TruBlo Newsletter #29

TruBlo Newsletter #29

January 28, 2022

TruBlo Newsletter #29

A weekly update from the intersection of trust, content and blockchain

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes, 24 seconds. Contains 1682 words.

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PROJECT UPDATE

TruBlo Open Call #3 is now open

Since yesterday the TruBlo Open Call #3 accepts applications. We updated our FAQ and downloaded all needed documents as a .zip file. Check out the application page to learn more. A total of 20 projects can receive funding of up to €175,000. The deadline for applications is March 30, 2022.

Blockchain Weather for Week 4, 2022 (January 24-30)

In each edition, we aim to summarise the current sentiment for crypto, blockchain and web3 similar to a weather report:

Cold, cold winds from ahead. Temperature has fallen steeply for months and specifically last week. Some predict a long, cold winter. Others are more optimistic and believe that this really cold period will last only weeks or months.

TRUST

A cyberwar against Ukraine could affect the whole world

We all implicitly trust that the internet will be there for us tomorrow, as well as all other systems, from water to electricity. But if such infrastructure becomes a target for cyberwar, this will affect not only one specific country. Instead, it would be hard to control that malware would affect other systems. The MIT Technology Review has a longer article collecting views on the current situation. It says: A cyberwar against Ukraine will not be limited to just one country.

“Ukraine has been on the receiving end of aggressive Russian cyber operations for the last decade and has suffered invasion and military intervention from Moscow since 2014. In 2015 and 2016, Russian hackers attacked Ukraine’s power grid and turned out the lights in the capital city of Kyiv— unparalleled acts that haven’t been carried out anywhere else before or since. The 2017 NotPetya cyberattack, once again ordered by Moscow, was directed initially at Ukrainian private companies before it spilt over and destroyed systems around the world.”

What happens when NSO targets your phone?

This links to a Twitter thread, Lama Fakih, Crisis and Conflict Director at Human Rights Watch. NSO, a powerful spying software, targeted her phone. She reports her experience, noting that the software is a “no-click” variety. You don’t have to click or install anything. Your phone is simply taken over.

“It is no accident that governments are using spyware to target activists and journalists, the very people who uncover their abusive practices.”

Google proposes “Topics” as a replacement for cookies

Cookies as a means of user identification are going away. They allow collecting too much information about each user. As a replacement, Google had proposed a technical approach called “Federated Learning of Cohorts” or FLoCS. But now, this future approach is history, too. Now Google announced that FLoCs id dropped. The new method is called “Topics”. The idea is that a browser will learn about interests and then store that data for three weeks, based on 300 different groupings. Advertisers will then send their ads to specific topics, but no longer based on having detailed information about an individual. We have a short article discussing how “Topics” differs from FLoC on the TruBlo blog.

EU GDPR plans: Be more like Apple

User privacy is a worthy goal and high on the agenda in the EU. Getting there is complicated, though. A current problem: Many websites are making privacy selection difficult and confusing. A user can easily spend more time selecting privacy preferences than with the actual content on a site. Now European lawmakers want to enhance the system.

“European lawmakers want to apply Apple’s idea across all major online platforms—a definition that includes online marketplaces, app stores, and social media platforms—and force them to display simple options when people first visit a website. On January 20, a majority of MEPs voted in favour of an amendment to the Digital Services Act (DSA), which stated that refusing consent for ad tracking should be no more difficult or time-consuming than providing it.”

The article below points out that even the Apple approach has some shortcomings and that there are workarounds. Still, it would be great if website privacy selections would be simpler and less confusing.

CONTENT

Casey Newton: Three things web3 should fix in 2022: Safety, reliability, scalability

Casey Newton, influential journalist and author “The Platformer“, looks at the current debate about web3. He says three key aspects should be tackled first: Making crypto transactions safe and reliable, making blockchains efficient and scalable, and developing technology to reduce harassment and abuse.

David Chaum about web3 and the role of metadata today

Interesting outtake from an interview with David Chaum, a pioneer in computer security and early payment apps. Please note that the full interview is behind a paywall, but even the bits which can be read without any registration are relevant.

“As has become obvious over the last 10 years, the most valuable resource in the 21st century is metadata,” said Chaum in an interview. “It can be used to better sell products, or better find answers, but it can also be used to better propagandize, track dissidents, and control populations.”

LINK ($)

Brian Eno with a critically view on NFTs

“NFTs seem to me just a way for artists to get a little piece of the action from global capitalism, our own cute little version of financialisation.”

dpa builds a team of fifteen people for fact-checking news, with money from Meta

dpa, short for “Deutsche Presse Agentur”, is the biggest news agency in Germany. The company owners are the regional German newspapers, but dpa is still a for-profit organisation. The news agency announced that they would add a larger team for fact-checking to check for disinformation – funded by Meta. This growing dependency for a journalistic institution is considered problematic or at least risky, says a commentator from “Übermedien” (in German)

LINK (in German)

Sneaker fans are not fans of virtual shoes

In a CB Insights study published this week, there was a fascinating future idea: The idea that companies in the future could sell directly to our avatars.
It is fascinating because just the thought of this teleports you into possible futures. Right now, though, the first experiments with such selling digital goods are going as planned. Addidas recently dropped 30,000 NFTs in collaboration with several crypto platforms. But sneakerheads, the people collecting sports shoes, were not interested.

Where will journalism be in 15 years?

Politico asked experts for their views on media development: They collected the opinions of 16 future-minded thinkers on how journalism might evolve.

Meta builds an AI supercomputer

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, develops a unique supercomputer to power the metaverse. The computer is called the AI Research Super Cluster. One task is to spot harmful content early.

Visual representation in the metaverse: Truly diverse?

