Last Update 7:42 AM March 24, 2023 (UTC)

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Friday, 24. March 2023

Wrench in the Gears

Mother of Conscience Gets Bumped By Social Innovators For Explaining How Children Will Be Securitized on Blockchain

This happened to me today (three-a-half-minute clip below): So much for meaningful community participation and relationship building. This demonstrates that the P3 / NGO complex is a theater of busywork to distract well-meaning people as Web3 sensor networks and extended reality are installed around us. It’s happening right before our eyes, but we cannot see [...]

This happened to me today (three-a-half-minute clip below):

So much for meaningful community participation and relationship building. This demonstrates that the P3 / NGO complex is a theater of busywork to distract well-meaning people as Web3 sensor networks and extended reality are installed around us. It’s happening right before our eyes, but we cannot see it for what it is, an even if we could, we’re far too distracted. What does “community” even mean if we opt to live in a world where we turn children and the most vulnerable into securitized debt, rated in real time by emerging technologies? The professionals fiddle as Rome burns. They, or at least the host, couldn’t handle a mother with a conscience.

This is the introduction of a webinar hosted by Nicholas Torres of Social Innovations Journal based in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Source Link: https://archive.ph/yfSga

The webinar served as a launch event for a new volume of their journal on place-based approaches to social innovation. A majority of the co-authors were affiliated with the Canadian anti-poverty think tank, the Tamarack Institute that operates out of the University of Waterloo. There were also several participants with ties to the Salt Lake City United Way, the lead organization for the first pre-k social impact bond as well as staff from StriveTogether, the US NGO using the collective impact framework to turn children into an asset class for global investors.

I mapped out the co-authors and commenters from the chat below.

Interactive version available here.

Source Link: https://embed.kumu.io/6b7b7e7fa90e4e7b7eeac8731cfb5ce0#untitled-map?s=bm9kZS1pcEFsRHRTZA%3D%3D Opening Remarks:

Sonja Miokovic: “So it all starts with this premise that we believe that communities drive transformational change, and this is something that Tamarack’s been doing for over twenty years now. When we were founded, we had two big goals. So, the first was to establish a learning center that would provide research and document real stories, best practices, and effective applications for community change. The second was to apply what we were learning in the field, in communities and learning to end poverty. So, these last two decades have shown us that community change really happens when individuals and networks come together with this intention to collectively tackle these problems and focus on impact.

So, I feel like the curation of this issue was a really great for us to zoom out and see how things are interconnected. This edition really focuses on our evolving understanding and our experience with social innovation, and it was a really unique opportunity for us to these examples of ingenuity across communities, across Canada but also the US and some other experience we have baked in here. So, the theme is really grounded in community innovation or place-based social innovation, and we believe this is an essential piece for tackling complex issues. Throughout our session today you’re going to hear the perspectives, we have eighteen contributing authors. So, that’s quite a lot, and it was really interesting to look at the overarching theme and see all the threads that are going through. I really invite the audience, I know it’s just gone live, but we’re going to hear from all the authors to hear their thinking, and how they’ve moved these themes forward. So, questions are always welcome.

*Remember that last part when we get to the end.

 

My comments posted to the chat:

Alison McDowell: “I’m curious how you imagine extended reality and emerging tech / sensor networks fitting into your social innovation program? I know that population level data analytics is an area of significant interest, especially in the impact finance space.” 

Alison McDowell in response to a suggestion by one of the authors that universities play a lead role in social innovation: “At this point, though, I think we need to consider that many research universities function as R&D extensions of corporate and military interests.”

Alison McDowell regarding government involvement in innovation: “How is Canada’s role as a leading digital nation / e-government solutions participant being factored into how this program is being implemented?”

Alison McDowell: “It seems that the impacts of AI and disruption of traditional work options will create opportunities in human capital investment in re-skilling labor markets to build out extended reality. Do you see this as a public-private partnership opportunity? What is the government’s role in providing access to citizens as raw human capital via digital identity and labor engineering? What are the ethics of creating global investment markets in reskilled labor? Is there a difference in using this approach with children as opposed to with adults?

Andrea Nemtin: “Hi Alison, I think there are some very interesting conversations to be held around data and social innovation, who owns what information, and how do we use it for social benefit?”

Alison McDowell in response to above comment: “I would be interested in knowing who defines social benefit, and how “wellbeing” metrics might be built into AI and sensor networks. I imagine sometime in the near future government might be replaced by a “public goods” DAO. Not sure if people would be onboard for that.”

Andrea Nemtin’s response to my comment that many universities are now functioning as extensions of the corporate and military sectors: “Yes, and how do we ensure how similar resources can be directed to our most pressing social challenges?”

Alison McDowell’s reply to Nemtin: “Well, if we’re using military technology to address challenges, I wonder how vulnerable populations would feel about that, right?”

Andrea Nemtin’s reply: “Oh no, that isn’t what I meant – yes, that would be problematic.”

Alison McDowell’s reply to above: “Most people have no idea that Niantic, who pioneered augmented reality, got their seed funding from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm. We’re not informed about the origins of these technologies.”

Alison McDowell commenting on a reference to “field catalysts” and “systems level change:” “Do the concepts of systems theory and emergence inform your process? Is Integral Theory a part of it?”

Alison McDowell commenting on discussion of building capacity by linking community leaders (field catalysts) and adopting models of collective knowledge sharing: “How is data from these interactions gathered? Is machine learning involved? If not now do you imagine it will be in the future?”

Sandra Lapointe: “Are universities community innovators?”

Alison McDowell’s reply: “Do you mean the role of universities in establishing the research frameworks that underpin social impact finance? My experience is that many academics are tasked with building the cost-offset equations that will drive global markets to develop human and natural capital interventions. They’re also innovating the technologies that will capture the impact data for the deals. The problems is that most grassroots activists have no idea these markets even exist.”

Sandra Lapointe’s reply: “There are researchers conducting research on social financing, but I don’t have the impression that this is the bulk of the work. Social innovation happens when we create new ways of doing and thinking and build the capacity to reflect on social change at a very fundamental level. That includes research on all aspects of what we are discussing today, and especially things like inclusive innovation and sustainability.”

Alison McDowell’s reply: “I suggest looking into James Heckman’s equation that will underpin global markets in children’s futures via securitization of pre-k debt. It involves putting children on blockchain with digital ID and using surveillance play tables (Hatch Education We Play Smart) to gather social-emotional audio and video data to score toddlers’ behaviors. This data will run global finance markets once all the children have a digital ID, and it can be brought to scale. See the 2012 ReadyNation / Kaufmann Foundation PKSE study.”

Alison McDowell continued: “The same thing is being done for natural capital via NFTs or other forms of tokenization. Yesterday, the Bank of International Settlement was presenting on their Genesis Project – green bonds with smart contracts for carbon offsets. All of this requires real time data collection. That impact data can then be repurposed via Ocean Protocol and Singularitynet.io to train AI.  We are building the Singularity with the impact data.”

Alison McDowell in response to presentation on equity in climate space, including just transitions for indigenous groups in Canada: “I would be really interested in indigenous perspectives on the use of sensor networks and surveillance technologies like drone and satellite monitoring tied to smart impact bonds in carbon markets. This approach is being done in the name of climate justice, but in fact these data-gathering systems put vulnerable communities under increased digital surveillance.”

Alison McDowell: “To what extent are indigenous worldviews shaping the collective impact space?”

Sandra Lapointe: “Participation of communities in the granting process is crucial. Academic granting councils are keen to support partnered research, but substantially more impact (and incentives to transform research practices) would come if community members were involved in the evaluation of partnered research grant applications.”

Alison McDowell’s reply: “I’m curious if you all are looking at initiatives like Gitcoin grants that are feeding the grant making process into DLT (distributed ledger technologies). I see a big push for broad participation, but the Quadratic Funding model still involves deep reserves of matching funds that are often from tech interests who will benefit from the digitization of philanthropy. In that case it looks like philanthropy, but really, it’s catalytic capital, patient capital awaiting the scaling of extended reality.”

Alison McDowell commenting on presentation about the importance of “social capital:” “Do you all think most people are aware of the massive changes that are underway with disruption of labor markets, the impact of public surveillance tech, globotics, quantum computing. I love the idea of community voice, but the reality of it is the ability to shape the future is currently in the hands of the people at the top who hold considerable wealth and power. It’s hard to come up with good solutions if people don’t even understand the landscape that they’re operating in.”

Jaime Stief: “This resonates with me a lot Alison. I’ve been watching how the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in the US has influenced federal financial priorities there, and I wonder whether something similar could ever happen in the Canadian landscape?”

Alison McDowell’s reply: “The BIS (Bank of International Settlement) over the past two days was all about programmable money and cross-border payments. They are restructuring banking – the central bankers don’t want the commercial banks to go away, though. Look up digital nations – plans for tokenization go beyond financial assets the next plan is to “tokenize” democracy and frame it as “radical participation. Money and votes must be understood as signals to train machine learning in social interactions. This is at the core of complexity theory and emergence. Look up Teilhard de Chardin and the Omega Point. Also, Oliver Reiser’s 1946 book “World Sensorium.” This has been in the works for quite some time.”

Alison McDowell continued: “For example Sanctuary.ai based in the Vancouver area – look up globotics, Globalization 4.0 discussed by economist Richard Baldwin. They are creating a future of work where people compete for global gig jobs to put their minds in a tele-operated robot. These are major changes. We can’t come to consensus if people don’t understand what is planned. No one is being honest about this planned future.”

Sandra Lapointe: “Agreed! As Andrea mentioned, the role of government, and specifically municipal government in supporting and engaging in the social innovation ecosystem. As Bill is mentioning this requires governments to change and rethink partnerships.”

Alison McDowell’s response: “Is it the role of government to create the policy and technological infrastructure required to turn citizens and/or natural resources into investment opportunities for private capital? Will people and nature as assets be available to ALL global investors. How does that work once debt is securitized and attached to high-frequency trading portfolios? Could we unknowingly be setting up toddlers to have their futures shorted? Are poor people and damaged environments (tokenized) the next “Big Short?” Not only pre-k finance, but also securitization of income sharing agreements on blockchain (Edly) and Social Finance’s Career Impact Bonds.”

Alison McDowell: “Yesterday, the BIS floated the idea of technology companies joining commercial banks in the lending space.”

Liz Weaver: “I’m excited to be talking about collaborative governance. I do think it is, almost like what we heard today, it’s a circle.”

Alison McDowell comment in response: “Circle – cybernetic feedback loops – Macy Conferences – now we have the tech, including token engineering, for granular social programming.”

Sonia Miokovic: “Any questions from the audience?”

Alison McDowell’s reply: “I have shared a lot of questions above.”

Jacqui: “This is an incredibly rich conversation – by the presenters and in the chat. When SIJ sends us materials from this webinar, can you please send us all the info in the chat?”

 

Testimony Against Turning Children Into Investment Assets:

Alison McDowell: “So, I’m a mother and an independent researcher in this field. I’m a conscience for what is happening. I got into this when they closed a bunch of schools in my city. We’re a city with significant poverty, with significant environmental racism, with significant harm being experienced in many areas, and the solutions that are being proposed are about data. They have to be about data at scale. So, that becomes inherently dehumanized.

What I have found researching the education spaces is that the money ALWAYS went back to hedge funds. Not just venture capital, but specifically to hedge funds. Then what I realized is that these equations in human capital finance, and also natural capital, are being used to turn human relationships of the most disenfranchised people who don’t have the capacity to write all the papers that you’ve been writing – to create the equations, Clive Belfield’s social-emotional learning, the Jim Heckman equation that’s going to be used to scale pre-k finance. These equations will put children around the world on blockchain, put returning citizens from prison on blockchain, push people in addiction onto blockchain…at scale with digital identity all the data will be collected through sensor networks. There’s a paper – ReadyNation and the Kaufmann Foundation from 2012 saying specifically that pre-k debt will be turned into global asset-backed securities and traded on global markets.

They were setting up ten years ago children, children to be traded as global debt products. There are these technologies like the Hatch Education surveillance play tables (we play smart) that are being used, because as Jim Heckman says they cannot actually change IQ. It’s not useful to the market, but they can change character. They can change character through digital media. These are all facts. They are very well documented.

You’ve presented all of this lovely information about community innovation, but what about the mother who runs, a Black woman businessperson who’s running a pre-k out of her house, doesn’t know this. So, there will be academics and community organizers who will come in and spin these great tales, but they won’t say, you know what? We’re training your child so that they can agree to put their mind in a robot developed at Sanctuary.ai in Vancouver, for the world of Quantum AI – D-Wave – in Burnaby. They’re not telling you that, and that’s why…Ronald Cohen’s film “Invisible Heart” screened all over Canada to set you guys up for this.

Now I don’t know if you know it, and you think it’s ok to securitize children? This is the new slavery, and you’re doing it in the name of social justice and saving the world. I don’t know if you don’t know what you’re doing. Do you not know what you’re doing? Did no one give you the papers that said the plan is to securitize income sharing agreements, and then feed the AI all the impact data? This collective impact data that you’re all collecting. Maybe you don’t know that you’re collecting it yet, but soon the sensor networks will be everywhere. This (waving at the laptop camera), this is all collecting the data. And they’re going to get social data, because the thing the AI most wants now is how to be human. It wants to know the system, how we interact with each other…how we’re creative…”

Sonja Miokovic: “Alison…”

Alison McDowell: “Yes, I mean I’m just…”

 

THE HOST HAS REMOVED YOU FROM THE MEETING

 

I believe Nicholas Torres of Social Innovation Journal was the host.  

An hour-long screen recording, which lasted until I was removed from the webinar, can be watched here. Sorry, you can hear the keystrokes as I type into the chat. Af far as I know the event wasn’t livestreamed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Defiant

Arbitrum Airdrop Goes Live!

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

bankless

ROLLUP: $ARB Airdrop | Do Kwon Arrested in Montenegro | Coinbase Wells Notice | SEC Charges Justin Sun$ARB Airdrop | Do Kwon Arrested in Montenegro | Coinbase Wells Notice | SEC Charges Justin Sun

Bankless Weekly Rollup 4th Week of March 2023 ------ 📣 Infura | New SDK for NFT APIs For Devs https://bankless.cc/Infura  ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/dashboard  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:  ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

Bankless Weekly Rollup 4th Week of March 2023

------ 📣 Infura | New SDK for NFT APIs For Devs https://bankless.cc/Infura 

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/dashboard 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | FRIENDLY MULTICHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi  

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro

3:08 Markets 6:47 FED hikes https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/22/fed-rate-hike-decision-march-2023.html  12:30 Volatility https://twitter.com/ColeGotTweets/status/1637645721485598725  13:40 ETHBTC & Wartime https://twitter.com/TrustlessState/status/1638878806105628673  22:50 Crypto VC List https://coinstack.substack.com/p/the-crypto-vc-list-2023 

27:48 Do Kwon Arrested https://twitter.com/BanklessHQ/status/1638891838881910785 

29:38 Arbitrum Airdrop https://twitter.com/arbitrum/status/1638163831833649152  33:14 Earnifi https://earni.fi/account   https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/arbitrum 

37:24 War on Crypto  37:34 SEC Coinbase Wells Notice  https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1638655328257548289  https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1638654192138199041  https://twitter.com/iampaulgrewal/status/1638660032324829184  https://twitter.com/brianquintenz/status/1638747660080533504  https://twitter.com/jessepollak/status/1638716234027106305  https://twitter.com/RebeccaRettig1/status/1638867335745290240  46:25 Sushi SEC Subpoena https://www.theblock.co/post/221723/sushi-hit-with-sec-subpoena-seeking-3-million-usdt-legal-defense-fund  46:55 SEC Lawsuit Against Justin Sun & Celebrity Promoters https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/technology/justin-sun-sec-crypto.html 

47:55 Bank Pressure & Contagion Spreads https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/20/what-ubs-rescue-of-credit-suisse-cs-means-for-markets-and-banks.html  https://www.wsj.com/articles/signature-bank-new-york-community-bancorp-flagstar-bank-crypto-barney-frank-fdic-9b825e2e 

56:56 Euler Hack Update https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1636985705858764800?s=20  https://twitter.com/TrustlessState/status/1637864971290697738  https://twitter.com/chainalysis/status/1636739618249867265https://twitter.com/proofofjake_/status/1638225829397143555 

58:55 IRS Tax Treatment of NFTs https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-guidance-seeks-comments-on-nonfungible-tokens  1:00:15 Magic Eden Bitcoin Ordinals https://cointelegraph.com/news/magic-eden-launches-marketplace-for-bitcoin-ordinals  1:01:29 Avalanche Short Outage https://twitter.com/WuBlockchain/status/1638711219778646016 

1:02:40 Florida Gov. US CBDC Ban https://www.flgov.com/2023/03/20/governor-ron-desantis-announces-legislation-to-protect-floridians-from-a-federally-controlled-central-bank-digital-currency-and-surveillance-state/ 

1:04:30 New Green Pill Channel  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrX_72ziMAZMb8fwD2HyOaw  1:05:18 Bankless Merch https://137s232gkpwm42ei-26449739831.shopifypreview.com/products_preview?preview_key=b4f7d5e5a88c4e2852bf37665f580cd0&variant=40128096206903  1:06:40 Immutable x Polygon Labs https://twitter.com/0xPolygon/status/1637878834945990675  1:07:44 Microsoft Wallet in Edge Browser  https://twitter.com/thebookisclosed/status/1636759487829917698  1:08:25 Sismo https://twitter.com/Sismo_eth/status/1636371873377423361  1:09:50 PleasrHouse UniBlocks https://twitter.com/PleasrDAO/status/1638858333506646020  1:12:25 Farcaster Web Login https://twitter.com/dwr/status/1638297074365239296  1:12:45 Ledger Browser Extension https://www.ledger.com/ledger-extension  1:13:21 Blockworks ‘GrantFarm’ https://blockworks.co/grants 

1:13:48 Raises https://twitter.com/HilmarVeigar/status/1638180896611377154 

1:15:05 Jobs https://pallet.xyz/list/bankless/jobs 

1:17:55 Questions from the Nation Tadziu Jacksonthedev

1:22:22 Takes https://twitter.com/Fiskantes/status/1637497040933625858  https://twitter.com/sassal0x/status/1637702828306358272 

1:25:13 What David’s Bullish On 1:27:30 What Ryan’s Bullish On

1:29:35 MEME of the Week https://watcher.guru/news/belgium-to-require-all-crypto-ads-to-state-only-guarantee-in-crypto-is-risk 

1:30:52 Risks & Disclaimers

1:31:07 Moment of Zen https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1638174103038472195  

---- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Defiant

Dan Finlay Explains How MetaMask Will Become The Google of Web3

This week on The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo chats with Dan Finlay, the co-founder of MetaMask – one of the leading Web3 wallets.
This week on The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo chats with Dan Finlay, the co-founder of MetaMask – one of the leading Web3 wallets.

Thursday, 23. March 2023

Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

The Future of Ecommerce: How a Product Becomes a Purchase

General Partner Connie Chan on how leading brands are using AI and other technology to combine the serendipitous discovery of offline shopping with the infinite options of online shopping. Today, most of the Western world revolves around search-based online commerce… The post The Future of Ecommerce: How a Product Becomes a Purchase appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

General Partner Connie Chan on how leading brands are using AI and other technology to combine the serendipitous discovery of offline shopping with the infinite options of online shopping.

Today, most of the Western world revolves around search-based online commerce

The post The Future of Ecommerce: How a Product Becomes a Purchase appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


Defiant

Uniswap V3 To Be Deployed On Avalanche

Move Comes Ahead Of Imminent License Expiration
Move Comes Ahead Of Imminent License Expiration

Terra Founder Do Kwon Arrested In Montenegro

Longtime Critic FatMan Hails Law Enforcement Action As Victory For Crypto Space
Longtime Critic FatMan Hails Law Enforcement Action As Victory For Crypto Space

ARB Airdrop Pushes Arbitrum To Its Limit

Layer 2 Network Trades At $13B Fully Diluted Valuation
Layer 2 Network Trades At $13B Fully Diluted Valuation

DRPC Launches With Aim to Decentralize Ethereum Access

Alchemy, Quicknode, and Infura are the leading Ethereum node providers.
Alchemy, Quicknode, and Infura are the leading Ethereum node providers.

Nym - Medium

zk-nyms are here — a major milestone towards a market-ready mixnet

zk-nyms are here — a major milestone towards a market-ready mixnet We recently announced zk-nyms to the world. zk-nyms are a cryptographic system that allows people to pay and use for services without leaking unnecessary personal information. This is an important milestone for the Nym mixnet and the following VPN example illustrates perfectly why… VPNs are one of the more known and used privacy
zk-nyms are here — a major milestone towards a market-ready mixnet

We recently announced zk-nyms to the world. zk-nyms are a cryptographic system that allows people to pay and use for services without leaking unnecessary personal information. This is an important milestone for the Nym mixnet and the following VPN example illustrates perfectly why…

VPNs are one of the more known and used privacy tools around, and if you are using one, you will probably be using a credit card to pay for it. That means the VPN provider has your card details, name and address. Furthermore, VPNs act as a trusted proxy, so even if they shield your IP and browsing history, they themselves know all the websites you are accessing!

To put it bluntly, your VPN provider now has your identity and full browsing history. And to make matters worse, some “free” VPNs even embed third-party trackers to gather your data and sell it on others (read more).

So let’s get into what zk-nyms can do to solve this!

Introducing zk-nyms

The very first use-case of zk-nyms is now out in the world: bandwidth credentials for the mixnet! By using zk-nyms, people can prove they have the right to use the mixnet for privacy, without revealing their wallet address, payment amount, balance or any other information.

We don’t want your payment details, your name, transaction number or any other information about you. All we need to know is whether you (or the app you are running) have the right credentials to use the mixnet. In fact, that should be the norm for any digital service that you use!

We have just launched a sandbox where people can test spending bandwidth credentials with a gateway (using CLI). We invite devs and gateway operators to come and try it out!

Pay, but not with your privacy!

The Nym mixnet protects you online — not just the IP address and content, but even the metadata and patterns of communication. The mixnet is decentralised and trustless, meaning there is no part of the infrastructure that holds any data about you or your traffic. And that has to be the case for payments too.

The mixnet is currently free of charge, but there will eventually be a small fee to ensure operators are compensated fairly. Today’s digital services are incentivised towards surveillance. From Facebook and social media more generally to free email and VPN services, they provide a service at a low cost to attract users and then make up the rest by selling people’s data.

The Nym mixnet includes token economics to ensure that the infrastructure operators are incentivised to provide privacy, not surveillance. And now with zk-nyms, we are one step closer to a paid mixnet service that is fully secure and does not leak any additional information.

What next for zk-nyms?

Bandwidth credentials is just the first practical use-case for what we see as blazing a new innovation pathway for our online lives. In the physical world, most of us are not under constant observation. Most of us are not subject to continuous micro analysis by unknown organisations, determining who you are, where you belong and what you are likely to do next. In the physical world, you get to choose what you share about yourself, when and with whom. Unfortunately that is not currently the case online.

zk-nyms intends to make this possible in the digital world too. You will be able to selectively reveal your information to build trusted and secure relationships without leaking unnecessary personal information to third parties. Specific use-cases include privacy preserving KYC, private payments, access control, age verification as well as a generic privacy preserving single-sign on!

You are not a number in a database. Your identity should not be imposed by companies and agencies using a tightening net of proliferating profiling algorithms. Digital systems should primarily serve people, not the other way around and the ability to selectively determine what you reveal and to who.

Features of zk-nyms

You may be seeing the words ‘zero knowledge’ and ‘private credentials’ bouncing around a lot these days and be wondering: what makes zk-nyms different from other credentials and zk-magic? The main advantage of zk-nyms is that we are decentralised, and have threshold-issuance, meaning that we avoid a centralised point of trust to issue us the credentials! To wrap up here is a quick overview of the features of zk-nyms…

Cryptographic

As the name hints at, zk-nyms make use of several cryptographic primitives, including zero-knowledge proofs, blind signatures and commitment schemes, and are an extension of the Coconut credential scheme. Zero knowledge has become quite the hype lately, so there are plenty of guides out there for those who want to deep-dive, but suffice to say that this bit of cryptographic magic allows people to cryptographically prove something without having to reveal the evidence. (A more in depth post comparing zk-nyms with zk-snarks, starks and other zero knowledge hype, coming soon!)

Decentralised

A unique feature of zk-nym is that it is decentralised. This means that there is no single authority that holds your credentials. Instead they are issued by a decentralised validator set. For some of you readers, this might raise alarm bells regarding potentially malicious validators, but we have good news for you…

Threshold issuance

…because zk-nym makes use of threshold issuance, meaning validators only hold a share of the key that signs the credential! Having a threshold issuance has a similar byzantine-fault tolerance as other validator bases schemes, i.e., we not only distribute trust but also avoid crush of the system in case some validators go offline or are malicious.

Unlinkable

Unlinkability means that the issuance of your credential and your subsequent showing of it is unlikable. This means that even if validators collude with the service to which you show your credential, they cannot learn any additional information. Furthermore, a property of blind issuance means that even if all the validators colluded, they would not be able to piece together the private attribute of your credential.

Selective disclosure

The power is now firmly back in your hands to selectively disclose information about yourself as and when you need to.

Turkish // Spanish // Portuguse

Learn more

Try: zk-nyms for bandwidth credentials CLI sandbox

Blogpost: VPNs, Tor, I2P — how does Nym compare?

Paper: Coconut credentials scheme

Paper: Security Analysis of Coconut

zk-nyms are here — a major milestone towards a market-ready mixnet was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Horizen - Blog

Mandatory Software Upgrade: ZEN 3.3.1 is Available for Download Now

The latest release of our ZEN software 3.3.1 is available for download.[themify_box color="light-yellow" icon="announcement"]All exchanges, partners, mining pools, node operators, and full node wallet users must upgrade to ZEN 3.3.1 before block 1328320, expected to be mined around April 7th, 2023 at approximately 12:00 PM UTC.[/themify_box] This release extends the deprecation height of the pr

The latest release of our ZEN software 3.3.1 is available for download.

All exchanges, partners, mining pools, node operators, and full node wallet users must upgrade to ZEN 3.3.1 before block 1328320, expected to be mined around April 7th, 2023 at approximately 12:00 PM UTC.

This release extends the deprecation height of the previous version 3.3.0. ZEN 3.3.1 sets the upcoming deprecation date to block 1359120, expected to be mined around May 31st, 2023.

With ZEN 3.3.1, we are extending the duration of ZEN 4.0.0-rc1 running in public testnet before introducing those features to mainnet. This will allow our team to further ensure the stability and safety of the code that will support the EON mainnet launch.

Please update your ZEN software to ZEN 3.3.1 before April 7th. The new ZEN 3.3.1 version is available on GitHub and through APT repository and Docker.

Download ZEN 3.3.1 on GitHub   About Horizen EON

EON is Horizen’s first public proof-of-stake sidechain and fully EVM-compatible smart contracting platform. It allows web3 developers to efficiently build and deploy dapps on Horizen, while fully benefiting from the Ethereum ecosystem. 

The EON sidechain is currently live on the public testnet,Yuma, welcoming testing activities from developers. We take this opportunity to thank everyone for the continued support. EON will be launched on Gobi testnet in early April. 

We will continue to update the community on upcoming ZEN releases, be sure to follow us on Discord and Twitter to stay in the loop.

The post Mandatory Software Upgrade: ZEN 3.3.1 is Available for Download Now appeared first on Horizen Blog.


Sequoia

Partnering with Hex: Data Collaboration Made Easy

The post Partnering with Hex: Data Collaboration Made Easy appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.
Partnering with Hex: Data Collaboration Made Easy Barry, Caitlin, Glen and their team are building a collaborative workspace for the modern data stack—where delivering insights is seamless.

By Matt Miller and Michelle Bailhe Fradin

Published March 23, 2023

Data is the competitive advantage of the 21st century. Without access to the right information, businesses are unable to make the quick decisions they need to survive—and any dream of AI is off the table. The good news is that the wave of the cloud has brought with it a whole set of new companies and technologies to collect and break down more information than we ever could have imagined, including cloud data warehouses, real-time data and integration, efficient data loading, transactional cloud databases, transformation and metrics. These products and others like them are giving us better information than ever before and the companies behind them have created more than $100B of market cap in the process.

The irony, though, is that atop this modern data stack, teams are still forced to use kludgy, decades-old analytics tools to actually make all of that data useful and deliver insights to users. But these are the types of opportunities we love at Sequoia: when a shift in the competitive landscape creates a clear opening for an enduring company to emerge. 

Today, we are thrilled to embrace just such an opportunity and announce our partnership with Hex. We believe the platform that co-founders Barry McCardel, Caitlin Colgrove and Glen Takahashi and their team are creating has the potential to transform how businesses work together—in modern languages, with modern infrastructure. Hex starts its journey with data scientists, offering them the best way to collaborate on notebooks and work together to deliver insights. It ends with an analytics platform that empowers both business users and data analysts to quickly find the answers they need to do their jobs.

We learned about Hex through our partnerships with Snowflake and dbt, where customers were raving about their experiences with the product. People tell us they love the collaborative experience it offers and the ease it gives them in accessing the information they need. For some customers, Hex is already being used not only by data scientists, but the whole company.

When we first met Barry, Caitlin and Glen, they weren’t raising money. We are thankful to them for nonetheless being patient with our interest—and for seeing value in the opportunity to partner with us. We are excited to put Team Sequoia behind Hex, and we look forward to seeing them accomplish their dream of making data an easy and collaborative experience for everyone. By doing so, they will rightfully claim their spot as the crown jewel atop the modern data stack that is changing our world.

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The post Partnering with Hex: Data Collaboration Made Easy appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.


ConsenSys Blog

MMI Launches a More Powerful Web3 Portfolio Dashboard for Organizations

MMI’s upgraded portfolio dashboard offers a range of cutting-edge tools—including portfolio management, digital asset monitoring, in-depth transaction reporting, and institutional controls—that will enable organizations to better manage how they interact with web3. The post MMI Launches a More Powerful Web3 Portfolio Dashboard for Organizations appeared first on ConsenSys.

MMI’s upgraded portfolio dashboard offers a range of cutting-edge tools—including portfolio management, digital asset monitoring, in-depth transaction reporting, and institutional controls—that will enable organizations to better manage how they interact with web3.

The post MMI Launches a More Powerful Web3 Portfolio Dashboard for Organizations appeared first on ConsenSys.


Circle Press

Circle Joins LOT Network to Protect Digital Asset Products from Patent Litigation

Boston, MA – March 23, 2023 – Circle Internet Financial, a global digital financial technology firm and the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), today announced it has joined LOT Network, a non-profit global community of companies that protects its members against Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs).

Boston, MA – March 23, 2023 – Circle Internet Financial, a global digital financial technology firm and the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), today announced it has joined LOT Network, a non-profit global community of companies that protects its members against Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs).


Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

Investing in Character.AI

The first time I tried Character.AI, it completely hijacked my husband’s birthday dinner. What had started as a party of 12 friends conversing quietly around the table quickly turned into picking Elon Musk’s brain on Mars, getting the Queen’s … The post Investing in Character.AI appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

The first time I tried Character.AI, it completely hijacked my husband’s birthday dinner. What had started as a party of 12 friends conversing quietly around the table quickly turned into picking Elon Musk’s brain on Mars, getting the Queen’s …

The post Investing in Character.AI appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


a16z Podcast

The Marketplace 100: A Glimpse Into the Future of Commerce

Over the last decade, we’ve seen the marketplace model evolve and grow, and this year a16z is back with our fourth edition of the Marketplace100 – a ranking of the top private marketplaces by GMV – giving a unique window into what may be to come. This year’s list features nearly three dozen newcomers, including marketplaces for refurbished electronics, precious metals, and sustainably raised meat

Over the last decade, we’ve seen the marketplace model evolve and grow, and this year a16z is back with our fourth edition of the Marketplace100 – a ranking of the top private marketplaces by GMV – giving a unique window into what may be to come.

This year’s list features nearly three dozen newcomers, including marketplaces for refurbished electronics, precious metals, and sustainably raised meat. And in this episode, we break down key trends from the report together with a16z’s Consumer partners Connie Chan, Olivia Moore, and Zach Cohen.

If you’d like to see the full ranking of the largest consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies, you can find the full report at https://a16z.com/marketplace-100.

Resources:

Find the full Marketplace 100 report: https://a16z.com/marketplace-100 Find Connie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/conniechan Find Olivia on Twitter: https://twitter.com/omooretweets Find Zach on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zachcohen25

Topics Covered:

00:00- Introduction 02:28 - Why marketplaces?  05:18 - What metrics matter 07:55 - Newcomers on the list 09:49 - Entertainment and personalization 13:46 - Curated marketplaces 14:47 - Trust and safety 21:23 - Mental health trends 22:42 - Untapped supply 24:40 - Disintermediation 27:42 - Transient vs foundational trends 31:33 - Companies entering the category 36:52 - Sleeper categories for 2024

 

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.


Defiant

Markets Trade Lower After Fed Hikes Rates Again

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

Sequoia

AI-Powered-Developer-Tools

The post AI-Powered-Developer-Tools appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.
Developer Tools 2.0

By Charlie Curnin, Josephine Chen and Stephanie Zhan

Published March 22, 2023

Generative AI stands to change how work happens in one industry after another. But software engineering’s transformation isn’t done yet.

Copilot has caught lightning in a bottle. GitHub’s AI-powered companion for developers, suggesting the code you might want to write next, is a hit in more ways than one. It’s beloved by engineers, attracting more than a million within about a year and delivering a substantial boost in productivity. (Even if you’re a top engineer, it might write half your code or more.) It also stands to become a commercial blockbuster. Charging $10-19 per seat per month, Copilot could grow to generate $1 billion or more in annual revenue among GitHub’s 100 million users

Copilot’s success has set off a gold rush. Founders have raced to bring the power of large language models to all kinds of other industries, building tools to help professionals write, code, design and create media. There’s “Copilot for lawyers,” “Copilot for doctors” and “Copilot for designers,” and many more “Copilot for X”’s. 

These are all exciting directions. We think generative AI stands to transform one industry after another, making all kinds of professionals more effective at work and delighting waves of consumers. 

But there’s a lot more to do for developers. Copilot, which leverages OpenAI’s model Codex, may be just the opening salvo in AI’s transformation of how software engineers work. Andrej Karpathy predicted in 2017 that neural networks would create a new generation of software, “Software 2.0,” and we may see the same reinvention of the tooling that helps people make software — a “Developer Tools 2.0.”

There are many opportunities here. Some founders are iterating on the in-editor, get-help-while-you’re-coding experience Copilot popularized, trying different interaction patterns or different models. Think of Replit’s Ghostwriter, Soucegraph’s Cody, TabNine and others.

Many other opportunities lie further afield. You might target work engineers do beyond writing code, like debugging and documentation—or other work engineering orgs do, like incident response. You might think of value props other than “write code faster,” like “write code that’s more performant or more secure.” You might throw out the plugin form factor and rebuild an entire application. You might focus on personas other than the software engineer, like the data scientist who needs a boost writing in notebooks (see: Hex), or the data analyst toiling away writing SQL queries. There’s a wide waterfront of opportunities to explore and many places to hook into developers’ workflows. 

Building legendary companies to enable this won’t be easy. Copilot faces legal scrutiny over concerns related to software piracy. Microsoft, the incumbent with control over both GitHub and VS Code, enjoys significant distribution advantages. Many founders have started building with LLMs, making many opportunities competitive. GitHub itself just announced plans to offer broader AI functionality through a brand-new version of Copilot, powered by GPT-4. 

But in our view, there’s a massive opportunity for AI to transform software engineering, and it’s a matter of who, not if. We think important ingredients in who prevails will be focusing on developer experience, providing net-new capabilities, and making strategic choices around how to land and expand in developers’ workflows. Success here can mean rewriting how engineering happens—and having a chance at building a generational company. 

If that opportunity excites you the way it excites us, please reach out to charlie@sequoiacap.com, josephine@sequoiacap.com and zhan@sequoiacap.com.

Illustration by Tyler Comrie

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Generative AI: A Creative New World By Sonya Huang, Pat Grady and GPT-3 Perspective Read AI Recruits a New Hybrid Workforce by Konstantine Buhler Perspective Read Partnering with Tavus: AI-Personalized Videos By Stephanie Zahn News Read Partnering with Replicate: Machine Learning, Simplified By Stephanie Zhan News Read

The post AI-Powered-Developer-Tools appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.


Defiant

Coinbase Girds for the ‘Defining Case of Crypto Era’

SEC Alleges Coinbase Is Violating US Securities Laws
SEC Alleges Coinbase Is Violating US Securities Laws

Brave Browser

Brave partners with Transak to expand crypto purchases globally in Brave Wallet, with over 50 new assets and multiple payment methods

Today we're happy to announce a new partnership with Transak, whose developer integration toolkit will enable the purchase of crypto assets directly within Brave Wallet.

Today we’re happy to announce a new partnership with Transak, whose developer integration toolkit will enable the purchase of crypto assets directly within Brave Wallet. Transak offers Brave Wallet users access to over 50 new tokens across Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Optimism, and Arbitrum—giving self-custodial wallet users more options to buy and deposit their preferred tokens.

“We’re excited to be integrating Transak to Brave Wallet to give our users more choice in what crypto they buy and how they choose to buy it,” said Brian Bondy, co-founder and CTO at Brave.

“Brave browser has always been on the forefront of supporting Web3 and is enabling so many users to securely interact with the ecosystem. Therefore, we are very proud to be supporting Brave Wallet in its mission to onboard more and more users to Web3. Our integration will enable these users to easily buy crypto via their locally supported payment methods and deposit directly to their Brave Wallet,” said Sami Start, CEO & Co-founder of Transak.

In addition to Visa and Mastercard, Transak offers a wide variety of payment methods—Apple Pay, Google Pay, UPI, Mobi Kwik, AstroPay, and Maya—which greatly expands coverage to more customers around the world. For a full list of payment options by region, see Transak’s documentation, and for a guide on how to buy crypto with Brave Wallet, check out Brave’s support center.

Using Transak to buy crypto in Brave Wallet Open the Brave browser, and then open Brave Wallet. You can either visit brave://wallet, click the wallet icon in the address bar, or select Wallet from the browser options menu. Select “Buy” in the wallet panel or wallet page. Select a network in the “All Networks” dropdown menu, and then search your desired token. Pick Transak from the list of available on-ramp partners. Follow the steps to complete the purchase with Transak.

Brave Wallet enables Brave users to store, manage, grow, and swap their crypto portfolio across multiple blockchains from a single wallet. Unlike most crypto wallets, Brave Wallet is browser-native, meaning it doesn’t require any additional downloads or extensions, helping reduce security risks and reliance on extra CPU and memory. Users can transact with thousands of crypto assets with superior safety and performance, as well as connect with other wallets and Web3 DApps. 

To learn more about Brave Wallet, visit Brave.com/wallet.

Wednesday, 22. March 2023

Defiant

White House Report Calls For Greater Oversight of Web3

Slams Crypto As Speculative and Ineffective
Slams Crypto As Speculative and Ineffective

Arbitrum Earmarks 112M ARB Tokens For Ecosystem DAOs

Highly Anticipated Airdrop Will Be Claimable On March 23
Highly Anticipated Airdrop Will Be Claimable On March 23

Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

SPEEDRUN Your Gaming Startup

Starting a gaming company is like playing one of the most difficult video games out there. It’s an expensive and time-consuming grind with the vast majority of games never making it to launch. But what if there was a hack … The post SPEEDRUN Your Gaming Startup appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Starting a gaming company is like playing one of the most difficult video games out there. It’s an expensive and time-consuming grind with the vast majority of games never making it to launch. But what if there was a hack …

The post SPEEDRUN Your Gaming Startup appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


Defiant

Markets Trade Lower After 0.25% Rate Hike

Bitcoin and Ether Drop 4%
Bitcoin and Ether Drop 4%

How To Use Gains Network – Decentralized Derivatives Trading Tutorial

How To Use Gains Network [Sponsored Video]
How To Use Gains Network [Sponsored Video]

Wrench in the Gears

Guest Post – Insights Into Teilhard de Chardin, Part 1

This is the first installment in a series. These notes help summarize Wolfgang Smith’s book, “Theistic Evolution: The Teilhardian Heresy” and were prepared by Lorraine Davison. She has generously agreed to share them with us here given the significance of the geologist/theologian’s work on the Omega Point to our current post-human trajectory. March 19, 2023 [...]

This is the first installment in a series. These notes help summarize Wolfgang Smith’s book, “Theistic Evolution: The Teilhardian Heresy” and were prepared by Lorraine Davison. She has generously agreed to share them with us here given the significance of the geologist/theologian’s work on the Omega Point to our current post-human trajectory.

March 19, 2023

Dear Alison,

I would like to share with you my notes from a book that I am reading about the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

As you know, Teilhard is part of the Catholic story as is the author of this book, Wolfgang Smith. But Smith is also a product of the same academic and corporate structures that you have painstakingly traced in your mapping of the development of the ideas that are now shaping our world in ever more terrifying ways. He graduated from Cornell at eighteen with majors in physics, mathematics and philosophy and took an M.S. from Purdue. He then spent 3 years at Bell Aircraft Corporation as an aerodynamicist. He gained recognition for his pioneering papers on the effect of diffusion fields, providing a theoretical solution to the re-entry problem for space flight. He then got a Ph.D. in mathematics from Columbia University and became a professional mathematician.

So, Smith straddles both science and faith. I guess that it was the ever more obvious attempts to morph science itself into a faith that made him embark upon a critique of scientism and upon attempts to revive metaphysics as an authentic theological discipline.

In this light, he has Teilhard firmly in his sights.   As you have often pointed to the Jesuit’s work as a central element in the potential endpoint that is driving many of the current developments in society, I thought it might be useful to precis the central points of this work. In the first chapters, the author is establishing how Teilhard’s theories depend upon the destruction of the thought of his own Catholic and all other major religious traditions. He also calls into question the scientific basis for his theories. 

I think his insights will deepen our understanding of Teilhard’s work and why it so influential and dangerous for the entire human race. I hope that it is not too dry!

The book is called Theistic Evolution: The Teilhardian Heresy (Angelico Press 2012).

Below, I provide a summary of the introduction and chapters one through three.

Introduction

Smith locates Teilhard within the field of theistic evolution which argues that God creates through evolution that is driving us to a predestined endpoint. Teilhard devoted much of his work to promoting and describing this endpoint. His work combines science and theology.

The author provides a brief sketch of Darwin’s theory of evolution. He then highlights how subsequent discoveries, especially in biology, have cast increasing doubt on the theory.

Microevolution. Although yielding observable effects, has never been shown to effect the transformation of one species to another Macroevolution. The famous gaps in the fossil records and all those missing links! Irreducible complexity. The practical and mathematical improbability that a complex system could evolve by chance mutations and be selectively assumed into a genetic line.

He highlights how fanatical adherence to Darwin’s theories can only come from a need to contain all explanations for life in a materialist framework.

Teilhard’s “theistic evolution” has infected nearly all the Christian world. Even worse, it is being used to shore up a tottering “scientific” theory by filling in its gaps with divine intervention.

Modernism has demythologised biblical interpretation and stripped it of ontological meaning (ontological as relating to all questions of what it means to “be”). This means that we interpret Eden as belonging to the same material world as that which we now inhabit. However, it is really a transcendent realm from which humanity “fell”. This fall has come to be seen almost entirely in moralistic terms and not as a movement from one realm to another.

The point is that the Christian creation story and theistic evolution cannot both be true. If mankind originated (body and soul) in a transcendent realm outside of our world, then it did not originate in our known world many millions of years ago.

Smith argues that in Christianity man is at the absolute centre of creation and the created world is tied to our fate because we have a unique relationship to God. Teilhard wanted to reinvent Christianity and create a new religion. But this does not just concern remote Catholic theologians as (after some kind of mystical vision) he felt that he was the only person to have seen the truth. He then set out to engulf all of humanity in this vision.

His work has replaced the idea of following Christ with the intention to create Christ by way of evolution. Christ is no longer Alpha and Omega but only Omega. All that remains of spiritual life is communal action – the kind that promotes “socialization” (apparently one of Teilhard’s own terms). What counts is not the individual but the species.

He created many scientific-sounding fictions and has convinced many people of the truth of his vision. Smith aims to look at the “scientific evidence” for theistic evolution which has allowed his doctrine to “attain dominion” in the educated Christian world and beyond.

Finally, he offers this book as a kind of homeopathic remedy for the infection of theistic evolution. He will go on to cover such topics as the nature of time and eternity, the twofold distinction between spirit, mind and matter and the meaning of history in light of revelation. Of course, his is obviously a Christian perspective.

Chapter One – Evolution: A Closer Look

Whilst there is some evidence for microevolution this is not the case for macroevolution. Smith means the latter in this discussion. For instance, there is no evidence of a continuous evolutionary chain and there are many temporal gaps in the fossil record. Also, no evidence has been found for the intermediate creatures that had been proposed in order to complete that chain (such as Ernst Haekel’s protovertebrates). In addition, DNA shows that idea of the genealogical tree is mistaken as the biosphere does not show a sequential progression but rather is divided into well-defined and widely separated classes. This separation is clear and mathematically verifiable at the molecular level. There is no evidence that this was any different in the past.

Even more convincing is the complexity of living organisms even at their most basic level. Mathematical calculations based on the makeup of the simplest of life forms show the improbability of Darwin’s scenario. The author gives the example of flagellum.

Smith then puts Darwin’s increasingly shaky theory of evolution up against what he calls “authentic theology.”

St Augustine said “beyond a doubt the world was not made in time but with time.”  Evolution takes place in time so this is not how God created. Scripture rules out the objection that the world might have been made with time but creatures in time.

“He that liveth in eternity created all things at once”. – Ecclesiasticus 18:1

This is known as the omnia simul doctrine.

“God creates the world and all things in the present now” explains Meister Eckhart.

This “now” coincides with eternity.

So Teilhard’s assertion that “God creates through evolution” is untenable metaphysically, or at least it should be for Christians!

God creates the creature before he creates time: being has precedence over time.

In fact, time derives from the creature. This seems strange to us. But the Church Fathers taught that created beings are birthed in time and then each manifest being has its own spatio-temporal locus. It fits into a “universal network of secondary causes” but its roots extend beyond the visible cosmos and into the timeless instant of the creative act.

This means that your being does not coincide with the visible “you”. Smith says that even the tiniest plant is “vaster than the entire cosmos in its visible form” because its roots extend into eternity.

This doctrine is difficult for us to understand – it is from God’s perspective.

Creation from the point of view of Anthropos (Adamic or primordial man) is contained in the hexaemeron or six days of creation. This is the first effects of the creative act as they are expressed within (and not without) the visible cosmos.

Smith argues that our world has effectively shrunk because we no longer understand the old teachings about the extra dimension where the primary act of creation takes place–that which is above. This is the invisible realm that is beyond the detection of science and has therefore been dismissed as fantasy. So, we have now become “denizens of the flatland”: the land that has lost its verticality. Consequently, we can now dismiss the ancient doctrines altogether (atheism) or reinterpret them to fit into the horizontal plane (heresy).

Thus, according to Smith, the Darwinist is seeking the origin of the species where it cannot be found as being preceded time. But the theistic evolutionist both commits this error and adds another. He locates these origins within time and then asserts that God creates through evolution. Omnia simul has disappeared and every supposed movement of evolution is attributed to God. We have been deracinated and cast onto the shifting sands of time. In short, we have been robbed of our essential being.

But there is a true evolution of creatures. A first birth takes place in the “above” and then a second as the creature moves “downwards” (as it were) into the visible cosmos. This is the manifestation or “unfolding” in space and time of a created being.

Evolution is central to the work of Teilhard as he says all other theories and systems must bow before it.  However, he does not explain how this came to be established. In other words, he is claiming an evidential base for Darwin’s theory that does not exist.

Smith shows that Teilhard abandons the argument that Darwin’s theory can be proven by empirical evidence in favour of the argument that it can be established on a priori grounds – that is through the exercise of reason. No one has ever been able to observe a genuine action of evolution or transformation of species from one state to another. So, Teilhard enthrones evolution as the king of theories on the grounds that reason can see no other way that the development and transformation of species could occur.

Even though Teilhard, the Christian, has to include God in his theories, the operations of chance predominate in his work.  Moreover, everything, even Christianity, must now be reinterpreted in the light of a universe fuelled by random chance. The biblical creation story and the whole idea of God has to be recast as He may only now create through the mechanism of evolution.

Smith concludes that Teilhard became fascinated by the theory of evolution because he wanted to be able to contain all explanations for the causality and transformation of life within the visible cosmos. He wanted to rule out “the intervention of an extra cosmic intelligence” and to see a self-sufficient nature “as a seamless garment of organic interrelationships in which every living form can be regarded as the resultant of preceding forms.” This is the biological counterpart of Newtonian physics applied to the biosphere.

Teilhard identifies that there must be a “physical agent” that connects and explains the transformative movements of nature. His dream seems to have been to define, name and presumably use this agent. It is the philosopher’s stone of the transformist’s cause. Smith points out that if they have not, after so much time, identified this agent of transformation and thus of evolution how can they say that evolution itself is established fact?

He concludes this chapter by wondering at the fanatical faith of the transformists in the self-sufficient “one organic physical interaction of living beings.” They seem to be obsessed by establishing evolution as a way of precluding the “intrusion” of an extra cosmic intelligence”. This is the great paradox. It seems that Teilhard’s express aim was to reintroduce the Christian God into the scientific world view. But Smith argues that the God of Teilhard is not the Christian God. He wishes to enthrone a new deity who is more suited to the needs of the evolving “ultra human”. This is a new religion and Teilhard is its self-appointed prophet.

Chapter Two – Forgotten Truths

For Teilhard “spirit” is an evolutionary process in consciousness and thought. It is the unconscious unfolding into the conscious and onto the self-consciousness unique to humanity and which includes our capacity for language.

“Once symbols have taken the place of things, one is able to manipulate these symbols, move them about at will; and by virtue of this inner freedom, one finds oneself, as it were, in a new space: the space of concepts, the inner world of thought.”

Spirit has become a “thing” that can be “observed” within ourselves and related to other things (such as the brain). It is “a variable connected to other variables.”

If this process of spiritualization is channelled through “socialisation,” it will lead, according to Teilhard, to hyperconsciousness. This is the collectivisation of thought of Teilhard’s super-organism in which each of our brains is but a neuron in the over brain.

Following Descartes, Teilhard reduces spirit to a “thinking entity”. This departs from the ancients who distinguished the thought processes of the mind from the intellect which was associated with the spirit.

Particularly after Descartes, the higher concept of “intellect” was subsumed into “mind” and forgotten. For Descartes, “mind” was a spiritual substance whose activity was thought. Teilhard goes beyond this and declares that mind/thought is spirit. This amounts to a radical transformation in our view of what it is to be human.

Traditionally, thought was seen as an activity arising from the interaction of spirit (or soul) and body – like a pianist (spirit) playing a piano (the body). For Teilhard there is only the piano (body). He insists that our dynamic humanity arises from one single phenomenon and not the interaction of two. Thus, for instance, personhood arises only from the neuronal activity of the brain. This is not universally accepted even by many neurologists.

Smith maintains that Teilhard has failed to grasp that spirit and matter are situated on different levels of reality – the two poles on a vertical axis that contain existence. he argues that Teilhard’s single cosmic substance does not exist.

Creation began with a duality – heaven and earth which can be understood in a number of different ways, but underlying them all are two elements—spirit and matter.

In the past, thinkers have tried to represent the invisible spiritual reality through metaphors and images, but eventually these attempts (such as Ptolemy’s cosmology) were ridiculed because they contained elements that could not be observed and hence were deemed to be untrue. These attempts to portray a dual reality have been obliterated from the modern mind.

This obliteration becomes especially problematic when we try to grasp the immaterial elements of our own inner worlds. It was widely understood that the spiritual (the heavenly) interpenetrated the human person. Spiritual and material elements worked together in order to produce the created world and the self-conscious “I” but each kept their separate identity. For Teilhard, however, there is only one indistinguishable substance.

In physics there is no empty space or a totally material particle. The cosmos is full of immaterial spiritual content that gives life and renders the universe comprehensible. So, as we comprehend the world we see it with a spiritual eye – it is this that makes us human.

For Teilhard, our world is not the lowest level in a hierarchical, metaphysical cosmology but is the whole cosmos that includes even God. Spirit and matter are two sides of the same coin –

 “All that exists is matter becoming spirit”.

This is the core of Teilhard’s thought.

The “arrow of time” is propelling this substance “spirit-matter” on a one-way evolutionary journey.

The implications of Teilhard’s theories for Christian anthropology are immense. Traditionally man is seen as reflecting the duality of heaven and earth as he consists of body and soul.  However, we depend on three elements for our existence. Soul (psyche) is not strictly speaking the spirit(pneuma) which exists in a level above our individual forms. It is the spiritual element from which our individual soul is derived – the soul of our soul. So, the individual soul occupies an intermediary position between the spiritual realm from which we derive life and the material body. In this way we are technically made up of body and soul but linked through the soul to a higher reality. The psychic knowledge of the soul is not self-contained. It derives its “knowing” from a higher spiritual plane. The intellect is thus ultimately spiritual.

But Teilhard does not distinguish between spirit and psyche. In fact, He replaces both these “old” concepts with another evolutionary process – that of psychogenesis.

In the old system, the product of the intellect was cognition and that of the psyche/mind, thought, “thought is the quest of which cognition is the end.” In other words, the intellect guides us through mental movements (often not without some considerable pain!) in order to arrive at an understanding (the stasis of an authentic vision, or cognition). The two are not the same. Indeed, the mind never stops moving and, more often than not, this random thought movement is not guided by intellect or concluded by cognition.

The author explains that cognition does not involve movement because it takes place outside of time. It is only outside of time that we achieve the unity necessary for true cognition as time implies dispersion and multiplicity. An unperceived timeless stillness enables us to perceive a landscape as an undispersed whole. Here, our senses are saved from being overwhelmed by the millions of individual elements that make up the scene.

However, Teilhard is welded to movement as he sees everything as process. He confuses cognition and thought because his system requires it. He cannot afford to perceive the immutability and stillness of timeless spirit.

Smith is keen to emphasise that he is not talking about the Spirit of God but spirit with a small ‘s’. This is the highest tier of the created world.  It is not subject to time but neither is it eternal. It occupies a middle ground between time and eternity. This is essential to Christian metaphysics which has to include this realm of intellect. This is the created heaven that belongs with earth as the centre belongs to the circumference of a circle. It is this mysterious union of opposites that constitutes creation.

Creation then consists of the material world and several levels of the psychic world which is crowned by the spiritual. Logic dictates that the nature of time changes as the levels progress. A thousand years on earth can be as a day in heaven. Indeed, at the summit ‘before’ and ‘after’ merge into a timeless now. For Teilhard, man is trapped in the temporal zone as he denies the intellectual soul that pulls us to the timeless heaven and which defines our humanity.

Chapter Three – Complexity/Consciousness: Law or Myth?

In Teilhard’s directed evolution matter is becoming spirit. It is being spiritualised into life, consciousness and intelligence. This is happening through a process of complexification in which particles become molecules which become cells and eventually Intelligent multi-cellular organisms. Higher levels of complexity produce entities with an interior or psychic life that we call consciousness. So, consciousness is the product of increasing complexity.

In an attempt to establish laws in the biosphere that mirror those of Newtonian physics, this idea is called the Law of Complexity/Consciousness. Teilhard claims that it is empirically verifiable and it forms the foundation of his thought.

However, we are only able to observe the behaviour and not the consciousness of beings outside of ourselves.  Neither is it simple to measure, in any meaningful way, living organisms in terms of their degrees of complexity. Therefore, it is not clear how one would asses to what extent consciousness is proportional to complexity. And even if this Law held good does it establish Teilhard’s thesis?

Smith argues that it does not necessarily establish what Teilhard wishes to establish – that the spiritual factor is derived from matter. But this is fundamental to his work. He must deny dualism at all costs in order to establish that the cosmos is comprised of one substance— spirit-matter.

We have at least one mental power, however, that does not seem to be a product of our organised complexity.  This is the ability to take the extremely fragmentary elements of our sense experiences and unify them into single or ordered comprehensible perceptions. In some way, we turn these many elements into one. For instance, one photograph may be made up of over a million dots. Yet there are no structures in the brain dedicated to the unifying function that makes these dots into one comprehensible image or the multiple elements of a street scene into a streamlined and coordinated sensory experience. Thus, some other element is at work that is not a spatial entity. It’s position “above” space enables it to combine all the elements of spatial experience so that we can make sense of them.

Consciousness is seen in traditional thought as a power of the soul that is independent of the body. However, some aspects of consciousness (here called empirical consciousness) clearly arise from the interaction of the body and soul as in the processing of sensory perceptions in the waking state. But as we saw above, the processing of the multiple inputs to the senses relies upon the powers of the soul.

The author argues that this power of the soul is created and has not arisen from evolution. However, it does evolve in the sense that it is unfolded progressively through the body. Thus, the body and the soul need each other.  This unfolding of the powers of the soul also results in the development of species. But this only takes place within prescribed boundaries—dogs will probably never compose symphonies. So this unfolding does not result in the transformation of one species into another—“nothing can become that which it is not”. This is why mutations of form more often than not result in the death and not the evolution of the organism.

