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click2watch · 6 years ago

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The Virtuous Circle of Market Data

Noelle Acheson is a veteran of company analysis and member of CoinDesk’s product team.

The following article originally appeared in Institutional Crypto by CoinDesk, a newsletter for the institutional market, with news and views on crypto infrastructure delivered every Tuesday. Sign up here.

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Financial market data feeds are generally not the most compelling of businesses. Commoditized, concentrated and with very little scope for creativity, they are among the most boring ways of making money in financial markets.

Even in the crypto sector, the flood of information confuses, obfuscates and quickly becomes noise.

But a shift is under way: data extraction is moving from being something done in the background to a primary activity in its own right. In traditional markets it now generates significant income for exchanges, and in some cases the majority of profits.

In crypto markets, data also looks on track to become a solid business, given the recent string of funding announcements for crypto data firms (such as last week’s participation by Fidelity Ventures and other investors in Coin Metrics’ latest round).

The underlying philosophies are very different, however, as are the end goals. The path taken by traditional exchanges is diluting their original intent. Crypto markets, on the other hand, are more faithful to the original ethos – and as their influence expands, their handling of data has the potential to take capital markets back to their wealth-spreading origins.

A bit of history

Stock exchanges evolved to fulfil two main needs: liquidity and price discovery. The idea was that liquidity would come from investors basing decisions on reliable price data to which all participants had access. Back when trading venues were owned by their “members,” this worked – they exchanged positions among themselves and knew at what price other participants were willing to buy or sell. This provided a “fair” view of the market.

But with the demutualization of leading stock exchanges, ownership of and access to that data changed. Stock exchanges became independent for-profit companies and started to treat one of their most important assets – data generated on their platforms – as a proprietary, competitive advantage.

The significant revenues generated by what once belonged to the market – at the expense of market participants – has generated much resentment, leading the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to step in and investigate. The exchanges are not happy about what they see as an incursion into a handsome profit generator, and are questioning the SEC’s authority in this area.

Things are getting tense, but at the same time light is being shed on both the role of exchanges and of regulators in the creation and maintenance of fair markets.

And, of course, on the role of data.

An alternative system

In traditional markets, access to data was a linchpin for equal opportunity. Gated access creates an uneven playing field, which concentrates market influence in the hands of those who are already ahead.

Crypto markets are different. Most of the main cryptoasset exchanges give away their data for free via APIs, in order to encourage more liquidity – similar to the intention of the original stock exchanges.

Similar, but not the same. The original stock exchanges were created for professional investors. The original crypto exchanges were created for the retail market, so the distribution of information needs a broader scope.

Furthermore, the exchange landscape is much more fragmented than with traditional securities. After just over 400 years of evolution, there are approximately 80 operating stock exchanges in the world. In less than 10 years, over 240 crypto exchanges have emerged.

Throw in the fact that the more liquid cryptoassets quote on several exchanges (whereas most stocks quote on just one), and it becomes obvious that coming up with a “representative” price feed to cover the bulk of the market is trickier than it seems.

Plus, the data from many exchanges is not widely trusted. Volumes can be easily inflated through practices such as wash trading, which can also distort prices. Even if an exchange wanted to charge for its data, would it be worth it for customers?

Dig deeper

Hence the emergence of a new type of crypto business: independent data providers that go directly to the relevant blockchain to extract information and translate it into human-readable form. This adds a layer of analysis, beyond what can be obtained from market data, that will help inform insights and investment decisions.

In traditional markets, data analysis is big business – Bloomberg (just one example) started out providing market information and analytics in 1983, and now generates over $1 billion in revenue.

But Bloomberg and its peers (and consequently their clients) rely on data feeds that belong to and are monetized by the exchanges. Crypto analysts rely on data feeds that belong to the market.

This structure is how markets were originally supposed to look. For fair pricing and transparent distribution, data needs to be evenly available to all participants. The emergent infrastructure supporting the growth of crypto markets could end up nudging capital markets back in that direction.

A self-fulfilling cycle

It will need the help of data analytics, though. The impact that recently funded startups such as Coin Metrics, Flipside and The Graph could have goes way beyond better charts and interfaces.

The service that they offer is an essential part of drawing institutional investors into the market. Institutional investors will rarely take a position without a substantial amount of documentation and research. Often they are required to justify their decisions to clients and boards, with models, graphs and well-reasoned scenarios.

The lack of reliable market data is being gradually overcome by the emergence of dashboards that attempt to remove dubious information and adjust for weaknesses in feeds. Some are very good, and the quality is improving all the time. These, combined with original and relatively reliable analysis from blockchain data, paint a detailed picture investors can get comfortable with.

The increase in volumes from the resulting investment will lead to better market data and more on-chain analysis, which will lead to higher levels of comfort, more investment, even better market data and even more on-chain analysis. And so on.

Talk about a virtuous circle.

Binary data image via Shutterstock

This news post is collected from CoinDesk

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adrianjenkins952wblr · 6 years ago

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Atari Explains What ‘RollerCoaster Tycoon’ On Blockchain Even Means

When you think of Atari, you think of the classic video game company. But when you think of blockchain, you either think of the hyper-contemporary crypto technology of secure linked hashes, or you don’t think of anything at all because you’re so confused. And we were confused too when news broke that Atari is partnering with Animoca Brands Limited to publish versions of hit games like RollerCoaster Tycoon Touch and Goon Squad based on blockchain technology. So we chatted with Atari CEO Fred Chesnais to learn more.

“I think blockchain is going to stay for a very long time,” said Chesnais. The goal for Atari then isn’t to prove the viability of technology, but to prove its wider creative uses beyond boring obvious stuff like payment software. So these blockchain projects, while hopefully fun in their own right, sound like a bit of an experiment between Atari and Animoca Brands to show “an illustration of a broader application of blockchain in games.”

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Here’s a hypothetical design Chesnais described. Using blockchain, each user-created asset in RollerCoaster Tycoon would be traceable and identifiable through non-fungible tokens. Players could prove which particular murder theme park was theirs as it flowed throughout the digital marketplace possibly making money through integrated cryptocurrency economies.

These are whole new games after all, not blockchain grafted onto existing versions of RollerCoaster Tycoon. Blockchain then would add some structure to the wild west of the traditional video game mod scene and provide indie developers a way to maintain their ownership of art or songs or characters or any other content to trade and share. Hopefully it’s a little more generous to users than Razer’s current cryptocurrency scheme.

That’s just one example though. Chesnais stressed that the whole team is open to exploring different directions for these blockchain games should a better idea arise during the development process before these games hit their planned late 2019 release date. As easy as it is to be cynical about corporate use of blockchain, listening to how one company at least is still feeling out its nebulous but inventive potential was really fascinating.

These blockchain games are just the latest Atari initiative as the company looks to expand its newfound profitability (up 31 percent in revenue) following a bankruptcy five years ago. Together with third-party licensees and distributors you can enjoy all sorts of Atari products this holiday and continuing into CES next month, like the Atari Speakerhat. Plus we’re still waiting to learn more details about next year’s Atari VCS Linux-powered new home console we kind of checked out earlier this year at GDC.

