcoin-tulee-korvaamaan-kaikki-maailman-valuutat/f6867a6b-62e0-4962-ba3a-d65423bd83ca?ref=iltalehti:0af4&utm_source=iltalehti.fi&utm_medium=almainternal&utm_campaign=kiintea_tivi_ohjausboksi&utm_content=ohjausboksi
Kryptovaluuttapörssi Krakenin toimitusjohtaja Jesse Powell peräänkuuluttaa bitcoin-sijoittajilta vankkaa uskoa.
Powellin mukaan bitcoinin arvo dollareissa mitattuna tulee kohoamaan äärettömiin. Ensin bitcoin korvaa kullan arvon säilyttäjänä, myöhemmin siitä tulee yleismaailmallinen valuutta, joka korvaa kaikki maailman perinteiset valuutat.
”Ihmiset, jotka todella uskovat bitcoiniin ajattelevat sen markkina-arvon voivan ylittää kaikkien maailman valuuttojen yhteenlasketun markkina-arvon.”
Kun kurssi nousee Powellin sanojen mukaan Kuun ja Marsin tasolle, ei bitcoinin arvoa enää verrata dollariin, vaan vertailukohteiden mittasuhteet menevät uusiksi.
”Bitcoinin arvoa tullaan mittaamaan arvioimalla, mitä sillä voi ostaa. Mahdollisesti planeettoja tai aurinkokuntia.”
Bitcoin ‘Going to Infinity’: Kraken CEO
March 4th, 2021, 12:22 AM GMT+0000
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-03-04/bitcoin-going-to-infiniti-kraken-ceo-video?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=flipboard
Jesse Powell, founder and CEO of Kraken, explains how he believes that Bitcoin will eventually replace all of the world’s currencies. He speaks to Emily Chang on “Bloomberg Technology.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. says John McAfee indicted over fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2AX200
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – John McAfee, creator of the eponymous anti-virus software, has been indicted in Manhattan federal court on fraud and money laundering conspiracy crimes, stemming from two schemes concerning the fraudulent promotion to investors of cryptocurrencies, officials said on Friday.
McAfee and his bodyguard Jimmy Gale Watson Jr were charged for a scheme to exploit McAfee’s large Twitter following by publicly touting cryptocurrency offerings and digital tokens that they later sold once prices rose on the promotions, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/majordomo/permalink/10161702915099522/
NFTs seem dumb. People are just paying for a link to a place where the art is located, which can go down. Looks like a fad or just another place people with money can waste it. Shady, scammish, like not obviously scamming but almost. Crypto and block chains are interesting technology, good for certain niche uses (buying illegal drugs or bypassing banks/governments etc), but most of it is just shuffling around money in a shady way. Whenever I hear anyone hyping it up or raving about it on podcasts or YouTube etc I get a bad vibe about the person..my brain checks a box called “ethically questionable person, be wary of any future advice or info from this person” just for the fact that when someone is heavily invested they are only going to want to talk about the potential non existent future uses for it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BLOCKCHAIN
Project Review: Pi Network, a New Scam Project in Town
https://zephyrnet.com/project-review-pi-network-a-new-scam-project-in-town/
According to Pi Network official statement: Pi is a new digital currency. This app allows you to access and grow your Pi holdings and serves as wallet to host your digital assets. Pi is fairly distributed, eco-friendly and consumes minimal battery power.
At the time of writing, Pi Network has over 3.5+ million engaged pioneers (Mobile App miners), 28.5K followers on Twitter, 97K likes on Facebook and 128K followers on Instagram.
Pi Network’s website is suspicious
On first impression, PI network’s website looks poorly designed and contains some inaccurate technical information. They claim that PI network is “The First Digital Currency You Can Mine On Your Phone“, and that is not true. Some older legit crypto projects such as uPlexa (UPX) and Electroneum (ETN) are using Mobile Apps to mine crypto coins.
When you’re looking into digital cryptocurrency companies and startups, experts recommend that you confirm that they’re blockchain-powered, PrimeXBT Now which means they track detailed transaction data. in our case Pi Networks’ website dose not contain a working Blockchain explorer link, no project announcements, no technical white paper and no links to a github page.
Statements like “Better than Bitcoin” and “The real Bitcoin” has been proven over and over again to be a classic scam and its sad that people still fall for it.
Pi Network’s mobile App is also suspicious!
Pi Network’s App on Google play has a lot of fake reviews and all written written by users who only does it to spam their referral links. Yet, the app is rated 4.9 stars and has more than one million active installs and over 43k reviews!.
The App requires so many permissions
unlike any other crypto apps, the Android version of Pi Network app requires so many permissions.
Draw over other apps is incredibly dangerous, the app can easily steal passwords. It can present messages as if they’re from other apps or read those messages.
Once you install the app, you will not be able to use it without a valid invitation code. This is a live example of pyramid schemes and click baiting scam projects which are “viral social applications” that lure people with the promise of profit by recruiting more members so they can increase their mining power.
When you start the app, you will be “mining” at the rate of 0.25 Pi per hour. You will need invite a lot of your friends to increase your mining power/hashrate. The more people sign up using your affiliate code the more mining power you will get.
You need to activate the miner (app) every 24 hours. Pretty unproductive and inconvenient I would say, though you get a notification reminder to turn the miner on.
