The addition of Bitcoin price quotations to Twitter’s social media platform occurred around the 18th of April. The price quotations are provided by the charting platform TradingView, however they are only accessible for the price of Bitcoin. Price quotes for other major cryptocurrencies are not provided. The accompanying Bitcoin price chart includes a link that users may use to purchase or sell Bitcoin on the Israeli cryptocurrency market known as eToro. In addition, a caution that reads “Your Capital Is At Risk” is shown beside the chart that displays the price of bitcoins.
Twitter has emerged as an essential component of the retail investing community, and it is anticipated that the inclusion of Bitcoin price quotations will play a big role in the dissemination of financial news and the acquisition of information. The implementation of “$Cashtags” has the goal of elevating users’ familiarity with the Bitcoin market on the site and encouraging more user participation therein.
Elon Musk made the declaration on the 17th of April that he would develop a piece of artificial intelligence software that he would call “TruthGPT” in order to battle what he considers to be a left-wing bias in the media business. It is anticipated that the AI software would actively seek the truth and encourage impartial reporting.
While Twitter is the most recent social platform to integrate Bitcoin price quotes, on April 10th, Douyin, the Chinese counterpart of TikTok, began providing Bitcoin price quotes to an estimated 730 million users in Mainland China. Twitter is the most recent social platform to incorporate Bitcoin price quotations. The quotations were, however, taken down a day later and replaced with a statement that warned users that “unofficial digital currencies do not possess the same legal standing as fiat currencies.”
The introduction of Bitcoin price quotations on Twitter’s social media platform is a big step towards expanding knowledge of and involvement with the cryptocurrency market on social media. This is because Twitter is the largest social media platform in the world. In addition to this, it brings to light the ever-increasing significance of cryptocurrencies in the financial sector, as well as the need of reliable information and impartial reporting.
A video of European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde has been making the rounds on social media, with many believing it to be real. In the video, Lagarde appears to be admitting that a digital euro will be used to control payments in a limited manner. However, it has since been revealed that the video was a fake.
The video was initially shared by the breaking news account Watcher Guru on April 6, and it generated a significant amount of social media chatter. In the video, Lagarde is heard saying that she does not want to rely on an “unfriendly countries currency” or a currency provided by a “private corporate entity like Facebook or like Google.” She goes on to say that she is “personally convinced that we have to move ahead” with the digital euro.
It has since been revealed that the video was taken from a prank video created by a group of individuals who have had similar conversations with other public figures. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and former United States President George W. Bush have also fallen victim to similar hoaxes.
The ECB has not yet announced any concrete plans for the development or implementation of a digital euro. However, the idea of a central bank digital currency has been gaining traction in recent years, with many countries exploring the potential benefits and drawbacks of such a system.
A digital euro could potentially provide a number of benefits, including increased financial inclusion, lower transaction costs, and greater security and privacy. However, there are also concerns about the potential risks and challenges associated with such a system, including the possibility of cyber attacks and the need to balance privacy concerns with the need for transparency and accountability.
In light of the recent hoax video, it is important to exercise caution when consuming news and information online. Misinformation and fake news can spread quickly, and it is important to verify the authenticity of sources and information before sharing or acting on it. The ECB has not made any official announcements regarding the use of a digital euro, and any news or rumors should be taken with a grain of salt until confirmed by credible sources.
During a meeting with science and technology advisers on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden raised concerns about the safety of artificial intelligence (AI) and urged technology companies to prioritize safety when developing and releasing AI products. While acknowledging the potential benefits of AI in tackling issues such as disease and climate change, Biden stressed the need to address possible risks to society, national security, and the economy.
“It is yet to be determined. There is a possibility,” Biden replied when asked about the potential hazards of AI. He cited the negative impact that powerful technologies can have in the absence of appropriate measures to protect against them, citing social media as an example. “Absent safeguards, we see the impact on the mental health and self-images and feelings and hopelessness, especially among young people,” he said.
Biden emphasized the importance of technology companies ensuring their products are secure before releasing them to the public. He called for the U.S. Congress to approve non-partisan privacy laws that limit the personal data gathered by technology firms, prohibit child-targeted advertising, and give priority to health and safety in product development.
In recent years, there has been growing concern about the potential risks associated with the development and use of AI. While AI has the potential to revolutionize many industries and address complex global issues, it also poses significant risks to society, including job displacement, bias, and the potential for unintended consequences.
The Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy, a technology ethics organization, recently urged the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to prevent OpenAI from releasing new commercial versions of GPT-4, a language model that has both impressed and alarmed users due to its human-like capacity to create written responses to prompts.
