Features

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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Is Solana printing too many tokens? Separating myths from facts about bots and subsidies.

Solana started the year as one of the most promising blockchains, but reports of inflated transaction volumes, high bot activity, and hundreds of millions of dollars paid out each month to network validators have become some of the industrys most debated topics.

Magazine decided to sort out the myths from the facts. Some of the claims are partly true, while others are misleading. 

Some industry watchers criticize the network for its high inflation rate, often quoting Messaris statistic that the circulating supply of SOL has risen 13.4% over the past year.

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With no monetary investment required, Pi Network users believe they have nothing to lose — but critics say otherwise.

Cryptocurrencies can be fun and profitable, but they can also be addictive. They can sometimes consume an investors life and strain relationships with friends and family.

YSM, a South Korean college student who spoke to Magazine on the condition of pseudonymity, shares that his family has been grappling with an app called Pi Network. 

While YSM harbors doubts about the projects legitimacy, his father, who owns a fried chicken restaurant, is convinced it is the next Bitcoin.

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After 900 shows about Bitcoin, Peter McCormack says it’s time to tackle other big issues because “everything feels like it’s going to shit.”

Peter McCormacks life has been an open book. Hes been candid with his audience and with Magazine about discovering Bitcoin while buying far too much cocaine on Silk Road and winding up in hospital in 2014.

A few years later, in 2019, he wrote a piece for The Guardian revealing that hed made $1.2 million investing in Bitcoin and then lost it all.

But after selling his stack during the bear market to keep his What Bitcoin Did podcast afloat, in 2024 hes emerged wealthier and healthier than ever before. This cycle hes kept his earnings and realized his childhood dream of taking over the Bedford football club.

What Bitcoin Did is on the verge of transforming into a whole new podcast called The McCormack Show, and Real Bedford has added Bitcoin to its treasury. McCormack says hes in a good place, both professionally and personally.

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Many Bitcoiners believe that Donald Trump will save the industry from the Democrats. But that could only happen if he wins.

At Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville, lines wrap around the block. Delays. The crowd awaits. Rumors swirl. Then the music comes on, and much of the audience stands in awe as Trump walks on accompanied by patriotic music.

Theres no way Kamala Harris could have come here, I overhear someone comment.

It certainly seems that Bitcoin or at least its most ardent and vocal US supporters has become heavily tilted toward the Republican. Gone are the days when the core of enthusiasts described their project as a politically neutral technology.

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Jack Dorsey says a marketplace of algorithms could fix toxic social media — but centralized platforms won’t give up their control easily.

Everyone seems to agree that social media has become a cesspit, with cancel-culture mobs enforcing ideological purity on one side and trolls spreading conspiracy theories on the other.

X and Facebook are accused of amplifying hatred and conflict, with riots in the United Kingdom highlighting how a handful of social media posts can ignite a cauldron of simmering anger and resentment.

In response, governments around the world are cracking down on free speech. Turkey banned Instagram, Venezuela banned X and the UK government has been sending people to jail for inciting violence and in some cases, just for having shitty opinions.

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From Vitalik’s dad telling him about Bitcoin, through to the upcoming Pectra upgrade, these are the key moments in Ethereum’s life.

The history of Ethereum began more than a decade ago as a gleam in the eye of its creator, Vitalik Buterin, a gangly math genius frustrated by the limitations of Bitcoin who believed he could do something better with a blockchain. 

Instead of cryptocurrency being solely a monetary asset, Buterin envisioned extending blockchain technology to the point where it became a global computer a platform that hosts decentralized applications, powered by smart contracts, with minimal need for human intervention or trust assumptions. 

Fast forward to today, and Ethereum is the second-largest crypto asset in the world, underpinning a trillion-dollar ecosystem of dependent networks. Its the blockchain of choice for several of the worlds largest asset managers, as well as hundreds of thousands of daily users on the layer 1 and millions on connected L2s.

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AI may already consume more power than Bitcoin mining, and its deep pockets mean miners face stiff competition for equipment and electricity.

The energy required to run artificial intelligence systems may already be higher than the amount of power used to mine Bitcoin, according to new research.

While that may sound like good news for the Bitcoin mining industry, which is regularly attacked over power consumption, the sting in the tail of the report from the Bitcoin Policy Institute is that AI is shaping up as a fierce competitor to Bitcoin for electricity and equipment.

The sectors deep pockets mean AI companies can afford to outbid miners for the same electricity. With AI offering up to 25 times more revenue than Bitcoin per kilowatt hour (kWh), some miners are adding AI processing to their data centers or even switching entirely from Bitcoin to AI.

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