YouTube head of gaming Ryan Wyatt to resign and join Polygon Studios as CEO

January 25, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain

"I am fascinated by blockchain app development and am beyond thrilled to enter the Web3 space," says Wyatt.

On Tuesday, Ryan Wyatt, head of gaming at YouTube, announced he would be leaving the video-sharing platform in February. Partly due to his leadership, YouTube Gaming sees over 250 million daily logged users per day with hundreds of billions of watch time each year. Wyatt cited his passion for blockchain and Web3 development in explaining his resignation. He will soon join Polygon Studios as its CEO.

Polygon Studios is the gaming and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, arm of the namesake layer-two Ethereum scaling network. Polygon (MATIC) plans to commit $100 million to projects led by its subsidiary studio, which debuted last July. The firm's objectives are to develop decentralized gaming, attract blockchain enthusiasts to its NFT tokens ecosystem and establish Polygon as a competent blockchain for the Web3 transition. Regarding his new role, Wyatt said:

"I will be focusing on growing the developer ecosystem through investment, marketing and developer support and bridging the gap between Web 2.0 and 3.0. I'll be leading the Polygon Studios organization across gaming, entertainment, fashion, news, sports and more."

It is bittersweet news to share that I am leaving @YouTube.

I have loved every minute of my time here, but it is time for my next endeavor.

I am elated to announce that I will be joining @0xPolygon ($MATIC) as their CEO of Polygon Studios.

Thank you for the memories! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/VhQxpqDbFO
— Ryan Wyatt (fwiz.eth) (@Fwiz) January 25, 2022

In his departure statement, Wyatt described fond memories of his first day at Google's Mountain View, California headquarters in 2014. He also expressed his gratitude to CEO Susan Wojcicki and chief business officer Robert Kyncl for hiring him eight years back. Meanwhile, Polygon Studios gave Wyatt a warm welcome to his new role.

Please welcome our new CEO to Polygon Studios

Welcome @Fwiz to the PS family!

Ryan is the former Head of Gaming @YouTube and we are all looking forward to working with him https://t.co/NQgLqUBLPi
— Polygon Studios (@_PolygonStudios) January 25, 2022

YouTube CEO hints that NFTs could be added to creator platform

January 25, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Susan Wojcicki stated YouTube's intent to "help creators capitalize on emerging technologies."

YouTube's Chief Executive Officer, Susan Wojcicki, addressed YouTube's priorities for 2022 in a letter published Tuesday on the company blog. Among those priorities included the possibility of adding nonfungible token, or NFT, features for the platform's video creators.

there's *so much* to in 2022: @SusanWojcicki shares the future of YouTube → https://t.co/uL2WIbLwXK pic.twitter.com/JEW8yzqh7e
— YouTube (@YouTube) January 25, 2022

What this could look like is yet to be determined, however. No additional details were provided in Wojcicki's statement besides the claim that the YouTube team will use developments in the Web3 space “as a source of inspiration.”

“The past year in the world of crypto, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and even decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) has highlighted a previously unimaginable opportunity to grow the connection between creators and their fans.”

As YouTube looks to expand the number of ways that creators can earn money, one option is to "capitalize on emerging technologies." Currently, there are 10 ways for creators to monetize their business according to Wojcicki, including ads and the newly introduced TikTok-like YouTube Shorts. Could NFTs be next?

YouTube boasts one of the largest creator communities and is the second most visited site in the world, according to Similarweb. In light of the rise of the Metaverse and other Web3 initiatives by social media platforms like Meta and Twitter, which has recently allowed iOS users to use NFTs as their profile pictures, YouTube looks to compete to retain and attract talent.

In Wojcicki letter, she also mentioned their intent to improve the live experience for gaming creators as a priority. Since NFT integration in video games has become a main use case for the adoption of NFTs, then this could suggest that gaming creators may be more open to capitalizing on YouTube's new initiative.

YouTube CEO Hints at Potential NFT Integration

January 25, 2022 The Crypto Briefing

Coin Bureau Youtube channel hacked despite 2FA protection

January 24, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain

It appears this was a coordinated effort targeting prominent crypto YouTubers, not just Coin Bureau.

Coin Bureau, a popular information portal for cryptocurrency developments with over 600,000 followers on Twitter, experienced a security breach on its Youtube channel on Monday. Hackers allegedly uploaded a video with links to scam fiat/cryptocurrency addresses soliciting a token sale before being taken down by Youtube. According to Coin Bureau staff, they were baffled by the incident as its accounts were "secured with ultra-strong passwords and Google security keys."