Source link http://bit.ly/2V69H1R

#IFTTT #Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin

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courtneyvbrooks87 · 6 years ago

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Atari Explains What ‘RollerCoaster Tycoon’ On Blockchain Even Means

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Source link http://bit.ly/2V69H1R

#IFTTT #Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin

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mccartneynathxzw83 · 6 years ago

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Atari Explains What ‘RollerCoaster Tycoon’ On Blockchain Even Means

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Source link http://bit.ly/2V69H1R

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vanessawestwcrtr5 · 6 years ago

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Atari Explains What ‘RollerCoaster Tycoon’ On Blockchain Even Means

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kingmindint · 7 years ago

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Crypto Bear Market Continues With a 20 Percent Drop in Bitcoin: Week in Review Apr. 3

It was another difficult week for cryptocurrency investors as 2018’s downward trend continued with bitcoin dropping by over 20 percent from March 26.

The main driver cited behind the decline in cryptocurrency valuations was further bans for cryptocurrency-related advertising as Twitter has also announced that it would ban crypto ads to fight fraudulent activity in this industry. With a lack of exposure for bitcoin wallet and exchanges on social media, it will become harder to grow the cryptocurrency investor community, which investors have priced into bitcoin & co this week.

Email marketing provider MailChimp also announced that it would stop servicing cryptocurrency startups in an attempt to curb “scams, fraud, phishing, and potentially misleading business practices.” Having said that, the cryptocurrency community is fighting back against the oligopoly of the social media giants Twitter, Facebook and Google. Blockchain associations across the globe are preparing to file a lawsuit against the tech companies that are prohibiting marketing for crypto-related products and services.

On the positive news front, the beta version of the lightning network has gone live and there are already over 1,000 nodes supporting the network. This could be the beginning of a lasting solution for Bitcoin’s scalability challenge, which should bode well for the price of bitcoin in the coming months.

Furthermore, Coinbase announced that it will support ERC20 tokens on its platform, which should give Ethereum-based tokens a boost in the future.

This week’s contributions have been provided by Cindy Huynh, Nuno Menezes, Ogwu Osaemezu Emmanuel, Priyeshu Garg, and Shaurya Malwa.

Wall Street Analyst Provides Some Evidence ‘HODLing’ Bitcoin is Best

According to Wall Street analyst Thomas Lee, if an investor were unable to hold stocks through the golden ten days for the S&P 500 each year, the yearly return would see a drop from 9.2 to 5.4 percent.

“Long-time holders are worried because they have big gains and they’re worried about falling prices. But, Bitcoin is a great store value. It works really well. It’s kind of boring because it’s not the latest and most exciting project. But it also is one of the most liquid ways to get exposure to crypto,” Thomas Lee, head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisor told CNBC. He also added, “the mood in crypto is terrible right now.”

Likewise, Lee also added that the reason ‘buy and hold’ (or HODL) makes sense for BTC is that a handful of days each year account for the bulk of gains for BTC. For instance, in 2017, a total of 12 days represented the full-year return of BTC.

China Identifies Digital Currency as a Top-Priority, Focuses on Developing Its Own

On March 28, 2018, the PBoC outlined its agenda for 2018 at a conference on the subject, stating that innovation and promoting research and development of the central bank’s digital currency are going to be top priorities for the financial authority.

The announcement underlines a strong emphasis on the need to strengthen the Renminbi (China’s official currency) and jack up capital controls.

The PBoC conducted the 2018 National Currency Gold and Silver Work Video and Telephone Conference. The conference saw the participants discuss various issues pertaining to financial development, as well as the challenges awaiting China’s economy in the coming fiscal.

The PBoC was represented by Deputy Governor Fan Yifei who delivered a speech outlining the central bank’s vision for 2018.

International Crime Outfit uses Bitcoin to ‘Clean’ Stolen Money

A gang of Ukrainians and Russian cybercriminals was seized March 22 by the Spanish Police. Apparently, the group has allegedly stolen along five years from financial institutions worldwide more than one billion euros (about $1.24 billion) and converting to bitcoin.

According to the Spanish police and European Union law enforcement agency, Europol, the criminal mastermind behind the gang known as “Denis K” was arrested in Alicante, a coastal city of Spain, 350 kilometers southeast from the country’s capital, Madrid. The cybercriminals were long being tracked by the several security institutions across several countries in an ongoing investigation.

The hackers were able to inject malware to target more than 100 financial institutions worldwide. With these malware attacks, the criminals were able to steal about 10 million euros ($12.3 million) in each heist. According to the investigators, the criminals were able to target almost all of Russia’s banks, and about 50 of them lost money in the cyber-attacks.

German Authorities Make Bitcoin Official Legal Tender in the Tourism Sector

In a point for cryptocurrencies, however, the German National Tourist Board (GNTB) has now made bitcoin legal tender in the tourism industry.

Present in 32 countries, the GNTB is poised to be a force to reckon with in the blockchain and crypto space. The organization is focused on championing the revolution in the tourism ecosystem.

“We want to be a global innovation driver in the tourism industry,” CEO of GNTB, Petra Hedorfer declared, adding that “In the course of our digitization strategy, we are constantly reviewing the latest technology and trends their applicability in our company.”

As such, it’s clear that the organization firmly believes in the capabilities of the distributed ledger technology. Therefore it is wasting no time in integrating the disruptive innovation into its processes in a bid revolutionize the tourism sector.

Withdrawal Issues at Bitcoin Exchange Cryptopia Is Panicking Customers

According to Stuff, in early February, a lot of the exchange users started to report withdrawal delays among other issues with the platform. Since then, the number of complaints has raised exponentially. Customers are very upset with the withdrawal delays issues, and the problem is escalating fast. Customers are now afraid the exchange goes rogue and steals their coins.

Aside from the platform issues, the exchange stands now accused of scamming its customers as well, but, no real evidence has been presented so far.

Despite Cryptopia being a small exchange, it is reasonably known among altcoin users as it is the only exchange where you can find some low-cap cryptocurrencies. We all know that managing a cryptocurrency exchange is no easy task, especially a small one like Cryptopia. However, the issues with the platform have been going on for a long time now as users are demanding for things to be solved.

Cryptopia users have a lot of concerns right now as to whether the platform will be able to solve the ongoing issues or if it will become something like Cryptsy, which strangely enough started with the same problems right before its shutdown.

Australian Tax Office Seeks Public Input of Cryptocurrency Taxes

On March 26, the ATO mentioned the update of their cryptocurrency taxation guidelines on March 13. However, the increased interest in cryptocurrency taxes resulted in a large number of queries from the community concerning specific tax events. To clarify the situation, the ATO is launching a “community consultation” to understand and address the common questions about cryptocurrency transactions:

“The purpose of this consultation is to seek feedback on practical compliance issues arising from complying with taxation obligations about cryptocurrency transactions. In particular, we are interested in any practical issues that may impact on taxpayers’ abilities to calculate and substantial any capital gains and losses for capital gains tax (CGT) purposes.”

According to Business Insider Australia, on February 28, 2018, the ATO announced that they would pursue cryptocurrency investors to ensure they fulfill their cryptocurrency tax liabilities.

WannaCry Ransomware Strikes Boeing, Aviation Giant Says Situation Is Under Control

According to reports, a Boeing production plant in Charleston, South Carolina, found itself at the receiving end of the infamous crypto worm (a type of malware developed using cryptography).

It looks like the attack was detected pretty early and Mike VanderWel, Chief Engineer at Boeing Commercial Airplane production unit, dispatched a company-wide memo asking for “all hands on deck.”

“It is metastasizing rapidly out of North Charleston, and I just heard 777 (automated spar assembly tools) may have gone down,” reads the memo.

As the news broke, it created a panic in some quarters as it was theoretically possible for the virus to affect equipment used in functional airplane tests, which could worsen the already bad situation by infecting in-flight software.

