Features

Kain Warwick also admits the Infinex Patron NFT sale did not go as planned, with just 2% of users buying the most liquid NFT tier.

Kain Warwick, the Australian behind decentralized perps protocol Synthetix and now UX layer Infinex, says the clock is now ticking for crypto to grow fast enough to reach the point where no one could ever try to shut it down again.

Speaking to Magazine at Nears Redacted conference in Bangkok, Warwick says the crypto industry specifically his latest venture, Infinex has four years to break into the mainstream.

If we can get mass adoption in the next four years, which I think is achievable, and bring everyone onchain, and we have hundreds of millions or even billions of users, the jobs done you cant shut it down.

Infinex is Warwicks bid at solving the risks that come with centralized platforms seen in the multibillion-dollar implosions of FTX, BlockFi, Celsius and Voyager Digital without sacrificing the normie-friendly features many of these platforms once offered. 

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Gaming firms are split on whether blockchain should be the main character in Web3 games.

Off The Grid, a battle royale shooting game drizzled with a hint of blockchain, had an electric debut, with players spinning up 9.12 million wallets and more than 100 million transactions in its first month.

But Off The Grids use of blockchain technology is more of an optional extra than a core element. The graphics and gameplay do not run onchain and its NFT in-game items are opt-in. The game intends to launch a marketplace where items can be traded on Gunz, an Avalanche subnet. A to-be-launched GUN token will be the in-game currency that can be used to purchase items and skins.

Its success shows that emphasizing good gameplay, with blockchain elements as an added feature that enhances the experience for those who want it, can be a winning move. It helped Gunzilla Games, the studio behind Off The Grid, secure backing from VanEck, building on the $517 million in Q3 funding raised by gaming startups.

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A new wave of blockchain and tokenization projects is helping African farmers access revenue, investments and loans to build better lives.

Blockchain technology is planting the seeds of change in Africas farming sector, providing solutions to long-standing barriers like market access, financial limitations and fair pricing.

For farmers like Sophia Wambui Ngamate from Nakuru County, Kenya, aged 54, it has been a lifeline. One Million Avocados has wonderfully assisted me in planting more than 120 avocado trees in my shamba, she says of the Kenyan crypto project that uses orchard tokenization to further an aim to plant a million avocado trees across Africa.  

Theyve trained me, linked me to other farmers, provided fertilizers, and are even helping us access better markets, she says.

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AI agents trading crypto is the hot new narrative, but beware of getting sniped, legal and security issues, and being fooled by humans.

The use of AI agents to create, promote and transact cryptocurrencies has been largely theoretical until now.

But with AI shitposter Terminal of Truths promoting Goateus Maximus, the Luna bot tipping users for engagement, and Based Agents enabling quick and easy crypto agent creation on Ethereum L2s, the future has become very real all of a sudden.

The developments have brought a fresh wave of excitement to Crypto X, with some wondering if AI agents transacting in crypto could be the narrative that propels (at least in part) the next retail bull run.

But there are also plenty of traps for young players in the AI agent craze.

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The ETHSafari crypto conference in Kenya is a world away from Token2049… and a completely different mindset.

The six-hour train journey from Nairobi, Kenyas capital, to the coastal city of Mombasa is a pleasant one. Clean carriages, very well-dressed passengers and a punctual timetable make a nice change from the uncertainty of traveling in Africa. 

Opening in 2017, it replaced a colonial-era railway line known as the Lunatic Express, which is fitting enough when headed to any sort of crypto event. 

My destination, two more hours by car from Mombasa, is ETHSafari in Kilifi, a paradise-like town on the coast, but Im early. Theres yet another Block Train to the second part of the conference the following day. 

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Magazine follows a trail of clues left behind by the fake Rabby Wallet scammer to uncover a network of scams and links to a Dubai crypto CEO.

Unsuspecting users lost an estimated $1.6 million to a fake cryptocurrency wallet that somehow slipped through Apples strict app review process in February. Magazine follows a trail of clues on the blockchain to find out who’s behind the fake wallet.

The fraudulent app, posing as DeBanks Rabby Wallet, remained on the App Store for four days, siphoning funds from multiple victims before Apple removed it.

I never once thought it would be a scam since I had complete faith in the Apple App Store. About 20 to 30 minutes later, I opened my Rabby laptop wallet and saw my balance had basically gone to zero, a fake Rabby wallet victim tells Magazine. 

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Multi-millionaire Bryan Johnson is convinced that biological immortality is “solvable”, and reveals that he almost devoted his life to crypto.

Multimillionaire tech guru Bryan Johnson says that if he hadn’t sold his payments company Braintree to PayPal in 2013 and became obsessed with anti-aging, he may well have ended up devoting his life to crypto.

“Had I not sold Braintree, I just would have been entirely all in on crypto,” he says.

Magazine catches up with Johnson in the speakers’ lounge at Token2049 in Singapore, ushered over to meet the youthful-looking 47-year-old by an assistant who looks like a supermodel and has a million-watt smile.

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Worldcoin fined over privacy rules in South Korea, Hong Kong crypto trading store clerk scarpers with customer’s $500K in cash: Asia Express.

Worldcoin Foundation and Tools for Humanity have received a rap over the knuckles from South Korean authorities for the illegal collection and transfer of biometric data.

The Personal Information Protection Commission announced on Sept. 26 that it had imposed a fine of 1.1 billion Korean won ($850,000) against Worldcoin and its contributor Tools for Humanity.

The nations privacy watchdog said it started probing Worldcoin earlier after complaints and local media reports alleged the project of collecting biometric data in exchange for cryptocurrency without proper consent or legal basis.

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ASI Alliance founder Ben Goertzel says the alpha version of the AGI he’s been working on for 20 years is “self aware” and scaling up fast.

ASI Alliance founder Ben Goertzel says the alpha version of OpenCog Hyperon the artificial general intelligence system hes been developing for more than two decades is already self-aware to a certain extent.

Goertzel also tells Magazine he believes OpenAI likely shied away from making its “very impressive” new o1 model an autonomous agent for fear that it would be seen as risky and dangerous and provoke a crackdown from regulators.

The Artificial Superintelligence Alliance was formed in March this year, bringing together Goertzels SingularityNET project, Ocean Protocol and DeepMind veteran Humayun Sheikhs FetchAI.

This week, 96% of CUDOS voters approved the decentralized cloud hardware networks merger with ASI. The merger will boost the compute available for Goertzels plans to scale up OpenCog Hyperon, the AGI system hes been working on since 2001 and launched as an open-source AI framework in 2008.

Three years ago, the project embarked on a total rebuild of OpenCog in pursuit of massive scalability, and were a large way through that process, he says. The Alpha launched in April, and while he says its currently very slow and breaking changes are expected, the team is working on massively speeding it up. I think that should be completed this fall. And so then, which means next year, well be setting about trying to build toward AGI on the new Hyperloop infrastructure.

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