Crypto_NFT

2022-10-01 16:54:45 ​​YouTube blogger Yan Balina opened a fundraiser to “fight the SEC”

Crypto investor and YouTube blogger Yan Balina launched a fundraiser on the GoFundMe platform to fund the “fight” with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

According to the report, Balina intends "on behalf of the entire crypto community" to speak out against the abuses of the regulator. In particular, he attributed the extended definition of the term "security" to the latter.

In three days, the blogger raised $1,192 out of a target amount of $25,000.

At the end of September, the SEC accused Balina of involvement in the unregistered Sparkster ICO. The commission also noted that transactions on the blogger's Ethereum wallet were processed by nodes in the United States and, accordingly, were made in the jurisdiction of the regulator.

The incident angered the cryptocurrency community. Cinneamhain Ventures partner Adam Cochran called the SEC's actions "unacceptable."

Balina himself noted that the "frivolous accusation" of the Commission sets a bad precedent for the entire crypto industry.

In September, LBRY CEO Jeremy Kaufman announced the SEC's desire to "harm or destroy the U.S. cryptocurrency industry."

Prior to this, the Commission was criticized by billionaire Mark Cuban, and the head of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, reproached the agency for using a coercive approach instead of working on clear rules.

In July, Rep. Tom Emmer accused the SEC of "unethical treatment" of industry participants and called the regulator's actions "absolutely unacceptable." Open / Comment

2022-10-01 16:46:41 ​​Rare NFT from the CryptoPunks collection sold for $4.4 million

An unknown person purchased a CryptoPunk #2924 non-fungible token (NFT) for 3,300 ETH (more than $4.4 million at the time of the transaction).

Despite the bear market, the deal was the fourth-highest in ETH and tenth-highest in USD value in the history of the collection, according to CryptoSlam.

In 2017, the Larva Labs team launched the CryptoPunks collection of 10,000 24x24 pixel NFT images. Initially, many of the project's non-fungible tokens were distributed for free.

Earlier, the Doodles NFT project raised $54 million from the venture capital company Seven Seven Six of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

The volume of non-fungible tokens issued on Solana exceeded 300,000. Open / Comment

2022-10-01 16:37:51 ​​BitMEX CEO noted the continued interest of institutionalists in cryptocurrencies

The head of the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange, Alexander Hoptner, told Cointelegraph during the Token2049 conference that he does not see a decrease in institutional interest in the digital asset industry.

According to him, large investors choose innovative industries during the bear market. Periods of bullish growth force them to make hasty decisions, which is difficult for large companies.

Hoptner also noted institutional interest in Ethereum following the transition of its network to the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm as part of The Merge update. Now the blockchain of the second cryptocurrency in terms of capitalization complies with the principles of EGS, he noted.

BitMEX CEO predicted the price of Ethereum to rise to $3,000 by the end of 2022. At the time of writing, the asset is trading at $1,300, according to CoinGecko.

In September, State Street analysts found that institutional investors retained their interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies despite the bear market. Open / Comment

2022-09-30 17:18:11 ​​The US will limit the use of facial recognition systems by police

A group of U.S. congressmen has introduced a bill to limit the use of facial recognition technology by police in the United States.

The Facial Recognition Act would oblige law enforcement to obtain a court order. Police officers must first provide solid evidence of a crime before launching the technology indefinitely in an investigation, the authors say.

The bill establishes a list of situations where it is permissible to use facial recognition. These include immigration control, peaceful protests, or the identification of a criminal suspect.

The act will also require law enforcement to annually test facial recognition systems and provide public reports on their use. The police will be required to clear the database of photographs of children who have been acquitted or released without charge.

According to Ted Liu, member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California, the main goal of the initiative is to protect the privacy of Americans from imperfect, unregulated, and sometimes discriminatory technologies.

"Our bill is a workable solution that limits the use of [facial recognition systems] by law enforcement to a court order showing the probable cause of a person committing a serious violent crime," the congressman added.

The initiative has received support from activist groups and related organizations. Boston University law professor Woodrow Hartzog praised the bill for strengthening basic rules and protecting Americans, "without preempting stronger restrictions elsewhere."

In August, the US Federal Trade Commission launched a procedure to regulate surveillance technologies, algorithms, and data security.