However, Boeing played down the severity of the attack and released a statement on March 28, 2018, saying that only a limited number of machines were affected. It further clarified that the production lines were working as usual without any interruption of any kind.

ERC20 Tokens to Be Supported on Coinbase

In a press release dated March 26, 2018, Coinbase published a report on its intention to add Ethereum ERC-20 support for its range of products. By supporting the Ethereum ERC20 technical standard, the US-based firm can add a lot of “altcoins” on its wallets and exchanges, thus opening the gates for a flood of new investors.

Whenever Coinbase makes an announcement, it generally causes an influx of new investors, as the company has a large and trusted user base around the world, but primarily in America.

While the announcement has had no significant impact on the market yet, attributing to the general bearish sentiment, the news is important in paving the way forward for an increased number of people purchasing, using, and trading cryptocurrencies apart from bitcoin and ether.

The post Crypto Bear Market Continues With a 20 Percent Drop in Bitcoin: Week in Review Apr. 3 appeared first on BTCMANAGER.

source: https://btcmanager.com/crypto-bear-market-continues-with-a-20-percent-drop-in-bitcoin-wir-apr-3/

Post source: Crypto Bear Market Continues With a 20 Percent Drop in Bitcoin: Week in Review Apr. 3

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The post Crypto Bear Market Continues With a 20 Percent Drop in Bitcoin: Week in Review Apr. 3 appeared first on Bitcoin Geek.

via Kingmind Crypto Bear Market Continues With a 20 Percent Drop in Bitcoin: Week in Review Apr. 3

#Kingmind #Kingmind International

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sycriptouk · 3 years ago

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Crypto Corner: The Sports Slice https://bitcoinist.com/crypto-corner-the-sports-slice-4/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=crypto-corner-the-sports-slice-4

Another stacked week in sports and crypto: Steph Curry has “ape’d in.” More college athletes are finding name, image and likeness deals with crypto-first companies. A former Manchester United player has been accused of crypto laundering. It’s just another busy week in the sports corner of crypto. Let’s take a look at all the action over the past seven days.

The Sports Slice

FTX Builds On More Sports Sponsorship Deals

FTX has been full speed ahead on sports sponsorship deals, and there’s apparently no reason to stop now. In an announcement this week, the emerging exchange has confirmed terms around a naming rights deal for Cal Memorial Stadium.

Our team with Bitcoinist sister publication, NewsBTC, covered the story in depth. FTX will have a sponsorship deal covering the rights for Cal University’s home field for Cal home games moving forward.

Sports deals continue to frequent the headlines for FTX. The exchange first took over naming rights for the Miami Heat, and has since partnered with Tom Brady and esports organization TSM. The exchange also sponsored Axie Infinity players in developing countries.

Former Footballer Accused Of Crypto Laundering

As our team here at Bitcoinist first reported earlier this week, former Manchester United midfielder Anderson is under investigation from Brazilian authorities for crypto money laundering. Anderson has been retired from professional sports life and has since been working as an assistant manager for a Turkish club.

While the investigation is still ongoing, it has been alleged that over $5MM was stolen from a major industrial firm. Those monies were then used to purchase cryptocurrencies across the globe.

Related Reading | Comparing Bitcoin And Crypto To The Internet In 1997

Steph Curry Is A Bored Ape

Steph is the latest ape. The two-time MVP shelled out a cool 55ETH – approximately $180K – this week to become a member of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Apes have seen over $80M in trading volume over the past week. The current floor for an ape is just under 25 ETH, according to OpenSea.

Steph joins a growing crew of sports stars that are paying attention to major NFT projects.

Michigan Quarterback Locks In Crypto Endorsement Deal

Michigan quarterback Cade McNamara has signed a deal this week with MORE Management, LLC in a landmark agreement that will enable McNamara to be the first collegiate athlete to be paid in crypto in the modern NIL era.

McNamara will serve as a social media influencer and attend VIP events for the company. More manages it’s own token, $MORE, which a portion of McNamara’s payments will be made in.

Unreleased Kobe Bryant Photos Will Go Up For NFT Auction

Photographer Davis Factor is auctioning eight unpublished photos of Kobe Bryant on Cryptograph. All revenue from the auctions will be donated to the Mamba and Mambacita Foundation. All initial sales of the eight NFTs have garnered at least 3 ETH in bids.

FTX has not been holding back when it comes to sports sponsorships. | Source: FTX-USD on TradingView.com

Naomi Osaka NFT Collection Up Next

In a report this week covering Dapper Labs new product offering, our team at Bitcoinist covered a high-level look at how NFTs can impact women in sport. Female athletes covered the top three spots on a new report from Zoomph, SportsPro and Greenfly that highlighted the most marketable athletes across the globe.

Number two on that list is the exceptional tennis star, Naomi Osaka. Earlier this year, Osaka joined the advisory board of Tom Brady’s Autograph.io, joining fellow top-tier athletes like Derek Jeter and Tiger Woods.

This week, Osaka’s first “preseason access” NFT dropped, with the most exclusive ‘Ruby’ version encompassing 12 NFTs available at $1,500 on Autograph. Last month, Autograph teamed up with DraftKings to become the sportsbook’s main NFT ecosystem.

EA Sports Looking To Put Blockchain Tech & NFTs “In The Game”

A new job listing this week from EA Sports has sparked some conversation. The gaming company is hiring a Senior Director of Competitive Gaming. The role cites that applicants should be ready to explore blockchain technology and NFTs.

NFTs are primed for integration with many annual EA titles, such as FIFA or Madden – will we see it on the horizon?

Coinbase Continues Esports Sponsorships

This week, Coinbase announced a partnership with German esports organization Berlin International Gaming (BIG). The move will give the exchange brand and content rights with BIG’s Counter Strike team, as well as community events and digital activations.

Coinbase adds another esports notch to their sponsorship belt. The company has partnered with esports organization Evil Geniuses, esports league BLAST Premiere, and most recently, tournament organizer ESL Gaming.

Related Reading | Plenty Of Fish: OpenSea Dominates NFT Marketplace Volume

Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com

#IFTTT #Bitcoinist.com

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coin-river-blog · 6 years ago

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2018 was something, and here’s to 2019 (hopefully) being something else.

It's New Year's Eve, and everyone is getting ready to start anew in 2019. Just because we're about to leave 2018 in the past doesn't mean we have to forget (even if we desperately want to) everything that happened this year in crypto and blockchain news. That's why ETHNews is here with a roundup of some of the less truly impactful, maybe a little less philosophically relevant, but nonetheless tantalizing stories of 2018's crypto pop-culture takeover.

Not a Subhead

We'll start just a couple of months back to help prevent any time-travel-induced vertigo. In October, it was reported that Elon Musk's Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunneling firm managed by Musk himself, was accepting bitcoin, bitcoin cash, Ether, and Litecoin as payment for the company's "Not a Flamethrower."

Turns out those reports were false, and the whole internet had been duped by a fake Boring Company domain that showed the flamethrower that's not a flamethrower being purchased using cryptocurrencies through a Coinbase extension.

I know the cryptospace is a hotbed for metaphors, but there's something about cryptocurrencies, flamethrowers, and internet trickery that feels way too on the nose.

This wasn't even the first time in 2018 that Musk's name was involved in cryptocurrency drama. In July, Musk tweeted about Twitter accounts impersonating him and running Ethereum scams, which prompted a response from Vitalik Buterin, who asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to "help us please." By the end of July, Twitter purged all Musk, John McAfee, Bill Gates, and Roger Ver impersonator accounts.

Unfortunately, that also meant we lost a lot of great Musk Twitter parody accounts, too. RIP, French and Italian Elon Musk Twitter accounts.

