#Blockchain Uses and reporting

[probablyasocialecologist]

“Dead NFTs: The Evolving Landscape of the NFT Market” is a new report from dappGambl, a community of experts in finance and blockchain technology. Upon analysis of 73,257 NFT collections, the authors found that 69,795 have a market cap of zero Ether (ETH), the second most-popular cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin. In practical terms, that means 95 percent of NFTs wouldn’t fetch a penny today — a spectacular crash for assets that reached a trading volume of $17 billion amid a frenzied bull market in 2021. The study estimates that some 23 million investors own these tokens of no practical use or value.

[...]

The “Dead NFTs” report observes that the nearly 200,000 NFT collections “with no apparent owners or market share” identified by the study caused carbon emissions equivalent to the annual output from 2,048 houses, or 3,531 cars.

[techinsight360]

SK Telecom expands global metaverse presence through strategic alliances with telecom operators

The metaverse ecosystem has grown leaps and bounds in South Korea over the last 12 months. The growing investment from government institutions, coupled with innovative projects undertaken by private organizations, has driven the competitive landscape in the South Korean metaverse industry. Naver and SK Telecom, two of the leading private players in the metaverse market in South Korea, have reported strong growth in monthly active users in the domestic market.

To replicate their success in the global metaverse industry, both of these firms have been expanding their geographical presence through strategic alliances. In September 2022, Naver announced that the firm had partnered with True Corp., one of the leading telecommunication service providers, as part of its strategy to expand its metaverse presence in Thailand. A similar strategy has been adopted by SK Telecom, which owns the metaverse platform ifland.

In March 2023, SK Telecom announced that the firm had entered into strategic alliances with telecom operators in the United States, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Notably, the firm signed the memorandum of understanding with T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom in the United States and Germany, respectively. These strategic alliances aim to explore the opportunities for expanding the presence of ifland into the United States and German markets.

As part of the collaborations, the three firms are projected to conduct trial runs in the two countries in Q2 2023. This will include launching a more diverse set of metaverse services, producing content tailored to local preferences, and promoting the metaverse offerings in the region.

Read More - Healthcare providers foresee growth opportunities in the metaverse sector in 2023

Alongside the United States and European markets, the South Korean metaverse giant is also aiming to drive the popularity of its metaverse platform ifland in the Southeast Asian region, the region where Naver has already built a presence through a strategic partnership with True Corp.

In March 2023, SK Telecom announced that the firm had partnered with CelcomDigi, the Malaysian telecom operator. The partnership is aimed at increasing the number of ifland users in Malaysia. Furthermore, the collaboration will also see the launch of new business initiatives, including products that cater to the demand of domestic users in Malaysia.  

Through the collaboration with Axiata, SK Telecom is seeking to expand its presence in 11 more countries in the ASEAN and Southeast Asian regions. These include countries such as Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Through the partnership with Axiata, SK Telecom is expected to develop metaverse-related business models.

With each of these three telecom giants, T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, and Axiata, having over 100 million customers, the collaboration will provide SK Telecom with a strong foundation to expand in the respective markets. Furthermore, these strategic collaborations will also aid the growth of the global metaverse industry, which is still in its early stages of development.

From the short to medium-term perspective, TechInsight360 expects more such strategic collaborations in the metaverse market. With SK Telecom building a strong presence in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, TechInsight360 also expects Naver to adopt the same strategy and forge strategic alliances to boost the presence of its metaverse platform Zepeto globally.

Read More - Roblox metaverse ecosystem shows strong user adoption in a boost for the global metaverse sector

ifland and Zepeto, both of which are seeking to build a strong presence in the United States market, is bad news for Meta, which has largely struggled to get its metaverse project up and running. The United States-based firm had invested billions of dollars in the metaverse project and also reported a loss of more than US$13 billion in 2022. Over the next 12 months, the firm had already announced that it is anticipating the losses to grow even more, as continues to make the bet on the future of the internet.

Horizon Worlds, the metaverse platform, launched by Meta had failed to achieve its projected user adoption in 2022. Down from the initial projection of ending the 2022 year with a total of 500,000 users, Horizon Worlds ended the year with only 200,000 users.

In an attempt to boost the adoption of its metaverse platform, Meta announced that the firm is revamping its product to attract and target teens in the United States. The strategic move comes at a time when the firm is facing a serious user retention problem. Notably, both Naver and SK Telecom have achieved widespread success with their metaverse platform among Gen Z users.