The trend research from WundermanThompson Intelligence has been cited several times in this newsletter. One recent update discusses an exciting question: What is a good approach to visual representation in the metaverse? The article shows how experts and creatives try to find diverse solutions. Another aspect is how can you make an avatar genuinely unique? Will our conventions follow us into the new (digital) cosmos, or will we simply copy-paste the real to virtual life patterns?

BLOCKCHAIN

Cryptocurrency prices go into freefall

The value of crypto-coins has fallen steeply. One thought: The current downturn primarily hurts new investors who invested in the past 12-18 months. Early adopters, specifically so-called “crypto whales“, might presumably be still in the green. The term “crypto whale” refers to individuals or entities holding large amounts of bitcoin or other currencies.

Bitcoin has had a horror few days, with the blockchain’s price sliding by 20 per cent in the past week. The coin’s current 24-hour low was a staggering US$34,784 (A$48,300), representing a decline of 50 per cent since its November all-time high of US$69,000 (A$96,000). In all, the cryptocurrency market has lost US$1.4 trillion (A$1.9t) in just two months since its $3 trillion combined market cap last November,

IMF to El Salvador: Please stop accepting Bitcoin as legal tender

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board recommended that El Salvador discontinue Bitcoin as legal tender due to the financial risks and liabilities.

From the BBC:

“In September, El Salvador became the first country to allow consumers to use the cryptocurrency in all transactions, alongside the US dollar. The decision led to large-scale protests over fears it would bring instability and inflation to the impoverished Latin American country. Bitcoin has lost about half its value since November. The IMF has warned President Nayib Bukele of the risks the cryptocurrency poses to the country, stressing that it would be difficult to get a loan from the institution.“

The central bank of Russia wants a ban on crypto trading and binding.

In a 36-page draft proposal, the bank says that the “breakneck” growth and market value is primarily defined by speculative demand for even more future growth. In the bank’s view, there is a risk of financial bubbles. According to an article from the Financial Times, the bank sees aspects of financial pyramids because the demand of new entrants supports the price of currencies. Interestingly, other parts of the Russian government disagreed and suggested better regulating the area and letting it evolve.

Bitcoin optimism

ARK Investment Management predicts that the price of one bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2030. The reasoning behind the prediction is that Bitcoin is still in an early stage and that more countries will adopt digital currency as a legal tender in the future. Another driver could be to use cryptocurrencies for the settlement of payments.

Quick updates:

Reminder: EUBOF Energy Efficiency of Blockchain Technologies. It is from September 2021, but the topic remains relevant. LINK
London-based cryptoprocessor BCB Group received $60 in new funding LINK
Google launches a blockchain division as part of its lab group. The company is hiring. LINK
The market might go through a slump, but investors still invest massive amounts of money into crypto custody providers. LINK
The Markup asks users to help investigate Facebook pixel tracking for more transparency. LINK

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TruBlo Newsletter #28

TruBlo Newsletter #28

Newsletter #28

Your quick update from the intersection of trust, content and blockchain

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 18 seconds. Contains 1260 words

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PROJECT UPDATE

Introducing funded projects of TruBlo

D-SBOM: Distributed Software Bill of Materials

Problem: IoT devices are essential in logistics, storage and other areas of life, leading to new security concerns. Malware targeting Linux systems increased by 35% in 2021 compared to 2020. IoT and logistics applications often depend on stacks of different software components and many interfaces to existing systems. So far, it isn’t straightforward for IT managers to see which software and which elements are part of a system.
Solution: Asvin GmbH, the company behind D-SBOM, proposes a “Distributed Software Bill of Materials”. This would list up all the different software used in a specific set-up. The goal is to achieve much better transparency and security.

Remember: TruBlo Open Call 3 will start on January 27, 2022.

Blockchain Weather for Week 3, 2022 (January 17-23)

In each edition, we aim to summarise the current sentiment for crypto, blockchain and web3 similar to a weather report:

Still cloudy – a grey, cold January for many areas of the crypto and web3 landscape. Only few bright spots. Community is still very active, but has seemingly retracted a little to prepare for spring time and sunnier periods.

Please tell us what you think.

Updates this week:

TRUST

Artists fear a flood of fakes in the $25 billion NFT market

The market for “non-fungible tokens” (NFTs) has grown to a volume of $25 billion during 2021. But with the volume comes trouble: Because there is only lax oversight, artists now fear that there will be many fakes in the future. Reported by Reuters in a Twitter thread – good format, very informative.

Who is driving this?

An advertisement in The New York Times warned against the “full self-driving” (FSD) mode of Tesla cars this week. The headline said: “Don’t be a Tesla Crash Test Dummy”. The ad said that Tesla software has too many flaws, is unsafe and should be forbidden. The ad was paid for by “The Dawn Project”. The organisation wants to “ban unsafe software from safety-critical systems that military-style hackers can target”. The founder of the advocacy group the CEO of a company called Green Hill Software which builds systems and programming tools for embedded safety and security systems.

Privacy Protection: Police Agency Europol ordered to delete databases with personal data

Europol, the central policing agency of the EU, has been ordered to delete extensive collections of personal data because the particular databases failed to meet EU data protection standards. The order came from the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), which oversees and enforces the EU GDPR privacy standards.

Fines for breaches of EU GDPR privacy regulation crossed the amount of €1 billion in 2021

EU data protection authorities have handed out a total of $1.25 billion in fines over breaches of the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation since Jan. 28, 2021, law firm DLA Piper said in a report published Tuesday. That’s up from about $180 million a year earlier.

Spain: Stricter rules for crypto-asset advertising

It will be less easy to advertise crypto assets in Spain by mid-February. The Spanish Government demands that advertisers inform a government agency ten days before starting a campaign. The rules include using social media influencers and apply to all campaigns targeting more than 100,000 people. Read: All large campaigns will have to do this. In the future, advertisers must warn of risks.

Singapore: No advertising for crypto services in public places

New regulations will only allow advertisements on websites and mobile apps.

