Top crypto stories of week 6, 2024
Mon 5 to Sun 11 February 2024
The 20 top stories on Kiwi News from Mon 5 to Sun 11 February 2024, ranked by upvotes, comments and clicks, with 36 comments in total. Most-shared sources: github.com.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- How we achieved anonymity on Web3 token-based elections (blog.vocdoni.io)
- Announcing Free DNS Domain Usage in ENS with GoDaddy | ENS Blog (blog.ens.domains)
ENS has partnered with GoDaddy so that GoDaddy's customers can use their DNS domains in the ENS ecosystem without paying transaction fees. GoDaddy added a section to its domain management interface where customers can associate an Ethereum address with a domain name, which can then stand in for the address in web3 applications such as wallets, block explorers and NFT marketplaces. The feature enabling this, Gasless DNSSEC, launched on January 29 after ENS DAO approved EP5.1, and GoDaddy is the first registrar to integrate with it.
- Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin Praises Farcaster, Disses Friend.Tech (decrypt.co)
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin predicted that Farcaster and Lens will not be deserted in four months or one year, while criticizing blockchain-backed social app Friend.tech for relying on financial speculation instead of fun. The article says Friend.tech, which lets users buy and sell shares of friends' social media profiles, fell 99.6% in daily transaction volume from September's highs, according to Dune data. It reports that Farcaster user activity rose 1,300% in the last week, driven by its Frames feature, which lets users play games, make purchases and mint NFTs within apps.
- Magi, the Farcaster meme engine for real shitposters (magi.lol)
A sales listing offers a unisex tee with the buyer's domain name printed large and bold, starting at $19.97 with free shipping and no minimum order. A pointing-hand graphic called "The Finger" can be added for $4.99. The shirts come in XS to 3XL, are described as soft and true-to-size, and are printed and shipped from the USA with a print said not to crack, peel, or fade in the wash. The listing does not mention Magi or Farcaster.
- Is RSS Dead? (mikevdv.dev)
RSS is not dead but has shifted from a visible part of internet use to a behind-the-scenes system that consumers do not need to understand, according to the author's view. The article notes that RSS was released on March 15, 1999, that many prominent sites still offer RSS or Atom feeds, and that Google Reader was shut down in 2013 leaving no native desktop RSS reader. It cites Feedly with over 5 million Android downloads and Flipboard with over 500 million, though neither app's page explicitly mentions RSS. The author argues RSS remains useful as a simple, standardised way for applications and sites to share content.
- All my thoughts after 40 Hours in the Vision Pro (waitbutwhy.com)
After more than forty hours of use over four days, Apple's Vision Pro impresses with its interface and pass-through video, though its first version still has clear drawbacks. The headset weighs 650 grams, compared with 515 grams for Meta's Quest 3, and its over-the-head band made long sessions comfortable without causing nausea. Pass-through video looks almost transparent, but the field of view is narrow and the external battery lasts about three hours. The "eye pinch" interface is described as the most striking element, recalling the reaction to the first iPhone in 2007.
- Farcaster's Big Moment with Founder Dan Romero (youtube.com)
- ZORA gasless token creation (github.com)
- Purple Retroactive Funding Round 5 (prop.house)
- ERC404 issue: „No obvious correlation to official ERCs“ (github.com)
A commenter argues that naming the ERC404 project "ERC-404" misleads people, because the ERC label is widely understood to mean a structured standards process and the project has not gone through that process. The commenter says the objection is not about trademarks or numbering, but that the name made the project look like an official ERC, and that many crypto media outlets now describe it as a standard even though it is not yet a proposal. The commenter adds that they support innovation but want the naming to be non-misleading.
- 🖥️ The State of UX in 2024 (trends.uxdesign.cc)
Fabricio Teixeira and Caio Braga argue that UX has shifted from being a driving force in organizations to a byproduct of business objectives, with design control passing to algorithms, automated tools and business stakeholders. They cite examples including Figma's AI features launched in 2024, growth teams optimizing flows for clicks, and designers spending more time in stakeholder meetings than on design. They also say that design conferences have lost ground, with IxDA unable to compete with the budgets behind Figma's Config and Adobe Max. The authors close by framing the change as an evolution rather than a revolution and encouraging designers to adapt their careers.
- Kiwi News RetroPGF #2 on Snapshot (snapshot.org)
- The Bull Case for Owning Your Data (gotnojuice.substack.com)
The author argues that artists and users should own their data through open, ex-platform systems rather than rely on platforms that can delete or restrict it. Myspace announced in March 2019 that it had lost all content uploaded before 2016, and Spotify closed off access to historic artist data older than two years in August 2023. The author also points to projects such as Mycelia's "Creator Passport" and Catalog's "cosigns", a soulbound token minted while listening to a track in Catalog Radio, as early steps. The author notes that adoption remains hard because user incentives and experience are underdeveloped, and that such services will succeed only if they stay independent of the platform APIs they aim to disrupt.
- Experimental ERC-404 Token Surges To $170M Market Cap (cryptodaily.co.uk)
- The State of Private Voting in Ethereum (odyslam.com)
- File over app (stephango.com)
Essay argument: File over app is a philosophy holding that if you want digital artifacts to last, you should create files you control, in formats that are easy to retrieve and read, and use tools that give you that freedom. The piece argues that apps are ephemeral while files have a chance to last, and that the ideas a file carries matter more than the tool used to make it. It cites hieroglyphs carved in stone thousands of years ago and notes that much digital work is stored on servers or in proprietary formats. The author, who says they help make the app Obsidian, writes that their notes are plain text files designed to last, even though the app itself will eventually become obsolete.
- Skiff is joining Notion, Skiff to be sunset (notion.so)
Skiff, the privacy-focused workspace app co-founded by Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg, is joining Notion, and Skiff will be sunset. Milich and Akshay, a Notion representative, discussed the companies' shared work ethic, product vision and office history in a conversation announcing the deal. Milich said Skiff began after a trip to Russia as a graduate student, when he was frustrated by limited travel tools, and that the two companies share a belief that people are underserved by most workplace tools. Skiff moved into the former original Notion office on Capp Street in San Francisco's Mission District in 2021.
- Kintsugi — How broken becomes beautiful (gillesdc.com)
The article argues that trauma and suffering cannot be erased by pretending they never happened, and that healing comes from picking up the broken pieces and reintegrating them into a new version of oneself, as in the Japanese mending practice of kintsugi. It draws on Buddhist ideas of impermanence and dukkha, Nietzsche's notion of self-overcoming, and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett's account of how the mind builds its sense of self. The piece holds that suffering comes from clinging to a fixed self-image and resisting change, and that human connection, with loved ones or psychologists, helps people make sense of their wounds.
- Positive Sum Design with Crypto (research.fracton.ventures)
- Health XChange - A Vision for UBI using passively generated (health) data (medium.com)
Health XChange, a platform whose beta is open to users of listed insurers including Medicaid, Medicare, Kaiser Permanente, UPMC and Anthem, proposes that individuals can earn ongoing income from their passively generated health data, a form of universal basic income. The article says the platform creates a privacy-preserving environment where users share health data, and that it plans to perform deals on users' behalf and share revenue back to them using crypto. It cites Brave (BAT), which pays users who opt into search ads, and Dimo, which crowdsources vehicle data for autonomous driving, as similar examples. The author acknowledges that privacy, data security and ethical use remain challenges that would require robust regulation.