Top crypto stories of week 16, 2023
Mon 17 to Sun 23 April 2023
The 20 top stories on Kiwi News from Mon 17 to Sun 23 April 2023, ranked by upvotes, comments and clicks, with 0 comments in total. Most-shared sources: techcrunch.com, arstechnica.com, wired.com.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- Why open protocols are better than closed platforms in promoting free speech (knightcolumbia.org)
Building open protocols instead of privately owned platforms is proposed as a way to support free speech, reduce trolling and disinformation, and give users more control over their data. Early internet protocols such as SMTP, IRC, NNTP and HTTP let anyone build compatible interfaces, and Usenet's open design allowed users to filter unwanted content with kill files. By contrast, Reddit is controlled entirely by one company whose product team can make any changes it desires, while changes to Usenet required broad consensus.
- Status as a Service (eugenewei.com)
This essay argues that social networks should be analyzed as Status as a Service (StaaS) businesses, since they supply social capital in the way software companies supply utility. The author says classic network effects theory still holds but should be combined with a second axis of social capital, which the author uses alongside utility to evaluate social network health. The essay compares new social networks to ICOs, claiming each issues a token of social capital that users earn through proof of work, with built-in scarcity as the tokens become harder to mine.
- Proton announces Proton Pass, a password manager (techcrunch.com)
Proton has launched Proton Pass, a password manager from the Geneva-based company behind Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Drive and Proton Calendar. Everything stored in Proton Pass is end-to-end encrypted, including passwords, email addresses, URLs and notes, and Proton says its servers cannot access users' personal information. A beta is available to loyal customers such as lifetime plan users, with Visionary plan customers to follow shortly. The product is also the result of Proton's acquisition of SimpleLogin, an email alias startup, and Proton plans a freemium model when it rolls out to everyone.
- SpaceX launches its Starship rocket for the first time [Updated] (arstechnica.com)
SpaceX's Starship rocket lifted off from its South Texas launch pad on Thursday morning, after a hold about 40 seconds before its scheduled launch time. The first stage performed roughly as planned, although about 15 percent of its engines failed during a burn of more than two minutes. The booster and Starship upper stage were lost in a fiery explosion at stage separation, which the article describes as the main problem of the launch.
- Seagate violated export ban by shipping 7M disk drives to Huawei, US says (arstechnica.com)
Seagate agreed to pay a $300 million fine to settle US allegations that it shipped hard disk drives to Huawei in violation of export controls imposed in 2020. The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at the US Department of Commerce said the penalty is the largest standalone administrative penalty it has ever issued. BIS said Seagate admitted to ordering or causing the export of 7.4 million disk drives to Huawei without authorization, and that Seagate announced in September 2020 it would keep doing business with Huawei after the August 2020 rule took effect. Western Digital and Toshiba stopped shipments to Huawei after the rule, according to BIS.
- The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin (2011) (wired.com)
Wired's 2011 feature traces Bitcoin from its anonymous creation by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 to its surge in price during 2011. The article says Nakamoto's design solved the double-spending problem by replacing a central clearinghouse with a public ledger, the block chain, maintained by miners who receive newly issued coins. Early adopters included Gavin Andresen, who bought 10,000 bitcoins for $50, and Laszlo Hanyecz, who paid 10,000 bitcoins for two Papa John's pizzas. Nakamoto vanished in late 2010, and by June 2011 the currency's price had risen to about $27.
- Seagate hit with $300M penalty for selling sanctioned storage to Huawei (theregister.com)
Seagate agreed to pay $300 million over five years to settle a US Department of Commerce complaint that it sold hard disk drives to Huawei in violation of export rules. The filing says that between August 2020 and September 2021 Seagate sold 7.4 million hard drives to China in 429 transactions worth a combined $1.1 billion, after Huawei was added to the entity list in 2019 and Toshiba and Western Digital stopped selling to Huawei. Seagate CEO Dave Mosely said the company believed it complied with export control laws but decided settling with the Bureau of Industry and Security was the best course. The company warned investors of a $300 million hit to its third quarter results.
- Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket blows up minutes after launch (theguardian.com)
SpaceX's Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, blew up within minutes of its uncrewed test launch from Boca Chica, Texas, on Thursday. The 120-metre rocket took off at 8.33am local time, began spinning at altitude and exploded about four minutes after leaving the ground. The article says the booster and cruise vessel appeared unable to separate properly, though it was not immediately clear whether the Flight Termination System was activated. SpaceX had warned beforehand that the chances of success were low and that the flight aimed to gather data.