Read More - Meta’s metaverse dreams have been outpaced by internet giants in South Korea

With the expansion of Naver and SK Telecom in the United States, coupled with the change in strategy by Meta that is now focusing on teens, the competitive landscape in the North American market is projected to grow substantially over the next few quarters. The presence of South Korean metaverse giant, SK Telecom, will also result in a substantial increase in investment in the United States market in 2023, thereby accelerating further innovation in the fast-emerging sector.

Alongside metaverse, SK Telecom has also announced to increase its investment in the field of artificial intelligence. Furthermore, the firm is also seeking potential acquisition opportunities to build on its existing AI capabilities. Notably, the firm is expected to launch the first of its AI product later in 2023. With the success of ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot, many firms have announced a significant investment in the area of artificial intelligence. From Microsoft to Amazon and Tencent, AI is expected to become the next focus area for most technological firms.

[shafiul1]

Unlock the Secret to Successful Short-Term Trading on the Crypto Market

Are you ready to join the crypto trading game but don't know where to start? Look no further! This video will guide you through the latest tips and strategies for making short-term trades on the cryptocurrency market. Discover how to navigate this fast-paced and highly volatile market, with key insights on market trends, technical analysis, and risk management. With the rise of digital assets, the crypto market has become a hotbed of activity, attracting investors from all over the world. But, with its rapid changes and unpredictable swings, it can be difficult to make informed trades. In this video, you'll learn from experienced traders and gain valuable knowledge on how to maximize profits and minimize risks in the crypto market. Don't miss out on the opportunity to be a successful crypto trader. Get the inside scoop on crypto trading tools and techniques, market indicators, and popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple. Boost your confidence and make informed trades with our comprehensive guide to short-term trading on the crypto market. Join the crypto revolution today! Watch the video and start your journey to successful short-term trades. In this video,we're talking about following survey sites

Watch Now : 

 If you liked it please like, comment, and subscribe as it really helps! Thank you for watching and stay tuned to this space for more inspirational and motivational videos from the world of Motivation 

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FAIR-USE COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER * Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, commenting, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. Disclaimer: The content covered on this channel is NOT to be considered as any financial or investment advice. All posted content is to add value and awareness to the viewers. This video or audio has no negative impact on the original content ~~~~~~~~~~~

[fantasticbouquettrash]

Blockchain for ESG: Blockchain Uses and reporting

ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance, and aims to establish an assessment of companies’ social and environmental responsibil

Kalima Blockchain

[mariacallous]

Last month, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump announced that his campaign would accept donations in cryptocurrency. In the weeks that followed, the cybercrime detection firm Netcraft found dozens of scam websites seeking to target Trump supporters and swindle them out of their crypto, according to a report shared exclusively with WIRED.

Netcraft found that in the days leading up to the announcement, scammers registered domains with common misspellings, hoping to capture supporters intending to access donaldjtrump.com. One domain registered to donalbjtrump.com was a near perfect replica of the actual Trump campaign website. And while the Trump campaign accepts donations via Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, some of the scam websites instead appear to be using portals meant to look like Coingate, a blockchain and crypto payment processor.

“As a victim, the fact that the real campaign is using Coinbase payments rather than direct cryptocurrencies” wouldn’t be very obvious, says Rob Duncan, head of research at Netcraft. “The way it's been advertised is ‘Donald Trump's taking cryptocurrency donations,’ when actually that's quite it's a bit more subtle.”

A second surge of fake websites appeared immediately after Trump’s May 30 felony conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to pay off the porn star Stormy Daniels. In the hours after his conviction, the campaign raised more than $34 million in donations. Cybercriminals seemed to anticipate this interest, and were ready to capitalize on the donations pouring into the Trump campaign in the wake of the verdict.

“Criminals like to use events like this, to base their scams on topical events, things that people are interested in, where people are more likely to click on links,” says Duncan. In the wake of the October 7 attacks and subsequent conflict in Palestine, Duncan says Netcraft identified several donation scams, targeting people on both sides of the conflict.

“They're interested in getting cryptocurrency from anybody. And they're not bothered about which political persuasion they might have,” says Duncan.

Duncan adds that through checking the blockchain, none of the scams seem to be successful yet, but he suspects that may be because they are relatively new and may not yet be active.