Sometimes Teilhard is self-contradictory in arguing that a primitive kind of psyche must exist in every corpuscle and precedes complexification. This is mystifying as not only does it undermine his own argument but is completely without the scientific verification necessary to establish the credentials of his allegedly science-based theories.

Smith argues that Teilhard will use any argument available to him (no matter how scientifically weak) in his efforts to abolish traditional dualism because it is the one thing that stands in the way of his radical evolutionism.

Teilhard does however retain some Christian teaching such as the doctrine of immortality as the survival of the entire human consciousness. But can this doctrine really survive within his framework?

In place of the soul, Teilhard argues that it is “radial energy” that draws the organism to ever greater levels of complexity and which also survives death. For Teilhard, this scientific soul has evolved out of the primeval stuff of the universe and was not created ex nihilo by God. It develops through complexification until it becomes the self-reflective soul/radial energy of man. At death this energy rises upward carrying its “incommunicable load of consciousness.”

It is clear that Teilhard has now abandoned all pretence of scientific rigour and has entered the realm of the metaphysical. For if consciousness depends on the material complexity of the body, how can it survive the death of the organism that produces it? In traditional teaching the body is made for the soul but the soul is not derived from the body. St Thomas Aquinas explains “The intellect is a faculty of the soul and the soul is the form of the body.” But intellect does not correspond to any bodily organ in the way that sight obviously relates to the eyes.

Thus, whilst the soul may be a weaker entity without the body, there is no reason that the intellectual part of the soul should not survive. This is true in most religious traditions. These traditions may be based on revelation or the pronouncements of mystics but they have an undeniable logic. The soul survives because it is perfectly simple and not because of its complexity!

The idea of immortality does not fit so neatly into Teilhard’s theories.

The author makes the point that outside of his own field (palaeontology) Teilhard’s “scientific” theories have received a mixed reception in the scientific community. He has been most warmly received in so-called theological circles and amongst thinkers such as Julian Huxley who introduced his work to the English-speaking world. He has been charged with self-contradiction and the overuse of metaphor which should obviously be used sparingly in scientific treatises mainly concerned with empirical verification of observable phenomena.

Finally, there is the hint of despair in the voice of the author who notes that:

“To the admiring multitude the Teilhardian pronouncements have become oracles of Science; and the more flagrantly far-fetched, the more earth-shaking do these pronouncements appear.”

Notes prepared by Lorraine Davison


bankless

Arthur Hayes Says, “Get your Bitcoin, and Get Out!”

You might know Arthur Hayes as perhaps THE dominant financial creative writer in crypto. When Arthur Hayes drops an article, it commands the attention of basically everyone in the industry.  And he’s done it again with his new piece, “Kaiseki,” which outlines one of the most chaotic and critical times in the macro and monetary landscape that we’ve seen, at least since 2008.  In today

You might know Arthur Hayes as perhaps THE dominant financial creative writer in crypto. When Arthur Hayes drops an article, it commands the attention of basically everyone in the industry. 

And he’s done it again with his new piece, “Kaiseki,” which outlines one of the most chaotic and critical times in the macro and monetary landscape that we’ve seen, at least since 2008. 

In today’s episode, Arthur walks us through his essay, why he believes Balaji’s $1M Bitcoin bet is wrong, how he’s navigating these tumultuous times, and so much more. 

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------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 6:27 Arthur’s Recent, “Kaiseki” Essay 13:09 Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP)  18:08 Effect on the Banking Sector 24:30 Current State of the Banking Sector  30:44 Should We Support BTFP? 39:11  What’s Going to Happen to Crypto?  46:56 Sending Bitcoin to $1M  55:05 Effects on Expanding Variables  57:35 Who Takes the Loss?  1:00:00 Rampant Inflation Worldwide & Fiat 1:03:36 Swap Lines  1:06:07 Punchlines & Endgame  1:09:25 Everyone is a Speculator 1:10:49 What Will Arthur Hayes Do? 1:13:36 Closing & Disclaimers  

------ Resources: 

Arthur Hayes https://twitter.com/CryptoHayes  

Arthur’s Recent, “Kaiseki” Essay https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/kaiseki-b15230bdd09e  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


ConsenSys Blog

Consensys Staking: Diverse Stakers, One Solution

Codefi Staking is now ConsenSys Staking. Our mission is to make staking accessible to everyone by offering embedded and rich staking experiences that are highly secure, reliable and performant. The post Consensys Staking: Diverse Stakers, One Solution appeared first on ConsenSys.

Codefi Staking is now ConsenSys Staking. Our mission is to make staking accessible to everyone by offering embedded and rich staking experiences that are highly secure, reliable and performant.

The post Consensys Staking: Diverse Stakers, One Solution appeared first on ConsenSys.


Zcash Foundation

Protecting the Zcash Trademarks

Alex Bornstein, ZF's chief operating officer, shares some insight into the work ZF does to protect the Zcash trademarks. The post Protecting the Zcash Trademarks appeared first on Zcash Foundation.
by Alex Bornstein

On November 6, 2019, the Electric Coin Company (ECC) signed an agreement with the Zcash Foundation (“ZF” or “Foundation”) to donate the worldwide trademark rights for registered Zcash logos and word marks. This donation is subject to a number of ongoing enforcement and performance obligations that ZF must undertake and maintain in order to remain in compliance with the agreement. The obligations include:

“Foundation will have the right, at its own expense, to control the preparation, filing, prosecution, and maintenance of the trademark applications and registrations included in the Trademark Rights and the preparation, filing, prosecution, and maintenance of any new or additional U.S. and non-U.S. trademark applications and registrations for the Trademark Rights […] and agrees to take such actions as are necessary to […] maintain in good standing all trademark registrations”

In addition to the registration and enforcement requirements in the ECC/ZF agreement, ZF must also comply with trademark laws and regulations in fifteen countries/jurisdictions (including the European Union as one entity), with more likely to follow in the future. This is a significant undertaking by ZF as trademark related activities require both external and internal resources in order to ensure proper enforcement and maintenance of the registered marks. 

Why is trademark enforcement important? In addition to ZF’s required actions under the ECC donation agreement and required actions under all registration jurisdictions, enforcement is important in order to:

Identify official sources of information, reducing the likelihood of fraudulent or incorrect information. Identify official apps and services, reducing the likelihood of fraudulent activities. Protect the reputation of Zcash, its associated entities, and the Zcash community.

 

How does ZF monitor trademark usage and how is enforcement initiated? ZF utilizes a multi-faceted approach:

We work with multiple trademark lawyers to inform and lead our worldwide registration and enforcement efforts. These efforts include monitoring trademark registrars worldwide to ensure we are disputing potential infringements as early in the registration or renewal processes as possible. We subscribe to multiple “watch services” that monitor apps, social media usernames, domain name registrations, and other online services. When a trademark violation is identified, we take immediate action to notify the offending party and resolve the violation.

 

One of our enforcement partners identifies Zcash trademark violations with a focus on social media and apps. Through only this one partner, since November 2021, we have flagged 793 incidents and we have successfully enforced 602 infringements, with 78 enforcements currently pending. In addition, we have 8 “major” incidents underway (which may include URLs, apps, social media, and/or trademark registrations) in cooperation with law firms in six countries.

Enforcement actions can be lengthy (and costly) processes with opportunities for both ZF and the alleged offender to respond and counter-respond multiple times prior to a final resolution.

ZF will include trademark action tracking statistics, beginning with the Q1 2023 report, to further increase transparency related to our trademark enforcement actions and progress. 

What can you do to help keep current and future Zcash community members safe from scams and misinformation?

Become familiar with ZF’s trademark policy.  If you create, or have created, a project that requires trademark usage approval and you haven’t requested approval yet, please do so via this form.  If you create, or have created, a project that does not require trademark usage approval (because it is informational or otherwise isn’t required by the policy), please ensure your project is clearly marked as an unofficial source to avoid confusion.  Report suspected trademark violations via this form.

 

ZF appreciates your assistance and cooperation as we strive to keep the Zcash community informed, safe from scams and misinformation, and presenting a unified and clear message across all online platforms. 

The post Protecting the Zcash Trademarks appeared first on Zcash Foundation.


ConsenSys Blog

ConsenSys Launches the First Marketplace for Institutional Staking on MetaMask Institutional, in Partnership with Allnodes, Blockdaemon, and Kiln

MetaMask Institutional, in partnership with Allnodes, Blockdaemon, and Kiln, has launched the first institutional-staking marketplace, bringing together staking providers and offering simple, one-click staking to institutions. The marketplace will also include ConsenSys’ own staking product. The post ConsenSys Launches the First Marketplace for Institutional Staking on MetaMask Institutional, in

MetaMask Institutional, in partnership with Allnodes, Blockdaemon, and Kiln, has launched the first institutional-staking marketplace, bringing together staking providers and offering simple, one-click staking to institutions. The marketplace will also include ConsenSys’ own staking product.

The post ConsenSys Launches the First Marketplace for Institutional Staking on MetaMask Institutional, in Partnership with Allnodes, Blockdaemon, and Kiln appeared first on ConsenSys.


We Have Built the Foundations for the Next Supercycle, and It Has Begun

Joseph Lubin's keynote speech at the Louvre during Paris Blockchain Week Summit, 2023. The post We Have Built the Foundations for the Next Supercycle, and It Has Begun appeared first on ConsenSys.

Joseph Lubin's keynote speech at the Louvre during Paris Blockchain Week Summit, 2023.

The post We Have Built the Foundations for the Next Supercycle, and It Has Begun appeared first on ConsenSys.


Defiant

Crypto Companies Report Being De-banked To Blockchain Association

Lobbying Group Requested Information From US Banking Regulators Last Week
Lobbying Group Requested Information From US Banking Regulators Last Week

Aztec Network

Zero-knowledge gaming with BattleZips x Noir

Building games of imperfect information with Aztec’s Noir language Noir was conceived of as an open-source, universal zero knowledge language. It was always meant to make the experience of developing in zero-knowledge much more accessible, by: having simple to read syntax that’s easy to reason about abstracting away cryptographic concepts and security considerations incorporating cr
Building games of imperfect information with Aztec’s Noir language

Noir was conceived of as an open-source, universal zero knowledge language. It was always meant to make the experience of developing in zero-knowledge much more accessible, by:

having simple to read syntax that’s easy to reason about abstracting away cryptographic concepts and security considerations incorporating cryptographic libraries for commonly used crypto primitives

So when we heard about the Mach34 team and their work on BattleZips — a Battleship clone relying on zero-knowledge — we knew we had to work together.

We met the Mach34 team after they placed at the ETHDenver 2022 hackathon with a Circom-written version of the classic Hasbro game Battleship.

Shortly after we released Noir, they expressed interest in rewriting Battlezips, providing us feedback, and creating a tutorial series on writing zk circuits and programs in Noir.

📺 Watch the BattleZips-Noir YouTube series here.

We provided them an Aztec Grant in late 2022, and they were off to the races, culminating in showcasing the Noir-powered Battlezips running in the browser at our sponsored game night at ETHDenver 2023.

🚢 Play Battlezips in your browser.

Here’s an unabridged conversation with Mach34 on their experience building on Noir and what developers can expect building on the universal zk language.

A Noir-ish conversation with Mach34 Q: Tell us about BattleZips. How does the game use zero-knowledge cryptography?
A: BattleZips is a zero-knowledge implementation of the popular board game Battleship that uses proofs to shield ship positions. While this is by no means an original idea for a zero-knowledge application, Battleships was chosen as it is a simple but complete example of integrating arbitrary business logic in zero knowledge circuits.
By settling zero knowledge proofs in smart contracts, we can create novel digital and economic interactions that make the existing role of Information Escrow by third parties obsolete. BattleZips helped us understand how to apply zero knowledge proofs, and we hope the BattleZips-Noir course gives you the same advantages!
Q: What inspired you to start Mach 34 and develop BattleZips? Why explore Noir?
A: BattleZips marked the beginning of our journey into zero-knowledge cryptography and expanded our horizon on where this technology could be applied in real world use cases.
This is one of the factors that lead us to creating Mach 34. Mach 34 is a Web3 and ZK Software Consultancy. We chose to focus on mastering the web3 tech stack for the sake of expertise rather than a specific application. This enables us to explore any industry ripe for decentralization, growing our overall experience with the enterprise of web3.
Corporations and governments alike habitually abuse the authoritative topology of web2 networks; as Web3/ ZK Consultants, we have the means and the desire to help innovators usurp centralized processes and give sovereignty in cyberspace back to the users.
It is crucial that we stay up to date with the latest trends in this fast developing space to ensure we provide superior expertise to clients. Our prior experience writing proofs demonstrated to us that there is a significant variation between the different tools that exist, how rapidly they can be applied to an engineering problem, and what they accomplish. This led us to explore Noir upon its official release and see how it differentiated itself from pre-existing alternatives.
Q: How did you find the ease of usability of Noir compared to other zero-knowledge domain specific languages you’ve worked with?
A: Prior to Noir we used the Circom language and the Halo 2 proving system written in Rust. Proceeding from a first look at the Noir documentation to writing circuits was a fairly quick and straightforward process.
We thought that Noir lived up to most of what it promised in its introductory medium post. If one were to begin learning Noir without wanting to get bogged down in learning the inner workings of ZK and how circuits translate to proofs then they could certainly do so. It does a good job of abstracting away from the more complex aspects of the topic.
One thing that could improve the developer experience is ensuring that the nargo command-line tool and the Aztec NPM packages compile the same Noir version. This is an issue we ran into mid way through the development process that resulted in a refactor to ensure we could test our circuits with the Aztec NPM packages.
Q: As a full-stack development shop, how has the process of incorporating zk-cryptography changed the way you approach software development projects?
A: Our interest in zero-knowledge cryptography was one of the driving factors for starting Mach 34. Historically and to this day, one of the most sought after skills in the web3 space is the ability to write smart contracts.
Similarly as the past few years have shown, we believe enabling privacy and scalability in web3 applications is only going to become more and sought after and ultimately a necessity. In anticipation of this we have positioned ourselves at Mach 34 to have the skills and expertise necessary to help companies engineer ZK solutions.
Q: What kind of impact do you think Noir and other zero-knowledge domain specific languages will have on the broader software development community? Where do you see the industry going?
A: Noir and other ZK DSLs play a pivotal role in the proliferation of zero-knowledge cryptography by abstracting away from the underlying cryptographic principles.
As history shows, abstraction is absolutely necessary for any technology to become widely adopted. If engineers were never able to design high level programming languages from low-level opcodes then we would have far fewer and less effective software developers than we do today.
Once the complexity and thought is removed from the underlying components that make zero-knowledge cryptography possible in the first place, engineers have more time to think about applications that would benefit from ZK. It looks like we are about to enter an exciting phase where we will start to see more examples of the technology applied to real world use cases.
Q: What advice would you give to developers who are interested in learning more about zero-knowledge cryptography and how to use it in their projects?
A: This is definitely an exciting space to get involved in given it is still very much in its infancy. It is poised to solve issues related to privacy and scalability in public blockchains, as well as contexts out of web3 where there is currently a lack of much needed privacy.
This being said, resources for learning are still sparse and those that exist often have a technical complexity that can make them hard to digest. It can take quite a bit of patience and perseverance to become acclimated to this space but it is well worth the effort given that you are one of the individuals pioneering the ecosystem.
If you are a developer that has an interest in getting started in ZK then I think reading some high-level introductory materials would be a good starting point.
After a basic understanding is gained on the topic then exploring a DSL like Circom or Noir to write a simple circuit would be a beneficial next step.
Once it becomes clearer to you what can be accomplished and what tools are at your disposal then really the limit is what you can ideate. The cool thing is that there is still so much room for novel innovation that it could very well be the case no one has thought of your idea yet. Don’t sit idle and wait for things to develop further! Now is a great time to jump in!
Q: Are there any upcoming projects at Mach 34 that you can share with us that utilize zero-knowledge cryptography or other cutting-edge technologies?
A: Mach 34 has been researching and working towards constructing a “Zero-Knowledge State Channel”. While rollups offer fantastic scalability, we were put off by the need for a sequencer. Furthermore, aside from Aztec Connect and a few others, ZK Rollups do not have any private state. Thus, we began to explore how state channels might be repurposed with zero knowledge.
To open a ZK State Channel, parties will agree on the terms of the execution (like a smart contract). The channel initialization dictates what steps can be taken next, and by whom. Rather than posting every transaction on-chain, a state object is recursively built off-chain.
While previous state channel constructions had optimistic trust assumptions, we can leverage ZK to perform verifiable computations that have instant, trustless finality. Once a state channel has reached an end condition, the entire state execution is notarized by posting the state channel proof on-chain for all nodes to verify in zero knowledge.
This final proof further employs zero knowledge to hide most of the intermediate state; only pre-determined derived metrics or public outputs are made publicly available on-chain.
This has many interesting use-cases; we plan to demonstrate how this construction is useful for credit scoring by adding ELO scores to the State Channel version of BattleZips. This provides a verifiable metric that scores the performance of an individual without revealing any of their in-game moves.
We envision countless use-cases for ZK State Channels across all segments of web3. Undoubtedly, there are use-cases that we haven’t thought of. For this reason, all of our work on ZK State Channels is free and open source. While we intend to utilize the infrastructure for profit, we want to make sure that all possibilities are explored in service of the best possible future for web3 developers and users.
Q: What are some use cases you’re excited for?
A: One area of exciting potential outside of blockchain is how zero-knowledge can transform personal identification.
When providing personal ID, the majority of the time more information is conveyed than necessary. Proving one is of a legal drinking age need only confirm the person is above 21 years of age, yet sharing the ID divulges information such as street address and name.
Using zero knowledge proofs conceivably one could prove they are at least 21 without having to provide additional information. Another example is having to provide a social security number in a KYC process. Leaking a SSN number can have catastrophic consequences so one would prefer this is done as infrequently as possible. With ZK proofs instead one could prove they bear a SSN number without needing to reveal exactly what theirs is.
Explore the BattleZips project

We’re thrilled that the Mach34 team have done such a deep and candid dive into Noir’s capabilities, and their feedback has been invaluable.

For developers interested in building on Noir, check out their well-documented BattleZips repo.

🚢 Explore the BattleZips Github repo and codebase.
Build on Noir

Interested in building zero-knowledge applications on Noir — or contributing to the open-source project?

Get started in our docs here. Join Noir developer office hours every Thursday at 10am ET. And jump into our Discord and continue the conversation with us in the #noir channel. Join Us

We’re always looking for talented engineers, cryptographers, and businesspeople to join Aztec. We are committed to bringing encryption to blockchain through our encrypted zkRollup, and we’ve raised over $125 million from the best investors in crypto, including a16z and Paradigm to do so. Come onboard.

👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 See our open roles here.

Zero-knowledge gaming with BattleZips x Noir was originally published in Aztec Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Defiant

Traders Bet Arbitrum Token Will Trade Above $1

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

Sushi Braces for Legal Fight After SEC Subpoena

‘Head Chef’ Asks for $3M to Cover Legal Expenses
‘Head Chef’ Asks for $3M to Cover Legal Expenses

Veil

The ironic bearishness of using crypto as cash

Would using fiat or Bitcoin be more effective for sponsoring Veil devs, or use only Veil?
The Ironic Bearishness of using VEIL as Cash

I and many others are long-time proponents of using both Veil and Bitcoin as cash. A discussion has arisen in the Veil community of people sponsoring developers working on specific development projects, although this is applicable to any Veil Project role.

One commented that as we are “Veiliens” we would surely prefer all remuneration to be done using Veil. This should communicate our preference for and support of Veil as a currency, and certainly it is superior as a privacy coin, but there are some factors that unexpectedly, or ironically, as some would put it, work the opposite!

Let’s suppose that we are paying a developer who has no other source of income, not even welfare. So we know that he has to pay for food or he will starve, and for computer resources too. While some might suppose that any Veil that gets sold for food must have been bought. Buying and selling pressure should cancel each other out, but this is not going to be the case.

Let’s consider that this Veil is not being bought at the exact same time as the same amounts are being sold, in fact, as a Veilien you already have a bag of it, but we also believe that Veil needs to recover 100 to 1000 times its current value, so we will consider the demand and supply and market sentiment dynamics as they are after a 99.9% drop in the value.

Certainly, if Veil had continued its rise in 2019 from its regular trading in the five to seven thousand satoshi range, with a little-known all time high of ten or twenty thousand sats, Veil would certainly be trading comfortably in the multi-dollar range. 20,000 satoshis today, at the time of writing is $5.63. Well, if you are prepared to pay someone 100,000 Veil for some work, valued at $338.20 today, with a Veil price of 12 sats (since increased before posting this article), knowing that those one hundred thousand Veil should be worth TWENTY BITCOIN, or USD$564,236.20, and with a $100,000 Bitcoin, TWO MILLION DOLLARS, you would not want to part with that Veil knowing that they will be DUMPED on the market and probably not even get the $300 dollars worth of work you are expecting!

We see therefore that the Veilien above, by allowing those 100,000 Veil to be dumped on a weak market is not only communicating that they don’t think Veil should regain its all time high, but his or her action will only further depress the market.

It should also be noted that no Veil team member is receiving 100,000 Veil in a month for their work. So, let’s consider the opposite approach. Paying with a currency that has established value and a highly liquid market. That might be Bitcoin itself, or if the sponsor and the sponsored developer live in the same country, it might be their shared national fiat currency.

Before that, let’s consider a managed approach to using Veil as an incentive. The sponsor has the Veil already, as should be expected for a Veilien believer, so he pays the developer, and at the same time places buy orders for the full amount that the developer will need to sell for his or her essential needs. However low the sponsor places his buy orders is the maximum extractable value that the developer can likely instantly gain from the market, BUT there might be other sellers, and the developer might not manage to sell all of the sponsorship before the sponsor’s BIDs are all taken. So, the sponsor needs to bid for a greater amount of Veil or the value transfer from the sponsor to the developer may fail. This has inefficiencies, as the sponsor has to budget more than the value the developer will gain from the transaction, and both will have to play the market, distracting both from developing Veil.

Now, let’s consider the fiat sponsorship approach, much as we instinctively abhor and avoid fiat currencies. Assuming the sponsor and the sponsored both are able to use the given fiat currency, not at all certain these days, so long as there are no transaction fees, and no interference from banking or government agencies, the full value of the sponsorship will be enjoyed by the beneficiary of that sponsorship, and they will be able to put their full efforts into the necessary developments they have been hired to do. At the same time, the sponsor, a faithful Veilien, can hold on to their (more) valuable (to them) Veil, to be used when the product of the development work has been able to make Veil more popular. Furthermore, the developer seeing how they are improving the ecosystem, may be motivated to budget some percentage of their earnings, from the sponsorship or from other income, into buying some Veil for themselves! This will be Veil that does not get dumped on the market.

Now, I’m still in favour of using Veil, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and so on, as cash, it is necessary, when you expect a long term price recovery, to replace any amount that has been used for spending, knowing that when you spend what was, and should once again be, ten thousand dollars, but only receive five hundred dollars of value for it, if you really believe that, you will replace it the same day, as a matter of urgency.

Please join our Veil community. We hope you become a “Veilien” and see the merit in sponsoring a developer for the RingCT staking project, or for other projects within the Veil ecosystem, or sponsor or become a marketer. Don’t be too shy to attach your business name to the sponsorship, for example: “Bill’s Bicycle Boutique, sponsor of Sato’s She, Veil RingCT staking developer!”

The Veil Project: https://veil-project.com Veil Project, Discord: https://discord.veil-project.com Veil-Dev, Discord: https://discord.gg/gGPcwxnSuR

[ Please note that this approach assumes that the current coin price is as a result of a deep bear market. It is highly likely that the opposite approach would be most popular in the heights of a bull market, where anyone wants to get their hands on the currency as a high priority. ]

Tuesday, 21. March 2023

Defiant

Hong Kong To Release Licensing Details For Virtual Asset Businesses In June

Stablecoin Regulation Expected In 2024 As Hong Kong Looks To Become Regional Crypto Hub
Stablecoin Regulation Expected In 2024 As Hong Kong Looks To Become Regional Crypto Hub

Polygon and Immutable Team Up On Gaming Focused zkEVM

Zero-knowledge Technology Promises To Boost Ethereum Scaling
Zero-knowledge Technology Promises To Boost Ethereum Scaling

PIVX

The Superblock Report.

Bringing you PIVX News and Developments, one Superblock at a time”, is now live! The last few months have been full of developments for PIVX labs and PIVX core. To better support the PIVX community it was decided we needed to improve the way we communicated. We needed to make it easier for the members to keep informed as to what was going on behind the scenes. Enter PIVX labs member Sa
Bringing you PIVX News and Developments, one Superblock at a time”, is now live!

The last few months have been full of developments for PIVX labs and PIVX core.

To better support the PIVX community it was decided we needed to improve the way we communicated. We needed to make it easier for the members to keep informed as to what was going on behind the scenes. Enter PIVX labs member Sandude who created The Superblock Report, PIVX’s brand new monthly publication, designed by PIVX Labs.

“The Superblock Report will be published monthly, ideally right after every superblock.”

To read the Superblock report please follow https://medium.com/@pivx-labs, PIVX labs Medium account. Feel free to leave ideas that you may have for further publications in the comments.

Keep It Purple People!

The Superblock Report. was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


bankless

NOT A DRILL! Balaji Bets the Dollar will Hyperinflate to Zero

Balaji Srinivasan is back on Bankless with alarming takes. According to Balaji, in the next 90 days, the Dollar will hyperinflate—and the Bitcoin price will skyrocket to $1 Million. He’s backed up these claims with a million dollar bet. With these dire predictions and a track record of strong takes, we needed to hear him out.  Who should we bring on next to counter these claims? ------

Balaji Srinivasan is back on Bankless with alarming takes. According to Balaji, in the next 90 days, the Dollar will hyperinflate—and the Bitcoin price will skyrocket to $1 Million.

He’s backed up these claims with a million dollar bet. With these dire predictions and a track record of strong takes, we needed to hear him out. 

Who should we bring on next to counter these claims?

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/join 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | FRIENDLY MULTICHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi  

——— Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 7:50 Weeks when Decades Happen 9:30 $1 Million Bitcoin Bet 16:20 Balaji’s Track Record 19:00 Pandemic https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1222921758375927808  23:15 Hyperinflation https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1636797265317867520  27:50 US Banking Failure https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1636822077775941633  32:50 The Banks are Insolvent https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrXKYKcakAAdJwe?format=jpg&name=medium https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1637671174271565825  35:38 More Failure, More Funding https://archive.is/0Jww3#selection-731.0-731.286  40:30 FDIC and the Fed https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10874230/Jean-Claude-Juncker-profile-When-it-becomes-serious-you-have-to-lie.html  https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20230312b.htm  44:18 Bank Runs https://qz.com/the-feds-discount-window-is-lending-to-banks-at-2008-le-1850237214  https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1637859435149398016  https://www.straitstimes.com/business/banking/wall-street-giants-move-to-rescue-first-republic-bank  https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/other20230315a.htm  52:25 Escaping to Gold https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1637544100663803904  57:50 Exporting Inflation https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/17/bread-food-arab-spring  https://www.wsj.com/graphics/red-economy-blue-economy/  https://howmuch.net/articles/rise-and-fall-dollar  1:04:30 Bitcoin in Wartime https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FrrfQuaaUAEFYev?format=jpg&name=medium  1:10:45 Capital Allocation https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1488988253411708931  1:13:30 The Only Real Banks https://twitter.com/koeppelmann/status/1637898298005626881  1:20:49 Why Now? https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1637329482687324161  https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1637868839890472960  https://twitter.com/0xfoobar/status/1637855829750628353  https://www.google.com/search? q=sivb&oq=sivb&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i10i131i433i512l2j0i10i512l2j69i64l3.1066j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8  https://www.google.com/search?q=usd+btc&oq=usd+btc&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l4j69i64l3.1207j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8  1:28:15 Do This Now https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1355652800588505089  1:34:52 A Year From Now  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Greylock Partners

Scaling with Intuition

The post Scaling with <span>Intuition</span> appeared first on Greylock.

The post Scaling with <span>Intuition</span> appeared first on Greylock.


Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

“Adventure is out there!”: Opportunities in AI x Travel

Travel is a trillion-dollar industry stuck in the past. The last major breakthrough came in the 1990s, with the emergence of online travel agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com and Expedia to aggregate inventory. Unless you hire a travel agent, planning is … The post “Adventure is out there!”: Opportunities in AI x Travel appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Travel is a trillion-dollar industry stuck in the past. The last major breakthrough came in the 1990s, with the emergence of online travel agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com and Expedia to aggregate inventory. Unless you hire a travel agent, planning is …

The post “Adventure is out there!”: Opportunities in AI x Travel appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


Sequoia

Partnering with Turnkey: Crypto Private Key Infrastructure

The post Partnering with Turnkey: Crypto Private Key Infrastructure appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.
Partnering with Turnkey: Crypto Private Key Infrastructure Sam, Bryce and Jack are giving builders the protections they deserve—with an accessible, self-serve API.

By Alfred Lin

Published March 21, 2023

Throughout the ups and downs of crypto financial markets, one thing has remained the same: builders are still building. The number of active developers contributing to open-source projects continues to climb, and is now more than 300% of what it was in 2018. 

As the crypto developer stack takes shape, custody is, of course, a core pillar—but many custody products were originally designed to support buy-and-hold financial use cases, not the development of new products. While existing enterprise custody solutions are helping larger organizations scale, developers have their own unique set of circumstances, and in their search for self-serve solutions, too often encounter long sales cycles, large annual minimums, and delays in support for new chains and tokens. Many developers simply give up on the API dream and settle for integrating existing solutions that don’t fully meet their needs.

Sam McInvgale, Bryce Ferguson and Jack Kearney met while building Coinbase’s innovative Custody product, and have seen these challenges firsthand. They were determined to give developers the custody infrastructure necessary to make building in crypto easier. The result is Turnkey, a private key management platform offering the same advanced security protections major financial institutions demand, but designed just for developers. Sam, Bryce, Jack and their team have built an accessible, easy to use, API-first product that helps users self-custody their crypto via secure enclaves, a deterministic operating system and a custom language for managing permissions. Developers can go from sign-up to signing a transaction in minutes, not months—and generate thousands of wallets programmatically across chains.

We first met the Turnkey team through Bryce, a Sequoia Scout whose passion for all things crypto we knew well. When he introduced us to Sam and Jack, we quickly realized this was a company with three co-founders who would each be backable on their own.  They now are leading an expert team with years of experience securing billions of dollars of crypto across Coinbase, BitGo and Polychain. We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with them and lead Turnkey’s seed round.

Now, they are expanding that team and launching a closed beta of their platform, and we encourage anyone building in crypto to give it a try. Today’s launch is an exciting step toward the future of the crypto developer stack, and we can’t wait to see how Turnkey empowers the next generation of builders.

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The post Partnering with Turnkey: Crypto Private Key Infrastructure appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.


Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

Investing in CCP Games

Years before the first blockchain was created, the sci-fi space MMO EVE Online proved out many of the core principles that define web3 today. This is why we are excited to be partnering with CCP on a new project set … The post Investing in CCP Games appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Years before the first blockchain was created, the sci-fi space MMO EVE Online proved out many of the core principles that define web3 today. This is why we are excited to be partnering with CCP on a new project set …

The post Investing in CCP Games appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


Defiant

Arch lending: Secure loans against alternative assets starting with crypto [SPONSORED]

Arch is a new lending platform for investors with alternative assets including cryptocurrencies looking to access liquidity without selling their investments.
Arch is a new lending platform for investors with alternative assets including cryptocurrencies looking to access liquidity without selling their investments.

Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

Investing in Coactive

Understanding what’s in an image — one of the simplest cognitive tasks for most humans — is a stubbornly difficult problem for artificial intelligence systems to solve. Over the past decade, AI models have gotten better and better at analyzing … The post Investing in Coactive appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

Understanding what’s in an image — one of the simplest cognitive tasks for most humans — is a stubbornly difficult problem for artificial intelligence systems to solve.

Over the past decade, AI models have gotten better and better at analyzing …

The post Investing in Coactive appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


Defiant

What Is Gains Network?

A Deep Dive on Decentralized Derivatives Trading
A Deep Dive on Decentralized Derivatives Trading

Circle Press

Circle Applies for Regulatory Approvals in France, Doubling Down on European Expansion

Circle seeks recognition from one of the most sophisticated regimes in the EU with applications for key authorisations from French financial regulators

Circle seeks recognition from one of the most sophisticated regimes in the EU with applications for key authorisations from French financial regulators


ConsenSys Blog

ConsenSys and MoonPay Join Forces to Empower Nigerian Users With Easy Access to Crypto Directly in MetaMask

MetaMask and MoonPay have expanded their offering in Nigeria, enabling Nigerian users to purchase crypto via instant bank transfers within the MetaMask mobile and Portfolio Dapp. Nigeria is among MetaMask’s top markets globally, ranking third in mobile active users. It is also among the top ten countries regarding visitors to metamask.io over the last month. An estimated 90% of credit/debit card

MetaMask and MoonPay have expanded their offering in Nigeria, enabling Nigerian users to purchase crypto via instant bank transfers within the MetaMask mobile and Portfolio Dapp.
Nigeria is among MetaMask’s top markets globally, ranking third in mobile active users. It is also among the top ten countries regarding visitors to metamask.io over the last month.
An estimated 90% of credit/debit card attempts to buy crypto in Nigeria are declined. Integrating MoonPay into MetaMask will make it easier for Nigerian users to obtain tokens more efficiently without setting up a crypto exchange account.

The post ConsenSys and MoonPay Join Forces to Empower Nigerian Users With Easy Access to Crypto Directly in MetaMask appeared first on ConsenSys.


Defiant

USDC Fallout: DeFi Week Mar. 12

Hey Defiers! Here’s what we covered this week!
Hey Defiers! Here’s what we covered this week!

DeFi Llama Team Resolves Conflict Over Token Plans

Forked Domain Redirects To Original Website
Forked Domain Redirects To Original Website

Aave Community Rallies Behind Proposed Metis Deployment

Metis Offers $3M In Liquidity Mining Incentives
Metis Offers $3M In Liquidity Mining Incentives

Traders Bet Arbitrum Will Have the Second-Biggest Layer 2 Token

Some Are Using OP As a Reference
Some Are Using OP As a Reference

Brave Browser

Brave Launches New Merch Store

Brave's new Merch Store is finally here! Our fully customized storefront is now the ultimate destination for official Brave and Basic Attention Token-branded merchandise.

March 21st, 2023 — We’re excited to announce that Brave’s new Merch Store is finally here! Our fully customized storefront is now the ultimate destination for official Brave and Basic Attention Token-branded merchandise.

With a product range that prioritizes style, comfort, and easy-to-wear designs, the Brave Merch Store features a brand-new cozy zip-up fleece hoodie, luxuriously soft 100% cotton tees, and other never-before-seen items. We’re also bringing back well-loved fan favorites, including our knit beanies, embroidered Champion jackets, baseball hats, and stickers. Plus, we’ll introduce seasonal products on rotation, as well as limited edition designs from our Design Team, Brave Creator community, and BAT NFT Program collaborators. 

Building our Merch Store from the ground up allows us to minimize the personal data we store on our servers and on your device, and create a solution that aligns with Brave’s core values of privacy, security, and user control. At present, the store integrates with Printful for worldwide drop-shipping and Stripe for secure credit card payments. Key additions, including Web3 payment transaction support for BAT and other digital assets, Brave Wallet connectivity, digital collectibles, and order notifications are on the Merch Store roadmap. The Merch Store’s source code is also open-source and fully auditable on GitHub and in scope for our security bug bounty program.

To celebrate the launch of our new Merch Store, we’re offering an exclusive discount: From today until Monday, Mar 27, 2023 at 11:59 PM PDT, use the code LAUNCH20 at checkout to get 20% off your order. Take advantage of this opportunity to be among the first to score all-new Brave & BAT merch!

Have any feedback, product requests, or know a Brave Creator whose work you’d like to see featured on the Merch Store? Join our BAT Brigade Discord and let us know in the #merch-store channel. We can’t wait to hear from you!

Monday, 20. March 2023

Wrench in the Gears

Flow Life Part 4 – PropTech and Space Colonies with Cliff Gomes

Last night we streamed part four in our series “Flow Life,” focused on the rental housing venture launched last summer by Adam Neumann (WeWork) and Web3 venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (a16z). Part of the discussion featured a chapter from the 1973 book, “Emergent Man,” written by former NASA researcher Robert Smith, III. Smith described his [...]

Last night we streamed part four in our series “Flow Life,” focused on the rental housing venture launched last summer by Adam Neumann (WeWork) and Web3 venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (a16z). Part of the discussion featured a chapter from the 1973 book, “Emergent Man,” written by former NASA researcher Robert Smith, III. Smith described his proposal for an interplanetary space kibbutz, a project to be led by the United Nations. Adam Neumann has said that he imagined WeWork as a capitalist kibbutz. If you’d like to read the chapter for yourself, you can find it on archive.org here.

Source Link: https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.178.4063.886

 

Source Link: https://archive.org/details/emergentmanhisch00stul Source Link: https://archive.org/details/emergentmanhisch00stul/page/145/mode/2up

bankless

Polygon and Immutable zkEVM Partnership with Sandeep Nailwal & Robbie Ferguson

David interviews Polygon Co-Founder, Sandeep Nailwal & Immutable Co-Founder Robbie Ferguson on their new zkEVM Partnership.  The three dive into the announcement, what it means for IMX and MATIC, how this partnership impacts the future of web3 gaming, and so much more.  ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/join  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:&n

David interviews Polygon Co-Founder, Sandeep Nailwal & Immutable Co-Founder Robbie Ferguson on their new zkEVM Partnership. 

The three dive into the announcement, what it means for IMX and MATIC, how this partnership impacts the future of web3 gaming, and so much more. 

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/join 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | FRIENDLY MULTICHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

----- Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 5:15 Immutable x Polygon Announcement 10:47 Immutable zkEVM 13:00 Polygon’s Tokenomics  14:32 IMX & MATIC 16:50 Paradigm Shift of Gaming Deals  20:26 Topology of Immutable x Polygon 24:17 Immutable x Polygon Business Development  29:11 Web3 Gaming Competition  31:22 Current State of Web3 Gaming  34:00 What’s Next for Immutable x Polygon?  39:42 Resources to Learn More  40:25 Scaling with Ethereum  42:06 Closing & Disclaimers

----- Resources:

Sandeep https://twitter.com/sandeepnailwal 

Robbie https://twitter.com/0xferg 

Polygon https://twitter.com/0xPolygon  

Immutable https://twitter.com/immutable  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Defiant

DeFi Alpha: Earn 50% APR On Tricrypto With Convex On Arbitrum

How To Buy ETH and Other Tokens At A Discounts On Pendle Finance
How To Buy ETH and Other Tokens At A Discounts On Pendle Finance

Sequoia

Partnering with Tavus: AI-Personalized Videos

The post Partnering with Tavus: AI-Personalized Videos appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.
Partnering with Tavus: AI-Personalized Videos In a video-first world, how do you create customized outreach that scales? Hassaan and Quinn are using AI to crack the code.

By Stephanie Zhan

Published March 20, 2023

Tavus co-founders Hassaan Raza and Quinn Favret

We live in a world where sales emails often seem too impersonal, where many marketing materials are filled with stock content, and where the efficacy of traditional performance marketing has declined severely. Audience engagement has become a scarce and valuable resource—and capturing attention has become an increasingly acute challenge. Customers want only the content most relevant to them. 

Tavus co-founders Hassaan Raza and Quinn Favret knew this pain all too well. By experimenting at their previous company, they discovered that personalized videos that touched on the specific needs and desires of each customer received far higher click-through and response rates compared to content meant for the masses. And so they labored away, creating hundreds of clips for their customers during overnight recording marathons. 

But they knew there had to be a better way. How could you build a workflow tool that would empower business professionals to create personalized videos, but without needing to manually record each and every one?

Enter Tavus: a platform that can build a personalized AI version of any sales or marketing professional. A rep starts by completing a 15-minute  recording to train their personalized AI, then records a single template for each set of videos they want to create. Using a simple yet powerful text editor, designing individual videos for every customer is as easy as typing up a script, with unlimited variables for personalization to address their specific needs—and voilà! Tavus automatically creates clips with pixel-perfect videos of you that replicate your facial expressions and voice. 

I first tried the product in late 2021, the night after meeting Hassaan and Quinn. It was in alpha at the time, but even then, it felt like magic. We were delighted to partner with them at the beginning of their journey, and to lead their seed round. They are a special pair, with vision, grit, customer obsession, and a creative lens through which to redefine the way sales and marketing should be. 

Today, just 18 months later, Tavus creates video on par in quality with anything you would create manually—and makes it a whole lot easier and faster! Even better, Tavus integrates into a company’s programmatic workflows: if a lead submits a form from your website, for example, they can automatically receive a customized Tavus video follow-up instead of a standard email. Already, these customers are seeing results—including 10x higher engagement and 300% increases in response rates, all while reps report saving 10+ hours per week. 

AI is reshaping every industry, and sales and marketing tools are no exception. We’re excited to be working with the growing Tavus team to supercharge the work of the next generation of sales and marketing professionals. Come check it out here: tavus.io.

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The post Partnering with Tavus: AI-Personalized Videos appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.


bankless

163 - What SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce Thinks About the SEC

Hester Peirce is one of five SEC Commissioners. She's been a Commissioner since 2018, with her term ending in 2025. Peirce, a previous podcast guest of Bankless, consistently makes first principles statements and is known to often dissent for her colleagues on crypto-related actions…we talk about that in today’s episode. These are a couple of many reasons why we enjoy her and her guidance so much.

Hester Peirce is one of five SEC Commissioners. She's been a Commissioner since 2018, with her term ending in 2025. Peirce, a previous podcast guest of Bankless, consistently makes first principles statements and is known to often dissent for her colleagues on crypto-related actions…we talk about that in today’s episode. These are a couple of many reasons why we enjoy her and her guidance so much. 

------ ✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode:  https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/debrief-hester-peirce    ------ ✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect this episode:  https://collectibles.bankless.com/mint 

------ We’re three months into 2023 in one of the worst regulatory environments we’ve seen for crypto in the United States. In today’s episode, SEC Commissioner, Hester Peirce shares some insight on what crypto could be like if we had a first principles SEC, what a security is and how we can define it, and how can crypto take its share of the responsibility to move this industry forward. 

Commissioner Peirce was on the show two years ago…Apr 12, 2021. Today’s second appearance is one you do not want to miss. 

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/join 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 8:25 Thoughts on Bank Crisis 9:30 Why We Need the SEC  11:40 Information Asymmetries 13:20 Healthy Crypto/SEC Relationship 17:15 SEC Security Definition  20:52 Security Catch-22  25:40 Expanding Jurisdiction  28:35 SEC Advocation  35:03 Dissent SEC Sway 39:36 Kraken Staking  43:36 Guidance vs. Enforcement  46:15 Stablecoin Status  47:43 What Crypto Could Be Doing Better? 51:12 Decentralization  53:49 Self-Regulation  55:24 Duke Speech  57:59 Closing 

------ Resources:

Hester Peirce https://twitter.com/HesterPeirce 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


a16z Podcast

The Art and Science of Podcasting

It’s both easier and harder than ever to build a successful podcast. In this episode, we chat with Sriram and Aarthi from the Good Time Show, who ventured into the world of audio peak pandemic and have since interviewed the likes of Elon Musk, Calvin Harris, and Naomi Osaka. We get their perspective on how to succeed in this competitive landscape, differentiation and the sliding scale of entertai

It’s both easier and harder than ever to build a successful podcast. In this episode, we chat with Sriram and Aarthi from the Good Time Show, who ventured into the world of audio peak pandemic and have since interviewed the likes of Elon Musk, Calvin Harris, and Naomi Osaka.

We get their perspective on how to succeed in this competitive landscape, differentiation and the sliding scale of entertainment and information, the difference between an audience and a community, podcast analytics and how they’re changing, and even what Sriram has learned from his frontrow experience at Twitter recently.

Topics Covered:

00:00 - Intro 02:20 - Podcast trivia 06:07 - Starting a podcast 08:45 - Differentiating 13:10 - Information vs entertainment 18:08 - Getting off the talk track 20:40 - Growth and metrics 22:31 - Authenticity 27:10 - Secret sauce of podcasting 28:10 - Advice for new podcasters 29:58 - In-person events 32:06 - Tech as a force for good 34:50 - The next wave of social 37:23 - Creator middle class 41:16 - Podcast infrastructure 42:55 - ChatGPT 45:10 - Swapping lives with a celebrity 52:26 - Your personal monopoly

 

Resources:

Find Sriram on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sriramk

Find Aarthi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aarthir

Find Aarthi and Sriram on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AarthiAndSriram

Check out the Good Time Show: https://www.aarthiandsriram.com/

 

Stay Updated: 

Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.


Circle Blog

MiCA's impact on the EU crypto industry and beyond

MiCA’s impact on the EU crypto industry - harmonization, competitiveness,  institutionalization, and market share gains for regulated businesses.
MiCA’s impact on the EU crypto industry - harmonization, competitiveness,  institutionalization, and market share gains for regulated businesses.

Sunday, 19. March 2023

Wrench in the Gears

E-Skooters, Slavery, and Smart Charity – A Letter From the Labyrinth Bristol, UK

A letter from the labyrinth – Bristol, UK. Note the Quaker involvement in the early slave trade as ship owners and financiers.   March 18, 2023 Hi Alison, It’s Sea, from Bristol, UK. I thought I’d write and send a few links concerning developments around 4IR and smart cities from my corner of the labyrinth. [...]

A letter from the labyrinth – Bristol, UK. Note the Quaker involvement in the early slave trade as ship owners and financiers.

 

March 18, 2023

Hi Alison,

It’s Sea, from Bristol, UK. I thought I’d write and send a few links concerning developments around 4IR and smart cities from my corner of the labyrinth. Bristol is home base for the Merchant Venturers Society, the historic colonialist and technocratic chattel slave masters that operated the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Merchant Venturers were major players in capitalism’s early technological development and  the expansion of the British Empire.

They were also the appointed rulers of the city through the Royal Charter of King Edward in 1552. The charter is still in force to this day, though in the modern times they fob us off with one of their ‘democratic’ tentacles, the Bristol City council. The Merchants made headlines following the toppling of Edward Colston’s Statue a number of years ago. Local people pulled it down following demonstrations here in 2020.

Source Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/08/who-was-edward-colston-and-why-was-his-bristol-statue-toppled-slave-trader-black-lives-matter-protests Source Link: https://www.merchantventurers.com/news/statement-from-the-society-of-merchant-venturers/

Bristol was selected as a smart city testing ground back in 2014/15. I thought I’d send the links below, as you may be interested. It shows the big push from organisations inside and outside the city that are attempting to develop a framework and infrastructure for the future here. One recent development on the streets, a pilot to draw us in, is cashless payment e-tech skooters and e-bikes for rent. They are leaving this e-tech around all areas and neighbourhoods of the city. This is a test project/partnership between our local council and VOI, a company that’s involved in Bristol’s smart tech roll out.

Source Link: https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-news/141804/voi-technology-expands-e-scooter-operating-area-to-south-of-bristol/


Also homeless vendors I know for  The Big Issue Charity (a homelessness charity and newspaper), were issued cashless payment devices during the COVID crisis. This paper prints articles in support of e-tech and has entered into charitable promotions with VOI, allegedly donating credits that people spend while using the companies e-bikes to the charity.  The general narrative pushed around the tech by local authorities, political parties, and business concerns is that these projects are sustainable, ecological alternatives to conventional transport, with the adage to convince us, they are supporting charity. 

Source Link: https://www.bigissue.com/life/money/more-big-issue-vendors-are-now-taking-contactless-payments/

It’s a bit weird seeing a once quite rebellious rural, working class city turning into a gentrified technological smart hub, in what is obviously a propaganda exercise for spreading future developments around this island and elsewhere.

There is a lot more going on in Bristol that can be found online, this city is one of the main testing grounds for 4IR and the promotion of smart cities. I hope this information is helpful.

Much respect,
Sea


Here are a few links related to the Merchants Venturers’ current and past roles within the city, as well as links related to smart city developments in Bristol:

Source Link: https://www.brh.org.uk/site/2020/10/benign-force-the-society-of-merchant-venturers/

 

Source Link: https://www.connectingbristol.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Connecting_Bristol_300819_WEB.pdf

 

Source Link: https://www.connectingbristol.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Connecting_Bristol_300819_WEB.pdf

 

Source Link: https://zagdaily.com/places/big-issue-e-bikes-launch-in-bristol/ Source Link: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/apr/07/how-we-made-big-issue-magazine-john-bird

 

Source Link: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/council-and-mayor/policies-plans-and-strategies/bristol-is-open

 

Source Link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2010-to-2015-government-policy-broadband-investment/2010-to-2015-government-policy-broadband-investment#appendix-3-investing-in-superconnected-cities

 


bankless

$ARB Airdrop & Arbitrum Governance Launch with Steven Goldfeder & Harry Kalodner

Wen Arbitrum token?! We've been asking CEO, Steven Goldfeder, and CTO Harry Kalodner this exact question each time they've been on Bankless. We're sad, but also overly delighted that, that question has officially been answered.  Arbitrum's token $ARB will officially be airdropped later this week. In this episode, we dive into all of the juicy details of the airdrop and Arbitrum's plans for

Wen Arbitrum token?! We've been asking CEO, Steven Goldfeder, and CTO Harry Kalodner this exact question each time they've been on Bankless. We're sad, but also overly delighted that, that question has officially been answered. 

Arbitrum's token $ARB will officially be airdropped later this week. In this episode, we dive into all of the juicy details of the airdrop and Arbitrum's plans for the future.  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/join 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | FRIENDLY MULTICHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

----- Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 4:44 Wen Token? 8:30 Why Now? 11:52 Token Distribution & Treasury 20:12 Governance 26:11 Token Eligibility 35:08 Protocol Guild  38:55 Arbitrum Constitution  44:52 Rollup Decentralization 49:10 Orbits & Layer 3s 57:05 What's Next for Abitrum?  1:01:55 Closing & Disclaimers 

----- Resources:

Arbitrum https://twitter.com/arbitrum 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 

Saturday, 18. March 2023

Crypto Valley Swiss Association

Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-03-12 – 2023-03-18)

🚨 Don't forget to join us tomorrow for the next Meet the Blockchain #VCs event together with @CryptoPhD (… https://t.co/k3vH9wi4h5 2023-03-13 🚨 Don't miss the next #TrustedInnovationMeetUp by @inacta on... The post Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-03-12 – 2023-03-18) appeared first on Crypto Valley Association.
Don't forget to join us tomorrow for the next Meet the Blockchain #VCs event together with @CryptoPhD (… https://t.co/k3vH9wi4h5 2023-03-13 Don't miss the next #TrustedInnovationMeetUp by @inacta on March 20th!

The event will discuss the benefits and… https://t.co/VyiniGGzBh 2023-03-13

Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, a crypto brokerage platform, that powers a simple, agile, and relia… https://t.co/oO4YwlYChQ 2023-03-14 The @Crypto_CAC 2023 is right around the corner! 2 days full of top-notch talks on Crypto & Digital Assets, and… https://t.co/rAX7CjITjF 2023-03-15 Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, a Layer 1 Blockchain built to drive impact & fulfil aspirations for… https://t.co/vgyOjD9Smh 2023-03-16 Join us and experts from @RolandBerger, @MME_Switzerland, and @wisdomise onMar 29 to discuss due-diligence steps… https://t.co/oyI9AxR5Df 2023-03-16 Panelists:
Moderator: @PierreSamaties , @RolandBerger
Legal expert: Michael Peter Kunz, @MME_Switzerland
https://t.co/tq8PN8tBsc in reply to thecryptovalley 2023-03-16 Don't forget about this cool event onMonday, where @smile_versicher's CEO @PierangeloCam10 will share why they ar… https://t.co/yEOFJau8EE 2023-03-17 Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, digital assets marketplace enabling Security Tokens issuance, mana… https://t.co/p9AT9lGXJ8 2023-03-17 2 days of thought provoking content & speakers
7 master classes
startup competition
lots of networking
l… https://t.co/KmpSBj6GIX 2023-03-17

The post Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-03-12 – 2023-03-18) appeared first on Crypto Valley Association.


Defiant

📬 Inbox Dump #94

Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. 
Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. 

Bitcoin Hits 9-Month High Above $27,500

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

MakerDAO Doubles Down On US Treasuries

Strategy Helped DeFi Lender Weather The Bear Market By Generating Yield On Reserves
Strategy Helped DeFi Lender Weather The Bear Market By Generating Yield On Reserves

Bitcoin Hits 9-Month High Above $27,500

Largest Cryptocurrency Continues To Outperform As Dominance Rises Above 45%
Largest Cryptocurrency Continues To Outperform As Dominance Rises Above 45%

Friday, 17. March 2023

Defiant

Betting Market for Arbitrum Airdrop Surges Before Announcement

A key indicator shows traders started aggressively betting Arbitrum’s ARB token would be airdropped hours before the token distribution was announced.  On March 15, a day before the airdrop went public, traders on prediction market Polymarket started placing more bets that the airdrop would happen before March 31.  “Yes” shares spiked as high as $0.72 […]
A key indicator shows traders started aggressively betting Arbitrum’s ARB token would be airdropped hours before the token distribution was announced.  On March 15, a day before the airdrop went public, traders on prediction market Polymarket started placing more bets that the airdrop would happen before March 31.  “Yes” shares spiked as high as $0.72 […]

Daily Layer 2 Transaction Count Soars To Record 1.54M

Ethereum Scaling Solutions Surpass Mainnet By 48%
Ethereum Scaling Solutions Surpass Mainnet By 48%

Epicenter Podcast

David Schwartz & Jordi Baylina: Polygon zkEVM – From Mainnet to Mass Adoption - Part 2

While Part 1 (#486) focused on the technological advancements that allowed proofs to be generated in a practical manner, lowering both the time and the hardware requirements, in this episode, we take a closer look at the use cases of different types of zk rollups and how they could promote blockchain mass adoption. Polygon's zk EVM equivalence, coupled with low transaction fees, promise a friction

While Part 1 (#486) focused on the technological advancements that allowed proofs to be generated in a practical manner, lowering both the time and the hardware requirements, in this episode, we take a closer look at the use cases of different types of zk rollups and how they could promote blockchain mass adoption. Polygon's zk EVM equivalence, coupled with low transaction fees, promise a frictionless user experience. As with all L2 rollups, sequencer decentralisation remains a pressing issue that needs to be solved.

We were joined by Jordi Baylina (tech lead) & David Schwartz (CTO) from Polygon's zkEVM, to discuss the relationship between Polygon's multiple zk rollups, their use cases, as well as network statistics for zk-EVM.

Topics covered in this episode:

The relationship between Polygon and zkEVM The differences between Polygon’s multiple zk rollups Network participant roles in zkEVM Transaction submission stages Sequencer decentralisation Transaction costs Use cases for different zk rollups Open-sourceness, decentralisation and the licensing of zkEVM’s prover The decentralised identity project (DID) Roadmap after main-net launch

Episode links:

Polygon zkEVM – From Circuits to Mainnet – Part 1 Jordi Baylina on Twitter David Schwartz on Twitter Polygon zkEVM on Twitter

Sponsors:

Omni: Access all of Web3 in one easy-to-use wallet! Earn and manage assets at once with Omni's built-in staking, yield vaults, bridges, swaps and NFT support.
https://omni.app/ -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/487


Defiant

Lobbying Group Hunts For Proof That Feds Are Targeting Crypto

Blockchain Association Requests Information From US Banking Regulators
Blockchain Association Requests Information From US Banking Regulators

Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

The Generative AI Revolution will Enable Anyone to Create Games

As the Generative AI Revolution in Games progresses, it will completely reshape User Generated Content (UGC) creating a world where anyone can build games and expanding the games market beyond what many thought was possible. In the coming years, deep … The post The Generative AI Revolution will Enable Anyone to Create Games appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

As the Generative AI Revolution in Games progresses, it will completely reshape User Generated Content (UGC) creating a world where anyone can build games and expanding the games market beyond what many thought was possible. In the coming years, deep …

The post The Generative AI Revolution will Enable Anyone to Create Games appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


ConsenSys Blog

10 Tips To Get Started As A Web3 Game Developer

Dive into the world of web3 game development with ConsenSys tools. MetaMask SDK, Infura NFT API, and Truffle are now available as verified solutions in the Unity Asset Store. The post 10 Tips To Get Started As A Web3 Game Developer appeared first on ConsenSys.

Dive into the world of web3 game development with ConsenSys tools. MetaMask SDK, Infura NFT API, and Truffle are now available as verified solutions in the Unity Asset Store.

The post 10 Tips To Get Started As A Web3 Game Developer appeared first on ConsenSys.


Defiant

How To Decentralize a Fortune 500 Company

This week on The Defiant podcast, Tegan Kline hosts Jesse Pollak, senior director of Engineering at Coinbase, Eva Beylin, the director of the Graph Foundation, and Ben Jones, the director of the Optimism Foundation, to give us a deep dive into the launch of Base, Coinbase’s recently-launched Layer 2 blockchain.
This week on The Defiant podcast, Tegan Kline hosts Jesse Pollak, senior director of Engineering at Coinbase, Eva Beylin, the director of the Graph Foundation, and Ben Jones, the director of the Optimism Foundation, to give us a deep dive into the launch of Base, Coinbase’s recently-launched Layer 2 blockchain.

Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

Space: A Market Map

In “The Space Age”, I wrote about the importance of mankind extending our reach into the stars. Moreover, I suggested that America is — and should remain — the leader in this endeavor. It was, in many ways, an … The post Space: A Market Map appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

In “The Space Age”, I wrote about the importance of mankind extending our reach into the stars. Moreover, I suggested that America is — and should remain — the leader in this endeavor. It was, in many ways, an …

The post Space: A Market Map appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


bankless

ROLLUP: $ARB Airdrop | Banking Failure with SVB & Silvergate | Ethereum Shanghai Staking Withrawals

Bankless Weekly Rollup 3rd Week of March 2023 ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/join  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:  🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken  🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask  ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  🦄 UNISWAP |

Bankless Weekly Rollup 3rd Week of March 2023

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/join 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🦄 UNISWAP | THE DEFI EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | CROSS-CHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom 

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 1:40 Citizenship

3:30 MARKETS 9:40 CPI Inflation https://twitter.com/RealVision/status/1635619573901688834  12:54 ETH Burn https://twitter.com/ultrasoundmoney/status/1635719284876771350  14:00 DeFi Volume https://twitter.com/AustinAdams10/status/1634737488534073344  https://twitter.com/synthetix_io/status/1633963371434332161 

18:45 Arbitrum Token https://twitter.com/BanklessHQ/status/1636351836381937666  https://docs.arbitrum.foundation/gentle-intro-dao-governance  27:35 $ARB Airdrop Predictions https://www.bankless.com/the-arb-arbitrum-airdrop-is-here/  https://earni.fi/

32:27 US Banking System https://twitter.com/scienceisstrat1/status/1627661003449147393  36:12 Recapping SVB and Silvergate 37:07 Operation Chokepoint 2.0 https://twitter.com/nic__carter/status/1634770876494147584  https://twitter.com/GOPMajorityWhip/status/1636008298481680384 

41:49 USDC Price https://twitter.com/jerallaire/status/1635059024050937856  39:47 Credit Suisse https://apnews.com/article/credit-suisse-banks-svb-shares-ecb-lagarde-94585aebadbf67f9a2307d3560ce502c  45:47 Banking Crisis https://twitter.com/twobitidiot/status/1635112021862785024  46:42 FedNow CBDC https://twitter.com/federalreserve/status/1636110208878379010  https://twitter.com/damonnam/status/1636150037657837568 

48:23 ETH Security KuCoin Crypto https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2023/attorney-general-james-continues-crackdown-unregistered-cryptocurrency-platforms  https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/03/09/what-happens-if-ethereum-is-a-security/  50:37 Gary Gensler Proof of Stake https://www.theblock.co/post/220297/gensler-suggests-proof-of-stake-tokens-are-securities 

54:50 Ethereum Shanghai Staking Withdrawals https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1636370111333556224  Lido Staking -  https://twitter.com/LidoFinance/status/1635739571227951117  55:50 Euler Finance Hacked https://twitter.com/eulerfinance/status/1635431726364147712?  59:20 Aztec Connect https://twitter.com/aztecnetwork/status/1635319509707030528 

1:00:15 Starbucks NFTs https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/9/23633169/starbucks-nfts-odyssey-siren-collection-rewards-program  1:01:10 Fortnite Epic Games Crypto https://blockworks.co/news/epic-games-fortnite-store-crypto-blockchain  1:02:05 Meta Instagram NFTs https://twitter.com/skasriel/status/1635386565487898624  1:04:20 Bankless NFT Collectibles https://market.bankless.com/  1:05:15 Fidelity Crypto https://www.theblock.co/post/220298/fidelity-crypto-quietly-went-live-giving-millions-of-retail-customers-access-to-bitcoin-ether  1:06:25 Releases Uniswap on BNB - https://twitter.com/Uniswap/status/1636034900284383239  Soul Wallet - https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/16/soul-wallet-crypto-wallet/ 

1:10:30 Questions from the Nation https://www.bankless.com/join 

1:18:00 TAKES of the Week 1:20:00 Banks are Rollups https://twitter.com/0xJim/status/1635290618003066882  1:21:02 Crypto Markets https://twitter.com/TrustlessState/status/1635312852067307520  1:21:47 Tech Entrepreneurs https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1634892046447308800 

1:23:10 What David’s Bullish On 1:25:00 What Ryan’s Bullish On

1:28:00 MEME of the Week  

---- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Verida

Verida One Preview: Usernames for your Decentralized Identities

Verida Usernames make it easier for you to manage your decentralized identities. A Decentralized Identifier (DID) is unique identifier that you can prove control over by authenticating using cryptographic proofs such as digital signatures. DIDs are a key component of enabling self-sovereign identity, and can give you more control over your personal information. You can create Verida DIDs using t
Verida Usernames make it easier for you to manage your decentralized identities.

A Decentralized Identifier (DID) is unique identifier that you can prove control over by authenticating using cryptographic proofs such as digital signatures. DIDs are a key component of enabling self-sovereign identity, and can give you more control over your personal information.

You can create Verida DIDs using the Verida Wallet, which will enable you to store verifiable credentials, manage your blockchain addresses and assets, and sign into decentralized applications.

A Verida DID typically looks like this: did:vda:0x6B2a1bE81ee770cbB4648801e343E135e8D2Aa6F

The string of characters making a DID unique make it really hard for people to read, remember or share with other people!

Introducing Verida Usernames

Verida Usernames are unique, human-readable names tied to your DID, similar to how the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) provides human-readable names for Ethereum addresses.

You can personalise your Verida DID by claiming any available name on the network.

Setting up a Verida Username makes it easy to share and remember the address to your Verida One profile.

Where can I use my Verida Username?

Your Verida Username will be displayed on your Verida One profile. It will also be available as an alias in your profile URL i.e. www.verida.one/yourusername.

Where is my Verida Username stored?

Your Verida Username is recorded on-chain. It is registered using the Verida Username smart contract.

The smart contract is available here: https://github.com/verida/blockchain-contracts/tree/develop/VDA-Name-Registry

The smart contract is deployed here: https://mumbai.polygonscan.com/address/0x666F81e59082ccD7C8737f84e1C232a982043140

Developers can create and read usernames on the network using the Verida protocol library: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@verida/vda-name-client

How do Verida Username work?

Verida names are aliases that point to your Verida Identity. eg alice.vda points to did:vda:0x6B2a1bE81ee770cbB4648801e343E135e8D2Aa6F

All names end in .vda

This naming system works within the Verida protocol.

When can I claim my Verida Username?

Verida One is currently in private alpha. Join the Verida One waitlist to get notified when Verida One, usernames and other features become available.

Want to know more about Verida One? Join our Discord community and head to the #verida-one channel Sign up for the waitlist on verida.one Ask us anything on Twitter by using the #VeridaOne hashtag and tag @Verida_io

Verida One Preview: Usernames for your Decentralized Identities was originally published in Verida on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Thursday, 16. March 2023

Defiant

Arbitrum To Airdrop Long-Awaited Token On March 23

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

Synthetix Perpetual Volumes Hit Record $200M As Optimism Incentives Near

More Than 3.5M OP Tokens Will Be Distributed To Traders Over 20 Weeks
More Than 3.5M OP Tokens Will Be Distributed To Traders Over 20 Weeks

Greylock Partners

Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI

Introduction from "Impromptu," Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman's new book, cowritten with OpenAI's GPT-4 The post Amplifying Our Humanity Through <span>AI<span> appeared first on Greylock.

Defiant

TrueUSD Moves $1B in Reserves To The Bahamas After U.S. Banking Failures

The company behind TrueUSD, the fifth-largest stablecoin, moved $1B of the company’s reserve assets to a Bahamas-based financial institution citing the tumultuous state of the U.S. banking sector on Wednesday. Archblock, the firm that oversees TrueUSD’s $2B in reserve assets, moved the funds to Capital Union Bank. The Bahamas-based bank now holds $1.4B of the […]
The company behind TrueUSD, the fifth-largest stablecoin, moved $1B of the company’s reserve assets to a Bahamas-based financial institution citing the tumultuous state of the U.S. banking sector on Wednesday. Archblock, the firm that oversees TrueUSD’s $2B in reserve assets, moved the funds to Capital Union Bank. The Bahamas-based bank now holds $1.4B of the […]

Uniswap v3 Launches On BNB Chain After Months of Infighting

Uniswap, the leading decentralized exchange, went live on BNB Chain following months of infighting on Wednesday. Uniswap Labs announced the launch of its v3 protocol on BNB Chain, saying the blockchain “typically offers faster and cheaper transactions than Ethereum,” making the exchange accessible to a broader user base. BNB Chain, a blockchain created by the […]
Uniswap, the leading decentralized exchange, went live on BNB Chain following months of infighting on Wednesday. Uniswap Labs announced the launch of its v3 protocol on BNB Chain, saying the blockchain “typically offers faster and cheaper transactions than Ethereum,” making the exchange accessible to a broader user base. BNB Chain, a blockchain created by the […]

Sequoia

Vijaye Raji Spotlight

The post Vijaye Raji Spotlight appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.
Vijaye Raji Wants You to Think Impact

By Paul Boutin

Photography: MERON MENGHISTAB

Published March 16, 2023

After 20 years working with the powerful tools used inside Microsoft and Facebook, Statsig’s CEO is building versions that can help every company deliver measurable real-world results.

“It takes a special courage to say look, I understand where the data is going, but we’re going the other way,” Vijaye Raji tells me with contagious cheer. The statement might seem against Raji’s interests given that his startup, Statsig, founded in 2021, builds testing and validation tools designed to give organizations the rich real-world data they need to make product decisions.

The more you learn about Raji’s life, however, the more it makes sense that his product isn’t going to tell you what decisions to make. In a 20-year career, he’s learned to defy conventional wisdom and make his own decisions—most recently leaving a post leading thousands of engineers to found an 8-person startup. 

In Sequoia partner Mike Vernal’s words, “Vijaye is the most impactful engineer that I’ve ever worked with. He’s incredibly pragmatic and punctual and just a get-shit-done kind of person. If I could have just one engineer on anything, that would be Vijaye.”

Raji is clearly confident but not overly eager to talk about himself. He’d rather explain at length that organizations often make decisions without the data they really need. Or they look at limited-scope data, which leads to short-term focus while missing the big picture. Or (there are so many ways to fail!) they’ll go overboard the other way and let the numbers decide everything against their better sense.

“Data is always optimizing locally,” he says. “Follow it and you’re climbing to the highest local ground. To get to much higher ground, you may need to go through a dip first.” Collecting data from a wider area, with more local details, is like getting the best possible map of uncharted waters ahead. “You need to have product sense and apply it to the data,” he cautions. But first, you need the data.

With Statsig, Raji wants to give other organizations the breadth and depth of data enjoyed by tech giants.  He thinks this will let them make better decisions and choose new directions, informed by real-world data about their customers’ behavior.

“Vijaye is the most impactful engineer that I’ve ever worked with.… If I could have just one engineer on anything, that would be Vijaye.”

mike vernal

As a boy in Puducherry, India, young Vijaye took an interest in programming at age 12. A computer was beyond his family’s budget, so he did his coding on a machine at the local library. Once, he convinced the librarian to lock him in overnight so he could pull an all-nighter.

Despite his enthusiasm for tech, Raji was cautious about leaving his family behind. When it came time for college, he attended nearby Pondicherry University rather than one of the top IT schools from which many Indian-born engineers in Silicon Valley have graduated. “I got into a bunch of colleges that were outside my town,” he says, “but I didn’t want to go far from family. My dad was working abroad, so my mom definitely loved for me to stay close. But it was a big decision—there are better colleges that I had to give up.” 

By the time he graduated, Raji’s father had returned home. Vijaye felt OK to take a job 500 miles away in Hyderabad. Before long, Indian outsourcing giant Wipro tapped him to relocate to Finland for Nokia. 

Having never traveled far, Vijaye says he had to learn a lot that others took for granted: “I had never flown on a plane before. I had to learn how to fasten my seat belt.” In Finland, he quickly learned that spicy food and a meat-free diet were still an anomaly at the time. Then there was Finland’s weather: “I moved there in spring, and when November came I didn’t know what hit me.” Puducherry, on the Bay of Bengal, rarely dips below 70 degrees in winter. Yet, he says, he enjoyed discovering new ways of living and came to appreciate them. 

After two winters in Finland, Raji got an offer from Microsoft in Seattle. Wipro was paying him $2,600 per year—good for India at the time—but Microsoft’s offer letter promised a $72,000 annual salary. The still unworldly Raji believed that, of course, the number was a ridiculous typo.

Once his friends had convinced him it wasn’t, he was all in to relocate halfway around the world for a company he admired. “I had learned to program on QBasic, and then Visual Basic and Visual C++, all thanks to Microsoft,” he says. “It was like a dream when I got that offer.”

He didn’t know it, but he would work for Microsoft for nearly a decade. He stayed longer than he’d have preferred, to avoid the risk of losing his visa should he leave. “I was stuck in green-card hell for 9.5 years,” he quips. “There was a running joke that the fastest way to get a green card was to get married, have a kid in the U.S., and when that kid is 18 years old, they can sponsor you for your green card.” 

Not that he hated his job. Raji worked on critical projects including the Windows Application Framework, SQL Server Modeling Language, Microsoft TV and Visual Studio, which grew into the VS Code application that millions of programmers worldwide are using today. As a side project, he created the Small Basic programming language designed to appeal to beginners.

Four years in, he met local high-school teacher Ashley Lauren. When they eventually married in 2009, Ashley sponsored him for his green card, which he obtained a snappy three months later. He says now, “Microsoft wasn’t bad, but I was ready to go.”

“It was time for something new. For that, there’s nothing better or bigger than starting your own company and making it successful.”

vijaye raji

Sequoia partner Mike Vernal had worked at Microsoft in those same years and then moved to Facebook. When Raji, whom he hadn’t met, arrived at Facebook later, Vernal says other ex-Microsoft coworkers told him to pounce to get Vijaye on his team. What they didn’t tell Mike was to make sure he was early. At that point, Raji had no patience for people who don’t show up on time. He passed on joining Vernal’s group, but the two became friends over time.

Raji hadn’t planned to stay at Facebook a full decade either, but they kept promoting him. He joined Facebook’s Seattle campus when it was an office with a dozen people, and ended up leading the operation as it grew to 6,500 people. 

Finally, he says, a startup seemed the one big thing he hadn’t done: “I’ve done engineering. I’ve done large orgs, I’ve made decisions on where to invest in real estate to house 20,000 planned Facebook employees in Seattle. I’ve done commerce, I’ve done ads, I’ve done gaming, I’ve done entertainment.

“It was time for something new. For that, there’s nothing better or bigger than starting your own company and making it successful. And what I’m doing now is data infrastructure, something completely different from everything I’ve worked on before.”

To be clear, both Raji and Vernal—who had left Facebook to become a partner at Sequoia—toyed with several startup ideas in the late 2010s. When they eventually converged in early 2019 on the idea for Statsig, Raji made plans to wrap up his role at Facebook, when he was still head of Facebook Seattle and also of Facebook Gaming.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself—by then only two levels up on the org chart—pinged Raji on Messenger (they had chatted often) with a counter-offer: the head of the company’s Entertainment group was taking the place of another departing executive. To Zuckerberg, Vijaye seemed the obvious choice to step up from managing not only gaming but video, music, movies, sports and who knows what next. 

Entertainment was a major part of Facebook’s future. Even Raji agreed it could be a tough year for Facebook if anyone else took the job. “Organizations are very resilient,” he says, “nothing ever breaks because somebody leaves… but, I felt a sense of obligation. I committed to another 18 months.”

Finally, nearly two years later in February 2021, Raji handed in his Facebook badge to start Statsig. 

statsig office dog kirby contemplates impact

Raji says that what he experienced at Facebook was a builder-centric culture that most companies just don’t have from the top down. “Decisions were all data-driven,” he says. “No more debates in conference rooms. Products are built quickly, validated with testing, and the successful ones survive while the unsuccessful are discarded.” 

Facebook engineers can do this because the entire company uses the same set of infrastructure tools. It doesn’t just make work more efficient, it enables a cultural shift. Facebook engineers don’t measure themselves by ship goals—“I shipped two features this year”—but by performance results: “I shipped a feature that boosted engagement by 2.5 percent.”

Statsig is the latest of several companies like Honeycomb and Scuba.io that were founded by Facebook alumni looking to bring these tools and the culture they enable to as many other companies as possible—a chance to have an impact on the way software is built at any company, maybe even as an industry.

“So far, we’ve built our own versions of a half dozen of Facebook’s tools,” he says. “We’re adding more every few weeks.” For example, Statsig’s Pulse is a powerful tool for internal A/B testing based on Facebook’s Deltoid. It’s the kind of super tool that big companies like Uber and Spotify can afford to build for themselves, but most startups can’t. Raji is certain that Statsig will empower a foundational cultural shift among customers—from ship goals to metric goals. For non-engineers: It’s not what you build, but what’s your impact?

“What amazed me off the bat with Statsig was the strength and breadth of user-love that the team has garnered,” shares Dannie Herzberg, a Sequoia partner.  “Join their Slack community and you’ll see prospects and customers from early-stage startups all the way to enterprise companies sharing their enthusiasm for the product and celebrating new features as they’re launched.”

For Raji and several Facebook colleagues who jumped ship to join him, starting Statsig meant suddenly downshifting to work with eight people instead of eighty thousand, having to learn the partner ecosystem, having to learn to manage a startup business P&L, and so much else they’d been able to leave to others. 

Like most startup teams, they found this exhausting and also exhilarating. But as Statsig sailed off on its own, Raji looked back to Facebook’s shores and realized he’d missed the chance to take something valuable with him: “As the head of Entertainment I had access to the world-class sales team and world-class marketing team, and never once bothered to learn that. Now I kick myself: If only I could go back and spend quality time with the sales leaders, the marketing leaders, the business leaders. I had the opportunity.”

Delivering impact

Regrets aside, Raji has a track record of identifying projects and companies where he can have an impact on the outside world. What does he look for?

A unique perspective. A credible vision that isn’t shared by the majority. “If an idea and its value proposition is super-obvious to you, but not so obvious to others, that’s an idea worth exploring.” A short time from plan to product. “The implementation of a minimum viable product should take weeks or months, not years. You don’t want to be developing in a vacuum for too long. Take it to potential customers as soon as possible.” Many startups have gone heads-down for nearly a year, only to emerge with a product that isn’t what the market wants at all. VCs getting excited. “Venture capital investors have a broad line of sight into the market. They can quickly spot if something solves a real pain point.” Few ideas are 100% novel. They’ve seen similar ventures crash, so they perk up when they see one with an approach that could avoid known roadblocks.

Raji is indeed known for being reliably punctual, and impatient with those who aren’t. Contrary to popular tech-industry myth, you don’t win by simply working all waking hours, but by developing good time management. Vijaye keeps a well-honed startup parent schedule: A tightly managed workday, followed by never missing playtime with his children after office hours. Then, after they’re tucked in, you can count on him to respond to critical messages later in the evening.

More important, he says, is not letting your first win or two convince you that you’re always right. He’s seen successful people presume that they have superior insight and use their past success—coupled with either undeniable charisma or a bulldozer persona—to get their way contrary to evidence and objections. 

Statsig is meant to be a set of tools to keep that from happening, by letting more organizations develop a nimble culture of real-world testing and measurement to drive decisions. “A lot of companies debate the merits of ideas in a conference room,” he says. “Every idea has its merits. The way you understand which one’s working and which one’s not working is actually putting it out to the people that use the product. You don’t have heated debates. If the customers like it, the numbers go up. If they don’t, the numbers go down.” 

“I’m never attached to a decision that I make,” he concludes. “If there’s new data or evidence that proves that I’m wrong … well, I’m wrong.”

Written by:

Paul Boutin has been writing about and working at technology startups for more than three decades. He has written for Wired, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and many others.

Share Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share this on LinkedIn Share this via email Ryan Dahl of Deno: Revisionist Engineering Spotlight Read Clari’s Andy Byrne Is Optimizing for Human Connection Spotlight Read Linear: Designing for the Developers Spotlight Read Augmenting Human Intellect, No Code Required Notion is growing an enduring business by nurturing the creative community. Spotlight Read

The post Vijaye Raji Spotlight appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.


Defiant

How Stable are Stablecoins? A Breakdown of the Options

Make Stablecoins Stable Again
Make Stablecoins Stable Again

How To Decentralize a Fortune 500 company

Billion Users with Base
Billion Users with Base

Wrench in the Gears

Flow Life Part 3 – Health, Re-Skilling and Refuge in Dallas with Lynn Davenport

Last night I streamed the third installment in our “Flow Life” series examining themes related to the new collaborative venture of Adam Neumann (WeWork) and Marc Andreessen (a16z). I was joined by Lynn Davenport, a close friend and diligent advocate for children, who is based in Dallas. In this episode we discuss issues of education [...]

Last night I streamed the third installment in our “Flow Life” series examining themes related to the new collaborative venture of Adam Neumann (WeWork) and Marc Andreessen (a16z). I was joined by Lynn Davenport, a close friend and diligent advocate for children, who is based in Dallas. In this episode we discuss issues of education privatization (including pre-k debt), affordable housing, and the planned role for faith institutions in administering the Web3 global behavioral experiment. This is a link to the slide deck. Part 3 starts at slide number 128.

Yesterday I was working on basting a quilt, listening to a talk that Jason shared with me a few weeks ago by Augustin Carstens of the Bank of International Settlements on plans to create a unified ledger system – a “heart” to pump the blood of innovative programmable money around the world. I’m pasting in a short clip below.

The BIS is hosting an innovation summit next week, March 21 and 22 starting at 8am Eastern Time. Registration is free. I just listed myself as an independent researcher, and it seemed to go through. I’d encourage as many people as possible to watch. I’m thinking it would be useful to do a debrief. If any of you out there want to watch, at least some of it, and talk about it later, shoot me an email to timpsila@protonmail.com. Check out the agenda here. Second on deck after Agustin Carstens is Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. Much of Leo’s research into regenerative finance and biodiversity seems to lead back to the Netherlands. The same goes for my investigations into complexity theory and emergence.

Watch the full one-hour talk here.


Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

Investing in Wingspan

The contractor payroll market is massive. Roughly one-third of U.S. workers have performed freelance work in the last year, and $1.4 trillion is paid out to contract workers annually. In many ways, contractors are the backbone of the U.S. economy. … The post Investing in Wingspan appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

The contractor payroll market is massive. Roughly one-third of U.S. workers have performed freelance work in the last year, and $1.4 trillion is paid out to contract workers annually. In many ways, contractors are the backbone of the U.S. economy. …

The post Investing in Wingspan appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


Defiant

Arbitrum To Airdrop Long-Awaited ARB Token On March 23

Layer 2 Network To Decentralize And Add Support For Layer 3 Blockchains
Layer 2 Network To Decentralize And Add Support For Layer 3 Blockchains

bankless

Circle's CEO, Jeremy Allaire on USDC, SVB's Collapse, & the U.S. Banking System

Co-Founder and CEO of Circle, Jeremy Allaire, answers the question, "What's next for USDC?" It's been a rocky week for the stablecoin. Bottoming out right around $0.88 amidst the U.S. banking crisis, it seems to have regained its peg. What happened behind the scenes? What regulation is needed according to Jeremy? And most importantly, what's next for USDC?   ------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi

Co-Founder and CEO of Circle, Jeremy Allaire, answers the question, "What's next for USDC?"

It's been a rocky week for the stablecoin. Bottoming out right around $0.88 amidst the U.S. banking crisis, it seems to have regained its peg. What happened behind the scenes? What regulation is needed according to Jeremy? And most importantly, what's next for USDC?  

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/join 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

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🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | FRIENDLY MULTICHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

----- Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 3:52 Update on the Past Week 15:44  Circle's Adapted Strategy  20:32 CBDCs 26:18 What Regulation is Needed? 29:02 Closing & Disclaimers

----- Resources:

Jeremy Allaire https://twitter.com/jerallaire 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Zaisan

How Self-Sovereign Identity Can Revolutionise the Travel Industry

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a revolutionary concept that is gaining traction in the world of digital identity management. In simple terms, SSI is a way for individuals to take control of their own digital identity and personal information, and use it to interact with the world around them. This has the potential to revolutionise many […] The post How Self-Sovereign Identity Can Revolutionis

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a revolutionary concept that is gaining traction in the world of digital identity management. In simple terms, SSI is a way for individuals to take control of their own digital identity and personal information, and use it to interact with the world around them. This has the potential to revolutionise many industries, including the travel industry.

The Benefits of Using SSI in the Travel Industry

In short, the benefits using SSI in the travel industry can be summarised as follows:

Travellers control their own personal information Travel companies do not have to worry about storing sensitive personal data The travel process is more streamlined Identity can be verified more efficiently and securely

Let’s explore these benefits more in-depth below!

Streamlining the Travel Process

One of the biggest challenges facing the travel industry today is the need for passengers to provide a vast amount of personal information to various parties throughout the travel process. This information is often collected, stored, and shared in an unsecured and decentralised manner. This leads to vulnerability to security breaches and identity theft. And as shown by various research, many travel companies’ websites suffer from serious data security risks.

With SSI, individuals can create a digital identity that includes all of their personal information and documentation, such as passport and visa details. This digital identity can then be used to quickly and easily verify one’s identity with various organisations and services throughout the travel process, such as airlines, airports, and hotels.

This has several benefits for travellers. Firstly, it eliminates the need for passengers to carry physical copies of their documents, which can be lost, damaged, or stolen. Instead, passengers can access their documents digitally. This is done by using their self-sovereign identity, which provides a more secure and convenient way to verify one’s identity.

In addition, it reduces the time and effort required to provide personal information and documentation. It makes the overall experience smoother and more efficient. Finally, it allows travellers to have greater control over their personal data. They can choose which information to share with which organisations. Furthermore, they can revoke access to their digital identity at any time.

How SSI Helps Companies in the Travel industry

Another benefit of self-sovereign identity for companies in the travel industry is that it reduces their risks related to storing customer data. With traditional forms of identity verification, companies are often responsible for collecting, storing, and protecting large amounts of personal information about their customers. This can be a costly and time-consuming process. It also exposes companies to potential liabilities in the event of a security breach or data leak.

With self-sovereign identity, customers can securely and easily share only the necessary information with companies. Consequently, this reduces the amount of data that companies need to store and manage. This can help to reduce the risks and costs associated with managing customer data. It can also help to protect companies from potential liabilities.

Additionally, using self-sovereign identity can allow companies to build trust with their customers. It shows that they are committed to protecting personal information and providing a secure and convenient experience. As a result, self-sovereign identity can be a win-win for both companies and customers in the travel industry.

The Potential Downsides of Using SSI in the Travel Industry

Using self-sovereign identity in the travel industry has a lot of potential for both companies and travellers. One must know that there are also potential downsides and risks. Namely the following few:

Lack of adoption: Self-sovereign identity is a relatively new concept. It may take some time for it to be widely adopted by individuals and organisations in the travel industry. Compatibility issues: Not all organisations and services in the travel industry may be able to accept self-sovereign identity as a form of verification. This could limit its usefulness for some travellers. Potential for misuse: As with any technology, self-sovereign identity has the potential to be misused by individuals with malicious intent. For example, individuals could create false or fraudulent digital identities in order to access services or commit crimes. Security concerns: While self-sovereign identity can provide a more secure way to verify one’s identity, it also introduces new security concerns, such as the need to protect digital identities from hacking and other forms of cyber attack. User error: Self-sovereign identity relies on individuals to manage their own digital identities. Mistakes or errors made by users could potentially compromise the security of their personal information.

While these potential downsides and risks should be taken seriously and should be addressed adequately, traditional forms of identity (verification) suffer similar downsides and risks. And if implemented correctly while taking various precautions, self-sovereign identities will be able to provide a more efficient and secure way of handling your identity and personal information.

Introducing: A Self-Sovereign Identity Tool for Travellers

Zaisan offers tooling that is helping to make SSI a reality for travelers. A self-sovereign identity platform that allows individuals to create, manage, and share their digital identity in a secure and convenient manner. With this tooling, travellers can easily access and share their travel documents, such as passports and visas, with the relevant parties, making the travel process smoother and more efficient.

Conclusion: Self-Sovereign Identity is Poised to Transform the Travel Industry

In conclusion, self-sovereign identity has the potential to revolutionise the travel industry. It allows individuals to take control of their own digital identity and personal information. Despite the potential risks and downsides, SSI is looking to be a solid way to handle personal data. Web3 identity tools are helping to make this vision a reality, making it possible for travellers to securely and easily access and share their travel documents. As SSI becomes more widely adopted, the travel industry is sure to see significant benefits in terms of security, convenience, and efficiency.

The post How Self-Sovereign Identity Can Revolutionise the Travel Industry appeared first on Zaisan.


DERO

DERO Network Update

Network Disruption Resolution On March 11, 2023 the DERO network suffered a chain split due to issues with developer controlled seed nodes. These nodes act as an anchor for network participants to uniformly sync with the rest of the blockchain network. Since services have yet to be restored, the blockchain remains split, which includes a chain that is stuck (seed nodes) and a heavier chain that h

Network Disruption Resolution

On March 11, 2023 the DERO network suffered a chain split due to issues with developer controlled seed nodes. These nodes act as an anchor for network participants to uniformly sync with the rest of the blockchain network. Since services have yet to be restored, the blockchain remains split, which includes a chain that is stuck (seed nodes) and a heavier chain that has more mining activity. Since DERO utilizes proof-of-work consensus and the absence of our seed nodes, all network participants are left to choose which chain to follow.

Together with various esteemed members of our community, we have collectively decided to move forward with the heaviest chain as we continue to restore service to our seed nodes. Below, you will find instructions on how to get your node up and running by using community and foundation hosted public nodes.

UPDATE (3/19/2023): The DERO network is no longer reliant on seed nodes. The latest release provides these updates. The following solution is no longer required. Remote Node (Wallets)

The default remote nodes are also down, so you will need to specify a node address when launching your CLI wallet. Instead of using the ‘- -remote’ argument, run your wallet with the following arguments:

./dero-wallet-cli-linux-amd64 --daemon-address=node.derofoundation.org:11012
Or specify node.derofoundation.org:11012 in your connection settings when using Engram.
Daemon (Node)

Run your daemon with the following arguments:

CLI

./derod-linux-amd64 --add-priority-node=78.159.118.236:11011 --add-priority-node=209.58.186.186:11011 --add-priority-node=23.81.165.146:11011 --add-priority-node=85.17.52.28:11011 Netrunner ./netrunner --add-priority-node=78.159.118.236:11011 --add-priority-node=209.58.186.186:11011 --add-priority-node=23.81.165.146:11011 --add-priority-node=85.17.52.28:11011

Alternatively, you can download the following files and place them in your mainnet folder:

peers.json ban_list.json

You can right-click and “Save As” each file above, or visit the repo: https://git.dero.io/DERO_Foundation/temp-peer-settings

Please note: You may need to replace these files before each launch of your daemon.

Below is a list of public nodes that are available:

ams.derofoundation.org:11011 213.171.208.37:18089 (MySrvCloud) 5.161.123.196:11011 (MySrvCloud VA) 51.222.86.51:11011 (RabidMining Pool) 74.208.54.173:50404 (deronfts) 85.214.253.170:53387 (mmarcel-vps) 163.172.26.245:10505 (DeroStats) 44.198.24.170:20000 (pieswap) Explorers explorer.derofoundation.org explorer.deronfts.com derostats.io Moving Forward

During this time, the decision has been made to keep exchange wallets in maintenance mode for the time being. We will send out further communication once we have an ETA of when they will become available.

We also aim to eventually remove the use of seed nodes in the future, but our young network and on-going development may require their usage for a bit longer. There are also plans to prevent such issues in the future, which will be provided at a later date. We were delighted to see solidarity win in the end and could not have done it without the help of our community.

We would like to take this time to thank the DERO community again for their efforts and patience during this time.

Privacy together.

Join the DERO community!

Forum

Discord

Telegram

Twitter

Reddit

Website

DERO Network Update was originally published in DERO on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Defiant

Euler Hack Shines Light on Promise – and Peril – of DeFi Composability

$200M Exploit Leaves Over A Dozen Protocols Reeling
$200M Exploit Leaves Over A Dozen Protocols Reeling

Circle Blog

March 15, 2023 | Update on USDC operations

As of close of U.S. banking operations Wednesday, March 15, we have cleared substantially all of the backlog of minting and redemption requests for USDC. Since Monday morning, Circle has redeemed $3.8 billion USDC and minted $0.8 billion USDC. The events of the past week have impacted the liquidity operations for USDC. Circle has worked tirelessly to re-initiate services with alternat

As of close of U.S. banking operations Wednesday, March 15, we have cleared substantially all of the backlog of minting and redemption requests for USDC.

Since Monday morning, Circle has redeemed $3.8 billion USDC and minted $0.8 billion USDC.

The events of the past week have impacted the liquidity operations for USDC. Circle has worked tirelessly to re-initiate services with alternative banking partners, particularly payment and USDC redemption services. We would like to thank our customers for their patience during these unprecedented times. 

On Tuesday, March 14, we went live with a new transaction banking partner for domestic U.S. wires in and out. Today, we went live with that same partner for international wires to and from 19 countries. We also went live today with an existing transaction banking partner for international wires. We expect to bring more capabilities back on line tomorrow. 

We would like to extend our thanks to all the teams that have worked tirelessly around the clock with incredible professionalism to stand up these new services at unprecedented speed. We will continue efforts to add additional transaction banking partners.

Wednesday, 15. March 2023

Defiant

Worldcoin’s Digital Identity Protocol Goes Live Alongside GPT-4

As Altman-backed OpenAI progresses, so does the tech titan’s identity venture
As Altman-backed OpenAI progresses, so does the tech titan’s identity venture

Meta Abandons NFTs After Less Than A Year

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrade Passes Final Testnet Deployment

Mainnet Launch Will Enable Staked ETH Withdrawals
Mainnet Launch Will Enable Staked ETH Withdrawals

Filecoin Launches Ethereum-compatible Smart Contracts

Update Enables DeFi, ‘Data DAOs’ and Perpetual Storage
Update Enables DeFi, ‘Data DAOs’ and Perpetual Storage

DeFi Alpha Call #41

The DeFi Alpha Call is an exclusive weekly call for our premium subscribers where yyctrader and Diego talk about the market, the latest tutorials, and the hottest NFTs.
The DeFi Alpha Call is an exclusive weekly call for our premium subscribers where yyctrader and Diego talk about the market, the latest tutorials, and the hottest NFTs.

BlockWallet

Keystone Support is Now Available on BlockWallet

It’s finally here. Access over 1000 cryptocurrencies and experience Keystone’s 100% air-gapped QR code communication — sign what you see and verify your transactions with ease. Using QR codes for data transmission creates the optimal “air-gapped” solution for your hardware wallet, reducing the chances for attacks that could otherwise slip through the cracks when using USB, NFC, or Bluetooth.

It’s finally here. Access over 1000 cryptocurrencies and experience Keystone’s 100% air-gapped QR code communication — sign what you see and verify your transactions with ease.

Using QR codes for data transmission creates the optimal “air-gapped” solution for your hardware wallet, reducing the chances for attacks that could otherwise slip through the cracks when using USB, NFC, or Bluetooth.

By using Keystone, you create an extra layer of protection for your digital assets with their unique security features. Let’s take Secure Element for example: a bank-grade technology that generates highly secure private keys, and protects them even if you lose possession of your physical device.

They even offer additional security by reducing the chance of human error. With an intuitive user interface placed on a spacious 4-inch touchscreen display, you can avoid misclicks and easily triple-check your transactions before a final confirmation using their built-in fingerprint sensor.

If you’re looking to get started with Keystone, follow the instructions below to connect your device with BlockWallet.

How to connect your Keystone Hardware Wallet

Current Keystone owners will have to upgrade their firmware to the latest version to be able to connect their Keystone Essential or Pro to BlockWallet. Existing Keystone users can refer to our firmware upgrading guide here & update their firmware here.

Select the wallet icon on the top left-hand corner of your wallet. Select “Create Account”. Select “Connect Hardware Wallet”. Select “Keystone” and press “Continue”. Keystone connection requires a camera. Please make sure your computer camera is connected and installed properly. Unlock your Keystone with your Keystone password. To set up your Keystone, follow the steps here On your Keystone, select “Options” then “Connect Software Wallet”. A QR code will appear. Click “Continue” below and show the QR code on your Keystone to the camera. Choose which account you would like to import to BlockWallet and select “Confirm”.

For more information on Keystone’s advanced security features, feel free to visit their website.

About Keystone

Keystone is a 100% air-gapped QR code hardware wallet. The wallet is designed to maximize attack cost, minimize trust, prevent potential human error, avoid single-point-of-failures and boost interoperability. Keystone is integrated with MetaMask (Extension and Mobile) as well as other top software wallets like Solflare, Sender, Fewcha etc.

Website | Twitter | Discord | TelegramGitHub

About BlockWallet

Welcome to Web3’s smoothest self-custodial wallet, where you can swap and bridge crypto right on the spot. Use BlockWallet with all your favorite blockchain apps and feel what it’s like to use a product built with users in mind. Private, secure, and stupidly easy to use.

Become a part of the BlockWallet community today:

Homepage | Medium | Twitter | Telegram | Discord | GitHubE-mail

Keystone Support is Now Available on BlockWallet was originally published in BlockWallet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


bankless

The U.S. Banking System, Federal Reserve, & USDC Post-SVB Collapse with Ram Ahluwalia

Ram Ahluwalia, CEO of Lumida Wealth Management, joins us to discuss everything that's happened in the past five days post-SVB collapse. Ram has his finger on the pulse on all things finance (crypto included), the U.S. Banking System, and The Federal Reserve. Was USDC ever at risk? Is crypto being targeted? Could DeFi have fixed this? Answers to these questions and much more in the episode. 

Ram Ahluwalia, CEO of Lumida Wealth Management, joins us to discuss everything that's happened in the past five days post-SVB collapse. Ram has his finger on the pulse on all things finance (crypto included), the U.S. Banking System, and The Federal Reserve.

Was USDC ever at risk? Is crypto being targeted? Could DeFi have fixed this? Answers to these questions and much more in the episode. 

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/join  

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | FRIENDLY MULTICHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi    ----- Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 7:48 The Last 5 Days 10:30 Technology  15:35 Fractional Reserves & Assets 19:17 Banking & Venture 21:44 SIVB Outlier  27:35 Risk Curves 29:35 Carry Trades 35:05 Money Markets 38:15 Who's Next? 40:55 Feds' Goal 47:15 Sneak Attack on Tax Payers? 49:30 Longtail Banks 57:39 Was USDC Ever at Risk?  1:03:10 SigNet  1:07:15 Is Crypto Being Targeted? 1:12:18 Interest Rates 1:18:35 Could DeFi Fix This?  1:22:24 Closing & Disclaimers

----- Resources:

Ram Ahluwalia https://twitter.com/ramahluwalia 

SVB is not like other banks https://twitter.com/ramahluwalia/status/1635464465142480896 

Why was Signature Bank targeted? https://twitter.com/ramahluwalia/status/1635267951610810370?s=20 

“Settlement Risk”  https://twitter.com/ramahluwalia/status/1635113232909373441?s=20 

Conclusion https://twitter.com/ramahluwalia/status/1634203375880265730?s=20  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 

Tuesday, 14. March 2023

Defiant

Aztec To Sunset Privacy Protocol

Over 100,000 Wallets Have Used Aztec Connect
Over 100,000 Wallets Have Used Aztec Connect

MakerDAO Passes Emergency Measures To Reduce USDC Exposure

The proposal increases support for Paxos’ stablecoin.
The proposal increases support for Paxos’ stablecoin.

Meta Abandons NFTs After Less Than A Year

Social Media Giant Draws Criticism From Digital Artists
Social Media Giant Draws Criticism From Digital Artists

Crypto Markets Surge As Investors Predict Fed Pause

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

How Top Stablecoins Depegged After The Second Largest US Bank Failure

It was a wild weekend for stablecoins. USDC depegged from a dollar to as low as $0.88 on Saturday, before bouncing fully back to its dollar peg on Monday. Today we’re looking back over the wild weekend and figuring out what a depegged stablecoin and failing banks could signal for DeFi.
It was a wild weekend for stablecoins. USDC depegged from a dollar to as low as $0.88 on Saturday, before bouncing fully back to its dollar peg on Monday. Today we’re looking back over the wild weekend and figuring out what a depegged stablecoin and failing banks could signal for DeFi.

How The Crypto App’s Pro and Pro+ Revolutionizes Crypto Trading and Investing [SPONSORED]

‎‎‎‎‏‏‎ ‎
‎‎‎‎‏‏‎ ‎

Circle Blog

March 14, 2023 | Update on USDC Operations

A stable U.S. banking system where deposits are safe and accessible is essential to the global financial system and to the operations of every fiat-backed stablecoin.

A stable U.S. banking system where deposits are safe and accessible is essential to the global financial system and to the operations of every fiat-backed stablecoin.


bankless

SVB Banking Crisis, Fed Pivot, BTC ETH price action📈

This was the 2nd largest bank failure in the United States! Ryan and David discuss the breaking story around the SVB banking crisis. What happened? Why? What's the effect on crypto, the rest of the financial markets, and the banking system?  ------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino   ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.b

This was the 2nd largest bank failure in the United States! Ryan and David discuss the breaking story around the SVB banking crisis. What happened? Why? What's the effect on crypto, the rest of the financial markets, and the banking system? 

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi    ----- Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

10:50 Recap  https://twitter.com/biancoresearch/status/1634885127179325440  22:40 Balaji https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1634297491507273730 

28:05 Joint Statement from FDIC, Fed, Treasury https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1337  32:40 Silvergate says it would have been fine https://twitter.com/tarunchitra/status/1635130119030468608  36:25 Bank Stocks Today https://twitter.com/krugermacro/status/1635272871563132928  37:10 Circuit Breaker Day https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1635277429932699650  38:14 XLF Banking sector: https://www.tradingview.com/chart/pabiN1CM/?symbol=AMEX%3AXLF  38:37 Two Tiers of Banks https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1634991519735361536  39:25 Jake: “Will regulators get in the way of other banks providing services to crypto customers?"  https://twitter.com/jchervinsky/status/1635062063583363072  Yano gives 6 options https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz/status/1635092782665846784  

42:40 Effect on USDC https://twitter.com/circle/status/1634391505988206592  DAI too https://imgur.com/r52CCX1  44:40 Chadallaire  https://twitter.com/jerallaire/status/1635059024050937856?s=20  48:20 USDC:USD conversions are good to go  https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/1635276541545566215?s=20 

52:20 10 yr yield down https://twitter.com/Fxhedgers/status/1635283433684627457  52:50 Pricing in new interest rates https://twitter.com/tier10k/status/1635218135405195264 

57:20 Meanwhile, crypto:  https://twitter.com/Matt_Hougan/status/1635283436981358595  58:25 Kraken Crypto Prices:  https://pro.kraken.com/app/trade/ETH-usd 59:45 Banks down, Bankless up https://twitter.com/DaRealMilkBagz/status/1635317764306112520 

1:00:00 Binance buying 1 billy BTC https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1635131601884700674  1:01:07 NLW Meme https://twitter.com/nlw/status/1635283902339375106  1:03:29 Quintenz https://twitter.com/brianquintenz/status/1634173078828621825  1:04:00 Attack on Crypto?  https://twitter.com/nic__carter/status/1635328056234766337 

1:04:37 Don’t let them blame this on crypto https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1635058083071410176?s=20  https://twitter.com/TrustlessState/status/1635049623407726596?s=20 

1:05:05 Memes https://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees/status/1635282975100407812?s=20  https://twitter.com/milesjennings/status/1635319531790045184?s=20 

1:05:50 Closing & Disclaimers  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Defiant

Crypto Markets Surge As Investors Predict Fed Pause

Bitcoin and Ether Approach $26K, $1,800
Bitcoin and Ether Approach $26K, $1,800

DeFi Lender Euler Suffers $200M Exploit

Code Bug Enabled Flash Loan Attack
Code Bug Enabled Flash Loan Attack

Wrench in the Gears

The Game of Slime – Guest Post by Daruchan

The research below was put together by a friend, Daruchan, who shares my interest in slime mold.   This is a story about the Blob, also known as slime mold. Physarum Polycephalym Is it an alien who came to earth to end humanity? Or a space traveler who came here to start a (new) life? [...]

The research below was put together by a friend, Daruchan, who shares my interest in slime mold.

 

This is a story about the Blob, also known as slime mold.

Physarum Polycephalym

Is it an alien who came to earth to end humanity?

Or a space traveler who came here to start a (new) life?

It is an enigma wrapped in mystery…

So far, we know that it is an acellular organism.

It’s not fungal, though it thrives between two vegetative states, amoebae and plasmodia.

It propagates via growth and nuclear division without cytokinesis.

It has about 720 different sexes to ensure it can find an appropriate mate for future generations.

It cannot see or hear.

But it moves and shows an incredible ability to read environmental clues.

It changes its shape and behavior to survive in its habitat, shadowy and damp places.

It is obvious that it possesses some primal intelligence and senses, but does it feel?

So far the Blob’s cleverness has not been decoded.

Though since its reappearance as a part of a wacky scientific project in Japan in 2000

and after a sci-fi movie career that took the art and technology communities by storm,

the Blob became a science super star.

It’s helping scientists at the International Space Station study the influence of microgravity or near zero gravity on living organisms.

Source Link: https://www.sciencealert.com/slime-mold-are-about-to-blast-off-for-iss-experiment

It’s helping astronomers map the dark matter of the universe.

Source Link: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/slime-mold-simulations-used-to-map-dark-matter-holding-universe-together Source Link: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/slime-mold-simulations-used-to-map-dark-matter-holding-universe-together

It’s been used for disease modeling simulations.

Source Link: https://futurism.com/hydra-slime-mold-covid

Do you want to know the time?

Do you care about your heart?

And ecosystems?

Try wearing a slime mold powered “smart” watch.

The blob inspires Airbus’ Future project of airplane design grounded in biomimicry.

For the game lovers,

take a chance at

slime mold chess.

Source Link: https://ars.electronica.art/outofthebox/en/slimemoldchess/

Or listen to slime music.

Source Link: https://phys.org/news/2012-12-electrical-energy-slime-mold.html

The Blob inspires the “We” global community.

You can join a “Slime Mold Collective.”

It’s an international network for intelligent organisms.

Source Link: https://youtu.be/2UxGrde1NDA?t=395

 

Check out the “Thinking Toys for Commoning” project.

Source Link: https://criticalmedialab.ch/projects/thinking-toys-for-commoning/

https://direct.mit.edu/leon/article/55/5/462/112362/Slime-Mold-and-Network-Imaginaries-An-Experimental

Scientist attempts to seed Conway’s Game of Life using the Blob.

Source Link: https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/cg/2022/06/09984064/1J4y9geOIA8 Source Link: https://wrenchinthegears.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/The-Game-of-Slime-Conways-Game-of-Life.pdf

All these different experiments try to answer fundamental questions.

Who is in control?

Does free will exist?

Who or what controls the possibility of immortality?

The “game of life” is on.

Sit back and enjoy the journey.

Monday, 13. March 2023

Defiant

Silvergate, Signature Collapse Leaves Crypto with Few Bank Partners

Foreign Companies Could Fill the Void
Foreign Companies Could Fill the Void

Markets Recover After U.S. Regulators Backstop Deposits At Failed Banks

DeFi Heavyweights Maker, Synthetix and Lido Lead Sector Higher
DeFi Heavyweights Maker, Synthetix and Lido Lead Sector Higher

Zcash Foundation

Statement on Recent Security Disclosures by Halborn

Today, Halborn disclosed vulnerabilities in some code forks of Bitcoin Core, which could be exploited to crash nodes. An attacker could potentially take advantage of these vulnerabilities to crash mining nodes, and thus reduce (by approximately 50%)  the amount of hashpower required to mount a 51% attack.  Zcash was one of the currencies affected by […] The post Statement on Recent Sec

Today, Halborn disclosed vulnerabilities in some code forks of Bitcoin Core, which could be exploited to crash nodes. An attacker could potentially take advantage of these vulnerabilities to crash mining nodes, and thus reduce (by approximately 50%)  the amount of hashpower required to mount a 51% attack. 

Zcash was one of the currencies affected by this disclosure, as zcashd is a code fork of Bitcoin Core. ECC has released new versions of zcashd that remediate the vulnerabilities. Anyone who runs a zcashd node should update immediately.

There is no evidence to suggest that these vulnerabilities have been exploited on the Zcash network, and there is no reason to suspect that the Zcash network is susceptible to a 51% attack (even if the required hashpower were reduced by 50%). 

Zebra is an independent Zcash node implementation, and is not based on Bitcoin Core. Halborn has confirmed that Zebra is not vulnerable to these issues. However, we have taken the precaution of hardening certain sections of our codebase to make Zebra more resilient to similar memory exhaustion attacks.

We would like to express our gratitude to ECC for coordinating the Zcash ecosystem’s response to this security disclosure. We would also like to thank Halborn for responsibly disclosing these vulnerabilities.

The post Statement on Recent Security Disclosures by Halborn appeared first on Zcash Foundation.


Nym - Medium

Press Release: Nym unveils zero-knowledge anonymous credentials, zk-nyms, at SXSW

Development of new privacy-enhanced zero-knowledge tech can revolutionise the identity industry by ensuring anonymity. Austin, Texas, USA — Sunday, 12 March 2023: Today at South by Southwest 2023, Nym, the leader in network layer privacy, announced a new privacy-preserving zero-knowledge technology called zk-nyms at a featured session with CEO Harry Halpin and Chelsea Manning (famous whistle-blow

Development of new privacy-enhanced zero-knowledge tech can revolutionise the identity industry by ensuring anonymity.

Austin, Texas, USA — Sunday, 12 March 2023: Today at South by Southwest 2023, Nym, the leader in network layer privacy, announced a new privacy-preserving zero-knowledge technology called zk-nyms at a featured session with CEO Harry Halpin and Chelsea Manning (famous whistle-blower and now-Security Consultant for Nym).

Combining the key attributes of zero-knowledge technology and anonymous credentials, zk-nyms allows users to selectively only reveal certain information about themselves, such as their nationality or age, to generate credentials. This prevents compromising additional unnecessary and sensitive personal data. Using the strength of cryptography, zk-nyms puts the power of this selective disclosure into the hands of users rather than large companies via decentralisation.

Harry Halpin, CEO of Nym Technologies, said, “Identity technologies run the risk of reducing us to a number in a database. Our new zk-nym technology puts the power to reveal your identity back in your own hands.”

The zk-nym technology works like a new kind of drivers license, except that when showing the license, only the parts needed for immediate purpose (for example, name, duration of validity and photo) are revealed while information that is not required is hidden (such as addresses or precise birthdate).

Unlike previous zk and identity schemes, zk-nym is decentralised and trustless. The zk-nym technology is based on prior work on what is called the Coconut signature scheme and has now been extended by Nym researchers Ania Piotrowska and Alfredo Rial Duran. Coconut enables distributed issuance of anonymous credentials, meaning zk-nyms avoid a trusted centralised issuance authority.

“We analysed the security of zk-nyms and have proven that this technology offers strong user privacy protection. Moreover, we have extended zk-nyms to provide anonymous payment mechanisms that enable both on-line and off-line payments. Off-line payments allow service providers to verify and accept a payment without contacting any issuing authorities.” said Alfredo Rial Duran, Cryptographer, Nym R&D team.

The first use case for zk-nyms is access credentials to the Nym mixnet, ensuring a person can prove they have paid for and therefore have the right to use the digital service, without revealing name, wallet address or other sensitive information. Other use cases that are being developed include privacy preserving KYC process, e-cash and a general purpose single-sign on. In general, zk-nyms can be used to ensure privacy, while proving a person’s right to use a digital service.

The Nym team is releasing a sandbox for zk-nyms. The zk-nym technology represents a breakthrough in making privacy as easy as building a JSON object for programmers, where certain values can be easily hidden (or ‘shielded’) to prevent information leakage. As opposed to more complex zero-knowledge systems, it is meant to be easy for ordinary programmers to use and for people to understand as a list of attributes about themselves.

The core technology behind zk-nyms was previously demonstrated with various kinds of data including being used for proving COVID-19 vaccination status in a privacy-enhanced and decentralized manner with the support of the European Commission via the LEDGER project. Although the European Commission did not use the technology during COVID, zk-nyms represent a privacy-enhanced alternative to current plans in Europe to build centralised identity databases that could be used to track and surveil ordinary people.

-END-

About Nym:

Nym is an open-source, incentivized, and decentralized platform that protects privacy at the network level of any application, wallet or digital service. Nym protects against traffic pattern analysis and metadata surveillance.

Media Contact

Candice Teo, candice@nymtech.net

Press Release: Nym unveils zero-knowledge anonymous credentials, zk-nyms, at SXSW was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Wrench in the Gears

Flow Life Part 2 – Smart Communities and Natural Capital with Leo Saraceno

I streamed the second installment of the “Flow Life” series last night with my friend Leo. Check out his recent work on natural capital sensor networks and data dashboards here! If you want to review the slides, here’s a link to the deck. Start at slide number 74.

I streamed the second installment of the “Flow Life” series last night with my friend Leo. Check out his recent work on natural capital sensor networks and data dashboards here! If you want to review the slides, here’s a link to the deck. Start at slide number 74.


Zcash

New releases remediate memory exhaustion vulnerability in Zcash

Releases 5.3.3 and 5.4.2 harden zcashd code and remediate vulnerabilities inherited from Bitcoin Core that may have affected more than […] The post New releases remediate memory exhaustion vulnerability in Zcash appeared first on Electric Coin Company.

Releases 5.3.3 and 5.4.2 harden zcashd code and remediate vulnerabilities inherited from Bitcoin Core that may have affected more than 280 chains, according to blockchain security firm Halborn.

We have no evidence that an exploit has occurred on the Zcash network, and these bugs do not compromise user privacy or impact Zcash supply. As always, if you notice any unusual activity in your node, please report it to security@z.cash.

All Zcash node operators on 5.3.1 or 5.3.2 should update to 5.3.3 immediately, and all Zcash node operators on 5.4.0 or 5.4.1 should update to 5.4.2 immediately. Prebuilt binaries and Debian packages will be available in the next few hours.

The vulnerabilities, discovered by Halborn in a 2022 audit of Dogecoin, were first disclosed to ECC and contributors to other affected networks on Feb. 14, and more details were relayed in a Feb. 17 call. ECC initiated our security process immediately and began coordinating with ZecSec.com, the independent Zcash-community-funded security team, and with Zcash Foundation, who analyzed the impact on zebrad, its own implementation of a Zcash node. We also reached out to Horizen, Komodo, and other teams with whom we have disclosure agreements.

Within days, we had zcashd patches ready for third-party testing, but the public releases have been delayed to allow other projects time to complete their own remediations and to allow for coordinated comms, given the sensitive nature.

Halborn found that the bugs could allow an attacker to utilize peer-to-peer network messages to fill the memory of a node and crash it. By crashing other people’s mining nodes, an attacker could potentially reduce, by around one half, the amount of hashpower they would need to mount a 51% attack on the Zcash network. A successful 51% attack could potentially be used to execute a double-spend attack, which could result in users who received transactions from the attackers losing their funds. We have no reason to believe that the Zcash network is currently vulnerable to a 51% attack — with or without the “one half discount” on the attack cost — but out of an abundance of caution, we’ve hardened the zcashd nodes so that they cannot be crashed using this bug.

ECC has a record of fast, coordinated responses to incidents like this and is well-known for delivering safe and secure technology for Zcash users and other privacy-minded projects. For our latest news and product updates, please follow @electriccoinco on Twitter.

The post New releases remediate memory exhaustion vulnerability in Zcash appeared first on Electric Coin Company.


bankless

162 - The Coinbase Long Game with Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong is the CEO and Founder of Coinbase. Coinbase started in 2012 as simply a custodial Bitcoin wallet and has grown into the massively successful publicly traded company that we know today.  ------ ✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode:  https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/debrief-brian-armstrong-coinbase    ------ ✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect this episode:  https:

Brian Armstrong is the CEO and Founder of Coinbase. Coinbase started in 2012 as simply a custodial Bitcoin wallet and has grown into the massively successful publicly traded company that we know today. 

------ ✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode:  https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/debrief-brian-armstrong-coinbase    ------ ✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect this episode:  https://collectibles.bankless.com/mint 

------ In this episode, we go over everything you wanted to know from Brian—his reflections on 2022 and his outlook on crypto moving forward. We cover the regulatory situation in America, how SBF infiltrated our halls of power, why Coinbase launched a chain in the worst regulatory environment we’ve ever seen, Wall Street’s understanding of Coinbase, and Brian’s best advice for the settlers and builders sticking around during this crypto winter.

The last time we had Brian on the podcast was in November of 2021. We’ve come such a long way since then…and more recently, he also hopped into a livestream with us in the middle of the FTX collapse last November. It was so good to have him back on, enjoy!