- CoreWeave, a GPU-focused cloud compute provider, lands $221M investment (techcrunch.com)
CoreWeave, a GPU-focused cloud computing provider that began as an Ethereum mining venture, raised $221 million in a Series B round led by Magnetar Capital, with participation from Nvidia, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross. The round values the company at $2 billion pre-money and brings its total funding to $371 million. CEO Mike Intrator said the money will support the opening of two new data centers this year, on top of the five CoreWeave currently operates in North America.
- Stack Overflow Will Charge AI Giants for Training Data (wired.com)
Stack Overflow plans to begin charging large AI developers for access to its 50 million questions and answers as soon as the middle of this year, according to CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar. He says the revenue is vital to keeping users and high-quality information on the site, and that companies building commercial products on community sites should be compensated. The move follows Reddit's announcement that it will begin charging some AI developers starting in June. Chandrasekar also says LLM developers are violating Stack Overflow's Creative Commons license by failing to attribute contributors.
- Googlers say Bard AI is “worse than useless,” ethics concerns were ignored (arstechnica.com)
Bloomberg reports, based on interviews with 18 current and former Google workers, that Google's AI ethics teams were "disempowered and demoralized" so that Bard could launch quickly. According to the report, employees' pre-release feedback was mostly ignored, and internal discussions called Bard "cringe-worthy" and "a pathological liar." One employee's February post was titled "Bard is worse than useless: please do not launch," and Bard launched in March. The article also says ChatGPT has similar flaws and that Google is far behind it.
- Schumacher's family plan legal action after AI-generated 'interview' (bbc.co.uk)
Michael Schumacher's family plan legal action against the German magazine Die Aktuelle, which published an AI-generated "interview" with the former Formula 1 driver. The cover, headlined "Michael Schumacher, the first interview," ran alongside a strapline saying "it sounded deceptively real," and the article was produced using the AI programme charatcter.ai. The fabricated quotes described Schumacher's health and family, including the claim that he could stand and slowly walk a few steps. The family have confirmed to Reuters that they are pursuing the matter legally, while the publishers told BBC Sport they would not comment.
- SpaceX Starship finally launches but blows up after take-off (bbc.co.uk)
SpaceX's Starship lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas on its first integrated test flight, but the rocket exploded minutes later when its Super Heavy booster failed to separate from the upper stage. Jonathan Amos reported that six of the 33 booster engines appeared not to be firing during the climb, and the vehicle went into a spin before the flight termination system was likely triggered. SpaceX said "success comes from what we learn" because the rocket cleared the launch tower and did not destroy the pad. Elon Musk said the next test would come "in a few months."
- Nuclear Disasters (piratewires.com)
- Software developer gets $5M judgement against My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell (cnn.com)
An arbitration panel ordered My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell to pay $5 million to Robert Zeidman, a software developer who showed that data Lindell provided was not from the November 2020 election. The panel's decision, obtained by CNN, found that Zeidman performed under the contract for Lindell's "Prove Mike Wrong Challenge" and that failing to pay him was a breach. The panel said it focused only on whether the 11 data files were from the 2020 election, not on claims of foreign interference. Zeidman said he spent a few hours on the analysis, and Lindell said in a deposition that the challenge was designed to attract media attention.
- The Rust Performance Book (2020) (nnethercote.github.io)
- US could soon approve MDMA therapy (nature.com)
- Posts on central websites need less originality to be noticed (nature.com)
This study of Reddit link posts finds that originality boosts a post's chances of getting noticed only when the linked website is peripheral, not central. Using a mixed-effects model, the authors estimate title originality and domain centrality in the hyperlink network, and report a significant negative interaction: for content from central websites, originality no longer increases the odds of receiving at least one upvote. The same interaction does not clearly hold for the odds of being in the top 10% of posts in a day. The authors also find that originality concentrates in the core of the domain network, with central domains producing more original titles.
- Multi-Chain Middleware Li.fi Raises 17.5M Series A (coindesk.com)
Multichain infrastructure provider Li.Fi has raised $17.5 million in a Series A round co-led by CoinFund and Superscrypt. CEO Philipp Zentner told CoinDesk the funding will support the company's strategy to bring more users to Web3 by letting tokens and orders trade across any chain. Berlin-based Li.Fi offers an API that helps developers navigate fragmented layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3 blockchains, bridges and decentralized exchanges. Other participants included Bloccelerate, Circle and Theta Capital, and the company previously raised $5.5 million in a round last July led by 1kx.
- CoreWeave, a GPU-focused cloud compute provider, lands $221M investment (techcrunch.com)
CoreWeave, a cloud compute provider that began as an Ethereum mining venture, raised $221 million in a Series B round led by Magnetar Capital, with participation from Nvidia, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross. The round values the company at $2 billion pre-money and brings its total funding to $371 million. CEO Mike Intrator said the money will support the opening of two new U.S. data centers this year, on top of the five it operates in North America, and expand its team of just over 115 people.