The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Cryptocurrencies can be particularly useful for criminals because they are largely unregulated and don’t have the same constraints that traditional financial institutions do. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 2023 Internet Crime Report, crypto investment scams cost people some $3.94 billion. “Crypto is obviously a very good mechanism for criminals to use,” says Duncan. “There's no way to reverse payments; once the money's in the criminal's wallet, it's gone.”

Trump’s recent support of crypto is an about-face from his presidency. In 2019, Trump said he was “not a fan” of cryptocurrencies in a series of posts on X, then Twitter. “We have only one real currency in the USA … It is called the United States Dollar!” he posted at the time.

But now, the former president is courting the crypto space. Before his campaign’s announcement in May, Politico reported that Trump held a meeting at Mar-a-Lago with crypto traders where he apparently told them a Trump administration would not oversee the same regulatory scrutiny on crypto that the Democratic Party has sought. As the crypto industry has begun amassing money to attack candidates who favor more regulation of the space, however, some Democrats have backed away from a more hard-line stance.

In December, several leaders in the crypto space launched three political action committees (PACs) aimed at backing candidates with policies friendly to the digital asset industry. David Bailey, CEO of BTC Inc., told CNBC that the crypto industry was committed to raising “$100 million and turning out more than 5 million voters for the Trump reelection effort.”

It is unclear whether the Biden campaign will also begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency, and Netcraft said it has not seen similar scam activity targeting Biden supporters.

Gina Chow, emerging threat specialist at Netcraft, tells WIRED that although the company has found impersonations of Biden in the past, "similar crypto-themed campaigns, like those targeting the Trump campaign, have not yet been identified in our research. As the Biden campaign extends its capacity to accept crypto, it is likely that it will experience similar threats.”

[darkmaga-retard]

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report recently that warns about the very serious privacy risks associated with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

According to the paper, entitled "Central Bank Digital Currency Data Use and Privacy Protection," any central bank can use its CBDC system to collect all sorts of private information about users. It could then turn that private information over to the authorities for mass surveillance and possibly persecution reasons.

"CBDC data allows for commercial exploitation while also raising the possibility of state surveillance," the IMF warns.

The way CBDCs work is that every time a transaction is made, all sorts of private information is transferred and uploaded into the blockchain as proof. That information is then open game for government authorities and anyone else to exploit it for ulterior purposes.

"Central bank digital currency (CBDC), as a digital form of central bank money, may allow for a 'digital trail' – data – to be collected and stored," the paper explains.

"In contrast to cash, CBDC could be designed to potentially include a wealth of personal data, encapsulating transaction histories, user demographics, and behavioral patterns. Personal data could establish a link between counterparty identities and transactions."

The paper goes on to explain that there is economic value in CBDCs due to the data trail it creates. Data is considered an "infrastructural resource that can be used by an unlimited number of users and for an unlimited number of purposes as an input to produce goods and services."

"CBDC data could potentially be harvested by financial institutions that, in turn, could help develop data-driven businesses," the paper continues.

[theempresstrash]

Welcome! :3

If you are here right now more than likely you are a Twitter crypto artist denizen who has heard me, @maxcapacity and probably many other shouting about Tumblr on Twitter. Why Tumblr? It is part nostalgia, part necromancy, part homage to the the Web3 greats who spent years here (some are still here), part rebellion, and part reminding artists to come together to help each other.

Twitter heavily favors text base tweets - it's just a fact. Here is not the case. Many of us are also maybe a little jaded on what is happening overall and feel ignored as artists. Discord is full of scams, twitter group chats are cliquey, but here we are free to roam, explore each others works, and create a visual digital identity we want to present.

Come play with us and remember why we are all here! For the art, to make friends, express ourselves, have a good time and build a better future for artists. Yes we all want to sell work too ofc - we have physical bodies to take care of and bills to pay - but what if we share with each other our wins and how we got them, and our failures and what we learned from them as artists so when we go back to the rest of the internet hellscape we can find more success? At the very least, make some friends here or rekindle connects that may have been lost to not feel so alone. For some of you this is a trip down memory lane, for others you have never been here before. Old or new a like I encourage you to check out who I am following to get started finding each other.

