The product, which ZeroMark calls a “fire control system,” has two components: a small computer that has sensors, like lidar and electro-optical, and a motorized buttstock.
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Nigerian artist Davido has been accused of perpetrating an “outright scam” after pocketing over $468,000 from selling his recently launched meme coin. A prominent Nigerian crypto enthusiast claims Davido’s actions create problems for many legitimate crypto businesses and startups operating in good faith. Davido Offloads Meme Coin Hours After Promoting It to Followers The Nigerian […]The Tribeca Film Festival will debut five short films made by AI, as detailed by The Hollywood Reporter. The shorts will use OpenAI’s Sora model, which transforms text inputs into create video clips. This is the first time this type of technology will take center stage at the long-running film festival.
“Tribeca is rooted in the foundational belief that storytelling inspires change. Humans need stories to thrive and make sense of our wonderful and broken world,” said co-founder and CEO of Tribeca Enterprises Jane Rosenthal. Who better to chronicle our wonderful and broken world than some lines of code owned by a company that just dissolved its dedicated safety team to let CEO Sam Altman and other board members self-police everything?
The unnamed filmmakers were all given access to the Sora model, which isn’t yet available to the public, though they have to follow the terms of the agreements negotiated during the recent strikes as they pertain to AI. OpenAI’s COO, Brad Lightcap, says the feedback provided by these filmmakers will be used to “make Sora a better tool for all creatives.”
Introducing Sora, our text-to-video model.
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 15, 2024
Sora can create videos of up to 60 seconds featuring highly detailed scenes, complex camera motion, and multiple characters with vibrant emotions. https://t.co/7j2JN27M3W
Prompt: “Beautiful, snowy… pic.twitter.com/ruTEWn87vf
When we last covered Sora, it could only handle 60 seconds of video from a single prompt. If that’s still the case, these short films will make Quibi shows look like a Ken Burns documentary. The software also struggles with cause and effect and, well, that’s basically what a story is. However, all of these limitations come from the ancient days of February, and this tech tends to move quickly. Also, I assume there’s no rule against using prompts to create single scenes, which the filmmaker can string together to make a story.
We don’t have that long to find out if cold technology can accurately peer into our warm human hearts. The shorts will screen on June 15 and there’s a conversation with the various filmmakers immediately following the debut.
This follows a spate of agreements between OpenAI and various media companies. Vox Media, The Atlantic, News Corp, Dotdash Meredith and even Reddit have all struck deals with OpenAI to let the company train its models on their content. Meanwhile, Meta and Google are looking for similar partnerships with Hollywood film studios to train its models. It looks like we are going to get this “AI creates everything” future, whether we want it or not.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/aOr2HKuThe studies, by researchers at MIT, Ben-Gurion University, Cambridge and Northeastern, were independently conducted but complement each other well.
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For the uninitiated, Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) involves various techniques used by market actors to capture additional value by exploiting price inefficiencies in blockchain transactions.
One naive form of MEV is called “transaction sniping.”
Most recently, manifestations of this phenomenon have begun populating your local Bitcoin memepools because of ordinals trading. Without going into too much detail, the way on-chain trading currently works is through the use of pre-signed Bitcoin transactions (PSBTs).
The concept is simple: some users list pictures on a marketplace by crafting a transaction with the details and the price they would like to sell it at. You, a cat aficionado, can purchase this feline grail by completing the transaction, adding to your address, the transaction fees, and your signature. The transaction is then broadcast and eventually gets settled on the Bitcoin network.
Easy, right?
Not so.
Turns out cats are a popular commodity these days and other fellow cat enjoyoooors are eyeing your prize. The open nature of the offers allows any of them to interfere with your purchase. This is because PSBT listings are auctions, not exclusive sales. Every transaction in the mempool associated with a cat is up for bid. Bitcoin’s 10-minute block interval opens up a window for cat opportunists to “snipe” each other’s transactions for the most valuable pieces. Nothing is settled until a transaction makes it into a block.
We learn from this that on-chain auctions are vulnerable to the settlement time of the blockchain they settle on. This creates an especially thorny problem for anyone with a little more ambition than trading cat pictures.
Now what’s the big deal with MEV? Surely everyone is not up in arms about a handful of degens outbidding each other for cat pictures?
Answering this question requires opening up an entirely new can of worms. This is going to be a bit of a trip in shitcoin land but bear with me, I promise it’s worth it.
You see, MEV is big business. To give a rough idea, MEV-Boost, the software responsible for coordinating the extraction of MEV on Ethereum has distributed, in less than 2 years, close to 500,000 ETH in rewards. That’s nearly 2 billion dollars!
What drives this entire market is, of course, trading. (read: degens)
On-chain AMMs (Automated Market Makers) use a popular concept called liquidity pools to allow users to trade assets without relying on centralized order books. Pools are typically composed of a pair of assets, like Ethereum and USDC.
When users want to trade one asset for another, they interact with these liquidity pools. Each trade adjusts the ratio of the two assets in the pool, affecting their relative prices. By removing centralized order books where a buyer needs to be matched with a seller for every trade, AMMs can be deployed as a decentralized on-chain contract.
Once a trading pair is created, any user can trade against the pool or contribute liquidity to it. Contributing liquidity involves supplying one or both assets to the pool, ensuring it maintains the appropriate ratio. Any imbalance creates an opportunity for market makers to engage in arbitrage by buying the cheaper asset from the pool and selling it at a higher price in other venues, such as centralized exchanges. This activity, along with the fees accrued by liquidity providers (LPs) from trading activity, incentivizes people to keep these markets liquid.
If you’ve heard of DeFi or Uniswap but never looked into them, this is the secret sauce. Liquidity pools can be deployed to trade any asset, and their permissionless nature has made them wildly popular. Upon closer inspection, we can observe that these trades are not fundamentally different from the cat market we discussed earlier — they’re just on-chain auctions.