After testing it for 24 hours, i can say The Pi Network app is not a real crypto miner. Its just an airdrop app that gives you a tiny piece of a massive, but unknown amount Pi per-mined coins.
Pi Network App security issues
PI Network app is sending network packets to a third party domains “socialchain.app” and “rayjump.com”, which is a weird behavior.
https://www.thecoinspost.com/project-review-pi-network-a-new-scam-project-in-town/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jos joku kokee FOMOa kryptoista, eikä ehkä halua niitä ostella, niin tässä täsmälääkettä perusteluineen.
“Ikivanha sijoitussääntö sanoo, että ei pidä sijoittaa sellaiseen, mitä ei ymmärrä. Ymmärrän osakkeiden arvonmuodostuksen periaatteet. Enempää jännitystä elämääni en kaipaa, kuin mitä osakemarkkinat tarjoavat. Minä en ymmärrä kryptojen hintojen muodostumisen mekanismia. Enkä ymmärrä, miten kukaan muukaan voi ymmärtää. Jos tällä hetkellä omistaisin Bitcoineja, haluaisin ymmärtää johtuiko niiden viime viikon 15 prosentin kurssilasku sähkökatkosta Kiinan Xinjiangissa vai Bidenin veronkorotuspuheista. Nyt en tätä ymmärrä.”
Vesa Puttonen: Miksi en sijoita kryptovaluuttoihin
https://www.sijoitustieto.fi/sijoitusartikkelit/vesa-puttonen-miksi-en-sijoita-kryptovaluuttoihin
Bitcoinin ja muiden kryptovaluuttojen markkina-arvo nousi 2000 miljardiin dollariin. Kryptopörssi Coinbasen arvoksi muodostui listautumisen yhteydessä 75 miljardia dollaria. Jos aikaisemmin ajateltiin, että kryptovaluutat ovat pyramidihuijaus mikä ennen pitkää romahtaa, nyt näyttää siltä että ne ovat tulleet jäädäkseen. Pitäisikö niihin sitten sijoittaa?
Itse olen seurannut markkinoiden kehitystä katsomosta käsin. Mutta minuakin on innostanut kokonaan uusi teknologia, ihmisten hurmos ja nuorten kapinahenki. Opiskelijamme ovat puhuneet kryptojen louhimisesta jo monta vuotta. Osa on tehnyt hyviä voittoja myös käymällä niillä kauppaa. Kerrankin markkinoille tulee jotain täysin uutta, mikä haastaa vanhat rakenteet. Tuntuu siltä, että uusissa innovaatioissa pitäisi itsekin olla mukana ainakin hajautusmielessä.
Historiallisen mittavan keskuspankkipolitiikan mahdollistama valtioiden holtiton velkaantuminen aiheuttaa huolta fiat-rahajärjestelmän kestävyydestä. Uskallanko enää pitää rahani euroissa? Kryptovaluutat tarjoavat vaihtoehdon.
Jos ajattelen kryptovaluuttoja valuuttoina (en siis sijoituskohteena), haluaisin niiden olevan käteviä maksuliikenteessä. Samoin haluaisin niiden pitävän arvonsa ainakin lyhyellä aikavälillä. Aivan kuten perinteiset valuutat. Maksuliikenteen hoitaminen hoituu kuitenkin ainakin vielä toistaiseksi helpommin perinteisillä valuutoilla.
Vielä isompi ongelma on kryptovaluuttojen volatiliteetti. Inflaation vuoksi fiat-rahan arvo heikkenee pikkuhiljaa ajan myötä, mutta kryptovaluuttojen arvo voi helposti heiketä 10 prosenttia päivässä. Vaihdannan välineenä kryptovaluutat siis häviävät perinteiselle rahalle. Vanha rahajärjestelmä on vanha. Sen vahvuus on, että se on kestänyt monenlaiset myllerrykset maailmansodista pörssiromahduksiin. Sitä on koeteltu ja se on kestänyt.
Jos kryptovaluuttojen määrä on rajattu ja kysyntä ajaa niiden hintoja pitkässä juoksussa ylös, niitä ei kannata käyttää vaihdannan välineenä. Miksi maksaa Tesla Bitcoineilla, jos uskoo kryptovaluutan arvon nousevan?
Mihin kryptojen arvo perustuu? Samalla tavalla voi kysyä perinteisistä valuutoista. Ei niilläkään ole mitään fundamentaaliarvoa, minkä pystyisi laskemaan. Mutta ei perinteisillä valuutoilla tarvitsekaan olla, koska niiden on tarkoitus toimia vaihdannan välineenä.
Kun mietin asiaa omalta kohdaltani, huomaan kiinnostuksen varsinaisen ajurin olevan FOMO, fear of missing out. Mitä jos Bitcoinin kurssi vielä tuplaantuu? Katsomossa alkaa ahdistaa. Mutta tuplaantuuko Bitcoinin arvo? Kukaan ei voi tietää. Ja onko se juuri Bitcoin, mikä on jatkossakin kryptojen ykkönen. Bitcoinista on sanottu, että se on teknisesti vanhanaikainen. Pitäisikö sijoittaa Ethereumiin tai Dogecoiniin? Näidenkin hintoja ajaa uusien sijoittajien tulo markkinoille. Se voi ajaa kaikkien kryptojen hintoja ylös vielä paljonkin. Uudet sijoittajat maksavat vanhojen sijoittajien voitot. Mutta kun hinnanmuodostus perustuu pelkästään siihen, moniko maailman ihminen innostuu ostamaan kryptoja spekulointimielessä ja mikä krypto sattuu olemaan se muodikkain, huomaan olevani tyytyväisenä katsomossa.
