Jack Dorsey’s relief fund pledges $5M donation to Bitcoin-focused nonprofit

June 14, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Jack Dorsey’s relief fund pledges M donation to Bitcoin-focused nonprofit

brink

The fund reported it had distributed more than $500 million to projects, including the Tor Project, the Signal Technology Foundation and the Calyx Institute.

Brink, a nonprofit organization aimed at supporting Bitcoin developers, has announced a $5 million donation from Block CEO Jack Dorsey and his Start Small funding group.

In a June 14 tweet, Brink said Dorsey and Start Small pledged to make $1 million in donations annually for the next five years as part of “developer funding efforts.” Prior to his departure as CEO of Twitter, Dorsey launched the fund in April 2020 in an effort to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, the Twitter CEO said he had seeded the fund with $1 billion.

According to Start Small’s website, the fund had more than $1.4 billion in funding at the time of publication, with more than $500 million distributed to projects, including the Tor Project — the nonprofit behind the anonymous Tor Browser — the Signal Technology Foundation backing the Signal messaging app, and the Calyx Institute, a digital privacy education platform.

Honored to receive a very generous $5,000,000 pledge to our developer funding efforts from @jack and #startsmall

Brink will receive $1,000,000 per year for the next 5 years.

Thank you for supporting #bitcoin developers!
— Brink (@bitcoinbrink) June 14, 2023

Founded in 2020, Brink offers fellowship and grant programs to support open-source Bitcoin (BTC) developers and engineers. Aside from crypto supporters like Dorsey, digital asset firms such as Nexo have previously made donations to the group as part of efforts to support BTC developers.

Different firms within the crypto and blockchain space have made similar efforts to start funds encouraging developers to come out of the woodwork. Dogecoin (DOGE) started a fund for core developers in December 2022 with $360,000, and metaverse developer Animoca Brands reportedly planned a billion-dollar fund for startups.

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7,800 jobs at IBM could be replaced by AI within years, suggests CEO

May 2, 2023 Coin Telegraph

accounting

Arvind Krishna, the chief executive of IBM, said roughly 30% of their non-customer-facing positions could be covered by artificial intelligence over a five-year period.

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) is expecting to put a “pause” on hiring for "back-office" roles that could be potentially automated by artificial intelligence (AI) instead.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna explained in a May 1 interview with Bloomberg that many “back-office” positions such as those in the human resources and accounting departments will likely be the first to be automated by AI.

The IBM boss added he could "easily" see 30% of these positions replaced by AI over a five-year period.

Dropbox: Laying off 500 people and replacing them with AI

IBM: Pausing hiring for ~7,800 roles that could be done by AI

AI is already replacing jobs
— Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) May 1, 2023

IBM employs 282,000 employees globally according to LinkedIn and according to Bloomberg has around 26,000 non-customer-facing staff — meaning around 7,800 jobs could be handed over to AI.

“I could easily see 30% of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period.”

According to some reports, AI-based automation has already helped IBM save well over $1 billion in business expenses and maintenance costs.

Among the tasks that may be automated include providing employment verification letters or moving employees between departments.

However, Krishna thinks human resource roles that evaluate workforce composition, measure productivity and other tasks that benefit from human judgement likely won’t be replaced over the next decade.

For AI to work, it must be built responsibly. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna shares how organizations can prepare for the challenges and opportunities ahead in @FortuneMagazine: https://t.co/WYBu6VUCuc pic.twitter.com/gZtLwTNklb
— IBM (@IBM) April 24, 2023

Many industry pundits remain at crossroads on whether AI actually has the potential to leave humans without work on a mass scale.

A recent study found that 62% of Americans think implementing artificial intelligence in the workplace will have a “major impact” on workers within the next 20 years, leaving many employees “wary” and “worried” about what their future holds.

The more tech-savvy employees however feel slightly more secure about their future.

Blockchain developer Salman Arshad recently explained to Cointelegraph that instead of AI coming in to wipe out the developer market, it’ll only serve as a tool to increase efficiency.

“You know what your company wants to do. You can tell ChatGPT, and it can perfectly transform your commands into a smart contract, auditing process, document or white paper.”

“ChatGPT and AI tools are a blessing; they are not our enemies and are not here to end the career of a developer,” he added.

Another blockchain developer, Syed Ghazanfer, explained to Cointelegraph that the combination of human input and ChatGPT offers much more versatility than a complete transition to AI automation.

On the other hand, Dominik Schiener, the founder of the IOTA Foundation, believes that AI will take away employment opportunities from humans but at the same time, AI and robotic process will create new jobs:

“We’ll see more and more humans being forced to pivot to new roles that may look nothing like anything they’ve ever done.”