As you might imagine, Ethereum’s architecture and its additional programmability create a particularly fertile environment for those auctions to be abused and manipulated.
Perhaps the most popular and intuitive one is front running. Remember that trades on AMMs are not instantly settled. In the same way that cat snipers can monitor the Bitcoin mempool for juicy deals, Ethereum also has an army of financial mercenaries diligently watching over every trade opportunity.
Except that the ETH boys aren’t playing with this stuff. It’s no Private Ryan, it’s SEAL Team Six over there. They employ several elaborate techniques to exploit the time gap between when a transaction is broadcast and when it is confirmed on the blockchain. As a result, front-runners can place their own transactions ahead of the original trade, profiting from the price changes their actions cause. This generally causes regular users to receive worse prices than expected. One of the worst manifestations of this is the practice of sandwiching users, where a buy order is placed just before a user's trade and a sell order right after, capturing the price difference at the expense of the original trader.
While those dynamics have been controversial because of the effect they have on user experience, they only represent a portion of the MEV economy. The biggest source of MEV, by a rather large margin, comes from something commonly known as “Loss-Versus-Rebalancing.” Put simply, it is an adverse form of the pool arbitrage described above affecting liquidity providers.
When the price of the assets in the liquidity pool diverges from the price at which they were originally deposited, arbitrage traders step in to rebalance the pool to reflect the global market prices. This rebalancing process leaves liquidity providers vulnerable, as they’re unable to adjust to market volatility between blocks. Due to their exposure to outdated prices, they become an easy target for traders with access to centralized order books. These traders exploit the price discrepancies, often leaving liquidity providers with a less favorable asset mix and reduced overall value.
The situation is so dire that those were the conclusions of a recent research paper on the matter:
Our main result is that earnings from fees are smaller than losses to arbitrageurs in the majority of the largest Uniswap pools, currently holding hundreds of millions of USD. This result raises the question of why LPs nevertheless contribute their capital to these pools.
Other factors such as hedging have helped larger operations mitigate those issues but the extreme conditions described have likely resulted in the consolidation of liquidity provisioning into a smaller number of actors.
Good question, anon! The reason I bring this up is because a lot of the recent conversation around MEV on Bitcoin completely misses the fact that those systems don’t exist in a technical vacuum. I understand that the new and unknown concepts can provoke skepticism but a lot of the dynamics involved are well understood by now. Strictly looking at it under a technical lens does us all a disservice.
We understand that different new proposals floating around to improve Bitcoin’s scripting capabilities may introduce more expressivity to the protocol. It’s not impossible that a combination of those features may allow someone to build the equivalent of an AMM on-chain. It’s clear something on the scale of Ethereum would have adverse effects on the decentralization of Bitcoin. We know that MEV tends to incentivize high levels of specialization at the mining level. If you want a better understanding of the risks at hand, Spiral developer Matt Corallo put together a decent primer on the topic.
Unfortunately, the most important aspect of this subject has remained more or less completely ignored by everyone at the table. MEV and every associated system are driven by economic incentives. Different parameters can have a significant impact on the viability of this activity.
Our story about cats illustrates how the interval between blocks plays a crucial role in the game theory of on-chain auctions. This theory is now supported by documented evidence. Researchers generally agree that longer block times exacerbate issues around MEV. This poses a significant challenge for anyone considering building AMM systems on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Comparing Bitcoin’s 10-minute block interval to Ethereum’s 12 seconds, it’s fair to wonder whether or not the settlement times required by Proof-of-Work security are compatible at all large-scale on-chain auctions.
The prolonged interval between Bitcoin blocks means that liquidity providers (LPs) would be exposed to stale prices for extended periods, making it impractical, if not irresponsible, to commit substantial capital. This latency increases the risk of front-running and other forms of MEV exploitation. It’s an arbitrage dream!
Those observations suggest that on-chain trading on Bitcoin may not be viable even if it becomes technically possible. Applications targeting this use case are increasingly optimizing for speed and efficiency, leaving little room for Bitcoin to become a competitive option. Capital allocators are likely to shy away from the risk associated with this architecture, and users will simply prefer platforms better aligned with their interests.
This highlights the critical importance of economic considerations when evaluating the risks and rewards of technical changes to the Bitcoin protocol. Don’t get it twisted, the noise surrounding this conversation is driven by economic interests eager to replicate the financial flywheel of MEV on top of Bitcoin. Now that the attitude with regard to innovation at the protocol level has changed, they look at this situation as a billion-dollar opportunity to recycle proven business models.
What many fail to appreciate is that Bitcoin’s slow but steady settlement process acts as a natural deterrent to predatory MEV activities. This isn’t a comprehensive study and further evaluation is necessary to assess MEV risks on layers built atop the protocol. On the other hand, it’s a pretty compelling reason to believe that the fear of the MEV monster on Bitcoin may be grossly overestimated. The inherent delay in Bitcoin’s transaction finality offers a unique form of protection, making it less susceptible to the same level of MEV exploitation seen on faster chains like Ethereum.
Blocksquare, a real estate tokenization protocol, has announced that it has tokenized $100 million in properties across various sectors. The team believes this marks a significant advancement in the digital real estate market, facilitated by the launch of their new decentralized finance (defi) platform, Oceanpoint v0.5. From Hotels to Healthcare: Blocksquare Tokenizes $100 Million in […]Ifeel is being offered as part of an employer’s or insurance provider’s healthcare coverage.
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Instead of opening the user's actual browser or a WebView, Custom Tabs let users remain in their app while browsing.
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TikTok will face off with the Justice Department this fall in its bid to stop a law that could lead to a ban of the app in the United States. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia set a September date for oral arguments in two cases challenging a law that requires ByteDance to sell the app or face a ban.