Ikivanha sijoitussääntö sanoo, että ei pidä sijoittaa sellaiseen, mitä ei ymmärrä. Ymmärrän osakkeiden arvonmuodostuksen periaatteet. Enempää jännitystä elämääni en kaipaa, kuin mitä osakemarkkinat tarjoavat. Minä en ymmärrä kryptojen hintojen muodostumisen mekanismia. Enkä ymmärrä, miten kukaan muukaan voi ymmärtää. Jos tällä hetkellä omistaisin Bitcoineja, haluaisin ymmärtää johtuiko niiden viime viikon 15 prosentin kurssilasku sähkökatkosta Kiinan Xinjiangissa vai Bidenin veronkorotuspuheista. Nyt en tätä ymmärrä.
Sen sijaan ymmärrän, että en arjessani tarvitse kryptoja.
Luulen ymmärtäväni, että lohkoketjuteknologia mahdollistaa tiedon tallentamisen ja transaktioiden tekemisen tehokkaalla tavalla. Sille on monia hyviä sovellusalueita. Kryptovaluutatkin ovat tulleet jäädäkseen, ne eivät kokonaan häviä mihinkään. Olen iloinen jokaisen kryptoilla vaurastuvan puolesta, mutta minä en niihin sijoita. Toivon, että jokainen niille markkinoille lähtevä tunnistaa markkinoihin liittyvät riskit ja osaa kohdallaan analysoida, miksi on näille markkinoille lähtenyt. Havitteluun eli spekulointiin perustuvissa markkinoissa on yleensä se piirre, että jos hinnat voivat nopeasti nousta, ne voivat myös nopeasti laskea.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.sijoitustieto.fi/sijoitusartikkelit/vesa-puttonen-miksi-en-sijoita-kryptovaluuttoihin
Tomi Engdahl says:
Blockchains Were Supposed to Be “Unhackable.” Now They’re Getting Hacked.
https://futurism.com/blockchains-unhackable-getting-hacked
Until recently, blockchains were seen as an “unhackable” technology powering and securing cryptocurrencies — but that’s no longer the case.
Hackers have gotten away with nearly $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency since 2017 by attacking the unique vulnerabilities of blockchains, MIT Technology Review reports. In other words, forget what you heard from Bitcoin boosters — just because information or currency is on a blockchain doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s more secure than any other form of storage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why does this need to be decentralized?
Anyway, decentralized ledger tech has proven it is great at creating speculative investment assets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Are cryptocurrencies a cybersecurity threat?
How to Start Disrupting Cryptocurrencies: “Mining” Is Money Transmission
https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-start-disrupting-cryptocurrencies-mining-money-transmission
Bitcoin arrived on the scene just two years after the iPhone, and in that time it has helped facilitate a whole lot of bad things. All cryptocurrency assets, not just Bitcoin, are zero sum. So every dollar “made” in cryptocurrency was simply provided by someone else. And any volatile cryptocurrency, Bitcoin included, will always be inferior for legal payments.
Now, with the rise of “big-game ransomware,” it is time to explore different methods that different governments, including the U.S. and others, can use to disrupt the Bitcoin and larger cryptocurrency ecosystem. There is no silver bullet, but there are a lot of things that can throw sand in the gears, degrading Bitcoin and other systems into unusability.
One avenue rests on an observation that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency “miners” aren’t just creating new cryptocurrency or securing the network. They are also specifically acting as money transmitters and need to be treated that way.
Why this is the case requires a discussion of how Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are processed and secured by the miners.
FinCEN and other regulators would, without hesitation, call the winning stone carver a money transmitter—someone who accepts currency (or a substitute) from one person and transfers it to another, regardless of the means used. He processed the check, ensured that it was valid, and then recorded the check to transfer the money from your account to mine. As a money transmitter, the stone carver has a large number of legal obligations designed to prevent misuse of his services. A cryptocurrency “miner” is no different.
Cryptocurrencies all start with the same basic concept: a public ledger of all confirmed checks and a method by which the miners add to the ledger. The biggest difference between this “blockchain” and our pile of stone tablets is the nature of how the accounts are identified and the mechanism of determining the “winning” tablet.
Our village tablets have names, but the cryptocurrencies identify accounts by their public key—effectively a very big random number, and anyone can create as many public keys as they want. It isn’t a matter of making sure that “bitcoin doesn’t become the equivalent of Swiss-numbered bank accounts”: Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies only consist of “Swiss-numbered bank accounts”!
Miners first have to make sure that each check they consider is valid and that the sending account has sufficient funds. Miners then choose from the set of valid checks they want to include and collect them together in a “block.”
This block contains two more pieces of information: a pointer to the previous block (uniquely identified by a cryptographic hash, thus the “blockchain”) and an additional check saying “pay the miner’s numbered account the mining reward and any transaction fees.” Now the miner checks if the block would be valid, based on the particular lottery scheme the cryptocurrency employs. If not, the miner tweaks the block slightly and tries again, repeatedly generating and checking to see if the block matches the requirements.