I Only Read It for the Crypto Articles

Way back in March, Vice Industry, an adult entertainment company, tweeted about its partnership with Playboy and Playboy TV, the magazine's television channel. The plan was to allow customers to use cryptocurrencies, starting with the Vice Industry Token, to pay for exclusive Playboy content.

Like most things in the cryptospace, it didn't turn out to be that simple. By August, the Los Angeles Times reported that Playboy Enterprises had filed a lawsuit against the Canadian company Global Blockchain Technologies (GBT), which had been tasked with integrating cryptocurrency payment systems on Playboy's media sites. Playboy Enterprises claimed GBT had failed to fulfill the requirements and hadn't paid the $4 million it promised in their agreement.

I guess you could say everyone was feeling a little bit blue.

I'll be here all week.

Bitcoin Bummer

I'll be the first to say it: Bitcoin is dead. I know it's controversial, but my middle name is Hot Take, and I stand by my parents' strange decision.

What's that now? I'm not the first to say it? Bitcoin died 91 times in 2018, according to 99Bitcoins?

Well, I'll be damned.

Yes, bitcoin died 91 times in 2018, which is relatively far off from its 125 deaths in 2017. There's a lesson to be learned here, and again, I'll be the first to say it: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Despite early predictions that bitcoin would crash this year, proclamations that the fad was over, and warnings that it had left the tracks – despite all of that, bitcoin's heart is still beating away, alive and well.

What's that now? ETHNews covered this year's hard fork and wrote a great article about the harsh reality of this crypto winter?

Well, I'm new here, okay, can I catch a break?

Coin-be Bryant

TRON founder Justin Sun announced on Twitter in November that NBA legend Kobe Bryant would be attending niTROn, the company's blockchain conference, this coming January 2019. The niTROn site also lists Bryant as a celebrity speaker.

What exactly Bryant will be speaking about is still up for debate. The site lists entrepreneurship under his name, and Bryant has made quite a name for himself in the investment world. Surely it won't be any worse than Bill Clinton's rousing keynote speech at Ripple's Swell conference, an announcement Vitalik Buterin questioned when the news broke.

Now that I think about it, maybe Bryant wasn't a ball hog at all. He was just an early adopter of the #hodl mindset.

Mr. ERC305

In April, Pitbull tried to save music.

Let me explain. Pitbull, Mr. Worldwide, Mr. 305, whatever you want to call him, announced his Smackathon project. The event sought to "decentralize the music industry" by holding a monthlong coding competition designed around "teams who can use the Ethereum platform to disrupt the current state of the music industry, bringing blockchain and music together."

Then the unimaginable happened: something positive. In July, 10 Smackathon finalists presented their projects to a panel of judges that included Pitbull. In the end, Singapore-based HyperValence was awarded first place for its crowdfunding platform that allows fans to support emerging artists by buying ERC721-compliant collectible tokens.

I guess the jury's still out on if and how this will save the music industry, but let's just end this list on a good note.

From all of us here at ETHNews, we –

808s and Hash Rates

Wait, there's one more! I almost forgot. Kanye West tweeted the word "decentralize" this year. You can figure out what that means on your own.

Okay, for real this time. From all of us here at ETHNews, we hope you have a great New Year's Eve and an even better 2019.

Nicholas Ruggieri studied English with an emphasis in creative writing at the University of Nevada, Reno. When he’s not quoting Vines at anyone who’s willing to listen, you’ll find him listening to too many podcasts, reading too many books, and crocheting too many sweaters for his dogs, RT and Peterman.

ETHNews is committed to its Editorial Policy

Like what you read? Follow us on Twitter @ETHNews_ to receive the latest pop culture, Kanye West or other Ethereum lifestyle news.

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shyobjectangel · 7 years ago

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RED Update #1: Restart Energy Expanding on All Fronts

New Post has been published on http://restartenergy.net/red-update-1-restart-energy-expanding-on-all-fronts/

RED Update #1: Restart Energy Expanding on All Fronts

Welcome to Restart Energy’s first article that deals with updates on everything we’ve been working on since the end of our public sale.

This article aims to solve the gap in our communication and show you all the fancy things we’ve been working on.

Of course, you will get more articles like this one in the future. How often? We’re still deciding, but there will be at least one per month, although it’s not guaranteed that there will be as many updates every time.

Let’s get into it.

RED-TRS: Token Renting System

Last week, you were introduced to our new TRS system, which adds more functionality to the MWAT token.

I am not going to bore you with the details, our Chief Editor (Rouă Denis) wrote a brilliant piece on it. You can read it here.

Global Expansion

Fueled by an increasing demand for RED franchises, Restart Energy decided to advance its expansion into several key international energy markets — entering ahead of schedule in decentralized markets planned for 2019 and beyond. Here’s how we’re doing so far:

#1. ‘Restart Energy DOO’ is a registered company in Serbia and has already received its license to supply electricity, Nr.312–90 to be precise. Retail to end consumers is expected to begin in Q3–2018.

#2. Restart Energy opened a subsidiary in Singapore on Feb 6th, 2018. The company has already started the process of obtaining electricity and gas supply licenses in the State of Singapore. The newly created entity will act as a hub for Restart Energy operations in South-East Asia, with a focus on high-growth emerging markets and a rapidly increasing demand for decentralized energy solutions like Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand.

#3. On Feb 26th, Restart Energy officially registered it’s UK subsidiary under the name ‘Restart Energy One UK’, having the company identification number 11224104. The process of obtaining a dual fuel (electricity and gas) supply license has already been initiated and together with a controlled market entry procedure, will take between 8 and 12 months to complete. Operations will include the supply of electricity and natural gas to domestic and non-domestic customers.

#4. Restart Energy is in advanced negotiations for the acquisition of an established Bulgarian energy company. The agreement is scheduled to be signed in March and retail operations to end consumers are scheduled to begin in Q3–2018. Cross-border operations in Greece and Turkey will be managed by Restart Energy Bulgaria.

#5. Restart Energy has started a due diligence process for the acquisition of established energy supply companies in Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, andAustria. The process is scheduled to be completed in Q3–2018.

#6. Restart Energy has employed reputable law offices for registering and licensing subsidiaries in Germany and Spain as licensed energy suppliers. The new subsidiaries will be registered in March and the licensing process is expected to be complete in Q3 and Q4–2018.

RED Platform Update

#1. The first public part (Alpha version) of the RED platform will be the Signup/Login systems based on the MWAT token. This system will allow a verification of ownership for MWAT tokens and as such is crucial for the entire RED ecosystem.

#2. Along with the above release we will present the tokenized voting system, based on the actual MWAT tokens held. If the testing phase goes well, it should be live by the end of the month.

#3. We are actively testing several solutions for bringing some of the principles of blockchain into energy, such as transparency, security, and reliability. To achieve this, we are going to employ a hybrid approach — on one hand, the main database will be kept in a classical cloud-based database. A second database, running on top of the first one, using blockchain technology, will be used to expose the relevant data for the public — such as transactions history — and will act like a shadow to the first one.

The team is trialing three types of blockchain technologies to achieve this with the help of our four new blockchain devs, that joined our Bucharest team in the last few weeks. More details about this will be revealed during our internal testing phase.

RED Franchise Update

Not so much an update, but rather us bragging about how many applications we’ve received from people all over the world for opening an energy supply franchise.

We’ve had over 200 applications, out of which 30 were for type A franchises, that each cover an entire country.