Pakistan: Customers are advised to avoid crypto transactions

One of the larger banks in Pakistan started to send out SMS to customers, informing them not to carry out crypto transactions. Before the Bank of Pakistan, the country’s central bank had sent a report to policymakers advising to ban all crypto activity.

CONTENT

UK: Government starts a campaign against end-to-end encryption in messaging services

What is more important? That millions of private messages are not readable by outsiders. Or should a government and authorities monitor such communication for potential threats, such as terrorism or criminal or illegal activities? The UK wants the latter, more control. The blocker is end-to-end encryption. This is why the British government will start an advertising campaign against encryption on WhatsApp and other messaging platforms. The consequences could be far-reaching for any country connected to the UK.

From the “Rolling Stone”:

“According to documents reviewed by Rolling Stone, one of the activities considered as part of the publicity offensive is a striking stunt — placing an adult and child (both actors) in a glass box, with the adult looking “knowingly” at the child as the glass fades to black.”

WundermanThompson Trend Report: The Future 100 (2022)

We are fans of this particular trend report. WundermanThompson is a global advertising agency, and as a result, the trends considered range from technology to communication to cultural movements. The study reads like a glossy magazine from the future. Many of the trends are interesting and will shape how we do business and lead our lives.

Australian Open offers tennis memorabilia as NFTs

The Australian Open is about to enter the NFT frenzy now that the drama over Novak Djokovich is (almost) over. The NFTs will be about “iconic moments” of the tournament from the last decades. Look at what is offered on Sweet (which is the platform they use).

Opinions wanted: AI4media research project launches survey

AI4Media, an H2020 research project, currently works on a Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence technologies and applications in the media sector. They are now running a survey to collect feedback and opinions from media sector representatives (news, film, TV, radio, gaming). A second survey will be shared with the AI research community.

The survey is anonymous, so there is no need to give your name or the name of your organisation. Data is not linked to respondents and is used only in an aggregated way.

Wired: Our bodies could be a new data source in the metaverse

For future entertainment in the metaverse, we will need virtual reality headsets. But these devices could collect even more data than today’s TVs or smartphones.

UK: Licence fee for BBC will be abolished in 2027 and funding frozen

“The BBC will have to negotiate with the government over an entirely new funding model when the final licence fee funding deal expires in 2027 – with potential options including a subscription service, part-privatisation, or direct government funding.” – The Guardian

BLOCKCHAIN

Crypto Theses for 2022: Free 165 pages deep dive

Written by Ryan Selkis this is an energetic, highly detailed analysis of almost all current trends. If recent views on crypto and web3 were too gloomy for your tastes, this particular report is for you. Many opinions on many different facts. Well written. Free download.

Block (formerly Square) wants to find new ways for bitcoin mining

“We want to make mining more distributed and efficient in every way, from buying, to set up, to maintenance, to mining. We’re interested because mining goes far beyond creating new bitcoin. We see it as a long-term need for a future that is fully decentralized and permissionless.”

European VC Blossom Capital raises 432m investment fund

A considerable part of the fund will be invested in technology and crypto projects.

Money laundering: Old goal, new technology

How stolen Ethereum is “mixed” to cover traces.

Quick updates:

Indian PM links crypto to supply-chain issues, inflation – calls for international cooperation to control crypto LINK
Ambient.ai, which uses artificial intelligence to search through security camera footage, raised $52 million VC funding from a15z LINK

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Photo by Lukas on Unsplash

Newsletter #27

Newsletter #27

January 12, 2022

TruBlo Newsletter #27

Your quick update from the intersection of trust, content and blockchain

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes, 23 seconds. Contains 1879 words.

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PROJECT UPDATE

TruBlo funded project: ENARXIS – Better management for EV charging stations.

Problem: ENARXIS develops a blockchain reputation system for better use of charging stations for electric vehicles. The current situation is that a charging point might be reserved, but the driver does not show up. Another issue is when a car is fully loaded but not moved away, blocking the station.

Solution: Users showing up in time and leaving when loaded will be rewarded with a good reputation. The company behind the project is EV Loader, and the team is already operating in the field of EV charging points management in Greece.

Short profile of ENARXIS

TruBlo Open Call 3 will start on January 27, 2022.

Blockchain Weather, Week 2 2022 (January 10-17)

Here is a new element in our newsletter. In each edition, we aim to summarise the current sentiment for crypto, blockchain and web3 similar to a weather report:

Past week: A heavy storm passing through, resulting in falling value for many currencies.

Currently cold temperature, with unclear outlook whether situation will brighten up. There might even be additional storms coming through, but that is unclear.

Please tell us what you think.

Updates this week:

TRUST

How decentralised will web3 be?

Here is an exciting and thoughtful comment published by Moxie Marlinspike, the CEO of messaging service Signal, who just stepped down. He talks about the assumption that web3 will be decentralised, and the question he asks is: Is this really what we need? He created an NFT (non-fungible token), primarily to test the current status. At the end of the post, Marlinspike comes to two interesting conclusions:

We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure. This means architecture that anticipates and accepts the inevitable outcome of relatively centralized client/server relationships, but uses cryptography (rather than infrastructure) to distribute trust. One of the surprising things to me about web3, despite being built on “crypto,” is how little cryptography seems to be involved!

We should try to reduce the burden of building software. At this point, software projects require an enormous amount of human effort. Even relatively simple apps require a group of people to sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day, every day, forever. This wasn’t always the case, and there was a time when 50 people working on a software project wasn’t considered a “small team.” As long as software requires such concerted energy and so much highly specialized human focus, I think it will have the tendency to serve the interests of the people sitting in that room every day rather than what we may consider our broader goals. I think changing our relationship to technology will probably require making software easier to create, but in my lifetime I’ve seen the opposite come to pass. Unfortunately, I think distributed systems have a tendency to exacerbate this trend by making things more complicated and more difficult, not less complicated and less difficult.