The details of the lottery vary. Bitcoin and Ethereum use a scheme called “proof of work,” which requires simply trying until a miner gets lucky. Other cryptocurrencies use “proof of stake,” where the probability of winning the lottery depends on the amount of cryptocurrency the miner already has, sort of a “he who has the gold enforces the rules” scheme.
Eventually one miner gets lucky, becoming a “block creator” with a new block that meets the rules according to the cryptocurrency’s underlying scheme. That block is then broadcast to the world, confirming the included checks and updating everyone’s balances. Now all the miners start working on the next block with all the remaining and any new unconfirmed checks.
During this process the miners are making active decisions on which checks to include. Not only do the miners have to make sure checks are valid, but they also have to make numerous choices beyond this, usually focused on maximizing revenue by selecting the checks that provide the highest fee to the miner. So a miner who creates a block is explicitly making decisions about which transactions to confirm. This successful miner, like our village stonecarver, is a money transmitter.
And these miners are transmitting a lot of value. Let us examine a single Bitcoin block—the newest block when I wrote this paragraph. In this block the miner, “F2Pool,” confirmed 2,644 transactions representing a notional value of $1.6 billion. Of course many of these transactions are simply noise (the Bitcoin blockchain is notorious for transactions that do not represent real transactions), but even the “small” transactions represent several hundred dollars moving between pseudonymous numbered accounts. And each and every one of them was processed, validated, selected and recorded by this one mining pool.
The cryptocurrency community remarks that the mining system is “decentralized”—that is, because there are many participants, this implies that no single participant is responsible. Yet because every given transaction is validated by the winning block creator, that winning miner is the money transmitter for that transaction. Additionally, due to pooling, the mining process inevitably centralizes into the hands of a few actors: 75 percent of all Bitcoin transactions are validated by one of just seven mining pools, and a similar phenomenon is seen in the other currencies, no matter what scheme they use.
So not only does “decentralization” not absolve the winning block creator of responsibility for being a money transmitter, but also only a few actual block creators are doing most of the money transmission for Bitcoin and most other cryptocurrencies. So if we call a spade a spade, and a cryptocurrency miner a money transmitter, what does that mean?
Right now the FinCEN guidance on money transmission and virtual currencies is pretty clear: Whether or not a person is a “miner” or “creator” has no bearing on whether they are just a “user” (not affected by the Bank Secrecy Act), an administrator or an exchanger.
Using the cryptocurrency you mine is not acting as a money transmitter (in that case you are a user), nor is distributing the proceeds internally in a mining pool. But FinCEN’s current guidance never connected the dots: The miners are the money transmitters in a cryptocurrency system because they are validating the transactions.
The legal questions here are complicated and beyond the scope of this post, but here I’ll propose what I see as the ideal, if perhaps ambitious, policy fix: In an ideal world, FinCEN would issue a new guidance statement establishing that cryptocurrency miners who act to validate third-party transactions are money transmitters.
What would treating mining as money transfer mean? For U.S.-based mining pools, it is impossible for them to function in their current form. They simply are incapable of performing the anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer (AML/KYC) required of money transmitters on the transactions they validate. After all, you can’t do AML/KYC on every Swiss numbered account. Instead, any U.S.-based mining pools would need to make a list of allowed wallets and validate only those transactions.
During the month of May, Marathon used a risk-scoring method to select transactions, intending to create Bitcoin blocks untainted by money laundering or other criminal activity. Yet they stopped doing this because the larger Bitcoin community objects to the idea of attempting to restrict Bitcoin to legal uses!
Treating mining as money transfer might also affect participants in mining pools. The pool itself decides which transactions to approve and just provides a stub for various miners to try to find a lucky winner. When an individual miner gets lucky, it sends the result to the pool and the pool subsequently distributes the revenue among the participants. Although the FinCEN guidance says that renting out computer services for mining is not acting as a money transmitter, the use of U.S. resources would bring a foreign mining pool with U.S. participants under the cover of U.S. law.
This basic observation—that cryptocurrency miners, no matter the cryptocurrency itself, are money transmitters and should be treated as such—would effectively outlaw Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrency mining in most of the world. And some nations that generally don’t follow FinCEN’s model, notably Iran and China, are cracking down on Bitcoin mining because it poses both a local money-laundering threat and an obscene waste of energy.
Making cryptocurrency mining illegal won’t stop all mining, but it will seriously disrupt it. Bitcoin mining is not a small activity from a physical standpoint, a power load standpoint or a network standpoint. If the countries around the world address cryptocurrency mining as the security risk it is—after all, even the roguest of rogue states wants to limit money laundering that isn’t in their interest—hopefully this can reduce the cryptocurrency problem.
Additionally, Bitcoin and other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies have a security weakness: The system is secure only as long as there is a lot of continuously wasted effort. If the available mining drops precipitously, this enables attackers to rewrite history (a rewriting process that, if it only removes transactions, is arguably not a money transmitter). I’m certain ransomware victims and their insurers would pay $1 million to a service that would undo a $5 million payment.