TikTok filed a lawsuit claiming that the law was unconstitutional earlier this month. The company has said that divesting from ByteDance is “simply not possible” and that it had already negotiated with the US government to address national security concerns. Separately, a group of TikTok creators are also challenging the law. They claim that the law violates their First Amendment rights because they would lose their ability to communicate on the platform. TikTok is reportedly paying the creators’ legal fees in the case.
In September, the appeals court will hear challenges in both cases, which have been consolidated. As Reuters notes, the September date lines up with TikTok’s desire for a “fast-track” schedule in the case, which could eventually end up before the Supreme Court.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/oi4VpaW
The London-based digital bank Kroo has barred its clients from engaging in cryptocurrency transactions, joining other U.K.-based banks in this decision. The bank cites the increasing cases of online fraud incidents involving cryptocurrencies as the reason for this move. Kroo to Decline Cryptocurrency-Related Bank Transfer Requests London-based digital bank Kroo has barred its customers from […]
Argentine officials of the CNV, the country’s equivalent to the U.S. SEC, and Salvadoran officials of the CNAD, the National Commission for Digital Assets, met on May 23 to discuss bitcoin regulation and adoption issues. This meeting was the second between these two institutions and hints at a possible regulation agreement between the two countries. […]Square Enix has largely kept its lips sealed about the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D remake since announcing it three years ago, but the publisher has now revealed which platforms it's coming to. When it eventually arrives, you'll be able to play it on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (via Steam).
Since Square Enix started using its distinctive HD-2D tech with Octopath Traveller, the company has put it to use in a string of titles, including that game's sequel, Triangle Strategy, the Live A Live remake and Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster's opera scene. Based on the reveal trailer from 2021, the HD-2D engine is set to give Dragon Quest 3 a serious visual upgrade, nearly three decades after the original game arrived in 1988.
The legend of Erdrick draws near.
— DRAGON QUEST (@DragonQuest) May 27, 2024
#DragonQuestDay #DQDay #DragonQuest pic.twitter.com/KFtqhVY61q
The new version may not be too far away either. The teaser suggested that the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D remake "draws near," several months after series creator Yuji Horii said he was playtesting it. With Summer Game Fest and all its associated events just around the corner, we could find out more details about the remake very soon.
Square Enix released the teaser on Dragon Quest Day, which marks the anniversary of the very first game in the series debuting in Japan in 1986. Horii took the opportunity to provide an minor update on the next mainline entry as well. Square Enix announced Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate back in 2021, but there's been no sign of a release date as yet. That said, Horii wants it to live up to the legacies of key Dragon Quest creatives Akira Toriyama and Koichi Sugiyama.
“Thank you so much to everyone for the many [Dragon Quest Day] congratulations!” Horii wrote on X, according to a Gematsu translation. “There has been some worry about Dragon Quest XII, but I was actually in a meeting [about it] until just a bit ago. While I can’t share any details yet, I want it to be something worthy of the posthumous work of the two [Toriyama and Sugiyama] who passed away. I’ll do my best!”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/1abxzfp
The price of bitcoin has exceeded $70,000, increasing by 2.1% during today’s trading sessions. This latest rise led to the liquidation of $27.75 million in bitcoin short positions. Bitcoin Trades Above $70K, Leading to Multi-Million Dollar Liquidations Bitcoin (BTC) is up 2.1% today and 3% over the past seven days. The price has also risen […]
In a recent analysis by Kaiko, it has been found that hedge funds are currently holding net short positions on bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) futures. This strategic move reflects a cautious stance amid fluctuating market dynamics and speculative trading activities. Study Shows Hedge Funds’ Net Short Positions in Bitcoin and Ether Futures Amid Market […]
The Central Bank of Nigeria has increased the capital requirements for national bureau de change operators from approximately $24,000 to $1.4 million. The central bank has given operators a six-month period to comply and they must apply for new licenses. The bank’s director for risk management stated that street trading of foreign exchange is now […]I was extraordinarily appreciative when executive chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor sat down with me this weekend for an exclusive interview.
What’s inside this exclusive Fringe Finance interview with Michael Saylor:
I started off by asking Michael what he thought about macro — and what the ‘solution’ would be for a Fed that is stuck between a rock (inflation) and a hard place (depression).
Saylor told me: "I think they'll do everything they can to create the appearance of low consumer inflation. At some point, we'll modify the market baskets in the CPI, their PPI, and that's probably occurring at whatever rate it can. And I think everybody would like to just focus the public on market baskets of products that aren't appreciating too much in price and get them to not focus on the things that are going up in price more.”
“But the bottom line is that it doesn't feel like it'd be responsible for them to lower interest rates or for some people who would like them to raise interest rates,” he said.
“They know they can't afford to raise them. They would love to lower them. The numbers aren't quite cooperating with them, but if we drop coffee out of the consumer price index and then we go find ten other things that are expensive and drop them from the consumer price index, yeah, this all comes down to normalization of life, right? If I imagine that you can live in a 400 square foot apartment built with drywall, with a single flat panel screen and boxed manufactured food, I can get the cost of living down. And if I can just replace streaming Taylor Swift videos on Netflix with going to see a Taylor Swift concert for 500 bucks, then the inflation will go away.”
When I pressed him further about quality of life deteriorating as a consequence of inflation, and how long the government can keep the charade going, Michael told me: "I think they can go forever, my friend. I think they can continue to make hedonic adjustments. Why do you need a car? You could Uber. Why do you need to be able to drive when there's a self-driving Uber? What happens when we've got one-tenth as many cars and robots drive them? And why do you need to go anywhere in a robot car when you can just watch it on YouTube? And why do you need to even watch it on YouTube? You know, if you can put on virtual reality glasses, why do we even need an 80-inch television?”
“So I can take this ad infinitum to the extreme. I mean, the extreme is like 'The Matrix,' right? We just plug in, jack something into the back of your vertebrae, and give you a feeding tube. Why do you really need a steak when you can eat hamburger? Why do you need hamburger when you can eat a soy burger? Why do you need a soy burger when we could just force-feed you some sugar protein concoction or something? So when will that end? I mean, I'm being tongue-in-cheek, but let's just say we won't hit a crisis in the next decade. I mean, that's all that really matters, right?"