The quotes are a bit long, sorry. But shortening them would have resulted in a loss of nuance:

Signal is “playing with fire”: Adding traceless money transfers could invite regulators to stop end-to-end encryption.

Another story is that Signal currently explores the addition of anonymous cryptocurrency payments. Such payments would be almost untraceable, like cash. Casey Newton from Platformer sees this as a risky move, and such an option could be an excuse to regulators worldwide to call for end-to-end encryption. “How Signal is playing with fire” is the headline. Simply adding such services could do more harm than good.

PayPal works on a stablecoin for digital payments

PayPal confirmed that the company is working on a PayPal stablecoin, backed by US-Dollar. The company said it would be working with regulators ahead of a launch. On a recent podcast, a company representative said that the company has “not yet seen a stablecoin out there that is purpose-built for payments.”

The goal for their coin would be to enable payments at scale while maintaining security. One hope for the future would be that fees for money transfers go down.

Cardano Forrest project says it planted one million trees.

The Cardano Foundation is a non-profit that oversees the Cardano network development. One project of the organisation is the Cardano Forrest, a reforestation effort. The project says it has reached a milestone of one million trees. For the plantation, the foundation works with Veritree, which uses blockchain to enable verifiable tracking of each plant. Veritree offers a platform for businesses and planting organisations, providing the technology, trusted storage and data updates.

Such projects are positive. But the central success part is when the planted trees are still there in fifty years. Whether blockchain contributes to such long-term development and tracing such projects, the digital record won’t change if no one looks after the trees.

Meta rolls out new privacy centre, currently only available for US users

Setting privacy rules on Facebook is possible, but not simple. Now, Meta announced a new, updated privacy centre that makes privacy and sharing settings easier to use. The offering is currently only available for users in the US but will be rolled out worldwide in the coming months.

How Meta/Facebook wanted secrecy for data centre project in the Netherlands

BuzzFeed reports that people in the small Dutch town of Zeewolde feel deceived. The town council negotiated for two years about a planned, hyper-scale data centre. Only after the project, code-named “Tulip”, got the green light did the council members, and the citizens realise they were dealing with is Meta/Facebook.

“Facebook’s demand for secrecy around its data centre in the Netherlands is the latest example of Big Tech’s aggressive but covert strategy to squeeze concessions from local governments. The veil of secrecy minimizes public scrutiny and backlash, often until it is too late.”

EU Parliament gets sanctioned by EU data protection officer

The European Data Protection Supervisor sanctioned the European Parliament over a breach of data protection rules. The EU Parliament had launched a COVID-19 test booking website using a 3rd party provider. The set-up was not in compliance with the privacy protection rules. The episode is a reminder that the EU takes data protection seriously.

CONTENT

Livepeer gets funding for decentralised video streaming based on an open video infrastructure.

In the future, Amazon Video and Netflix might have to compete not with one but potentially multiple, decentralised video streaming services using blockchain. One such contender is Livepeer, an Ethereum-based streaming network, which recently received 28 Million US-Dollars in venture funding. Livepeer aims to develop an “open video infrastructure”, meaning content creators could offer their videos independently from a central hub or authority. There is a 10 minute illustrated primer on the homepage that helps to understand the goals of Livepeer better. The company will use the money to develop “smart video” services based on Artificial Intelligence and so-called “peer-to-peer” content delivery.

Deleted scenes from “Pulp Fiction” movie to be auctioned off as NFTs

Director Quentin Tarantino plans to auction off “Pulp Fiction” NFTs, despite being sued by film company Miramax over the rights for these scenes. A unique feature of these NFTs is that they are “secret”, meaning only the buyers will be able to view them. For this purpose, the filmmaker will use a platform by Secret Network , which received $11.5 million in funding in May 2021.

European Media Freedom Act: Commission launches public consultation

The consultation intends to collect views on the most important issues affecting the functioning of the internal media market, including different types of interference in media, as well as economic trends. It covers three main areas pertaining to media markets, the first one focuses on transparency and independence (e.g. scrutiny of media market transactions, transparency of media ownership and audience measurement), the second on conditions for their healthy functioning (e.g. exposure of the public to a plurality of views, media innovation in the EU market) and the third one on fair allocation of state resources (e.g. independence of public service media, transparency and fair distribution of state advertising).

The consultation is open until March 21 2022. Input can be provided via a webpage at the “Have your say portal”

NFT Net Price Floor: Overview of NFT price development

“NFT Net Price Floor” is a helpful website to monitor the prices of NFTs. Example: The currency, a project by the artist Damien Hirst.

“The Currency is the first NFT collection by the renowned Damien Hirst. Reimagining how NFTs are used.” The offering is a collection of 10,000 NFTs that correspond to 10,000 unique physical artworks stored in a secure vault in the UK.”

Open Sea and Web 3

The marketplace is in talks to raise $300 million, based on a $13 billion valuation. Currently, Open Sea is criticised because of a recent incident: The platform had frozen certain assets which were stolen. But critics argue that such an action should not be possible for a decentralised platform NFTs. Ben Thompson of Stratechery wrote a more extended analysis. Follow the link.

BLOCKCHAIN

Legal uncertainty: Why Berlin-based Neufund shuts down

The idea was intriguing: Let everyone invest in any company globally in a trustable way. Despite claiming that this model worked very well using Ethereum, the company is shutting down. In an article on “Coindesk”, Zoe Adamovicz, one of the company’s co-founders, says: We were successful. But we failed to get a green light from regulators.

Over the course of Neufund’s life, we transacted about €20 million ($22.6 million) through our equity platform, facilitated entirely through the public Ethereum blockchain. We registered 11,000 investors from 123 countries – an international and diverse crowd with tickets starting from as low as €100 ($113).

Despite engaging with regulators for years, we didn’t manage to get out of the limbo of legal uncertainty.