So our YouTube channel was just hacked. Have absolutely no idea how this happened. All accounts are secured with ultra strong passwords and Google security keys. @YouTubeCreators this is a serious problem which other creators are also experiencing. Please fix
— Coin Bureau (guy.eth) (@coinbureau) January 24, 2022

This was by no means an isolated incident. Prominent crypto Youtubers such as Ivan on Tech and Real Vision Finance have had their accounts compromised within the past few days. It appears to have been a coordinated effort as hackers uploaded a video titled "One World Cryptocurrency," that solicited the same type of token sales across all breached accounts. In addition, the accounts were all logged in from an IP address in the Philippines, although the VPNs were widespread, which makes it difficult to track exact login locations.

Seems like it's happening to other YouTubers at the same time. @Altcoinbuzzio @FloydMayweather Also possibly @IvanOnTech @aantonop (seen by my telegram members). pic.twitter.com/WvknuyL3Px
— Boxmining (@boxmining) January 23, 2022

It's unclear how much the hackers took in as both creators and Youtube quickly took down the scam videos. However, there have been unconfirmed reports from Twitter users claiming losses. One user, @James86965119, allegedly transferred $1,000 worth of digital currencies to the fake addresses posted by the hacker. In addition, if the allegations from the Youtubers are proven, then it would raise questions regarding the effectiveness of Google's two-factor authentication service. Theoretically, hackers would not be able to access one's Youtube account unless they had both the password and security key.

Crypto YouTubers fall victim to hacking and scamming attempt

January 24, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Many of the affected accounts noticed the fraudulent videos and removed them from their channels within minutes of them being posted.

Hackers attacked a number of popular crypto YouTuber accounts at some point during the afternoon of Jan. 23. The accounts posted unauthorized videos with text directing viewers to send money to the hacker's wallet.

Accounts who appear to have been targeted by the attack include: ‘BitBoy Crypto’, ‘Altcoin Buzz’, ‘Box Mining’, ‘Floyd Mayweather’, ‘Ivan on Tech’, and ‘The Moon’ among others.

BREAKING: Dozens of Crypto YouTubers have had their accounts hijacked by hackers promoting a fake crypto giveaway scam. Hacked accounts include:@IvanOnTech @boxmining @aantonop @themooncarl @Bitboy_Crypto @mmcrypto @Altcoinbuzzio @FloydMayweather @crypto_banter @CoinMarketCap pic.twitter.com/ykXkZUh9cO
— Mr. Whale (@CryptoWhale) January 23, 2022

The Binance Smart Chain wallet address that was listed on the fraudulent videos only had a total of 9 transactions in BNB at the time of writing, with a total value of around $850.

Michael Gu told Cointelegraph that his YouTube channel Boxmining posted a video without his permission. “Luckily we caught it within two mins of the video going live and managed to delete it,” he said. “By that time there were already views and comments from my community.”

He added that he had done an internal sweep and found no viruses or bugs that may have given the hackers access to his account. “Seems like YouTube might be responsible,” he said.

Many Crypto Youtubers (including me) got hacked today - all publishing a scam video at around the same time - @IvanOnTech @aantonop @Bitboy_Crypto @Altcoinbuzzio @FloydMayweather @crypto_banter @CoinMarketCap
I have 2FA enabled. pic.twitter.com/c8z5qmJ3bT
— Boxmining (@boxmining) January 23, 2022

One Reddit post by user “9Oh8m8” suggested that it appears as though the hackers were able to gain access to the accounts using a SIM swap scam, which would have enabled them to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA). They added:

“They are all posting with a title like "ONE WORLD CRYPTOCURRENCY". They have an address in vid and description to send your USDT/USDC/BNB/ETH to receive a new crypto called OWCY.”

However, Gu wasn’t convinced that the hack was a result of a SIM swap, telling Cointelegraph that there were no logins on his personal Google account. “If it was a SIM swap I would lose access to my phone etc and that didn’t happen,” he said.

“What we noticed was on the BRAND account (which doesn’t have a login. YouTube brand accounts are connected to personal) there was a login from the Philippines. Very likely this is either a hack on YouTube side or a rogue employee. That’s how they got so many people at the same time.”

Founder and CEO of the Altcoin Buzz YouTube channel Shash Gupta added that they noticed something was amiss at around 1 AM Singapore time on Sunday night when an unauthorized video was posted to their channel.

“It’s pretty unclear what happened. I’m talking to Youtube to get to understand the matter and avoid such further breaches.”

Another crypto YouTuber Richard Heart tweeted at 9:30PM UTC that his channel had been banned during the middle of a livestream, indicating that YouTube was probably aware of the event.

