China’s Inflation Rate Drops to Lowest in 18 Months

April 11, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Bitcoin tops Donald Trump, guns in America: Google Trends

April 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Popular terms such as guns, Chuck Norris, health insurance and politics did not even make it to the top 10 in the list.

Amid the growing discussions around Donald Trump, guns and other topics tied to politics and entertainment, Bitcoin (BTC) remains the most Googled term in the United States.

A search volume comparison based on Ahrefs data revealed that Americans are curious about Bitcoin, with Nevada taking the spot as the “most Bitcoin-crazy state” in the United States. Despite former U.S. President Donald Trump making headlines consistently, he only takes the second position on the list of the most-searched terms in America.

*Search volume comparison (U.S. and global). Source: Ahrefs*

As shown above, other popular terms following Bitcoin and Donald Trump include breaking news, Elvis Presley and Disney World. Previously popular terms such as guns, Chuck Norris, health insurance and politics did not even make it to the top 10 in the list.

*Search comparison of Donald Trump and Bitcoin. Source: Google Trends*

However, in the last 30 days, Google searches for Donald Trump exceeded Bitcoin for just two days — on April 4 and 5 — when reports of a possible arrest emerged, shows Google Trends data.

*State-wide comparison of Bitcoin searches. Source: Google Trends*

A state-wise comparison revealed Nevada as the states with most number of ‘Bitcoin’ searches, followed by Miami, California and Washington respectively.

The primary reason for this finding is attributed to lower taxes and local government initiatives to promote innovation, according to Trading Browser. “Nevada’s long-standing gambling respiration might be a contributing factor to the success and high interest in Bitcoin,” the study added.

A new report from US Treasury concluded that North Korea and criminals are making use of DeFi services for bagging illicit profits.

The @USTreasury just released a risk assessment on #DeFi illicit finance risk. A risk assessment is a study that is often the first step to regulation. Any regulation on #crypto must be compatible with the technology. https://t.co/iag84fJ67G
— Perianne (@PerianneDC) April 6, 2023

As Cointelegraph reported, Treasury believes that “most money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing” occurred using fiat currency or was otherwise outside the digital asset ecosystem.

Magazine: DeFi abandons Ponzi farms for ‘real yield’

Crypto Exchanges Must Share User Data With Russia, Prosecutor General Demands

April 9, 2023 Bitcoin.com

OpenAI faces Canadian privacy probe alleging personal info harvesting

April 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Breach

Canada's Head Privacy Commissioner is investigating the AI firm and watchdogs in Germany, France, Ireland and Spain could be mulling similar action.

OpenAI, the creators of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT, is under investigation by Canada’s privacy commissioner for alleged collection and use of personal information without consent.

On April 4, The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) stated its investigation was brought about following a complaint from an unidentified person.

Head Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne said his office is paying close attention to AI tech to ensure Canadian privacy rights are sufficiently protected:

“AI technology and its effects on privacy is a priority for my Office [...] We need to keep up with – and stay ahead of – fast-moving technological advances, and that is one of my key focus areas.”

No further comments were provided by the OPC and the Office made no mention of a limit on Canadians' access to ChatGPT.

Canada’s investigation comes as Germany, France, Ireland and Spain eye possible action on AI following a temporary block on ChatGPT in Italy.

On March 31, Italy’s data protection watchdog temporarily blocked the chatbot while it investigates an alleged data breach on the platform that took place on March 20.

The decision, however, raised the eyebrows of Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, who described the ban as “excessive” in an April 4 tweet.

Incontrando oggi i giornalisti stranieri in Italia ho ribadito la mia contrarietà all’intervento del Garante della Privacy che ha messo sostanzialmente al bando #ChatGPT, un “chatbot” basato su intelligenza artificiale. pic.twitter.com/r7waRKoLCU
— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) April 4, 2023

Germany is considering following Italy’s lead too.

On April 3 Ulrich Kelber, federal commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information told local outlet Handelsblatt that Germany may temporarily ban ChatGPT in the event that his commission probes whether the chatbot violates the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Privacy regulators in France and Ireland are also keeping an eye on Italy's investigation and have contacted Italy’s watchdog to inquire about the basis of its ban according to an April 4 Reuters report.

Spain told Reuters it won’t rule out a future investigation on ChatGPT, but said it hadn’t received a complaint about the chatbot.

While the OPC’s investigation is most concerned with privacy, other entities have expressed issues of their own.

The Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy (CAIDP) filed a March 30 complaint with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in an attempt to halt the release of powerful AI systems to consumers.

CAIDP claims ChatGPT-4 violates Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniack were among the 12,800 signees of a March 22 petition which called for AI firms to “pause” progress on AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 because it may pose “profound risks to society and humanity.”

Magazine: NFT Creator, Emily Xie: Creating ‘organic’ generative art from robotic algorithms

US President Joe Biden urges tech firms to address risks of AI

April 5, 2023 Coin Telegraph

President Biden urges technology companies to prioritize secure AI products before public release, stressing the need to address potential risks to society, national security and the economy.