“The rank-and-file average person will be forced to lower their standards, and they'll have to give up their car and their house.”
He continued: “I mean, if you look through history, there are lots of examples where people's expectations and quality of life were compressed down to the bare minimum, then expanded, and then contracted again. And, you know, I'm not here to solve that, right? Like now, when we go to macro, we're talking about solving the economic problems of the world. Very difficult. And then you get into political issues, and that's double difficult. And the truth of the matter is that's a bit above my pay grade.
My view is just, yes, there will be inflation. The government will have to keep printing money, and that will cause the price of scarce, desirable assets to appreciate. The rank-and-file average person will be forced to lower their standards, and they'll have to give up their car and their house.”
Naturally, this prompted me to ask him where the World Economic Forum and all these globalist organizations fit in the picture. Asking about whether the WEF and the likes are truly nefarious or simply doing the wrong thing in ushering in this new age, Saylor told me: "You read Nicholas Taleb's work, like *Antifragile* and *Fooled by Randomness*, I mean, all of his canon. And you know, what he says, in essence, is that well-intentioned people doing things are the problem, right? Because, yeah, it's the doing of stuff. It's like if I put someone in charge of the world and I tell them to do good, the odds are they're going to do bad, right?”
He added: “It's like if I said, okay, you are in charge of determining the curriculum or the education for 18 million children. Well, good luck with that. But, I mean, are you qualified to do it? Is anybody? I mean, it's kind of like, right? The conundrum is central planning."
“The conundrum is central planning."
Saylor then laid out the two things he sees driving bitcoin to success: "One is, you know, if inflation of the currency is high in whatever the country is, then using a fiat currency as a capital asset becomes more and more inefficient. So, obviously in hyperinflation scenarios like Nigeria, Lebanon, Argentina, or Venezuela, there's a stampede away from that currency to some other form of capital, right? And so inflation will drive it. But the other thing that will drive the success of Bitcoin is not just the inefficiency of central government or central banking planners, but also the inefficiency of every corporation."
After he explained further, I asked him about my article predicting that the next economic crisis would be a positive catalyst for bitcoin:
He said about this, and the GameStop saga: “I mean, the people piling into the meme stocks, they have the right idea, but it's the wrong execution. Or I understand their motivation. It's like they're angry with the system. And so they ought to be buying Bitcoin if they were smart, right? The people that have that sentiment, that are unhappy with the status quo and are smart, are buying Bitcoin. And the ones that are simply angry but haven't thought very deeply about what's going to happen are buying these meme stocks.”
“I mean, the people piling into the meme stocks, they have the right idea, but it's the wrong execution.”
“They feel disenfranchised,” he continued. “They want to make money. They feel disenfranchised. They feel like the system is rigged against them. They're irritated at the establishment, right? I mean, there's a million of these motivations, and they're expressing their sentiment through their trading of meme stocks. But the problem is if you increase the value of a company by a factor of 10 in excess of its true value and cash flow potential, then the management team of the company just prints 10x more stock, and then the stock price crashes.”
“Well, not only do they do it, they have a fiduciary obligation to do it. Like if my company is worth $10 a share and you drive the stock to $100, then they've got to issue equity because that's their job. And so it's really kind of silly to express that sentiment by buying an equity policy, because equities aren't scarce. Satoshi is not going to double the supply of Bitcoin if you pile into Bitcoin. The whole point, the reason it's a commodity, is there's no one that can rug pull you and there's no one that can inflate the supply.”
Trying to wrap my head further around the idea of intrinsic value, I asked Saylor about the analogues between bitcoin and fine art. Talking about art, he told me: “I guess what I would say here is there's a monetary premium ascribed to the Picasso because it's deemed scarce, desirable, and portable. So it passes the Bernard Arnault test. And the Bernard Arnault test is: I want to buy something that a person richer than me, more cultured than me, will want to buy from me in a decade. So you ask the question, would someone with a lot of money want to own this? Well, it's a scarcity collectible for cultural reasons, but it's only valuable to people in Western culture who appreciate that form of art. So it's really a specialized property asset or specialized collectible.”
He continued: “I think Velazquez, it's a very famous note in Durant's story of the Renaissance. He writes that the great court painter in the Spanish court went to Rome to buy masterpieces with the King of Spain's checkbook, and nobody would sell him anything because the rich in Italy kept these paintings as a store of value and an inflation hedge in the 16th century. If you have to flee with your life—and they had to do it all the time—you get kicked out of your city.”
“You have to leave your real estate behind. You maybe carry your gold, but gold is heavy. So you take a painting, roll it up, and most— even today, if you were a rich person living in a country, pick the country, and the government collapses—what would you rather have? A billion dollars of gold? Would you rather have 20, $50 million paintings? Would you rather have a billion dollars of a company in that country? Would you rather own a billion dollars of real estate or buildings? Do you want to own a billion dollars of oil? What are you going to be able to get out of the country? Your best hope is to roll up the Picasso in a tube and smuggle it out of the country.”
On explaining where art’s intrinsic value comes from, he added: “So in terms of economic density, you're like, well, why does anybody else value it?”
“Well, bragging rights. It's a trophy asset. Like, why does someone value owning a football team, or why do they value owning a copy of the Magna Carta? At the end of the day, it's because you have 10,000 billionaires. And once you have that many billionaires, they will allocate 5 percent of their wealth to those kinds of collectibles because they can. Right. But it's not the world's best capital asset. You're not going to capitalize Microsoft money with art. It doesn't make any sense because the art auctions are probably all rigged. It's an unregulated market. It's not liquid. They're not fungible. They're specialty. There's all sorts of uncertainty.”