This isn't rocket science - if you can understand blockchain web3 stuff, I have faith you can understand this old beast of a social network. Love you all ~~~ <3

P.S. I'm writing this for specific purposes of a pinned post. It feels so good to be able to write more than 150 characters. Also here are multi gifs side by side -- for the culture.

EDIT: Because I can edit and also adding this - for the culture 🫡🚫

~We are here to focus on the art and building up artists and to build an open, non hierarchal structure to provide mutual support for each other while showcasing the hard work and dope art crypto artists do to try to shape the landscape of web3 to be more artist friendly for ALL artists from diverse backgrounds. ~ Here are some guidelines to foster a healthy community growth:

~ NO SHILL POST/ART SHARE POSTS - why? we want the focus to go back on the artist and deep thoughts, not engagement farming. Shilling/art share is a viable way on twitter to get your art out there because of how the social media is structured. Here - content is the focus. You can discover new artists a multitude of ways including searching hashtags, looking through your fav artists feed of who they are sharing or following, and generally just wandering around.

~ INDEPENDENT ARTIST FOCUS - 10k pfp projects are a part of the nft ecosystem, and thrive on twitter, but here we want to again have the focus stay on independent artists. A basic issue with these projects is to access a lot of their communities they are token gated, and a lot of artists just can't afford them. Also many feel we are drowning in the noise of a lot of the politics and drama that goes on between projects, and need a place again to share ourselves with each other for feedback, support and overall good times.

~ REPORT AND BLOCK THE HATERS / KILL WITH KIDNESS- anywhere on the internet hate is prevalent for lots of different reasons related to our content and not. Bullies are cowards, and to bully someone for a technology they use is boring. Tumblr also does not tolerate hate and harassment in any form. Maybe someone is having a bad day and if able extend kindness. For extreme comments, report them. For continual harassers, block them. This is your space to curate how you wish. We deserve to be here as artists as anyone else, and hope to on top of supporting each other showcase our dope af work we are doing within the crypto art ecosystems to show we aren't all scammers, just artists trying to build a better future.

[librarianrafia]

"But there is a yawning gap between "AI tools can be handy for some things" and the kinds of stories AI companies are telling (and the media is uncritically reprinting). And when it comes to the massively harmful ways in which large language models (LLMs) are being developed and trained, the feeble argument that "well, they can sometimes be handy..." doesn't offer much of a justification.

...

When I boil it down, I find my feelings about AI are actually pretty similar to my feelings about blockchains: they do a poor job of much of what people try to do with them, they can't do the things their creators claim they one day might, and many of the things they are well suited to do may not be altogether that beneficial. And while I do think that AI tools are more broadly useful than blockchains, they also come with similarly monstrous costs.

...

But I find one common thread among the things AI tools are particularly suited to doing: do we even want to be doing these things? If all you want out of a meeting is the AI-generated summary, maybe that meeting could've been an email. If you're using AI to write your emails, and your recipient is using AI to read them, could you maybe cut out the whole thing entirely? If mediocre, auto-generated reports are passing muster, is anyone actually reading them? Or is it just middle-management busywork?

...

Costs and benefits

Throughout all this exploration and experimentation I've felt a lingering guilt, and a question: is this even worth it? And is it ethical for me to be using these tools, even just to learn more about them in hopes of later criticizing them more effectively?

The costs of these AI models are huge, and not just in terms of the billions of dollars of VC funds they're burning through at incredible speed. These models are well known to require far more computing power (and thus electricity and water) than a traditional web search or spellcheck. Although AI company datacenters are not intentionally wasting electricity in the same way that bitcoin miners perform millions of useless computations, I'm also not sure that generating a picture of a person with twelve fingers on each hand or text that reads as though written by an endlessly smiling children's television star who's being held hostage is altogether that much more useful than a bitcoin.

There's a huge human cost as well. Artificial intelligence relies heavily upon "ghost labor": work that appears to be performed by a computer, but is actually delegated to often terribly underpaid contractors, working in horrible conditions, with few labor protections and no benefits. There is a huge amount of work that goes into compiling and labeling data to feed into these models, and each new model depends on ever-greater amounts of said data — training data which is well known to be scraped from just about any possible source, regardless of copyright or consent. And some of these workers suffer serious psychological harm as a result of exposure to deeply traumatizing material in the course of sanitizing datasets or training models to perform content moderation tasks.