United States President Joe Biden stated on Tuesday that the safety of artificial intelligence (AI) is still uncertain, and emphasized that technology firms should ensure their products are secure before releasing them to the public.

During a meeting with science and technology advisers, Biden acknowledged that AI could be beneficial in tackling issues such as disease and climate change. However, he stressed the significance of addressing possible risks to society, national security and the economy.

At the beginning of a meeting with the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, he stated that technology companies must ensure their products are secure before releasing them to the public. When questioned about the potential hazards of AI, he replied, “It is yet to be determined. There is a possibility.“

According to the president, social media has already demonstrated the negative impact that powerful technologies can have in the absence of appropriate measures to protect against them. “Absent safeguards, we see the impact on the mental health and self-images and feelings and hopelessness, especially among young people,” Biden said.

He repeated his call for the U.S. Congress to approve non-partisan privacy laws that limit the personal data gathered by technology firms, prohibit child-targeted advertising, and gives priority to health and safety in product development.

The Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy, a technology ethics organization, recently urged the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to prevent OpenAI from releasing new commercial versions of GPT-4, a language model that has both impressed and alarmed users due to its human-like capacity to create written responses to prompts.

Magazine: All rise for the robot judge: AI and blockchain could transform the courtroom

Ethereum Archive Node service shuts down saying it ‘succeeded’

April 4, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Archive Nodes

ArchiveNode.io has closed its doors following three years of providing archived Ethereum blockchain node data.

Ethereum mainnet Archive Node service, ArchiveNode.io, said it will be shutting down, claiming that the project has been a success.

On April 4, ArchiveNode.io announced it was “sunsetting” its services after more than three years of providing free Ethereum mainnet Archive Node services to developers, students, and researchers.

An Ethereum Archive Node is an instance of an Ethereum client configured to build an archive of all historical states. This type of node is a useful tool for querying historical blockchain data that is not accessible on full nodes.

While we appreciate everyone’s support over the years, it’s time for ArchiveNode to hang it up and say gm for the last time.

This isn’t a sad ending, but a happy one - we just aren’t needed anymore, and are shutting down.

gm and gn. https://t.co/truuXmDgbT
— Archive Node (@ArchiveNode) April 3, 2023

Additionally, Archive Nodes are not required to participate in block validation so they can theoretically be built from scratch, however, they do require much greater storage capacity.

The announcement was made by “DeFi Dude” who initiated the project and claimed the project was being shut down as "we succeeded," before adding:

“Our service is no longer necessary and other alternatives exist today that did not exist when we got started.”

He added that nobody was running Archive Nodes when the project started. The only option was to pay Ethereum infrastructure provider Infura $250 monthly to access archive data.

The goal of the project was to “get archive data into the hands of developers, students, and researchers who wanted to build cool shit, but didn’t have the time, money, or resources available to run their own archive node.”

He confirmed the project was never to "make money or profit."

He added there is currently a robust remote procedure call (RPC) provider market offering access to archive data making the project obsolete.

ArchiveNode.io thanked the Ethereum Foundation for their initial grant of $10,000 in Amazon Web Services (AWS) credits to get the project off the ground.

According to a Cointelegraph report in August, just three centralized cloud providers account for more than two-thirds of Ethereum nodes. More than half of the total nodes were hosted on AWS, according to data at the time.

Features: ‘Account abstraction’ supercharges Ethereum wallets: Dummies guide

More than 3600 Bitcoin ATMs went offline to record largest monthly decline

April 1, 2023 Coin Telegraph

ATM

With 3,627 crypto ATMs going down last month, March 2023 becomes the month with the largest monthly decline of crypto ATMs.

Contradicting the growing global Bitcoin (BTC) adoption rate, physical ATMs dedicated to fiat-crypto conversions are on the decline. In March alone, 3,627 crypto ATMs were removed from the network, bringing down the total ATMs to 33,727.

In nearly a decade since the first Bitcoin ATM was launched on Oct. 29, 2013, the net change of cryptocurrency machines installed and removed monthly remained positive most times — implying that total crypto ATMs worldwide were steadily increasing. However, the trend is reversing, reveals Coin ATM Radar data.

*Net change of cryptocurrency machines number installed and removed monthly. Source: Coin ATM Radar*

As shown above, net crypto ATM installations declined for four months — September 2022 and the first three months of 2023. However, with 3,627 crypto ATMs going down last month makes March 2023 stand out as the month with the largest monthly decline.

*Number of bitcoin machines installed over time. Source: Coin ATM Radar*

The chart above shows the number of bitcoin machines installed over time, revealing the sudden drop in the total crypto ATMs. The significance of this reduction seems enormous, considering that the highest number of ATMs installed in a month was 2,048 — back in January 2021.

*Number of cryptocurrency machines installed over time per each top manufacturer over time. Source: Coin ATM Radar*

On the bright side, April broke the three-month-long downtrend by recording 37 crypto ATM installations on April 1. Current market leaders in manufacturing crypto ATMs are General Bytes, BitAccess and Genesis Coin.

After losing customer funds in a “security incident” in March that saw its customers’ hot wallets accessed, General Bytes promised to reimburse the losses.