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Celo Foundation and Google Cloud partner to support sustainable Web3 startups

April 4, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The collaboration is set to allow founders building on Celo to access credits for Google Cloud and Google’s mobile development platform, Firebase.

The Celo Foundation has partnered with Google Cloud to support mission-aligned projects in Celo's blockchain ecosystem and advance the early adoption of Google Cloud services. The collaboration is set to allow founders building on Celo to access credits for Google Cloud and Firebase usage, thereby enhancing Celo's mobile-first infrastructure and decentralized applications (Dapps).

Firebase is a mobile and web application development platform developed by Google that provides developers with various tools and services for building apps, including authentication, real-time databases, cloud storage, and messaging.

According to the announcement, the Google Cloud team will also provide mentorship and guidance to the Celo Foundation's Founders in Residence program and participate in the virtual Celo Camp accelerator program, which supports entrepreneurs in developing sustainability-focused startups. Additionally, the two organizations aim to co-host targeted workshops and events focused on Web3 sustainability and innovation.

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Xochitl Cazador, Celo Foundation's head of ecosystem growth, shared that “This new, expanded partnership between Google and the Celo Foundation enhances the ability to collaboratively create broader awareness for blockchain technology and its ability to scale real-world use cases on Celo.”

Cazador further explained that “Google Cloud’s core team will also support the Celo Foundation through joint hackathons, workshops, and events centered on the intersection of Web3 and sustainability. The partnership aims to further amplify both teams’ belief that blockchain technology is well suited to address environmental matters."

Addressing the challenges that sustainability-focused startups in the Celo Network face, Cazador shared that "highly technical onboarding processes, complex interfaces, and unfamiliar transaction fee currencies present major barriers to entry for such startups in the Web3 space." However, Cazador shared that Celo's partnership with Google Cloud is set to "alleviate the strain on emerging and established projects, thereby allowing ecosystem builders to tackle today and tomorrow's largest sustainability challenges."

Celo is a blockchain platform that has achieved carbon negativity through proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. Within the Web3 community, it has gained recognition as a leader in regenerative finance (ReFi), a broad concept that prioritizes sustainability within finance. The platform has a diverse range of over 1,000 projects in more than 150 countries.

In episode 10 of Cointelegraph’s Hashing It Out podcast, Rene Reinsberg, the president of Celo Foundation and the co-founder of the Celo blockchain, discussed the ReFi movement and Celo's plans to stay relevant in the multichain world. Reinsberg shared that he sees the increase in layer-1 blockchains and layer-2 networks as an opportunity to bring more people into crypto.

THORChain mainnet halted amid new vulnerability reports

March 28, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

THORChain has once again halted its network, taking action as a precautionary measure while verifying reports on a potential network vulnerability.

Cross-chain liquidity protocol THORChain has paused its network due to new claims of a potential network vulnerability.

THORChain took to Twitter on March 28 to announce that it has halted all trading amid reports on a potential vulnerability with a THORChain dependency that may affect the network. The decision was taken as a precautionary measure while the reports are verified, THORChain said.

The announcement came shortly after social media reports indicated that THORChain’s liquidity platform Nine Realms and the dedicated security team THORSec received “credible reports” of a potential vulnerability affecting THORChain. The THORChain network has reportedly been subsequently halted globally.

**THORChain Globally Halted**@ninerealms_cap and THORSec have received credible reports of a potential vulnerability affecting @THORChain. Out of an abundance of caution, steps have been taken to halt THORChain globally.

Stand by for more information.
— Pluto (9R) ⚡️ (@Pluto9r) March 28, 2023

“Network preemptively paused by NO's to investigate the report; updates will follow,” Nine Realms tweeted.

Amid the news, THORChain’s native token Rune (RUNE) has tumbled about 5%, according to data from CoinGecko. At the time of writing, the token is trading at $1.32, down 18% over the past 30 days.

Founded in 2018, THORChain is a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol that allows users to swap assets between different blockchain networks without using centralized exchanges. THORChain’s settlement layer currently offers swaps between eight chains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Chain, Avalanche, Cosmos Hub, Dogecoin, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.

The latest halt on the THORChain’s network is far from being the first one. The network was paused in October 2022 as a result of a software bug causing “non-determinism between individual nodes.” The network was subsequently resumed and became fully functional after 20 hours of maintenance.

In 2021, THORChain also halted its network after the protocol suffered a breach, with hackers stealing $7.6 million in crypto assets.

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