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 8:18 Learnings From 2022 13:05 Brian’s Thoughts on SBF 14:37 FTX’s Affect on Coinbase 19:44 Crypto’s Backlash  24:06 SBF’s Sneaky Political Game 28:55 The Optimistic Long Game  32:29 Organizing Voters & Crypto 435  38:50 Staking, Derivatives, & Crypto Securities 43:42 Why U.S. Crypto Regulation is Bad  46:38 Stabelcoins 53:17 Coinbase’s L2 Base  59:28 Coinbase’s Long Game 1:02:38 The Future Products of Base 1:07:25 Coinbase’s NFT Platform 1:10:41 Base Token?! 1:11:22 Does Wall Street Understand $COIN?  1:15:52 5-10 Year Coinbase Vision  1:17:45 Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS)  1:21:17 One River Acquisition 1:23:55 Decentralizing Coinbase 1:26:00 Crypto in 2030 1:28:20 Were Brians's Crypto Expectations Met? 1:30:06 Advice to Builders 1:32:34 Closing, Action Items, & Disclaimers

------ Resources:

Brian Armstrong https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong 

Coinbase https://twitter.com/Coinbase  

Crypto 435  https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/1630592674020335617 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Horizen - Blog

ZEND Node Application Disclosure and Fixes

On Feb 17, 2023, our security team was notified of potential vulnerabilities in the ZEND node application that could allow an attacker to perform a Denial of Service attack against a node. Today a new release of ZEND (version 3.3.0) addressing these vulnerabilities has been made available. Please make sure you update your Mainnet nodes […] The post ZEND Node Application Disclosure and Fixes a

On Feb 17, 2023, our security team was notified of potential vulnerabilities in the ZEND node application that could allow an attacker to perform a Denial of Service attack against a node.

Today a new release of ZEND (version 3.3.0) addressing these vulnerabilities has been made available. Please make sure you update your Mainnet nodes as soon as possible.

SECURITY TIMELINE

Feb 17th: The Horizen Labs incident response team met with Halborn and other projects to discuss the details of the vulnerabilities found

Feb 17th: The Horizen Labs response team analyzed the information provided by Halborn in an attempt to understand the vulnerabilities and create a remediation plan

Feb 18th: The fix for one of the vulnerabilities and the existing OpenSSL vulnerability was completed, although we were not able to reproduce the symptoms for the fixed vulnerability.

Feb 19th – 20th: The Horizen Labs response team continued analyzing another vulnerability in an attempt to understand if the attack was applicable to our ecosystem while continuing to develop a patch to resolve these vulnerabilities

Feb 21st – 22nd: We validated the fixes with Halborn performing the final testing

Mar 6th: Disclosure timeline confirmed

Mar 13th: ZEND 3.3.0 released to resolve the vulnerabilities

NEXT STEPS All mining pools, exchange partners, node operators, and full node wallet users should upgrade to the software security upgrade ZEN 3.3.0.

The new 3.3.0 version is available for download on GitHub, the APT repository and via Docker and mitigates the vulnerabilities listed below.

With ZEN 3.3.0, we provide a security fix for:

P2P DoS OpenSSL Feb 7 Security Advisory

Note that ZEN 3.3.0 does not have any impact on the planned deprecation of ZEN 3.2.1 or the next deprecation cycle ending in April 2023.

ZEN 3.3.0 will deprecate on April 7, 2023, around noon UTC. Please make sure you update to ZEN 4.0.0 (to be released) before then if you’re still running ZEN 3.3.0.

DOWNLOAD ZEN 3.3.0 NOW Q&A Did this vulnerability lead to a security breach in the Horizen network??

No. The team was notified by Halborn upon finding it. No denial of service attack was attempted on our partners or node operators. 

What steps have been taken to ensure the security of the Horizen network?

Horizen is uniquely positioned to monitor the network for any abnormal conditions utilizing the Secure and Super Node network. Measures have been put in place to monitor for and detect any early warning signs of a potentially ongoing attack, however unlikely.

Is my ZEN safe?

Yes. There was no attack on Horizen blockchain. Please always follow the general security best practices to keep your funds safe 

Will any Horizen nodes miss out on node payouts due to this vulnerability?

No. There was no denial of service attack attempted on our node operators.

Who can we talk to for more information about the vulnerability?

We recommend reaching out to Halborn directly to discuss questions about their findings on this vulnerability. 

The post ZEND Node Application Disclosure and Fixes appeared first on Horizen Blog.


Circle Press

$3.3 Billion of USDC Reserve Risk Removed, Dollar De-peg Closes

BOSTON – March 12, 2023 – Following the joint announcement by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. prudential regulators, all depositors with Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, which was closed by regulators today, will be made whole. The $3.3B USDC reserve deposit held at Silicon Valley Bank, about 8% of the USDC total reserve, will be fully available when U.S. banks open

BOSTON – March 12, 2023 – Following the joint announcement by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. prudential regulators, all depositors with Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, which was closed by regulators today, will be made whole. The $3.3B USDC reserve deposit held at Silicon Valley Bank, about 8% of the USDC total reserve, will be fully available when U.S. banks open tomorrow morning. No USDC cash reserves were held at Signature Bank. As a regulated payment token, USDC remains redeemable 1:1 with the U.S. Dollar.


Aztec Network

Sunsetting Aztec Connect

A giant leap toward a fully programmable encrypted zkRollup Today we’re announcing the sunset of Aztec Connect, our privacy infrastructure that served as the encryption layer for Ethereum. One week from today, deposits into the Aztec Connect contract both from zk.money and other front-ends like zkpay.finance will be disabled. Users will continue being able to withdraw with no fees for one 
A giant leap toward a fully programmable encrypted zkRollup

Today we’re announcing the sunset of Aztec Connect, our privacy infrastructure that served as the encryption layer for Ethereum.

One week from today, deposits into the Aztec Connect contract both from zk.money and other front-ends like zkpay.finance will be disabled.

Users will continue being able to withdraw with no fees for one year.

Our sequencer will slowly reduce the frequency of rollup blocks for withdrawal, with a final sunset date approximately one year from now: March 21st, 2024. Here are the critical dates:

13th — 21st March: Aztec Connect normal functionality 21st March 2023 at 2PM UTC: Deposits disabled One-year withdrawal window (March 13th, 2023 — March 21st, 2024) March 21st, 2024: Last Aztec rollup sent from Aztec sequencer March 21st, 2024 onwards: users will have to run withdrawal software or rely on community-run sequencers
▶️ Head to zk.money today to begin withdrawing funds.
▶ View withdrawal instructions here.
What’s Next

As of March 21st, 2024–approximately one year from now–Aztec will no longer run a sequencer. That means the current system will no longer publish rollup blocks processing Aztec Connect transactions, contract permissions will be renounced, and all rollup functionality will be ceased.

At that point, withdrawals will be highly technical. While we remain optimistic that a community-operated sequencer will be functional, everyday users will have to rely on that infrastructure or run their own sequencers to withdraw.

Thus, while withdrawals will always be possible, they will become significantly more burdensome after March 21st, 2024. We therefore recommend users withdraw funds as soon as possible.

▶️ Head to zk.money today to begin withdrawing funds.
▶ View withdrawal instructions here.
Open sourcing Aztec Connect

As of today, Aztec has fully open sourced the entire Aztec Connect protocol complete with scaling upgrades and a new secure SDK.

▶️ See the open source Aztec Connect repo here.

We encourage the Aztec community to fork, deploy, and operate a new version of the system. We’d love to see an independently-operated Aztec Connect and are ready to fund it. Head to our open-source repo and docs to learn more about running an Aztec Connect fork.

The second wave of our grants program is coming up in April, and we look forward to funding community-run infrastructure then. In the meantime, keep in touch on our Twitter and Discord server.

Aztec’s Vision

At Aztec, our goal has always been to develop a truly decentralized general-purpose encrypted zkRollup with the security of Ethereum.

While Ethereum has created a world computer that can read and write to public state, Aztec aims to fulfill the vision by adding the ability to read and write to private state.

In our mission to achieve that vision, we’ve taken a step-wise, incremental approach to the development of encrypted transactions on Ethereum.

The first attempt at on-chain privacy using a zkRollup was Aztec 1. Aztec 1 was slow, inefficient, costly, and limited in its functionality to basic private transfers.

Our latest effort was a set of privacy infrastructure and tools for Ethereum called Aztec Connect. It not only extended privacy functionality on Ethereum beyond simple payments and toward arbitrary smart contract interactions, it hinted at the cost savings that encrypted rollups are ultimately able to achieve through transaction batching.

Aztec Connect was a critical step in our mission to build a fully programmable encrypted zkRollup. Not only did it provide critical feedback, it proved to us the battle-worthiness of our sequencer and rollup contracts.

The immense research invested into Aztec Connect will be usable and indeed critical to the development of our next-gen product. Having an encrypted rollup live and in production gives us confidence in our shift to focusing on a fully programmable version.

The Future is Noir

As we move forward, our mid- and long-term focus will be solely directed towards the development of two major products, which are mutually compatible and interlinked:

Noir, the universal language of zero knowledge Our next-generation encrypted zkRollup

Noir continues to gain new features by the day, with the Noir tooling team publishing regular releases. We are convinced Noir is the simplest, most powerful way to write programs in zero-knowledge.

▶️ Install Noir today and go from 0 to programming in zkSNARKs in less than an hour.

With additional resources at their disposal, the Noir team will only grow its functionality. Not only is Noir useful today as a generalized programming language for zk development — capable of using multiple proving backends and verifying to any EVM chain — a modified version of Noir will be the smart contract language for Aztec’s next-gen zkRollup.

Expect more Noir features and a full set of specifications for our newest zkRollup in the first half of 2023. To learn more about our next-gen system, check out our docs.

Learn more about the next generation Aztec protocol here.
Onward

The Aztec community has been a vital part of the development and success of Aztec Connect, and we are incredibly grateful for the 100,000+ users who have used Aztec Connect for private DeFi. It has long been obvious that privacy in a blockchain context is an absolute necessity, and Aztec Connect further validated that thesis.

It’s undeniable that Aztec Connect was an important stepping stone towards realizing our ultimate goal. It’s now time for us to focus fully on that goal: a decentralized general-use encrypted zkRollup.

To all our partners: thank you for betting on Aztec. We’re excited to bring you a fully-featured Noir and local devnet for our next-gen network by the end of 2023. Onward!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I withdraw funds?

A: Navigate to zk.money or your preferred front-end. View withdrawal instructions for zk.money here: https://docs.aztec.network/aztec-connect-sunset

Q: Is Aztec done building privacy products?

A: Not even close. We’re laser-focused on building more Noir features and bringing you a programmably private L2 to be announced in the first half of 2023.

Q: Is Aztec shutting down?

A: Nope. Our team has raised over $125 million from investors like a16z and Paradigm to bring encryption to blockchain. Our team is over 40 strong and we’re still hiring aggressively for open roles. Join us!

Q: Is Aztec building an L1?

A: No — we are utilizing the same rollup technology used in Aztec Connect in a new encrypted L2 powered by Noir, our universal zk language.

Q: Why are you sunsetting Aztec Connect?

A: We simply are not able to commit sufficient resources to simultaneously support Aztec Connect and the development of an encrypted zkRollup. Not only are we in the midst of inventing a groundbreaking new proving system, we are building a network with significantly higher complexity than Aztec Connect.

Q: Are you sunsetting Aztec Connect due to regulatory pressures?

A: No. We were under no regulatory pressure nor have we fielded any inquiries from law enforcement. Aztec Connect is and was compliant with UK law, given Aztec is a UK company.
We believe the practical enforcement measures we implemented last August have deterred illicit activity on the rollup without materially restricting users.
Rest assured our next-gen product will have higher programmability, more functionality, and the same or stronger privacy guarantees than Aztec Connect.
Join the Aztec Community

We’re always on the lookout for talented engineers and applied cryptographers. If joining our mission to bring scalable privacy to Ethereum excites you, check out our open roles.

And continue the conversation with us on Discord or Twitter.

Building on Aztec

Interested in contributing to the universal zk language?

Aztec Grants will re-open in April to fund Noir infrastructure and applications. Come contribute to the most modular zk language — compatible with multiple crypto back-ends including Gnark and Marlin, and verifiable on any EVM chain.

Sunsetting Aztec Connect was originally published in Aztec Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Brave Browser

Brave launches desktop VPN and cross-device subscriptions, expanding its Android and iOS offerings with multi-platform protection

Brave Firewall + VPN, powered by Guardian, is now available on desktop with today’s 1.49 version of the browser, completing Brave’s already available Android and iOS VPN offerings so users can benefit from full cross-platform protection.

Brave Firewall + VPN, powered by Guardian, is now available on desktop with the recent 1.49 version of the browser, completing Brave’s already available Android and iOS VPN offerings so users can benefit from full cross-platform protection.

The desktop VPN will be rolled out in various regions over the next few days, so users should check back soon if they’re not seeing it today. The desktop VPN also includes cross-device support, which enables users to connect five devices to one VPN subscription, regardless of platform.

Affordable cross-device subscription

Today, almost everyone uses the Internet on more than one device (like your laptop at home, and your phone on the go). Brave’s new cross-device VPN subscription model lets you connect and protect five devices—across Android and iOS, macOS and Windows—to one subscription. Brave’s Firewall + VPN service is available for $9.99/month, or $99.99/year (annual plans for desktop purchases are coming soon). With five supported devices per account, you can protect each device for less than $2 a month.

The Brave browser blocks ads and trackers on every webpage, keeping you much safer while you browse; the Brave Firewall + VPN blocks trackers in every app on your phone, even outside the Brave browser.

Already using Brave Firewall + VPN on your mobile device?

If you already have a Brave Firewall + VPN subscription on your Android or iOS devices, visit the VPN section of the Brave browser settings. This will take you to account.brave.com, where you can manage your subscription and automatically link more mobile or desktop devices.

How to get started with Brave VPN on mobile or desktop

We’ve made the setup process for Brave Firewall + VPN as simple as possible. Don’t worry about downloading any extra apps; simply open the settings menu in the Brave browser on desktop or mobile, and toggle on VPN. You’ll then be taken to account.brave.com, where you can easily complete the setup.

Brave Firewall + VPN is the easiest way to protect all your devices—and all your apps—directly from the browser.

Brave-level protection, even outside the Brave browser

Brave browser puts your privacy first by blocking ads, trackers, cookies, scripts, and more while you browse the Web. Brave Firewall + VPN is a premium service that goes even further by enabling you to:

Mask your IP address Change your location online Prevent your ISP from snooping on your activity Access your favorite content no matter where you are Protect your Internet traffic on apps outside the Brave browser

Brave Firewall + VPN, powered by Guardian, extends all the protection you expect from Brave outside of the browser on Android, iOS, and macOS (and Windows, with an added workaround). That means giving you network-level protection against unwanted surveillance on the apps you use, across all your devices. Guardian is a leading Firewall + VPN technology platform that was recently acquired by DNSFilter.

Note that iOS and Android users can use our integrated Privacy Hub (a feature coming soon to desktop as well) to check exactly which trackers are blocked, including outside of Brave. The Privacy Hub highlights risky pages and trackers, and ties those trackers to the tech companies and publishers behind them, showing users how often sites try to invade their privacy.

Your privacy and anonymity guaranteed

When choosing a VPN, you’re trusting the provider with your data. Brave’s VPN service is powered by Guardian, stores no log files, and uses no cookies. We can’t store any of your connection or browsing data, because we don’t collect any of it in the first place.

We’ve also implemented an onboarding process that enables you to sign up for Brave Firewall + VPN using only an email address and payment information.

Once you sign up, you’re issued unlinkable daily tokens that validate your subscription when using the VPN. This means that Brave can never connect your purchase details with your usage of the product, an extra step that ensures your activity is private to you and only you. The email you used to create your account is unlinkable to your day-to-day use of the VPN, making this a uniquely private credentialing experience.

Protect yourself from ISPs

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are the backbone of Internet connectivity; virtually all Internet traffic passes through them. This puts many of them (depending on their jurisdiction) in a position where they could easily collect and sell user data; in fact, various ISPs sell this data to advertising brokers to build a more comprehensive ad profile of the user. Because they have privileged access to user Internet traffic, they can even monitor your activity and slow down your Internet connection speeds as they see fit. But with Brave Firewall + VPN, you can easily mask your IP address and cloak your Internet activity, even from the prying eyes of ISPs.

More online freedom

While traveling abroad, you might find that your favorite sites or news outlets no longer work. That’s due to geo-restrictions that prevent certain sites and apps from being accessible from certain locations. With Brave Firewall + VPN, you can connect to the Web from local servers around the world, making it appear like that’s where your traffic is originating. This enables you to bypass geo-restrictions in the browser and access your favorite content no matter where you are.

Added firewall protection

A VPN is great for encrypting your internet traffic, but it can’t block harmful trackers and other online nuisances. That’s where a firewall comes in. Most standard, free, and even other premium VPNs don’t include a firewall—which serves as a secure barrier between your device and the Internet. It blocks unwanted trackers, harmful traffic, and other malicious things from ever reaching your phone, tablet, or computer.

How does it work? Brave’s built-in firewall monitors and controls incoming and outgoing flows of data based on a set of rules. So if an app is secretly broadcasting tracking data, Brave Firewall + VPN will detect and block the offending activity while still ensuring the app functions normally.

Try Brave Firewall + VPN today

Ready to protect your Internet traffic across all your devices? You can try Brave Firewall + VPN with a free 7-day trial. To do so on your desktop device, open the Brave browser and click the new VPN icon in the browser address bar. Or, when using the Brave browser on your phone, go to the Settings menu, and toggle Brave Firewall + VPN to on. (If you don’t see this option, update to the latest version of Brave on your device.) It’s the safest, easiest way to protect yourself online, on every app, on every device.

Sunday, 12. March 2023

Defiant

USDC Finds Stability Near $0.97 After Crashing on SVB Concerns

Circle said the stablecoin will be redeemable for US dollars starting Monday.
Circle said the stablecoin will be redeemable for US dollars starting Monday.

Saturday, 11. March 2023

Crypto Valley Swiss Association

Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-03-05 – 2023-03-11)

🚨Don't forget to join tomorrow's online workshop on #Bootstrapping branding with @Yasi_Zhang and a branding expert… https://t.co/qgn8BoN4ZQ 2023-03-07 Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, the leading global... The post Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-03-05 – 2023-03-11) appeared first on Crypto Valley Association.
Don't forget to join tomorrow's online workshop on #Bootstrapping branding with @Yasi_Zhang and a branding expert… https://t.co/qgn8BoN4ZQ 2023-03-07 Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, the leading global talent consulting firm serving the financial, co… https://t.co/Mj75z8dtMm 2023-03-07 If you want to meet the fellow members of the CVA #WesternChapter, make sure to come the next Western Chapter casua… https://t.co/ldkqoic77j 2023-03-07 Only one week left until the next Meet the Blockchain VCs event! Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to gai… https://t.co/IszgelSlPG 2023-03-08 RT @JeromeBailly: I sat down with Nathalie Olof-Ors from @AFP to talk about @thecryptovalley
Yes we are getting through a difficult period… 2023-03-08 The #CVC2023 is coming fast! What can you look forward to? Check out our new teaser and find out

Make sure to gr… https://t.co/V6g8j4zngw 2023-03-08

What is the aftermath of the FTX downfall in the Crypto Valley & does it present an opportunity

@EmiMoonsoon and… https://t.co/4y6lUfUSfc 2023-03-08

Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, a community-powered network of GNSS reference stations that leverag… https://t.co/JezMI2SOqh 2023-03-09 @talostrading @HedgeWeek Congratulations Team @talostrading in reply to talostrading 2023-03-10

The post Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-03-05 – 2023-03-11) appeared first on Crypto Valley Association.


Circle Blog

An Update on USDC and Silicon Valley Bank

Update:  As of March 13, 2023, the $3.3B USDC reserve deposit held at Silicon Valley Bank was made fully available and transferred to new banking partners.   This is a time of heightened uncertainty for the USDC economy. We remain committed to clear and transparent communication.

Update:  As of March 13, 2023, the $3.3B USDC reserve deposit held at Silicon Valley Bank was made fully available and transferred to new banking partners.

 

This is a time of heightened uncertainty for the USDC economy. We remain committed to clear and transparent communication.


Defiant

📬 Inbox Dump #93

Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. 
Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. 

Traders Dump USDC After Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Fail

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

Lido Launches wstETH On Polygon

Liquid Staking Narrative Gains Momentum Ahead of Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrades
Liquid Staking Narrative Gains Momentum Ahead of Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrades

Traders Dump USDC After Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate Fail

USDC issuer Circle said it banked with failed SVB and Silvergate.
USDC issuer Circle said it banked with failed SVB and Silvergate.

Friday, 10. March 2023

Defiant

Coinbase Nudges Users On-Chain with New Quests Program

The Exchange Continues to Deepen Its Ties to Layer 2 Blockchain Optimism
The Exchange Continues to Deepen Its Ties to Layer 2 Blockchain Optimism

ConsenSys Blog

Staking is Data Validation, Not Investment

Staking rewards are compensation for services rendered, whether they are received directly or through a service provider’s platform that the staker relies on for technical support. The post Staking is Data Validation, Not Investment appeared first on ConsenSys.

Staking rewards are compensation for services rendered, whether they are received directly or through a service provider’s platform that the staker relies on for technical support.

The post Staking is Data Validation, Not Investment appeared first on ConsenSys.


Epicenter Podcast

David Schwartz & Jordi Baylina: Polygon zkEVM – From Circuits to Mainnet - Part 1

With the upcoming launch of Polygon's zkEVM mainnet, L2s are undoubtedly a huge narrative that is unfolding in 2023. It is time to take a step back and recognise the incredible amount of effort that has gone into researching and building L2 scaling solutions in general and zk rollups in particular. Tech-wise, we barely scratched the surface of general purpose processors that can handle zk circuits

With the upcoming launch of Polygon's zkEVM mainnet, L2s are undoubtedly a huge narrative that is unfolding in 2023. It is time to take a step back and recognise the incredible amount of effort that has gone into researching and building L2 scaling solutions in general and zk rollups in particular. Tech-wise, we barely scratched the surface of general purpose processors that can handle zk circuits, so there is still tremendous room to grow. As layer 2s become more efficient, so will the applications that are dependent on blockchain throughput.

We were joined by Jordi Baylina (tech lead) & David Schwartz (CTO) from Polygon's zkEVM, to discuss the different milestones & challenges they had to overcome in designing a zk rollup, from circuits to mainnet.

Topics covered in this episode:

Jordi’s & David’s backgrounds The idea behind Hermez Network zkEVM scaling & validity proofs How different ZK rollup models function What challenges zkEVM encountered during development Evolutionary pathways in the realm of ZKPs Auditing zkEVM Trusted setup requirement for zkEVM

Episode links:

Jordi Baylina on Twitter David Schwartz on Twitter Polygon zkEVM on Twitter

Sponsors:

Omni: Access all of Web3 in one easy-to-use wallet! Earn and manage assets at once with Omni's built-in staking, yield vaults, bridges, swaps and NFT support.
https://omni.app/ -

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst & Meher Roy. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/486


bankless

ROLLUP: Silvergate Liquidate?! | Elizabeth Warren vs. Binance | Bankless 2.0 Announcement | SEC Taking Ls?

Bankless Weekly Rollup 3rd Week of March 2023 ------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino   ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/dashboard  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:  🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken  🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/M

Bankless Weekly Rollup 3rd Week of March 2023

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://www.bankless.com/dashboard 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi  

👻 PHANTOM | CROSS-CHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom 

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 3:23 Markets 8:04 Total Crypto Market Cap 8:50 Fed https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/feds-powell-previews-tougher-rate-hike-path-starting-soon-2023-03-08/  10:00 Warren vs. Powell Address https://youtu.be/8Kz4pm5l4Og?t=126  14:35 Records of the U.S.  https://twitter.com/kobeissiletter/status/1632408557101432833 

15:50 Stablecoin Check-In https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/stablecoins 

19:32 Silvergate  https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/03/08/crypto-bank-silvergate-announces-voluntary-liquidation/  26:49 Warren https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1633611272372486144 

30:21 Binance https://twitter.com/MikeBurgersburg/status/1631489833838297088  https://archive.ph/w7QNe   36:20 Voyager https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-snubbed-as-voyager-wins-court-approval-for-sale-to-binance-us  

37:43 Grayscale v. SEC  https://twitter.com/jeffjohnroberts/status/1633130559353372672  https://www.reuters.com/legal/court-set-hear-arguments-grayscales-lawsuit-against-sec-over-bitcoin-fund-2023-03-07/ 

42:57 Bankless 2.0  https://www.bankless.com/dashboard  47:12 Bankless ETH Denver Interview series https://twitter.com/BanklessHQ/status/1633559479588454401 

49:33 Coinbase https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/1633473042000101378  51:35 One River https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbase-has-acquired-one-river-digital-asset-management  52:20 Commercial https://twitter.com/coinbase/status/1633222932255358976 

54:25 Tornado Cash Contributors' Proof of Innocence https://twitter.com/ameensol/status/1629942658008514560  https://www.privacypools.com/  57:25 Uniswap Wallet  https://twitter.com/uniswap/status/1631691330031169537  58:21 Rocket Pool https://medium.com/rocket-pool/rocket-pool-atlas-upgrade-7c69e39a3d5f  1:00:00 rETH Collateral on EulerFinance  https://twitter.com/MacroMate8/status/1633490076511666176  1:00:50 Arbitrum Token  https://twitter.com/PolymarketHQ/status/1632815834858164225  1:02:10 Cosmos Interchain Security https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-greenlights-interchain-security 

1:05:58 Sovereign Rollup on Bitcoin https://twitter.com/RollkitDev/status/1632438374513676288 https://twitter.com/ercwl/status/1632460687069913088?s=20  1:09:55 Yuga Labs $16.5M Bitcoin NFT Auction https://twitter.com/yugalabs/status/1632878847778512898  1:11:31 Casey’s Take https://twitter.com/rodarmor/status/1632573965897170948  1:13:05 Ordinals Not dead! https://twitter.com/zackvoell/status/1633879858915704846?s=20  1:13:59 Amazon NFT Marketplace  https://blockworks.co/news/amazon-nfts-real-world-assets-token 

1:15:13 Multicoin Capital’s Hedge Fund Lost 91.4% in 2022 https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/03/04/multicoin-capitals-hedge-fund-lost-914-last-year-investor-letter-reveals  1:17:58 Emojis https://therug.mirror.xyz/TZVv0Y5TG74q3ARKa8DcTSiGgAyeKAOIlndW4MHya1M 

1:19:37 Cooper Turley new Music NFT podcast  https://twitter.com/invinmusic/status/1633543529493577728 

1:20:02 Scroll $1.8B Valuation https://www.theblock.co/post/217340/ethereum-scaling-scroll-50-million-funding-round-1-8-billion-valuation 

1:21:10 Jobs https://pallet.xyz/list/bankless/jobs 

1:23:48 Questions from the Nation

1:30:25 Takes https://twitter.com/mdudas/status/1633571193344126979  https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/1633738311922782209  https://twitter.com/joonian/status/1632899301230669824 

1:34:00 What David’s Bullish On https://twitter.com/TrustlessState/status/1632479927093035009  1:35:30 What Ryan’s Bullish On

1:39:12 MEME of the Week https://twitter.com/BanklessHQ/status/1632066015428497418 

1:39:53 Risks & Disclaimers

1:40:07 Moment of Zen https://imgur.com/6H07xT1 

---- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Defiant

Alpha Homora Offers $32M In ‘Seized’ User Assets To Iron Bank To Pay Down Debt

Leveraged Yield Farming Protocol Was Exploited In 2021
Leveraged Yield Farming Protocol Was Exploited In 2021

Everything You Need To Know About EigenLayer with Sreeram Kannan

This week on The Defiant Podcast, Tegan Kline chats with Sreeram Kannan, the founder of Eigen Layer and the director of the University of Washington’s Blockchain Lab.
This week on The Defiant Podcast, Tegan Kline chats with Sreeram Kannan, the founder of Eigen Layer and the director of the University of Washington’s Blockchain Lab.

Gitcoin’s Metalabel Drop Tops OpenSea Charts

Major NFT Collector Corners More Than A Quarter Of Supply
Major NFT Collector Corners More Than A Quarter Of Supply

Circle Blog

Developer Tools for Ethereum dApps: Getting Started

The rise of decentralised finance (DeFi) has made Ethereum the go-to platform for building decentralised applications (dApps). One of the most popular stablecoins used in DeFi is USDC (USD Coin), a faster, safer, and more efficient way to send, spend, and exchange money around the globe. It powers apps to provide anytime access to payments and financial services.

The rise of decentralised finance (DeFi) has made Ethereum the go-to platform for building decentralised applications (dApps). One of the most popular stablecoins used in DeFi is USDC (USD Coin), a faster, safer, and more efficient way to send, spend, and exchange money around the globe. It powers apps to provide anytime access to payments and financial services.


Brave Browser

Crypto off-ramp in Brave Wallet

Brave Wallet on desktop now allows users to sell crypto for fiat with expanded Ramp integration.

Starting today, Brave Wallet users in select countries will see a new option to sell crypto into fiat currencies, including US dollars, euros, and pound sterling.

In May 2022, Brave announced a partnership with Ramp that enabled Brave Wallet users to buy crypto with fiat currency—or “on-ramp”—in Brave Wallet, the Web3 wallet natively-integrated into the Brave browser.

This week, with v1.49 of the desktop browser, we’re delighted to announce the expansion of that partnership: Brave Wallet users can now sell crypto for fiat—or “off-ramp”—with Ramp as well. Users now have the option to both move in and out of crypto entirely through their self-custody wallet, rather than through centralized exchanges that hold custody of users’ assets. With Ramp’s on- and off-ramping services integrated into Brave Wallet, users no longer need to relinquish ownership of their crypto to transact.

After recent events where centralized exchanges mishandled customer funds, it’s more important than ever to offer secure and easy-to-manage self-custody. Before the creation of Bitcoin and the ensuing emergence of Web3 technologies, self-custody wasn’t a common word in most people’s vocabulary. While self-custody has grown in popularity over the past decade, the most common way to hold digital currency and tokens remains with centralized exchanges. We expect to see that shift with innovations in user-experience, like the one we are releasing today.

Off-ramp is available for over 38 currencies including Solana, Ethereum, USDC and BAT. For a running list of supported payout methods, see their support page.

Using Ramp to sell crypto in Brave Wallet

Open the expanded Brave Wallet screen in Brave. This can be done either by clicking the wallet icon in the top right of your browser, or by visiting brave://wallet in the URL bar.

From the main portfolio page, click the asset you want to sell.

If the asset is available to off-ramp, you’ll see a Sell button among the list of accounts that hold that asset.

Click Sell and enter the amount you wish to off-ramp.

Click Sell with Ramp once you’re ready, and proceed to Ramp’s site to complete the process.

About Ramp

Ramp is building the infrastructure to seamlessly connect Web3 with today’s global financial system. Through its core on- and off-ramp products, Ramp provides businesses and individuals across 150+ countries with a streamlined and smooth experience in converting between crypto and fiat currencies. Ramp is fully integrated with the world’s major payment methods, including debit and credit cards, bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more.

About Brave Wallet

Brave Wallet enables Brave users to store, manage, grow, and swap their crypto portfolio across multiple blockchains from a single wallet. Unlike most crypto wallets, Brave Wallet is browser-native, meaning it doesn’t require any additional downloads or extensions, helping reduce security risks and reliance on extra CPU and memory. Users can transact with thousands of crypto assets with superior safety and performance, as well as connect with other wallets and Web3 DApps. If you’re a developer interested in integrating Brave Wallet into your DApp, take a look at our developer documentation.

If you’re curious about Web3, check out our Web3 Information Hub, which features simple guides and overviews to answer all your questions.

Thursday, 09. March 2023

Defiant

Crypto Markets Dive After NYAG Calls Ethereum A Security

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

Instadapp Launches ‘Avocado’ Multi-Blockchain Wallet

Smart Contract Wallet Leverages Account Abstraction and Gas Fees Are Charged In USDC
Smart Contract Wallet Leverages Account Abstraction and Gas Fees Are Charged In USDC

ETH Crashes 7% After NYAG Calls Ethereum A Security

Crypto Exchange Kucoin Accused Of Acting As Unlicensed Broker-Dealer
Crypto Exchange Kucoin Accused Of Acting As Unlicensed Broker-Dealer

Gitcoin Launches gtcETH Index Token To Bolster Funding

Partnership With Index Coop Will Let Holders Contribute To Public Goods
Partnership With Index Coop Will Let Holders Contribute To Public Goods

bankless

UpOnly & Flip with Brian Krogsgard (Ledger) | ETHDenver 2023 Interview #8

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto.  Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you. In this episode, we’re talking to the Up Only legend, Ledger, aka

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto. 

Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you.

In this episode, we’re talking to the Up Only legend, Ledger, aka Brian Krogsgard, and also Co-Founder and CMO of Flip, a growing NFT aggregation platform. Brian and David talk about the past, present, and future of UpOnly and Flip.  

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino 

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 3:35 Brian or Ledger & Camera Formatting? 4:50 UpOnly Status 5:24 Flip 10:44 Who is Flip For? 12:37 Fundraising  13:32 Fees & Liquidity  14:32 Customers & Business Development 15:45 Content & Future of UpOnly 16:23 Closing 

----- Resources: 

Brian https://twitter.com/Krogsgard  

Flip https://twitter.com/Flip_xyz 

Ledger https://twitter.com/ledgerstatus 

UpOnly https://twitter.com/UpOnlyTV 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Privy

Embedded Wallets: A bird’s eye view

The humble beginning At Privy, we are building the simplest way to onboard all your users to web3, whether they are new to the space or tried-and-true experts. This means building a library that enables developers to meet users where they are, and cater to diverse audiences whose product experiences grow with their engagement. Privy’s embedded wallets allow applications to create fully-functiona
The humble beginning

At Privy, we are building the simplest way to onboard all your users to web3, whether they are new to the space or tried-and-true experts. This means building a library that enables developers to meet users where they are, and cater to diverse audiences whose product experiences grow with their engagement.

Privy’s embedded wallets allow applications to create fully-functional Ethereum wallets on-demand without requiring users to leave the app. With this feature in place, we believe we are about to unlock a significant UX boost for the Web3 ecosystem!

The space itself is abuzz with changes that will profoundly shape UX, as threshold-based multi party computation matures, and smart contract wallet architectures (often called “account abstraction”) are standardized. While we are extremely excited about these evolutions and are working with partners to bring them into our own product, our core focus is enabling developers to build meaningful end-to-end solutions from day 1. To that end, we wanted this post to share some technical details on how embedded wallets got their start.

In the beginning, there was entropy

A wallet is born when 128 bits of entropy are chosen randomly by a CSPRNG. These bits are converted to a mnemonic via BIP-39 which is used to derive the user’s wallet key pair.

While wallet software is many things, the entirety of the wallet can be reduced to these 128 bits.

The choices are 128, 160, 192, 224, or 256 bits. These map to 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24 word mnemonics. 128 was chosen for its simplicity. This will be configurable by integrating applications.

Sharing is caring

It’s critical the entropy (henceforth referred to as the mnemonic) is secured and only accessible by the end-user it belongs to.

Privy’s embedded wallets achieve this by deploying a Shamir Secret Sharing scheme where the mnemonic is split into N shares and can be recovered using M of N shares. In our implementation, three total shares are allocated, with two belonging to the end-user and one secured by Privy. This has two core advantages: Privy alone cannot reconstruct the mnemonic and access user keys, and the user can always access their keys without needing to go through Privy.

We value our clients

To protect users and remain non-custodial, mnemonics and other plaintext key material are never transmitted over networks or exposed to servers. Everything happens on the end-user’s device. Wallets are created on the end-user’s device. Shares are reconstructed on the end-user’s device. Requests are serviced on — you get it.

Thus, clients are responsible for protecting the user’s wallet. While the UI remains under control of integrating applications, we leverage headless iframes to create a sandboxed environment where keys can safely be used to service requests sent to the wallet.

Compatibility is key

We value interoperability and choice. Users must be able to take their wallet keys with them in the event they no longer wish to use Privy.

Like all modern wallets, embedded wallets are Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets and adhere to the multi-account hierarchy specified in BIP-44. This ensures compatibility across existing wallet software and thus enables users to switch clients at any time with the click of a button.

User experience is paramount

Private keys and mnemonics are not particularly human-friendly, especially for non-technical users. Therefore, it is imperative that Privy shield users from the technical underpinnings. To the extent possible, Privy creates a Web2-like experience with features your every day user would expect. Examples include social logins, cross-device support, and simple account recovery.

One feature to highlight here is enabling developers to craft human-readable messages for their users. This enables signature and transaction requests to be on-brand and contextually relevant.

Looking ahead

Enabling users to come in with their existing wallet, or create one on the fly for app usage unlocks new possibilities in web3. Building for diverse audiences is essential to driving web3 forward all while maintaining that which makes the space exciting: ownership, interoperability and composability of data and assets.

We believe embedded wallets are going to be huge. Even though we’re just getting started, we’re excited about various improvements across the UX, DX, and the overall security of these wallets. If this sounds like a feature that would give your app a boost, we’d love to help get you started!

Embedded Wallets: A bird’s eye view was originally published in Privy Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


bankless

Arbitrum’s Stylus with Steven Goldfeder | ETHDenver 2023 Interview #7

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto.  Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you. In this episode, we’re talking to Steven Goldfeder of Arbitrum to

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto. 

Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you.

In this episode, we’re talking to Steven Goldfeder of Arbitrum to discuss Arbitrum’s innovative new Stylus and the ever-evolving L2 wars. Steven also drops some alpha?! Tune in to find out. 

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino 

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi  

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 3:51 Arbitrum Stylus  5:16 Stylus Explained  7:40 Prysmatic Labs 9:05 Any Dev Can Build on Arbitrum 9:52 L2 vs. L1 Roadmap Adoption 11:19 Arbitrum Alpha L3 Chains  13:40 How Do Chains Talk to Each Other? 14:52 Closing & Action Items

----- Resources: 

Steven Goldfeder https://twitter.com/sgoldfed 

Arbitrum  https://twitter.com/arbitrum  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Defiant

Staked ETH Withdrawals Could Be Imminent

Ethereum Developers Schedule Final Shapella Rehearsal For March 14
Ethereum Developers Schedule Final Shapella Rehearsal For March 14

Horizen - Blog

How to Create an ERC-20 Token on Horizen

Horizen EON is our first public proof-of-stake sidechain and a fully EVM-compatible smart contracting platform that allows developers to efficiently build and deploy dapps on Horizen, while fully benefiting from the Ethereum ecosystem. In this step by step guide below, we will walk you through the process of creating an ERC-20 Token on Yuma Testnet […] The post How to Create an ERC-20 Token o

Horizen EON is our first public proof-of-stake sidechain and a fully EVM-compatible smart contracting platform that allows developers to efficiently build and deploy dapps on Horizen, while fully benefiting from the Ethereum ecosystem.

In this step by step guide below, we will walk you through the process of creating an ERC-20 Token on Yuma Testnet – a temporary public testing environment for EON. 

Tools used in this tutorial MetaMask Yuma test token faucet Chainlist Open Zeppelin Remix Yuma block explorer

We assume you already have MetaMask installed on your browser for this tutorial. If you do not, you can download MetaMask here. 

STEP 1: Connect Yuma Testnet to MetaMask 

You can easily connect Yuma Testnet to MetaMask through Chainlist. Follow the instructions on the screen, Yuma Testnet should appear on your MetaMask:

STEP 2: Claim test token – TZEN

You’ll need TZEN as transaction fees to send your newly created tokens. You can get TZEN from the Yuma test token faucet. Copy and paste your Metamask address in the “Wallet Address” field on the faucet. 

STEP 3: Create your code on Open Zeppelin and create a new contract on Remix

Now we are ready to create your ERC-20 token! To do so, a simple way is via the Open Zeppelin wizard

In this tutorial, we are going to create a Javier Token in honor of our team member Manon’s #ZenCat Javier. Here is him supervising Manon.

Select the “ERC-20” tab  Complete the following fields: Name: think of a cool name for your token Symbol: your token symbol Premint: The amount of token you want to create

When you are done, click on “Open in Remix” and it will lead you to the Remix webpage Rename your file according to the name of your token/ smart-contract

STEP 4: Deploy your smart contract on Yuma Testnet

To deploy on the Yuma testnet, first, make sure Yuma testnet is selected and connected on MetaMask

On Remix, go to “Deploy and run transactions” by clicking the Ethereum icon on the left  Select “Injected Provider – MetaMask”  Be sure that the address here matches your MetaMask address in the “ACCOUNT” field

Go on the Compiler and make sure that the “Enable Optimization” is checked

Go back to “Deploy & run transactions” and click “Compile” (The green play icon) Click on “Deploy”

Click on “Confirm” on MetaMask

STEP 6: Verify your smart contract on the Yuma block explorer On Remix, your contract should appear on the left. Click on “Copy”

Import your token on MetaMask Click on “import a token” Paste the contract address Click on “Add a custom token”

Go on the Yuma Explorer https://yuma-explorer.horizen.io/ Paste on the search bar and press “Enter” Your contract should appear 

STEP 7: Flatten and publish On Remix, go back in “File Explorer” Use the right-click and select “flatten” Click on the flattened contract Copy the data on the right, you can select all with “Crtl+A”

Go back on the Yuma Explorer at your contract address and click on “Code” then on “Verify and Publish” Select “Via flattened source code”, then click on “Next” Make sure to have the same data on the Solidity Compiler, and the data that appears on the Yuma block explorer and paste the code on “Enter the Solidity Contract Code” Make sure to enter the “Contract Name”. Here “Javier Token” Click on Verify and Publish. Your code is now verified! 

STEP 8: Send tokens Go on MetaMask, to your newly created token, and click on “send” Enter the address where you want to send your tokens to  Enter the amount and click on “Next” Click on “Confirm” The tokens are sent, and you can view them on the Yuma explorer!

The recipient may have to import your token in MetaMask. To do so, he must click on “import a token” and then paste the token contract address available on the Yuma explorer. (You can also send him the token contract address, the one you used to import the token on your MetaMask at the beginning of the tutorial)

We hope you find this tutorial helpful! If you run into issues or have any additional questions, you can reach out to us on our Discord in the #eon channel. 

 

The post How to Create an ERC-20 Token on Horizen appeared first on Horizen Blog.


Defiant

US Court Approves Binance.US’s $1.3B Bid For Voyager Client Assets

Binance’s Regulatory Woes Still Threaten To Derail Deal
Binance’s Regulatory Woes Still Threaten To Derail Deal

Sequoia

Arc Spring 23 Announcement

The post Arc Spring 23 Announcement appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.
Arc Founders on the Problems that Drive Them

Four founders in the Spring ‘23 cohort of Arc, Sequoia’s pre-seed and seed-stage catalyst, share the ideas that brought us together.

By Team Sequoia

Published March 9, 2023

This week, we welcome a new cohort of 10 companies to Arc—including one second-time applicant. These companies, the majority of which are in stealth, span a variety of industries including health tech, fintech, crypto, AI and more. We asked a few of the founders to share their thoughts on the problems they’re solving, and what drives them and their teams.

What problem are you trying to solve, and why is it important?

Devin Bhushan, Squint: In industries like manufacturing, a lot of training is done one-on-one or with outdated manuals—people have to navigate multiple sources of information just to get the job done. It’s a slow and frustrating process, and it can undermine productivity and safety. Squint is a mobile app that uses computer vision techniques and augmented reality to help workers quickly map machines and complex processes, to create seamless guides that show the right thing at the right time.

Colin Dunn, Visual Electric: We created Visual Electric because we wanted to make design more accessible by giving people better-designed tools. Artists and designers still get a familiar, moodboard-like environment—but it’s powered by AI, so they can combine inspiration images with text prompts for tasks like “landing page” or “brand.” From there, they can remix and refine to create new concepts.

Jesse Chor, Tanda: People who are early in their financial security journey may not have access to—or trust in—traditional banking. They need tools to help them save money, build credit and grow their community. Tanda is a social savings app based on the concept of ROSCA, or Rotating Savings and Credit Association, which is popular around the world. Group members deposit money every few weeks, then each person takes a turn to withdraw—and the ones who go last are rewarded with interest.

Mayank Kishore, Mirage: Right now, creating in 3D is time-consuming and takes years of experience and specialized training. It’s a very steep learning curve. Mirage uses generative AI to democratize 3D. It allows you to enter prompts to search assets, generate models, add VFX—so you can build an environment in minutes, with no complex software. It’s a resource for game designers, but also concept artists, product marketers, interior designers, VFX artists. We want to make 3D accessible to everyone.

Why now? What has changed—or is changing—about the world that makes this the right time to take this on?

Mayank, Mirage: We’ve seen with diffusion models how AI can aid in the creative process. But it’s still a challenge for designers and other creators to retain sufficient control when they’re using these tools. By redesigning the 3D canvas from the ground up, Mirage gives individuals the control they need over their AI-assisted creations. 

Jesse, Tanda: Access to savings and credit is an ongoing problem, but the recent financial slowdown put a spotlight on it and exponentially increased the need and opportunity for a product like Tanda. In the U.S. alone, close to 20% of adults are either unbanked or underbanked.

Colin, Visual Electric: Generative AI is a paradigm shift in the way we create, and we believe that presents an opportunity to build a new class of design tool—where you are the art director instead of the designer. Visual Electric has the potential to accelerate the work of existing designers, but also to expand the market and empower others to create work of their own.

Devin, Squint: Over the last several years, mobile devices and AI have improved to a point that allows for a product like Squint. In manufacturing, experienced operators are retiring and complex new machines are constantly being introduced, so the need for more intuitive digital tools has never been greater. But we also believe Squint can have applications beyond the factory floor. AR is going to fundamentally change how we interact with information, and it can help all of us spend less time hunting down the knowledge we need.

Why you? What compels you to work on this problem? 

Jesse, Tanda: I’ve built Tanda before, at Yahoo, and it worked amazingly well. It was killed as part of an acquisition, but in the five years since I’ve been thinking about it non-stop. I always said that if I ever did another startup I would bring it back, better than before.

Colin, Visual Electric: We are our own customers. Visual Electric is built for designers, by designers—along with engineers and ML experts who are passionate about creative tools. We’ve all been thinking about this problem for a long time—working in design at Dropbox, Facebook, and Apple, among other companies, and for my co-founders Adam and Zach, in their previous experience as founders. 

Devin, Squint: I’ve been working in AR since the early days of ARKit on the iPhone, and I believe it is the future of how we’ll consume content. I have also seen firsthand how clunky user experiences and high barriers to entry can hold back products from breaking through in this space. That’s why it’s so important to me to make Squint simple and seamless.

Mayank, Mirage: My co-founders, Aman and Sree, and I have worked together on 3D software for years—including at NVIDIA, where we developed infrastructure and AI algorithms for autonomous vehicles. We saw how progress could bottleneck because it was so difficult to create environments quickly enough. So we started Mirage to enable anyone to unleash their creativity by replacing complex design software with AI-augmented tools.

The post Arc Spring 23 Announcement appeared first on Sequoia Capital US/Europe.


Greylock Partners

Democratizing Recruiting

The post <span>Democratizing</span> Recruiting appeared first on Greylock.

The post <span>Democratizing</span> Recruiting appeared first on Greylock.


bankless

The State of EigenLayer with Sreeram Kannan | ETHDenver 2023 Interview #6

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto.  Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you. In this episode, we’re talking to Sreeram Kannan of EigenLayer, a

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto. 

Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you.

In this episode, we’re talking to Sreeram Kannan of EigenLayer, a platform to leverage Ethereum security through the innovative method of restaking. Sreeram and David chat about EigenLayer’s evolution, wen mainnet(?!), what the EigenLayer competition looks like, and much more! ‘

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 3:10 EigenLayer’s Evolution 3:51 Wen Mainnet?  4:56 What to Build on EigenLayer 6:27 Supporting the Builders 7:13 EigenLayer Competitors 8:10 EigenLayer Mod Analogy  10:33 The EigenLayer Chain Spectrum   14:21 Good Technical EigenLayer Questions 18:02 Action Items, Jobs, & Closing

 ----- Resources: 

Sreeram Kannan https://twitter.com/sreeramkannan 

EigenLayer https://twitter.com/eigenlayer 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Defiant

Never Lose Your Crypto Again? ERC-4337 Explained

ERC-4337
ERC-4337

Everything you need to know about Eigen Layer – Sreeram Kannan Interview

Eigen Layer Explained
Eigen Layer Explained

a16z Podcast

Unlocking Creativity with Prompt Engineering

With every new technology, some jobs are lost while others are gained. People often focus on the former, but in this episode we chose to highlight the latter – a highly creative role that emerges alongside AI: the prompt engineer. Until AI can close the loop of its own, each tool still requires a set of prompts. Just like a composer feeds an instrument the notes to play, a prompt engineer feeds a

With every new technology, some jobs are lost while others are gained. People often focus on the former, but in this episode we chose to highlight the latter – a highly creative role that emerges alongside AI: the prompt engineer.

Until AI can close the loop of its own, each tool still requires a set of prompts. Just like a composer feeds an instrument the notes to play, a prompt engineer feeds an AI a map of what to produce. And if we know anything from music it’s that composing great music takes great skill!

In this episode we explore the emerging importance of prompting with Guy Parsons, the early learnings of how to do it effectively, and where this field might be going.

Will the prompt engineer be more like the highly sought after DevOps engineer, or a proficiency like Excel that you find on every resume? Listen in to hear Guy’s take.

Interested in the prompt competition? Email us at podpitches@a16z.com.

Resources:

DALL-E 2 Prompt Book: https://dallery.gallery/the-dalle-2-prompt-book/

Find Guy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GuyP

Guy’s combining image experiment: https://twitter.com/GuyP/status/1612880405207580672

Guy’s amorphous prompt experiment: https://twitter.com/GuyP/status/1608475973300948993

Guy’s space duck: https://twitter.com/GuyP/status/1601342688225525761

Prompt base: https://promptbase.com/

Lexica: https://lexica.art/

 

Topics Covered: 

0:00 - Introduction

01:49 - DALL-E 2 Prompt Book

05:29 - Parallel skills

06:51 - 80/20 prompting

10:16 - New ways of prompting

13:44 - Pulling the AI slot machine

18:09 - Comparing models

21:04 - Requested features

26:34 - Learning with AI

27:58 - Practical use cases

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Web3Auth

How Web3Auth’s Two-Factor Wallet infra empowered The Masked Singer Experience onboarding experience

Today, all of us at Web3auth moved a step closer to realising our mission of passing the identity ownership back to the individuals and users. We partnered with FOX -owned Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL) to provide a seamless Web3 user onboarding experience for The Masked Singer Experience. https://twitter.com/i/status/1626028978220990464 A typical web3 wallet’s user onboarding experience involve

Today, all of us at Web3auth moved a step closer to realising our mission of passing the identity ownership back to the individuals and users. We partnered with FOX -owned Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL) to provide a seamless Web3 user onboarding experience for The Masked Singer Experience.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1626028978220990464

A typical web3 wallet’s user onboarding experience involves setting up a seed phrase for authentication, which is a complex and tedious task. It takes the user anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes. This timeframe has churn written all over it, and it is quite significant in web3 user adoption standards.

But this has been the standard practice over the years. After we launched Web3Auth and had numerous customers using our wallet infrastructure, several consumer-focused applications have seen a 3x increase in conversion rates, from 24% to about 63%, as opposed to conventional seed phrase wallet solutions.

In a significant paradigm shift that we have been able to enable today, we joined forces with FOX Entertainment-owned Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL) to offer the most seamless onboarding experience possible for the fans of The Masked Singer Experience. This digital fan community is an evolution of the singing competition The Masked Singer — television #1 unscripted series.

With this partnership, Web3Auth will allow the fan community to connect to The Masked Singer Experience seamlessly, by logging in to the experience and setting up a web3 wallet directly via email, social and Google accounts instead of having to use the conventional seed phrase-enabled wallets. After this collaboration with us, users will need only less than a minute to set up their wallet accounts.

We decided to give this renewed onboarding journey a special name.

Two-Factor Wallets (2FW)

Users can set up a 2FW via 2FA flows — including social logins, phone, laptops, or even biometrics which would take less than a minute. The 2FW also significantly enhances wallet security — if one factor is damaged, users can still recover the wallet using the other factors.

Our Co-founder and CEO Zhen Yu Yong recommends three key factors for web2 businesses to consider for a successful web3 project launch:

intuitive user experience familiar user journey security

He believes that intuitive user experience and accessibility are paramount to allow the show’s fans and crypto enthusiasts to enjoy the reimagined Masker Singer NFT experience.

But the partnership only makes more sense for Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL). It empowers creators to build their communities through web3-centered fandom experiences that allow people to interact with content in new ways, ultimately reshaping the entertainment industry as we know it by infusing it with a new sense of freedom, access and control. BCL believes the future of the entertainment industry lies within Web3, which will help democratize access to Hollywood, strengthen the bond between creators and their communities and pave new avenues for creativity, innovation and success.

Today, we have been able to scale Web3Auth to a place where we have already onboarded over 500 web2 and web3 applications and wallets. Today, we are able to clock over 12 million user keys a month, which is an exponential growth from that of last year. But this is only scratching the surface. Having said that, our larger goal is to provide users with Two-Factor Wallets that are secure and seamless.

“We are all set to partner with larger enterprises within entertainment, gaming and blockchain industries. We want to close the gap between Web2 and Web3.”

~ Zhen Yu Yong, Co-founder and CEO, Web3Auth.

How Web3Auth’s Two-Factor Wallet infra empowered The Masked Singer Experience onboarding experience was originally published in Web3Auth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Important Product Updates — Web3Auth Self Host and Plug and Play

Web3Auth Self-host SDK is now Core Kit Simplification in access — a core principle our entire team at Web3Auth consistently strives for. It has been a significant part of our engineering culture. Today, we move a step closer towards our mission to simplify Web3 wallet infrastructure for everyone. Our Self-host SDK is now Core Kit We decided to do a little rebranding to our Self-host S
Web3Auth Self-host SDK is now Core Kit

Simplification in access — a core principle our entire team at Web3Auth consistently strives for. It has been a significant part of our engineering culture. Today, we move a step closer towards our mission to simplify Web3 wallet infrastructure for everyone.

Our Self-host SDK is now Core Kit

We decided to do a little rebranding to our Self-host SDK, and call it Core Kit. Because it is the core infrastructure that resides underneath all of our products. Simple and easy.

Of course, there are reasons why we chose to change the name.

The very term self-host could possibly imply that our customers had to do a lot of heavy-lifting. It could have been very easily interpreted with our Plug & Play SDK.

Here is a little context pertaining to the underlying technological architecture in our two flagship SDKs — Core Kit (previously Self-host) and Plug & Play.

These SDKs are built on top of an underlying SDK called tKey, which stands for Threshold Key. The tKey SDK manages private keys by generating shares using Shamir Secret Sharing, a threshold cryptographic algorithm technique. The image below shows how the tKey SDK architecture plays out in a virtual environment.

Web3Auth’s tKey SDK architecture

Now when it came to Self-host as a term, ‘hosting by the self’ was a possible misinterpretation we did not want our customers to take away from it.

Self-host offered a bundled package of core components or UI-less SDKs to help a customer customize their desired user interface (UI) to further generate and manage their shares. This implies only one thing — it empowers you to retain your own brand’s user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) flow. On the other hand, the core purpose of our Plug & Play SDK was to offer a standardized and default user interface (UI) and a user experience (UX) flow from Web3Auth — so that our customers could seamlessly generate and manage their desired number of shares.

By definition, this particular SDK is supposed to be a set of tools that would help you build an authentication engine for your platform — essentially, a non-custodial wallet. But the problem is that our Plug & Play SDK also has a similar purpose, but the only differentiation is that — it allows no room to customize any shares.

The change of name to Core Kit also refers to exactly what our SDKs offer — a bundled package of UI-less SDKs (or core components) to help you gain better access and control over the user experience (UX) flows, while retaining your brand.

Here is what the Core Kit entails:

tKey JS SDK, which works on web and react native. A web-based Single Factor Auth SDK. A NodeJS Server SDK hosted on the backend nodejs server.
“Owing to this potential misinterpretation, we wanted to take this space and opportunity to explain why we decided to do this rebranding.”

As we move forward, we are soon going to launch the tKey Android iOS SDKs over the coming few months. Besides, we are also going to launch an aggregator SDK for all of the Core Kit in Web, to allow for better ease of integration.

If you are an enterprise looking to add a powerful web3 component to your existing systems, look no further — Core Kit is here!

Furthermore, below is a summary of all the other product updates we have:

A revamped Plug & Play SDK

Our Plug & Play suite now has all UI SDKs, giving you quick and easy access to our platform.

Here is what the suit includes:

a Web Modal SDK a Web No Modal SDK an Android SDK, an iOS SDK a React Native SDK a Flutter SDK a Unity SDK a Unreal SDK is out, documentation will be launched soon Updated documentation

All of our documentation has been revamped with a new quick start, and general flows to highlight our products and integration better.

Check them out here.

We’re on Discourse, our newest community portal!

We have now fully migrated from GitHub Discussions to a brand new community forum on Discourse to enable a superior community support experience, better search capabilities, more accurate suggestions, and quicker responses.

Join our community forum here.

Over the last 4 years, our team at Web3Auth has been able to onboard over 500 applications and wallets across Web2 and Web3. Today, we manage more than 12 million user keys a month, a growth that is significant and exponential from that of our previous years.

Traditional wallet authentication methods such as seed-phrases, are difficult to remember and are vulnerable to phishing attacks. We have been working hard the last 4 years on various key management technologies and we believe we have been instrumental in pioneering this paradigm shift in the industry, especially after having launched our Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technology.

