a16z reveals lobbying plan: Throw money at tech-forward politicians

December 15, 2023 Coin Telegraph

DeFi group petitions to stop ‘patent troll’ targeting DeFi protocols

September 12, 2023 Coin Telegraph

The DeFi Education Fund says a patent owned by True Return Systems is being used to try to profit from lawsuits against decentralized protocols.

A decentralized finance (DeFi) advocacy body has petitioned the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to review a patent owned by a company it has accused of being a a “patent troll” — a firm that aims to profit from patent lawsuits.

In a Sept. 11 blog post, the DeFi Education Fund (DEF) said on Sept. 7 that it filed an over 90-page petition to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in a bid to cancel a patent owned by True Return Systems.

Granted in 2018, the patent lays claim to a process for “linking off-chain data to a blockchain,” DEF legal chief Amanda Tuminelli said in a Sept. 11 X (Twitter) post.

Tuminelli claimed True Return tried to sell its patent as a nonfungible token (NFT). After no buyer, it filed suit against the DeFi protocols MakerDAO and Compound Finance in October.

4/ When that didn’t work, in October 2022, TRS sued MakerDAO and “Compound Protocol” in two separate federal court proceedings, alleging patent infringement.
Docket links: https://t.co/w47v7fAAEt https://t.co/ExTapxhKNq
— Amanda Tuminelli (@amandatums) September 11, 2023

“Clearly [True Return’s] goal was to name defendants who could not answer the complaint so [it] could get a default judgement,” Tuminelli said.

She claimed True Return would try to enforce the court’s ruling against token holders and repeat the process with other protocols “that either can’t challenge them in court or don’t have the resources to do so.”

DEF claimed True Return’s tech in the patent isn’t new at the time it was granted and claims to highlight similar existing tech such as the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) along with the decentralized storage platforms Sia, Storj and Swarm.

8/ In our petition, we make the point that the “invention” in the patent was not new in 2018. There are many examples of “prior art” the Patent Board can look at - examples - a NASDAQ patent that links price data off-chain to on-chain transaction historyhttps://t.co/amz3jREab7 pic.twitter.com/RJ3VVGFeEj
— Amanda Tuminelli (@amandatums) September 11, 2023

True Return Systems acknowledged Cointelegraph’s request for comment but did not immediately provide a comment.

DEF said it launched the petition with USPTO to defend the ability to use and develop open source software, to stop any potential plans by True Return to sue crypto projects and help MakerDAO and Compound’s legal defence.

True Return has three months to optionally respond to the petition, after six months the USPTO must make a decision if it will move forward with reviewing the patent where it has 12 months to decide if the patent should be cancelled.

Magazine: Hall of Flame: Crypto lawyer Irina Heaver on death threats, lawsuit predictions

Robinhood beats investors’ appeal in GameStop meme stock case

August 11, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Appeal

The appeals court judge said Robinhood “had the right” to impose restrictions on meme trade purchases.

A United States federal appeals court has upheld a decision to dismiss an investor class action lawsuit against online brokerage firm Robinhood Markets over its meme stock trading debacle in early 2021.

A total of 16 investors took part in a class action lawsuit against the trading platform in September 2021, alleging the firm restricted them from purchasing 13 “meme stocks” when hedge funds were being short squeezed in January 2021.

This stopped them reaping the profits and also caused the share prices of these stocks to plummet, they alleged.

Robinhood won a motion to dismiss the complaint in January 2022, citing the plaintiff's failure to state a claim, plaintiffs then went on to argue the decision in the U.S. appeals court in March 2023.

However, it appears the investors have hit another setback as the appeals judge has upheld the decision to dismiss the lawsuit, with U.S. Appellate Court Judge Britt Grant saying the arguments lacked legal merit.

She explained that Robinhood “had the right to do exactly what they did” because they were not legally obligated to protect these investors from pure economic loss.

This is because Robinhood was, and still is legally permitted to restrict its customers’ ability to trade securities and to refuse to accept any of their transactions, Judge Grant added.

*The U.S. Appellate Court’s concluding remarks, affirming the lower court’s decision to dismiss the plaintiff’s case.*

If the investors decide to pursue the matter further, their next and final route will be through the U.S. Supreme Court — the highest court in the U.S. However, they will need to file a petition for a "writ of certiorari," which is a document asking the Supreme Court to review the case.

The Supreme Court takes on about 100-150 cases from over 7,000 reviews, so the plaintiff’s chances of having its case heard once more are likely slim.

The GameStop short squeeze happened in January 2021, which was initially triggered by users of the /wallstreetbets subreddit.

The strategy of the short squeeze was to cause big losses for Wall Street firms shorting these particular stocks, and by doing so, profiting themselves.

Another 12 stocks became part of the frenzy, including AMC Entertainment, American Airlines Group, Blackberry, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Trivago.