Another interesting fact that we’ve figured you’d like to know, is that the top three countries from which we’ve received applications are: the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia.

Right now, this is all we can share, but we’ll update you the moment we’ve got more news on this subject.

Restart Energy is taking on new franchise applications. You can apply for a RED franchise here: RED Franchise Request Form.

Update on The Number of Customers

In the first two months of 2018, Restart Energy managed to bring another 5,000+ customers onboard. These new customers are only from Romania — we should be able to grow at a much higher pace once we expand to multiple countries around Europe and the rest of the world, as stated in the “Global Expansion” section of this article.

Update on Our Financial Situation for 2017

Restart Energy has ended the 2017 fiscal year with approximately 20 million USD in revenues, with very small variations possible due to exchange rate differences between EUR/USD. This both confirms our revenue projections and affirms a solid 425% net growth based on our company’s Romanian operations alone.

The 2017 financial statements containing detailed numbers will be published at the latest on May 31st, 2018.

New PR Director — Mihai Herman

As stated above, Restart Energy listened to your feedback and has already taken action, by starting a collaboration with a new PR Director.

In case you didn’t notice, this article is written by said PR Director, so I’ll introduce myself below.

At heart, I am an entrepreneur — started my first online business when I was 19 years old. In the past eight years, I’ve ran several businesses & blogs, including being an SEO & marketing consultant, a fashion blogger and a business coach.

I am a big believer in authenticity and transparency when it comes to delivering a message or building a brand, which are the main values that I aim on cultivating here at Restart Energy — and it’s going to be pretty easy because the fundamentals on which this company was built are exactly those.

PR wise, I was able to collaborate with some of the biggest names in the men’s fashion industry, as well as attend New York Fashion Week, Pitti Uomo in Florence and WebSummit in Dublin.

You can find me on Twitter & Telegram @mihaiherman.

Restart Energy is hiring

Our team has expanded even more by hiring 4 blockchain developers and one UI/UX designer to help the current team handle the workload and deliver a spectacular platform as soon as possible.

We are hiring passionate and ambitious professionals that want to forever change the energy world with us. The following positions are available:

#1. International Positions

RED Franchise Business Developer

RED Platform Marketing Manager

Blockchain developer (Solidity)

Full stack developer (Node, Angular, Truffle experience is appreciated)

For development positions, be sure to include your Github profile.

#2. United Kingdom

Energy Supply Manager

Franchise Sales Manager B2B

#3. Singapore

Energy Supply Manager

Franchise Sales Manager

Renewable Energy Business Developer

Job applications can be sent along with a professional CV and short description at: [email protected]

Website Makeover

An update to our website is due, so we’re passively working on a new design and feel, that we believe will appeal to a more B2B audience.

This is an important step, as the more professional a website looks, the more applications we will receive from respectable business people, and as such, the faster we’ll be able to expand. In this regard, of special importance is our Franchise page.

As the saying goes, ‘first impressions matter most’. The timing of the redesign is also near-perfect, since we’re preparing ourselves for the publicity that the company will receive in the coming months through our marketing & PR efforts.

Speaking of…

Updates on Our Marketing & PR Progress

Now, let me show you what we’re working on in terms of gaining awareness for our awesome project.

Besides what’s mentioned below, we’re also working on a few secret projects and on bringing you exciting contests in the coming months.

#1. We hired two reputable PR agencies to help Restart Energy get the publicity it deserves. Currently, we’re working on getting story ideas and finding angles to deliver the news in a way that reporters can’t help but say yes.

Starting next week, however, the first releases should be sent and hopefully we’ll have the first media appearances soon. The strategy was thought so we tackle the energy and blockchain industry at the same time.

Of course, we’ll share each and every one of them with you.

#2. Restart Energy is actively discussing collaboration terms with some Youtube bloggers that should help us gain more awareness in the crypto space.

#3. These are all the articles and videos talking about our project and the $MWAT token from the past two-three weeks. We’ve shared most of them with the community, but I am sure some of you missed them and will appreciate the list.

(Help us spread the word by sharing your favorite article/video on Twitter)

In Hackernoon: https://hackernoon.com/restart-energy-a-decentralized-and-delocalized-electrical-energy-supply-platform-on-the-blockchain-97ec4b280139

In SeekingAlpha, a whole article about our franchising model: https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/22912651-daniel-jennings/5095182-taking-leap-restart-energy-franchise-model

In Crypto-Prospects, Restart Energy got a rating of 8 out of 10: http://crypto-prospect.com/hot-icos-watch-wepower-vs-restartenergy/

In a Medium blog, referred to as an alt coin with big potential: https://medium.com/@aminder2525/5-altcoin-that-can-bring-highest-returns-in-2018-67cec94b854a

In BTCManager, a nice comparison between the biggest energy projects on the blockchain: https://btcmanager.com/blockchain-meets-energy-industry-analysis-powr-mwat-wpr-slr/

In a Steemit blog: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@anamnesia/my-strategy-and-4-investments-i-believe-are-ready-to-explode-during-the-next-altcoin-bull-rush-season

Youtuber Mike B posted another video about us — he talks about why he thinks Restart Energy, as a project, is “life-changing” and also about wanting to own a RED franchise himself:

Crypto Gurus talked about RED as well — including the reasons why they’ve bought MWAT:

youtube

Suppoman mentioned Restart Energy as well:

youtube

Look-What-We’ve-Found-on-Twitter Section

We do our best to reply to every tweet from our valuable community, but you can all agree that it’s humanly impossible to cover everything all the time.

However, we do check every now and then to see what are people tweeting using the $MWAT tag and we’ve found these tweets that made all of us at Restart Energy smile.

Special thanks to all of you who took the time out of their busy lives to share an article and/or mention MWAT to a Twitter crypto influencer.

That’s all folks! Truly hope you’ve enjoyed this article and feel free to give us suggestions in the Telegram Group regarding this update.

Make sure you follow Restart Energy on Twitter // Facebook // Reddit // YouTube.

#Blockchain #Energy #Franchise #Franchising #Green Energy #Mwat Token #Red Mwat Token #Renewable Energy #Restart Energy #Restart Energy Democracy #Token Sale

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click2watch · 6 years ago

Text

Enough with the ICO-Me-So-Horny-Get-Rich-Quick-Lambo ‘Crypto’

CoinDesk asked cypherpunk legend Timothy May, author of the “Crypto Anarchist Manifesto,” to write his thoughts on the bitcoin white paper on its 10th anniversary. What he sent back was a sprawling 30-page evisceration of a technology industry he feels is untethered from reality.

The original message is presented here as a fictional Q&A for clarity. The message remains otherwise unchanged. Read more in our White Paper Reflections series.

CoinDesk: Now that bitcoin has entered the history books, how do you feel the white paper fits in the pantheon of financial cryptography advances?

Tim: First, I’ll say I’ve been following, with some interest, some amusement and a lot of frustration for the past 10 years, the public situation with bitcoin and all of the related variants.

In the pantheon, it deserves a front-rank place, perhaps the most important development since the invention of double-entry book-keeping.

I can’t speak for what Satoshi intended, but I sure don’t think it involved bitcoin exchanges that have draconian rules about KYC, AML, passports, freezes on accounts and laws about reporting “suspicious activity” to the local secret police. There’s a real possibility that all the noise about “governance,” “regulation” and “blockchain” will effectively create a surveillance state, a dossier society.

I think Satoshi would barf. Or at least work on a replacement for bitcoin as he first described it in 2008-2009. I cannot give a ringing endorsement to where we are, or generate a puff-piece about the great things already done.