It is time to seriously disrupt the cryptocurrency ecology. Directly attacking mining as incompatible with the Bank Secrecy Act is one potentially powerful tool.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Blockchain Can Solve the Growing E-Waste Problem
https://innovate.ieee.org/innovation-spotlight/how-blockchain-can-solve-the-growing-e-waste-problem/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/what-is-blockchain/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bitcoin power plant is turning a 12, 000-year-old glacial lake into a hot tub https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/bitcoin-power-plant-is-turning-a-12000-year-old-glacial-lake-into-a-hot-tub/
The fossil fuel power plant that a private equity firm revived to mine bitcoin is at it again. Not content to just pollute the atmosphere in pursuit of a volatile crypto asset with little real-world utility, this experiment in free marketeering is also dumping tens of millions of gallons of hot water into glacial Seneca Lake in upstate New York.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Backblaze has investigated whether it could make money mining Chia with its spare capacity. The company doesn’t think its own odds are very good.
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/324578-even-backup-storage-provider-backblaze-cant-make-money-farming-chia?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientist Invents Toilet That Turns Human Feces Into Cryptocurrency
https://futurism.com/the-byte/toilet-poop-green-energy
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fake Walmart press release causes cryptocurrency price surge https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/hotforsecurity/fake-walmart-press-release-causes-cryptocurrency-price-surge/
The cryptocurrency Litecoin soared in value earlier this week upon the news that supermarket giant Walmart would accept it as a form of payment at its retail stores across America. The only problem was…
it simply wasn’t true.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
China’s central bank says all cryptocurrency-related activities are prohibited and overseas crypto exchanges providing services in mainland China are illegal — – The People’s Bank of China said services offering trading, order matching, token issuance and derivatives for virtual currencies are strictly prohibited.
China’s central bank says all cryptocurrency-related activities are illegal, vows harsh crackdown
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/24/china-central-bank-vows-harsh-crackdown-on-cryptocurrency-industry.html
The People’s Bank of China said services offering trading, order matching, token issuance and derivatives for virtual currencies are strictly prohibited.
Overseas cryptocurrency exchanges providing services in mainland China are also illegal, the PBOC said.
It’s not the first time China has gotten tough on cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, Beijing announced a crackdown on crypto mining.
China’s central bank renewed its tough talk on bitcoin Friday, calling all digital currency activities illegal and vowing to crack down on the market.
In a Q&A posted to its website, the People’s Bank of China said services offering trading, order matching, token issuance and derivatives for virtual currencies are strictly prohibited. Overseas crypto exchanges providing services in mainland China are also illegal, the PBOC said.
“Overseas virtual currency exchanges that use the internet to offer services to domestic residents is also considered illegal financial activity,” the PBOC said, according to a CNBC translation of the comments. Workers of foreign crypto exchanges will be investigated, it added.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried built a $22.5 billion fortune at age 29 by profiting off the cryptocurrency frenzy – but he’s not a true believer. He just wants his wealth to survive long enough to give it all away http://on.forbes.com/6183JHanv #Forbes400
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenehrlich/2021/10/06/the-richest-under-30-in-the-world-all-thanks-to-crypto/?sh=5d00f13f4d97&utm_source=FBPAGE&utm_medium=social&utm_content=5658583440&utm_campaign=sprinklrForbesMainFB
Tomi Engdahl says:
The memecoin launched on October 26 and had no affiliation with the popular Netflix show – the first red flag. Those who attempted to profit off the latest cryptocurrency fad — $SQUID, a memecoin inspired by the No. 1 Netflix show — saw their investments plunge to $0 after the coin’s creators disappeared with $3.38 million.
‘Squid Game’ Cryptocurrency Collapses, Scammers Vanish With Millions
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.entrepreneur.com%2Farticle%2F394810&h=AT3gOqrIEHSsG8BQ_uqAhundH5pJbqLf7LxF8ZhjlBT1aJ7QwbafQwCbaqvbDzA8HaCv093gUExCgjXBVLvy0vAIX1K4BxHWrbnSolZ1T9lPCZvKFflwhF4dOiVRkVDCu2oLxpbLc0q8ZKMUMg
The buzzy memecoin was never actually affiliated with the Netflix show — the first red flag. But there were other signs something was amiss. The creators locked investors’ liquidity for a certain period of time, meaning that once people bought, they couldn’t sell. The coin’s whitepaper claimed that the limitation was part of an “anti-dump” protocol that would fuel $SQUID’s growth.
Other causes for concern included a three-week-old website riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, a Telegram channel that didn’t accept comments from the public and a Twitter account that didn’t allow people to reply to posts.
Despite its suspicious cicumstances, the coin did see explosive growth — peaking at $2,861, per CoinMarketCap. Of course, that came to an end when the anonymous scammers drained the project’s fund and disappeared in a move the crypto community refers to as a “rug pull.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/394810
Tomi Engdahl says:
Squid Game crypto plunges to $0 as apparent scam steals millions of dollars from investors
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fbusiness%2Fnews%2Fsquid-game-cryptocurrency-scam-price-b1949609.html%3Futm_content%3DEchobox%26utm_medium%3DSocial%26utm_source%3DFacebook%23Echobox%3D1635847055&h=AT1XrNRVo_SkpEJt3qQZ7kClI06j9bBnt6su6t1InwPejYTbNtJjNCH9suFscKJosKeAtjqVHEsiAEjMbBlCRMdQd2V2rYPeU0mBska_cf1ifU8r8rjIL8rK_zW7cppRcOjp619WaZGSlsZztA
Cryptocurrency’s website, white paper and social media accounts vanish as creators make off with $2.1m
A Squid Game-inspired cryptocurrency is now worth nothing just a day after its value had surged by more than 45,000 per cent.