GameStop stocks were however one of the largest gainers of the Reddit-fueled price pump, increasing over 9,900% from $0.86 to over $86 between Apr. 2020 and Jan. 2021, according to Macrotrends.net.

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Coinbase blasts SEC for ‘no straight answers’ following court order

June 19, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Appeals Court

The comment from the crypto exchange came after the SEC asked for more time to respond to Coinbase's rulemaking petition.

Coinbase has slammed the United States securities regulator for failing to answer questions asked in the U.S. Court of Appeals as part of its ongoing legal battle with the regulator.

In a June 17 letter filed in the Court, lawyers for the crypto exchange accosted the Securities Exchange Commission for continuing to offer “no straight answers” to the Court in relation to Coinbase’s rulemaking petition, which calls on the SEC to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets.

“When ordered by this Court to address the stark inconsistency between its litigating position and its actions and statements elsewhere, the SEC still offers no straight answers and instead repeats its talking points,” Coinbase’s letter said.

The letter was in response to the SEC’s June 13 submission requesting an additional 120 days to reply to Coinbase’s rulemaking petition.

Coinbase claimed the SEC is reluctant to inform the Court of updates on its decision, saying it “bristles even at being ordered to update the Court on its progress.”

The firm claimed the impact of the SEC’s silence, the lengthy delays and its enforcement actions continue to weigh on the crypto industry and SEC chair Gary Gensler "continues to charge well down the path to irreparably damaging a U.S. public company and an entire industry.”

On June 17, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, said in a series of tweets that it’s “unusual for the government to defy a direct question from a federal court.”

We couldn't wait until our deadline next week to address the SEC's response to the June 6 order from the Third Circuit. It is unusual for the government to defy a direct question from a federal court. But the SEC’s evasive response goes further, as we set out today. 1/5 pic.twitter.com/ssULmUpzi2
— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) June 17, 2023

Grewal said he’s hoping for the Court to grant a writ of mandamus — a court order to a government official ordering them to fulfill their official duties under the law — given thathe SEC knocked back Coinbase’s petition.

Coinbase is also submitting that the court instead set a deadline of 60 days or less starting from June 13 — the date of the SEC’s request.

In a separate case, the SEC sued Coinbase on June 6, alleging the trading platform broke various securities rules, most notably for purportedly offering cryptocurrencies that the regulator considers to be unregistered securities.

Magazine: Crypto regulation: Does SEC Chair Gary Gensler have the final say?

SEC asks for more time to respond to Coinbase call for crypto clarity

June 14, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The securities regulator said it would make a recommendation within 120 days on Coinbase’s rulemaking request, but says the action has “no merit.”

The United States securities regulator has asked for four more months to provide a response to Coinbase’s request for crypto regulatory clarity.

In a June 13 letter submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it needs an additional 120 days to reply to Coinbase’s request that it adopt new rules and provide further clarity on the laws governing crypto.

The letter was in response to the court’s June 6 order to the SEC which asked the regulator to address if it’s denying the rulemaking or if it needs more time to respond.

The SEC said it “has not decided what action to take on that petition in whole or in part” and claimed Coinbase’s request for a writ of mandamus has “no merit.”

The regulator claimed that the mandamus petition “should be denied” but anticipated it would be able to make a recommendation on Coinbase’s petition for rulemaking “within the next 120 days.”

In response to the letter, Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal informed his 40,000 Twitter followers that the SEC had repeated the “fallacy” that it was yet to decide on any new regulation.

He added the letter ignored clear statements from SEC chair Gary Gensler that the SEC has “no intent to issue new rules.”

“[The SEC] instead conflate the evidence of a decision those statements provide with an argument that the statements are themselves a decision,” Grewal said.

4) they ignore the clear statements of the Chair that confirm they have no intent to issue new rules, and instead conflate the evidence of a decision those statements provide with an argument that the statements are themselves a decision. 3/5
— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) June 13, 2023

“They refuse to commit to any deadline despite the Court's explicit order,” Grewal added.

The court’s order to the SEC came the same day the regulator sued Coinbase for offering unregistered securities and operating an unregistered securities exchange.

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Coinbase remains ‘100% committed’ to US market: Armstrong

May 5, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Australia

The Coinbase CEO has a lot of faith in Congress in making a “clear rule book” for crypto firms to follow. But the SEC? Not so much.

United States-founded cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has no plans to move its operations out of the U.S., CEO Brian Armstrong told investors in an Q1 earnings call.

On May 5, Armstrong assured shareholders the firm is “100% committed” to the U.S. market over the long term despite regulatory uncertainty in the U.S.

“So let me be clear, we're 100% committed to the U.S. I founded this company in the United States because I saw that rule of law prevails here. That's really important, and I'm actually really optimistic on the U.S. getting this right.”

