Blockchain

In the wake of the FTX implosion, everyone is talking about the pros and cons of cryptocurrency. This week, for clickbait reasons, it’s mostly the cons. Before you offer an opinion about cryptocurrency to your friends or consider formulating a cryptocurrency policy for yourself or your business, you should take a moment to understand that cryptocurrency “crypto” is a catchall phrase, and a lazy one at that. Continue Reading →

FTX Trading Ltd. CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has resigned. FTX.com (formerly the second-largest crypto exchange in the world), West Realm Shires Services Inc (FTX U.S.), Alameda Research Ltd., and approximately 130 additional affiliated companies (the FTX Group) have filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. John J. Ray III has been appointed CEO of the FTX Group. Even if you've never invested a penny in crypto (or even thought about it), the value destruction wrought by SBF is going to have an impact on how you spend your day. Continue Reading →

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX is on the brink. It may fail today. It may fail tomorrow. Unless someone steps in with enough cash to save it, it will fail. Continue Reading →

Yesterday, while all eyes were (and are) on election results, a battle between two centralized cryptocurrency exchange owners suckerpunched the world of decentralized finance, destroying billions of dollars of market cap in the process. Continue Reading →

Imagine adopting an AI character: one that could think for itself, learn, and, um… obey you. Now, train it and put it in a world with other people's adopted AI characters. What you have is The Simulation: a new virtual world filled with subjugated AI characters. Continue Reading →

The problem with catch-all phrases is that they can mean anything to anyone. Imagine my excitement seeing this headline on TechCrunch this morning: "Disney launches web3 experience to celebrate 100 years of Disney music." Continue Reading →

Web2 (aka the centralized web) is the web as we know it today. It is dominated and controlled by our tech overlords. Web3 (aka the decentralized web) is supposed to replace it, releasing us from our data servitude. It won’t. For reasons I will share with you, it will be obvious that it can’t. We are already living in a hybrid world where Web2 and Web3 technologies are each leveraged to their best purposes. You can call it Web2.5 – it’s a more accurate description of where we are now and where we are likely to go next. Let’s review. Continue Reading →

When someone says "the metaverse," what do they mean? At the moment, the observable metaverse is a continuum that spans experiences from virtual reality (VR) through mixed reality (MR) to augmented reality (AR). The experiences are different, but some of the most successful metaverse projects share many common creative and technological attributes. What are they? To help figure it out, we've been developing a framework we call the Standard Model of the Metaverse. Continue Reading →

Two unrelated stories this morning are highly correlated to the very cold crypto winter. Continue Reading →

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced charges against Kim Kardashian for touting on social media a crypto asset security offered and sold by EthereumMax without disclosing the payment she received for the promotion. Continue Reading →