Hello again @YouTubecreators My channel was just banned in the middle of a livestream. I think it might have to do with all of the other youtubers that were hacked at the same time today. Could you check please, thanks! @YouTube @YouTube
— Richard Heart PulseX.com! Called the Bitcoin top! (@RichardHeartWin) January 23, 2022

Cointelegraph reached out to YouTube and a number of other crypto content creators who were affected by the hack but had not received any additional information at the time of writing.

Zimbabwe Signs Agreement Enabling Collection of Taxes From Crypto and E-Commerce Entities

January 23, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Crypto Stories: Vitalik Buterin talks creating Ethereum in previously unreleased 2014 interview

January 20, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Part of Cointelegraph's Crypto Stories on YouTube, the series highlights the power of crypto to change the lives of people all over the world.

The latest episode of Cointelegraph's Crypto Stories featured never-before-heard audio from an exclusive interview with Vitalik Buterin, recorded at a conference in Hong Kong in 2014. In this animated short, viewers can learn about the origin story of Ethereum (ETH), the world'd second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, straight from the founder himself.

Back in 2011, while Buterin was a student at the University of Waterloo, he first heard about Bitcoin from his tech entrepreneur father. However, he didn't take the decentralized currency seriously until began participating in Bitcoin forums created by Satoshi Nakamoto.

In Buterin's own search to learn about Bitcoin, he became a writer for the now defunct Bitcoin Weekly website where he got paid 5 BTC per article, or $4 at the time, said Buterin.

Next he took his newfound journalism skills to join Mihai Alisie in co-founding Bitcoin Magazine. Their first issue was published in May 2012, according to the publication's website, and the magazine is now owned by BTC Media.

Buterin decided to withdraw from his university studies in 2013 at 19 years old to pursue working on blockchain-related projects full-time while traveling around the world. Throughout this time, he realized that cryptocurrency could be used for "more than just money" and should allow for more "freedom."

Buterin's dream was to develop a blockchain with a built-in programming language and thus Ethereum was born, with the help of Mihai Alisie and others. The project was officially announced in January 2014.

To read more about Ethereum, check out Cointelegraph's Ethereum 101 guides and an in-depth profile on Buterin.

Don’t mention ‘K’ country: Bitcoin Magazine’s YouTube restored after ban

January 12, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

After Bitcoin Magazine’s YouTube channel was temporarily shut down without prior warning, the livestream’s hosts suggested that mentions of “Kazakhstan” may have been flagged by the platform’s algorithm.

Bitcoin Magazine’s YouTube channel was restored around three hours after being shut down, with the publication attributing the short ban to the YouTube algorithm flagging the word “Kazakhstan.”

In a Jan. 12 Twitter post, Bitcoin Magazine noted that its YouTube account with 56,600 followers was banned in the middle of a livestream with no prior warning from the platform.

"Our @YouTube with 60,000 followers just got BANNED mid-livestream with no warning. DELETED. When will the aggression against #Bitcoin content end?"

The livestream was focused on topics relating to Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, Bitcoin (BTC) mining and the recent internet blackout in Kazakhstan that was reportedly initiated by the government in response to mass protests over surging fuel prices in the nation.

Bitcoin Magazine stated it wasn’t entirely sure what grounds YouTube had used to ban its channel, but did confirm that its account had been restored an hour after it had submitted an appeal, suggesting that Youtube had realized its error.

In a live broadcast after the reinstatement, host Alex Mcshane noted that the panel was discussing the internet blackout’s effect on the BTC mining hash rate without saying anything controversial, but was using a set of “algorithmically and politically charged words” which may have triggered the automated shutdown:

“I wanna talk about what happened, without triggering it again [...], we were talking about a certain politically charged country that starts with a ‘K’.”

Bitcoin Magazine also shared a post earlier today noting the initial response from YouTube regarding the ban, with the Google-owned platform stating that “content that encourages illegal activities or incites users to violate YouTube’s guidelines is not allowed.”

“We may allow depictions of such activities if they are educational or documentary in nature and don’t help others imitate them,” the response added.

Despite its content policy, current searches on YouTube still yield results showing multiple live streams using the identity and video content of popular figures such as MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor to promote dodgy websites and supposed “crypto giveaway” scams.

*Either Michael Saylor does a lot of live streams or some vids are dodgy: YouTube*

Commenting on the ban in the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit, user u/Setl1less highlighted the hypocrisy, arguing that “Youtube has made it a habit of taking down prominent informative accounts” while allowing scams to operate freely.