The Squid cryptocurrency, based on the hit Netflix show, nosedived to $0 on Monday after it was reported that it could be an alleged scam. At its peak on Sunday, the Squid crypto token was valued at $2,856 (£2,090).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg:
Celebrity NFTs from Grimes, A$AP Rocky, John Cena, and others have dropped significantly in value, leaving some buyers with large losses
Celebrity NFTs Risk ‘Catastrophic failure.’ Just Ask John Cena
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-15/nfts-by-celebrities-like-grimes-john-cena-and-a-ap-rocky-fall-in-value
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nft-huumalle tylytystä Pirate Bayta ihannoiva projekti sisältää 15 teratavua kuvia https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/tv/16324a12-6c42-4b68-9d58-fe623b4f6a5e
Non-fungible tokenit eli nft:t ovat olleet suuressa huudossa tänä vuonna. Näitä digitaalisia keräilykohteita on myyty jopa kymmenillä miljoonilla ja kuplimista on ollut havaittavissa. Hienoisena vastaiskuna tälle huumalle on synnytetty The NFT Bay, joka on samalla myös kunnianosoitus tunnetulle piratismisivu Pirate Baylle. Nft Bayn kuvauksessa jäljitellään Pirate Bayn ulkoasua ja kysytään seuraavaa:
“Tiesitkö, että nft on vain hyperlinkki kuvaan, joka on yleensä tallennettu Google Driveen tai muulle web 2.0 -alustalle?”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://futurism.com/person-furious-right-click-saved-precious-nft
Tomi Engdahl says:
CRYPTO ALERT: Serious Fed warning issued over #Bitcoin https://trib.al/1ChXzH2
Tomi Engdahl says:
Really stupid “smart contract” bug let hackers steal $31 million in digital coin
Company says it has contacted the hacker in an attempt to recover the funds. Good luck.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/12/hackers-drain-31-million-from-cryptocurrency-service-monox-finance/
Blockchain startup MonoX Finance said on Wednesday that a hacker stole $31 million by exploiting a bug in software the service uses to draft smart contracts.
The company uses a decentralized finance protocol known as MonoX that lets users trade digital currency tokens without some of the requirements of traditional exchanges. “Project owners can list their tokens without the burden of capital requirements and focus on using funds for building the project instead of providing liquidity,” MonoX company representatives say here. “It works by grouping deposited tokens into a virtual pair with vCASH, to offer a single token pool design.”
An accounting error built into the company’s software let an attacker inflate the price of the MONO token and to then use it to cash out all the other deposited tokens, MonoX Finance revealed in a post. The haul amounted to $31 million worth of tokens on the Ethereum or Polygon blockchains, both of which are supported by the MonoX protocol.
Exploit: Post Mortem
https://medium.com/monoswap/exploit-post-mortem-33921a779b43
MONO Family. It’s with a heavy heart that we are writing such an update.
The past 24 hours have been difficult, and we’re simply at a loss for words. No apologies and no amount of words can describe how the team has been feeling since the attack transpired. We started building over a year ago with a mission to make DeFi more accessible to users and projects.
How the attack happened
The exploit was caused by a smart contract bug that allows the sold and bought token to be the same. In the case of the attack, it was our native MONO token. When a swap was taking place and tokenIn was the same as tokenOut, the transaction was permitted by the contract.
Any price updates from swap from tokenIn and tokenOut were independently verified by the contract. With tokenOut being verified last, this caused a massive price appreciation of MONO. The attacker then used the highly priced MONO to purchase all the other assets in our pool and drained the funds.
The attack was completed through a script, and was highly organized.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Parody:
Lakers Fans Frustrated With Volatile Hot Dog Prices In Crypto.Com Arena
https://www.theonion.com/lakers-fans-frustrated-with-volatile-hot-dog-prices-in-1848180035
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nyt tuli ehkä paras Doom-mukaelma koskaan? Nft-taiteelle tehdään julmia
26.12.202115:27
Nft-taiteelle annetaan kunnolla kyytiä.
https://www.mikrobitti.fi/uutiset/nyt-tuli-ehka-paras-doom-mukaelma-koskaan-nft-taiteelle-tehdaan-julmia/c4fda6c3-d1a1-42a5-b23a-794569318f92
Nft-teokset ovat vaihtaneet omistajaa kuluneen vuoden aikana varsin hurjilla summilla. Rahapinot eivät ole jääneet huomaamatta isoilta pelitaloilta, jotka ovatkin väläytelleet visioita, joissa peleihin tuotaisiin nft-elementtejä.
Mikäli mauttomat nft-teokset käyvät hermoillesi, voit nyt hyökätä niiden kimppuun kameran kanssa aseistautuneena. NFT Doom on legendaarisen Doom-pelin mukaelma, jossa annetaan kyytiä kokonaiselle taidekokoelmalle, PC Gamer kirjoittaa.