Magazine: Web3 Gamer: Shrapnel wows at GDC, Undead Blocks hot take, Second Trip

On March 17-18th, 2023, GENERAL BYTES experienced a security incident.

We released a statement urging customers to take immediate action to protect their personal information.

We urge all our customers to take immediate action to protect their funds and https://t.co/fajc61lcwR…
— GENERAL BYTES (@generalbytes) March 18, 2023

“We have taken immediate steps to prevent further unauthorized access to our systems and are working tirelessly to protect our customers,” General Bytes said in a statement.

Government requests for user data from Big Tech increased by 25%: data

March 30, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Apple

Requests for user data from Big Tech companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft continue to rise year after year from governments around the world.

How Big Tech companies treat user data has been controversial for so long. Meta, Apple, Google and Microsoft are often accused of collecting and selling the personal data of their users. Though, where exactly this data goes and how much of it is given over to companies and governments can still be unclear.

However, a new study from Surfshark reveals requests for such personal user data from global governments are on the rise. The study focused on the time period from 2013 to 2021, with 2020 having the most prominent year-over-year increase of 38%, followed by a 25% increase in 2021.

Meta, Microsoft, Apple and Google were the four Big Tech firms taken into account during the survey, with Meta having the most accounts of interest from authorities. Two out of five accounts hosted by Meta were requested (6.6M) over the study period.

*Total number of accounts requested (2013-2021). Source: Surfshark*

Apple, on the other hand, had the fewest with just 416K requested accounts from global authorities.

The study shows that 60% of requests came from authorities in the United States and Europe. However, the U.S. requested more than double the accounts per 100,000 users than all countries in the EU combined.

Following the U.S. in the top spots is Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom and France.

According to the report, data requests are often related to criminal investigations, along with civil or administrative cases in which digital data is necessary.

Gabriele Kaveckyte, a member of the privacy counsel at Surfshark, said along with data requests authorities are also looking into ways to monitor and tackle crime via online services.

“On one hand, introducing such new measures could help solve serious criminal cases, but civil society organizations expressed their concerns of encouraging surveillance techniques…”

On the part of the tech companies the rate of disclosure of user data has increased by nearly 71%. Apple leads the pack when it comes to disclosing such information with a disclosure rate of 86% in 2021, and an average disclosure rate of 82% across the study time period.

*Percentage of partially or fully disclosed user data requests (yearly average). Source: Surfshark*

The decentralization and Web3 tools have often been touted as solutions to overcoming the Big Tech monopoly on user information. Some have even gone so far as to say Web2 platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will be “obsolete” thanks to blockchain.

In February, the decentralized version of Twitter, called Damus, officially launched in app stores in an effort to be a “social network you control.”

Even Big Tech companies themselves have begun to break into the Web3 space, with Meta unsuccessfully introducing NFTs on Instagram and Facebook.

Magazine: US enforcement agencies are turning up the heat on crypto-related crime

Crunchbase taps AllianceBlock to boost novel applications in DeFi

March 28, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Crunchbase partners with AllianceBlock to make business data more accessible to blockchain businesses and developers.

AllianceBlock, a decentralized finance solutions provider, has partnered with Crunchbase, a prospecting platform, to make its data available to Data Tunnel users.

This partnership will make Crunchbase’s business data more accessible to blockchain businesses and developers, allowing them to create applications such as default probability models, customer acquisition profiles, maps of untapped markets and more.

Crunchbase’s content includes investment and funding information, founding members and individuals in leadership positions, mergers and acquisitions, news and industry trends.

The Data Tunnel serves as a platform for both conventional institutions and individuals, who typically rely on multiple sources of information to make well-informed decisions pertaining to their assets. With Data Tunnel, they can share, study and combine information without a middleman. The AllianceBlock data tunnel was launched in October 2022 to create a public marketplace for standardized data.

The Data Tunnel has been developed to create a public marketplace for standardized data.

Here's a quick on how it will work within the AllianceBlock ecosystem.

Read how we will be powering the new data economy here

(1/11)https://t.co/fFBu4WqLrl pic.twitter.com/203zv8maui
— AllianceBlock (@allianceblock) October 19, 2022

In 2021, AllianceBlock announced its integration with Avalanche, an up-and-coming “Internet of Finance” protocol. The integration allows users to access AllianceBlock’s DeFi Investment Terminal, peer-to-peer financial services, nonfungible token capabilities and Know Your Customer solutions directly on Avalanche. The partnership also includes development work with Ava Labs, the developers behind Avalanche.

The same year, AllianceBlock combined technologies with Flare, a fellow blockchain tech entity that seeks to enable blockchains to access real-world data in smart contract execution. The two companies sought to improve their blockchains with each other’s tech, from cross-chain bridges to decentralized exchanges to oracle networks.

Magazine: Hodler's Digest SBF bail guarantor to go public, UK crypto framework and Celsius news: Hodler’s Digest, Jan. 29 – Feb. 4

Argentine Tax Authority AFIP Detects Irregularities in 184 Digital Wallet Tax Statements

March 21, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Data

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