But this is only the beginning. As we continue this journey to achieve our audacious mission, which is to make digital ownership human-centric and accessible to everyone, we want to thank you for being a part of our thriving community and for your support in helping us build this wallet infrastructure for all.

We’d love for you to try out Core Kit, the Plug & Play SDKs, and join us in the product conversations on Discourse.

Important Product Updates — Web3Auth Self Host and Plug and Play was originally published in Web3Auth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Web3Auth’s statement on the recent Magic Link phishing attack

This is to clarify our response to a detailed internal investigation into a claimed vulnerability attack on Web3 Magic Links. Today, we want to take this opportunity to address a claimed vulnerability on Magic Links in Web3 highlighted by DFNS.co. Read more here. The disclosure describes a phishing attack on passwordless Magic Links, that affects Web2 applications but was aimed specifi

This is to clarify our response to a detailed internal investigation into a claimed vulnerability attack on Web3 Magic Links.

Today, we want to take this opportunity to address a claimed vulnerability on Magic Links in Web3 highlighted by DFNS.co. Read more here.

The disclosure describes a phishing attack on passwordless Magic Links, that affects Web2 applications but was aimed specifically toward Web3 applications.

A short summary of the incident with the timelines:

This phishing method was disclosed to us privately on Thursday, 23rd February 2023, over a voice call. Between 23rd and 25th February, upon discovery of the phishing attack, the Web3Auth team launched a detailed investigation into potentially affected users and their accounts. In conclusion, the investigation found no cases of existing users being affected by this attack. A verification challenge and stricter IP policies were implemented to prevent future phishing attempts on Monday, 27th February, 2023.

A brief overview of the phishing attack:

When a user wants to sign up and log in to any user account on the internet, the conventional flow is that he or she would get a verification email with a link to confirm and verify the email address. Upon verification, the user would now be able to access the dashboard or the user account.

But in this case, which happens to be a phishing attack, a malicious third party comes into play. It triggers a login request, because of which it sends out a passwordless web3 Magic Link to the user’s email. The link could possibly have a call-to-action button that prompts the user to log in. When the user clicks on it, the malicious third party would now be able to log in on behalf of the user, but the user is kept in the dark about the consequences until the account is accessed or altered.

This was how the claimed vulnerability attack unfolded, which turned out to be a well-known phishing attack.

Upon intimation of the issue on 23rd Feb 2023, Web3Auth conducted a detailed investigation into potential scenarios under which the issue might have occurred.

The investigation found that there were no such cases of this vulnerability found with respect to our existing user accounts. Our current policies that are already in place, display the origination of login requests as well as open channels for support, for identified malicious requests. These shall effectively prepare us for similar malicious incidents where the user did not activate the request in the first place. Rest assured, we continue to conduct our business and everyday operations while our users have absolutely nothing to worry about.

Our future commitment

However, this gave us an opportunity to further tighten our existing security measures. As part of some immediate remedial actions, we have proactively added additional security policies to identify potential and existing phishing attacks. This included matching and verification of a numeric login code to identify false requests, along with more stringent IP blocking, if the attack originated from different locations.

To ensure that we handle similar issues in a timely and effective manner, we have developed a Security SOP. Further, if you happen to discover any issues with our product, please email us at security@web3auth.io. Our team shall quickly review your submission and respond within 72 hours. While submitting these issues, kindly provide as much detail as possible, including steps to reproduce the issue, the potential impact, and any additional information that may be helpful.

Feel free to refer to our bug bounty program as well.

As part of our commitment to platform security, we will acknowledge your submission and keep you informed of our progress in addressing the vulnerabilities. We would also publicly recognize your contribution, with your permission, in our security hall of fame.

We take the security of our platform very seriously. We acknowledge your support and extend our gratitude for joining us in our mission to improve the security of Web3Auth and Web3 as an entirety.

Web3Auth’s statement on the recent Magic Link phishing attack was originally published in Web3Auth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Unlock digital ownership for the mainstream user: Safe{Core} SDK built with Web3Auth

Account Abstraction has been all the rage in recent months. But with all the different specifications, implementations, jargon and use cases it entails, it is very easy to be buried in the weeds. For those looking for an easily pluggable AA SDK, look no further. Today, Safe Global (previously Gnosis.safe) announced the Safe{Core} SDK, in partnership with Web3Auth in making Account Abstractio

Account Abstraction has been all the rage in recent months. But with all the different specifications, implementations, jargon and use cases it entails, it is very easy to be buried in the weeds. For those looking for an easily pluggable AA SDK, look no further.

Today, Safe Global (previously Gnosis.safe) announced the Safe{Core} SDK, in partnership with Web3Auth in making Account Abstraction an end-to-end and production-ready experience.

Here is a snapshot of what the core SDK entails for developers:

The company (Safe) reports that its custody infrastructure has been closely audited and tested over the last 5 years, and that it is now able to secure $39 billion in assets today.

With Web3Auth, this SDK enables mainstream users to enjoy the benefits of an experience they’re already familiar with. Social logins to Two-Factor wallets that leverage the security of their devices as well. Here is where we echo a similar philosophy and align with Safe on the same.

”Today, there is a binary choice for users. They can either completely give up ownership of their assets to a custodian and play in a walled garden, or bear the full responsibility of protecting their assets and scrutinizing every transaction. Small everyday burdens of gas fees, seed phrases, jumping wallets, and switching networks to do simple transactions have made web3 unusable by the masses.

We need to do better.”

As for developers, if you want to understand more and build on top of the Account Abstraction experience, join us in a month-long global AA Hackathon. The march for this hackathon starts today, with bounties worth $50,000. Join us today here.

Unlock digital ownership for the mainstream user: Safe{Core} SDK built with Web3Auth was originally published in Web3Auth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Web3Auth vs Magic — How to choose your Key Management Solution

Web3Auth vs Magic — How to choose your Key Management Solution Authentication is one of the most important components of any application and as the Web3 movement grows, wallet & private key management becomes its most critical aspect. The right to own your own key and the right to own your own identity. For any dApps, the fundamental question is — how are you managing your users’ wallet? Kee
Web3Auth vs Magic — How to choose your Key Management Solution Authentication is one of the most important components of any application and as the Web3 movement grows, wallet & private key management becomes its most critical aspect. The right to own your own key and the right to own your own identity. For any dApps, the fundamental question is — how are you managing your users’ wallet? Keeping in mind this critical question, we are comparing two of the leaders in the wallet management space, Web3Auth and Magic.

Before we deep dive into the technical details and comparison, let’s understand what these solutions are trying to achieve. Both Web3Auth and Magic replace seed phrases with intuitive one-click logins making onboarding into web3 seamless while giving control to the application to manage their flows.

Further to that, the infrastructure and usage of both the platforms is very different and needs a deeper understanding. For this, we will be comparing the two platforms on the following aspects:

Wallet Management: How the users’ private keys are managed and held safe? Authentications Options: How many types of authentication and 2FA methods are supported? Multichain Support: How many blockchains are supported and utilised? White Labelling and Customisation: How much control the developer has on the UX flows? Scalability: How the platforms perform for applications at scale. Ease of integration: How easy it is to implement a basic instance of the platform. Open Source & Native platforms support: How much code is publicly available and audited? How many platforms are supported? Web3Auth vs Magic Differences in Wallet Management Infrastructure

According to the Magic’s Whitepaper,

“Magic’s Delegated Key Management leverages Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) provided by Amazon Web Services’ Key Management Service (AWS KMS). Dedicated user master keys generated using AES-256 with 384-bits of entropy are stored on the HSMs. The master keys never leave the hardware as they are meant to be locked inside and unable to be exported. All encryption and decryption operations happen inside the hardware modules themselves. HSMs are a lot like popular 7 FIDO devices like YubiKeys or hardware-based wallets for cryptocurrency storage such as Trezor or Ledger, but instead of traditional harddrive storage, they sit in the cloud, secured by AWS’s data centers.
Users’ private keys are encrypted by these hardware-based user master keys, which means that attackers need to gain access to the hardware to be able to retrieve the keys, and are forced to stay within Magic’s adversarial infrastructure — which is capable to detect, impede, and monitor attacker’s progress to prevent and mitigate any damages.”

Hence, we can see that Magic depends on Amazon Web Service’s (AWS) Hardware Security Modules (HSM) for their key encryption. The users’ private keys are encrypted by these hardware-based user master keys and stored separately in a multi-region MySQL database.. This approach is good in terms of speed and availability, however has a major flaw, wherein the entire private key sits encrypted on the cloud secured by AWS KMS which can be a single point of failure. Hence, we can regard their solution as a semi-custodial system.

Web3Auth is a fully non custodial MPC (Multi Party Computation) solution where the user keys are distributed across a network of nodes owned by the top firms in the crypto industry and the user’s own devices. This is enabled by an on chain node network distributed key generation followed by an off chain multi-sig. The key is never fully owned by anyone and only the user has the access to it via their own authentication methods. While making a blockchain transaction, the key is never reconstructed or stored anywhere, rather a series of partial signatures are done across the network and user devices and the final signature is generated for the transaction.

This infrastructure can be used across the world with node availability throughout the world with industry leading speeds and a surety that user keys are never owned by a single entity anytime.

You can read more about Web3Auth’s Wallet Management Infrastructure and the New MPC Solution.

Authentications Options

One of key features of Web3Auth and Magic is the support of any social, federated identity ( Auth0, Firebase, AWS Cognito, etc.) and custom JWT auth providers. This allows developers to integrate any kind of login method, provided they are using JWT ID Token for user registration.

In addition to this, Two Factor Authentication is a key aspect of keeping your accounts secure. Magic supports 2FA with mobile operators like Authy and Google Authenticator and/or SMS authentication giving you the traditional experience of 2FA.

Web3Auth introduces a new layer of security here with the introduction of Two Factor Wallets. Web3Auth actually uses its off chain multi sig to distribute keys into multiple devices and or SMS/ other authentication methods. This enables you to get a true decentralised 2FA setup where your keys are secured even if one of the authentication methods is compromised.

Multichain Support

Web3Auth’s SDKs are chain agnostic, ie. they can be used on any blockchain. Today there are thousands of dApps built on numerous blockchains that have integrated Web3Auth. On the other hand, Magic supports 20+ popular blockchains.

White Labelling and Customisation

Web3Auth allows applications and wallets to fully customise and whitelabel the solution. Using the various options of integration available, you can even make Web3Auth totally invisible in the user flow focusing totally on your application end to end. Magic does provide a range of customisation options, but it is limited as compared to Web3Auth.

Scalability

Both the solutions do very well in terms of scalability of users and availability across multiple regions. Being hosted on AWS HSMs, Magic is available worldwide within their servers. These servers are owned by Amazon.

Web3Auth’s network of nodes are hosted worldwide and by trusted industry leaders like Polygon, Binance, Tendermint, ENS, Etherscan etc. Additionally, with the new Sapphire network of Web3Auth, applications can choose to run their own nodes in addition to the nodes available publicly giving them flexibility and control over their user scalability.

Ease of Integration

A basic integration of both the platforms is quite easy and straightforward. With Web3Auth a basic of the Plug and Play SDKs requires just 4 basic steps and with excellent documentation and examples guiding you throughout the journey of building your own customised solution. A basic integration takes less than 15 mins of work and no extra customisation is required for being production ready. You also have the flexibility to migrate to a more advanced integration with our range of SDKs available for different use cases and platforms. We also have an integration builder which, according to your requirements, shapes up a ready to use code that can be directly implemented in your application.

A basic Magic integration takes a similar approach with one additional step. You need to use custom authentication for using any social login provider apart from email passwordless. Their documentation and guides are great to follow along and one can figure out how to implement them easily.

Open Source & Native Platform Support

Open source is at the heart of decentralisation. Both Web3Auth and Magic have strong multi platform support and an active open source community around their products. Web3Auth supports Android, iOS, Flutter, React Native, Unity and Unreal Engine. Magic supports all of them except Unreal Engine. They additionally support PHP and WordPress logins.

At Web3Auth, all these SDKs are open sourced alongside our core infrastructural SDKs and smart contracts controlling the nodes as well. These are fully audited by some of the top smart contract auditing firms in the world. For Magic, the SDKs are open source, while the encryption and DKMS remain closed source.

Final Thoughts

Although Magic is a great product in terms of getting your users onboarded into the Web3 world, it is evident that Web3Auth has a clear advantage on the core infrastructure level over them. Being a more advanced product with a greater emphasis on security, non-custodiality, and customisation, Web3Auth becomes a clear choice in almost every situation where user wallet management and recoverability is an involved factor.

Web3Auth vs Magic — How to choose your Key Management Solution was originally published in Web3Auth on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


bankless

Squid with Fig | ETHDenver 2023 Interview #5

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto.  Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you. In this episode, we’re talking to Fig from Squid, a crosschain swa

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto. 

Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you.

In this episode, we’re talking to Fig from Squid, a crosschain swap protocol built on top of Axelar. Is Squid finally the interoperability solution we’ve all been waiting for? Tune in to find out! 

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 3:09 What is Squid?  4:26 Squid vs. Previous Interoperability Solutions 7:52 Fig’s Chain Fatigue Response  9:04 Squid’s Use Cases 11:15 Closing & Action Items

----- Resources: 

Fig https://twitter.com/ecdsafu 

Squid  https://twitter.com/squidrouter  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 

Wednesday, 08. March 2023

bankless

Polygon’s zkEVM with Jordi Baylina | ETHDenver 2023 Interview #4

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto.  Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you. In this episode, we’re talking to Jordi Baylina, Technical Lead fo

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto. 

Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you.

In this episode, we’re talking to Jordi Baylina, Technical Lead for Polygon Hermez zkEVM. Polygon’s zkEVM is scheduled to go live on MARCH 27, 2023! So of course, we had to ask Jordi all about it. 

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 3:07 Jordi’s ETHDenver Panel 3:58 Was Polygon the 1st zkEVM? 5:54 Frequent Builder Questions 7:23 Polygon zkEVM Timeline 10:35 zkEVM Bugs Explained 16:24 Closing 

----- Resources: 

Jordi Baylina https://twitter.com/jbaylina  

Polygon ZK https://twitter.com/0xPolygonZK  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Defiant

Celestia Introduces Bitcoin Rollups With New Framework

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

Amazon To Reportedly Launch NFT Marketplace Next Month

Platform Will Likely Not Support Crypto Assets
Platform Will Likely Not Support Crypto Assets

Coinbase Looks To Bring Web2 Experience To Web3 With WaaS

Wallet-as-a-Service Will Allow Users to Create Crypto Wallets With Usernames and Passwords
Wallet-as-a-Service Will Allow Users to Create Crypto Wallets With Usernames and Passwords

Rollkit Introduces Bitcoin Rollups With New Framework

Rollkit Allows Developers To Mix-and-Match Data Availability and Execution Layers
Rollkit Allows Developers To Mix-and-Match Data Availability and Execution Layers

bankless

Osmosis Labs with Sunny Aggarwal | ETHDenver 2023 Interview #3

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto.  Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you. In this episode, we’re talking to Sunny Aggarwal of Osmosis Labs a

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto. 

Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you.

In this episode, we’re talking to Sunny Aggarwal of Osmosis Labs and Cosmos. Sunny and David chat about how Osmosis and Axelar are working together, what’s new in the Cosmos ecosystem, and how Cosmos isn’t solely DeFi-focused. 

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 3:11 The Interoperability Meta 4:05 Axelar vs. THORChain 5:15 Osmosis & Axelar  6:50 Bridge Risk 8:43 The Cosmos Ecosystem 10:11 AppChains  12:00 Is Cosmos Only DeFi-Focused?  13:00 State of the Cosmos Community 14:25 Sunny’s ETHDenver Agenda 15:08 Sunny’s Sweater 15:30 Closing

----- Resources: 

Sunny Aggarwal https://twitter.com/sunnya97  

Osmosis https://twitter.com/OsmosisZone  

Cosmos https://twitter.com/Cosmos  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Circle Blog

Circle and AZA Finance advance cross-border utility

In many ways, Africa is rapidly proving how financial technology and digital infrastructure can scale and thrive to serve potentially billions of people. Since the launch of M-Pesa in 2007, people and businesses from across the continent have been at the forefront of using technology to move and manage value. Today, they are increasingly turning to digital currency and public blockchain

In many ways, Africa is rapidly proving how financial technology and digital infrastructure can scale and thrive to serve potentially billions of people. Since the launch of M-Pesa in 2007, people and businesses from across the continent have been at the forefront of using technology to move and manage value. Today, they are increasingly turning to digital currency and public blockchains to efficiently connect to global capital flows. And beginning in 2013, the introduction of digital currencies and public blockchains made it possible to more efficiently connect countries across the continent to global capital flows.


bankless

Superfluid with Francesco Renzi | ETHDenver 2023 Interview #2

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto.  Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you. In this episode, we’re talking to Francesco Renzi, CEO and Co-Foun

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto. 

Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you.

In this episode, we’re talking to Francesco Renzi, CEO and Co-Founder of Superfluid, the real-time settlement solution for the 21st century. Fran and David discuss how games are leveraging Superfluid, why Fran is bullish web3 gaming, and what the cross-chain Superfluid ecosystem may look like. 

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 3:35 Superfluid Explained 4:02 Streaming Payments  5:06 Adoption  5:45 Games Leveraging Superfluid 6:08 Building New Economies 6:51 Bullish Web3 Gaming?  8:20 Does Crypto Solve Gaming? 9:14 Crosschain Superfluid Ecosystem 10:05 Closing & Action Items

----- Resources: 

Fran  https://twitter.com/FrancescoRenziA 

Superfluid https://twitter.com/superfluid_HQ  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Axelar with Sergey Gorbunov | ETHDenver 2023 Interview #1

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto.  Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you. In this episode, we’re talking to Sergey Gorbunov about the purpos

Sometimes, the frontier is at a crypto conference. One of the most prestige being, ETHDenver! We’re back with a handful of exclusive interviews with some of the most fascinating minds in crypto. 

Wish you could make it to all the crypto conferences, but don't have the time? Don't worry, Bankless brings the frontier to you.

In this episode, we’re talking to Sergey Gorbunov about the purpose of the Interoperability Summit at ETHDenver, the interoperable frontier, the differences between the Axelar and Cosmos and so much more. 

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 4:33 Interoperability Summit Vibe 5:20 Communities Represented 6:05 The Interoperable Frontier  6:56 Axelar Explained  8:00 Axelar Blockchain 8:37 Axelar vs. Cosmos 9:41 Chain Fatigue  11:20 Lessons Learned  13:03 Closing & Action Items

----- Resources: 

Sergey Gorbunov https://twitter.com/sergey_nog 

Axelar Network https://twitter.com/axelarcore  

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Aztec Network

The Time NounsDAO Got Private Voting

Aztec x Aragon bring private on-chain voting to Nouns The Private Research Sprint Private DAO voting has long been a holy grail. So when Nouns DAO recognized the urgent need for confidential governance, we teamed up with Aragon to answer the call. Today’s Aztec x Aragon implementation of Nouns DAO’s private research sprint spec using Aztec’s universal zk language Noir is a massiv
Aztec x Aragon bring private on-chain voting to Nouns The Private Research Sprint

Private DAO voting has long been a holy grail. So when Nouns DAO recognized the urgent need for confidential governance, we teamed up with Aragon to answer the call.

Today’s Aztec x Aragon implementation of Nouns DAO’s private research sprint spec using Aztec’s universal zk language Noir is a massive step toward achieving private voting for the Nouns community and all decentralized organizations.

Private voting is the “real-world” default, and for good reason! Public voting has long been problematic for DAOs, creating:

11th hour voting problems vote coercion bandwagoning effects

Privacy-first governance can solve these issues, providing:

anonymity vote privacy (confidentiality of vote) tally privacy (confidentiality of outcome)

The Aztec x Aragon proposal flexibly enables for all 3. Our proposal has minimal off-chain dependency by utilizing Ethereum storage proofs and timelapse encryption.

Here’s how it will actually work:

Phase 1: Nouns Census Using Ethereum Storage Proofs

In Phase 1, we develop a system for taking the census of all NFT holders using Ethereum storage proofs.

This is a unique feature of our proposal enabled by @NoirLang and Aztec’s UltraPlonk prover. The census proves Nouns ownership or delegation rights using on-chain data without revealing owner identities.

Functionally, it means Nouns owners are able to “find their spot” in the Ethereum data tree, proving that they own a Noun. It’s worth noting the UltraPlonk implementation with Noir is what enables the client-side storage proof.

To traverse the storage tree, the user may need to run >50 Keccak hashes to get to the right places in the tree and prove those storage slots contain the owner’s address.

Because Noir compiles to an intermediate representation (the Abstract Circuit Intermediate Representation or ACIR), our team can simply substitute a highly optimized UltraPlonk backend to run these hashes efficiently!

Phase 2: Vote Obfuscation with Delay-Relayers

In Phase 2, we ensure that addresses with multiple Nouns can also preserve privacy with the help of a vote delay relayer.

The problem faced by holders of multiple nouns is that of a diminished privacy set. That is, voters with only one Noun belong to the largest set of users. The more unique the number of Nouns held by an address is, the easier it is to identify which address cast a vote.

Therefore it’s important to decompose large holders’ votes into individual ones. Under our proposal, each NFT will have a unique vote, with vote relayers submitting on behalf of owners with multiple Nouns in order to obfuscate their origin.

The relayer’s sole purpose is to collect votes from Noun whales and spread the votes out over a long period of time. It has no access to the votes themselves, keeping wallet addresses private at all times.

Phase 3: Time-Lapse Encryption Service

In Phase 3, we propose implementing a time-lapse encryption service.

This delayed encryption mechanism achieves tally fairness and ensures no one can tally the proposal’s ongoing votes before the period ends.

This service publishes encrypted public keys regularly, revealing their corresponding private keys at a set time interval and allowing for votes to be aggregated and then tallied.

Once the private key is revealed, the votes are decrypted and the results tallied — much like opening a real-world ballot box.

Our proposal means that Noun owners can:

prove Nouns ownership on-chain permanently preserve vote privacy obfuscate ownership of multiple Nouns cast votes in one step

In our exploration of further work, we discuss optimizations to the timelapse encryption scheme, support for multisigs, and private gas payment schemes.

We also want to shout out The Anounymous Proposal by Mach34 utilizing Noir to enable private voting — we’re excited to collaborate among all teams regardless of affiliation!

For more background on our proposal, Nouns, and the private research sprint, check out these resources:

Original research sprint spec Full Aztec x Aragon proposal Aragon ZK Research Guild Build on Noir

Private voting. Encrypted games. Proving off-chain compute.

All of it is made possible with Noir — the universal language of zero knowledge. Noir is a zk circuit writing language that allows you to use any crypto backend and verify to any EVM chain.

⚫️ Learn more and get started with Noir with our documentation.
Join us

Have questions about the Aztec Proposal? Jump into the Aztec Discord!

Get in touch with the authors of the proposal:

Aragon: Alex Kampa (@alexkampa) Aztec: Savio Sou (@globallager)

Interested in working on the hardest problems bringing ZK mainstream?

🚀 See Aztec’s open positions here.

The Time NounsDAO Got Private Voting was originally published in Aztec Network on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Circle Blog

The Future of Web3 Needs Women

UN Women, The United Nations entity focused on gender equality, cast a powerful thesis for International Women’s Day 2023: DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality– underscoring the potential of technology to unlock meaningful change, and the importance of Circle’s mission.

UN Women, The United Nations entity focused on gender equality, cast a powerful thesis for International Women’s Day 2023: DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality– underscoring the potential of technology to unlock meaningful change, and the importance of Circle’s mission.


Nym - Medium

Tokenize infrastructure, not people — 5 tips for international women’s day

Tokenize infrastructure, not people — 5 tips for international women’s day It is International Women’s day today! Which makes it an important historical day to celebrate and take stock of the structural and everyday gender-based discrimination that happens in our ecosystems and industry. But while doing this important work there are some good and some less great ways of going about it!
Tokenize infrastructure, not people — 5 tips for international women’s day

It is International Women’s day today! Which makes it an important historical day to celebrate and take stock of the structural and everyday gender-based discrimination that happens in our ecosystems and industry. But while doing this important work there are some good and some less great ways of going about it!

Whether for celebratory or derogatory reasons, it can be unsettling as a person to be reduced to their gender (or any physical attribute for that matter!) So, how does one focus on the issue of gender discrimination without awkwardly tokenizing people? Here are five tips to keep in mind...

1. Diversity in the workplace is not just about doing the right thing

It is essential for ensuring a healthy ecosystem. Having a variety of experiences and perspectives present ensures that projects and efforts are actually relevant and resonate outside of an otherwise narrow slice of society. To be blunt, it makes the ecosystem more rich (experientially, and well, literally too)! Diversity makes for better projects, products and services because they will be relevant to more people and resonate with more experiences.

Nym has consistently put the time in to make sure that we get a strong representation of women within the organisation. Not only are 5 out of 9 (55%) of our executive team are women, but also 15 out of our 45 (33%) full time staff identify as women or non-binary. To put this in perspective the UK’ average for women in tech is just 26% and for women in Web3 industry jobs at just 13%.

How do we do this? By fostering a culture of inclusivity, and understanding that without a strong representation of all backgrounds, Nym would have no chance of being the best Privacy tech company in the world.

2. Put in the effort

So, put in the effort! It is far easier to remember one’s pals and the loudest people in the room when recruiting or organising a panel for a conference. Which means it is hardly surprising that there are often all male panels with organisers throwing their hands up saying they tried but simply could not find any women or non-binary people to speak on the topic. Oftentimes, it just takes a little more effort and a shift in focus to take notice of who else is around and doing important work.

Whether you are onboarding, recruiting or organising a panel for a conference, qualifications and experiences should be the first criteria, so put in that extra effort and not just go with the first person that comes to mind or the easiest option. Don’t assume any woman you meet at a conference is there because they are someone’s girlfriend and don’t assume the guys are always the decision-makers. Make that effort and make sure you highlight talent, not biology!

3. Don’t single people out for their gender (or any other physical attributes for that matter)

When you have done that extra work and have found a super talented person in the field, you might be very proud of yourself and you might be extra proud for having put in the extra effort to find a top professional who is a woman or non-binary person. And while it is fine to celebrate this achievement internally, do NOT publicly single this person out for their gender (or indeed for any other physical or biological attributes —it’s never great, it’s just creepy)!

It can be a disempowering experience for a person to realise they have been hired, added to a speaking panel, or being interviewed for reasons that have nothing to do with the topic at hand. It can undermine a person’s credibility in the eyes of others, distract from their actual expertise and can ultimately undermine their sense of self-worth.

4. Celebrate talent, not biology

Make sure to celebrate people for their talent, not for their physical traits. It is an ingrained habit to celebrate men for their achievements, women for their physical attributes and make anyone in between invisible. To remedy this requires a conscious effort. Habits are usually unconscious, and societal habits are ingrained into language, culture and institutions. Talent and achievements come in loud and quiet forms regardless of gender, make sure your organisation is paying attention to and rewarding all contributors!

5. Freedom means self-determination — don’t impose categories on others

Finally, let’s talk about why a privacy tech company is publishing a piece about international women’s day — it is not just about good HR practices!

The problem of surveillance is that it systematically categorises, profiles and targets people. Surveillance is an imposition of an identity that makes you a target and that you have not had the chance to determine for yourself. And this is exactly what gender oppression does too. It is not about whether someone identifies as a woman or not, wears makeup or not or choses parenting over profession when it is on their own terms. It is about the violent imposition of a set of categories, preconceptions and hierarchies onto a person by other people and systems.

The historical oppression of women has precisely meant forcing a vast, diverse number of people into a biological category and inventing all kinds of truisms about what it means to be a woman. And the violence of either being thrown into or excluded from the category of woman continues to this day.

It is essential to avoid echoing this historical mistake of reducing people to biology, while nevertheless putting in the effort needed to ensure that people of any gender can participate in building the societal infrastructures of the future.

Remember:

Diversity is a strength. Put in the effort. Don’t single people out for their physical attributes. Celebrate talent. Freedom means self-determination.

In other words, tokenise infrastructure, not people!

We are always looking for more talent at Nym, have a look at our open job postings.

Join our community

Discord // Telegram // Twitter

Resources A bot revealing pay inequality A magazine on women in the business of Web3 A book on how the category of “Women” was exported and imposed across the world An essay ‘Crypto-politics — an update’ with more than 90% female authors referenced A podcast with Nym Chief Scientist Claudia Diaz on women in cybersecurity from 2022

Get in touch if you have questions, comments if you want to share more resources!

Jaya@nymtech.net (CSO) or Jack@nymtech.net (HR)

Tokenize infrastructure, not people — 5 tips for international women’s day was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Defiant

Crypto Privacy is back – for some

Ethereum Privacy Pools
Ethereum Privacy Pools

DeFi Alpha: Track Your DeFi Portfolio Using A Customizable Dashboard By Octav

Claim $PRIME Tokens If You Hold Parallel Cards
Claim $PRIME Tokens If You Hold Parallel Cards

US Government Moves $1B Of Seized Bitcoin

$217M Coinbase Transfer Could Signal Upcoming Sale
$217M Coinbase Transfer Could Signal Upcoming Sale

bankless

Uniswap's Wallet Details with Callil Capuozzo, Design Lead at Uniswap Labs

Callil Capuozzo is the VP of Design at Uniswap Labs. Uniswap recently unveiled their brand new mobile app; and we’re going to explore that here today, along with asking about the long-term vision of Uniswap Wallet, and how Uniswap Labs plans to support and develop it! ------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino    ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:

Callil Capuozzo is the VP of Design at Uniswap Labs. Uniswap recently unveiled their brand new mobile app; and we’re going to explore that here today, along with asking about the long-term vision of Uniswap Wallet, and how Uniswap Labs plans to support and develop it!

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

 ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi   

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 6:00 Callil's Background 12:28 Design in Crypto 16:45 Uniswap Labs 18:00 Why Wallet? 19:25 Future of Crypto Wallets 23:30 Apple Gatekeeping  34:12 Uniswap Wallet Demo 48:20 Uniswap Wallet Roadmap 51:05 What Else is Uniswap Labs Building? 53:30 Smart Contract Wallets  1:00:25 Closing & Disclosures 

------ Resources:

Callil Capuozzo https://twitter.com/_callil 

Uniswap Wallet  https://twitter.com/Uniswap/status/1631691330031169537 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Defiant

GBTC Shares Jump on Judges’ SEC Skepticism

Parent Company is Seeking to Overturn SEC Denial And Convert GBTC to an ETF
Parent Company is Seeking to Overturn SEC Denial And Convert GBTC to an ETF

Tuesday, 07. March 2023

Defiant

ETHDenver: Competition and New Ideas Spur Wallet Development

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

Panther Protocol

Monthly Update: February 2023

It's time for our monthly update on all things Panther! Let's look back at what happened in February and what we're preparing for March.

Dear Panthers,

It's time for our monthly update on all things Panther!

Let's look back at what happened in February and what we're preparing for March.

Tech Updates v0.5

In the beginning of the month, Panther’s dApp front-end faced an issue from IPFS’ side that temporarily impacted access to the v0.5 user interface. However, a new temporary link was quickly set up to remedy this. As a front-end issue, this only impacted the hosting of the application itself and had no relation to user funds.

Panther's dedicated task force has also been working on optimizing the dApp's bundle size for v0.5, which is a crucial aspect of decentralized deployment. Panther's contracts for fees and rewards functionalities are all progressing well, with some already designed.

You can still access 0.5’s dApp and stake tokens by clicking the “Launch App” button on Panther’s home page.

Developments towards v1

Regarding the fees/rewards mechanism of Panther's v1, development of its smart contract components is progressing. Mathematical models are now being put to test using modeling based on open data from transactions related to other privacy protocols.

On a similar note, Panther's tech contributors are leading an effort to enhance the underlying processes to conduct end-to-end testing. This will enable Panther to test roll-outs for both efficiency and effectiveness.

zSwap integration Swapping zETH for zUSDC through Uniswap on Panther’s v1.


The core component of Panther's upcoming v1 first DeFi Adaptor, zSwap, represents a significant milestone in the protocol's development. The feature will enable users to swap assets privately through major DEXs, with the protocol fee based on $ZKP. We have also made significant progress in connecting with Uniswap V3 and Quickswap V2, with Curve currently in progress.

First deployed on Polygon, zSwap features a DEX-like screen allowing users to choose:

• the token pair to swap

• their desired amounts

• the most favorable route with updated values based on fees and price impact.

To use zSwap, users must first deposit tokens into Panther's Multi-Asset Shielded Pool.

Once deposited, the assets become private (zAssets), shielded by zero-knowledge proofs and zkSNARKs cryptography.

Panther’s zAssets screen.

By design, zSwap serves a dual function of enabling trading across all available assets and enhancing Panther's privacy set. Since along swapping users are able to trade within the pool, tracing assets back to any particular user becomes impossible.

Why is zSwap the first DeFi Adaptor by Panther? Let’s just say it’s a matter of (total) value. New roadmap
Co-founders Oliver Gale & Anish Mohammed (Left, front) met with Panther’s core contributors.

Panther's co-founders and core tech contributors also met up to workshop Panther's roadmap, compliance design, and more, leading to the release of Panther’s roadmap for 2023-2024.

Panther’s Roadmap. Updated on 03/01/2023.


Panther’s newly-published roadmap brings a well-deserved update to our plans leading up to the release of v1. As you can see from it, Q1 2023 will be a time for planning, revising our public materials, and upgrading documentation. We are also moving forward with Decentralization Phase 2, which includes developing a working governance framework, which has kept the Panther community occupied.

Moving into Q2 2023, we will be launching v1’s Testnet, featuring Panther’s Multi-Asset Shielded Pool (MASP) and support for Zones. We will also be introducing DeFi Adaptors, starting with zSwap, and working towards the OTC-like zTrade functionality. Additionally, it will also feature Trust Providers and present the first version of Panther’s relayers.

Overall, we are excited about the progress we have made and the work that lies ahead in 2023.

Panther Protocol’s first three quarters of the year. Ecosystem Road to v1: AMA with Oliver Gale & Saif Akhtar

Oliver Gale and Saif Akhtar detailed the features to expect in v1 and addressed community questions in a recent AMA. The complete recording of the session is available, along with an edited transcript.

Road to v1 “Ask Me Anything” session with Oliver & Saif.

For those looking for a straightforward explanation of why privacy is critical for DeFi, Panther's Co-Founder Anish Mohammed lays it out in this video clip.

Why is Privacy necessary for #DeFi to reach global adoption?

• Shielding your Alpha
• Competing with CeFi
• Replicating TradFi Dark Pools

Tune in to our Co-Founder @anishmohammed explaining why deploying a DeFi strategy requires privacy👇 pic.twitter.com/MJ8p2OHq7f

— Panther Protocol (@ZKPanther) February 2, 2023


ZK solutions are becoming increasingly popular in the DeFi ecosystem, and Panther has been recognized as a key player in this space. $ZKP has been included in Coingecko's and CoinMarketCap's ZK categories, which has raised awareness of our protocol.

$ZKP on CoinMarketCap’s ZK category.$ZKP on CoinGecko’s ZK category. Governance
Panther Improvement Proposal-12 on Snapshot. Source.

Similarly, this month the Panther community showed overwhelming support for PIP-12, with over 98% of the community voting in favor of requesting the Panther Foundation to apply for a $ZKP listing on @MEXC_Global. The Panther Foundation is now taking steps in this regard.

The Panther community has also made significant progress towards setting up a self-decided governance framework to improve Panther's decentralization. The Panther DAO has demonstrated its durability and is positioning itself for long-term success.

The community will also be electing new Snapshot council members in the coming weeks. Join the discussion and be part of shaping the future of Panther's self-sustained governance!

Community Discussion regarding Panther’s governance framework.

If you’re interested in Panther’s road to decentralization, our latest article highlights the latest advancements along this path. We are excited to see what the future holds. We also posted a great thread highlighting the measures taken to guarantee the long-term viability and stability of the protocol amidst an escalating regulatory landscape.

Panther’s Road to Decentralization, Part 2. Events

We’re proud to announce that Panther is a community sponsor of ZK9 and will join ZK pioneers in Lisbon on April 4th!

We’re also pleased to announce our participation in Monerotopia, in Mexico City to discuss and explore innovative solutions with leaders in crypto privacy and ZK technology.

For those interested in joining us, we’re offering a 20% discount with the code "PANTHER." We hope to see you there!

Saif Akhtar, Head of Product at Panther Protocol, spoke at the "A whole lot of Zero Knowledge Proofs" session at ETHDenver 2023. He discussed the various use cases of zero-knowledge proofs and how they can enhance privacy and security in blockchain transactions.

😎. Media Chief Scientist Anish Mohammed on 'Exploring The Power of ZK Solutions'.

Our co-founder Anish Mohammed participated in a panel discussion with pioneers from zkSync and PolygonZero to explore the latest advancements and innovations in the ZK space. Check it out to discover how Panther contributes to enhanced privacy in the ZK ecosystem.

Anish also shared his insights on protecting user privacy with the community in several valuable clips.

See them here:

How Panther Pools protect users' privacy while interacting with DeFi protocols

Co-Founder @anishmohammed walks us through using Panther MASPs.

Also known as Panther Pools, they protect your assets’ privacy while allowing you to interact with DeFi protocols and move assets across chains privately👇 pic.twitter.com/1WTZ35TDEZ

— Panther Protocol (@ZKPanther) February 15, 2023

2. How zAssets enable users to safeguard their alpha from attackers.

Panther’s v1 will shield your alpha.

Co-Founder @anishmohammed walks us through using Panther’s zAssets to deploy your DeFi strategy without revealing it publicly to front-runners and attackers. pic.twitter.com/Uc2WI8n7lY

— Panther Protocol (@ZKPanther) February 13, 2023
About Panther

Panther is a decentralized protocol that enables interoperable privacy in DeFi using zero-knowledge proofs.

Users can mint fully-collateralized, composable tokens called zAssets, which can be used to execute private, trusted DeFi transactions across multiple blockchains.

Panther helps investors protect their personal financial data and trading strategies, and provides financial institutions with a clear path to compliantly participate in DeFi.

Website · One-pager · Lite Paper · Twitter · Telegram · Discord


Defiant

ETHDenver: Competition and New Ideas Spur Wallet Development

Account Abstraction Enables New Use Cases Including Pull Payments And Social Recovery
Account Abstraction Enables New Use Cases Including Pull Payments And Social Recovery

Airdrop Farmers Eye Ethereum Layer 2s For Potential Tokens

Scroll Launches Testnet, Raises $50M
Scroll Launches Testnet, Raises $50M

Ethereum Name Service Unveils Subdomain Feature

Name Wrapper And New Manager App Slated To Launch Soon
Name Wrapper And New Manager App Slated To Launch Soon

Illuvium Launches ‘Beyond’ Collectible Card Game

Project To Stash Sale Proceeds To Weather Macroeconomic Uncertainty
Project To Stash Sale Proceeds To Weather Macroeconomic Uncertainty

ConsenSys Blog

#ForTheBuilders at ETHDenver. How it went and what excites us about the future of web3.

MetaMask and Infura showed up in full force to the mile-high city for ETHDenver, the world's longest community-run Ethereum innovation festival. The post #ForTheBuilders at ETHDenver. How it went and what excites us about the future of web3. appeared first on ConsenSys.

MetaMask and Infura showed up in full force to the mile-high city for ETHDenver, the world's longest community-run Ethereum innovation festival.

The post #ForTheBuilders at ETHDenver. How it went and what excites us about the future of web3. appeared first on ConsenSys.


Greylock Partners

Navigation Systems

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi shares his strategies to navigating different market conditions, his perspective on the pace at which companies should adapt their tactics and cultural norms, and his outlook for the future of transportation and delivery. The post <span>Navigation</span> Systems appeared first on Greylock.

The post <span>Navigation</span> Systems appeared first on Greylock.


Andreesen Horowitz - a16z

Investing in Believer

There is a moment of wonder in every great game that makes you sit back, take a breath, and really appreciate what it is that you’re experiencing: stepping out into the world of Zelda, overcoming Margit for the first time … The post Investing in Believer appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.

There is a moment of wonder in every great game that makes you sit back, take a breath, and really appreciate what it is that you’re experiencing: stepping out into the world of Zelda, overcoming Margit for the first time …

The post Investing in Believer appeared first on Andreessen Horowitz.


Wrench in the Gears

Flow Life – Adam Neumann and Marc Andreessen on Smart Housing and the Singularity

Last night we streamed the first in a six-part video series examining the business model of We Work (data analytics) and how Adam Neumann’s new venture in the rental “experience” market is likely to intersect with a16z’s Web3 investment strategy. Future installments will feature discussions with Leo Saraceno, Lynn Davenport, Cliff Gomes, and Brandi Hartley. [...]

Last night we streamed the first in a six-part video series examining the business model of We Work (data analytics) and how Adam Neumann’s new venture in the rental “experience” market is likely to intersect with a16z’s Web3 investment strategy. Future installments will feature discussions with Leo Saraceno, Lynn Davenport, Cliff Gomes, and Brandi Hartley. We’ll be exploring how “sustainable” pay for success finance in affordable and workforce housing will advance social computing within the context of Neumann’s vision of a capitalist kibbutz. I’ve created an extensive slide deck with links that you can view here. I plan to run part two with Leo Saraceno next weekend. Be advised that tropes like the 15-minute city are meant to keep people at the surface. “Flow Life” will be a deep dive into the structural aspects of the system with a focus on data, finance, and complex emergent systems. Stay tuned. There’s much more to come.

Slide Deck

Source Link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1EoorV600wnPpuZqshHpzK7Xf-1lCGV922OVu0PT-tG0/edit?usp=sharing

a16z Podcast

Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy with Palmer Luckey

Starting in the 1960s, technology companies, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, were essential for creating the processors that would eventually launch satellites and guide missiles. Half a century later, today’s tech companies can — and need — to move even faster and smarter, as international adversaries scale up their aggressions. In this episode, Anduril Industries Founder Palmer Luckey

Starting in the 1960s, technology companies, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, were essential for creating the processors that would eventually launch satellites and guide missiles. Half a century later, today’s tech companies can — and need — to move even faster and smarter, as international adversaries scale up their aggressions. In this episode, Anduril Industries Founder Palmer Luckey will discuss how Silicon Valley is using new technologies to build new tools, systems, and companies to defend our nation and its interests.

 

Resources:

American Dynamism Summit: https://a16z.com/AD-summit/

Anduril’s website: https://www.anduril.com/

Find Palmer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey

 

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.


Defiant

Rocket Pool To Launch 8 ETH Minipools

Atlas Upgrade Slated for Early April Will Halve Minimum Staking Requirement
Atlas Upgrade Slated for Early April Will Halve Minimum Staking Requirement

MolochDAO Reveals ZK-Powered Crypto Mixer

On-Chain Privacy Protocol Includes Compliance Features
On-Chain Privacy Protocol Includes Compliance Features

Monday, 06. March 2023

Defiant

Ethereum Developers in Conference at the “Wild West” are Warming to Compliance

“Compliance” would seem like an unlikely buzzword at ETHDenver, one of Ethereum’s  largest conferences, set literally in the “Wild West.” 
“Compliance” would seem like an unlikely buzzword at ETHDenver, one of Ethereum’s  largest conferences, set literally in the “Wild West.” 

Zcash Foundation

The Zcash Foundation’s Q4 2022 Report

The Zcash Foundation is committed to transparency and openness with the Zcash community and our other stakeholders. Today, we are releasing our Q4 2022 report, which provides an overview of the work undertaken by the Zcash Foundation’s engineering team, as well as an overview of other activities the Foundation undertook during this period. The report […] The post The Zcash Foundation’s Q4 2022 R

The Zcash Foundation is committed to transparency and openness with the Zcash community and our other stakeholders. Today, we are releasing our Q4 2022 report, which provides an overview of the work undertaken by the Zcash Foundation’s engineering team, as well as an overview of other activities the Foundation undertook during this period.

The report also provides a financial update, describing our income and expenditure, with a detailed breakdown of our expenses, and a snapshot of the Foundation’s financial position, in terms of liquid assets and liabilities that must be met using those assets.

You can download the Q4 2022 report here.

Our previous quarterly reports can be found here.

The post The Zcash Foundation’s Q4 2022 Report appeared first on Zcash Foundation.


Defiant

PancakeSwap To Release V3 Iteration In Early April

Eligible Liquidity Providers Will Receive CAKE Airdrops and Commemorative NFTs
Eligible Liquidity Providers Will Receive CAKE Airdrops and Commemorative NFTs

Wrench in the Gears

God’s Eye View Part 7 – Tagged Archetypes Feed AI

Artificial intelligence needs “diversity.” Homogeneity won’t catalyze ecstatic “emergence.” But the diversity must be managed, that darn progressive “social efficiency” again. For that we need diversity dashboards, ostensibly for administering equity standards, but in reality used to to tag, track, and guide agents on the game board and direct the state of play. When I [...]

Artificial intelligence needs “diversity.” Homogeneity won’t catalyze ecstatic “emergence.” But the diversity must be managed, that darn progressive “social efficiency” again. For that we need diversity dashboards, ostensibly for administering equity standards, but in reality used to to tag, track, and guide agents on the game board and direct the state of play. When I was looking into Dave Robertson, professor of applied logic at the University of Edinburgh and chief scientific advisor in the UK to Huawei, I came across a group of papers published as part of a 2016 conference on “diversity-aware” artificial intelligence. The image below shows the agenda for the International Workshop on Diversity-Aware Artificial Intelligence held at The Hague that year.

Source Link: https://wrenchinthegears.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/DIVERSITY-@-ECAI-2016-Multi-Agent-Diversity-Artificial-Intelligence.pdf

The paper “Managing human diversity in diverse multi-agent collaborative intelligence systems,” detailed the care and management of a crowdsourced “citizen science” platform where volunteers annotate scientific images.

Co-authors on the paper were:

Mark Hartswood – University of Edinburgh, Social Informatician, Computer-Mediated Social Sense-Making

Kevin Page – University of Oxford, Semantic Web, Sensor-Based Environmental Decision Support

Avi Segal – Ben Gurion University, Environmental Sensing, Personalized Individual and Group Learning

Kobi Gal – University of Edinburgh, Artificial Intelligence, Agent Belief and Decision-Making, Teaming, EEGs and Cognitive Load, Games, Participatory Budgeting, Citizen Science, Social Preference

Marina Jirotka – University of Oxford, Ethical AI, Social Robotics, Quantum Computing, Autonomous Driving, Smart Society Governance, Social Media

Ronald Chenu-Abuente – University of Trento, Semantic Social Networks, Device Based Reporting, Smart City Data Analytics, Traffic, Big Data Analytics, Social Charter for Smart Platforms

The focus of their paper was how to identify a variety of sub-populations identified as “personas” within the overall community and identify targeted strategies to keep them engaged in the work. These included techniques like personalized reminders and special access opportunities for dedicated volunteers and working to find the right mix of people at various levels of expertise to keep the project vibrant.

It was also about controlling access to information, because equal access to all information, equal agency for all people, would create chaotic conditions within the planned circular economy. We are expected to hand our agency over to AI systems, so the platform can manage individual needs against those of the “collective” (or perhaps the profit margins of the investors in the platform).

“To date we have studied sharing economy platforms such as Uber, viewing these as distributed forms of collaborative intelligence. In the case of Uber, human agents (drivers) and computer agents (algorithms that measure and predict demand) ‘collaborate’ to solve a global resource allocation problem. There are powerful economic drivers in this type of system that motivate the participation of drivers and passengers, but also drive actions of Uber (the platform owner), and in particular, how Uber configures the interplay of the intelligences within the system. For example, when requesting a lift, passengers are shown the locations of nearby drivers on a map, but this information is withheld from drivers themselves, as it is not reproduced on the separate app used by drivers. This prevents the drivers using their own intelligence to collectively manage how supply within the system is organized, which they could do by adjusting their own local position on the basis of information about how supply is distributed globally.” Source, Page 45, Case Studies

“Participation in collaborative intelligence systems needs to be sufficiently diverse to provide the right mix of capabilities to sustain the operation of collaborative intelligence platforms.” Source, Page 46, Diversity in Motivation and  Commitment 

“Thus attracting and maintaining the contributions of diverse participating groups is a fundamental operational consideration for collaborative intelligence platforms. Considerations of how to do this need to go beyond simple notions of individual motivations, but instead they need to consider the dynamics of the interactions between diverse sub-communities and how these are managed by platform operators.” Source, Page 48

This idea of personas and prescribed nudges aligns with outside pressures to reimagine our complex inner lives in broad strokes as archetypes. Archetypes provide structure in game environments – whether they are happening on a tabletop or with cards, in video games, or live action role play (LARP) with social wearable tech

Source Link: https://setlab.soe.ucsc.edu/research/

It’s still elusive, but I’ve continued to wonder about Paul and Mary Conover Mellon’s securing the rights to republish English translations of Jung’s work through the Bollingen Foundation in the late 1940s. Maybe it was simply a long and winding road to get from formalizing archetypes of the collective unconscious to algorithmic simulation modeling of agents in the collective toward a massive program of computation and perhaps ultimately, Teilhard de Chardin’s Christogenesis.

In fact just this morning I received an email from a friend with a link to an extensive interview with Jung in English that I hope to listen to over the next few days. She know’s I’ve been mulling this over – the Mellon’s being a powerful banking family based in Pittsburgh – and she offered this suggestion, which resonates with my findings thus far:

“I would like to point out that after intense reading of Jung again and, luckily, finding an interview with him in English, this might be the much deeper reason for the Mellon family’s interest in his teachings: if they can create archetypal situations for the public (this would go way beyond creating avatars), they can affect the people on such a deep level that they will respond accordingly and the public will stay unaware of why they respond. This is because the great majority of the people has no idea about the unconscious at all. Have you heard about Mattias Desmet’s book “The Psychology of Totalitarianism?”

“Simply put, he elaborates on why “it takes two to Tango” also with regards to establishing a totalitarian regime as no such thing can take place if people are connected with themselves on levels such as Jung describes. Jung stated in the interview cited above that the most dangerous thing on earth is the psyche – because if a deranged psyche sits at the trigger of the atomic bomb then this would mean the end for our planet. No bomb has been invented without the psyche of a man creating the idea beforehand.”

Source Link: https://embed.kumu.io/aaaab8f0a0b938f60fb20606d01e6e00#untitled-map?s=bm9kZS0zQmJJejhkYQ%3D%3D

 

Source Link: https://loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/031.html

 

I’ve mentioned in my talks John Fowles’ novel, “The Magus,” whose plot revolves around a young man engaging in a mythic LARP, or masque, on a Greek island where the lines between reality and fantasy blur to alarming effect. The LARP theme is also seen toward the end of Neal Stephenson’s novel, “The Diamond Age,” where John Percival Hackworth and his daughter Fiona are drawn in to a surreal theater production where members of the audience unexpectedly end up center stage in dynamically-adjusting, intelligent super-organism. In excerpt below, John Hackworth attempts to get his bearings in the house bar run by Dramatis Personae.

Source Link – “The Diamond Age,” Page 478: https://wrenchinthegears.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/The-Diamond-Age-Novel.pdf

I don’t have time to delve into this here, but if you want to go a bit further down the rabbit hole there are two maps, here and here, I created last year (see three screen shots below). The first features the Macy Conferences, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, Jacob Moreno’s sociograms, Eric Trist’s social ecology, Kurt Lewin’s psychological field theory and T-Group encounters, Fritz Perls’ Gestalt, and Esalen’s human potential movement. The second map shows Sandy Pentland and John Clippinger efforts at MIT Media Lab to refine sensor-based identity and social physics around Open Mustard Seed, ID3, sociocratic consensus, and the tokenized commons that must have been informed by these earlier developments in social psychology and cybernetics.

Source Link: https://embed.kumu.io/9668da2298149fd5206e9228280033ee#untitled-map?s=bm9kZS1xYzUwd1JSVQ%3D%3D

 

Source Link: https://wrenchinthegears.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Kurt-Lewin.png

 

Source Link: https://kumu.io/Timpsila/d-cent#untitled-map/open-mustard-seed-platform-2013-personal-data-store

Reading the “Managing Diversity” paper, also brought to mind Cambridge Analytica and the power of narrative to present facts even as it obscures more complex truths. It is my view that the emotionally-charged rhetoric of social media has been used as a sandbox for generating and mapping the psychographic profiles of participants for over a decade. All the clamor in the feeds, one polarizing nugget after another, drip, drip, drip so the algorithms know which buttons to push to rile you up, to affirm you, and to deepen your belonging to a given tribe. THAT my friends is about creating digital Holons, modules for the machine, a palette of emotion and intellect and problem-solving frames that in the future can be plucked on demand for a global pool of watchful, hopeful task rabbit laborers. 

The focus of the Cambridge Analytica scandal was kept pretty tightly to electoral politics. The psychographic data scraped from Facebook for personalized political advertising targeting swing voters was the topic in the spotlight. Robert Mercer, the man who introduced the technology to conservative politics, is a Long Island billionaire and poker player who spent much of his career at IBM developing an expertise in linguistic pattern recognition and then leveraged that skill to boost the profits of Renaissance Technologies’ Medallion Fund. Mercer’s research at IBM laid the groundwork for Google translate and Siri. 

According to economist Richard Baldwin, automatic language translation is a necessary step in order to scale global platform labor. Baldwin imagines a future where Polish accountants “port-in” to New York for the day, working a billable-rate that’s considerably less than their Manhattan counterparts. According to Baldwin it is this arbitrage that will drive the next phase of globalization. 

 

This is cognitive capitalism sitting atop a structure of collective token engineering, a newly encoded social contract. I’ve come to view this emergent social structure as the armature of a supercomputing world brain. This mechanistic organism, one whose voice is tinged with plaintive biomimicry, wants to reimagine natural life as a vast network of parallel processors – Balaji Srinivasan’s networked “state” . The algorithms Robert Mercer cooked up for IBM and later Renaissance Technologies aided not only efficiencies in translation, but enabled machines to begin to predict human activity parsing the structure of language. It is this predictive capacity that gave him an edge when he began applying these tools to hedge fund bets.

Another computational linguist I discovered researching this series is Moshe Koppel, a professor emeritus of computer science at Bar-Ilan University who specializes in textual analysis and attribution and social choice theory, which is used in economic modeling. A description of the research conducted in his lab includes automated game playing as well as speech recognition and image processing. A Zionist who successfully lobbied for Israel’s nation-state law, Koppel also heads a conservative think tank, Koholet Forum (h/t to Sebs Solomon for that information) funded largely by Jeffrey Yass and Arthur Dantchik of Susquehanna International Group. Starting in 2003, Koppel became involved in the process of developing a constitution for Israel, consulting on two drafts. The more I research the more I realize how linguistics, language, is code. 

I’m thinking back to the first entry in this series that talks about John Holland’s approach to communication: classifier systems, routing tags, containment urns, semi-permeable boundaries, genetic algorithms optimized towards established success metrics, so mathematical logic prevails. It feels like the people working in complex adaptive systems are looking to create a grammar of what it means to be human, a grammar of emotion, a grammar of spirit, so our behavior can be analyzed, interactions parsed out, contorted, labeled like the sentence diagramming I learned to do in tenth grade. They can use the ordered fragments to chart out the next sentence, choreographed social interactions, economic interactions, biological interactions. Once the interface becomes subtle enough, or we become sufficiently entranced by the AI, will we realize we’ve become actors in our own lives? 

With Israel being a member of the first cohort of digital nations in 2014, I can’t help but imagine that electronic governance, possibly with distributed ledger technology and smart contracts, will be incorporated into whatever version finally gains approval. “Democracy under threat” and “tyranny of the majority” are narrative tropes that will be used to make a case for this transition to decentralization. 

Before I move on, I want to briefly bring Annie Duke back into the conversation. She’s the one who leveraged her notoriety as a high-profile female poker player into a business consultancy pitching decision science around betting strategies. Well, before her gambling career, she was an NSF fellowship-supported PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania with a focus on cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics. In tweet last September she said she was going back to complete her degree stating, “This one is for Leila Gleitman, my advisor back in the 90s, and like a mother to me.” 

Source Link: https://twitter.com/annieduke/status/1570808241634054147 Source Link: https://archive.ph/LyNnX

When reading the excerpt below I invite you to consider how the linguistic analysis Mercer developed at IBM (also seen in Martin Seligman’s World Well Being Project at UPenn and Koppel’s language and social choice theory work) might be applied to speculation on human capital through the development of “learning” and “behavioral” archetypes refined in real time by children’s interactions (and those of adult “lifelong learners) with educational and therapeutic technologies, screen-based and wearables. 

The following is from a 2018 article in Institutional Investor, “Renaissance, Cambridge Analytica Connection Should Be Questioned, Experts Say:”

“Cambridge Analytica is largely bankrolled by Robert Mercer, a backer of Breitbart News and other ventures, who stepped down on January 1 as co-CEO of Renaissance following public criticism of his political activism. Mercer continues as a top researcher and part owner of Renaissance.

The specific hot-button issue for Renaissance investors: Cambridge Analytica’s focus on psychographic modeling – using machine-based learning to sort through myriad data points as a way of determining how a person is likely to vote. The techniques are strikingly similar to those Renaissance researchers have harnessed for years, according to quantitative scientists and other experts.