Tulituksen kohteena ovat Bored Ape Yacht Clubin apinateokset, joista on hyvää vauhtia muodostunut koko nft-huuman yksi näkyvimmistä ilmiöistä. Kyseisiä kädellisiä kun on kaupattu varsin huikeilla summilla.
NFT Doom irvailee koko nft:n perusajatukselle, sillä pelissä napsitaan kirjaimellisesti ruutukaappauksia vastaan vyöryvistä nft-apinoista. Samalla jokaisen ”tapon” jälkeen ilmaan haihtuu koomisen iso summa dollareita.
Right-click and tear through this Doom NFT mod
https://www.pcgamer.com/right-click-and-tear-through-this-doom-nft-mod/
You’ve seen them. I’ve seen them. We’ve all seen those hideous NFT apes litter our social media feeds, disgusting in their smug boredom. Now, a Doom mod will let you take the fight to the monkeys, tanking their value from behind the barrel of a double-barelled camera.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Talal Ansari / Wall Street Journal:
Celebrities including Kim Kardashian are being sued in a class action suit for allegedly leading investors into an EthereumMax cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scam — Lawsuit alleges celebrities made false or misleading statements to investors about EthereumMax; company disputes allegations
Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Others Sued Over Cryptocurrency Promotion
Lawsuit alleges celebrities made false or misleading statements to investors about EthereumMax; company disputes allegations
https://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-kardashian-floyd-mayweather-jr-others-sued-over-cryptocurrency-promotion-11641946154?mod=djemalertNEWS
Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather Jr. , and Paul Pierce are among a number of celebrities being sued for allegedly leading investors into a cryptocurrency “pump and dump” scam.
The celebrities and other defendants are accused of making “false or misleading statements to investors about EthereumMax through social media advertisements and other promotional activities,” according to the class-action complaint filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. In addition to the three celebrities, defendants include the co-founders of the company and others.
The lawsuit alleges EthereumMax is a “speculative digital token created by a mysterious group of cryptocurrency developers.” It says the celebrities told their millions of social-media followers to buy the cryptocurrency, only to sell when the price was inflated.
EthereumMax disputed the allegations. “The deceptive narrative associated with the recent allegations is riddled with misinformation,” a company spokesman said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
We Infiltrated a Crypto Scam Network That’s Hosted by Meta
After we notified the company of the scam, we spent the weekend watching live as users lost money in group conversations on Messenger.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/01/17/crypto-scam-facebook-messenger/
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Anyone who claims that bitcoin is a hedge against anything, financial or otherwise, is a certified fraud.”
‘Black Swan’ author Nassim Taleb compared bitcoin to a disease, called it a speculative bubble, and said it was worthless. Here are 8 of his best tweets about the crypto.
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftrib.al%2F57ApXbw&h=AT1o6KJ36vWVvb6iMPByp401gpcwL5zvJt0yidUEcZr0AaKZ-f2ZzbtSGGKZuHi-e59y51uWYVHmgzV1G2_J8IyyYIeA_8tx9Nfk3-US_msaxb-O5dcLIt5Sb6Sv5SGckA
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.facebook.com/126055564125432/posts/4936562066408067/
..the same Nassim Taleb who wrote the foreword of the bitcoin standard in which he called Bitcoin an excellent idea, it has a track record of several years, enough for it to be an animal in its own right, ….its mere existence is an insurance policy that will remind governments that the last object the establishment could control, namely the currency, is no longer their monopoly. This gives us, the crowd, an insurance policy against an Orwellian future.
He is absolutely right! some points against Bitcoin (P.S. blockchain as a technology is here to stay and will transform how we use information)
1. Bitcoin cannot be inflation hedge since Bitcoin is valued at the same “FIAT” currency that so called Bitcoin experts call out.
2. The day Bitcoin or another crypto gets hacked, which it will with the technological development, all the Bitcoin gurus will run to the exit
3. Crypto whales will be the first to exit with suckers flocking in with “buy the dip” and “HODL” chants to eventually loose their pants and blame the govt.
I rest my case… look at the signs, be mindful and watch your money… I am not against progress but common sense prevails, always has and will be.
It’s not a good store of value, because it’s not stable.
Because it’s unstable:
- It’s not a viable currency. After all, what business wants to risk losing the value of their sale the day after they made it?
- It’s not a hedge against inflation. We are currently in an inflationary period and it’s tanking in price.
It’s a“get rich” “pump and dump” scheme that relies on crashes, caused by profit takers, to quickly deflate the price and snare a new crop of starry eyed dreamers who believe they will be the next ones to get rich quick.
Well, he is correct with a quote above. Speculative volatile asset cannot be a hedge, it’s a gamble. Doesn’t mean someone cannot get rich in it (as well as bankrupt).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gaming YouTubers have had their likenesses stolen and sold as NFTs
https://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eurogamer.net%2Farticles%2F2022-01-17-gaming-youtubers-have-had-their-likenesses-stolen-and-sold-as-nfts&h=AT0pMuOdFQL9AzYUrjhMUUqVQ2O_OKKp3Iun2HzQ6sHzdamxhdOq9llVxvPI86kVL7nk67tkJ8dGbRoKl7XyMSV5HEpqqt4_JtBCUnKww_jcCeUI2qMM_aMwGglCVuoxcQ
Alanah Pearce, James Stephanie Sterling and Caddicarus have so far been victims.