The “optimism” alluded to by Armstrong comes from his confidence in Congress soon passing a clear set of rules for crypto firms to follow:

“When I go visit DC, there is strong bipartisan support for Congress to come in and create new legislation that would create a clear rule book in the U.S. and I think it's really important for America to get this right.”

However, Armstrong’s comments weren’t entirely “optimistic.”

The chief executive is concerned about the unpredictable enforcement action of the Securities Exchange Commission, which comes in light of the firm being served with a Wells Notice by the securities regulator in late March:

“Despite our ongoing engagement with the commission, they have not been as clear about what their specific concerns are with Coinbase as we might like, and so I have to refrain from speculating too much.”

“It's especially difficult to predict the timeline of any potential SEC litigation that we might face,” Armstrong added.

The troubles led Coinbase to file an action in a U.S. federal court seeking to compel the SEC to answer a petition that has been pending since July.

Today, to provide greater transparency in our long-standing engagement with the SEC, we are sharing our response to the Wells notice we received last month. https://t.co/aquuWmxmRM
— Coinbase ️ (@coinbase) April 27, 2023

The back and forth comes as Coinbase launched Coinbase International Exchange (CIE) on May 2, which prompted many pundits to believe that Coinbase was looking for an escape route from the U.S.

The exchange is open to customers in 30 countries worldwide, including Singapore, Hong Kong, El Salvador, Philippines, Thailand and Bermuda — where CIE is now licensed from.

Today Coinbase launched Coinbase International Exchange @CoinbaseIntExch and will begin by offering BTC & ETH perpetual futures settled in USDC with up to 5x leverage to institutional clients in eligible jurisdictions outside of the U.S.https://t.co/OzhbgJlZ2K
— Coinbase ️ (@coinbase) May 2, 2023

Armstrong said the European Union is “in front” in terms of regulatory progress with its Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) legislation set to enter into effect in mid-2024 or early 2025:

“They've adopted comprehensive crypto legislation called MiCA, creates a single clear rule book for the entire region. It's pretty powerful.”

“I just got back from a trip from the U.K. and D.C. Both of those, both have draft bills in the works that are working on things like around stable coins and market structure Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Brazil, all are essentially following in this direction,” Armstrong added.

The CEO’s remarks come as Coinbase managed to increase its revenue 22% and slashed its net income loss over $475 million to $79 million in Q1.

Our Q1'23 financial results are in and our letter to shareholders can be found on the Investor Relations website at https://t.co/8ovHEtPRgf pic.twitter.com/4iWAPGZNMh
— Coinbase ️ (@coinbase) May 4, 2023

Magazine: Crypto regulation: Does SEC Chair Gary Gensler have the final say?

‘Biased, deceptive’: Center for AI accuses ChatGPT creator of violating trade laws

March 31, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy

The group believes GPT-4 violates Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.”

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

The complaint centered around OpenAI’s recently released large language model, GPT-4, which the CAIDP describes as “biased, deceptive, and a risk to privacy and public safety” in its March 30 complaint.

CAIDP, an independent non-profit research organization, argued that the commercial release of GPT-4 violates Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits ''unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.''

To back its case, the AI ethics organization pointed to contents in the GPT-4 System Card, which state:

“We found that the model has the potential to reinforce and reproduce specific biases and worldviews, including harmful stereotypical and demeaning associations for certain marginalized groups.”

In the same document, it stated: “AI systems will have even greater potential to reinforce entire ideologies, worldviews, truths and untruths, and to cement them or lock them in, foreclosing future contestation, reflection, and improvement.”

*Complaint filed by the Centre for AI and Digital Policy against OpenAI. Source:* *CAIDP*

CAIDP added that OpenAI released GPT-4 to the public for commercial use with full knowledge of these risks and that no independent assessment of GPT-4 was undertaken prior to its release.

As a result, the CAIDP wants the FTC to conduct an investigation into the products of OpenAI and other operators of powerful AI systems:

“It is time for the FTC to act [...] CAIDP urges the FTC to open an investigation into OpenAI, enjoin further commercial releases of GPT-4, and ensure the establishment of necessary guardrails to protect consumers, businesses, and the commercial marketplace.”

While ChatGPT-3 was released in November, the latest version, GPT-4 is considered to be ten times more intelligent. Upon its release on March 14, a study found that GPT-4 was able to pass the most rigorous U.S. high school and law exams within the top 90th percentile.

It can also detect smart contract vulnerabilities on Ethereum, among other things.

This morning I was hacking the new ChatGPT API and found something super interesting: there are over 80 secret plugins that can be revealed by removing a specific parameter from an API call.

The secret plugins include a "DAN plugin", "Crypto Prices Plugin", and many more. pic.twitter.com/Q6JO1VLz5x
— (@rez0__) March 24, 2023

The complaint comes as Elon Musk, Apple’s Steve Wozniak, and a host of AI experts signed a petition to “pause” development on AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.