“The Holy Roman Empire sacks Rome, and they murder, rape, and pillage everything. You can see the appeal of fleeing the town with your art. I mean, you can see the appeal of that. But yeah, Bitcoin's a better idea. Bitcoin is the idea of a fungible capital asset that all of the wealthy, powerful, educated people in the world are going to want that you can actually teleport out of the country in a few minutes. So I think ultimately these guys get caught up in intrinsic value. And of course, the best money has zero intrinsic value. It's all monetary premium. That's the best money. It's pretty obvious.”
Dovetailing from ‘the best money’, I asked him how bitcoin is homogenizing itself in a world of increasing banking regulations like AML and KYC. Saylor told me: “Well, I think it's doing it now. I mean, you're watching it, right? For example, Block sells $10 billion worth of Bitcoin every year via Cash App. They're a publicly traded company. They abide by AML and KYC regulations. They have compliance. They have responsibilities. There are certain things they won't do in New York State because of state laws. So Coinbase is handling Bitcoin. They're in a continual dialogue with the SEC. It's sometimes confrontational, but you've got them working on it.”
“Fidelity, you know, Fidelity Digital Assets is custodying billions and billions of dollars of Bitcoin. I'm sure they've got an army of lawyers and finance people thinking about it.”
I also pressed him on why he’s selling so much MicroStrategy stock — to which he replied: “It was like April of 2014. I was given a stock option as part of my compensation for 400,000 shares. It was a 10-year stock option that expires worthless after 10 years if I don't exercise it. So, I think the expiration date was like April 25th or something like that. About a year ago, I said, well, eventually, I'm going to have to exercise it. So, how do I do it?”
He explained: “If you go back and check out our conference call sometime in the October-November timeframe, I told all the shareholders I’d put in place a 10B51 plan. That plan was to sell 5,000 shares a day, every day, for 80 trading days, the last 80 days at the end of the window. I held the option for the longest time I could—10 years—and then I had to exercise it.”
“So, I wasn't actually selling shares that I owned. My shares, I'm actually holding. What I was doing was exercising the option granted a decade prior. I was selling into the market to pay the cost of the option and banking the money because that was my only choice. Otherwise, the option would expire worthless.”
“The reason you saw continual reports is because, every day, you have to report those, right? Public companies have total transparency, so every single day, you could see exactly 5,000 shares, you could see the price they were sold at, it was all programmatic. The alternative would be to do it without a 10B51 program and try to do it in three days. But that would have been much more anxiety-inducing for everybody because there are lockup periods, and then people would be thinking, well, which three days, why did he pick those three days? I was trying to be as graceful and transparent as I could in something that I kind of needed to get done."
Finally, I asked him about the biggest risk to the bitcoin network. He responded: “I think that Bitcoin, the network, has won the crypto wars. As a crypto asset, it's won and is destined to grow from a trillion to 10 trillion to 100 trillion. So, it's winning. Just like any empire or any winner, what's the biggest risk? The biggest risk is that the people within the network get fat, dumb, and happy, and then it's overcome by... what is the word? Gluttony? There's this tendency for people in successful countries to meddle and want to fix things that aren't broken.”
“So really, the biggest risk to Bitcoin is all of a sudden charismatic, well-intentioned developers deciding to improve it themselves, and they introduce instabilities by attempting to improve it.”
Finally, I asked him to debate Peter Schiff on my podcast. He replied: “Peter has been debating on this topic for a decade now. I mean, heck, when I got into Bitcoin in 2020, one of the reasons I bought Bitcoin was because I saw the Eric Voorhees-Peter Schiff debate from 2017. He wasn't persuasive in 2017, and he hasn't been persuasive since. I think it's a disservice to promote that in general.”
“By the way, the elephant in the room here is I don't think you can find a single person in the world who owns a billion dollars worth of gold. I challenge you to find one. Go find me a person who owns a billion dollars worth of gold bullion as an investment, and then bring them. If you can find me that person, Chris, I'll debate them. I will debate them. If you can find me a person who legitimately bought a billion dollars of gold as an investment and they want to debate me on your podcast, I'll do it."
The audio of this interview can be found here.
This is a guest post by Quoth the Raven. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Apple once designed a Tetris clone that has been found on a prototype version of the third-generation iPod, indicating the company was experimenting with releasing the game on the music player. It’s called Stacker and, obviously, is controlled via the iPod’s scroll wheel. The software was spotted by X user AppleDemoYT, who is known for finding rare prototype devices.
The prototype iPod is a "DVT" device, meaning it was a mid-stage device that was still in "Design Validation Testing." It has a model number of A1023, which is not a known model number of any iPod version.
The device runs a prototype version of iPodOS 2.0, which is where Stacker comes from. The pieces are moved from left to right using the scroll wheel and they fall when the middle button is pressed. The goal is to clear lines and score points. You know the deal. It’s Tetris.
It’s not the only game found on the prototype iPod. There’s something called Block0, which is likely an early version of Brick. The device also features a game called Klondike, which is likely an early version of Solitaire. The music player did eventually get some games, including the aforementioned Solitaire and Brick. AppleDemoYT asked former Apple VP Tony Fadell why Stacker was never released and he said it was because games didn’t show up until a “later software release.”
Later versions of the iPod got an official version of Tetris, in addition to games like Bejeweled, Mini Golf, Mahjong, Zuma, Cubis 2, and Pac-Man. All of these releases predate the App Store. The iPod Classic was discontinued in 2014 and the iPod Touch was sent to a farm upstate in 2022, ending the era of the standalone music player.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/4pW3aiYDevolver Digital is holding a livestream event on June 7 at 2PM ET to celebrate its 15th birthday and drop a bunch of “updates and release dates for upcoming titles.” It’s part of this year’s Summer Game Fest, which also kicks off on June 7 and is quickly becoming the de facto replacement for E3. You can stream the event in a number of ways, including the company's official website.