Then there's the question of opportunity cost to those who are increasingly being edged out of jobs by LLMs,i despite the fact that AI often can't capably perform the work they were doing. Should I really be using AI tools to proofread my newsletters when I could otherwise pay a real person to do that proofreading? Even if I never intended to hire such a person?

Or, more accurately, by managers and executives who believe the marketing hype out of AI companies that proclaim that their tools can replace workers, without seeming to understand at all what those workers do.

Finally, there's the issue of how these tools are being used, and the lack of effort from their creators to limit their abuse. We're seeing them used to generate disinformation via increasingly convincing deepfaked images, audio, or video, and the reckless use of them by previously reputable news outlets and others who publish unedited AI content is also contributing to misinformation. Even where AI isn't being directly used, it's degrading trust so badly that people have to question whether the content they're seeing is generated, or whether the "person" they're interacting with online might just be ChatGPT. Generative AI is being used to harass and sexually abuse. Other AI models are enabling increased surveillance in the workplace and for "security" purposes — where their well-known biases are worsening discrimination by police who are wooed by promises of "predictive policing". The list goes on.

[techinsight360]

NFT marketplaces are having a different take on creator royalties

Creator royalties are the incentives that continue to push them to develop innovative projects, while also making a living out of it. For decades, only a handful of commercial, successful artists enjoyed the benefits of creator royalties. However, the advent of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) made creator royalties more mainstream, thereby even providing an average creator to benefit from this mode of compensation.

In 2021 and for a major part of 2022, every NFT marketplace offered creator royalties on primary and secondary sales. In general, the creator royalties varied from 2.5% to 10% depending on the marketplace. Billions of dollars have been paid out in royalties as of October 2022.

The downturn in the broader crypto market, coupled with the declining NFT sales on NFT marketplaces, forced firms to evaluate their creator’s royalty policy in a bid to make the sector more appealing to traders. Notably, without the royalties, NFT trading will become cheaper, and the marketplaces will gain more users, thereby driving their market share. Consequently, in Q4 2022, some of the largest NFT marketplaces stopped implementing creator royalties, which also resulted in a major backlash from the creators’ community around the world. For instance,

In November 2022, OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces in terms of trading volume, came close to disrupting the entire dynamic of the NFT market when it considered removing the creators’ royalties altogether on existing collections. However, after facing serious backlash from the community, the firm announced that it will continue to enforce creator fees on all its existing collections.

Notably, the reconsideration of its royalty policy came after several of NFT marketplaces either nixed such fees or made them optional for traders. For instance,

In August 2022, X2Y2, one of the leading Ethereum-based NFT marketplaces by volume, announced that the platform will no longer support royalties for creators. Instead, the firm made it an option for traders to pay royalties in the form of a tip. In a similar move, Magic Eden, a Solana-based NFT marketplace, announced that the firm is making the royalties optional in October 2022.

LooksRare, another NFT marketplace, made a similar announcement in October 2022, when it stated that collectors are no longer required to pay royalty fees to creators when purchasing the NFT platform. Instead of the royalties, the firm announced that it will distribute 25% of the platform fees to creators and collection owners to offer a more competitive solution to creators.

The shift away from royalty fees for a lot of these NFT marketplaces started when new NFT marketplaces, Sudoswap and Yawww, nixed them in a bid to garner market share in a competitive space. Rather than charging royalties, Sudoswap charges a 0.5% trading fee and lets the buyers get NFTs at a significantly cheaper rate. On the other hand, creators can take the trading fees from the pool, which can be more than what they make through traditional NFT sales.

Read More - NFT lending is turning out to be the next big business in the digital asset space

With slashing royalty fees not received well by the creator community, the growing backlash forced a few of the marketplaces to roll back their announcement. Like OpenSea, X2Y2 also rolled back its optional fee policy in November 2022 and announced that it will continue to enforce royalties on secondary sales. These policy change announcements were part of the strategy to revive the market growth which has suffered major headwinds due to various macroeconomic factors, such as rising inflation and interest rates.

Read More - NFT sales continue to decline amid the downturn in the cryptocurrency market

At the time when many marketplaces were making fees optional, new players entered the market to leverage the backlash among the creators’ community. For instance,

In November 2022, Find Satoshi Lab, a Web3 gaming and development studio, announced the launch of a multichain NFT marketplace that supports royalties. Notably, the firm is positioning its marketplace as a platform that provides fair rewards to creators.