Sure, bitcoin and its variants – a couple of forks and many altcoin variants – more or less work the way it was originally intended. Bitcoin can be bought or mined, can be sent in various fast ways, small fees paid and recipients get bitcoin and it can be sold in tens of minutes, sometimes even faster.

No permission is needed for this, no centralized agents, not even any trust amongst the parties. And bitcoin can be acquired and then saved for many years.

But this tsunami that swept the financial world has also left a lot of confusion and carnage behind. Detritus of the knowledge-quake, failed experiments, Schumpeter’s “creative destructionism.” It’s not really ready for primetime. Would anyone expect their mother to “download the latest client from Github, compile on one of these platforms, use the Terminal to reset these parameters?”

What I see is losses of hundred of millions in some programming screw-ups, thefts, frauds, initial coin offerings (ICOs) based on flaky ideas, flaky programming and too few talented people to pull off ambitious plans.

Sorry if this ruins the narrative, but I think the narrative is fucked. Satoshi did a brilliant thing, but the story is far from over. She/he/it even acknowledged this, that the bitcoin version in 2008 was not some final answer received from the gods..

CoinDesk: Do you think others in the cypherpunk community share your views? What do you think is creating interest in the industry, or killing it off?

Tim: Frankly, the newness in the Satoshi white paper (and then the early uses for things like Silk Road) is what drew many to the bitcoin world. If the project had been about a “regulatory-compliant,” “banking-friendly” thing, then interest would’ve been small. (In fact, there were some yawn-inducing electronic transfer projects going back a long time. “SET,” for Secure Electronic Transfer, was one such mind-numbingly-boring projects.)

It had no interesting innovations and was 99 percent legalese. Cypherpunks ignored it.

It’s true that some of us were there when things in the “financial cryptography” arena really started to get rolling. Except for some of the work by David Chaum, Stu Haber, Scott Stornetta, and a few others, most academic cryptographers were mainly focused on the mathematics of cryptology: their gaze had not turned much toward the “financial” aspects.

This has of course changed in the past decade. Tens of thousands of people, at least, have flocked into bitcoin, blockchain, with major conferences nearly every week. Probably most people are interested in the “Bitcoin Era,” starting roughly around 2008-2010, but with some important history leading up to it.

History is a natural way people understand things… it tells a story, a linear narrative.

About the future I won’t speculate much. I was vocal about some “obvious” consequences from 1988 to 1998, starting with “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto” in 1988 and the Cypherpunks group and list starting in 1992.

CoinDesk: It sounds like you don’t think that bitcoin is particularly living up to its ethos, or that the community around it hasn’t really stuck to its cypherpunk roots.

Tim: Yes, I think the greed and hype and nattering about “to the Moon!” and “HODL” is the biggest hype wagon I’ve ever seen.

Not so much in the “Dutch Tulip” sense of enormous price increases, but in the sense of hundred of companies, thousands of participants, and the breathless reporting. And the hero worship. This is much more hype than we saw during the dot-com era. I think far too much publicity is being given to talks at conferences, white papers and press releases. A whole lot of “selling” is going on.

People and companies are trying to stake-out claims. Some are even filing for dozens or hundreds of patents in fairly-obvious variants of the basic ideas, even for topics that were extensively-discussed in the 1990s. Let’s hope the patent system dismisses some of these (though probably only when the juggernauts enter the legal fray).

The tension between privacy (or anonymity) and “know your customer” approaches is a core issue. It’s “decentralized, anarchic and peer-to-peer” versus “centralized, permissioned and back door.” Understand that the vision of many in the privacy community — cypherpunks, Satoshi, other pioneers — was explicitly of a permission-less, peer-to-peer system for money transfers. Some had visions of a replacement for “fiat” currency.

David Chaum, a principal pioneer, was very forward-thinking on issues of “buyer anonymity.” Where, for example, a large store could receive payments for goods without knowing the identity of a buyer. (Which is most definitely not the case today, where stores like Walmart and Costco and everybody else compiled detailed records on what customers buy. And where police investigators can buy the records or access them via subpoenas. And in more nefarious ways in some countries.)

Remember, there are many reasons a buyer does not wish to disclose buying preferences. But buyers and sellers BOTH need protections against tracking: a seller of birth control information is probably even more at risk than some mere buyer of such information (in many countries). Then there’s blasphemy, sacrilege and political activism. Approaches like Digicash which concentrated on *buyer* anonymity (as with shoppers at a store or drivers on a toll-road), but were missing a key ingredient: that most people are hunted-down for their speech or their politics on the *seller* side.

Fortunately, buyers and sellers are essentially isomorphic, just with some changes in a few arrow directions (“first-class objects”).

What Satoshi did essentially was to solve the “buyer”/”seller” track-ability tension by providing both buyer AND seller untraceability. Not perfectly, it appears. Which is why so much activity continues.

CoinDesk: So, you’re saying bitcoin and crypto innovators need to fight the powers that be, essentially, not align with them to achieve true innovation?

Tim: Yes, there is not much of interest to many of us if cryptocurrencies just become Yet Another PayPal, just another bank transfer system. What’s exciting is the bypassing of gatekeepers, of exorbitant fee collectors, of middlemen who decide whether Wikileaks — to pick a timely example — can have donations reach it. And to allow people to send money abroad.

Attempts to be “regulatory-friendly” will likely kill the main uses for cryptocurrencies, which are NOT just “another form of PayPal or Visa.”

More general uses of “blockchain” technology are another kettle of fish. Many uses may be compliance-friendly. Of course, a lot of the proposed uses — like putting supply chain records — on various public or private blockchains are not very interesting. Many point that these “distributed ledgers” are not even new inventions, just variants of databases with backups. As well, the idea that corporations want public visibility into contracts, materials purchases, shipping dates, and so on, is naive.

Remember, the excitement about bitcoin was mostly about bypassing controls, to enable exotic new uses like Silk Road. It was some cool and edgy stuff, not just another PayPal.

CoinDesk: So, you’re saying that we should think outside the box, try to think about ways to apply the technology in novel ways, not just remake what we know?

Tim: People should do what interests them. This was how most of the innovative stuff like BitTorrent, mix-nets, bitcoin, etc. happened. So, I’m not sure that “try to think about ways” is the best way to put it. My hunch is that ideologically-driven people will do what is interesting. Corporate people will probably not do well in “thinking about ways.”

Money is speech. Checks, IOUs, delivery contracts, Hawallah banks, all are used as forms of money. Nick Szabo has pointed out that bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies have most if not all of the features of gold except it also has more features: it weighs nothing, it’s difficult to steal or seize and it can be sent over the crudest of wires. And in minutes, not on long cargo flights as when gold bars are moved from place to another.

But, nothing is sacred about either banknotes, coins or even official-looking checks. These are “centralized” systems dependent on “trusted third parties” like banks or nation-states to make some legal or royal guaranty.

Sending bitcoin, in contrast, is equivalent to “saying” a number (math is more complicated than this, but this is the general idea). To ban saying a number is equivalent to a ban on some speech. That doesn’t mean the tech can’t be stopped. There was the “printing out PGP code,” or the Cody Wilson, Defense Distributed case, where a circuit court ruled this way,

Printed words are very seldom outside the scope of the First Amendment.

CoinDesk: Isn’t this a good example of where you, arguably, want some censorship (the ability to force laws), if we’re going to rebuild the whole economy, or even partial economies, on top of this stuff?

Tim: There will inevitably be some contact with the legal systems of the U.S., or the rest of the world. Slogans like “the code is the law” are mainly aspirational, not actually true.