What’s likely to be revealed by Devolver at the livestream? The company remains mum, but more information on Skate Story is practically guaranteed. The game was supposed to come out last year, so a release date is likely. We could also get updates on the action title The Plucky Squire and the bizarre man-baby walking simulator Baby Steps. The company has also promised “exciting new reveals”, which could mean just about anything from Hotline Miami 3 to previously unannounced IPs.
One thing’s for sure. The event will most definitely be quirky and entertaining. This has become Devolver’s trademark, as previous livestreams have included riffs on public access TV, parodies of massive game conferences like E3 and game designer Goichi Suda, sort of, in a mech suit.
There are other events already scheduled around Summer Game Fest. The biggest of the bunch will be the Xbox Games Showcase on June 9. This stream is likely to feature a deep dive into the next Call of Duty entry.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/ePTnFEYThe FCC has proposed a $6 million fine for the scammer who used voice-cloning tech to impersonate President Biden in a series of illegal robocalls during a New Hampshire primary election. It’s more about robocalls than AI, but the agency is clearly positioning this as a warning to other would-be high-tech scammers. As you may […]
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Spotify’s Car Thing, a limited hardware “test” the company began shipping only three years ago, is about to bite the dust. The company wrote on Thursday that the device, which brought Spotify to automobiles without Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, will “no longer be operational” as of December 9.
Car Thing was aimed at drivers who want to listen to Spotify in their cars but don’t have modern systems with built-in streaming apps. The $90 device let you control the service with voice recognition and preset buttons, and it had a four-inch color touchscreen. However, Spotify had already discontinued it by mid-2022.
In our 2021 preview, Engadget’s Billy Steele wrote that the gadget seemed unnecessary at first but proved useful after two weeks of use. “While it seems only Spotify die-hards would be interested in something like this, it does offer an upgrade for older cars,” our audio gear expert wrote. “I’m never getting built-in voice control in [the 2006 Honda] Element, and the ability to keep Waze on my phone and Spotify on another display definitely reduced the need to fiddle with either while driving.”
Spotify’s official explanation for ditching its first hardware product is that it’s “part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings” (read: save money) and that it lets the streaming service “focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users.”
Those new features and enhancements are anyone’s guess because the company adds that it doesn’t plan on launching a replacement product or a new version of Car Thing. Of course, you can listen to Spotify in your car with your phone connected through Bluetooth or a cable, and many drivers now have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, which provide access to much more than a single music app.
Spotify recommends factory resetting the Car Thing and disposing of it after it kicks the bucket in December. The company isn’t offering any refunds or trade-in options — something to keep in mind if it ever rolls out more limited hardware experiments.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/Vk4elJ0Several hotel check-in computers are running a remote access app, which is leaking screenshots of guest information to the interne
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Did you know that there are many ways to get free Starbucks gift cards?
Yes, there are!
You can earn free gift cards and make extra income for your favorite drinks.
Many people enjoy a cup of coffee or a latte, such as from Starbucks. However, going to Starbucks can cost a lot of money over time.
Luckily, there’s a way to drink Starbucks drinks without spending a lot of money: by using free Starbucks gift cards. You can earn these free gift cards through different methods.
And, before you think that it can’t be done, I’ve personally earned over 110 free gift cards over the years. It feels great to use a free gift card to get something I want. So, it’s definitely possible with some effort!
Today, I will be talking about the different ways you can earn free Starbucks gift cards. By spending your time on these sites and apps, you can earn rewards and points that can be traded for free gift cards.
Here’s a quick list before we begin:
Did you know that your online activities can help you get your favorite Starbucks drink for free?
Swagbucks is a site where you earn points (they call their points “SB”) by doing tasks like browsing the internet, watching videos, using their shopping deals, and answering surveys. Just sign up, fill out your account profile information, and start earning points to put toward a free Starbucks egift card code.
I’ve been using Swagbucks for years, and I’ve personally earned over 110 free gift cards during that time. It’s easy to earn points, and the website is really user-friendly.
You can get anywhere from a free $10 Starbucks gift card to $100 at a time on Swagbucks.
Click here to sign up for free for Swagbucks (and receive a $10 bonus).
Fetch Rewards is an app where you earn points by scanning receipts from grocery stores. You can use these points to get Starbucks gift cards and other rewards.
I use Fetch Rewards every time I go grocery shopping. It’s super quick and easy to earn points. I just shop as usual, and then when I get home, I open the Fetch Rewards app on my phone and snap a photo of my receipt. Fetch Rewards quickly scans the receipt and adds points to my account. It’s a simple routine that only takes a minute or so to do!
You don’t need to do anything else – just take a picture of your normal grocery receipt. It could not be any easier.
Here’s how Fetch Rewards works:
You can sign up for Fetch Rewards by clicking here.
Prime Opinion is a survey website where you can earn money by sharing your opinions from home.
It’s easy: You share your thoughts, and they pay you for it. Prime Opinion is a legitimate survey platform dedicated to paying you for completing surveys. They have many surveys to answer, and you can redeem your points for Starbucks gift codes or cash payouts.
Please click here to join Prime Opinion and get up to a $5 free bonus.
InboxDollars is a popular platform that rewards users for completing surveys, watching videos, reading emails, and shopping online. You can redeem your earnings for Starbucks gift cards or other popular options.
The surveys on InboxDollars typically pay between $0.50 and $5.00 and take 3 to 25 minutes to complete. Generally, longer surveys pay more money.
You can sign up for InboxDollars and get a free $5 sign-up bonus.
American Consumer Opinion is a market research company that pays users for sharing their opinions through online surveys. You can redeem your earnings for gift cards or cash once you reach a certain threshold.
Signing up is free, and you can earn $1 to $5 per survey (with longer surveys paying more!). They’ve paid out over $35 million to survey takers and have a large community of over 7 million members.
Please click here to sign up for American Consumer Opinion.
Survey Junkie is a popular platform where you can earn free Starbucks gift cards by simply expressing your opinions. When you share your thoughts through surveys, you earn points. Once you accumulate enough points, you can redeem them for gift cards to enjoy your favorite Starbucks drinks.