Gaming YouTubers have had their likenesses stolen and turned into NFTs.
The NFTs cropped up on auction site OpenSea, including an image of the content creator and a unique URL for the cards that’s merely the YouTube channel address.
The user StakeTheWeb appears to be making NFTs of influencers across social media, including gaming YouTubers James Stephanie Sterling and Caddicarus who tweeted their disapproval.
“Shilling off a profile picture for a collection you can just make yourself on a Facebook photo album is honestly a new level of pathetic,” said Caddicarus.
“Frankly not surprised that some freeloading leech turned my channel into an NFT,” said Sterling.
“As gross as it is, I find it justifying – I did not consent to this, I do not want this, and it demonstrates everything I’ve said about how disrespectful and exploitative this market is. Scum.”
Not only is this practice theft, creator and writer at Sony Santa Monica Alanah Pearce has had her image used in pornography by a different user on the platform.
“In extremely predictable news I’ve just been informed that somebody has taken an image of me, that *I* own, added a trademarked porn logo to it, and ‘minted’ it to sell for profit as an NFT. Naturally, I was not asked for permission,” said Pearce on Twitter.
“I cannot wait for the lawsuits”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Indonesian student makes $1 million selling his own NFT selfies
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/indonesian-student-1-million-nft-selfies-034139995.html?utm_source=Content&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Facebook&utm_term=Finance&ncid=facebook_facebook_eh9qzvxamj0&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cDovL20uZmFjZWJvb2suY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJtzfMk3en4wJ86HgkE29Y3pJViWRyT-l9cwdt0CFlzo2O_4YhTXolryfCosD1mBC2L7xwXAesTHD7U3mIv4Ok16nDTDMPLp47Rklu6EAtUvLHr26hbhm1W3vHRwZ3qM-MfUl7YazY7xiHgXIpATdUq1p6X3U0TVg0ptARhbl3gP
A 22-year-old university student from Indonesia has become an overnight internet sensation after turning a personal selfie project into a major profit.
Ghozali Ghozalu converted and sold 1,000 selfies as non fungible tokens (NFTs) on the OpenSea NFT marketplace, making himself a millionaire in the process.
Tomi Engdahl says:
#NFT artists around the world contacted by Forbes say they’re wary of Meta’s gambit for a number of reasons. https://trib.al/1oy7NwH
Tomi Engdahl says:
If NFTs Were Honest | Honest Ads (Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, CloneX Parody)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sG_v4bb2e4k
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Gold Cube Worth Millions Displayed In Central Park Is Getting Roasted On Twitter
The meaning behind the 24-karat “Castello Cube” art installation isn’t very cryptic — it’s a promo for a new cryptocurrency.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gold-cube-cryptocurrency_n_61fc1103e4b06abdc42ce684
Tomi Engdahl says:
If Only There Was Some Way For Game Companies To Know NFTs Were Bad Before The Backlash
BY STACEY HENLEY
PUBLISHED FEB 02, 2022
Team17, Stalker, and Troy Baker all quickly backed out on NFTs after backlash – if only there was some for them to know what people thought beforehand
https://www.thegamer.com/nft-backlash-team17-worms-stalker-ubisoft-quartz-square-enix-troy-baker/
Team17, publishers of Worms, Overcooked, and Aggro Crab, recently decided to get into the NFT racket. Even more recently, it decided to pull out of this racket after discovering that everyone hates NFTs and also they suck. It took around 24 hours for the complete flip flop, around the same time the Stalker 2 team decided to go back on its decision to include NFTs. Troy Baker, who tried to offset criticism of his own NFT partnership by calling critics “haters” in the announcement, took a little longer, but eventually backed out too and apologised for the haters remark. Why does this keep happening?
Ubisoft Celebrated Its Employees’ Hard Work By Giving Them NFTs
https://www.thegamer.com/ubisoft-gave-employees-ghost-recon-nft/
Thank you for your dedication and hard work. Here’s a jpeg.
You’d think Ubisoft would have learnt something with the number of video game companies announcing and immediately retracting their interest in NFTs. That’s not the case though – in fact Ubisoft exec, Nicolas Pouard, claims we just “don’t get it”. But it’s not just our knowledge and opinions that Ubisoft has brushed aside, it has done the same for its employees as well.
As reported by Kotaku, Ubisoft recently held an internal workshop to address employee concerns regarding the company’s venture into NFTs. At the same time – as a celebration for the 20th anniversary of the Ghost Recon franchise – the company also started giving out NFTs to employees. While this seems like a sound strategy to convince someone to try out a new candybar, it’s doubtful that it will work for something that most of the video game industry and players have been vocaly against.
Tomi Engdahl says:
70 Percent Of Game Developers Aren’t Interested In NFTs
https://www.thegamer.com/nft-game-developers-not-interested/
Ubisoft, Square Enix, and even Konami are getting into NFTs so it’s easy to fall into an echo chamber where it looks like that’s where game development is going. But according to a new survey, 70 percent of game developers aren’t interested in NFTs.
The Game Developers Conference’s annual State of the Game Industry Report asked 2,700 developers about their studios’ interest in NFTs (thanks, VGC). 70 percent said “not interested”, 21 percent said “somewhat interested”, seven percent said “very interested”, and one percent said they were already developing NFT projects.