‘The math used in machine learning for the purpose of affecting the election is the same math used in the world of quantitative investing,’ says Peter Carr, chair of the Finance and Risk Engineering Department at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. ‘I believe Renaissance has a fairly deep knowledge of human behavior. Whether [Mercer] passed that on I wouldn’t know.” source

Dallas ISD launched a new hybrid school model during lockdowns, STEM-uli, which founder and CEO Taylor Shead calls “a school in a video game.” In this gaming experience, the avatars of children are followed through their digital day in “school” by a floating satellite eyeball. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4OEcseMhs Source Link: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bentham-project/who-was-jeremy-bentham/panopticon

This Bentham-esque satellite-eye view evokes to me the  “god mode” that was at the center of the Ultimate Bet poker scandal. When hedge fund AI bet on life outcomes, each portfolio manager is going to want to have as much information as possible to guide its strategy, more than the other players in the game. I’m sure that’s something Google had in mind when they went after all the school district’s email accounts. In such a future, there’s a twisted logic in children being separated from human teachers. The data economy can’t run without their digital life blood. The data flow is much more robust when everything is seamlessly sucked into the digital vortex, which is exactly what happens in gaming environments. 

Simulation companies know this. Gaming firms have made an art out of holding the attention of participants when they are flagging and ready to give up and turn in for the night. It’s about creating in-game experiences that trick the body into releasing endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and cortisol. B.F. Skinner’s conditioning tactics around behaviors that obtain rewards have been encoded into virtual environments as compulsion loops where game designers orchestrate complex sets of rules determining the timing and rate of rewards as well as expectations around extinction (when rewards are withheld). 

Source Link: https://slideplayer.com/slide/4705079/

That is the future of “education” when we become flow state modules in the master computer. With each click we move ourselves closer to becoming digital commodities as algorithmic systems, systems that most of us can’t comprehend, parse the unconscious intent or emotion lurking beneath our keystrokes, our eye movements, our word choices? Makes you look at Grammarly in a whole new way, doesn’t it?

Robert Mercer was a key figure putting Trump into office. His daughter Rebekah, a Stanford graduate with a master’s in operations research and engineered economic systems, was on Trump’s transition team. She’s served on the board of the Heritage Foundation since 2004. Heritage is a strong voice in the school choice space and has been promoting financial innovation in education (digital wallet vouchers) since 2017. It’s the wallets that put you in the hedge fund futures game. Another daughter Heather Sue graduated from Duke with an economics degree and became a professional poker player. During the holiday season the family hosts heroes and villains parties, one of which was attended by Trump. The house provides chips for an evening of black jack and poker and the guests get to redeem them for luxury items at the end of the night.

Source Link: https://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/den-styrtrike-og-norgesferierende-gambleren-er-trumps-super-sponsor/63958995 Source Link: https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=g&n=56216

Until his break with Trump and calls for a revolt against Mitch McConnell, Steve Bannon counted Robert Mercer among his closest allies. Mercer bankrolled Bannon’s Breitbart News juggernaut. I pulled the quotes below from Jane Mayer’s 2017 New Yorker feature, “The Reclusive Billionaire Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer Exploited America’s Populist Insurgency.” Reading between the lines, and with additional context around cybernetics and psychographics, one could speculate that Breitbart and other purpose-built media outlets (Twitter) are functioning as sandboxes for experimentation in the use of language, imagery, and ideology to activate and steer multi-agent systems. 

“Another former high-level Renaissance employee said, ‘Bob thinks the less government the better. He’s happy if people don’t trust the government. And if the President’s a bozo? He’s fine with that. He wants it to all fall down.’”

“Mercer’s colleagues say that he views the government as arrogant and inefficient, and believes that individuals need to be self-sufficient, and should not receive aid from the state. Yet, when I.B.M. failed to offer adequate support for Mercer and Brown’s translation project, they secured additional funding from DARPA, the secretive Pentagon program. Despite Mercer’s disdain for “big government,” this funding was essential to his early success.”

​​After the candidate he initially supported, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, dropped out of the race, Mercer sought a disruptive figure who could upend both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Patterson told me that Mercer seems to have applied “a very Renaissance Technologies way of thinking” to politics: “He probably estimated the probability of Trump winning, and when it wasn’t very high he said to himself, ‘O.K., what has to happen in order for this twenty-per-cent thing to occur?’ It’s like playing a card game when you haven’t got a very good hand.”

Mercer, as it happens, is a superb poker player, and his political gamble appears to have paid off. Institutional Investor has called it “Robert Mercer’s Trade of the Century.”

“He (Mercer) put ten million dollars into Breitbart News, which was conceived as a conservative counterweight to the Huffington Post… The site played a key role in undermining Hillary Clinton; by tracking which negative stories about her got the most clicks and “likes,” the editors helped identify which story lines and phrases were the most potent weapons against her. Breitbart News has been a remarkable success: according to ComScore, a company that measures online traffic, the site attracted 19.2 million unique visitors in October.”

“Mercer also invested some five million dollars in Cambridge Analytica, a firm that mines online data to reach and influence potential voters. The company has said that it uses secret psychological methods to pinpoint which messages are the most persuasive to individual online viewers…Alexander Nix, the C.E.O. of the firm, says that it has created “profiles”—consisting of several thousand data points—for two hundred and twenty million Americans. In promotional materials, S.C.L. has claimed to know how to use such data to wage both psychological and political warfare. “Persuading somebody to vote a certain way,” Nix has said publicly, “is really very similar to persuading 14- to 25-year-old boys in Indonesia to not join Al Qaeda.”

“In 1993, when Nick Patterson mailed Robert Mercer a job offer from Renaissance, Mercer threw it in the trash: he’d never heard of the hedge fund. At the time, Mercer was part of a team pioneering the use of computers to translate languages. I.B.M. considered the project a bit of a luxury, and didn’t see its potential, though the work laid the foundation for Google Translate and Apple’s Siri. But Mercer and his main partner, Peter Brown, found the project exciting, and had the satisfaction of showing up experts in the field, who had dismissed their statistical approach to translating languages as impractical. Instead of trying to teach a computer linguistic rules, Mercer and Brown downloaded enormous quantities of dual-language documents — including Canadian parliamentary records — and created code that analyzed the data and detected patterns, enabling predictions of probable translations. According to a former IBM colleague, Mercer was obsessive, and at one point took six months off to type into a computer every entry in a Spanish-English dictionary. Sebastian Mallaby, in his 2010 book on the hedge-fund industry, “More Money Than God,” reports that Mercer’s boss at I.B.M. once jokingly called him an “automaton.”

Could it be that libertarian billionaires helped put Trump in office not because they believed he was a competent candidate, but because their ultimate goal was to start dismantling electoral governance as we understand it in favor of a “free market” economic and cybernetic control model grounded in token engineering and digital twin simulations?

The Trump universe, one built in part on gambling, was just the thing to sow profound distrust in the system on all sides and prepare the ground for what is to come – a “democracy” reboot where we’re all tagged as agents in the game to perform our values for the machine and assist its efforts at human social sense-making.

This is part of a series:

Part One – Mathematical Theories of Life

Part Two – Governance Tokens and Training Kids to Bet Big

Part Three – Civic Tech, the Wisdom of Crowds, and Offshore Sandboxes

Part Four – The Language of Heartless Charity

Part Five – Prediction Markets in Public Policy

Part Six – Every Man Thus Lives By Exchanging

 

Link to Feature Image: Designing Future Social Wearables With Live Action Role Play Designers


bankless

160 - The Smart Money is Here with Eric Peters

Eric Peters operates one of the largest institutional crypto hedge funds in the world. What do the institutions think of our little crypto asset class? Are they running for the hills? ------ ✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode:  https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/debrief-eric-peters    ------ ✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect this episode:  https://collectibles.bankless.com/mint 

Eric Peters operates one of the largest institutional crypto hedge funds in the world. What do the institutions think of our little crypto asset class? Are they running for the hills?

------ ✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode:  https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/debrief-eric-peters    ------ ✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect this episode:  https://collectibles.bankless.com/mint 

------ Eric Peters is the Founder, CIO of One River Asset Management–his fund has made some of the largest institutional investments in crypto ever..including one purchase of over $600 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum. When we think institutional crypto, we think Eric Peters. 

His first appearance on Bankless was in October 2021…we brought him back to catch us up on the current institutional thesis for crypto.

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👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 9:51 Still Bullish? 16:42 Was FTX Surprising? Institutions Reaction 25:14 FTX Red Flags 33:00 3 Arrows Capital 41:40 Philosophy of Investment Decisions  47:36 What Should Regulators Do? 58:20 Was Crypto 2022 Worth It?  1:04:30 Ego 1:09:54 Institutional Exposure to Crypto 1:18:40 Reports  1:24:04 Institutional Exposure to Crypto 1:30:05 2023 Macro Outlook 1:37:22 A Decade Later 1:40:37 Closing & Disclaimers

------ Resources:

Eric Peters https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericpetersoneriver/ 

Eric’s 1st Appearance on Bankless https://youtu.be/NMPiGjxdH0E  

One River Digital Assets Research https://www.oneriveram.com/research/digital-daily 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Brave Browser

"Google Sign-In" Permission

Starting in version 1.51, Brave will increase user privacy by extending the brower's permission system to cover legacy Google Sign-In…

This is the 24th post in an ongoing, regular series describing privacy features in Brave browsers. This post describes work done by Research and Privacy Engineer Shivan Kaul Sahib. This post was written by VP of Privacy Engineering Peter Snyder.

Starting in version 1.51, Brave will increase user privacy by extending the brower’s permission system to cover legacy Google Sign-In (which needs third-party cookies, or other unsatisfactory techniques, to allow users to log in to sites with their Google account). This new feature will replace Brave’s existing option of a global “allow” or “deny” setting for handling legacy Google Sign-Ins. This feature will be available on desktop and Android, and is another way Brave is retrofitting best-in-class privacy protections to Web APIs that were designed without concern for user privacy.

The good and the bad of “Google Sign-In”

Google, like many popular account-based sites, allows people to use their Google account to log in to other sites. This feature, sometimes called single-sign on (SSO), has both security benefits and privacy risks.

SSO systems can be helpful in several ways. First, SSO systems are very convenient for users, and remove the need to go through often-tedious account creation processes on different sites. Second, and more importantly, SSO systems in general (and “Sign in with Google” in particular) can improve user security. Instead of users needing to trust dozens or hundreds of websites with usernames and passwords (sites that may have wide-ranging security practices), users can instead benefit from Google’s top-notch security features, even on sites not belonging to Google. Examples of Google’s security bona fides include two factor authentication (2FA), advanced account protection features, and a security team that is among the best in the field.

However, SSO systems can also be harmful to users. For example, the centralized nature of SSO systems means that any flaws can have repercussions across the Web1. More relevant to this post, SSO systems can also harm user privacy, depending on how they are built and implemented. SSO systems necessarily involve the SSO-provider learning at least something2 about a user’s actions on another site, and many systems allow the SSO-provider to learn a great deal of sensitive and private information.

“Google Sign-In” in Brave, past and present

In most cases, Brave already protects a user’s privacy when they interact with Google Sign-In. Unless people intentionally and explicitly use their Google account to log in to sites, Brave prevents Google from learning about those sites.

However, there are many ways sites can integrate with Google Sign-In, the oldest of which relies on unrestricted third-party cookies. To combat this, by default Brave applies the strongest third-party cookie protections of any popular browser. This has the upside of providing robust, best-in-class privacy protections, though with the occasional downside of causing compatibility problems with systems that depend on unrestricted third-party cookies.

How Brave previously handled “Google Sign-In”

Previously, Brave provided compatibility with “Google Sign-In” with a single, global setting, accessible at brave://settings/socialBlocking. If the setting was off, Brave blocked third-party cookies for the “Google Sign-In” system, just as Brave blocks third-party cookies for all other requests on the Web. However, if the setting was on, Brave made a single exception to its third-party cookie policy, and allowed Google’s Sign-In system to access Google’s cookies.

This exception only affected URLs used for Google logins3, and did not allow other Google systems (such as Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, or Doubleclick) to access third-party cookies. But regardless, when enabled, the exception caused Brave browsers on desktop and Android to send third-party cookies to Google in this narrow case.

How Brave now handles “Google Sign-In”

Starting with version 1.51, Brave has removed the exception and the global toggle, and moved to a permissions-based system. This allows users to control when (or if) a third-party cookie is sent to Google, while still taking advantage of the convenience and security provided by “Google Sign-In.” If the website already uses the new Google Identity Services for Web solution which doesn’t use third-party cookies for signing in, there’s no change.

Brave’s new “Google Sign-In” permission builds on previous privacy improvements Brave applies to permission handling in Chromium, including the ability to control how long a permission lasts for, and to partition permissions in third-party iframes.

Comparison to other browsers

Brave’s permission-based approach to enabling “Google Sign-In” is unique among browsers. Other browsers use different systems to be compatible with “Google Sign-In”(and other similar services). The approaches other browsers use are incompatible with Brave’s privacy goals and values, requiring us to develop our unique permissions-based approach.

Chrome’s approach

Chrome does not need any system to be compatible with third-party, cookie-based SSO systems because Chrome does not meaningfully restrict third-party cookies at all. In Chrome, SSO providers use the exact same techniques that third-party trackers and advertisers use to track you across the Web 1. This approach is fundamentally incompatible with Brave’s privacy-first principles.

Edge, Firefox, and Safari’s approach

Other browsers apply some restrictions to third-party cookies. Edge restricts third-party cookies if they appear on the Disconnect list of known trackers, and Firefox and Safari restrict (i.e. partition) third-party cookies for all sites. These browsers maintain compatibility with systems like “Google Sign-In” by using a system called the storage access API (plus various heuristics on top). The storage access API was originally developed in Safari, and allowed third-party frames to access unrestricted third-party cookies only after getting permission from the user.

The storage access API is both similar and very different from Brave’s “Google Sign-In” permission. The two are similar in that both systems only allow third-parties to access their first-party cookies after the user has given permission. The systems differ in that the storage access API is a general purpose API that allows third parties to request access for any purpose, whereas Brave’s system is purpose specific, and only enables third-party cookies for a narrow, specific purpose.

Brave disables the storage access API in Chromium as we believe this approach is not the right way to protect privacy on the Web. The storage access API asks users to make privacy-risking choices they do not understand, and generally requires users to bear the burden of protecting their own privacy. Brave’s system, by contrast, allows third-party cookies to be sent only for a specific, easily understood purpose, and for a very limited amount of time (i.e. the amount of time needed to complete the login process).

The storage access API was a tremendous improvement over what came before it (i.e. choosing between unrestricted access to third-party cookies, or breaking many third-party integrations). The designers and developers of the storage access API should be congratulated and appreciated for the privacy improvement their work brought. But Brave thinks the storage access API is best seen as a temporary stop-gap approach that has its own serious drawbacks; the Web should instead focus on other, better protections like ephemeral third-party storage.

The more promising future

Thankfully, many other browsers agree that narrow, purpose specific APIs are needed for protecting user privacy when sites need to communicate with each other. We at Brave are optimistic about efforts like the Federated Credential Management (FedCM) API, which would allow sites to narrowly request cross-site information for purposes like “Google Sign-In” without enabling the broad, unrestricted access to third-party state that the storage access API allows. Brave is still reviewing the current FedCM proposals, but we’re broadly in support of the effort. In a sense, Brave’s new permission-based approach for enabling “Google Sign-In” is Brave’s effort to bring the future privacy promises of FedCM to Web users today.

Brave’s “Google Sign-In” permission feature is another example of Brave’s approach to Web privacy: provide the strongest possible privacy protections for users today, while working with standards bodies to make sure the future direction of the Web is even more user-respecting.

For example, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago recently found that many single-sign on systems do not correctly handle account revocation, can allow for misconfigured site integrations, or suffer from other important security and privacy issues. ↩︎ ↩︎

Though what and how much information the SSO provider learns varies widely between systems. ↩︎

Specifically, URLs matching the patterns https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth/* and https://[*.]firebaseapp.com/__/auth/* ↩︎

Sunday, 05. March 2023

Horizen - Blog

Scheduled Stress Testing Planned for the Week of March 6th

[themify_box color="light-yellow" icon="announcement"]We will perform scheduled stress testing on Yuma Testnet the week of March 6th, potential network downtime may happen during the testing period.[/themify_box] The purpose of this testing is to examine the robustness and error handling capability of the EON platform by increasing on-chain activities beyond the limits of normal circumstances.

We will perform scheduled stress testing on Yuma Testnet the week of March 6th, potential network downtime may happen during the testing period.

The purpose of this testing is to examine the robustness and error handling capability of the EON platform by increasing on-chain activities beyond the limits of normal circumstances. The Yuma block explorer may show a large number of transactions in blocks – this is to be expected as a result of the testing. Therefore, temporary outage may occur due to abnormally high traffic on the Yuma network.

We will post the latest testing updates on our Discord.

Learn more about Yuma Testnet 

The post Scheduled Stress Testing Planned for the Week of March 6th appeared first on Horizen Blog.

Saturday, 04. March 2023

Crypto Valley Swiss Association

Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-02-26 – 2023-03-04)

Is winter almost over in the Crypto Valley?! Are the chilly months behind us 🌥️ or do we still need to bundle up 🧣… https://t.co/Gx7hy2Ifoc 2023-02-27 Give a big welcome... The post Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-02-26 – 2023-03-04) appeared first on Crypto Valley Association.
Is winter almost over in the Crypto Valley?! Are the chilly months behind us or do we still need to bundle up … https://t.co/Gx7hy2Ifoc 2023-02-27 Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, a crypto trading venue, @MillioneroEx!

Welcome to the CVA!

Find… https://t.co/2oBbGCyzMg 2023-02-27

Attention all #CVAmembers and early!

Don't miss the highlight of our event calendar, the #CVC2023! Get you ticke… https://t.co/DClSr7r8DR 2023-02-27

Please give a big welcome to our new corporate member @BBVASwitzerland, a customer-centric global financial service… https://t.co/TFgiG5FPRA 2023-02-28 RT @investCH: The recently published CV VC Top 50 Report 2022 shows that Switzerland's #CryptoValley thrives due to an exemplary regulatory… 2023-02-28 Don't forget that you can still submit your pitch decks for the #CVC2023 startup competition!

Check out how to j… https://t.co/Yi9i0Q7pOZ 2023-02-28

You snooze , you lose!

Today is the last day to save $1⃣0⃣0⃣ with Early Bird pricing for… https://t.co/UkIuEGcjid 2023-03-01

The Crypto Assets Conference 2022 inFrankfurt is right around the corner (March 29-30)! This year focusing on … https://t.co/I8ob6DzjBI 2023-03-01 Give a big welcome to our new corporate member,
Turkey's first Cryptocurrency with its own Blockchain network, ena… https://t.co/nXyiT6xaxT 2023-03-01 https://t.co/cKTcOfanPb 2023-03-01 Join Startup WG Co-Chair @Yasi_Zhang for an exciting workshop on #branding together w/ Saša Starovojtov a branding… https://t.co/y9mgDouH47 2023-03-02 Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, a software development company specialized in DApps, smart contract… https://t.co/jDHKDPe9k3 2023-03-03

The post Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-02-26 – 2023-03-04) appeared first on Crypto Valley Association.


Defiant

📬 Inbox Dump #92

Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. 
Welcome to Inbox Dump where we include the updates and announcements that flood our DMs each week and didn’t make it to The Defiant’s content platforms. 

Circle Blog

Update on Banking Services with Silvergate Bank

As a U.S. regulated money transmission and electronic stored value company, Circle’s top priority is the protection of reserve funds backing USDC. As a result of ongoing uncertainty at Silvergate Bank, today Circle has moved the small percentage of USDC reserve deposits held at Silvergate to our other banking partners.  This process of winding down our relationship with Silvergate

As a U.S. regulated money transmission and electronic stored value company, Circle’s top priority is the protection of reserve funds backing USDC. As a result of ongoing uncertainty at Silvergate Bank, today Circle has moved the small percentage of USDC reserve deposits held at Silvergate to our other banking partners.  This process of winding down our relationship with Silvergate began last year, as signs of trouble and broader crypto asset risk exposure became increasingly apparent.

Friday, 03. March 2023

Defiant

Crypto Markets Plunge Amid Silvergate Concerns

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

Silvergate Shares Slump 60% in Two Days As Crypto Firms Scramble To Sever Ties

Crypto-friendly Bank Says It’s “Less Than Well Capitalized”
Crypto-friendly Bank Says It’s “Less Than Well Capitalized”

ConsenSys Blog

ConsenSys Startup Program: Helping Promising Web3 Startups Grow

The Startup Program is a bundle of proprietary software products such as Infura and Diligence Fuzzing, technical consulting, learning & enablement services, as well as access to investment opportunities and ecosystem benefits. The post ConsenSys Startup Program: Helping Promising Web3 Startups Grow appeared first on ConsenSys.

The Startup Program is a bundle of proprietary software products such as Infura and Diligence Fuzzing, technical consulting, learning & enablement services, as well as access to investment opportunities and ecosystem benefits.

The post ConsenSys Startup Program: Helping Promising Web3 Startups Grow appeared first on ConsenSys.


Defiant

Crypto Markets Plunge Amid Silvergate Concerns

Layer 1 Blockchains Have Rough Week
Layer 1 Blockchains Have Rough Week

Uniswap Labs Releases Self-Custody Crypto Wallet

Leading Decentralized Exchange Continues To Work Towards Becoming One-Stop Shop For Crypto
Leading Decentralized Exchange Continues To Work Towards Becoming One-Stop Shop For Crypto

Epicenter Podcast

Jesse Pollak: Base – The Optimistic Gateway to Crypto Adoption

Layer 2 scaling solutions are widely regarded as the next step forward in the mainstream adoption of crypto as they enable higher throughput and lower transaction fees. Coinbase’s recent announcement of building an optimistic rollup solution called Base is proof (no pun intended) that major centralized actors view this as an opportunity to onboard new users in a decentralized crypto economy. The f

Layer 2 scaling solutions are widely regarded as the next step forward in the mainstream adoption of crypto as they enable higher throughput and lower transaction fees. Coinbase’s recent announcement of building an optimistic rollup solution called Base is proof (no pun intended) that major centralized actors view this as an opportunity to onboard new users in a decentralized crypto economy. The following years will abound in innovation as both optimistic and zero-knowledge rollup solutions still have plenty of room to grow, but the involvement of centralized entities will act as a catalyst from a technological, as well as a regulatory standpoint.

We were joined by Jesse Pollak, Head of Protocol at Coinbase, to discuss the thesis & business model behind Base and how it will act as an interoperable bridge to onboard the next billion users on-chain.

Topics covered in this episode:

Jesse’s background and his role as Head of Protocol at Coinbase Base’s business model & thesis Building on the Optimism stack Permissionlessness How regulations are going to influence users of Base (vs. Coinbase) Learning from the competition (BSC) Different fee markets to offset transaction costs Why Base chose the Optimism stack Base’s upgradeability Tackling Optimism’s withdrawal period Bootstrapping Base Future roadmap and mainnet timeline

Episode links:

Jesse Pollak on Twitter Base on Twitter Coinbase on Twitter Optimism on Twitter

Sponsors:

Omni: Access all of Web3 in one easy-to-use wallet! Earn and manage assets at once with Omni's built-in staking, yield vaults, bridges, swaps and NFT support.
https://omni.app/ -

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/485


ConsenSys Blog

ConsenSys zkEVM is Ready for Public Testnet

Our zkEVM is the culmination of years of research by ConsenSys R&D and offers fast finality, high throughput, and the security of Ethereum settlement. The post ConsenSys zkEVM is Ready for Public Testnet appeared first on ConsenSys.

Our zkEVM is the culmination of years of research by ConsenSys R&D and offers fast finality, high throughput, and the security of Ethereum settlement.

The post ConsenSys zkEVM is Ready for Public Testnet appeared first on ConsenSys.


Circle Blog

Supporting the U.S. Government’s Digital Assets Research Agenda

Payment stablecoins and digital assets offer immense technological potential, providing faster, cheaper, safer, and more accessible means of financial value exchange while ensuring that the digital economy is rooted in democratic principles that promote a safe and competitive marketplace. The United States has a unique opportunity to shape the development of a safer, more accessible, gl

Payment stablecoins and digital assets offer immense technological potential, providing faster, cheaper, safer, and more accessible means of financial value exchange while ensuring that the digital economy is rooted in democratic principles that promote a safe and competitive marketplace. The United States has a unique opportunity to shape the development of a safer, more accessible, global digital economy. Circle applauds the leadership of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for establishing a groundbreaking, whole-of-government National Digital Assets Research and Development (R&D) Agenda to identify priorities for this important sector of the economy. 


bankless

ROLLUP: Silvergate Trouble | MetaMask & Unity | Robinhood Mobile Wallet | ETHDenver 2023 | Bankless Ventures

Bankless Weekly Rollup 2nd Week of March 2023 ------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino   ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:  🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken  🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bank

Bankless Weekly Rollup 2nd Week of March 2023

------ 📣 RhinoFi | Makes DeFi Frictionless  https://bankless.cc/rhino  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE https://bankless.cc/metamaskpod 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi  

👻 PHANTOM | CROSS-CHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom 

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 7:10 Markets 8:20 Total Crypto Market Cap 9:30 Ethereum https://twitter.com/tomuky/status/1630417197125255169  10:55 NFT Royalty Truth  https://twitter.com/hildobby_/status/1630231567061733376  

14:42 Crypto vs Gary https://twitter.com/AlexanderGrieve/status/1629816811360337920  15:55 Unregistered Securities https://twitter.com/BanklessHQ/status/1631106283163074560  19:00 Jake Chervinsky’s Take https://twitter.com/jchervinsky/status/1629871537217044481  19:50 Logan Bolinger’s Take https://twitter.com/TheWhyOfFI/status/1629649343627116545  20:55 Emojis are Financial Advice  https://twitter.com/LisaBraganca/status/1628868429540126720  23:41 Robinhood Received Crypto-Related Subpoena Request From SEC https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/02/27/robinhood-received-crypto-related-subpoena-request-from-sec-10k/  25:00 1st-Ever Hearing on Regulatory ‘Attack’ on Crypto https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/new-congress-body-to-hold-first-ever-hearing-on-regulatory-attack-on-crypto/  27:40 Brian Armstrong CNBC Op-Ed https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1630997178683457536 

29:45 Silvergate Distressed https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/03/02/silvergate-stock-tumbles-45-after-going-concern-filing/  https://www.reuters.com/technology/silvergate-slumps-28-after-delaying-annual-report-warning-about-viability-2023-03-02/  https://twitter.com/nlw/status/1631281983836901376  

32:24 MetaMask in Unity Store! https://metaversal.banklesshq.com/p/game-on-metamask-x-unity  https://program-ace.com/blog/unity-vs-unreal/  https://assetstore.unity.com/decentralization 

37:50 Robinhood Wallet https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/01/robinhoods-wallet-app-is-now-available-to-all-ios-users/  https://twitter.com/0xproject/status/1630916008381927424  40:40 Scroll Deploys on Goerli  https://twitter.com/scroll_zkp/status/1630258973856395264   42:00 ERC4337 Deployed to Ethereum on Smart Contract https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/03/01/ethereum-activates-account-abstraction-touted-by-founder-buterin-as-key-advance/ 

45:30 New Yuga Labs' Collection will be on Bitcoin  https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2023/02/27/yuga-labs-announces-generative-ordinals-nft-collection-on-bitcoin-blockchain/ 

46:46 Jump Crypto and Oasis.app ‘Counter Exploits’ Wormhole Hacker  https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/02/24/oasis-exploits-its-own-wallet-software-to-seize-cry pto-stolen-in-wormhole-hack/  

51:35 Coinbase Scheduled Downtime https://status.coinbase.com/  Solana Unscheduled Downtime https://decrypt.co/122284/solana-weekend-outage 

54:38 FTX Ex-Engineering Pleads Guilty to Criminal Charges https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/28/ftx-ex-engineering-head-nishad-singh-pleads-guilty-to-criminal-charges.html 

56:50 Bankless Ventures Bankless Podcast Raising $35M Crypto Venture Fund https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/03/02/hosts-of-bankless-podcast-raising-35m-crypto-venture-fund-sources  Disclosures https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16XcKXcH5e4CDc-Qek4WN4FUBPpnViAhLGgvtXat7NBg/edit#gid=0 

1:00:13 Jobs https://pallet.xyz/list/bankless/jobs 

1:02:36 Questions from the Nation

1:10:16 2016 Etherum on Coinbase, 2023 Coinbase on Ethereum https://twitter.com/anajolsson/status/1629101335001067521  1:11:40 The Secret to Success in Any Bear Market https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1631316358712508418 

1:15:35 What David’s Bullish On https://twitter.com/BanklessHQ/status/1631119466284343296   1:18:50 What Ryan’s Bullish On

1:21:02 MEME of the Week https://twitter.com/MatterTurbulent/status/1631150786154463233  

1:22:50 Risks & Disclaimers

---- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Defiant

Unstoppable Domains’ Matthew Gould Unpacks Digital Identity in Web3

This week on The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo chats with Matthew Gould, the founder and CEO of Unstoppable Domains.
This week on The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo chats with Matthew Gould, the founder and CEO of Unstoppable Domains.

Brave Browser

State of the BAT 2023

Following previous State of the BAT posts from 2021 and 2022, the 2023 State of the BAT provides a snapshot of BAT stats, key accomplishments from 2022 and a look ahead at our goals for BAT in 2023.
Introduction

2022 was a foundational year for Brave, BAT and Community. Progress with the multichain Brave Wallet and +80 DApps joining the Brave Wallet Partner Program provided additional opportunities to bring pilots to market from our 2022 goals, which we aim to build upon further for 2023. We are also planning on new feature additions and enhancements to the Rewards ecosystem involving BAT and Web3 that we’re excited to bring to market in the year ahead. 

While the crypto industry has gone through turbulence in 2022, Brave and BAT continue to build and expand utility to millions of users and Creators. 2023 will be a transformative year for BAT, as updates and upgrades to existing programs will best position Brave’s resources to bring more utility on-chain for users, Creators and Advertisers. 

Following previous State of the BAT posts from 2021 and 2022, the 2023 State of the BAT provides a snapshot of BAT stats, key accomplishments from 2022 and a look ahead at our goals for BAT in 2023. 

BAT Stats Circulating Supply As of the time of writing, 1,497,353,045 BAT (99.82%) of the total supply of 1,500,000,000 BAT are in circulation. BAT distribution on Ethereum With 464,289 on-chain BAT holders, BAT is currently ranked as the 13th most distributed token on Ethereum. BAT on-chain holders growing across networks The introduction of the multichain Brave Wallet in 2022, and support for Brave Wallet on some of the leading DApps on those networks has resulted in 489,340 on-chain wallets holding BAT across Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Avalanche and Solana. We expect to see greater adoption of BAT on these networks and others into 2023. BAT Distribution BAT on Exchanges Of the top 500 BAT holder wallets, over 270.78M BAT (18.05% of total supply) are held by publicly tagged exchange wallets. BAT in DeFi BAT utility has continued to grow in DeFi over 2022, with over 167.4M BAT (11.16% of total supply) actively being utilized in on-chain defi protocols. The top 3 defi protocols utilizing BAT in 2023 are Compound, Aave and Uniswap. Brave-initiated BAT Purchases Throughout 2022, Brave made a total of 76 BAT purchases for the 70% user revenue share for advertising campaigns paid by advertisers in USD, for a total of 27,169,302 BAT.  Note that fluctuations in the notional USD equivalent value of BAT, Brave Ads monthly campaign sales, and the percentage of advertisers paying in crypto vs. USD result in differences in the quantity and frequency of BAT purchases throughout the calendar year. Brave Ads Brave Ads campaigns were supported in nearly 200 countries with over 7.5 billion ad confirmation events to date. There have been over 6,600 campaigns since the inception, from over 900 advertisers, from mainstream brands such as Ford, PayPal, Toyota, Mastercard, Intel, Chipotle, Crocs, BMW, Keurig, American Express, Budweiser, Walmart, Amazon, and The Home Depot, as well as from crypto giants like Binance, Coinbase, eToro, Ledger, Near, and Solana. The average click-through rate (CTR) for a Brave Ads campaign is 8%, well above the industry average of just 2%, with many brands observing even higher engagement. Brave Creators A total of 1,742,574 Creators have verified with Brave to accept BAT from Brave Rewards users, an increase of over 30% from 2022. 2022 Progress Brave Ads Brave News Ads launched for Android in March 2022.  Brave Search Ads Beta launched in December 2022. Brave Rewards Brave Rewards users have contributed more than 36 million BAT to their favorite registered content creators to date. Work on engineering and implementation of important updates and changes to Brave Rewards (see our Important Changes to Rewards post for more details): An important step toward helping us combat abuse, so that we can better deliver on our promises to legitimate users and creators. The changes allow Brave to focus efforts on building a more decentralized future by eliminating our current centralized “virtual BAT” system. Updates to the Brave Rewards interface on Android Brave Wallet Multichain support introduced for Filecoin, Solana and support for Solana DApps on desktop.  Support for popular EVMs with Brave Swap. NFT Gallery support for Ethereum and Solana networks. Mobile Ethereum and EVM DApp support on Brave Android and iOS. Brave Wallet Partner Program Created in June 2022, the Wallet Partner Program aimed to bring the largest DApps across different networks to support the Brave Wallet, including joint promotion, PR and Twitter Spaces.  By the end of 2022, the program grew to over 80 of the largest DApps in the space, including 1inch, DappRadar, Compound, X2Y2, LooksRare, Lido and more, opening the door for additional business development opportunities and utility additions for BAT.  BAT in DeFi BAT expanded DeFi utility in 2022, including DEX/AMM liquidity on ApeSwap and BiSwap on BNBChain, and Orca and Jupiter on Solana.  In addition to Wyre, BAT liquidity has been added to on-ramp vendors integrated into Brave Wallet, including Ramp.Network, Sardine and Transak. Additional options via on-ramp vendors to purchase wrapped BAT assets on Solana, Polygon and BNBChain were introduced in 2022. BAT in NFTs On November 10th, 2022, Brave launched the first collaborative BAT NFT mint on Solana with the BAT x Adam Ape for Brave collection, with the BAT and Adam Ape Communities collaborating to successfully mint the 2500 NFTs in the collection within 3 hours. The collaboration introduced the whitelist option to mint NFTs with wrapped BAT in addition to SOL on the Solana network, with secondary royalty enforcement in collaboration with Cardinal Labs.  NFTs from the collection are available on Hyperspace and CoralCube secondary markets on Solana. BAT Community Hosted over 40 weekly BAT Community Twitter Spaces featuring panelists from the Brave team and guest projects, including NEAR Protocol, POAP, Solana Spaces, Drift Protocol, and others.  Welcomed the BAT Community and general public to 51 weekly BAT Community Calls each week on Brave Talk; all are welcome to join every Tuesday at 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern. Grew BAT Brigade Discord membership to over 15K members, doubling our projection for the year. The Brigade is now a flourishing center for BAT daily discussions and weekly live engagement. Continued growing the BAT Ambassadors and Student BAT Ambassadors Programs, laying the groundwork for increased BAT/Brave adoption and community growth in key regions, including LatAm and Africa.   Focus for 2023 BAT NFT Creator Collaborations With the success of the BAT x Adam Ape for Brave NFT mint, we observed how bringing the BAT and creator NFT communities together can lead to success (even with extremely turbulent market conditions). Following the upcoming Sage mint for the BAT x Adam Ape for Brave collection, we plan to continue bringing the leading NFT Creators and communities across different blockchains together with the BAT Community and Brave to offer more mints through a formal program. Each collaborative NFT mint will bring BAT utility as a mint option, with the aim of fully denominating NFT mints in BAT this year in NFT marketplaces on Solana, Ethereum and other networks.  We’re working closely with the Community on utility opportunities for NFT collectors in the program, where collectors can benefit from utility within the Brave ecosystem for all of the collaborative collections, and additional utility for the projects we collaborate with. We aim to incrementally add these utility offerings throughout the year, providing continuous benefits and enjoyment for the Community.  Additionally, we’re working with Wallet Partner Program partners on extending additional utility benefits for BAT and Brave NFT collaborations, with Based MKRS already providing their NFT passes to our BAT Community to create token-gated communities within their chat app.  In addition, Degen Royale has integrated 3D avatars of NFTs from our first collection into its multiplayer PC Steam game. More information on this program will be released in the weeks ahead. Brave Ads Following the full rollout of the changes to Brave Rewards announced in January, we plan to introduce support for Brave Search Ads to Brave Rewards users, providing another opportunity for Brave Rewards users to earn BAT. We are aiming to hold a public invitation for the Brave Ads Self-Serve Beta Program to advertisers over the next several weeks, with the goal of transitioning from the Self-Serve Beta Program to the fully accessible public-facing Self-Serve Brave Ads product for advertisers by the end of 2023.  With Brave Wallet featuring NFT Gallery support, we’re beginning to work more closely with Brave Advertisers as technology partners to explore additional NFT utility tie-ins for BAT Collaboration NFT holders, along with POAPs and other NFT utility use cases. Brave and BAT are well positioned to provide additional real world value for brands with this innovative technology, and we’re excited for the opportunity to bring more brands into Web3. Brave Rewards & Creators On-chain, Web3 wallet contributions to Creators New shareable Creator channel pages/URLs New custodial account options for Brave Rewards  Unifying Brave Rewards and Brave Wallet Brave Creators redesign for the Creators dashboard and Creators website Pay with BAT We plan to introduce Pay with BAT options for on-chain payment support with BAT in 2023, with initial support integrated into Brave Premium Products and Services.  Gaming/eSports We’re excited to announce that Brave and BAT have entered into a 12 month partnership with XBorg, to sponsor and integrate Brave Wallet and BAT into their eSports gaming and tournament events throughout 2023. The partnership includes exploring and experimenting with additional BAT utility for potential cases including tournaments, prize pools, gaming quests involving Brave Wallet and BAT, NFT mints, and a broad array of content generation involving and promoting Brave and BAT throughout the year. Brave and BAT are collaborating on a four month sponsorship and promotional partnership with ev.io, currently the most popular game on Solana by daily active users. As part of the partnership, we aim to focus on sponsorships and activations including Brave Wallet and BAT, and exploration of additional gaming utility cases for BAT. The Brave and BAT teams are also working with gaming titles and studios on offering additional opportunities for BAT and BAT NFT holders that we plan to announce in 2023. BAT Community More cross-chain BAT NFT collaborations with NFT projects and Web3 influencers, and their communities. Optimize crypto and Web3 education through the BAT Ambassadors & Campus Ambassadors programs, regional BAT Ambassador-led Community Calls in various languages, and other localized content. More consistent live engagement with the BAT Community online (BAT Community calls, Twitter Spaces, BAT/Brave team AMAs, etc.) and in-person via meetups, events and more. 

As always, we welcome and encourage the community to continue providing feedback and participating with the team in the year ahead.

Thursday, 02. March 2023

Nym - Medium

Press release: Nym and Chainsafe bring enhanced privacy to over half a million Ethereum validators…

Press release: Nym and Chainsafe bring enhanced privacy to over half a million Ethereum validators worldwide Nym and Chainsafe bring enhanced privacy to over half a million Ethereum validators worldwide Denver, Colorado, USA — Thursday, 02 March 2023: Today at ETHDenver 2023, Nym, the leader in network layer privacy, announced a Nym integration with Ethereum validators and even clients to provid
Press release: Nym and Chainsafe bring enhanced privacy to over half a million Ethereum validators worldwide

Nym and Chainsafe bring enhanced privacy to over half a million Ethereum validators worldwide

Denver, Colorado, USA — Thursday, 02 March 2023: Today at ETHDenver 2023, Nym, the leader in network layer privacy, announced a Nym integration with Ethereum validators and even clients to provide network-level privacy to the entire ecosystem.

A libp2p module enables over half a million ethereum validators worldwide to shield transactions via the Nym mixnet. The module will prevent Ethereum validators from leaking their IP addresses and metadata, protecting them from DDoS attacks. The first implementation is being written for the Lighthouse consensus client, in collaboration with Chainsafe, a leading blockchain development and engineering solutions firm.

Harry Halpin, CEO of Nym Technologies, said “Ethereum is the least private of blockchain networks currently, endangering users who may have their IP address harvested as well as validators themselves. Ethereum’s new proof-of-stake consensus protocol is vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks, as described by Adam Back and others as early as 2001 in the paper Traffic Analysis Attacks and Trade-Offs in Anonymity Providing Systems.”

Ethereum’s transition to a PoS consensus last year requires increased coordination and traffic between validators, which exposes systems sensitive information, notably giving advanced information on which validator will be the block proposer for a given slot. The mixnet integration for Ethereum consensus clients anonymize this traffic between validators, thereby solving vulnerabilities to DDoS attacks, MEV bots and even helping prevent the censorship of transactions.

Following the revelations of how user data was being handled by node infrastructure providers and wallets, the issue of privacy in Web3 became more pressing than ever before. At his talk in ETHDenver, Harry Halpin demonstrated how the Nym mixnet can also be used with Metamask to prevent the harvesting of a user’s IP address.

“We are incredibly proud to be collaborating with Nym to make Ethereum and libp2p more private, enabling a new wave of innovation with mixnet capabilities. This is a massive step towards the vision of a privacy preserving Ethereum.” said Elizabeth Binks, Privacy Engineering Lead at ChainSafe.

Further work will continue to ensure improved functionality, including low latency and ease of configuration to ensure scalability as the validator count is predicted to increase exponentially after the impending Shanghai Upgrade.

Decentralized systems are particularly prone to network layer vulnerabilities due to the sheer volume of traffic that has to pass between nodes. This makes privacy for key infrastructure operations essential for the overall security of decentralized systems. The Nym mixnet, which is chain agnostic, provides metadata protections for the security of both people as well as nodes.

-END-

About Nym:

Nym is an open-source, incentivized, and decentralized platform that protects privacy at the network level of any application, wallet or digital service. Nym protects against traffic pattern analysis and metadata surveillance.

About ChainSafe:

ChainSafe is a leading blockchain research and development firm specializing in infrastructure solutions for web3. Alongside contributions to ecosystems such as Ethereum, Polkadot, Filecoin, and more, ChainSafe creates solutions for developers and teams across the web3 space utilizing our expertise in gaming, bridging, NFTs, and decentralized storage.

Media Contact

Candice Teo, candice@nymtech.net

Press release: Nym and Chainsafe bring enhanced privacy to over half a million Ethereum validators… was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Defiant

Ethereum Users May Soon Be Able To Retrieve Lost Private Keys

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!
Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today!

GameFi Picks Up Steam As It Looks To Go Mainstream

PRIME, HyperPay and ‘Undead Blocks’ Debuted This Week
PRIME, HyperPay and ‘Undead Blocks’ Debuted This Week

Solana To Focus On Stability In 2023 After Repeated Outages

A Third Of Solana Labs Developers To Work On ‘Adversarial Team’
A Third Of Solana Labs Developers To Work On ‘Adversarial Team’

Ethereum’s ERC-4337 Upgrade Paves The Way For User Wallet Recovery

Developers Launch Account Abstraction Via New ERC-4337 Standard
Developers Launch Account Abstraction Via New ERC-4337 Standard

Circle Blog

Where to Buy USDC on Ethereum

USD Coin (USDC) has grown to play an essential role in the Ethereum ecosystem among decentralized applications (dApps) and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. It brings more secure, stable value exchange to trading and transacting within the Ethereum community. 

USD Coin (USDC) has grown to play an essential role in the Ethereum ecosystem among decentralized applications (dApps) and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. It brings more secure, stable value exchange to trading and transacting within the Ethereum community. 


Zaisan

Making Your Enterprise Environmentally Friendly Using Blockchain

As businesses and organisations continue to grow and expand, prioritising environmental sustainability is becoming increasingly important. One way to do this is by implementing blockchain technology into your enterprise. Let’s dive deeper! Why Your Enterprise Should Adopt Blockchain for Environmental Sustainability Blockchain is a decentralised digital ledger. Blockchain technology allows for the

As businesses and organisations continue to grow and expand, prioritising environmental sustainability is becoming increasingly important. One way to do this is by implementing blockchain technology into your enterprise. Let’s dive deeper!

Why Your Enterprise Should Adopt Blockchain for Environmental Sustainability

Blockchain is a decentralised digital ledger. Blockchain technology allows for the secure recording and verification of transactions without the need for a central authority. This technology has the potential to revolutionise the way businesses operate, including by making them more environmentally friendly. By using blockchain to support eco-friendly practices and renewable energy, your enterprise can play a key role in creating a more sustainable future. And outside of the obvious benefits for the environment, it can also help propel your business forward in different ways.

How Blockchain Can Help Your Business Go Green

Multiple ways exist in which blockchain technology can help your business go green. Summarised below are some of the main ways in which blockchain technology can make an impact:

Tracking and verifying environmentally responsible practices Facilitating the exchange of renewable energy Blockchain-powered waste management systems Creating and managing carbon credits Using Blockchain To Track and Verify Environmentally Responsible Practices

One way that blockchain can help is by enabling the tracking and verification of environmentally responsible practices. For example, by using blockchain technology, a supply chain can track the origin and journey of products, ensuring that they were produced using sustainable methods.

This level of transparency can help consumers make more informed choices about the products they purchase. Moreover it encourages businesses to adopt eco-friendly practices in order to maintain their reputation. Additionally, the use of blockchain can help businesses to detect and prevent fraud, such as the sale of counterfeit or environmentally damaging products.

In this way, blockchain can help promote environmental responsibility and sustainability within the business community. By enabling more transparent and accountable business practices, blockchain technology can support the development of a more sustainable and environmentally friendly economy.

Facilitating the Exchange of Renewable Energy Using Blockchain

Blockchain can also be used to facilitate the exchange of renewable energy. It ensures renewable energy can be tracked, traded, and sold in a secure and transparent manner. This can help to create a more efficient and reliable renewable energy market, as well as enable individuals and businesses to easily access and use renewable energy. 

Additionally, the use of smart contracts on the blockchain can automate the process of buying and selling renewable energy. This makes it even more convenient and efficient. Overall, the use of blockchain in the renewable energy industry can greatly accelerate the transition to a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly energy system that is less reliant on fossil fuels.

Using Blockchain To Create and Manage Carbon Credits

Another way in which blockchain technology can help businesses become more environmentally friendly is by enabling the creation and management of carbon credits. Carbon credits are a way for businesses to offset their carbon emissions by supporting renewable energy projects or other initiatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: Shell

Using blockchain, businesses can create and trade carbon credits in a transparent and secure manner. This allows for the efficient and cost-effective management of carbon emissions. It provides businesses with a way to offset their environmental impact. Furthermore, the use of blockchain can help ensure the integrity and verifiability of carbon credits, making it easier for businesses to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.

Overall, the use of blockchain for carbon credit management can support the transition to a low-carbon economy. Thereof, it can help businesses reduce/offset their environmental impact.

Blockchain-Powered Waste Management Systems

In addition to the previous benefits, blockchain technology can also help improve supply chain efficiency, reducing waste and enabling more transparent and accountable business practices through creating decentralised waste management systems. 

In a decentralised waste management system, blockchain can be used to track and verify the disposal of waste materials. This can help to ensure that waste is disposed of in a sustainable and responsible manner, reducing the environmental impact of waste. Additionally, one can use blockchain technology to incentivise sustainable waste disposal practices, such as recycling and composting. For example, businesses and individuals could be rewarded with tokens or other digital assets for properly disposing of waste.

Furthermore, the use of blockchain can help to improve the efficiency of waste management systems. By securely and transparently tracking waste materials, blockchain can help to reduce waste and prevent fraud, such as the illegal dumping of waste. This can help to make waste management systems more cost-effective and sustainable.

Blockchains Do Not Have To Consume Tons of Energy

But what about the energy consumption of blockchains in general? It is true that many blockchain protocols, such as the one used by the Bitcoin network, rely on energy-intensive proof-of-work consensus mechanisms. This means that validating transactions and adding them to the blockchain requires a large amount of computing power. However, it is important to note that not all blockchain protocols operate in this way.

There are also blockchain protocols that use different kinds of consensus mechanisms, such as the delegated proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which is much more energy efficient. In a delegated proof-of-stake system, the token holders are constantly voting on “delegates”. The delegates who have the most votes at any certain point in time run the blockchain and validate transactions.

As a result, delegated proof-of-stake systems are much more energy efficient and scalable than proof-of-work systems. They do not require a large amount of computing power to validate transactions. This makes them a more environmentally friendly and viable option for businesses and organisations that want to use public or private blockchains and require high scalability.

Conclusion

Implementing blockchain technology into your enterprise may require significant investment and resources. However, the long-term benefits of environmental sustainability and improved efficiency are well worth the effort. By using blockchain to support eco-friendly practices and renewable energy, your enterprise can play a key role in creating a more sustainable future.

If you want to learn more about how your enterprise can use blockchain technology, schedule a call with us.

The post Making Your Enterprise Environmentally Friendly Using Blockchain appeared first on Zaisan.


Defiant

GameFi is just getting started

Kill to earn?
Kill to earn?

Wrench in the Gears

God’s Eye View Part 6 – Every Man Thus Lives By Exchanging

Jeff Yass and his wife Janine, the Club of Growth, the Cato Institute are the ones setting up the mechanics of the “free market” game the masses are expected to play, ostensibly to pursue some imagined evolutionary imperative towards “progress” as a networked super-organism guided by effective altruism and collective self sacrifice. The vast majority [...]

Jeff Yass and his wife Janine, the Club of Growth, the Cato Institute are the ones setting up the mechanics of the “free market” game the masses are expected to play, ostensibly to pursue some imagined evolutionary imperative towards “progress” as a networked super-organism guided by effective altruism and collective self sacrifice. The vast majority of people are hung up on polarizing political screeds and cannot see that the emergent control grid is firmly grounded in systems biology, scientific charity, eugenics, and materialism. If we could mute the culture wars for just a few moments, clear our minds, and look around, we might be able to hear in the far distance the soft hum of cadres of quantitative analysts pouring over bioinformatics, psychographic profiles, social physics, and social and natural capital valuations to shape a post-human, post-nature earth. If we don’t get our bearings soon, our descendants will find themselves existing as interchangeable modules in a vast social computer run by machines.

Based on what I am seeing in the Web3 space, I’m picturing a new NGO culture emerging in which Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), with a pretense of tokenized cooperative governance, manage legions of platform laborers all tied to ledgers and wearable tech. Algorithms weigh individual needs against those of the collective and mete out payments for digital public goods production. Officials, whether they understand it or not, are setting citizens up to become precarious impact commodities for high frequency options trading. One hand washes the other as the masses are made to power the matrix and build out digital empire. Everyone plays their assigned role in the spectacle advancing the plot without wrapping their minds around the game they’re in or comprehending what the stakes are.

Source Link: https://banklessdao.substack.com/p/charity-daos-state-of-the-daos

In some ways, Yass may actually be more progressive than liberals. Dismantling the education system in favor of a radical reboot that centers sensor technology and securitized human capital isn’t exactly a conservative move. I once considered myself a progressive, but then I began to understand the history of the movement and its origins in social efficiency from the research of Tim Scott. Progressive circles of the early twentieth century imagined the human condition would be improved through science, technology, engineering, and directed social cohesion. To my way of thinking this is exactly what a world run on smart-contract logic tied to optimized “evidence-based” outcomes would be.

The difference is that Yass would place the knobs and levers of technocracy in the invisible hand of the market, while liberals would have the government driving the bus.

The following quote is from an article, “Upping the Ante for City Hall,” Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about Susquehanna International Group’s activities backing school choice candidates in the 2015 election season:

“Nothing offends Greenberg and his partners more than a suggestion that they profit from corporate education reform. But critics of the role their money is playing say that’s not even the issue, that they’ve tilted the playing field in Philadelphia towards charter schools as a loss of money and enrollment is killing off neighborhood public schools that are accessible to all. ‘There is a part of corporate education reform that is making schools into a marketplace,’ said former Philadelphia teacher-turned activist Lisa Haver, who said that testing and test-prep firms as well as some charter operators are making handsome profits from the school choice movement, even if the Susquehanna partners are not.”

People don’t understand that the planned “marketplace” encompasses so much more than test-prep. The children targeted for social impact bond commodification aren’t just public-school students, but rather ALL children whether they attend charter schools, cyber-schools, private schools, parochial schools, and even homeschool families. It will happen through voucher programs linked to digital identity corresponding to the rise of tech-centric, low-cost micro-schools. Children will be put on devices, tagged with wearables, and tracked with artificial vision cameras, not because such practices will offer them a better future, but because it feeds the voracious data economy of the fourth industrial revolution and generates digital twins for simulation modeling and machine learning.

Options traders need for us to adopt a “lifelong” “learning economy model” to legitimize gambling on our futures, but the real end game is guided evolution of humanity into a collective hivemind, Teilhard de Chardin’s Noosphere, a global thought form.

Read the quote below, taken from a longer presentation on complex systems and machine learning. You’ll see I’m not kidding about entraining our minds into a flow state to join the human “ant computer.” You’ll also see the role that libertarians are meant to play in advancing this agenda by pushing deregulation and free market exchanges. You’ll see where token engineering fits in in the references to decentralized governance following simple rules, and the line about increasing profitability by learning about the behavior of individuals and companies? That’s Susquehanna International Group’s poker philosophy. Know the mind of the people you’re playing against; recognize and predict their patterns of behavior; and if possible, get the “god’s eye view,” more data is always better in games of asymmetrical information.

This excerpt starts at timestamp 26 minutes of the interview by Machine Learning Street Talk, Episode #75 – Emergence with Dr. Daniele Grattarola.

“…how a group of cells organizes itself to be an eye or a brain; or how independent members of an economy each working chiefly for their own gain produce complex, but structured global markets; or most mysteriously how the global phenomena we call intelligence or consciousness emerge from non-intelligent non-conscious material substrates.

The cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter in his book “Gödel, Escher, Bach” made an extended analogy between ant colonies and brains, both being complex systems in which relatively simple components with relatively little communication among themselves collectively give rise to complicated and sophisticated system-wide global behavior. The ants in our human brain are of course neurons. They communicate with each other in a similarly simplistic manner and yet our intelligence and arguably our consciousness emerge from this low-level, primitive communication.

Markets are also complex, emergent, and self-organizing entities, if you like. Melanie said in her book that they are self-organized on the microscopic and the macroscopic level. She said that on the microscopic level individuals and companies and markets try to increase their profitability by learning about the behavior of other individuals and companies. The microscopic self-interest has historically thought to push markets on the whole at the macroscopic level towards a so-called Nash equilibrium. Now the process by which the markets obtain this equilibrium is called the market efficiency. The eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith called this self-organizing behavior of markets the invisible hand. It arises from the myriad microscopic actions of individual buyers and sellers. The individual actions on a trading floor give rise to the hard-to-predict large-scale behavior of financial markets.

Now Melanie gives three core properties of complex systems in her book. One is complex collective behavior – large networks of individual components with each one following relatively simple rules with no central role or leader. It’s the collective action of vast numbers of components that give rise to the complex, hard-to-predict, and changing patterns, which fascinate us so much. The second is signaling and information processing. Complex systems use information and signals from both their internal and external environments. The third is adaptation. All of these systems adapt, that is they change their behavior to improve their chances for survival or success through learning or some evolutionary process.

So, then Melanie goes on to give her definition of a complex system as follows: a system in which a large network of components with no central control and simple rules of operation give rise to complex collective behavior, sophisticated information processing, and adaptation via learning or evolution.

Now I spoke with our friend Dr. Duggar on strong emergence, and he said that in his opinion it describes behaviors, which cannot be analytically derived, nor effectively computed from a lower level or a higher-resolution theory. This would place glider wars in a cellular automaton firmly in the domain of strong emergence. A cellular automaton is computationally irreducible. There’s no effective computational path from the lower-level rules to the higher-level behavior. The only thing you can do is run the simulation again, from scratch.” Source

Few understand that this planned future revolves around catalyzing surprising interactions within the complex adaptive systems of smart cities. That’s cognitive capitalism. The goal is emergence, through networked behaviors that manifest a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Artificial intelligence wants to steal the creative, playful spirit of ALL children. The forces of engineered polarization have parents and community members fighting amongst each other rather than stepping back to look at the system as a whole. Think about how much content in your feed centers the culture wars. That’s on purpose.

I suspect that Susquehanna’s International Group’s executives live in a story where a laissez faire approach under multinational techno-behemoths will somehow bring about human flourishing for the poor. Yass backed the New York mayoral bid of Andrew Yang, promoter of Universal Basic Income, to the tune of a half million dollars along with hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin. At the time Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch was confused by this alliance, because he’s stuck in the polarization vortex and can’t see the long-game is to hook us into a collective “social computer” (or ant computer) and turn us into data-mineable, creative pets of AI. 

Source Link: https://twitter.com/Will_Bunch/status/1397358150823645185

The following are excerpts from the introduction to a 2010 paper co-authored by Fausto Giunchiglia, professor at the University of Trento interested in computational models of the mind and “how we guess,” and Dave Robertson, professor of applied logic with an expertise in machine learning and health data at the University of Edinburgh, “The Social Computer: Combining Machine and Human Computation.”