Having a bit of AI existential angst today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 26, 2023

CAIDP president Marc Rotenberg was among the other 2600 signers of the petition, which was introduced by the Future of Life Institute on March 22.

The authors argued that “Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth,” for better or for worse.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has also called on states to implement the UN’s “Recommendation on the Ethics of AI” framework.

After +1000 tech workers urged pause in the training of the most powerful #AI systems, @UNESCO calls on countries to immediately implement its Recommendation on the Ethics of AI - the 1st global framework of this kind & adopted by 193 Member Stateshttps://t.co/BbA00ecihO pic.twitter.com/GowBq0jKbi
— Eliot Minchenberg (@E_Minchenberg) March 30, 2023

In other news, a former AI researcher for Google recently alleged that Google’s AI chatbot, "Bard," has been trained using ChatGPT’s responses.

While the researcher has resigned over the incident, Google executives have denied the allegations put forth by their former colleague.

Magazine: How to prevent AI from ‘annihilating humanity’ using blockchain

Elon Musk and tech execs call for pause on AI development

March 30, 2023 Coin Telegraph

artificial general intelligence

The authors of the letter say that advanced artificial intelligence could cause a profound change in the history of life on Earth, for better or worse.

More than 2,600 tech leaders and researchers have signed an open letter urging a temporary pause on further artificial intelligence (AI) development, fearing “profound risks to society and humanity.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and a host of AI CEOs, CTOs and researchers were among the signatories of the letter, which was published by the United States think tank Future of Life Institute (FOLI) on March 22.

The institute called on all AI companies to “immediately pause” training AI systems that are more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months, sharing concerns that “human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity,” among other things.

We're calling on AI labs to temporarily pause training powerful models!

Join FLI's call alongside Yoshua Bengio, @stevewoz, @harari_yuval, @elonmusk, @GaryMarcus & over a 1000 others who've signed: https://t.co/3rJBjDXapc

A short on why we're calling for this - (1/8)
— Future of Life Institute (@FLIxrisk) March 29, 2023

“Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources. Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening,” the institute wrote.

GPT-4 is the latest iteration of OpenAI’s artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, which was released on March 14. To date, it has passed some of the most rigorous U.S. high school and law exams within the 90th percentile. It is understood to be 10 times more advanced than the original version of ChatGPT.

There is an “out-of-control race” between AI firms to develop more powerful AI, whi“no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control," FOLI claimed.

BREAKING: A petition is circulating to PAUSE all major AI developments.

e.g. No more ChatGPT upgrades & many others.

Signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Stability AI CEO & 1000s of other tech leaders.

Here's the breakdown: pic.twitter.com/jR4Z3sNdDw
— Lorenzo Green 〰️ (@mrgreen) March 29, 2023

Among the top concerns were whether machines could flood information channels, potentially with “propaganda and untruth” and whether machines will “automate away” all employment opportunities.

FOLI took these concerns one step further, suggesting that the entrepreneurial efforts of these AI companies may lead to an existential threat:

“Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”

“Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders,” the letter added.

Having a bit of AI existential angst today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 26, 2023

The institute also agreed with a recent statement from OpenAI founder Sam Altman that an independent review should be required before training future AI systems.

Altman in his Feb. 24 blog post highlighted the need to prepare for artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) robots.

Not all AI pundits have rushed to sign the petition, though. Ben Goertzel, the CEO of SingularityNET, explained in a March 29 Twitter response to Gary Marcus, the author of Rebooting.AI, that language learning models (LLMs) won’t become AGIs, which, to date, there have been few developments of.

Instead, he said research and development should be slowed down for things like bioweapons and nukes:

On the whole, human society will be better off with GPT-5 than GPT-4 -- better to have slightly smarter models around. AIs taking human jobs will ultimately a good thing. The hallucinations and banality will decrease and folks will learn to work around them.
— Ben Goertzel (@bengoertzel) March 29, 2023

In addition to language learning models like ChatGPT, AI-powered deep fake technology has been used to create convincing images, audio and video hoaxes. The technology has also been used to create AI-generated artwork, with some concerns raised about whether it could violate copyright laws in certain cases.

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz recently told investors he was shocked over the amount of regulatory attention that has been given to crypto, while little has been toward artificial intelligence.

“When I think about AI, it shocks me that we’re talking so much about crypto regulation and nothing about AI regulation. I mean, I think the government’s got it completely upside-down,” he opined during a shareholders call on March 28.

FOLI has argued that should AI development pause not be enacted quickly, governments should get involved with a moratorium.

“This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium,” it wrote.

Magazine: How to prevent AI from ‘annihilating humanity’ using blockchain