Majority of US consumers say no to Meta owning metaverse data: Survey

February 4, 2022 Coin Telegraph

87% of respondents said they would switch to full-time gaming in the metaverse if the pay is good.

A survey of 1,000 United States consumers around growing interest in the metaverse has revealed some interesting results.

In a survey commissioned by nonfungible token and metaverse infrastructure provider Advokate Group, 87% of respondents preferred a decentralized metaverse on a blockchain over some of the mega projects planned by tech giants. This became more evident when 77% of the respondents shared concerns over Facebook’s entry into the metaverse, especially since it owns users' metaverse data.

Facebook’s tainted past with mismanagement of private user data has already dismantled its early plans of launching a stablecoin called Diem. The stablecoin project faced heavy scrutiny from the U.S. Congress, and the project eventually came to a crashing end. A similar concern has started to grow around Facebook’s multi-billion-dollar metaverse aspirations.

The surveyed respondents were divided in terms of when metaverse could become mainstream, 20% of respondents believe it could take 1–2 years while 49% said it could take up to 3–6 years. Gaming was the primary choice of spending time in metaverse followed by socializing. 55% of the respondents said they would spend more than three hours a day in the metaverse.

A majority of the respondents also showed a keen interest in making money while playing games. With play-to-earn models being the latest rage, 93% of the respondents said they would spend more time playing games if it could make for the minimum wage. Some 64% said they would spend more than three hours if they made real money and 87% would switch to full-time gaming if the pay was good.

Metaverse as a concept only became formidable in 2021 and now every major tech giant be it Apple, Facebook or Google is looking to launch or invest in the ecosystem. However, a significant chunk of crypto proponents is advocating against the entry of centralized cash-rich firms, as they believe the concept of decentralization would take a back seat.

Mark Cuban likens shutting off crypto growth to stopping e-commerce in 1995

August 11, 2021 Coin Telegraph

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Bitcoin proponent Mark Cuban is certainly not happy with the tighter rules for crypto businesses introduced in the new infrastructure bill.

Leaders in the crypto industry continue to speak up as the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill, known for implementing tighter rules on crypto businesses and expanding reporting requirements for brokers, passed the United States Senate. Billionaire investor and Bitcoin (BTC) proponent Mark Cuban is one of them.

Speaking to The Washington Post over the weekend, before the bill officially passed the senate, Cuban drew a parallel between the growth of crypto to the rise of e-commerce and the internet in general:

“Shutting off this growth engine would be the equivalent of stopping e-commerce in 1995 because people were afraid of credit card fraud. Or regulating the creation of websites because some people initially thought they were complicated and didn’t understand what they would ever amount to.”

Mark Cuban is a vocal advocate for crypto and decentralized finance. The Dallas Mavericks owner is known for enabling the Mavs to accept Bitcoin, Ether (ETH) and Dogecoin (DOGE) payments for tickets and merchandise items.

He also argued in May that crypto asset prices are increasingly reflective of real utility and demand and that the day will eventually come when crypto is “mature to the point we wondered how we ever lived without.”

On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Senate passed the controversial bill in a 69–30 vote. The bill's main focus is roughly $1 trillion in funding for roads, bridges and major infrastructure projects.

However, the bill caused serious concerns among the crypto ecosystem as it would implement tighter rules on crypto businesses, expand reporting requirements for brokers and mandate that digital asset transactions worth more than $10,000 are reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Senator Pat Toomey, who was among the lawmakers that have written an amendment to the infrastructure bill to exclude certain crypto companies from the reporting requirements for brokers, said the new legislation imposes “a badly flawed, and in some cases unworkable, cryptocurrency tax reporting mandate that threatens future technological innovation.”

Three Altcoins With Life-Changing Potential Are Blazing Toward Mass Adoption, Says Trader Austin Arnold

May 2, 2021 The Daily Hodl

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