Blockchain Venture Funding per Country

In total, a staggering $23.1 billion in venture funding has been raised by blockchain companies in 2021. But where were these companies located? Are there any particular countries where blockchain companies are raising more than others?

A former partner of Andreesen Horowitz plans a $900 million crypto investment fund.

Katie Haun, a partner in the venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, plans a pair of substantial first funds for her firm. $900 million would be the first time a venture firm starts with such an amount. On the other side, the investments in many startups have reached $50 or 100 million in past years.

Quick updates:

Not ready for the game: Manchester City stops working with a blockchain firm after three months. LINK
The associated press will start an NFT marketplace for photos, working with Xooa. Proceeds will be used to fund AP journalism. LINK
South African police initiate investigation in Africrypt bitcoin scam LINK

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Do you have feedback or suggestions? Contact us

Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

TruBlo Newsletter #26

TruBlo Newsletter #26

A quick update from the intersection of trust, content and blockchain

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 10 seconds. Contains 1280 words

Share: Share this newsletter with colleagues or friends
Social: Follow us on Twitter for direct interactions or questions

PROJECT UPDATE

Check out short profiles of all 20 funded projects from Open Call #2 LINK
TruBlo Open Call 3 will start on January 27, 2022. LINK

Blockchain Weather, Week 1 2022

This is a new element in our newsletter. In each edition, we summarise the current sentiment for crypto, blockchain and web3 similar to a weather report – from our point of view.

Current: Cloudy, with partial thunderstorms and heavy winds from ahead.

Outlook: Potential longer sunny period for blockchain and sunny spots for web3 ideas in 2022. But expect occasional disturbances with dark clouds coming through.

Please tell us what you think.

Updates this week:

TRUST

Why bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme

The linked article, a guest post in the Financial Times, says one can describe the current market with the mechanisms of a Ponzi scheme. In such a scheme, rising value is achieved by constantly finding new buyers. Such markets are at risk of suddenly losing value, resulting in late entrants’ total loss of investments.

LINK ($)

More than $31 billion of venture capital for crypto companies in 2021

Last year, crypto companies raised more money than ever before: The investments amounted to more than $31 billion (€27.4) globally for the entire year, according to the linked report, which was cited in several articles. VCs from the US raised around 7.2 billion of this sum. This means the majority of the VC funds came from other investors worldwide. Some startups received more than 100 million. For example, DapperLabs, the platform behind CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot, got $305 million of capital in March 2021.

Mirrortables: Better transparency for web3 angel investors

Quote, from Balaji Srinivasan, previously CTO at Coinbase:

“I want to talk about one very concrete problem: the tangle of angel investing. This is an area where off-chain web2 tools like DocuSign, Hellosign, Carta, and AngelList could be profitably augmented with on-chain web3 tools that have matured over the last several years — particularly the Ethereum blockchain, the USDC stablecoin, and the Ethereum Name System (ENS). To do this, we’ll introduce a concept called a mirrortable, an on-chain representation of a traditional capitalization table.”

CONTENT

Wired: The empty digital lands

The article looks at projects trying to sell virtual land. Sellers argue that early buyers will get the “best” land. But at this time, several assumptions must come true: That one platform manages to attract a sufficient number of users and that these users will be using the platform frequently, not just for a short period. The market is driven mainly by speculation about the future value of digital land—the article in Wired challenges many of the current assumptions.

Two key quotes:

“The ‘real estate of the future’ is plagued by buggy software, empty servers, and huge opportunities for abuse.”

“…buying “real estate” on these platforms is like buying property in Manhattan, but in a world where anyone could feasibly create an infinite amount of alternative Manhattans that are just as easy to get to.”

Decentraland plans to create virtual markets for (digital) luxury goods and fashion shows.

A fashion show is planned for March 24-27, 2022. The idea is to let users experience fashion in a virtual environment and to let them “purchase outfits for their online avatars”. Decentraland aims to attract designers, brands and fashion fans to create virtual collections and participate in the event. Decentraland partners with UNXD, a virtual marketplace that has recently worked with Dolce & Gabbana. UNXD uses the principle of “drops” to create artificial scarcity.

NFT numbers for 2021

Non-fungible tokens or NFTs, in short, were in high demand in 2021. Whether this is early market speculation or a sustainable trend remains to be seen.

As of Dec. 23, the total number of NFTs sold, year-to-date, reached nearly 14.5 million, and a total of about $13.8 billion was spent to buy them, according to NonFungible.com, a database of blockchain gaming and crypto collectible markets. Considering how much was spent, it’s important to note that the number of unique wallets (digital stores for cryptocurrencies and NFTs) that bought and sold NFTs also increased substantially in 2021, reaching nearly 1.4 million as of late December, up from about 87,000 on Jan. 1.

A theft of NFTs leads to a debate about the decentralisation of NFT platforms.

NFTs worth over two million US-Dollars recently got stolen from a “hot wallet” when the owner clicked on a phishing link. As a reaction Open Sea, the platform offering and hosting the NFTs, then froze the assets. The whole episode resulted in a discussion on Twitter about security and decentralisation on such platforms.

Samsung support for NFTs on new TVs for 2022

The TV maker wants to let owners of large TV screens buy and then show NFTs they own, similar to putting fine art on the wall.

According to Samsung, this platform will let creators “share their art with the world” and let potential buyers:

Preview an NFT before purchasing it

Learn about an NFT’s history and blockchain metadata

Blockchain gaming might become a significant trend in 2022

While most gamers look for entertainment, the future might see a new type of “contributing” player willing to work on specific virtual tasks to receive goods or even money.

But, as with coins, digital land, and other early crypto concepts: It is still difficult to predict how these markets will evolve. So far, successful gaming platforms such as Roblox can create marketplaces without a need for blockchain storage.

BLOCKCHAIN

Blockdata: A review of 2021 with data

“Blockchain & Crypto in 2021 – A review in data” is free to use a summary of key trends, such as the number of investments, where the money was invested, etc.