“The social computer is a future computational system that harnesses the innate problem solving, action and information gathering powers of humans and the environments in which they live in order to tackle large scale social problems that are beyond our current capabilities…”

“The hardware of a social computer is supplied by people’s brains and bodies, the environment where they live, including artifacts, e.g., buildings and roads, sensors into the environment, networks and computers; while the software is the people’s minds, laws, organizational and social rules, social conventions, and computer software. The algorithms for social computation are those which take advantage of the resilience and scale of mass human problem solving and which achieve higher performance by supplementing social capabilities of individuals by adapting the environment in order to provide better feedback and instrumentation for the mass computation achieved by society. This means that the analogue of an operating system for a social computer is not just the computer or the network but is primarily the social and environmental infrastructure that enables large-scale social computation to occur.” 

“The social computer exhibits an algorithmic behavior which is however the result of very large numbers of local computations, decisions, interactions, data and control information transfers. These activities start, evolve and stop simultaneously inside the computer’s many parts and across them, with its components being most often completely unaware and sometimes partially aware of the resulting global algorithm behavior. The state of a social computation includes part of the state of the physical, social environment in which the computation is situated.”

“The problem-solving capability of the social computer improves in time. This result can be achieved because it is programmable, and the set of programs that it can run can be increased in time, in quantity and quality. In this context the notion of being programmable is very different sense from that which applies to usual computers, even those that are distributed. For instance, people cannot be programmed; yet they can be induced into certain behaviors via, e.g., incentives or laws. And there are already examples where people are used as computing entities whose intelligence and activities are composed to achieve a more complex goal. The behavior of a social computer is programmed by increasing and evolving the amount of globally available knowledge about the world, and about itself, and its capability to make maximal pragmatic use of it.”

“Last but not least, the computer can sense and act in the world. People are one of the main means for sensing, but this can also happen via pervasive sensors and sensor networks. People are the main actuators of the social computer. The social computer can also act via machines but ultimately, modulo limited exceptions (e.g., intelligent machines, automatic control devices) the final decision on how to act remains a human decision, possibly supported by advanced decision support systems. One could easily envisage scenarios involving social robots autonomously acting in the real world. While this is a research area of potential, we believe that the current state of the art does not suggest that we consider robots as key components of the social computer in the medium term.”

People like Will Bunch don’t get that the mid-range game is to set up impact markets in “sustainable” good behavior tracked by smart city sensor networks. He can’t conceive of a world where toddlers on surveillance play tables and homeless veterans on blockchain mental health apps can be securitized and traded to provide market liquidity by firms like Susquehanna International Group, fodder to fuel machine “intelligence.” I’m not sure how we remedy this situation.

The “portfolio model” of school choice was promoted by the Philadelphia School Partnership where school districts “dump the losers” and raise the bar for the remaining schools, including charters. Jeff’s wife, Janine Yass, was a founding board member of Philadelphia School Partnership, which launched in 2010. Janine helped found Boys Latin Charter School in West Philadelphia in 2007. Disadvantaged, primarily Black communities, have been the target of the “school choice” sales pitch. It is true that the city’s public schools lack resources, the curriculum is often rigid and uninspired, there are discipline problems, billions of dollars in deferred maintenance on buildings, and students with special needs don’t get adequate support. It’s all by design to justify ushering in a new “learning ecosystem” gameboard where the city is a classroom. You don’t live in a city? Just dial one up in VR extended reality. The plan is for us to live in an immersive reality simulation anyway.

Source Link: https://embed.kumu.io/eb8d04325f49951e264bc46b19963f67#untitled-map?s=%23janine-yass

The Yass family maintains close ties with Jeanne Allen and the Center for Education Reform, which got its start in 1993 in Washington, DC. School choice picked up steam during the lockdown years, an opportunity that was not wasted. Janine’s Muck Rack profile shows she published ten articles with Forbes last year promoting innovative school models like micro-schools and digital academies that took hold as a result of Covid policy. She struck up a close partnership with former Arizona governor Doug Ducey, a friend of the education choice movement who expanded voucher access. Arizona has been a leader in Education Scholarship Accounts, was the first to offer funds in a debit card format, and now has a “class wallet” portal, which I imagine will be on decentralized ledger technology soon enough. 

Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University in Tempe, is one of the most prominent advocates for technological solutions and a deal broker between venture capital and gamified education. In 2019 ASU co-sponsored a Global Education Summit in Beijing on the Future of Education where a globally coordinated, STEM-centric system of education was proposed in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Among those attending were gaming companies, including Tencent who backed Epic Games in their development of Fortnite. 

Michael Moe of Global Silicon Valley, a co-founder with Crow of the annual ASU+GSV “Davos of Education,” spoke of the promise of flexible, innovative models of education. So it’s somewhat ironic that he co-authored “American Revolution 2.0” with GSV in 2012 using over-the-top patriotic messaging for ed-tech’s future. The cover of the report featured George Washington crossing the Delaware no less. Fast forward seven years, and we’ve got the guy with the red-white-and blue branding rubbing elbows with the largest ed-tech vendors in China. If nothing else this should make it perfectly clear that a “free market” artificial intelligence education model is a global program. This imagined super-organism intends to integrate all humans, all natural life on the planet, into its cybernetic circuits, and US interests are on the bleeding edge of this effort. No one – no elected official, no union, no company, no NGO, no university, is using their institutional capital to oppose this plan. In fact, most are scrambling to find a position where they have a chance to “win” in the new hunger games.

Source Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20201214221632/https://littlesis.org/oligrapher/4634-blockchain-identity-china

 

Source Link: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-2019-global-education-summit-focused-on-the-future-of-education-with-sharing-from-diverse-perspectives-300965474.html

 

Source Link: https://wrenchinthegears.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/American_Revolution_2.0.pdf

In 2021, Janine Yass set up a million dollar prize that would be awarded to a US-based pre-K to 12 education provider that embodies the STOP principles – Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless. Pay attention to the last word, “permissionless.” This is a hat-tip to free-market “choice.” The game of high-stakes human capital wagers can’t advance without it. The premise of school boards authorizing alternative education models has to be overcome. The market will decide “quality.” The education space will be totally deregulated. Human teachers will become edu-preneurial “tutors” and “mentors” until AI assistants take their place. That may have seemed like an overstatement a few years ago, but within the last month, educators now find themselves scrambling to figure out how to deal with students having assignments prepared for them by ChatGPT. A transformation is underway with a shift to micro-schools and pod-based learning triggered by lockdown social atomization. Now we’re looking at holons, agents, signals, boundaries, and cells where emergence blossoms at the intersection of order and manufactured chaos.

In the early years of my blog, I wrote about the threat of “hybrid learning” that went hand-in-hand with competency-based education (also called proficiency-based and mastery-based), that under the guise of “personalization” would subject children to predatory data-mining for a third or more of their time in neighborhood schools. Then, during lockdowns, we saw a total shift in mentality. Teachers who once staunchly fought cyber-charters and virtual learning were convinced their students would kill them and that years of zoom instruction was the only option. 

As I see it, that, sadly, sealed their fate. It’s an inhumane practice. Many families fled public education. Many teachers were so burnt out that they left the profession. It was with a heavy, heavy heart I read a recent article about the situation in Hazelwood, Missouri near Saint Louis. The district had over forty teacher vacancies and ended up hiring Stride (formerly K12 Inc.) to provide remote instruction to a third of the students in the district. While aides were placed in classrooms, online teachers were not able to effectively manage their classes. Student engagement was terrible. No one was learning anything, and the district was paying Stride, a company with a past history of incompetence, a rate well beyond what the average teacher salary. To top it all off, several schools in the district were found to have been contaminated with radiation dating back to the Manhattan Project.

Despite my dedicated past support for neighborhood schools, I simply can’t continue if the plan is to use them to train compliant citizens for the Metaverse and a global gig economy of coders and cybersecurity warriors. The only course of action I can see taking right now is to educate adults about the bigger picture. The purpose of schools is to condition children to fit themselves into society and become productive participants. Our problem is that the world that’s being built is a world meant for machines, not people. Until we address that issue, no educational “choice” can be a humane one for coming generations.

The driving force behind school choice is to unbundle education into limitless online and work-based options tracked via proficiency badges that document attainment of specified cognitive and soft skills. I’ve been writing about the MacArthur Foundation and Mozilla-backed Knowledgeworks’ learning ecosystem model for years. I describe it as Pokémon Go skill chasing in the CIA’s extended reality esports game. Once we’re all assigned biometric digital identities with blockchain wallets in which to store our credentials and tokens, our economic productivity as digital “agents” can be tracked ad infinitum. Educational inputs provided by the government or, more likely in the future, private investors, will be weighed against measurable outputs to assess our dynamic “in-game” value. 

Susquehanna International Group is about betting, game theory, and decision science. Imagine the number of bets they’ll be able to make on a nation of “lifelong learners” dragging around blockchain ledgers of securitized debt.

Source Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stopaward/2022/04/14/the-biggest-award-in-education-just-got-even-bigger/?sh=46088cca3287

The social computer requires “diversity.” Keep this in mind as you’re served up heaping portions of critical race theory, trauma-informed practice, diversity-equity-inclusion-justice training, social-emotional learning, and ACEs scoring. For the liberals and the left, you need to understand the measures global hedge funds are about to implement aren’t about fixing the structure that created the problems. Rather these are hollow, performative protocols designed to re-traumatize and document vulnerable populations for coming impact finance schemes. And conservatives, they want you in a lather about these movements, but not because you recognize such interventions as part of a “social computer” agenda targeting the entire population of the earth. No, for you the goal is to make you act out in ways that allow them to further refine the meta-data tags determining your position as an agent in their polarity game. The game designers want everyone duking it out on the surface, emotional, reactive, tribal, and distracted. Yes, they have a majority of people exactly where they want them. 

Each datapoint creates an ever more robust palette of archetypes for the program. There has long been tension between generalization and specialization. John Holland describes this as an important factor in genetic algorithm development. Adam Smith opens his “Wealth of Nations” with a story of the efficiencies created in a pin factory where workers were assigned discrete tasks along the production line, the division of labor expanded production netting significant profits for the factory owner. Later, in chapter four, Smith writes, “Every man thus lives by exchanging,” a quote inscribed on one side of a luxurious bronze gas lamp located in the atrium just outside the Debate Room at Old Parkland in Dallas, the city’s most elite corporate address. 

Building off energy futures trading, the Dallas old guard is making its move to set up markets in human capital management, led by the Commit! Partnership with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan standing in the shadows. That lamp stands opposite an elaborately carved portico topped by a large gilded owl. On either side are four paintings. The upper tier shows Watson and Crick and their DNA model on the one side and on the other side Steve Jobs with an orange Apple desktop showing the Pixar movie “Up.” Below is FDR and Eisenhower on one side and Churchill and Truman on the other. What this says to me is that we’re being pulled into a new “war,” a war on consciousness and human agency even as we are being told mythic stories about scientific progress.

In a future of on-demand globotic (pilots operating robots from remote locations) and platform labor lean efficiency says that preference will be given to the specialists. Soon algorithms will be able to instantaneously choose from a multinational pool of desperate labor plucking the exact right person with the exact badges for the right price. Specialization tied to common skills standards will drive labor costs down to the point that most workers will have to rely on some level of universal basic income, with the strings that will certainly be attached. 

 

This is part of a series:

Part One – Mathematical Theories of Life

Part Two – Governance Tokens and Training Kids to Bet Big

Part Three – Civic Tech, the Wisdom of Crowds, and Offshore Sandboxes

Part Four – The Language of Heartless Charity

Part Five – Prediction Markets in Public Policy

Feature image Athena owl coin inset in panelling of the debate room at Old Parkland in Dallas.

 


Brave Browser

Brave Search introduces the Summarizer, an AI tool for synthesized, relevant results

The Summarizer provides concise answers at the top of Brave Search results pages, solely based on Web search results.

Today we’re thrilled to announce the latest AI-powered feature in Brave Search: the Summarizer.

The Summarizer provides concise and to-the-point answers at the top of Brave Search results pages, in response to the user’s input, solely based on Web search results. Unlike a purely generative AI model, which is prone to spout unsubstantiated assertions, we trained our large language models (LLMs) to process multiple sources of information present on the Web. This produces a more concise, accurate answer, expressed in coherent language.

In addition, the provenance of original sources of data is cited at all times via links. This maintains the rightful attribution of information, and helps users assess the trustworthiness of the sources, both of which are needed to mitigate the authority biases of large language models.

The Brave Summarizer is available today for all users of Brave Search, on desktop and mobile. For users who would prefer not to use the Summarizer, they can easily turn it off by opting out in settings.

Using Web results enables the Summarizer to provide real-time information that is up to date with today’s events. Given the current advancements in AI, it’s crucial to remind users that one should not believe everything an AI system produces, in much the same way one should not believe everything that is published on the Web. At the risk of stating the obvious, we should not suspend critical thinking for anything we consume, no matter how impressive the results of AI models can be.

Besides the summary itself, our AI models are also able to replace the already query-dependent snippets (result descriptions) with a summarized version of those snippets, highlighting the answer when possible. This can be viewed as a summary of a single source (such as a press article), as opposed to the main summary where multiple sources are considered and aggregated to create a more comprehensive answer. The summary at the top of the results page and these special descriptions co-occur, so users will see the overarching summary as well as snippets with highlighted answers. 

Note the highlighted answers in the result snippets

“With 22 million queries per day, Brave Search is the fastest growing search engine since Bing. We provide independent search results from our own index of the Web, and today we’re further improving the relevance of those results with our AI-powered Summarizer,” said Josep M. Pujol, Chief of Search at Brave. “Unlike AI chat tools which can provide fabricated responses, the Summarizer generates a plain-written summary at the top of the search results page, aggregating the latest sources on the Web and providing source attribution for transparency and accountability. This open system is available to all Brave Search users today to help them better navigate search results.” 

Unlike many others that have released similar features recently, we do not rely on third parties, nor do we limit access due to scalability concerns. The Brave Summarizer relies on our owned and operated models that are highly tuned to be as efficient as possible at inference time. Today, Brave Search processes daily peaks of 600 queries per second, which are then evaluated against our AI model. Although a summary is generated for about 17% of queries, we expect this number to grow in the near future as we scale our system. The Brave AI model is probably the largest such system in production to date, in that it receives more traffic than others in terms of queries per second, we apply the Summarizer to all queries, and Bing and Google have yet to open up their systems. 1

Besides scalability, a tremendous effort has been put into ensuring the quality of the generated summaries. However, as the model is still in its early phase of development, there is the possibility of producing “hallucinations,” which mix unrelated snippets into a single result. There is also the possibility of some false or offensive text, but our aim is to continue working on improving the models as our users’ feedback starts pouring in.

The Summarizer was fully developed by the Brave Search team and as such is based on the same principles of independence and privacy that we apply across all products. The Summarizer is not powered by ChatGPT or its backend systems; it is instead composed of three different LLMs 2 trained on different tasks:

The first one is QA (question answering): this model is used to try to extract a concrete answer, if any, from text snippets. Brave has been using LLMs for a while to improve search relevance, and this is an extension of what Brave Search already had in place to power its knowledge graph and featured snippets features. The difference lies in the number and length of text snippets analyzed. 

After the QA extraction phase, result candidates are further classified with an ensemble of zero-shot classifiers on a wide variety of criteria (hate-speech, vulgar writing, spam, etc). 

The final set of candidate text is ultimately processed by the summarizer/paraphrasing model, which tries to rewrite the input so that repetition is removed and that language is kept uniform to improve readability. 

We plan to share more technical details with special emphasis on the scalability aspect and lessons learned after the first weeks of our large scale release.

Note that the Summarizer is currently disabled in Brave Search Goggles (an innovative Brave Search feature that enables users to create filters to alter the ordering of search results) 3, while we refine our models to guarantee the quality of the input source for user-generated Goggles. We’ll be sharing more details about the Summarizer for Goggles in the near future. 

Conclusions

The Brave Search Summarizer comes on top of multiple developments we integrated to improve search relevance in the past, and more recent developments that were triggered after the release of ChatGPT last December, notably after the announcement that Microsoft would deeply integrate OpenAI’s models into their search engine Bing. Although it has not been publicly released, early feedback of their model ranges from impressive 4 to scary 5

Although the industry is generating much hype around AI, at Brave we are not yet convinced that LLMs can replace search as we know it. However, if used properly, these new models can help the user navigate results, which is the approach we follow with the Summarizer. Chat-like interfaces and oracle-based search remain unproven and, as of today, we remain skeptical that they’ll be useful for all search tasks. 

That said, we are strong believers in any new technology that helps users satisfy their needs and puts them in control of their online experience. We will continue exploring how to apply LLMs not only to the search field, but also to the Brave browser, where we expect the assistant-like capabilities of LLMs to be truly fruitful and revolutionary. 

Brave has a history of taking up big challenges, offering credible alternatives to BigTech. The Brave browser has over 57 million monthly active users, and Brave Search serves more than 22 million queries per day out of its independent index, which makes it the biggest search engine after Bing, Google, and other engines relying on Bing or Google APIs. Though it’s still early, we expect our developments with AI to follow a similar path and see proven user adoption.

Brave Search is available on all Brave browsers (desktop, Android, and iOS), and is also available from any other browser at search.brave.com.

https://9to5google.com/2023/02/23/google-bard-ai-cost-report/ ↩︎

The base LLM models are based on either BART or DeBERTa (which are open source and hosted on Hugging Face), with heavy retraining based on our own data from search results. ↩︎

https://brave.com/search-anniversary/#search-without-limits-goggles-beta-release ↩︎

https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/bings-ai-chat-marks-a-new-web-era-please-dont-kill-it ↩︎

https://stratechery.com/2023/from-bing-to-sydney-search-as-distraction-sentient-ai/ ↩︎

Wednesday, 01. March 2023

Zcash Foundation

Oblivious Message Retrieval

The Zcash Foundation has been looking into Oblivious Message Retrieval (OMR) to determine whether it offers a potential solution to the recent performance problems that have affected Zcash wallet users, and whether there are any advantages to be gained from implementing this in a Zcash context. The post Oblivious Message Retrieval appeared first on Zcash Foundation.
by Deirdre Connolly

The Zcash Foundation has been looking into Oblivious Message Retrieval (OMR) to determine whether it offers a potential solution to the recent performance problems that have affected Zcash wallet users, and whether there are any advantages to be gained from implementing this in a Zcash context. For example, can OMR be used to address the privacy leaks of using lightwalletd? Light wallets like Nighthawk Wallet, Zecwallet Lite, and YWallet use lightwalletd to fetch and send Zcash transactions, without the overhead of running a full node locally. Would running OMR on a full node provide us with any performance advantages when fetching transactions? 

The Current Lightwalletd Architecture

Light wallets are typically used to download shielded transactions via a lightwalletd server. To preserve privacy about which transactions a wallet is interested in, one can download all the transactions in full. However, this is expensive and nearly amounts to the full blockchain in size/bandwidth, which is not great for lighter devices or those with low bandwidth/network speed, etc. This is why the lightwallet protocol exists.

Most light wallets fetch a limited amount of data about every shielded transaction (i.e. a `CompactTx`) from a lightwalletd proxy, just enough to allow trial decryption. The wallet trial-decrypts every `CompactTx` to see if that transaction has been sent to them. This is because all shielded transactions on the Zcash blockchain are encrypted and indistinguishable from the others such that no one can tell which transactions are addressed to whom, unless you have the incoming viewing key to decrypt them. Trial decryption takes more computational effort than transparent syncing, proportional to how many shielded transactions are on on-chain, but advances in syncing algorithms have made this cheaper. However, to construct new transactions, a wallet needs data that’s not included in CompactTxs or CompactBlocks, so after detecting a transaction, the wallet has to fetch the full transaction via lightwalletd. Everything stays encrypted for shielded transactions (the ‘data’), but now the lightwalletd proxy knows that a wallet with a certain IP address has requested a certain subset of Zcash shielded transactions, at a specific time (‘metadata’). This is an unfortunate and undesirable privacy leak.

It would be better if we can trial-decrypt and fetch transactions privately, and also not have to download all transactions in full to do so.

What If We Can Do Better? Oblivious Message Retrieval (OMR) is a construction from Zeyu (Thomas) Liu and Eran Tromer that uses lattice-based (LWE) fully-homomorphic encryption. It allows a full node to scan the Zcash blockchain for shielded transactions encrypted for a particular recipient and return just the transactions they need without knowing the full query or the results in plaintext. This would offload more computational effort and bandwidth requirements to a full node while also protecting the metadata privacy of a user or wallet, hiding which Zcash transactions the recipient cares about. The only thing the OMR-compatible full node learns about the user is that they are interested in OMR-compatible transactions, but not which ones. OMR

At a high level, here’s how a version of Zcash that supports Oblivious Message Retrieval could work:

A user generates an updated unified address that includes a new clue key (this also supports diversified addresses). When sending money to an OMR-supporting address, the regular Zcash shielded transaction will occur, but the transaction will also include a clue ciphertext. This clue ciphertext is about 1KB of additional data per shielded output.

The user then generates a detection key and registers that with an OMR-supporting Zcash full node. The node uses that detection key to scan all the shielded transactions on the chain and their attached clue ciphertexts. The scanning involves taking all the transactions, including the clue ciphertexts, and fully-homomorphically, trying to use the detection key to decrypt the clue ciphertexts associated with the shielded transactions.

This is the magic of fully-homomorphic encryption: the full node cannot distinguish the (encrypted) secret key that is trying to decrypt the clue ciphertexts, as it is homomorphically encrypted, but it can still do the computation and return the encrypted results of the computation to the holder of the detection secret key.

As the OMR-compatible full node scans all the transactions, it homomorphically accumulates all the transactions whose clue ciphertexts decrypt under the clue secret key, and returns the digest of all the transactions as a new homomorphically-encrypted result. The user can then decrypt those results with the detection secret key, and then have all the Zcash transactions relevant to their wallet ready to go. The full node does not know which transactions are relevant to the wallet, as it processes all of them and computes the matching under fully-homomorphic encrypted computation.

What might this feel like? (beyond lightwalletd flow)

OMR supports two kinds of querying for results that support multiple ways for a wallet developer or other client to interact with an OMR-supporting full node:

“Sync” querying – In the single-shot model, the recipient makes a stateless query to the full node: it provides a detection key, a range of blocks to scan, and a bound k on the number of pertinent messages, and asks the node to digest those blocks with respect to that key. The detector runs all of the `Retrieve` algorithm. Response latency is high: about 0.145 sec per transaction.

“Async” querying – The subscribe and finalize model utilizes the streaming variant. The user provides a detection key and asks to subscribe to ongoing (and perhaps some past) transactions. The node starts processing these transactions, doing most of the computation (i.e. homomorphically computing the PV ciphertexts). Later, the user shows up and asks the server to finalize the results and pack them into a digest, with respect to some k. Neither the finalization time nor message bound k need be known in advance. This reduces finalization to 0.35 milliseconds/tx per core. 

The latter approach fits in nicely with the steady-state wallet UX: open up wallet app every once in a while, get an up-to-date view of wallet state ~immediately, then take an action.

This is attractive to wallet developers and users who value the privacy gains of OMR, but hopefully would not sacrifice usability and experience to achieve them.

This Sounds Great! Are We Doing This?

Well, we’re trying to figure that out. Zcash has changed a bit since OMR was first published (we have Orchard Actions now, for example). There are design decisions we would have to make about the Zcash protocol in order to support OMR, and other compatibility, design, and UX questions we’d have to address. Such as:

How backwards compatible is this? Requires an updated key/address (see below), but also new changes to shielded transactions, specifically the inclusion of 956 bytes of clue data per shielded transaction (or specifically per description: Sapling Output, may need to be updated for Orchard Actions). This is okay but requires a network upgrade and coordination between node and wallet developers. It also increases the transaction size, in addition to the larger Orchard Actions from NU5. “It would be the cleanest to extend the transaction format with a dedicated clue field,” according to the OMR paper. The clue is 1KB per spend. Do I need to generate new keys and a new address? Well, kind of. You need to generate a new clue key to be part of the address, so with Unified Addresses, this can be a new extension with existing Sapling/Orchard key material, but the Unified Address will look different. This clue key uses a different type of cryptography from the Sapling/Orchard keys so we can’t reuse the other keys to support Oblivious Message Retrieval. Per the constructions proposed in the OMR paper, the clue key is 133KB. That’s right, kilobytes (thanks, lattices!) This is too big for a regular QR code encoding, or hex/ascii string, but, an alternative that should work in the Unified Address framework, and instead of having the full clue key inlined in the address, we encode and inline a link to and hash of the clue key, and fetch it from somewhere else. The clue key is a ~public key. How can we maintain trust and anonymity if we host OMR keys on another platform? Key transparency? When you set up a full node to do OMR detection for you, you generate and upload a detection key. This key is not part of your address. It is even larger than the clue key, at ~129MB (yes, megabytes). This is a one-time upload for recipients, but full nodes will have to keep them per-recipient as long as they are privately scanning for that user. The Zcash mainnet chain is coming up on 100GB in size, and storage is relatively cheap, but this does mean adding another recipient client as a full node has non-negligible storage costs as well as the computation costs, and the clue key size may restrict the number of addresses that can be detected live together, as some use cases involve hundreds or thousands of keys. What about diversified addresses? OMR clue keys are diversifiable, so that property of unlinkable keys is maintained; incoming payments sent to any of a user’s (multiple) diversified addresses can be retrieved and spent using a single key tuple. How much compute does this require from full node operators? “∼$1.02 per million payments scanned (for each recipient served), using commodity cloud computing,” according to the OMR paper. This is about the whole current Zcash mainnet chain right now so it sounds scalable and affordable to serve multiple recipients. If I serve a lot of OMR recipients on one full node, will query latency suffer? Hard to say before there is a full implementation to test. Using the subscribe and finalize query model for the general wallet case would indicate it could be quite fast and scale well in general in an async-supporting full node like zebrad. This is based on lattices, does that mean it’s post-quantum secure? It looks like it, yes! How is this different from viewing keys? Registering viewing keys (incoming, outgoing, or full) with a full node and having them scan the chain on a user’s behalf gets close to the data flow of OMR, but with one crucial difference: the node can see which shielded transactions you are interested in and addressed to you, and can read the memo field, transaction value, and target address. OMR does not allow this. What's Next?

If it were possible to deploy OMR without the need for a network update and/or other significant changes (such as addresses), then we would be looking very closely at doing so. However, given the effort involved, we don’t think it’s a priority at this time, and we would want to consider alternative performance improvement approaches (like detection keys).

The post Oblivious Message Retrieval appeared first on Zcash Foundation.


a16z Podcast

The Robot Lawyer Resistance

What happens when you don’t have the resources to fight for your rights? Whether it’s a major medical bill or a more minor parking ticket… even if you were in the right, is it easier to just… pay? Well, Joshua Browder's answer is Do Not Pay!  He’s built a thriving company of the same name, that helps consumers “fight corporations, beat bureaucracy, and sue anyone at the press of a button.”

What happens when you don’t have the resources to fight for your rights? Whether it’s a major medical bill or a more minor parking ticket… even if you were in the right, is it easier to just… pay?

Well, Joshua Browder's answer is Do Not Pay! 

He’s built a thriving company of the same name, that helps consumers “fight corporations, beat bureaucracy, and sue anyone at the press of a button.” Through the power of technology, DoNotPay has resolved over 2m cases successfully and in this interview we get to hear where Browder hopes to take the organization, including his first-hand account of his recent plan to bring the robot lawyer into the physical courtroom.

 

Topics Covered:

00:00 - Introduction

01:51 - DoNotPay’s origin

03:09 - Surprising laws

05:49 - General counsel for consumers

06:54 - The role of AI and technology

09:26 - Ensuring quality counsel

13:19 - Prioritizing features

14:43 - Corporate pushback

17:11 - Reshaping the legal system

20:28 -  Entering the physical courtroom 

24:50 - Cross border possibilities

26:14 - Looping humans into modeling

29:01 - Deflationary impacts

30:05 - Recent pushback

33:13 - Is AI already writing law?

35:15 - Why is law so complex?

37:54 - Entering the Supreme Court

38:38 - Lawyer support

39:47 - Looking forward

43:07 - Building horizontal vs vertical

45:28 - Does this law exist?

 

Resources: 

DoNotPay: https://donotpay.com/

Find Josh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jbrowder1

 

Stay Updated: 

Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16z

Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/

Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Tuesday, 28. February 2023

bankless

Ledger CTO on How NOT to Lose Your Crypto

Charles Guillemet is the CTO at Ledger with a highly experienced background in cryptography  and hardware security.  In today’s episode, Charles walks through all levels of security. No matter if you’re just beginning your wallet security journey or if youre a veteran, this episode will teach you something new about all things crypto and wallet security.  ------ 📣 MetaMask Lea

Charles Guillemet is the CTO at Ledger with a highly experienced background in cryptography  and hardware security. 

In today’s episode, Charles walks through all levels of security. No matter if you’re just beginning your wallet security journey or if youre a veteran, this episode will teach you something new about all things crypto and wallet security. 

------ 📣 MetaMask Learn | Learn Web3 with the Leading Web3 Wallet https://bankless.cc/  

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe  

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken  

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap  

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist  

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 5:52 CTO of Ledger 8:35 Private Keys  17:25 Avoiding Bad Entropy  23:11 Private Keys & Seed Phrases 29:00 Mistakes Storing Seed Phrases 36:55 Securing Your Seed Phrase  45:00 Overengineer Wallet Security 47:55 Cold vs. Hot Wallets  54:22 Benefits of Hot Wallets  58:47 Smart Contract Risk  1:06:45 Allowances  1:11:30 Allowance Access  1:14:00 Blind Signing  1:18:00 Solution to Blind Signing  1:21:38 Resources to Learn More 1:22:22 Closing & Disclaimers 

------ Resources:

Charles Guillemet https://twitter.com/P3b7_ 

Ledger https://twitter.com/Ledger 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Greylock Partners

What’s in Store

The post What’s in <span>Store</span> appeared first on Greylock.

The post What’s in <span>Store</span> appeared first on Greylock.


Circle Press

Bittrex Global lists EUROC, issued by Circle

Bittrex Global’s adoption of Circle’s euro-backed stablecoin enables the powerhouse exchange  to bring EUROC/USDC liquidity to market

Bittrex Global’s adoption of Circle’s euro-backed stablecoin enables the powerhouse exchange  to bring EUROC/USDC liquidity to market


Nym - Medium

How Mixnets led to Bitcoin: Blockstream Green supported by Nym Connect!

The Nym mixnet has a shared history with Bitcoin. Unsurprisingly, we at Nym want Bitcoiners to have the best privacy possible! We are therefore proud to announce that we are supporting Blockstream by adding the Blockstream Green Bitcoin wallet to Nym Connect due to its Liquid’s privacy features. We want to take this opportunity to delve into the pre-history of Bitcoin and its shared history with&n

The Nym mixnet has a shared history with Bitcoin. Unsurprisingly, we at Nym want Bitcoiners to have the best privacy possible! We are therefore proud to announce that we are supporting Blockstream by adding the Blockstream Green Bitcoin wallet to Nym Connect due to its Liquid’s privacy features. We want to take this opportunity to delve into the pre-history of Bitcoin and its shared history with mixnets…

With the invention of Bitcoin, Satoshi brought together major work by the cypherpunk movement, who were working on technologies for anonymous communication like mixnets — the technology for network-level privacy, launched by Nym. Reviewing this history can help us understand how technologies can promote human freedoms and evolve in the most unexpected ways. The cypherpunks were prophetic in their understanding of how easily the internet would become a vehicle for mass surveillance. It is time to join forces and put their solution to work. Looking towards the future evolution of Bitcoin, the combination of the two technologies via integration into Liquid, Lightning and the wider Bitcoin ecosystem would bring to fruition much of this important work.

Blockstream Green over the mixnet using NymConnect Mixnets: a short pre-history of Bitcoin

Mixnets like Nym were originally invented by David Chaum in his famous paper “Untraceable electronic mail, return addresses, and digital pseudonyms”. A mixnet mixes packets to unlink the sender and the receiver. Unfortunately, every time you use Bitcoin (or Lightning), your IP address and the timing and volume of your information leak. Nym Chief Scientist Claudia Diaz has shown how this leaking ‘metadata’ about your communications can be used to uniquely identify you. We recommend you read her paper On the Anonymity of Peer-To-Peer Network Anonymity Schemes Used by Cryptocurrencies with Piyush Kumar Sharma and Devashish Gosain — (which will be presented at NDSS this week!)

Proof of work was invented by Adam Back’s work on mixnets: Adam Back was running the Mixmaster mixnet (a pre-Nym mixnet), which provided anonymous e-mail services to spread information anonymously. When anti-privacy fanatics attacked his mixnet by flooding it with fake messages, Adam Back decided he needed a way to stop this e-mail spam. Importantly, to do so without assigning each person a unique identity, allowing users of the mixnet to remain anonymous. He implemented HashCash to serve as a way to defeat sybil attacks, by forcing any user of the mixnet to solve a hash puzzle. This effectively defeated spam attacks.

Famously, Satoshi Nakamoto then used this idea from HashCash to reach consensus in the Bitcoin blockchain (solving the Byzantine Generals Problem) without uniquely identifying nodes in the Bitcoin network. It is this fundamental invention that makes Bitcoin permissionless. And with this history, we dare say it’s quite likely that Satoshi Nakamoto was a mixnet user!

While Bitcoin creates different public keys per transaction and so allows some basic privacy, a well-resourced attacker like a government or Chainalysis can identify Bitcoin users by using only on-chain information. Enter the Liquid sidechain, whose use of confidential transactions via homomorphic encryption and blinded (stealth) addresses allow more privacy on Bitcoin than our prior integration with Electrum, at the cost of dependency on a federated side-chain. We strongly encourage Bitcoin users to look into Blockstream Green with Nym Connect for improved privacy for Bitcoin. This is especially useful as the Tor network typically used by Liquid is under a mysterious attack that makes it harder to use with Blockstream Green.

We’re happy to see Nym go full circle. The NYM token was originally the NYMPH token on the Liquid blockchain, and since then we’ve launched a NYM token prospectus. We’ve rewarded early contributors, users and token holders with NYM — although the community has had to go through KYC/AML with long-time Bitcoin supporter STOKR. Our privacy-first approach will require many other integrations to diverse applications in order to maintain the anonymity of Bitcoin users, but we think even Nakamoto would be thrilled to see Bitcoin transactions going over a mixnet. Further integrations with Bitcoin and Blockstream are in the works!

Harry Halpin and father with Blockstream gear that Adam Back sent over

Links

Download NymConnect Join our Discord and Telegram communities!

How Mixnets led to Bitcoin: Blockstream Green supported by Nym Connect! was originally published in nymtech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Verida

How does Verida One manage your identities?

Verida One: An Overview We recently announced Verida One would be coming. Over the next month, we’ll share more details on the features, benefits and capabilities of Verida One. One place for all your identities A Verida One profile allows you to aggregate your identities from across web2 and web3 to present the many facets of yourself in one place. This includes verified web2 soc
Verida One: An Overview We recently announced Verida One would be coming. Over the next month, we’ll share more details on the features, benefits and capabilities of Verida One. One place for all your identities

A Verida One profile allows you to aggregate your identities from across web2 and web3 to present the many facets of yourself in one place.

This includes verified web2 social identities from platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as web3 identities that include NFTs (avatars and others) and SBTs (Soulbound Tokens) across multiple blockchains.

These verified social identities are available on-chain, making the information easily accessible to on-chain dApps.

You can have multiple identities that represent different facets you want to present in different contexts (for example a professional and a personal profile). When full implementation is complete, you will have full control over what is shown and what is hidden on your Verida One profile. Initially, limited controls will be made available in the Verida Wallet.

Where is your data stored?

The Verida verification process creates a signed proof (data) stored in your private storage on the Verida network. This proof can then be re-used across multiple SBT smart contracts on different chains. Once you have verified an account this proof (data) can be re-used in the future. Access to your data is managed through the Verida Wallet.

Use your Verida Identity to control where your personal encrypted data is stored. Applications can provide a default storage hosting option or you can specify your own. See Data Storage in our Developer Docs for more information.

User data is stored on Verida Storage Nodes connected to the Verida Network

Want to know more about Verida One?

Join our Discord community and head to the #verida-one channel Sign up for the waitlist on verida.one Ask us anything on Twitter by using the #VeridaOne hashtag and tag @Verida_io

How does Verida One manage your identities? was originally published in Verida on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Panther Protocol

AMA Transcript: Road to v1 w/Oliver Gale & Saif Akhtar

This is a transcript of Panther's Discussion with CEO Oliver Gale and Product Head Saif Akhtar. it was held using queries gathered from our social media.

This is a transcript of Panther’s AMA session with CEO Oliver Gale and Head of Product Saif Akhtar.  The AMA was conducted with questions collected from Twitter, Discord, and Telegram.

This article  is an edited version of an automatic transcript generated from the live session, so we have included exact times for answers in case you want to visit the video below to listen to a specific section.

Here’s the AMA’s audio in case you want to check it out:

AMA ROAD TO v1 w OLIVER GALE SAIF AKHTAR 0:00 /51:17 1× When will it be possible to clone the $ZKP token from GitHub? ZKP token is still a private repository, but it is needed as a dependency.

Saif Akhtar - 2:41

In the docs, it does mention that the rest of the repositories are going to be opened up progressively. So I think they’re due, and they will be. However, I do want to mention that the token contract itself it's a dependency because everything works together with the token contract.

However, from a dev perspective, and from trialing out perspective, you can pretty much deploy any token, and attach that token contract address and the rest of the places and pretty much test that stuff.

So for a dev, it shouldn't be a blocker. But in general, if the questions about opening up all the other repositories, I think they are a work in progress. It's just that it wasn't part of the advanced staking itself. It might have been overlooked, but they will be progressively opened up.

What are the potential risks and drawbacks associated with using zkSnarks technology, and how does the project mitigate or address these risks?

Oliver Gale - 4:22

I think one of the well-known risks of zkSnarks is the trusted ceremony setup phase for the Snark itself, and so how that works when it goes right is if one party in this essentially multi party, trusted setup ceremony, is honest, then you have assurances that the zkSnark has no backdoor. However, if all of the parties are dishonest, then the Snark itself has a backdoor: They can recreate the keys and decrypt the information.

So, generally, what you find with snark-based projects is they will seek a relatively large, trusted ceremony and also include actors who have a reputational stake in the privacy space or, in this case, in the blockchain space.

So, I think Saif can share more information on our trusted ceremony setup. Other drawbacks of zkSnarks versus say, Starks are: Starks are more scalable as transaction types, and they don't have a trusted setup. But the Starks themselves have a much higher gas cost for verification of proofs which makes them good for different use cases and bad for other use cases.

One of the interesting things with the zkSnarks space, and both STARKS and SNARKS are progressing rapidly. There's a lot of research and activity around it. But there are things like Halo which may provide the early validation that zkSnarks can also operate using recursive proofs which removes the need to have a trusted setup.

So, there's a lot of promising technology. Obviously, it's been put into production by multiple players in the web three space for different use cases. I think, for what Panther is building. Our team has chosen the right technology, and zkSnarks are more appropriate than a Stark-driven approach, given where Starks are today.

Carlos - 6:57

Would you would like to add anything to that Saif?

Saif - 7:00

No, I think that was well said. Just one point. I think the question also says: what are we doing to mitigate?

I mean, we're using Groth16, which is kind of the standard SNARK system used today. It's proof size, and verification time are the best from the perspective of what it does.

Although, Oliver mentioned the pre-processing setup, and the ceremony that is done. In other words, what we have been thinking of is the eventual movement to PLONK, which increases a little bit on the proof size. The verification time also increases a little bit as compared to Groth16.

But the advantage is there’s a universal set up, rather than a setup for each circuit. So that's a big advantage of PLONK. However, I wouldn't say this is the exact next step for us, or that this is in the roadmap. For us, the most important part is to deliver with Groth16. And then look at how things evolve and how new STARKs systems evolve. Then the community decides, from a technical front, how things should move for Panther.

When it comes to DAO and community proposals, users could use coins and NFTs to vote. How can Panther protect voters’ privacy in governance proposals?

Saif - 9:26

Private voting is a good use case for the ZK technology in general. And proving membership from a set is one of the applications of ZK, where private voting can be, can be utilized. You basically prove that you are one of the DAO members and you're voting, but you don't disclose which member it is exactly, and how much voting power he had.

So, it's a good concept. From a Panther perspective, this is not on the roadmap. Again, I would say these are the adjacent solutions that are good to have. I really want to focus on delivering what is on the roadmap in the next six to nine months. And then we evaluate, and the community evaluates, what adjacent technologies could be built around it.

Oliver - 10:26

I think -- just to add on the adjacent technology component. You know, our focus is to deliver what we committed to, which is the primary use case that what we think is the primary driver of utility for the protocol. That’s the multi-asset shielded pools and the ecosystem of DeFi integrations and bridges.

That said, yes, the core Panther protocol technology can enable things like private voting. For those who have been in this community From the earlier days, we actually had a sub-protocol called LaunchDAO, which was used to vote on whether or not Panther protocol should be launched with basic staking. We utilized a zero-knowledge private token scheme, which also had implicitly built into that some identity functions as well.

So we do recognize that the building blocks are there. And it's an exciting opportunity to explore in later iterations of the protocol. I think also, just to add a comment – my view on identity standards and trying to tackle the identity space is that you have to create the use cases for the identity first. Identity sort of emerges as a byproduct. It would, in my view, not be an advisable strategy to tackle things like digital identity, and to a lesser extent, voting, head-on when the primary driver should be to create utility, grow the user base of Pather Protocol. From that user base, we can then assess implementing additional products or features.

Carlos - 12:17

Yeah, great answer. Especially when it comes to private voting, people can, in fact, look at LaunchDAO and the way Panther was launched, as an example of some private voting mechanism. Although I reckon, if we implement private voting, it will be with a different style.

Will zSwap be available in v1. And when will v1 be launching?

Saif Akhtar - 13:01

Short answer is yes. The work has been started and is in progress. Whether it will be included in v1 is a good question. I think it depends on a lot of other things that are being done from a core v1 perspective and the compliance tech. However, if you ask me, I would love to have it on v1.

Carlos - 13:28

Yeah, we're also preparing more content related to zSwap. Because, as we have started to show the community, a lot of the UI components of it are ready for production or are in the near-final stage, although they're still pending some minor changes. So we will continue to introduce stuff related to it because it's very important for Panther's mission of private DeFi access.

Which DeFi protocol will be the first integrated into Panther? Or will it just bridge different blockchains?

Carlos -

I would like to just quickly clear the second part of the question there. Panther's vision is to enable private DeFi access, not just enable a cross-chain ecosystem. So yes, we want to integrate with DeFi protocols. As for which ones will be the first to be integrated, I'll let Saif answer that.

Saif - 14:31

Yeah, I mean, it will be. Again, these are the parts where the community will come out and make suggestions. However I will say the testing is being done on Polygon as we speak, with three major top three DeFi protocols: Uniswap, Quickswap, and I believe, Curve. And those three integrations’ work is in progress.

However, I expect that there is some discussion going on. And people come up and say, you know, these discussions or these integrations make more sense. And also the pair. I mean, for me, and for testing the product, the obvious choice is, hey, let's look at the top three by TVL. Let's look at the top 10, or top 20 pairs. That makes more sense from Panther’s perspective. And then put it out there, let the community also contribute to those key decision-making process and go from there.

Carlos - 15:39

Anything that you'd like to add, from your perspective, related to v1 or to zSwap, Oliver?

Oliver Gale - 15:47

I mean, no, not really. The first principle of target liquidity is target where there is demand and serve that. It’s a fairly logical conclusion to come from, or come to, and that's what we are aiming to do to tap into protocols that have TVL.

And so I'm just commenting on the issue of bridging into different chains. Here's the issue. The issue is, there are many L1 and L2 chains who are competing with one another for developers and for locals to deploy on their L1 or L2.

The bottom line is, what is the organic reason to deploy on anyone else's smart contract protocol? The answer is because there is an active user base there, there's liquidity there, there is value locked on these chains. And it makes sense for us to participate in and add to this ecosystem.

So you can sort of look at the top protocols by these types of metrics. And those are the protocols that Panther is most inclined to build bridges and DeFi adapters and shielded pools on to.

Then on the other side, there's, of course, the token incentive mechanism, which usually comes in the form of grants. So, whenever we see ambitious protocols which are willing to subsidize – and it's usually a subsidy and not a full coverage of development costs – subsidize the cost of deployment and other chains, then we are happy to deploy on those chains and support them in their vision and their growth.

One other metric which we don't see but which is important, is really the Ecosystem Development Partnership. Some protocols and their foundations or teams take a more proactive approach to actually fostering partnerships. So when we see, L1 and L2 chains that propose that they will make introductions and help Panther Protocol partner with other players – CeFi or DeFi players – we find that to be a compelling reason as well. But again, obviously, those additional incentives. It's really just a function of “where is the activity?”. That's where Panther protocol should be.

How far are we from launching on different additional chains? If Panther is close to v1, what about Avax, Belux, Aurora, NEAR, or even other blockchains?

Carlos - 18:40

I reckon the question should be thought about in terms of not how far we are, but of the overall rollout strategy for different chains. Saif, could you enlighten us on that?

Saif - 19:26

Yeah, the overall strategy is: work with these partners and align/agree on what is the best time for them and for Panther.

Having said that, the goal is that Panther should be launched on multiple chains at v1 as individual solutions. In the future then, those individual solutions or individual MASPs are integrated through our ZK bridging technology and that's how the interchain starts to work.

So the Flare discussion is ongoing. Again, we have sent a complete, detailed task list to Flare.

Like I said before, I think there's a lot of dependency on other chains. So that's one. The second part about BNB is, I think the BD team just recently submitted a grant application for Binance. If that is approved, then obviously, we will prioritize Binance.

So two things there. In short, one is the prioritization from a grant perspective. And then the second one would be, if there is no grant, then we will prioritize based what makes sense for Panther.

I would like to deploy on one chain, make sure it's battle-tested, make sure everything is where everything works well, and then continue to expand on other chains, rather than dumping everything on multiple chains and having to deal with multiple problems. So there will be technical decisions versus also commercial decisions that come to play in terms of how it will be integrated.

When will we have more liquidity on Polygon and Ethereum?

Carlos - 21:26

I reckon we may have an interesting perspective now that the DAO has also experimented with centralized exchange listings.

Oliver - 21:50

Yeah, well, so the answer is, we are right now amid discussion about a proposal coming to the DAO to add liquidity to Uniswap.

There are also some, you know, Uniswap v2, Uniswap v3, potentially on ETH, as opposed to purely just on Polygon. There are questions of, do you want to build utility directly onto the trading pair? Or is there also benefit in providing access to new users to come into the ecosystem liquidity onto Ethereum. These are valid utility drivers in both cases.

There's also some evaluation of v3 active liquidity managers, by way of protocol-to-protocol partnerships that we're exploring. You know, with the recent uptick in the market, this is a good time to be evaluating these. I'm looking forward to seeing how the MEXC listing resolves itself, and then the next priority will be taxability.

What costs will be on the protocol itself?

Carlos - 23:06

So, for example, how much ZKP it will cost to turn one ETH into one zETH. I know that there has been some progress on the design of fees that is not final, because anything related directly to the protocol will have to go through a DAO proposal, but what can you tell us about the fee mechanism design, Saif?

Saif - 23:45

For that specific question, I will say there is no fee, or there is no fee in the design structure to convert an asset into a zAsset. Nothing other than the gas costs or the transaction, which again, is something that is being considered on how to handle that.

Carlos - 24:10

Okay, yeah, we're speeding up the pace a little bit, because we have 15 minutes left, more like 10 right now, at most. So yeah, let's say –

Saif - 24:20

Just to add there, I would refer all the “fees and rewards” questions – I don't know if we have docs already out there – but as we are finalizing the coding and as the testing is coming into play, there should be a good set of docs available to understand how fees impact, you know, what transaction include fees and things like that.

Oliver - 24:51

Panther’s shielded pools are a DEX type infrastructure. So the idea is you don't really make money on way-in and way-out. That will be the case on v1 because there are no fees inside of the shielded pool. The shielded pool operates like a same-type, same-asset swap mechanism.

So, Panther protocol will be looking into things which are equivalent to the fees charged on DEXes. That's the core service. Charges and fees will be DAO governed but will be determined on the basis of the comparable costs for bridging assets across chains. And then, because its privacy and computation costs are higher, there will be some premium on that. So that's how you figure out how fees work.

What makes ZKP distinct from other ZK technology, such as a zkEVM. How is ZKP different and what is the better ZK solution?

Saif - 26:16

Well, if you're talking about Panther in itself, you know Panther is not zkEVM. And the question is, how is $ZKP different? I'm trying to understand where the reference to ZKP is ZKP proofs in general or if $ZKP means Panther in this question.

Oliver - 26:36

I would say answer it as Panther. I think that's the question.

Saif - 26:42

Yeah, so zkEVMs are dedicated blockchains, where the zero-knowledge proving happens inside the EVM itself. Panther is chain agnostic. It's a smart contract, utilizing the zero-knowledge libraries to create these circuits that prove the zero-knowledge aspect. Basically, we use zSNARKs and Grant 16, in that respect, to be precise. So this is something that can be deployed on any EVM chains at this moment, hence the difference. What was the other question, Carlos?

Carlos - 27:27

A follow-up from me, if you don't mind. Am I right to assume that a zkEVM does not necessarily imply privacy, just scalability?

Saif - 27:38

No, there is privacy there. It's not just scalability. I mean, when you're looking at scalability, those are more the roll-ups, the zk-rollups. Those are more specific to solutions to scale. But the zkEVM itself is more sort of a privacy solution at the EVM level.

Oliver -  28:07

I just want to say something on that. If you're building a zkEVM, you're competing in the L1 and L2 space. So your goal is to beat the other L1s and L2s with a superior proposition. They almost suffer from the same problem at the core, which is that they need developers, they need network effects. They need TVL and they need users. The competition for zkEVM is higher. So there are trade-offs between transaction latency, fees and security – the typical blockchain trilemma problem. That's the space that any smart contract protocol is operating within.

Panther is not operating within that space. We're operating within the dApplication space. Often every fund, every asset manager, every broker, every exchange, every user, and every computation may have some requirements for privacy at some point or the other. And if we deploy this protocol onto these virtual machines, we can enable the other ecosystem applications to function. If we were to bet on a zkEVM, that would be all of our eggs in one basket. By building Panther we've said we’re multi-asset. We're not interested in who wins 10 years from now. We're just interested in Panther being on that protocol. Higher expected outcome.

What is the go-to market strategy for the project? And how does it plan to gain traction and adoption in the DeFi ecosystem?

Oliver Gale - 29:52

For the community, members have been tracking the conversations happening in Telegram. As many in our community would know, we've been reevaluating the architecture in light of the Tornado Cash sanctions and the likely further restrictions of who've been facilitating things like laundering of North Korean funds, and stuff like that – criminal proceeds.  

So we've taken all of that into account and extensively assessed what it looks like and the summary of Panther is: Panther is going to launch a zone that is currently codenamed T1000.  

The first thing is, the Panther multi-asset shielded pool is being subdivided into zones, and each zone will be run by a guardian. The Guardian is your Creator of the zone, and they take responsibility for the actions and transactions that happen within their zone. It is a separate environment that shares the anonymity set of the entire multi-asset shielded pool.

And so, in that sense, new entrants don't have to start bootstrapping from zero, as far as privacy is concerned. At the same time, these actors can actually run the institutional dark pools, which is an example of how well-used things like dark pools are. Now, these are compliant, alternative trading systems in the TadFi world. So in the DeFi equivalent, Panther is enabling this type of deployment along with any permutation, for example, payment networks, brokerage services, etc.

So Panther is looking at enabling these bespoke zones to service different niches within multiple markets across multiple chains, and to bridge transactions between zones and between chains. That’s the end game. Stepping back from that, the goal of the market is to deploy a limited retail zone, if you will. This zone–we’re codenaming T1000, which is indicative of the fact that users will do basic sanction screening, identity checks, and so forth and will be able to transact within that zone, under $1,000 per day. They can do that as long as the zone is operating, which we expect will be in perpetuity.

In parallel to that, we're having discussions with some of these regulated FinTech broker crypto players, to get them to run their own zones and to begin offering private or confidential DeFi services to their user bases and their networks. We're seeing a lot of interest in that. So it is this approach where we're not – if the audience is familiar with Aztec, Aztec has implemented some sanction screening. We've taken a more thorough look at what this looks like in terms of data controller relationships, transaction amounts, due diligence, and so forth, and have come to a place where we can launch this zone, and have it be a permission zone, but with some checkpoints built around it. Essentially, it will be the DAO's responsibility to approve that proposal when it's made. So that's the go-to market and in parallel, we're also signing up zones.

Now, there is a day some time at the end of the roadmap when Panther is “sufficiently decentralized”. At that time, we will evaluate the essential handover of the entire protocol to the community and other parties. In that world, it is possible that zones of other designations – they may be DAO-driven zones, as opposed to regulated financial service provider-driven zones, or government-driven zones – those types of things become possible. That's sort of the progression from public beta, to the full main net to the end of the roadmap.

How will Panther make sure to stay compliant for retail users?

Oliver - 35:04

Panther does not need to be compliant. Panther is a protocol, and Panther Ventures is a development team. So the idea of the protocol being compliant is not the correct way to assess it. If we were building with the idea of the protocol being compliant, the likely outcome will be – and this is unfortunate for many DeFi protocols and many builders out there — is that they're going to find their projects come to a swift conclusion as they are attempting to do something and doing it ineffectively.

So if you are compliant, you're compliant, and if you're non-compliant your non-compliant. And then, if you're compliant in Country A, are you compliant in Country B through Z? And if you're not, then you're non-compliant somewhere. So there are a whole set of very difficult, if not impossible, challenges to solve when a protocol tries to take on the job of compliance itself, in any sort of long-term structure.

When Tornado Cash was sanctioned, that was what we expected in 2020. And that was why we built compliance into the vision; because we thought it was a short-term game plan to go for privacy with a dowel-type structure if you're not building your own L1. And extrapolating again from where we are with some more evidence, my expectation is many of the current DeFi privacy players are going to find themselves out of the market, or having to dramatically adjust their infrastructure to figure out how compliance works. The simple answer to it is: compliance is the responsibility of who uses the protocol – and the protocol design should facilitate operators to take that responsibility into their own hands. And at no time should the protocol custody the data, custody the keys, or control what is happening. At the same time, the protocol should enable those operators, if you will – “guardians” in our case – to respond to their own idiosyncratic legal-jurisdictional requirements. The protocol should be resistant to shutdown or blanket sanctioning, which is what happened with Tornado Cash as an early iteration of an on-chain privacy protocol for Ethereum – one that didn't contemplate the “what if?” questions from the perspective of compliance.

There's always this trade off. The question is: can you sufficiently decentralize?

“Sufficient” is not clear in the market. There is no lawyer on Earth who will tell you what “sufficient” actually means. They may tell you what they think it means, and what one thinks it means might not be what it actually means. That is going to be clarified over the coming months to years. Panther's position is that if you want to be the player that services both retail and enterprise – ultimately if you want to serve all vectors in the market – then you have to be around for that conversation.

So the retail MASP is sort of a risk-managed instance of a zone operating within the shielded pool. It can be thought of as a public eta. It's a step past the test-net because it's actually production privacy. But it's not fully untethered and available in “do-whatever-you-like” mode. That will be something that will be determined by, again, the guardians that utilize the protocol. They're free to do what they like with the protocol and deal with the repercussions of that, whatever those may or may not be.

What happened to the 100k $ZKP Zafari rewards?

Saif - 39:25

Yeah. So it's not about what happened. It's about when the rewards are going to be processed,  and how. The fact that this whole Zafari and the testnet process is evolving. At least from my perspective, what we're trying to look at is: how can these rewards be issued in a decentralized fashion, and how can you actually create these external triggered PRPs on Mainnet?

So as you understand, the team itself does not custody the ZKP or the reward pool. If you have looked at the structure of how vesting happens and how rewards are logged in the pool, I did not want it to go forward and create a proposal to extract 1000k and do manual distribution and things of that nature. So, again, there is a bit of a novel mechanism where, when you perform or contribute to the testing in the test net, how can those contributions be validated and turned into a reward on the Mainnet that itself can happen?

So that one idea was created. There's work going on. The design changes have been done on the PRP creation on the Mainnet itself. I'm waiting for the protocol to be launched, and for all these external triggers be applied on v1. I understand that means there's a bit of waiting that has to be done. But again, these will be clubbed with the additional testing or basically the testing for v1 that is shortly coming. So there will be a lot of testing when the v1 code is deployed. And I think we can basically combine all of those efforts and contributions from the community and the rest of the team that test, and start this PRP generation on Mainnet when things launch.

I would love to hear feedback on that, and what the community thinks. But this is, I think, a novel and a good mechanism to reward users for their efforts and contribution on testing the product itself.

Will v1 rollout with all components at once, and which ones? Or will it be a gradual release?

Saif Akhtar

There is this updated, long pending roadmap that should be published this week. As far as “will it contain all of the features?”, I guess the question would be what are the features that you're talking about?

But, I will say high-level that v1 will contain the DeFi integrations, the ZSwap and basically interactions inside the MASP as its core feature. So those three are going to be included in the v1. I think eventually the rest of the features will be added as we move forward.

I think when we are in the test net, and when we all start to test the product, we would know exactly the maturity levels of different features, and this discussion of what feature to include will be more relevant then. But, from a planning perspective, what I said is in the plans.