VCs don’t understand that Cardano has a community: Charles Hoskinson

January 1, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Hoskinson also highlighted the need to change Silicon Valley’s “bizarre mantra of move fast and break things” in crypto, which caused losses of $10.5 billion in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space in 2021.

In a recent YouTube video, Charles Hoskinson highlighted the rapid growth of the Cardano (ADA) ecosystem while clarifying the concerns raised by other members of the crypto community over the past year.

“We live in a world where arbitrary groups of people get to be fact-checkers and decide what's legitimate,” said Hoskinson while speaking about the government’s perception of cryptocurrencies. He pointed out that a vast majority of financial crimes are done with the U.S. dollar or other fiat currencies.

According to Hoskinson, the growth of the crypto ecosystem this year might be slower than 2022:

“It's hard to argue with the $2.5 trillion industry and imagine where that's going to go. I think we're just going to digest as an industry the consequences for better or worse of becoming so big so quickly.”

He also highlighted the need to change Silicon Valley’s “bizarre mantra of move fast and break things” in crypto, which caused losses of $10.5 billion in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space in 2021. Stressing on Cardano’s slow and methodical approach, Hoskinson said:

“That's why VCs don't even actually understand that Cardano has a community. They think it's just me behind a microphone.”

Hoskinson also said that Cardano will gradually transition into a permanent open source project and compared it to Linux operating system. He hopes to move away from a hierarchical structure to open-source DApps developed by the members of the Cardano community:

“They [the developers] should also commit to putting at least one of their developers to contributing to the Cardano protocol.”

In the long-term, Hoskinson envisions faster completion of the Cardano roadmap through this “small resource commitment”. He called out YouTubers, podcasters and VCs that have questioned Cardano’s growth by saying “we're number one for GitHub commits”:

“If you're such an expert that you're going to opine on the quality of our comments then tell us which ones are wrong, which ones don't mean anything and what parts of the roadmap we're failing at dramatically.”

In a similar live YouTube session, Hoskinson spoke about DeFi's potential as well as Cardano's small role within the industry.

According to him, developers and creators need to foster a more long-term vision:

“It’s very hard to do this kind of engineering and to do it right, with an eye and foresight for the future. Unfortunately, many of the projects in this space will not stand the test of time. It’s just a fact that we will see a great extinction occur in the next five to 10 years.”

‘The only thing holding us back is us,’ says Charles Hoskinson on DeFi’s future

December 29, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Cardano

In a live YouTube session, Hoskinson delivered a 30-minute briefing on the need for collaboration and friendliness within the DeFi industry.

The total value locked, or TVL, in decentralized finance (DeFi) has soared to over $250 billion as 2021 closes out, with most activity on Ethereum, according to DeFi Llama. The budding DeFi industry only became mainstream during summer 2021.

While TVL valuations underscore the rapid growth of the industry, Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson has warned about the challenges facing DeFi. In a YouTube video entitled, "DApps and Cardano DeFi Alliance," Hoskinson talked about DeFi's potential as well as Cardano's small role within the industry.

According to Hoskinson, who has been on a decade-long quest to transform traditional finance, there needs to be more long-term vision among developers and creators:

“It’s very hard to do this kind of engineering and to do it right, with an eye and foresight for the future. Unfortunately, many of the projects in this space will not stand the test of time. It’s just a fact that we will see a great extinction occur in the next five to 10 years.”

Although he believes that 2022 will be “a big year” for both the industry and Cardano, there is “still so much to do,” particularly when it comes to certification standards, the production quality of DApps and security. He noted that almost $10.5 billion have been lost to hacks, scams and theft in the sector in 2021 alone.

Despite considering the crypto community to be “the weavers of the genetics of finance and of the destiny of humanity’s financial operating system for the 21st century,” Hoskinson claims that the “only thing that holds us back is us. If we fight each other, demean and attack each other, all we are doing is hurting our ability to be able to steer the dialogue towards productive ends.”

During the session, Hoskinson talked about Cardano’s current plans, mentioning its 127 projects in development and how the first half of 2022 will be “an essential window for commercialization and utility of Cardano projects.” He expects the user count to grow tenfold from the current 2 million users due to the nonfungible token revolution.

Hoskinson also introduced the Cardano DeFi Alliance, or CDA, to drive collaboration among developers. He hopes to take Cardano from being a custodial entity to a fully formed open-source platform with the ability to include hundreds more projects across the entire industry.

Cardano's ADA was one of the top-performing cryptocurrencies through the first half of 2021. Despite being backed by a strong community, Cardano has been criticized for its slow progress and lengthy development timelines. The network achieved a major milestone in September with the Alonzo hard fork, though concerns remained that real utility for the platform was still on the distant horizon.

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