In a separate move, Exchange.ART, a fine-art-focused Solana NFT marketplace announced a Royalties Protection Standard in November 2022. Notably, the Royalties Protection Standard enforces royalties on every secondary sale completed on the platform. The protection standard offers creators surety that their work cannot be sold on the marketplace without their consent.

Notably, the NFT market is still in its early stages of development. Of course, bypassing the royalties is one way to make NFTs cheaper and more attractive to buyers, thereby resulting in more users and market share for marketplaces, it is not sustainable from the long-term perspective. Many of the creators turned to NFTs because the centralized institutions were not offering fair rewards for their work, and by making those royalties optional, NFT marketplaces followed a similar path.

Read More - Firms are launching innovative NFT marketplaces to serve different industry verticals

The fight over market share and adopting policies, such as nixing royalties, can further dampen the growth of the NFT market. There needs to be a way for the creators to make money from their work, whether it is royalty or something else, a constant revenue stream will ensure that quality NFTs continue to enter the market. This will not only drive the industry growth, but it will also keep the enthusiasm high among collectors, thereby driving growth for NFT marketplaces as well as the overall industry.

One of the ways in which NFT marketplaces can improve incentives and rewards for creators is by bypassing the royalties in exchange for a larger piece of the primary transaction. In fact, the NFT marketplaces can share this on both sides of the trade by making collectors pay up a buyer premium fee.

Slashing or nixing the royalty fees is not a sustainable solution and will certainly impact the industry's growth. Notably, the fight over market share, by implementing such policies, will only result in a further downturn for the global NFT market. Consequently, NFT marketplaces need to adopt a more proactive approach that works well for both creators and buyers.

[iardsolutions]

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[merelygifted]

A screenshot of the website promoting 200 Yen as a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Screenshot/Eminence Rise Media

US Tech Company May Have Tried to Exhibit Unauthenticated Basquiat Painting at Major Museums

An intermediary said to be acting on behalf of the American tech company Co2Bit Technologies was reportedly planning to exhibit an unauthenticated Jean-Michel Basquiat painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York without the institution’s permission.

Co2Bit privately exhibited another painting of dubious provenance as genuine in a major museum.  ARTnews reported last month that the company helped to show a painting with disputed attribution to Russian modernist Kazimir Malevich at the Centre Pompidou in January.  The Centre Pompidou told ARTnews last month that it had not granted permission to exhibit the artwork.  ...

...  Co2Bit’s stated mission is to use AI and blockchain technology to assess environmental impact. [Ed. Note: How ironic is that?!]  The company purchased the supposed 1915 Malevich painting, titled Suprematism, for a price “in the seven figures” from disgraced Israeli art dealer Itzhak Zarug before hiring several experts to authenticate it.  However, one of the experts, Patricia Railing, denied this, claiming she’d never heard of Co2Bit.

A series of now-deleted press releases published by Eminence Rise Media, a New York PR firm, on GlobeNewswire promoted Suprematism, stating that it was due to be “unveiled by museums around the world.”  The same PR firm also promoted the supposed Basquiat painting, titled 200 Yen, in three releases posted between December 2023 and February 2024 that have also been deleted.  One release said that New York Art Forensics appraised the artwork for $90 million and claimed it was set to “be unveiled in top museums across the United States soon.”  Neither of the press releases for Suprematism or 200 Yen mentioned Co2Bit.

Eminence Rise Media declined to comment on if it had been hired by Co2Bit and said that it would only comment on 200 Yen if ARTnews deleted mention of the PR firm in the publication’s reporting on the Malevich-Pompidou story.

“It has come to our attention you [sic] slandering and accusing this company in regards to the Malevich painting, where we had nothing to do with that painting,” the company wrote in an email. “In spite of you [sic] confirming Co2Bit as the company responsible for it, your false and phony accusations is [sic] unethical on your end as a journalist. If you have some integrity, you must delete our name from it. Please make it right and we will be willing to communicate further.”  ...

Maybe you should learn to communicate in an actual language, eminence front, er, rise.  What a put-on!

[rhe-toric]

How DLT is Changing the Way We Vote: A Look at Digital Voting Systems

Voting is a fundamental right in democratic societies. However, traditional voting systems have been plagued by issues such as voter fraud, low voter turnout, and long wait times. With the emergence of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), also known as blockchain technology, there is a growing interest in digital voting systems. In this blog post, we will explore how DLT is changing the way we vote and the potential benefits and challenges of digital voting systems.