In February, Congressmen introduced an updated bill to regulate discriminatory AI in areas such as finance, health care, housing, and education.

In April 2021, Senator Ron Wyden proposed legislation to ban facial recognition systems like Clearview AI. Open / Comment

2022-09-30 17:14:51 ​​Uniswap Labs to Raise $100M to $200M

The Uniswap Labs team is in the early stages of negotiations to raise between $100 million and $200 million at a ~$1 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to them, Polychain and an unnamed Singapore sovereign wealth fund are showing interest in participating in the investment round.

Conditions may change.

The proceeds will be used to expand the product line.

“Our mission is to enable universal ownership and sharing,” said COO Uniswap Mary-Katherine Lader.

In August, Uniswap's ($38 billion) share of the DEX sector was 70%. The volume of concluded deals has exceeded $1 trillion since its launch in 2018.

In August 2020, the decentralized exchange team raised $11 million.

Previously, the developers requested $74 million from the community to create the Uniswap Foundation in order to support the growth of the decentralized exchange.

In August 2022, Scott Lewis, head of NFT products at Uniswap Labs, announced the platform's interest in lending based on non-fungible tokens.

In June, representatives of the DEX announced the purchase of Genie, an NFT aggregator marketplace.

In April, Uniswap Labs launched a venture arm to invest in Web3. Open / Comment

2022-09-30 17:11:22 ​​Sam Bankman-Fried was interested in participating in the takeover of Twitter

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was "potentially interested" in funding Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter. This is stated in internal documents for the court.

Initially posted by Insider, the documents were later published by New York Times reporter Kate Conger. According to the publication, FTX CEO advisor Will MacAskill tried to arrange a meeting between Musk and Bankman-Freed back in March.

According to media reports, the latter was allegedly ready to invest $8-$15 billion. Subsequently, the amount was adjusted to $5 billion.

In early April, Musk became Twitter's largest shareholder after acquiring a 9.2% stake for $2.89 billion.

On April 14, he offered to buy the social network for more than $43 billion. The entrepreneur explained this by his intention to create an “inclusive arena for freedom of speech,” and not by a desire to make money.

Twitter management did not initially evaluate the proposal and approved the takeover defense plan. However, it later revised its position, approving a $44 billion deal. Financial documents dated May 4 did not include the name of the head of FTX or companies affiliated with him.

On May 13, the head of Tesla announced the suspension of the deal to acquire Twitter after the media reported that the platform's audience figures were inflated. He also accused social network algorithms of manipulating users.

Twitter shareholders are suing Musk over a "chaotic" takeover process. The latter also filed a claim against the billionaire, demanding that he fulfill his obligations and complete the purchase.

On July 29, the businessman filed a counterclaim. At the same time, he said that he was ready to conclude a deal on the original terms if Twitter disclosed the method of sampling 100 accounts and the method of confirming their authenticity.

In early August, Twitter lawyers sued a division of Binance because of the funding allocated to it for the takeover of the social network by Elon Musk. The agenda was also received by financial advisers, investors and potential creditors of the businessman. Open / Comment

2022-09-29 10:25:19 ​​Bitcoin mining difficulty drops for the first time since July

As a result of the next recalculation, the difficulty of mining the first cryptocurrency decreased by 2.14%, to 31.36 T. The indicator showed a negative trend for the first time since July 21, 2022.

The average network hashrate for the period between the last adjustments of the indicator was 224 EH / s. According to Glassnode, the total computing power of the Bitcoin blockchain (smoothed by the 7-day moving average) reached 222 EH/S as of September 27th.

In mid-July, the difficulty of mining the first cryptocurrency decreased to 27.69 T, ​​which was the maximum reduction since the beginning of the year.

In the future, the indicator showed a positive trend. At the end of August, the difficulty increased immediately by 9.26%, and on September 14 it reached a record high of 31.05 T.

In the context of mining pools, Foundry USA remains the leader in terms of the share of the network hashrate - 26.06%. It is followed in the ranking by AntPool (18.24%) and F2Pool (17.06%).

In September, Arcane Research analysts found that the vast majority of public mining companies suffered losses due to the crypto winter.