The European Security Authority (ESMA) seeks feedback on tokenised securities regulation.

The EU regulator has initiated a process where stakeholders can submit their opinions. The initiative tries to determine whether market rules must be changed for tokenised securities.

Current situation and trends, according to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Vitalik Buterin started the new year with a Tweetstorm, observing the current market situation and what 2022 might bring.
Among the talking points: The use of crypto in Argentina, the popularity of stable coins and the ongoing challenge to technically enable further scaling for Ethereum.

Presidential candidate in South Korea to raise funds using crypto

The candidate of the ruling Democratic Party wants to attract young, tech-savvy voters.

Lee Jae-myung, nominated by the ruling party in South Korea for the upcoming presidential elections this spring, is preparing to raise funds in cryptocurrencies and issue non-fungible tokens for supporters. His campaign hopes that the initiative will woo young and tech-savvy Korean voters whose interest in digital assets is growing.

Quick updates:

South Koreans have to report overseas crypto accounts LINK
Allianz expects further growth for crypto in 2022 LINK
Today technical support ends for Blackberry devices. Notable, as the company was a market leader once. LINK
Ledger, the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the study of blockchains and cryptocurrencies LINK
Some of the year’s most controversial NTFs, coins, and crypto scams. LINK

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TruBlo Newsletter #25

TruBlo Newsletter #25

December 22, 2021

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes, 54 seconds. Contains 1180 words.

Projects: Check out the profiles of funded projects.
Share: Share this newsletter with colleagues or friends
Social: Follow us on Twitter for direct interactions or questions

PROJECT UPDATE

Getting ready for TruBlo OC3: On January 27, 2022, at 12:00 CET, TruBlo will start to take applications for Open Call #3. Selected projects can get up to 175K Euro for blockchain ideas towards trustable content. More details.

Updates this week:

TRUST

Internet users widely distrust Facebook, TikTok and Instagram handling their personal data

From a survey of 1,058 US internet users conducted for the Washington Post: 72% distrust Facebook, 63% TikTok, 60% Instagram, 53% WhatsApp, and 53% YouTube; 53% trust Amazon, 48% Google, and 44% Apple.

It’s the rare thing that Americans of all ages and across the political spectrum largely seem to agree on: They don’t trust social media services with their information and they view targeted ads as annoying and invasive.

Log4Shell

A zero-day vulnerability of Log4j, a popular Java logging framework, keeps security experts busy. The issue has been described as the most severe vulnerability ever. Many banks and financial corporations need to check their code.

Up to 20% of employees click on phishing links.

According to a 2020 report, up to 20% of all employees will click on phishing emails. Of those, up to 67.5% might then enter credentials in the phishing site.

“Experts say that companies can protect themselves by investing in a multi-layered approach to defending their internal network. Two of the most effective techniques are filtering and isolation.”

CONTENT

“Web3: A dream of the next version of the internet.”

Benedict Evans is a leading analyst for tech trends. He is the writer of a regular newsletter. In addition, he publishes one big presentation at the end of the year. The title this year: “Three Steps to the future”.

Web3 is a top development. The presentation shows how rebranding the sometimes misleading term “cryptocurrencies” to the more ambitious term “Web3” indicates that blockchain is gradually moving into the current centre of attention. We think it’s an outstanding presentation, much food for thought.

False hope for better internet?

The observation of rebranding, from a different article about Web3:

“At its core web3 is a vapid marketing campaign that attempts to reframe the public’s negative associations of crypto assets into a false narrative about the disruption of legacy tech company hegemony. It is a distraction in the pursuit of selling more coins and continuing the gravy train of evading securities regulation. We see this manifest in the circularity in which the crypto and web3 movement talks about itself. It’s not about solving real consumer problems”.

Jack Dorsey: You don’t own web3. VCs and their LPs do.

“Web3 and the metaverse are not the same”

…the reality is the metaverse will require everyone’s input and participation to truly take form. It should encompass the confluence of different iterative efforts and technological advancements and have no discrete end.

Web 3, on the other hand, is a far more specific paradigm that provides clear solutions to specific shortcomings of the Web 2 internet. It is a reaction to the walled-garden ecosystems that platforms like Facebook and YouTube created, which caused people to have their data extracted, privacy breached and the ability to control the content they create oppressed. Web 3 subverts that model because it directly addresses the issues of ownership and control.

Meta says AI tool helps for faster and better moderation content

Meta uses a new moderation system called “Few-Shot Learner” to identify and filter hate content. The new system needs less training data than the predecessor, applies to 100 languages, and checks text and visuals. According to Meta, the system has reduced the amount of hate content since 2020.

LINK

European Innovation Council: Impact Report 2021

Europe is still in catch-up mode regarding technology innovation and the creation of widely used technology platforms. By now, though, there is a chance that amounts of €50 or €100 million might be invested into an idea, and such funding would have been only available in the US five years ago.

For recent data on where things stand, please look at the Impact Report 2021 from the European Innovation Council (EIC). For context: “The EIC is Europe’s flagship innovation programme to identify, develop and scale up breakthrough technologies and game-changing innovations”.

The report documents the results and impact of the EIC pilot phase up to 2020. During that period, the EIC supported 5500 start-ups and SMEs. These projects and companies have:

Raised a total of EUR 9.6 billion in follow on investments,primarily from Venture Capital and from corporates, national promotional banks, and others.
Reached a valuation of around EUR 50 billion, including 91 “centaurs” (company valuation over €100m) and 2 “unicorns”(company valuation over EUR 1 billion).

Newsrooms: Investments needed for tools and talent

The news industry seems to fall further behind. One indicator is when it comes to available funds for innovation and training.

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, talks about the low level of funds in a recent outlook article: He compares R&D investments of several industries and finds that the percentage of revenue used for innovation is relatively low in the news industry. “The furniture industry seems able to invest in its future, and maybe we can, too?”