Bitcoin, qua bitcoin, is mostly independent of law. Payments are, by the nature of bitcoin, independent of charge-backs, “I want to cancel that transaction,” and other legal issues. This may change. But in the current scheme, it’s generally not know who the parties are, which jurisdictions the parties live in, even which laws apply.

This said, I think nearly all new technologies have had uses some would not like. Gutenberg’s printing press was certainly not liked by the Catholic Church. Examples abound. But does this mean printing presses should be licensed or regulated?

There have usually been some unsavory or worse uses of new technologies (what’s unsavory to, say, the U.S.S.R. may not be unsavory to Americans). Birth control information was banned in Ireland, Saudi Arabia, etc. Examples abound: weapons, fire, printing press, telephones, copier machines, computers, tape recorders.

CoinDesk: Is there a blockchain or cryptocurrency that’s doing it right? Is bitcoin, in your opinion, getting its own vision right?

Tim: As I said, bitcoin is basically doing what it was planned to do. Money can be transferred, saved (as bitcoin), even used as a speculative vehicle. The same cannot be said for dozens of major variants and hundreds of minor variants where a clear-cut, understandable “use case” is difficult to find.

Talk of “reputation tokens,” “attention tokens,” “charitable giving tokens,” these all seem way premature to me. And none have taken off the way bitcoin did. Even ethereum, a majorly different approach, has yet to see interest uses (at least that I have seen, and I admit I don’t the time or will to spend hours every day following the Reddit and Twitter comments.)

“Blockchain,” now its own rapidly-developing industry, is proceeding on several paths: private blockchains, bank-controlled blockchains, pubic blockchains, even using the bitcoin blockchain itself. Some uses may turn out to be useful, but some appear to be speculative, toy-like. Really, marriage proposals on the blockchain?

The sheer number of small companies, large consortiums, alternative cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings (ICOs), conferences, expos, forks, new protocols, is causing great confusion and yet there are new conferences nearly every week.

People jetting from Tokyo to Kiev to Cancun for the latest 3-5 days rolling party. The smallest only attract hundreds of fanboys, the largest apparently have drawn crowds of 8,000. You can contrast that with the straightforward roll-out of credit cards, or even the relatively clean roll-out of bitcoin. People cannot spend mental energy reading technical papers, following the weekly announcements, the contentious debates. The mental transaction costs are too high, for too little.

The people I hear about who are reportedly transferring “interesting” amounts of money are using basic forms of bitcoin or bitcoin cash, not exotics new things like Lightning, Avalanche, or the 30 to 100 other things.

CoinDesk: It sounds like you’re optimistic about the value transfer use case for cryptocurrencies, at least then.

Tim: Well, it will be a tragic error if the race to develop (and profit from) the things that are confusingly called “cryptocurrencies” end up developing dossiers or surveillance societies such as the world has never seen. I’m just saying there’s a danger.

With “know your customer” regulations, crypto monetary transfers won’t be like what we have now with ordinary cash transactions, or even with wire transfers, checks, etc. Things will be _worse_ than what we have now if a system of “is-a-person” credentialing and “know your customer” governance is ever established. Some countries already want this to happen.

The “Internet driver’s license” is something we need to fight against.

CoinDesk: That’s possible, but you could make a similar claim about the internet today isn’t exactly the same as the original idea, yet it’s still be useful in driving human progress.

Tim: I’m just saying we could end up with a regulation of money and transfers that is much the same as regulating speech. Is this a reach? If Alice can be forbidden from saying “I will gladly pay you a dollar next week for a cheeseburger today,” is this not a speech restriction? “Know your customer” could just as easily be applied to books and publishing: “Know your reader.” Gaaack!

I’m saying there are two paths: freedom vs. permissioned and centralized systems.

This fork in the road in the road was widely discussed some 25 years ago. Government and law enforcement types didn’t even really disagree: they saw the fork approaching. Today, we have tracking, the wide use of scanners (at elevators, chokepoints), tools for encryption, cash, privacy, tools for tracking, scanning, forced decryption, backdoors, escrow.

In a age where a person’s smartphone or computer may carry gigabytes of photos, correspondence, business information – much more than an entire house carried back when the Bill of Rights was written – the casual interception of phones and computers is worrisome. A lot of countries are even worse than the U.S. New tools to secure data are needed, and lawmakers need to be educated.

Corporations are showing signs of corporatizing the blockchain: there are several large consortiums, even cartels who want “regulatory compliance.”

It is tempting for some to think that legal protections and judicial supervision will stop excesses… at least in the US and some other countries. Yet, we know that even the US has engaged in draconian behavior (purges of Mormons, killings and death marches for Native Americans, lynchings, illegal imprisonment of those of suspected Japanese ancestry).

What will China and Iran do with the powerful “know your writers” (to extend “know your customer” in the inevitable way)?

CoinDesk: Are we even talking about technology anymore though? Isn’t this just power and the balance of power. Isn’t there good that has come from the internet even if it’s become more centralized?

Tim: Of course, there’s been much good coming out of the Internet tsunami.

But, China already uses massive databases – with the aid of search engine companies – to compile “citizen trustworthiness” ratings that can be used to deny access to banking, hotels, travel. Social media corporate giants are eagerly moving to help build the machinery of the Dossier Society (they claim otherwise, but their actions speak for themselves).

Not to sound like a Leftist ranting about Big Brother, but any civil libertarian or actual libertarian has reason to be afraid. In fact, many authors decades ago predicted this dossier society, and the tools have jumped in quantum leaps since then

In thermodynamics, and in mechanical systems, with moving parts, there are “degrees of freedom.” A piston can move up or down, a rotor can turn, etc. I believe social systems and economies can be characterized in similar ways. Some things increase degrees of freedom, some things “lock it down.”

CoinDesk: Have you thought about writing something definitive on the current crypto times, sort of a new spin on your old works?

Tim: No, not really. I spent a lot of time in the 1992-95 period writing for many hours a day. I don’t have it in me to do this again. That a real book did not come out of this is mildly regrettable, but I’m stoical about it.

CoinDesk: Let’s step back and look at your history. Knowing what you know about the early cypherpunk days, do you see any analogies to what’s happening in crypto now?

Tim: About 30 years ago, I got interested in the implications of strong cryptography. Not so much about the “sending secret messages” part, but the implications for money, bypassing borders, letting people transact without government control, voluntary associations.

I came to call it “crypto anarchy” and in 1988 I wrote “The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto,” loosely-based in form on another famous manifesto. And based on “anarcho-capitalism,” a well-known variant of anarchism. (Nothing to do with Russian anarchists or syndicalists, just free trade and voluntary transactions.)

At the time, there was one main conference – Crypto – and two less-popular conferences – EuroCrypt and AsiaCrypt. The academic conferences had few if any papers on any links to economics and institutions (politics, if you will). Some game theory-related papers were very important, like the mind-blowing “Zero Knowledge Interactive Proof Systems” work of Micali, Goldwasser and Rackoff.

I explored the ideas for several years. In my retirement from Intel in 1986 (thank you, 100-fold increase in the stock price!), I spent many hours a day reading crypto papers, thinking about new structures that were about to become possible.

Things like data havens in cyberspace, new financial institutions, timed-release crypto, digital dead drops through steganography, and, of course, digital money.

Around that time, I met Eric Hughes and he visited my place near Santa Cruz. We hatched a plan to call together some of the brightest people we knew to talk about this stuff. We met in his newly-rented house in the Oakland Hills in the late summer of 1992.