In June, experts stated that the profitability of bitcoin mining fell to 2020 levels. Later they came to the conclusion that public companies in the industry remain financially stable despite adverse market conditions. Open / Comment

2022-09-29 10:22:38 ​​Safe platform airdrops SAFE governance token

Digital asset management platform Safe (formerly Gnosis Safe) airdropped the SAFE token as part of its transition to a decentralized governance model.

Among 43,000 users, 2.5% (about 25 million SAFE) of the total number of tokens were distributed. They will receive another 2.5% within four years as part of the vesting.

Other recipients of shares in the form of SAFE were:

- 15% are core developers;
- 15% - Safe Foundation;
- 60% - SafeDAO and GnosisDAO treasuries;
- 5% - ecosystem projects.

The main goals of the airdrop were to reward the most active users and decentralize the management of Safe.

In July the platform rebranded into Safe and raised $100 million in a round of strategic financing. Open / Comment

2022-09-29 10:20:13 ​​Terraform Labs Calls Do Kwon's Investigation "Politicized"

Terraform Labs (TFL) accused the South Korean prosecutor's office of abuse of power. In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, a company representative emphasized that the LUNA digital asset is not de jure a security, and therefore is not subject to relevant legislation.

“We believe that the case is highly politicized, and the actions of the Korean prosecutors demonstrate an injustice and a failure to uphold the fundamental rights guaranteed by South Korean law,” the TFL said.

Terraform Labs suggested that prosecutors expanded the definition of a security in response to public pressure.

In September 2022, a South Korean court issued an arrest warrant for CEO Do Kwon and five other people. According to media reports, the prosecutor's office appealed to the Foreign Ministry with a request to cancel their passports.

On September 17, Kwon stated that he was not "on the run" and was cooperating with law enforcement. He stressed that he was not going to disclose his location to strangers.

In a conversation with WSJ, a representative of Terraform Labs also did not tell where the head of the company is. According to him, this is due to "a physical security risk for him and his family." He added that unidentified individuals tried to break into Kwon's residences in South Korea and Singapore.

On September 19, the Financial Times reported that the South Korean authorities had submitted a request to Interpol for a "red notice" for the head of the TFL. Later, information appeared in the media that the request was granted.

Kwon himself stated that he "did not find" such information on the organization's public list. The latter may not place the data of suspects in the public domain at the request of law enforcement agencies. Open / Comment

2022-09-28 15:11:31 ​​PornHub uses AI to distract users from illegal content

British porn site PornHub has launched testing of an automated tool that "dissuades" users from searching for child abuse material (CSAM). Wired writes about it.

Since March 2022, every time you enter a query with words or phrases related to illegal content, a special chatbot is launched on the platform. It interrupts an attempt to search for CSAM content and prompts users to get help with their online behavior. During the first 30 days of testing, the tool was activated 173,904 times.

Susie Hargreaves, executive director of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), says the problem should be prevented.

“People need to stop looking for material about child sexual abuse and stop and check their behavior,” she said.

The chatbot was developed by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation and the IWF. They taught the system to search for any of 28,000 illegal content terms and millions of combinations.

Upon activation, the tool will ask users a series of questions and notify them that the requested information may be illegal. The chatbot will also offer “confidential and unbiased” support. Those who click on the "help" hint will receive detailed information about the work of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, including the organization's phone number and email address.

“The goal is to distract a person or destroy their desire to search for CSAM material, and do it with just a few clicks,” explained IWF Chief Technology Officer Dan Sexton.

According to Donald Findlater, head of Stop It Now, using a chatbot is straightforward and perhaps more fun. After testing the tool in March, 158 people went to the support site. He noted that although the number is "modest", people have taken an important step.

Representatives of the organizations said that PornHub “volunteered” to participate in the project and was not paid to test the system. The test of the chatbot on a British porn site is expected to last another year before it is evaluated by other researchers.

“The IWF tool is another layer of protection, informing users that there is no illegal content on the platform and directing them to Stop It Now to change their behavior,” said a PornHub spokesperson.

Recall that in June, Australian authorities asked citizens to share their childhood pictures in order to teach AI to identify abuse in photographs.

In July, the UK government supported the idea of ​​scanning users' smartphones for CSAM materials.

In August 2021, Apple used AI to check iPhone photos for child abuse. Open / Comment