BLOCKCHAIN

Token Economy: Book Recommendation

We recommend a book for everyone interested in blockchain technology: “Token Economy”, by Shermin Voshmgir. The second edition of the book, published in 2021, is an updated version of the original publication from 2019. The book provides a well written, complete overview of many aspects of decentralised applications and platforms.

Digital Asset Outlook 2022

Good overview here, too:

The 2022 Digital Asset Outlook Report, commissioned by GSR, looks at the most important cryptocurrency developments in 2021 and looks ahead to the future of the space in the coming years. The 160-page report covers 8 different sectors within the cryptocurrency industry to watch for in 2022.

The download is free after registration with a mail address.

Quick updates:

90% of the total supply of Bitcoin has now been mined. There’s only around 2.1 million bitcoin left to mine. LINK
The CEO of investment management firm Richard Bernstein Advisors warns that cryptocurrencies are the biggest financial bubble in history. He advises investors to stay away from “bubble assets,” including cryptocurrencies. LINK
Visa has partnered with 60+ crypto exchanges to enable conversion and day-to-day payments from these accounts. LINK
Germany’s conservative Savings Banks consider offering a crypto wallet. LINK
Bank of Russia bans mutual funds from investing in Bitcoin LINK
Swissquote to launch its own crypto exchange LINK
The EU’s comprehensive “Market in Crypto-assets (MiCA) framework continues to move through the legislative process in the European Parliament. LINK
The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) intends to work on a framework for stablecoins and decentralised finance. LINK

Green Mining

Organizations such as the Bitcoin Mining Council are working to increase transparency in the industry through higher reporting standards. Many crypto-native organizations are also joining the Crypto Climate Accord, committing to achieve net-zero emissions from electricity consumption associated with crypto-related operations by 2030.

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TruBlo Newsletter #24

TruBlo Newsletter #24

A condensed weekly update from the intersection of trust, content, and blockchain.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes (1873 words)

Share: Please share this newsletter with colleagues or friends who might find this helpful.
Social: Follow us on Twitter for direct interactions, feedback, or questions.
Projects: Check out the profiles of funded projects on our website.

PROJECT UPDATE

Kick-off with projects selected in the second open call: Last week, TruBlo organized a two-day kick-off with the 15 projects selected for funding in the second open call. In total, including the projects selected in the first open call, there are now 25 active projects.

Updates this week:

TRUST

A lot of trust for few: Crypto Custody Providers

Crypto custody providers are specialized services. Their job is to store currency securely. In the current market, eight of these platforms have a relatively large share of the market:

“10% of all cryptocurrency ($250 billion) is stored on just 8 crypto custody tech providers/custodians”.

Blockdata has an overview and comparison of these providers.

“Like in a wild west movie when the sheriff rides into town.”

How much cryptocurrency has been stolen so far? Here is one estimate: Roughly $10 billion, between 2011 to 2021. Is that a lot? Not so much? Hard to judge. To be fair: Even in the traditional banking market, money scams result in money every year. Potentially the crypto market is not worse, but not better either. The big challenge here is that usually, people are tricked into handing out their credentials. Still, about a third of the losses are because of security breaches.

In more detail:

In total, $2.86 billion has been stolen through security breaches and $6.8 billion has been stolen through scams, and $0.335 billion through DeFi hacks.
In the US, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) seized cryptocurrencies to the value of $3.5bn, which is 93% of all seizures.

Approximately $10 billion in total worth of cryptocurrencies has been stolen between 2011 and May 2021

Quote: “It’s like in a wild west movie when the sheriff rides into a lawless town – they need to have brought the big guns with them if they’re going to get the situation under control. These “guns” broadly fall into two areas – new laws and new tools.”

An informative article by fin-tech writer Chris Gledhill on LinkedIn provides more numbers and trends (and links to official reports).

The Do-Everything companies

The “Wall Street Journal” documents how fast-growing tech companies are diversifying into one area after another. They are overtaking the former positions of the “old guard”, companies like General Electric or Siemens.

Why it matters: Media and communication markets are more affected by monopolistic structures than utility markets. It might be bad for the price competition if all electricity comes from one company. But if all information and advertising come from just a very few companies, it is a complex problem.

What is Explainable AI (XAI)?

Artificial intelligence systems should not be a black box. Although it might be complex to understand how a system works, judging and verifying the output should be possible. This must be possible for the conclusions as well as how the system came to them. To get there, we need “explainable AI” (XAI).

Explainable AI comes in three types:
- Global (what the system is doing),
- Local (how a model came up with a prediction), and
- Social (how users might behave in response to the system’s predictions)

This is viewed as important:

A survey by IDC from 2020 showed that many business buyers see “explainability” as a “critical requirement”.
The European Commission High-Level Expert Group on AI has referenced XAI as a guiding principle.

Venture Beat: What is explainable AI? Building trust in AI models

NGI Policy Summit: How can we rebuild the internet as a public good?

From November 29 to December 1, 2021, the European “Next Generation Internet” (NGI) community came together to discuss the future of the internet.

The Policy Summit discussed how we could build an alternative model for the future of the internet through the lens of three overarching themes: keeping the internet global, building a sustainable, interoperable Internet, and reclaiming the internet as a public good.

Note: There is a great option to view selected speeches “on-demand”, meaning that you can select the speakers and talks you are interested in. Our recommendation is to watch the talk by book author and internet activist Cory Doctorow.

Twitter: @NGIForward

European Innovation Report: Some progress here

“The European Innovation Report 2021” provides some evidence that the deep gap between start-up and funding activities in the US and Europe might become more narrow. There is a notable increase in innovation funding and startup activities in Europe. Gradually the EU can claim progress in the field of fast-growing (and well funded) startups.

A question for the future is: How will the EU companies differ (in business models, values, ethics) from the large US or Chinese companies.