Answering three surveys daily on Survey Junkie can earn you about $40 per month in free Starbucks gift cards.
Companies value opinions and use online surveys to improve their products and services. Sometimes, they even use feedback to develop new products. Paid online surveys are very helpful for companies looking to understand and meet customer needs.
Please click here to sign up for Survey Junkie.
Branded Surveys is a survey platform where you can earn points by answering questions, which you can then redeem for free gift cards. The surveys usually take 5 to 15 minutes to complete, and your feedback helps companies improve their products and services.
They have online surveys that pay between $0.50 and $5.00 each.
You can sign up for Branded Surveys by clicking here.
PrizeRebel is a platform where you can earn rewards points by completing tasks like surveys, watching videos, and signing up for offers. Once you gather enough points, you can exchange them for free Starbucks gift cards or other rewards.
One great thing about PrizeRebel is that it operates worldwide, so whether you’re in the U.S. or elsewhere (such as Australia, Canada, and many, many other countries), you can use the platform without location restrictions.
You can sign up for PrizeRebel by clicking here.
You can install the Honey browser extension, which automatically finds and applies coupon codes and promo codes when you shop online.
Here’s how it works:
You can redeem your points from Honey for cash, Starbucks coffee gift cards, or PayPal shopping credits.
Using Honey is really simple – it only takes two clicks, and it’s completely free to use.
You can learn more about Honey by clicking here.
Upside is a cash back rewards platform designed for gas purchases. When you use the app to locate and buy gas at specific gas stations, you can earn cash back that can be redeemed for gift cards, like for free coffee or free food.
Here’s how it works:
While not every gas station is included in the app, you can earn rewards by choosing from the listed stations.
You can sign up for Upside here.
If you love Starbucks and saving money, Ibotta is your go-to app. Ibotta lets you earn cash back on purchases at many retailers.
Ibotta is a cash back app that rewards you for shopping, especially at grocery stores. After you finish shopping, upload your receipts to earn cash back on your purchases, which can be redeemed for free Starbucks gift cards. I personally use Ibotta regularly, and I think it’s a useful app!
Here’s how Ibotta works:
Ibotta is similar to Fetch Rewards, but it requires a bit more planning. With Ibotta, you need to select deals in the app before you shop. However, you can earn more points with Ibotta. The good news is you can use the same receipts on both apps to maximize your earnings.
You can sign up for Ibotta by clicking here.
Rakuten gives you a simple way to earn cash back on purchases from over 3,500 stores.
When you buy something, a percentage of your purchase comes back to you as cash. It can add up quickly. Your earnings can be sent to you by check or PayPal. So, Rakuten does not pay you in free Starbucks gift cards, but they do pay you via a check or PayPal cash quarterly. Due to this, I still wanted to include Rakuten because they are so easy to use, and you can instead put this cash you earn toward your drink purchases.
You can sign up for Rakuten here.
If you’re interested in getting free Starbucks gift cards, participating in sweepstakes and giveaways can be a fun option to explore.
Here’s how you can find and enter sweepstakes and giveaways:
While there’s no guarantee of winning, entering these giveaways can be a simple and potentially rewarding way to score free gift cards.
If you’re a regular Starbucks customer and enjoy saving money, joining the Starbucks Rewards program is a great idea.
Here’s how it works:
Joining the Starbucks Rewards program is a simple way to earn rewards and enjoy perks every time you visit Starbucks.
Okay, so this section isn’t about how to get free Starbucks gift cards, but I do want to quickly talk about how to get free Starbucks drinks!
Starbucks Rewards members can enjoy free refills of hot or iced coffee and tea during the same visit at participating Starbucks stores.
Here’s how it works:
At Target Starbucks locations, free refills are also sometimes offered. I have never tried this, but I have heard from others who say that this is real:
Please note that the availability of free refills can depend on the specific location that you are shopping at and specific store policies. It’s always best to check with your local Starbucks or Target Starbucks for details and ask them in person before assuming a drink is free.
Below are answers to common questions about how to get free Starbucks gift cards.
You can earn free Starbucks gift cards by using websites and apps that reward you with points for completing different types of activities, such as shopping online, playing games, or watching videos. Once you earn enough points, you can exchange them for free Starbucks gift card codes.
Survey sites pay in points for sharing your opinions. As you earn enough points, you can redeem them for Starbucks gift cards. The surveys won’t be about Starbucks, instead, they can be about anything – such as where you like to shop, the types of things that you buy, etc.
To get free Starbucks gift card codes, you can complete surveys, use cash back sites, and use rewards apps like Fetch Rewards.
Starbucks Rewards members can earn Stars for purchases that can be redeemed for free drinks, food items, or merchandise (like coffee mugs). Depending on the number of Stars, you can get anything from a cup of coffee to a sandwich, or even a bag of coffee.
You can join the Starbucks Rewards program to receive a free drink or food item on your birthday. You will want to make sure that you join at least seven days before your birthday and have made at least one purchase prior to that to qualify for the birthday reward.
I hope you enjoyed this article on how to get free Starbucks gift cards.
There are many ways that you can get free Starbucks gift card codes, such as by joining rewards sites, answering surveys, and even taking a picture of your grocery receipts.
By putting in some effort and staying involved with these programs, you can consistently enjoy Starbucks coffee treats without spending too much money.
For me, I have earned many gift cards for free over the years, and I absolutely love it. Just last week, I redeemed over $150 in gift cards to some of my favorite stores.
Do you like to earn free Starbucks gift cards?
Recommended reading:
The post 15 Ways To Get Free Starbucks Gift Cards And Coffee appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.
Did you know that there are many ways to get free Starbucks gift cards? Yes, there are! You can earn free gift cards and make extra income for your favorite drinks. Many people enjoy a cup of coffee or a latte, such as from Starbucks. However, going to Starbucks can cost a lot of money...