CoinDesk: You mentioned implications for money… Were there any inclinations then that something like bitcoin or cryptocurrency would come along?

Tim: Ironically, at that first meeting, I passed out some Monopoly money I bought at a toy store. (I say ironically because years later, when bitcoin was first being exchanged in around 2009-2011 it looked like play money to most people – cue the pizza story!)

I apportioned it out and we used it to simulate what a world of strong crypto, with data havens and black markets and remailers (Chaum’s “mixes”) might look like. Systems like what later became “Silk Road” were a hoot. (More than one journalist has asked me why I did not widely-distribute my “BlackNet” proof of concept. My answer is generally “Because I didn’t want to be arrested and imprisoned.” Proposing ideas and writing is protected speech, at least in the U.S. at present.)

We started to meet monthly, if not more often at times, and a mailing list rapidly formed. John Gilmore and Hugh Daniel hosted the mailing list. There was no moderation, no screening, no “censorship” (in the loose sense, not referring to government censorship, of which of course there was none.) The “no moderation” policy went along with “no leaders.”

While a handful of maybe 20 people wrote 80 percent of the essays and messages, there was no real structure. (We also thought this would provide better protection against government prosecution).

And of course this fits with a polycentric, distributed, permission-less, peer to peer structure. A form of anarchy, in the “an arch,” or “no top” true meaning of the word anarchy. This had been previously explored by David Friedman, in his influential mid-70s book “The Machinery of Freedom.” And by Bruce Benson, in “The Enterprise of Law.

He studied the role of legal systems absent some ruling top authority. And of course anarchy is the default and preferred mode of most people—to choose what they eat, who they associate with, what the read and watch. And whenever some government or tyrant tries to restrict their choices they often finds way to route around the restrictions: birth control, underground literature, illegal radio reception, copied cassette tapes, thumb drives ….

This probably influenced the form of bitcoin that Satoshi Nakamoto later formulated.

CoinDesk: What was your first reaction to Satoshi’s messages, do you remember how you felt about the ideas?

Tim: I was actually doing some other things and wasn’t following the debates. My friend Nick Szabo mentioned some of the topics in around 2006-2008. And like a lot of people I think my reaction to hearing about the Satoshi white paper and then the earliest “toy” transactions was only mild interest. It just didn’t seem likely to become as big as it did.

He/she/they debated aspects of how a digital currency might work, what it needed to make it interesting. Then, in 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released “their” white paper. A lot of debate ensued, but also a lot of skepticism.

In early 2009 an alpha release of “bitcoin” appeared. Hal Finney had the first bitcoin transaction with Satoshi. A few others. Satoshi himself (themselves?) even said that bitcoin would likely either go to zero in value or to a “lot.” I think many were either not following it or expected it would go to zero, just another bit of wreckage on the Information Superhighway.

The infamous pizza purchase shows that most thought of it as basically toy money.

CoinDesk: Do you still think it’s toy money? Or has the slowly increasing value sort of put that argument to rest, in your mind?

Tim: No, it’s no longer just toy money. Hasn’t been for the past several years. But it’s also not yet a replacement for money, for folding money. For bank transfers, for Hawallah banks, sure. It’s functioning as a money transfer system, and for black markets and the like.]

I’ve never seen such hype, such mania. Not even during the dot.com bubble, the era of Pets.com and people talking about how much money they made by buying stocks in “JDS Uniphase.” (After the bubble burst, the joke around Silicon Valley was “What’s this new start-up called “Space Available”?” Empty buildings all around.)

I still think cryptocurrency is too complicated…coins, forks, sharding, off-chain networks, DAGs, proof-of-work vs. proof-of-stake, the average person cannot plausibly follow all of this. What use cases, really? There’s talk about the eventual replacement of the banking system, or credit cards, PayPal, etc. is nice, but what does it do NOW?

The most compelling cases I hear about are when someone transfers money to a party that has been blocked by PayPal, Visa (etc), or banks and wire transfers. The rest is hype, evangelizing, HODL, get-rich lambo garbage.

CoinDesk: So, you see that as bad. You don’t buy the argument that that’s how things get built though, over time, somewhat sloppily…

Tim: Things sometimes get built in sloppy ways. Planes crash, dams fail, engineers learn. But there are many glaring flaws in the whole ecology. Programming errors, conceptual errors, poor security methods. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been lost, stolen, locked in time-vault errors.

If banks were to lose this kind of my money in “Oops. My bad!” situations there’d be bloody screams. When safes were broken into, the manufacturers studied the faults — what we now call “the attack surface” — and changes were made. It’s not just that customers — the banks — were encouraged to upgrade, it’s that their insurance rates were lower with newer safes. We desperately need something like this with cryptocurrencies and exchanges.

Universities can’t train even basic “cryptocurrency engineers” fast enough, let alone researchers. Cryptocurrency requires a lot of unusual areas: game theory, probability theory, finance, programming.

Any child understands what a coin like a quarter “does,” He sees others using quarters and dollar bills and the way it works is clear.

When I got my first credit card I did not spend a lot of time reading manuals, let alone downloading wallets, cold storage tools or keeping myself current on the protocols. “It just worked, and money didn’t just vanish.

CoinDesk: It sounds like you don’t like how innovation and speculation have become intertwined in the industry…

Tim: Innovation is fine. I saw a lot of it in the chip industry. But we didn’t have conferences EVERY WEEK! And we didn’t announce new products that had only the sketchiest ideas about. And we didn’t form new companies with such abandon. And we didn’t fund by “floating an ICO” and raising $100 million from what are, bluntly put, naive speculators who hope to catch the next bitcoin.

Amongst my friends, some of whom work at cryptocurrency companies and exchanges, the main interest seems to be in the speculative stuff. Which is why they often keep their cryptocurrency at the exchanges: for rapid trading, shorting, hedging, but NOT for buying stuff or transferring assets outside of the normal channels.

CoinDesk: Yet, you seem pretty knowledgeable on the whole about the subject area… Sounds like you might have a specific idea of what it “should” be.

Tim: I probably spend way too much time following the Reddit and Twitter threads (I don’t have an actual Twitter account).

What “should” it be? As the saying goes, the street will find its own uses for technology. For a while, Silk Road and its variants drove wide use. Recently, it’s been HODLing, aka speculating. I hear that online gambling is one of the main uses of ethereum. Let the fools blow their money.

Is the fluff and hype worth it? Will cryptocurrency change the world? Probably. The future is no doubt online, electronic, paperless.

But bottom line, there’s way too much hype, way too much publicity and not very many people who understand the ideas. It’s almost as if people realize there’s a whole world out there and thousands start building boats in their backyards.

Some will make, but most will either stop building their boats or will sink at sea.

We were once big on manifestos, These were ways not of enforcing compliance, but of suggesting ways to proceed. A bit like advising a cat… one does not command a cat, one merely suggests ideas, which sometimes they go with.

Final Thoughts:

Don’t use something just because it sounds cool…only use it if actually solves some problem (To date, cryptocurrency solves problems for few people, at least in the First World).

Most things we think of as problems are not solvable with crypto or any other such technology (crap like “better donation systems” are not something most people are interested in).

If one is involved in dangerous transactions – drugs, birth control information – practice intensive “operational security”….look at how Ross Ulbricht was caught.

Mathematics is not the law

Crypto remains very far from being usable by average people (even technical people)

Be interested in liberty and the freedom to transact and speak to get back to the original motivations. Don’t spend time trying to make government-friendly financial alternatives.

Remember, there are a lot tyrants out there.

Image via Consensus archives

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