My goal is to give more use-cases that all of us can use rather than just, you know, get-in and get-out. That's not the end game for the protocol itself. So more use-cases the user can interact with and deploy strategies from within the Panther is what would make Panther unique in terms of what you can do within that ecosystem.

How is the zSwap feature shaping up? Are there any new developments related to it?

Saif - 47:32

It's not what new development it is, it is the development for zSwap itself. So trades within the shielded pools are the features that are being worked on. Which kind of, in the background, is an atomic swap within the shielded pool.

It's like I said, this is supposed to be part of the v1 release. So there is development going on. The sub-team that is working on the DeFi integration, is at the final stages of the first prototype for the DeFi integration. Once they've done that then they will pick up working on the zSwap features. The same team basically will work on the zSwap as well.

About Panther

Panther is a decentralized protocol that enables interoperable privacy in DeFi using zero-knowledge proofs.

Users can mint fully-collateralized, composable tokens called zAssets, which can be used to execute private, trusted DeFi transactions across multiple blockchains.

Panther helps investors protect their personal financial data and trading strategies, and provides financial institutions with a clear path to compliantly participate in DeFi.

Website · One-pager · Lite Paper · Twitter · Telegram · Discord


Vitalik Buterin

Some personal user experiences

Monday, 27. February 2023

Zcash

ECC’s public policy efforts continue with launch of the PGP* for Crypto Podcast

Electric Coin Co. is excited to announce the launch of our new podcast, PGP* (Pretty Good Policy) for Crypto, hosted […] The post ECC’s public policy efforts continue with launch of the PGP* for Crypto Podcast appeared first on Electric Coin Company.

Electric Coin Co. is excited to announce the launch of our new podcast, PGP* (Pretty Good Policy) for Crypto, hosted by Gary Weinstein (Head of Global Regulatory Relations) and Paul Brigner (Head of U.S. Public Policy and Strategic Advocacy). This podcast is an in-depth exploration of the intersection of blockchain technology, public policy, and global regulatory topics.

Blockchain technology has been rapidly evolving in recent years and has shown the potential to revolutionize multiple industries. At the same time, public policy and regulations play a significant role in the development and adoption of blockchain technology. The PGP for Crypto podcast aims to provide our audience with expert perspectives on the key issues shaping the future of blockchain and cryptocurrency, including the impact of current and proposed regulations and policy approaches on the growth and development of the blockchain ecosystem.

We believe in fostering a respectful and inclusive environment for our discussions. And while we at Electric Coin Co. hold strong opinions about the need for private and confidential financial transactions in crypto to promote economic freedom, our guests may have differing views. Through these thought-provoking and, at times, challenging conversations, we aim to deepen our understanding of complex policy and regulatory issues and work towards a development of pretty good policy for the cryptocurrency world.

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal or financial advice. Our guest remarks may not reflect those of their organization or of Electric Coin Co. We hope you enjoy the podcast.

Here are the links to our platforms. Please visit:

https://www.youtube.com/@pgpforcrypto

https://podcast.pgpforcrypto.org/

https://www.twitter.com/@pgpforcrypto

https://www.linkedin.com/company/pgpforcrypto/

The post ECC’s public policy efforts continue with launch of the PGP* for Crypto Podcast appeared first on Electric Coin Company.


PIVX

On January 22 GMT, coinciding with block 3715200, elements of PIVX’s financial structure changed.

New Block Rewards! For Stakers, Masternodes and the PIVX Treasury. On January 22 GMT, coinciding with block 3715200, elements of PIVX’s financial structure changed. Payments to the treasury, staking rewards, and Masternode rewards increased. This is part of the PIVX version 5.5.0 upgrade, which will improve funding for initiatives, further secure blockchain integrity, and grow the number of Master
New Block Rewards! For Stakers, Masternodes and the PIVX Treasury.

On January 22 GMT, coinciding with block 3715200, elements of PIVX’s financial structure changed.

Payments to the treasury, staking rewards, and Masternode rewards increased. This is part of the PIVX version 5.5.0 upgrade, which will improve funding for initiatives, further secure blockchain integrity, and grow the number of Masternodes.

With this upgrade, maximum treasury payments will surge by an order of magnitude to 10 PIV per block. (PIV is the cryptocurrency unit for PIVX.) PIVX produces a new block roughly every minute, with 43,200 blocks per monthly cycle, and the new rate corresponds to 432,000 PIV per monthly cycle to pay for coding, marketing, and other helpful efforts. This amount is not necessarily all paid out, but represents a cap for projects that are elected by PIVX Masternode voting. The actual payout in any given monthly cycle may be less, but this increase in the cap brings the potential for great technical and marketing advancement.

Staking payments will double to 4 PIV per block. PIVX is a Proof of Stake (PoS) cryptocurrency, and staking is used to secure it. Staking is done through nodes, which are software units running a PIVX wallet and communicating with other nodes. With each block, one of the staking nodes is chosen at random, with probability proportional with the amount of PIV it has staked, to process the block. With this upgrade, the randomly chosen staking node will be paid 4 PIV when selected. This increase will strengthen the PIVX network by encouraging more PIVX owners to stake.

Masternode payments will double to 6 PIV per block. Masternodes are created by running specially configured node software and posting 10,000 PIV to enable Masternode status. Masternodes cycle through selection for payment. They will now receive 6 PIV with each cycle. Masternodes vote on treasury expenditures and represent a resource available for future PIVX applications — which could include rapid settlement, mixing, offline processing, interacting with other blockchains, and much more. Some new applications will need more Masternodes, and this payment increase incentivizes more Masternodes to support these advancements.

Members of the PIVX community, including newcomers, should take action based on these changes. If you have ideas for improving PIVX, propose them — there will be more funding available for good ideas. If you have idle PIV, stake it or use it to make Masternodes. Staking is a quick and essential way to maximize the return on your PIVX investment, and Masternode operation is a way to both make a return and influence the direction of PIVX by voting on proposals. The rewards for both are now much bigger.

Embrace PIVX’s 5.5.0 upgrade and its many exciting opportunities.

On January 22 GMT, coinciding with block 3715200, elements of PIVX’s financial structure changed. was originally published in PIVX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


bankless

160 - Is the CIA Spying on Crypto? with Annie Jacobsen

Annie Jacobsen is an investigative journalist and author writes about war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security. She’s written books on the secrets of Area 51, and the Pentagon’s military science R&D efforts over the decades. ------ ✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode:  https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/annie-jacobsen-debrief    ------ ✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect t

Annie Jacobsen is an investigative journalist and author writes about war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security. She’s written books on the secrets of Area 51, and the Pentagon’s military science R&D efforts over the decades.

------ ✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode:  https://shows.banklesshq.com/p/annie-jacobsen-debrief    ------ ✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect this episode:  https://collectibles.bankless.com/mint 

------ Our guest Annie Jacobsen has spent her career interviewing and studying intelligence agencies.

The 2023 crypto movement is sufficiently large enough that it has certainly attracted the attention of every intelligence agency out there. We want to learn about how the world’s intelligence agencies might have or are interacting with the crypto community. 

Is the CIA spying on crypto? Our guest Annie gives us her thoughts.

------ 📣 MetaMask Learn | Learn Web3 with the Leading Web3 Wallet  https://bankless.cc/ 

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 8:00 Three Letter Agencies 14:40 Annie’s Work 17:33 Crypto Patterns 20:48 State vs. Non-State Actors 27:35 Satoshi  33:18 Government’s Crypto Interest? 38:05 The Different Intelligence Communities 46:56 North Korea-Linked Lazarus Group 51:46 Untapped Crypto Lands 56:20 The Internet Analogy 1:02:26 The Intelligence Community Crypto Strategy 1:04:45 CIA Hedge Fund 1:12:03 Is My Friend in the CIA? 1:19:46 Totalitarian Tools 1:23:58 Is Crypto a Win for the Intelligence Community? 1:28:15 How Should We Perceive the Intelligence Community? 1:31:16 Closing & Disclaimers   ------ Resources:

Annie Jacobsen https://anniejacobsen.com/ 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 

Saturday, 25. February 2023

Crypto Valley Swiss Association

Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-02-19 – 2023-02-25)

🚨Don't forget to join start up Working Group Co-Chair @Yasi_Zhang, @AgilePeter, and Asim Ahmad for tomorrow's excit… https://t.co/3cb4SDS1v3 2023-02-20 @FintechCH @doitint @ParisBlockWeek @BIS_org @InvestEuropeEU @finance20ch @InnFin @Swissbitcoincon @finanzmesse… https://t.co/udS92ZGdBx in... The post Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-02-19 – 2023-02-25) appeared first on Crypto Valley Association.
Don't forget to join start up Working Group Co-Chair @Yasi_Zhang, @AgilePeter, and Asim Ahmad for tomorrow's excit… https://t.co/3cb4SDS1v3 2023-02-20 @FintechCH @doitint @ParisBlockWeek @BIS_org @InvestEuropeEU @finance20ch @InnFin @Swissbitcoincon @finanzmessehttps://t.co/udS92ZGdBx in reply to FintechCH 2023-02-20 Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, a developer of custom solutions in Machine Learning, Artificial Int… https://t.co/xH7eAuucLa 2023-02-20 We’re LIVE NOW

Join our panel on the Landscape of #Fundraising in #Blockchain

@Yasi_Zhang, @AgilePeter, and Asi… https://t.co/2hAk0i6SSk 2023-02-21

Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, the creator of @BubbleBotsGo and a builder of the next generation o… https://t.co/5K6NJb2eLk 2023-02-22 In case you can't attend an event, we've got you covered Most of our events arerecorded and available on our… https://t.co/WmmpJyzfvx 2023-02-23 Give a big welcome to our new corporate member, a marketing company specializing in Web3, Crypto, and NFT paid adve… https://t.co/iFAChR0bSq 2023-02-24 If you want to learn about the latest trends and updates aroundinvesting in the #CryptoSpace, make sure not to mis… https://t.co/VJQUSt5wUX 2023-02-24

The post Weekly Twitter Summary (2023-02-19 – 2023-02-25) appeared first on Crypto Valley Association.


bankless

Optimism Base Superchain 🔵_🔴 with Ben Jones, Karl Floersch, & Jing Wang

In today's show, we bring on Ben Jones, Chief Scientist of the Optimism Foundation, Karl Floersch, CTO at OP Labs, and Jing Wang, Executive Director of Optimism Foundation  The five discuss Coinbase's Base launch, the OP Stack integration, and what it means for the Superchains vision!  ------  MetaMask Learn  https://bankless.cc/metamaskshow  ------  JOIN BAN

In today's show, we bring on Ben Jones, Chief Scientist of the Optimism Foundation, Karl Floersch, CTO at OP Labs, and Jing Wang, Executive Director of Optimism Foundation 

The five discuss Coinbase's Base launch, the OP Stack integration, and what it means for the Superchains vision! 

------  MetaMask Learn  https://bankless.cc/metamaskshow 

------  JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi  

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 6:20 Sentiment at Optimism 7:00 Biggest Deal with the News? 11:28 Reflection on Coinbase's Base 15:45 OP Stack 17:15 Is Base a Competitor? 20:53 Puberty State of Chains 33:30 Superchains 40:35 Security of the Superchains 44:35 Superchain Standards  51:51 Base Decentralization Timeline? 57:10 Closing & Disclaimers 

------ Resources:

Coinbase Base Announcement https://www.coinbase.com/blog/introducing-base 

Optimism + OP STack Details https://optimism.mirror.xyz/2jk3D1Y8-hid8YOCUUa6yXmsyzNCYYyFJP0Nhaey9x0 

Ben Jones  https://twitter.com/ben_chain 

Karl Floersch https://twitter.com/karl_dot_tech 

Jing Wang https://twitter.com/jinglejamop 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 

Friday, 24. February 2023

Epicenter Podcast

Rebecca Liao: Saga – Bootstrapping Chainlets in the Multiverse

Building a blockchain from the ground-up is a daunting task in itself, one that should not be a concern when designing an end-user application. Moreover, as Web3 aims to move away from centralized vertical scalability towards a multi-chain decentralized environment, horizontal scalability and cross-communication should represent a standard. While Cosmos solves the latter, deploying application-spe

Building a blockchain from the ground-up is a daunting task in itself, one that should not be a concern when designing an end-user application. Moreover, as Web3 aims to move away from centralized vertical scalability towards a multi-chain decentralized environment, horizontal scalability and cross-communication should represent a standard. While Cosmos solves the latter, deploying application-specific blockchains has not been a streamlined process. Saga aims to address this by providing automated means of deploying application-specific blockchains, called chainlets that use the validator set of Saga. This leads to a simplified user (and developer) experience, presently much needed in the Web3 gaming and entertainment industries.

We were joined by Rebecca Liao, co-founder & CEO of Saga, to discuss bootstrapping app-specific chains in just one click, leveraging the scalability & security of Cosmos, thus allowing developers to focus more on the product and less on the blockchain infrastructure.

Topics covered in this episode:

Rebecca’s background & building Saga Leveraging Cosmos SDK, IBC & ICS to bootstrap other chains Chainlets Saga validators & tokenomics IBC & elastic scaling for chainlets ICS & Saga’s tech stack Chainlet customization Partnerships & use cases Chainlet ‘Musical chairs’ auction Targeting gaming and entertainment industries Multi-chain future and inter-chain communication

Episode links:

Rebecca Liao on Twitter Saga on Twitter

Sponsors:

Omni: Access all of Web3 in one easy-to-use wallet! Earn and manage assets at once with Omni's built-in staking, yield vaults, bridges, swaps and NFT support.
https://omni.app/ -

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/484


Circle Press

Circle Partners with Citizens Trust Bank to Hold USDC Reserves & More

BOSTON & ATLANTA, February 24, 2023 — Today,Circle Internet Financial, a global digital financial technology firm and the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), has announced that Citizens Trust Bank will hold $65 million in USDC cash reserves. The move is part of Circle’s commitment to allocate a share of USDC dollar-denominated reserves to Minority-owned Depository Institutions (MDIs) and Com

BOSTON & ATLANTA, February 24, 2023 — Today,Circle Internet Financial, a global digital financial technology firm and the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), has announced that Citizens Trust Bank will hold $65 million in USDC cash reserves. The move is part of Circle’s commitment to allocate a share of USDC dollar-denominated reserves to Minority-owned Depository Institutions (MDIs) and Community Banks across the country. 


bankless

Coinbase Launches Base | SEC Sues Terraform Labs & Do Kwon | Spotify Token Gating | OpenSea vs. Blur

Bankless Weekly Rollup Last Week of February 2023 ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS:  🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken  🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap  ⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  🚁

Bankless Weekly Rollup Last Week of February 2023

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🚁 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi  

👻 PHANTOM | CROSS-CHAIN WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom 

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 4:33 Markets 6:18 Total Crypto Market Cap 6:28 FOMC minutes https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20230222a.htm  7:43 ETH Burn take https://ultrasound.money/  https://twitter.com/data_always/status/1626397473559261186  

12:10 Arbitrum Hot https://twitter.com/purplepill3m/status/1628205181836963841   https://twitter.com/BFreshHB/status/1628211402174345219   13:55 Coinbase Q4 earnings  https://twitter.com/moosecryptos/status/1628191828569735168  

17:57 Base https://twitter.com/BuildOnBase/status/1628759581353549825   33:45 Apps on the move https://twitter.com/MacroMate8/status/1628762951435051008   34:20 Jesse Tweet https://twitter.com/jessepollak/status/1628765413289996288  

35:55 SEC Sues Terraform Labs and Do Kwon  https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-sues-do-kwon-and-terraform-labs-for-fraud  https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/02/17/4-huge-revelations-in-the-secs-charges-against-do-kwon-and-terraform-labs/   https://twitter.com/RyanSAdams/status/1627662054722097157   https://twitter.com/cyounessi1/status/1627881740290097153   https://twitter.com/MikeSeligEsq/status/1626976949766684675  

49:05 Spotify rolling out token gating https://twitter.com/apoorvlathey/status/1628496224818184192   51:51 The Shapella network upgrade scheduled https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1628145316271894528  52:32 Flashbots announced MEV Shares  https://twitter.com/bertcmiller/status/1625878260025380865  54:30 Layoffs https://www.theblock.co/post/213586/polygon-labs-cuts-staff-by-20-in-consolidation  https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1628316333015179264  

55:44 NBA Top Shot Moments  NFTs May Be Securities https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/02/22/nbas-top-shot-nfts-may-be-securities-judge-rules-in-dapper-labs-case/  57:15 OpenSea pushing back to Blur  https://twitter.com/opensea/status/1626682043655507969  

59:35 BTC https://twitter.com/paddi_hansen/status/1628002503932657664  

1:01:53 Regulation Caitlin Long’s shame on Washington https://twitter.com/CaitlinLong_/status/1626661344316473346   1:03:35 Jesse Powell https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1626744111498940417   https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1627415364111040513  

1:06:20 Collab.land launching COLLAB token  https://twitter.com/Collab_Land_/status/1626253185210884101   1:07:08 Superfluid Vesting just went live  https://www.superfluid.finance/post/Superfluid-Vesting-Liquid-Composable-Vesting-Solution  1:08:10 Phi raised a $2M seed round https://twitter.com/phi_xyz/status/1626642707597910016 

1:10:17 Jobs https://pallet.xyz/list/bankless/jobs

1:13:00 Questions from the Nation

1:1:21:50 Elon Musk https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1628086895686168613    1:25:08 Frank DeGods https://twitter.com/frankdegods/status/1626132578020528128   1:25:45 When shilling tokens is justified https://twitter.com/trustlessstate/status/1626359069547065347   1:27:45 “Can you stop people from being dumb?” https://twitter.com/0xEdgar/status/1626363432743190530   1:30:12 Web2 vs Web3 me https://twitter.com/pacmanblur/status/1628223367487848451  

1:31:04 What David’s Bullish On 1:32:08 What Ryan’s Bullish On

1:35:55 MEME of the Week https://twitter.com/autismcapital/status/1626708728019046400  

1:37:08 Risks & Disclaimers

1:37:23 Moment of Zen The Ballad of Alexey by El-Coco-No https://opensea.io/assets/ethereum/0x495f947276749ce646f68ac8c248420045cb7b5e/81421613810573034294030626655533735961574085130976774099250220325335449207784  

---- Track: Flume Type Beat [Futuristic Future Bass] by MokkaMusic / No Rules https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsZ_RHBDP2Q&t=0s   Music provided by "MokkaMusic" channel and https://inaudio.org 

---- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 

Thursday, 23. February 2023

Horizen - Blog

Horizen EON is Now Live on Yuma Public Testnet: Horizen’s First Public EVM is Open for Testing 

Horizen EON is our first public proof-of-stake sidechain and a fully EVM-compatible smart contracting platform that allows developers to efficiently build and deploy dapps on Horizen, while fully benefiting from the Ethereum ecosystem. We are excited to announce that EON is now live on the Yuma public testnet and is accessible to everyone!  The post Horizen EON is Now Live on Yuma P

Horizen EON is our first public proof-of-stake sidechain and a fully EVM-compatible smart contracting platform that allows developers to efficiently build and deploy dapps on Horizen, while fully benefiting from the Ethereum ecosystem. 

We are excited to announce that EON is now live on the Yuma public testnet and is accessible to everyone! 

Why Should We be Excited About EON? EON (Ethereum Open Network) is opening up the Horizen ecosystem to more developers than ever before!

Ethereum has the largest and most diverse public blockchain ecosystem. This makes Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility one of the key ingredients for other blockchains to build a successful ecosystem. This includes Horizen.

By harnessing the power of the Ethereum ecosystem, we will be able to:

Welcome the Ethereum developer community into the Horizen ecosystem to build products   Leverage the existing Ethereum DeFi infrastructure to fast grow the Horizen ecosystem Build a more interconnected ecosystem  About Yuma Testnet Yuma Testnet is a temporary public testing environment for EON.

This is a big milestone before launching EON to the permanent public testnet, Gobi.

Yuma Testnet is public and accessible for anyone to test and try out. It comes with a set of easy-to-use developer and end-user tools:

Yuma Testnet status dashboard Yuma Testnet block explorer Yuma test token faucet EON dapp with support for backward transfers Additional developer tools through Thirdweb  Yuma vs Dune - What's New?

 EON has been running on our pre-alpha and invite-only Dune Testnet for the past month and welcomed a small group of 90+ community developers to test the platform. We are thrilled to see the amount of activity that has happened on Dune testnet since the January launch: 302 smart contracts were deployed, 88 tokens and 3,751 wallet addresses were created, and over 30k transactions were made. 

We want to thank the Dune testers for all the valuable feedback! Our product team was able to implement a lot of the feedback in the Yuma release. 

The Yuma version has some major capabilities and improvements added to the platform!

Non-ceasing sidechains The Horizen mainchain verifies each sidechain and ensures its integrity.  Traditional sidechains have a limited time to communicate with the mainchain in order to be verified. When a traditional sidechain has failed the verification, it will be registered as “ceased” and no longer able to communicate with the mainchain. Non-ceasing sidechains don’t have this constraint. They don’t have a fixed epoch size and can always communicate with the mainchain.    Key rotation circuit A security feature to give to validators (guardians of the EON sidechain) the possibility to change their signing key, or pass their status of validator to someone else. This gives a higher level of security and improved decentralization over time. Secure key management Also known as secure enclave which is the ability to sign transactions and certificates using keys that are not stored locally, that are instead in a separate trusted execution environment (TEE). Fixes from audit Local EON client for building dapps locally  Developers are now able to develop, test and run their dapps locally before deploying on chain. This can improve the dapp development process by allowing developers to test and iterate more quickly. Instructions can be found on the EON documentation. UX/UI upgrades  Smart contract verification in block explorer EON dapp with support for backward transfers

Important information for Dune testers:  Smart contracts previously deployed on Dune Testnet have to be redeployed on Yuma. 

Build on Yuma Now!

Build your new dapps, deploy your existing Ethereum-based smart contracts, launch ERC-20 tokens, experiment, and try things out on Yuma to prepare your next moves when EON is on permanent public testnet and mainnet! 

We will be launching a hackathon, bug bounty program and developer grant program in the next phase. Building on Yuma now will get you a jumpstart!  

Head to the EON documentation for step-by-step guides and join the #eon developer community on our Discord for support and discussion with other community developers. 

Start Building on Yuma Now

Important Information for Yuma Developers:  Since Yuma is a temporary testnet;, smart contracts deployed on Yuma will have to be redeployed on Gobi. Backward transfer transactions won’t be reflected in the Sphere wallet. However, they can be viewed on the Yuma block explorer and the Horizen mainchain block explorer.

Need help getting started? Join Horizen Discord for developer support and chatting with other community developers. 

Learn more about EVM Learn more about EVM Why EVM Compatibility Matters

The post Horizen EON is Now Live on Yuma Public Testnet: Horizen’s First Public EVM is Open for Testing  appeared first on Horizen Blog.


Circle Press

XULA Students Complete Circle U: Digital Financial Literacy Pilot

NEWS ORLEANS, February 23, 2022 — In partnership with Xavier University of Louisiana, Circle Internet Financial celebrates 55 students who completed Circle’s Circle U: Digital Financial Literacy pilot. The free, comprehensive blockchain-based financial services curriculum was launched via four Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as part of a pilot program announced in S

NEWS ORLEANS, February 23, 2022 — In partnership with Xavier University of Louisiana, Circle Internet Financial celebrates 55 students who completed Circle’s Circle U: Digital Financial Literacy pilot. The free, comprehensive blockchain-based financial services curriculum was launched via four Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) as part of a pilot program announced in September 2022.


Zaisan

Unlocking the Potential of Invoice Financing with Tokenisation

Despite invoice financing becoming increasingly popular, it is no new financial phenomenon. In essence, invoice financing refers to the process of selling unpaid invoices to third parties in order to get access to a percentage of the value of that invoice quickly.  Depending on the type of invoice financing, the invoice is either sold to […] The post Unlocking the Potential of Invoice Finan

Despite invoice financing becoming increasingly popular, it is no new financial phenomenon. In essence, invoice financing refers to the process of selling unpaid invoices to third parties in order to get access to a percentage of the value of that invoice quickly. 

Depending on the type of invoice financing, the invoice is either sold to a third party for a certain percentage of the full invoice value, after which this third party is also responsible for the collection of the invoice (factoring). Or a certain percentage of the value of the invoice is lent out to the company. That is then repaid once the invoice has been paid, along with a fee and discount charge (invoice discounting).

Tokenisation on the other hand refers to a new way of handling digital assets. Specifically, by turning them into a ‘token’ which lives on a blockchain. This allows the tokenised asset to be easily tracked, transferred, and more. But how do these two work together?

Let’s first take a look at the issues with the current method of invoice financing and why there is a need for improvements.

Issues with modern invoice financing

Invoice financing sounds like a relatively simple process that offers clear benefits to both parties. But the current process of invoice financing also has its issues, such as:

No standard invoice format Invoice verification is difficult Double spending No standard invoice format

An invoice can be defined as a document that specifies when, who, and how much payment is due. However, there is no universal agreement on what information should be included in an invoice. E-invoicing presents a potential for standardisation, but even within this system, there is no set standard. This makes it difficult to securitise an invoice due to the potential for issues with the data and the operational processes surrounding the invoices.

Invoice verification is difficult

The second issue with current invoice financing is that verifying the validity of an invoice is very difficult. Before an invoice can be considered a secure title the financier will have to ensure that the debtor is able to fulfil their obligations as well as verify the correctness of all details in the invoice.

This also makes the financing of invoices inaccessible to regular investors. They do not possess the necessary means to conduct these thorough invoice verifications.

Double spending

Another issue with invoices is that they tend to be unregistered in most areas. If somebody has malicious intentions they could sell the same invoice to multiple financiers. This is also difficult to detect for possible financiers.

How the tokenisation of invoices works

Let’s now take a look at how tokenisation and invoice financing work together is best explained using an example. Let’s take a look at the example below:

Company A sells a product to Company B and sends them an invoice to be paid within 90 days. They need the money from the invoice now and sell the invoice to a third party (financier) after the financier has done their due diligence in verifying the validity of the invoice. Company B then pays the invoice to the financier.

This is a simplified version of the current process of invoice financing. But let’s now take a more in-depth look at all the steps in this process and where the tokenisation comes in:

Company A sells a product to Company B and sends an invoice to Company B to be paid within 90 days. Company A wants to use the money from the invoice now. It sells the invoice to a third party (financier) in order to get a percentage of the invoice value after the financier has performed their due diligence in assessing the invoice. The invoice is usually sold for 80-95% of the value of the invoice. The financier now holds the risk of that invoice on their balance sheet and they are required to hold capital for that risk. As these risks are high, the financier wants to distribute that risk. The financier tokenises the invoice and sells it to investors through an invoice market platform. When the payment term is due and the invoice is paid by Company B, the platform distributes the remainder of the invoice to the investors. Benefits of invoice tokenisation and invoice markets

While the process with tokenised invoices and an invoice market is more complex than the current process, it can also address the various issues with the current process of invoice financing, in addition to offering various other benefits. The benefits of using tokenisation in invoice financing can be summarised as follows:

Invoices as an asset class Standardisation of invoices More transparent ownership of invoices Increased efficiency and automation Invoices as an asset class

As discussed, invoice financing is not accessible to general investors. The indicated is due to the amount of due diligence required when financing an invoice. By having a standard approach along with quality checks of the financiers, invoices can become an asset class that is highly accessible to regular investors.

This is a win-win situation for everyone involved. There is a bigger incentive for financiers to finance invoices as they have better and more efficient ways of managing their risk. It helps companies that want to sell their invoices as there will be a wider range of financiers. And lastly, it helps investors by giving them access to a new asset class.

Standardisation of invoices

In order to be able to become securities invoices will have to adhere to certain standards and quality checks. More comprehensive and complete invoices decrease risks and grey areas. Therefore the demand for higher prices, incentivising financiers to request a high standard of invoices.

Additionally, it might lead to better regulations surrounding invoice financing. It can help create a safer environment for financiers and investors alike as tokenised invoice financing becomes the norm.

More transparent ownership of invoices

Tokenised invoices are kept and tracked on a blockchain-based platform. This massively increases the transparency of ownership and ensures all parties have access to the same information. This increased transparency tackles the issue of double spending as ownership of invoices can be tracked more easily.

Increased transparency in the ownership of invoices can also help reduce the risk of errors with manual payments. This is done by providing clear and accurate information about who is responsible for the invoice and who is authorised to receive payment. With more visibility into the ownership of invoices, manual payment processes can be streamlined. Consequently, reducing the chance of miscommunication and mistakes.

Increased efficiency and automation

The last, but definitely not least important benefit of using tokenisation in invoice financing is increased efficiency and automation. With better invoice standards and an invoice market which increases transparency of invoice ownership and automates payouts to investors, the whole invoice financing process goes from a rather cumbersome manual process to a much more streamlined and automated process which benefits all parties involved.

Invoice financiers have an increased market to offset the risk of financed invoices, and in addition to that they no longer have to manage the tedious task of investor payouts when invoices are paid. For investors the process of investing in invoices also becomes much easier by having a transparent invoice market with a broad offering of invoices.

Conclusion

In conclusion, invoice financing and tokenisation of invoices provide a solution to various issues faced by companies and investors in accessing financing, managing risk, and ensuring the validity of invoices. Tokenisation offers greater transparency, standardisation, and automation in the financing process. This makes invoices a new and accessible asset class for regular investors. All, whilst providing efficient ways of managing risk for financiers. The use of tokenised invoices may also lead to better regulations surrounding invoice financing. Hence, this creates a safer environment for investors and financiers alike.

Parties like 2Tokens are also working on realising this use case in collaboration with a variety of parties.

The post Unlocking the Potential of Invoice Financing with Tokenisation appeared first on Zaisan.


bankless

Coinbase Announces Base🔵, an Ethereum L2 Network Powered by Optimism

Jesse Pollock, Senior Director of Engineering at Coinbase, joins us to unpack some of the hottest news in crypto since The Merge!  Coinbase announces the launch of “Base,” their own L2 built on the OP Stack. Tune in to hear everything you need to know about Base!  ------ 📣 MetaMask Learn | Learn Web3 with the Leading Web3 Wallet https://bankless.cc/  ------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS P

Jesse Pollock, Senior Director of Engineering at Coinbase, joins us to unpack some of the hottest news in crypto since The Merge! 

Coinbase announces the launch of “Base,” their own L2 built on the OP Stack. Tune in to hear everything you need to know about Base! 

------ 📣 MetaMask Learn | Learn Web3 with the Leading Web3 Wallet https://bankless.cc/ 

------ 🚀 JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

👻 PHANTOM | #1 SOLANA WALLET https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

------ Topics Covered

0:00 Intro 7:53 Coinbase’s New Chain? 8:45 What is Base?  9:36 How is Base Different? 11:16 How Open is Base? 13:05 Why Now?  17:00 ETH L2 Philosophy  20:00 2nd Mover Advantage & Success Metric 22:26 Total Coinbase Users 25:15 How Base Will be Used By Coinbase Users 29:35 $COIN 31:13 Could Base Canoblize Coinbase?  32:35 Regulation  35:30 Base Token?!  40:26 Validator Set  39:10 Sequencer Power 40:53 Timeline  42:55 Basechain Vision  48:55 Why OP Stack? 52:57 Jesse as a Badge Member   54:47 Gas-Free Percentage 56:22 Superchain Vision 58:46 KGZ Ceremony  1:00:41 What Does Successful Base Look Like?  1:06:13 Closing & Disclaimers 

------ Resources:

Jesse Pollak (jesse.xyz) https://twitter.com/jessepollak 

Coinbase https://twitter.com/coinbase 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Verida

Introducing “did:vda”: A fast, cheap web3 identity solution on Polygon

Verida Explainer: Introducing the Verida DID Method The concept of a “Decentralized Identifier” (DID) is at the heart of the web3 movement of self-sovereign identity and data. Watch the explainer video A quick recap on DIDs Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are similar to usernames in Web3, but with extra features. They are the basis for sharing public keys controlled by the DID ho
Verida Explainer: Introducing the Verida DID Method

The concept of a “Decentralized Identifier” (DID) is at the heart of the web3 movement of self-sovereign identity and data.

Watch the explainer video A quick recap on DIDs

Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are similar to usernames in Web3, but with extra features. They are the basis for sharing public keys controlled by the DID holder, creating trusted connections, storing data and many other capabilities.

Here is an example DID using the “Ethereum” DID Method: did:ethr:0x690b9a9e9aa1c9db991c7721a92d351db4fac990

Given a DID, it’s possible to use a software library to lookup an associated DID Document (JSON) that provides lots of extra metadata. This document can define an unlimited number of public keys for different use cases, it supports key rotation and supports listing API’s or service endpoints where you can interact with the identity.

The problem with current DID methods

There are lots of DID Methods (see the full list here). Unfortunately they all suffer from a variety of different problems that make none of them a suitable base for the next generation of web3 applications.

Verida CEO, Chris Were, recently wrote about these issues holding back DID adoption.

These key problems typically relate to:

Access: DID Documents must be public to discover and read. The protocol must be enforce that only the DID controller (user with the secret) can change the document (ie: rotate their keys) Performance: It must be fast to read and write (seconds), otherwise there will be unacceptable delays when creating a new account or signing into Web3 applications. Cost: Web3 is competing with Web2. The cost must be very low (ideally free), without the user becoming beholden to a centralized entity paying on their behalf. If the user has to pay, that introduces a huge barrier to entry that makes it infeasible. Revocable: A user must be able to delete their DID document in accordance with the “right to be deleted”. This is a critical requirement that is missed by the vast majority of DID method implementations. Full support: The implementation must support the full suite of DID-Core specifications for maximum flexibility and security. Full history: The implementation must support retrieving any historical version of the DID document. This is essential to support signature verification where the signing keys change. Introducing the Verida DID method

The Verida DID method is designed to have a similar architecture to the Domain Name System which has worked incredibly well for an extended period of time for the web.

The concept of DID “discovery” and Document “storage” are separated.

When a DID is created, a pointer is created on the blockchain to where the actual DID document is stored. The actual DID Documents (and all their historical versions) are stored on low cost, commodity HTTP servers.

DID documents are stored on off-chain servers

We have deployed our “DID-Registry” smart contract to Polygon’s Mumbai testnet in preparation for deploying to Polygon’s PoS network in the coming weeks.

Verida DID Method capabilities Access to the DID is guaranteed as the blockchain enforces only the DID controller (owner) can set the endpoints where the DID Document is stored. The DID controller can determine how many replica’s there are. In the event there is a malicious server, that can be instantly identified by the protocol and ignored (or penalized) or the DID controller can remove that server from the list of DID Document storage nodes. Performance is fast. There is a delay writing the DID pointer to the blockchain, however every DID document update after then is lightning fast, at HTTP speeds. On MATIC the blockchain write with confirmation time in the real world is approximately 5 seconds. Cost is low. There is a single write to the blockchain when a DID is created, but all DID Document updates are then off-chain and effectively free. On MATIC the one-time cost to create a DID is ~0.003. A DID controller can change the pointer to update the list of servers. That does require another blockchain update at the same cost. Revocation of the DID is possible. The DID controller can update the blockchain to revoke a DID so it’s no longer available. The DID controller can also “ping” the servers hosting their DID Document to revoke the document and it will be permanently deleted. Full DID Document support is included. Since the DID Document is stored off-chainoffline, there are no challenges trying to store that data on the blockchain. It’s a simple JSON object that can be stored on disk and easily retrieved. It’s also future proof to easily support upgrades to the DID Core specification. Full DID Document history is included and can be retrieved via different query parameters to the HTTP endpoints (amongst other query types)

As a result, web3 now has a fast, decentralized, low cost, fully featured DID method that supports true revocation of identities.

How to use the Verida DID method

There are two typescript libraries available for developers:

@verida/vda-did — A full implementation that supports creating, retrieving, updating and deleting DID Documents. It requires a private key that has Polygon MATIC tokens for writing DID pointers to the blockchain. @verida/vda-did-resolver — A slim resolver implementation (compatible with the getResolver() standard) that supports retrieving the latest DID Document for a given DID string.

See the documentation in each of those packages on how to use the libraries.

HTTP Storage Nodes

The specification does require a network of HTTP servers that support the Verida DID method API endpoints for creating, storing and retrieving DID Documents.

We have created an initial implementation of this HTTP API and integrated it into the Verida network storage node API. This means that as the Verida network scales its web3 database infrastructure, it will also be scaling the available nodes for storing DID documents.

However, anyone is free to run their own API or embed our API specification into their existing network. The code is open source and available to anyone.

Read the specification

You can dive deeper into the underlying motivation and design decisions by reading the Verida DID method specification documents:

Verida DID Method Specification — The core specification DID Document Storage on the Verida Network — The HTTP API specification that is implemented in the Verida Storage Node API. Verida DID Resolver Specification — Compatible with the DID getResolver() standard DID Registry — The EVM compatible smart contract deployed on Polygon Mumbai testnet Want to learn more? Join #dev-chat in our Discord community Check out the Verida developer docs Get started with Verida Partner with Verida and build with us Subscribe to our YouTube for more tech explainers, demos and more Follow and tag us on Twitter Subscribe to our mailing list and never miss a Verida update

Introducing “did:vda”: A fast, cheap web3 identity solution on Polygon was originally published in Verida on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Brave Browser

Grab bag 5: "Open in App" annoyances, further pool-party protections, and more…

Starting in version 1.49 on Android and desktop (available since version 1.44 for iOS), Brave will hide "open in app" annoyances that appear on many websites.

This is the 23rd post in an ongoing, regular series describing privacy features in Brave browsers. This post describes work done by (in alphabetical order): Filter List Enginer Ryan Brown, Research and Privacy Engineer Arthur Edelstein, and Senior Research Engineer Anton ​​Lazarev. This post was written by VP of Privacy Engineering Peter Snyder.

1. Hiding “open in app” annoyances

Starting in upcoming version 1.49 (Android and desktop) and already available since version 1.44 for iOS, Brave will hide “open in app” annoyances that appear on many websites. The links are annoying; they prompt you with unrelated questions when you’re trying to browse the Web. Worse, these notices are often privacy harming. Sites know that the “native” versions of their apps aren’t subject to the kinds of privacy-protections that Brave applies to websites, and they’re thus eager to nudge users into the (often) data-gobbling native apps.

Brave will hide “open in app” annoyances by enabling the terrific “Fanboy’s Mobile Notifications List,” maintained in part by folks working at Brave. Users who want to disable this feature can do so by going into settings and disabling “Fanboy’s Mobile Notifications List” list from the list of custom and regional filter lists.

2. Additional protections against “pool-party” attacks

Starting in version 1.49, the desktop and Android versions of Brave will include additional protections against “pool-party” attacks. Pool-party attacks are a category of attack that advanced and motivated trackers can use to link your browsing behaviors across sites (and, in some browsers, across profiles), by leveraging the unintended consequences of how some browser features are implemented. As mentioned in a previous post, most browsers are vulnerable to some form of the attack, though some browsers are more vulnerable than others.

Brave has defended against what was thought at the time to be the most serious form of the attack since version 1.35. However, researchers at Brave have recently identified more ways pool-party attacks can be conducted, and ways they can be carried out faster (i.e. how they can be optimized to communicate across site boundaries faster). As a result, Brave has released fixes to protect against additional forms of the attack 1. We are continuing to discuss possible solutions to pool-party attacks with other browser vendors as well.

For more detail on pool-party attacks, please see our research paper that will be presented at USENIX Security 2023.

3. Improved ad blocking with procedural cosmetic filters

Starting in versions 1.49 (Android and desktop) and already available since 1.45 for iOS, Brave includes partial support for procedural cosmetic filters, an advanced way of specifying which page elements should be hidden when blocking ads and other page annoyances. Most cosmetic filters are defined through CSS selectors; filter list maintainers can specify unwanted page elements to hide using the same system that website designers use to style elements on a page. In the vast majority of cases, this simple capability is all that’s needed.

However, sometimes websites try to evade content blocking tools; in these cases content filtering tools need more sophisticated ways of specifying which page elements should be hidden. Procedural cosmetic filters are a solution to this problem, and are an important tool that browsers and Web tools can apply to keep users in control.

There are many different procedural filters, and Brave supports the two most popular ones 2. We plan to support more procedural filter rules soon.

4. Protecting against screen attribute-based browser fingerprinting

Starting in versions 1.48 (Desktop) and 1.50 (Android), Brave is expanding our browser fingerprinting protections by preventing sites from identifying you based on the size of your screen and position of your browser window. Trackers try to identify you through browser fingerprinting by combining enough semi-identifiers (things that distinguish you from some other users) to build a unique identifier. No browser user is likely to be the only browser user in their country, but they might be the only browser user in their country, using a specific version of the browser, speaking a specific language, with particular graphics hardware, etc.

The size of your screen is another such semi-identifier that trackers use. On their own, your screen’s width and height aren’t enough to uniquely identify you. But if they’re different enough from those of many other browser users, they can help trackers narrow down who you are as you browse the Web. In addition, the position of your browser window on the screen may be fairly unique and another way your browser can stand out.

To combat this, Brave now prevents trackers from learning the size of your device’s screen and the position of your browser window on the screen. First, Brave reports to Web scripts that your screen has approximately the same width and height as your browser window. This prevents trackers from learning about your true screen size. Second, as with Brave’s other unique randomization-based protections, Brave reports slightly different values to each site, for each browser session. This prevents trackers from re-identifying you across different sites, or across different visits to the same site.

Specifically, by partitioning the Server Sent Events resource pool in Chromium. ↩︎

Specifically, adblock-rust, Brave’s library for applying network level blocking and cosmetic filtering, supports the :has and :-abp-has procedural cosmetic filter rules. ↩︎

Wednesday, 22. February 2023

bankless

ETH Is NOT Ultrasound Money with Jon Charbonneau

In today's episode, Jon unpacks his relatively controversially titled new piece, "ETH Is Not Ultrasound Money: Part 1" Is ETH doomed? Was Ultrasound money a myth? Tune in to hear Jon's arguments.  ------  MetaMask Learn  https://bankless.cc/metamaskshow  ------  JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe  ------ BANKLESS SPON

In today's episode, Jon unpacks his relatively controversially titled new piece, "ETH Is Not Ultrasound Money: Part 1"

Is ETH doomed? Was Ultrasound money a myth? Tune in to hear Jon's arguments. 

------  MetaMask Learn  https://bankless.cc/metamaskshow 

------  JOIN BANKLESS PREMIUM:  https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/subscribe 

------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://bankless.cc/kraken 

UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

 EARNIFI | CLAIM YOUR UNCLAIMED AIRDROPS https://bankless.cc/earnifi  

------ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro 5:06 Jon's Argument 11:30 Triple Point Asset Thesis 17:52 ETH 18:53 The Disagreement 22:10 Semantics  26:40 Profit  30:00 PoW vs. PoS 33:15 Does Issuance Matter? & L1s & L2s 37:57 Blockchain Sustainability  42:00 Deflation vs. Inflation Value 47:50 How is Jon's Argument Bullish? 51:35 Alt L1s Issuance 59:20 Jon's Model Spreadsheet 1:17:53 Closing & Disclaimers

------ Resources:

Jon Charbonneau https://twitter.com/jon_charb 

Jon's Essay https://joncharbonneau.substack.com/p/eth-is-not-ultrasound-money-part 

Jon's Model Spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UlxKC98STwN-AoonytC-qOscZ_99fAMpMvB6EfGGe9E/edit#gid=0 

----- Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 


Horizen - Blog

Community Survey Results Are In for ZenIP 42204: Deprecation of the Horizen Mainchain Shielded Pools

ZenIP 42204 proposes the removal of shielded transactions with transparent inputs from the Horizen mainchain, which will prevent shielded transaction (T addresses to Z addresses) support at the consensus level. ZenIP 42204’s purpose is to ensure Horizen does privacy technology the right and sustainable way to drive ecosystem growth and minimize risks. It proposes a […] The post Community Surv

ZenIP 42204 proposes the removal of shielded transactions with transparent inputs from the Horizen mainchain, which will prevent shielded transaction (T addresses to Z addresses) support at the consensus level.

ZenIP 42204’s purpose is to ensure Horizen does privacy technology the right and sustainable way to drive ecosystem growth and minimize risks. It proposes a solution to eliminate technical debt and avoid regulatory threats that can prevent the greater Horizen community from fully and freely participating in our ecosystem.

ZenIPs are for the community to approve or decline. We asked the Horizen community what they think of ZenIP 42204 via a public survey, 426 community members participated in the survey. Here are the results:

When asked if they are in agreement with ZenIP 42204, 75.3% of survey takers are favorable, 12.7% are neutral, and 11.9% are not favorable.

When asked if they think whether or not ZenIP 42204 is positive for the future of Horizen, 77.4% of survey takers rated positive, 13.8% rated neutral, and 8.9% rated negative.

Both Chinese and Korean communities also conducted a vote on ZenIP 42204. 

Chinese community – 66 people participated in the voting: 92% Yes, 7% No

Korean community – 288 people participated in the voting: 87.8% Yes, 11.1% No, 0.01% Withdrew

Here are some of the comments we received from the survey:

“In such a brittle environment as we find ourselves in, I believe this is the correct decision and course of action to avoid unnecessary oversight or worse in terms of regulation which is clearly needed, even welcomed to ensure the is no impropriety in the crypto markets, especially given the feature seldomly used.”

“Although ZenIP’s need for transparency is crucial in attracting and ensuring confidence in some investors, I think it should be taken with caution. This is due to the fact that transactional confidentiality will be favourable in the near future, as other crypto projects may not offer it. Leaving those that do with high market competitive advantage.”

“It’s the right thing to do even though privacy is one of the main features I like about Horizen. I will most likely make some investments in other privacy centric projects such as zcash and ironfish. Part of me thinks that Horizen should keep its privacy features in the face of regulators and possible actions but I know that will suffocate growth. It’s too bad a shielded sidechain cannot be developed prior to the switch but I know resources are focused on the EVM. There will be enough demand for sidechains and all the products that EVM brings to make this project flourish in the future even with the proliferation of other platforms doing the same thing. This change will set up Horizen to become accessible to more users and potential users going forward, as well as many more competitors, I’d like to see how you differentiate. You have a fantastic team and more integrity than almost any other project I can think of.”

“We need to limit the risk of being completely blacklisted by government regulators.”

“Get rid of the anonymity on the mainnet and move as fast as you can to the side chain to focus on expanding your ecosystem.”

“Too late to throw up the privacy position, ‘cause Layer1 market is already possessed by competitors. Keep privacy position is best at the moment”

“Good direction! This will make the project more resilient, scalable and flexible. Future proof is the key!!!”

“Tough call, but agree scrutiny is trending up, not down. Shielded/privacy functionality is key for side chains, but I don’t see any reason why mainchain needs to be anything other than a basic settlement layer acting as the source of truth.”

What’s Next?

Thank you everyone who joined the discussion and voiced your opinions on this important matter. As the majority of votes and feedback we have received are in agreement with ZenIP 42204, we will be moving forward with this proposal and plan the changes into a future ZEND software release. We will continue to keep the community informed when the new software release containing the ZenIP 42204 changes are coming.

Our next episode of the Horizen podcast “Beyond the Horizen” will discuss ZenIP 42204 with our co-founder Rob Viglione and Jordan Calinoff, Horizen Lab’s VP of Strategy. Please stay tuned.

In his recent blog, Rob shares his thoughts on ZenIP 42204 and how this change can grow the ecosystem further in 2023. Read his full blog on Medium. 

“I hope people who want ZEN to be a privacy coin can see Horizen as more than a privacy coin, and want it to be more, understand that we’re continuing to invest massively in privacy and privacy is the heart of our strategy to decentralize the world.” – Rob Viglione, Co-founder of Horizen

Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Discord for the latest updates on this topic.

More about ZenIP 42204: The ZenIP 42204 Proposal on Github The Horizen official blog post: What ZenIP 42204 Means for the Horizen Ecosystem Co-founder Rob Viglione’s Thoughts on ZenIP 42204  The Soul of a Crypto Project  Co-founder Rolf Versluis’ thoughts on the ZenIP 42204

The post Community Survey Results Are In for ZenIP 42204: Deprecation of the Horizen Mainchain Shielded Pools appeared first on Horizen Blog.


Privy

Web3 for users, not experts.

Introducing embedded wallets Privy is the easiest way for developers to onboard all users to web3, regardless of whether they already have a wallet, across mobile and desktop. Today, we are excited to announce the next step in our product journey: embedded wallets. Embedded wallets make it easy for developers to provision self-custodial wallets for users no matter how they log in, via

Introducing embedded wallets

Privy is the easiest way for developers to onboard all users to web3, regardless of whether they already have a wallet, across mobile and desktop.

Today, we are excited to announce the next step in our product journey: embedded wallets. Embedded wallets make it easy for developers to provision self-custodial wallets for users no matter how they log in, via email, phone or social.

At Privy, we spend a lot of time obsessing over how to help developers unlock better UX in web3 without sacrificing the ownership primitives that make the space special. Ownership is at the root of web3 but to this day, it has been reserved for only the most technical users.

For web3 to go mainstream, we must make it easy to bake self-custody into products: web2-caliber UX with web3 ownership and consent. With embedded wallets, you can build simple self-custodial experiences into your app without requiring a seed phrase, third-party extension or any UX interrupt.

Why “embedded” wallets? It reflects our conviction that key self-custody should be tightly integrated — embedded — into your product. Our work here is centered around a few core principles:

Self Custody — Privy’s embedded wallets are fully self-custodial. Privy can never sign a message on behalf of a user. Key splitting ensures Privy never holds private keys but your user has simple recovery options. Native to your app — Key infrastructure should feel native to your app. Let your users come as they are, and keep your UX on-brand with design customization and flexibility around signature prompts for users. Interoperable from day 1 — Embedded wallets are a springboard into web3. You take care of your in-app experience, we’ll ensure your users have access to a wider ecosystem.

We are not becoming a standalone wallet company. Embedded wallets are tightly integrated within the existing Privy SDK and its existing wallet connectors. Expert or newcomer, a user is a user: no need to treat them differently in your codebase. For many, Privy will serve as their starter wallet. For others, it will be a UX revolution they can choose to use alongside their existing wallets.

This is just the beginning. We’ll be sharing more details about each of these over the coming weeks as we roll out embedded wallets to customers. If you’re thinking about how to power native experiences for wider audiences–mainstream products on crypto rails, we’d love to talk.

Web3 must disappear into the products it spawns. We believe great products will increasingly be hybrid, incorporating on and off-chain elements to power new experiences with better onboarding and simpler permissions delegation. The web3 stack is changing. Our tooling makes it easy for developers to build for this new paradigm. We are so excited for this next step in our journey. More soon (™).

Web3 is dead. Long live web3.

Web3 for users, not experts. was originally published in Privy Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.


Zcash Foundation

Launching the Zcash Minor Grants Program

Today, we are announcing a new, experimental Zcash Foundation (ZF) grants program, which we have nicknamed “Minor Grants”. This is intended to complement the Major Grants program (aka Zcash Community Grants) by providing a source of funding for smaller grants. We hope that this will reduce the number of smaller grant applications that are submitted […] The post <strong>Launching the Zcash

Today, we are announcing a new, experimental Zcash Foundation (ZF) grants program, which we have nicknamed “Minor Grants”. This is intended to complement the Major Grants program (aka Zcash Community Grants) by providing a source of funding for smaller grants. We hope that this will reduce the number of smaller grant applications that are submitted to ZCG, thus enabling them to focus their attention on larger, more significant grants that are more in line with what the Major Grants program is intended to fund. Additionally, we would like to create a channel for grant applications that are not directly Zcash-related but explore broader applications of zero knowledge proofs or other approaches to financial privacy, in line with our charitable purpose. 

The maximum grant size for this Minor Grants program will be $25,000, and the budget is $75,000. 

We also want to engage the Zcash community, and take advantage of the “wisdom of the crowd” by polling the Zcash Community Advisory Panel (ZCAP) regarding which grants should be funded.

We plan to see how this first iteration of the program goes, how many and what sort of grant applications are submitted, how the community responds and the feedback we receive, before deciding whether to repeat or extend the program in the future.  

The Application Process

Applications must be submitted via the ZF grants platform, and applicants must agree to sign ZF’s grant agreement, and undergo the ZF KYC process if their application is successful. 

The deadline to submit a grant application is 09:00 UTC on Monday 20th March. 

ZF will review all applications, and will reject any grant applications that are deemed unsuitable (see the FAQs section below for examples of why ZF may judge a grant application to be unsuitable under this program). Suitable applications will then be submitted to a poll of ZCAP to determine which should be funded. Applicants who are members of ZCAP will not be eligible to participate in this poll. 

We aim to publish the list of suitable grant applications, and open the ZCAP poll by 3rd April. The ZCAP poll will remain open for approximately two weeks, and we hope to announce the results on 17th April. 

As this is the first time we are running this program, we don’t really know what to expect, so  this timeline may be subject to change. We will try to keep applicants and the community apprised of any changes or delays. 

To be eligible for funding, a grant application must receive greater than 50% approval from the participants in the ZCAP poll. Eligible grants will then be funded in order of priority determined by the level of ZCAP’s approval, and as the total budget permits. There will be no partial funding of grants. 

Example of how the Zcash poll will work

In the example below, ten suitable grant applications for varying amounts were voted on in a ZCAP poll that had a turnout of 134 with a $75,000 USD total budget.

Grant name Amount ZCAP Approval Votes ZCAP Approval (%) Eligible for funding? Funded? Cumulative funding Alpha $15,000 128 96% Yes Yes $15,000 Beta $9,000 127 95% Yes Yes $24,000 Gamma $1,200 109 81% Yes Yes $25,200 Delta $25,000 102 76% Yes Yes $50,200 Epsilon $20,000 97 72% Yes Yes $70,200 Zeta $18,000 91 68% Yes No - Theta $1,800 88 66% Yes Yes $72,000 Kappa $5,500 72 54% Yes No - Sigma $1,000 62 47% No - - Omega $12,000 57 43% No - -

In this example, the approval threshold to be eligible for funding would be 68 votes.

The Zeta and Kappa grants would not be funded because there would be insufficient funding remaining in the budget (after funding grants with higher approval ratings) to fund those grants.

However, the Theta grant would be funded because, while it achieved a lower approval rating than Zeta, it is small enough that it could be funded out of the remaining budget.

The Sigma and Omega grants would not be eligible for funding because they failed to achieve a greater-than-50% approval rating in the ZCAP poll.

FAQs

What is the Zcash Foundation’s mission?
Our mission at the Zcash Foundation is to build financial privacy infrastructure for the public good, by helping sustain and improve open financial networks that allow anyone and everyone to protect their own privacy, on their own terms. While our primary focus is the Zcash protocol and blockchain, we also support broader applications of zero knowledge proofs, as well as other approaches to financial privacy.

Do grant applications have to be Zcash-related?
No. Any grant that aligns with the Zcash Foundation’s mission is suitable for the Minor Grants program.

Under what circumstances would ZF reject a grant application as unsuitable?
Here are some examples of why ZF may reject a grant application:

The grant’s purpose is not congruent with the Foundation’s mission. The grant does not, in our estimation, represent value for money. We have reason to believe that the applicant is not capable of delivering on the grant. The purpose of the grant would violate U.S. law or contravene the Zcash Foundation’s obligations under U.S. IRS 501(c)(3).

 

Can applicants remain pseudonymous?
Applicants can keep their identity private but they must undergo the ZF KYC process if their application is successful, which includes disclosing and verifying their identity to ZF.

Where is the funding for this program coming from?
This program is being funded by the Zcash Foundation, from its slice of the Dev Fund.

My application to the ZCG program was rejected. Can I re-apply to the Minor Grants program?
Yes.

Can current and former recipients of ZCG grants apply for a Minor Grant?
Yes.

Can I submit multiple Minor Grant applications?
No.

I have a question that’s not answered here.
You can post questions to this topic on the Zcash Community Forum. Alternatively, you can email minorgrants@zfnd.org

The post <strong>Launching the Zcash Minor Grants Program</strong> appeared first on Zcash Foundation.


a16z Podcast

The Challenge of Replicating Reality

What would you do if you believed in an idea but everyone said it would fail, nobody would fund you, and the industry was experiencing a nuclear winter? Despite experiencing exactly that, Sandbox VR founder Steve Zhao doubled down and invested all of his personal savings into the unproven business. 7 years and 1 bankruptcy later, Steve has built the world’s leading full-body VR experience with ov

What would you do if you believed in an idea but everyone said it would fail, nobody would fund you, and the industry was experiencing a nuclear winter?

Despite experiencing exactly that, Sandbox VR founder Steve Zhao doubled down and invested all of his personal savings into the unproven business. 7 years and 1 bankruptcy later, Steve has built the world’s leading full-body VR experience with over 30 locations across the globe. 

In this interview, we get to chat with Steve about the many challenges he faced, how Sandbox made it through the pandemic, the future of VR, and the difficult task of tackling hardware, software, a new computing platform, and real estate.

 

Resources:

Check out Sandbox VR: https://sandboxvr.com

Find Steve Zhao on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zhaosaurus

Learn more about the Squid Game partnership: https://venturebeat.com/games/squid-game-is-coming-to-sandbox-vr-immersive-experience-locations/

Watch Steph’s highlight video: https://sandboxvr.com/event/b0b22aad-7c73-475d-ab43-281a456ff590

 

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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.