The post 15 Ways To Get Free Starbucks Gift Cards And Coffee appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.
Mon, 06 May 2024 11:15:00 +00002024-05-06T11:15:00.000ZThe following Five Surveys Review is a sponsored partnership with Five Surveys.
Welcome to my Five Surveys Review!
If you want to earn extra cash from home on your own schedule, I recommend trying out Five Surveys.
This honest review of Five Surveys is going to explain what Five Surveys is, how Five Surveys works, and how you can earn spare cash with paid online surveys on Five Surveys.
If you’re interested in earning money online, you might have come across Five Surveys. This site pays users to complete surveys, giving an easy way to make extra cash from home. Unlike other survey sites that pay low amounts, Five Surveys has a simple deal: complete five surveys and earn $5.
I’ve been taking surveys for years, and I find it to be an easy way to earn extra money in my spare time.
I personally signed up for Five Surveys and have started taking surveys to test it out for you, my reader. One thing I really love about Five Surveys so far is the amount of surveys that are available. Already on the first day, there were 42 surveys that I could get started with, with more being added all the time.
Please click here to sign up for Five Surveys.
Below is my Five Surveys review.
Five Surveys, also known as 5 Surveys, is a website where you get paid to answer surveys online.
For every five surveys you finish, you can earn $5. Yes, once you answer your fifth survey, you can make quick cash, and they have a lot of available surveys for you to get started with.
If you’re all about making some extra cash, Five Surveys could be your go-to. Here are some reasons why I personally like Five Surveys:
When I first signed up for Five Surveys, I immediately received 42 surveys that I could start with. They ranged anywhere from 1 minute to 29 minutes. And, the way that the Five Surveys online platform works is that you need to answer 5 surveys to get the $5.
Five Surveys is a platform where you can earn money just by sharing your thoughts and input through surveys.
Here’s how to get started on Five Surveys:
You may occasionally come across screen-outs (this is when you start a qualification survey but are deemed not their intended target market), but the more surveys that you take then the easier it is for Five Surveys to match you with better surveys with your customer profile. For example, the qualifier may ask if you have children, but the survey’s target criteria may actually be looking for households with no children. So, you will see less inconvenience when it comes to these with the more surveys that you take.
Note: The answers for the pre-survey questions need to be accurate and detailed so the you have more relevant surveys available.
Ever wondered why companies pay for your thoughts on surveys? It’s because your opinions matter! Companies want to know what you think about their products and services because they want to create things that you’ll like and want to buy.
Market research firms act like detectives for companies, gathering clues about what people want. They create surveys for us to fill out, which helps them figure out what products should be like. As a thank-you for your help, these companies reward you with cash and other payment methods.
When you visit online survey sites to earn extra cash, you might wonder what kinds of questions you’ll be asked.
The questions can vary from survey to survey, but they tend to focus on your opinions about products or services, your preferences, and sometimes personal details such as whether you have pets or children at home and geographical characteristics (where do you live?).
I have taken over 100 surveys in my lifetime, and I have never once come across a hard question. They are always super easy and quick to answer.
Here’s a sneak peek into some typical questions that you may see:
Survey creators design these questions to be easy—they don’t require you to be an expert or a genius.
In some surveys, you might come across detailed questions about specific items, while others might be broader and aim to understand you better. This helps companies figure out why certain products or services might be a good fit for you.
Getting your earnings from Five Surveys is quick and easy.
You simply go to your Five Surveys account and choose your withdrawal method. You can choose between PayPal cash, bank transfer, Venmo, and gift cards.
They have gift cards to places such as Walmart, Olive Garden, Southwest Airlines, Chewy, Apple, and more. There are over 187 different rewards that you can choose from actually.
Below are answers to common questions about getting paid to take surveys with Five Surveys.
Yes, Five Surveys is a legitimate survey site known for rewarding people who complete surveys. On TrustPilot, Five Surveys has over 1,600 reviews with a good rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars (that means that most people have a positive experience on this site!). Some of the positive Five Surveys reviews that I read on TrustPilot talked about how Five Surveys is the best survey site due to the number of easy surveys available that pay a decent amount.
You can earn money by completing surveys on Five Surveys. The platform pays out cash and other rewards for the feedback you provide in surveys. Remember, the amount you earn will depend on the number of surveys you complete.
Five Surveys does pay its users. Upon reaching a minimum account balance, you can redeem your earnings through different methods like PayPal, bank transfer, or Venmo, and also in the form of gift cards.
Whether Five Surveys is worth your time depends on your goals. It is an easy way to earn small amounts of money, but like most survey sites, it won’t replace a full-time income. It’s a decent option for earning a little extra on the side.
Signing up for Five Surveys is free.
I hope you enjoyed my Five Surveys Review.
Understanding how Five Surveys works is easy. Once you complete five surveys, you’ve earned $5, which you can cash out using the payout options offered by the site (such as PayPal cash and free Amazon gift cards).
For me, I love how easy it is to get paid to answer online surveys. You can take surveys while watching TV, while waiting for some food to cook, while doing chores, and more. It is super flexible and you can do it right from your phone or computer.
Please click here to sign up for Five Surveys.
Do you like to take surveys to earn extra cash? What other questions do you have for my Five Surveys Review?
Recommended reading: Prime Opinion Review: How Much Does Prime Opinion Pay?
The post Five Surveys Review: Is It A Legit Paid Online Survey Site? appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.
The following Five Surveys Review is a sponsored partnership with Five Surveys. Welcome to my Five Surveys Review! If you want to earn extra cash from home on your own schedule, I recommend trying out Five Surveys. This honest review of Five Surveys is going to explain what Five Surveys is, how Five Surveys works,...
The post Five Surveys Review: Is It A Legit Paid Online Survey Site? appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.
Fri, 03 May 2024 11:00:00 +00002024-05-03T11:00:00.000Z