What is DLT?

Before we dive into how DLT is changing the way we vote, let's first define what DLT is. DLT is a type of database distributed across a computer network. Each computer in the network has a copy of the database, and any changes to the database are recorded in a transparent and immutable way. This means that once data is recorded on the blockchain, it cannot be altered or deleted.

How DLT is Changing the Way We Vote

Digital voting systems that utilize DLT have the potential to revolutionize the way we vote. Here are some of the ways that DLT is changing the way we vote:

Increased Transparency and Security

One of the most significant benefits of digital voting systems that use DLT is increased transparency and security. DLT provides a secure and transparent platform for recording and counting votes. Each vote is recorded on the blockchain, and once recorded, it cannot be altered or deleted. This ensures that the voting process is secure and transparent, and it helps prevent voter fraud.

Increased Accessibility

Digital voting systems that use DLT can also increase accessibility. Traditional voting systems often require voters to be physically present at a polling station, which can be challenging for people with disabilities or those who live in remote areas. Digital voting systems can allow voters to cast their votes from anywhere, using a computer or mobile device. This can help increase voter turnout and make it easier for people to exercise their right to vote.

Increased Efficiency

Digital voting systems that use DLT can also increase efficiency. Traditional voting systems can be time-consuming and expensive to administer. Digital voting systems can automate many of the processes involved in voting, such as voter registration, ballot counting, and result reporting. This can help reduce the cost and time required to administer elections.

Potential Challenges

While digital voting systems that use DLT offer many potential benefits, some challenges need to be addressed. Here are some of the potential challenges:

Technical Challenges

Digital voting systems that use DLT require a high level of technical expertise to develop and maintain. This can be a challenge for some election authorities, especially those in developing countries or those with limited resources.

Security Concerns

While DLT provides a secure platform for recording and counting votes, there are still security concerns that need to be addressed. Hackers could potentially compromise the voting system, which could lead to voter fraud or other security breaches.

Privacy Concerns

Digital voting systems that use DLT also raise privacy concerns. Voters must be assured that their votes are anonymous and that their personal information is protected.

Conclusion

Digital voting systems that use DLT have the potential to revolutionize the way we vote. They offer increased transparency, security, accessibility, and efficiency. However, there are also potential challenges that need to be addressed. As DLT continues to evolve, we can expect to see more innovative digital voting systems emerge in the future.

[gwgaccountant]

are in game currencies you can buy with real money covered under the same laws that make nfts and bitcoin taxable?

DISCLAIMER

I am not an international tax expert. Tax laws are obviously different in different jurisdictions; something that's true in the USA might not be true in the UK or Ukraine or India or Japan or Kenya or whatever. Also, the details of individual games can affect their legal standing. You may wish to consult a local tax expert before filing your return.

Disclaimers aside, probably not.

The thing about NFTs is that you can resell them. If you buy an ugly ape for etherium, you can later sell that ape for etherium and sell the etherium for cash, hopefully more than you paid in. That's what makes crypto stuff taxable; it's an investment.

Most in-game currencies cannot be exchanged for real-world money. You can't buy Fortnite VBucks at 5¢ to the buck and resell it at 7¢ to make a profit, and you can't sell anything for real-world cash. (This the main reason why gambling regulations usually don't apply to lootboxes.)

As far as the law is concerned, buying VBucks in Fortnite is no different from buying DLC on Steam.

Aside from blockchain games like the infamous Axie Infinity, the only ways I can think of for in-game currency purchases to result in taxable transactions probably violate the terms of service. Back in ye olde World of Warcraft days, people would sell their in-game gold for real-world money—profitable, despite (or because of?) being against the TOS.

Obviously, people can buy premium video game currency with their own money; that's what premium currency is for. But hypothetically, if you used that currency to buy an in-game item that you sold for real-world money, that would be a taxable transaction. The amount you sold it for minus the price initially paid for in-game currency would be taxable game.

Again, this is probably a violation of the terms of service you agreed to without reading, which would make this a breach of contract. In the US, you are required to report illegal income; however, as per the fifth amendment, you don't have to report anything that would incriminate yourself. How you report such income without self-incrimination is an exercise for any reader running a Fortnite money laundering business.