CONTENT

EU Commission supports a “European Newsroom.”

The EU supports the organisation of a collaborative project to report European news. The project will bring together 16 news agencies and be led by “Deutsche Presse Agentur” (dpa) from Germany.

Key design challenges for crypto and Web3

As a consumer, as a normal user: How will you tell a scam from the correct log-in page of a cryptocurrency platform?? If you are a project manager for a crypto platform, this article is required reading. It shows examples and helps to understand better what the solution must be.

Cosmetics company Lush demands actions for a safer environment from platforms

Lush announced that it would close down the Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat account it operates in all 48 countries they are present.
They demand actions from the platforms “to provide a safer environment” for users. Twitter and YouTube will stay in operation.

Axie Infinity: Is the play-to-earn model sustainable? Experts have doubts.

For every gamer, this must sound too good to be true: Get paid to play. This, though, is what the platform Axie Infinity offers. The company is the “current flag-bearer for the emerging play-to-earn (P2E) business model” (Source: Naavik).

Here is how it works: You get paid in cryptocurrency if you fight monsters in Axie Infinity. But there is a catch. To start the game, you have to pay an entry fee of $1,000. Many players come from low-income countries and do not have such an amount. This has led to the emergence of sponsors, who enable a new player to get in, but then take a cut of the earnings. So far, so complex.

At the current state, the game economy is dependent on massive user growth to pay existing players. But this year, the cryptocurrency used in the game by the name of “Smooth Love Potion” (SLP) has lost value compared to US-Dollar. Analysis firm Naavik published a partially free study about Axie, link below.

Financial Times ($): Crypto’s hottest game is facing an economic maelstrom

Analysis by Naavik (partially free to read)

Seeing is believing? Look at these examples of deep fakes and think again

This links to an older article from Technology Review (from August 28, 2020). But have a look, it’s important to see this. The article shows how easy it is to use Software to create deep fakes. There are examples in the article, which have a surprisingly high quality.

The creations that are possible are used for all kinds of memes. For all kinds of platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

This means: Millions of people are seeing them. Users need to recalibrate what they think is true and what is not true. As the article says: Things are getting weird.

Metaverse: Crypto states vs crypto corporates

Who will be the leading force in the future metaverse: A large company pushing advertising into every area? Or will new organisations and groups be pushing against pure commercial usage? Fascinating outlook into the future.

BLOCKCHAIN

Enterprise Blockchain Report: Funding requirements for startups notably higher

LeadBlock Partners, a venture capital fund, has published its enterprise blockchain report. The data is based on 250 startups. In comparison to earlier surveys, the startups expect to need higher funding to succeed.

According to the survey, a challenge for raising money is the lack of blockchain know-how among investors. 58% of the interviewed startups disagreed with the question of investors’ competence in this field.

Another question of the survey was which platforms the startups would choose. Ethereum is still in the lead here, with a share of 28%. The article has a breakdown of all platforms in use, with more detail.

Ledger Insights: Enterprise blockchain startup funding requirements more than double

Mosaico: Using tokens to connect startups with investors

Mosaico is located in Poland. They facilitate contact between startups and investors. So far, the company has an amount of $12.5 million for 28 projects. To an extent, the tokenization of a business project is a very early IPO – in the sense that investors can buy parts of the company.

“With four years of presence in the crypto industry, Mosaico has successfully incorporated blockchain technology into equity crowdfunding within Europe. Besides creating attractive opportunities for investors to diversify their portfolios, the entity plays an advisory role for its patrons and beneficiaries. “ (Cointelegraph)

CurioNFT offsets carbon emissions using “lazy minting”

The criticism over energy use for mining Bitcoins or minting NFTs (Non-fungible tokens) seems to result in platforms taking action. For an upcoming NFT project, CurioNFT will reduce carbon emissions by using “lazy minting”. This means that the process is initiated at a time of low Ethereum usage, thus “generating 2% of the emissions of a typical NFT”. The platform says the carbon costs are equivalent to sending 17 emails with attachments. The company is involved in other activities to offset emissions. They have so far planted 12,000 trees.

The Block Crypto

Quick updates: Recent news about digital money/blockchain in El Salvador, the EU, Japan, Nigeria

El Salvador: The International Monetary Fund issued a note about the financial situation in El Salvador. The IMF warned the country about the risks associated with its blockchain policies. In the country, Bitcoin is an official currency. LINK
The EU Parliament and the European Council are moving forward to allow a pilot program for blockchain-based tokenized securities (EU Report here). This would allow financial instruments like stocks or bonds could utilize blockchain as the backend technology. Quote: “Under the sandbox program, certain existing legal requirements are temporarily waved, subject to limits.” LINK
Large banks in Japan and 70 other companies are getting ready to trial a new digital currency for large business transactions. The trial is planned for the second half of 2022. LINK
Nigeria: The country’s central bank wants financial institutions to develop products based on the newly introduced CBDC. An opportunity here to develop secure, usable solutions. LINK

Square Decentralized Exchange Protocol white paper

Financial company Square published a white paper for a decentralized exchange protocol. The idea would be to enable payments across different types of fiat and cryptocurrencies. LINK

How can Ethereum evolve with Layer 2?

Ethereum has evolved into the key platform enabling smart contracts. But future growth is inhibited due to high gas prices for transactions. This is why some companies and solutions are now providing Layer 2 services.

A quick definition: “Layer 2 is another network working above the leading Ethereum network. The Layer 2 solutions stay above the Layer 1 network through a smart contract. Layer 2 can interact with the leading network and not rely on modifications to their base protocols.”

Blockchance Conference, Hamburg – December 2-4, 2021

More than 4,000 delegates, including blockchain and AI experts, developers, investors, CEOs and advisors from the EU Commission, are expected in Hamburg for the hybrid Blockchance Europe 2021 underway in the Chamber of Commerce from December 2-4.

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