The debate over the safety of AI is likely to continue as technology continues to advance at a rapid pace. Biden’s call for technology firms to prioritize safety and for Congress to enact privacy laws that prioritize health and safety in product development is an important step towards ensuring that the benefits of AI are realized while minimizing the risks.
The decentralized social network Damus has hinted that its mobile application will soon include a feature that would enable users to earn satoshis, the smallest fraction of Bitcoin (BTC), depending on the interaction they get on their posts on the site.
In a tweet, the Damus team brought attention to the fact that the “coming soon” version of the app would have a function that enables users to earn satoshis and that this function will be available “soon”. After the first statement, the team did not give any more information.
Damus markets itself as a decentralized social network that is user-run and does not depend on centralized businesses for its functionality. The program is based on Nostr, which stands for “Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays.” It is a decentralized network that makes it possible for users to communicate with one another in a private setting. Within the confines of its network, there are no servers. Instead, messages are sent across the system through a decentralized network of relays.
Members of the community as a whole have shown their enthusiasm for the newly implemented Damus function, with some even going so far as to refer to Nostr as “the future of monetization.”
Jack Dorsey, who formerly served as CEO of Twitter, has also been showing his support for the Nostr initiative by contributing financial resources to its creators. Dorsey said on the 16th of December that he had contributed 14 BTC, which was equivalent to around $250,000 at the time, to assist in the growth of the decentralized social network.
On February 1, Damus was released to the public on the Apple App Store and became accessible for users of the iPhone to download. After this, Jack Dorsey also announced the news through his Twitter account, where he referred to the change as a new “milestone” for open-source protocol development.
Back on December 14, the former CEO of Twitter advocated for the establishment of a decentralized Twitter alternative. This was in response to the publication of the findings of an internal inquiry that had been headed by Elon Musk and had shown problems relating to censorship on Twitter. Dorsey addressed various solutions to the problems, such as resistance to control by corporations or governments, giving writers the authority to delete their own material, and using algorithmic moderation.
“Have you set up Tips on your profile yet so it’s easy for people to show their support? Yes: Cool, we’ve added Paga, Barter by Flutterwave, Paytm, and the option to add your Ethereum address.”
The tipping mechanism enables users to ask for support from different influencers and content creators on Twitter. Therefore, the latest development will allow Twitter users to send tips through the Ethereum (ETH) network.
The Bitcoin tipping feature used the Lightning Network payment gateway Strike to generate BTC Lightning invoices needed to make the payments.
Therefore, the social media giant is opening up more opportunities by enabling ERC-20 tokens and ETH tips to be made through payment channels like Paytm, Barter by Flutterwave, and Paga.
Johnny Winston, the lead product manager of creator monetization at Twitter, welcomed this development and stated:
“We’re continuing to expand ways to get paid on Twitter which includes more choices for creators and fans who want to use crypto. We’re excited to add the ability for anyone to add their ETH address to Tips.”
Nevertheless, the new feature is not open to domain names utilized by the Ethereum Name Service (ENS).
Twitter continues to delve deeper into the Ethereum ecosystem, given that it presented an official verification mechanism for non-fungible token (NFT) avatars, allowing some users to set the NFTs they owned as their profile picture last month.
The Twitter avatar of the verified NFT would be different from the standard avatar because it would entail a nice hexagonal border instead of a circle, denoting ownership on the blockchain.
Amrapali “Ami” Gan, OnlyFans’ CEO, commented in a statement to Reuters that the online subscription platform known for adult content will enable creators to make nonfungible token, or NFT, profile pictures.
“Our mission is to empower creators to own their full potential. This feature is the first step in exploring the role that NFTs can play on our platform.”
OnlyFans will only support NFTs minted on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain and that an Ethereum icon next to the NFT profile picture would signal authenticity, as claimed by Reuters.
According to the company, OnlyFans introduced the feature in December when Gan, the newly-appointed CEO, took over. Upon assuming the role, Gan said in a statement that the platform shows its commitment to safety “by blending state of the art technology with creative capital.”
OnlyFans jumps into NFT profile pictures https://t.co/BmBtMY3hZh pic.twitter.com/EhqjaXVBYr
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 10, 2022
Related: YouTube CEO hints that NFTs could be added to creator platform
UK-based OnlyFans follows Twitter in introducing NFT profile pictures to its platform. Reddit has also reportedly been testing out NFT profile pictures, while YouTube has stated that NFTs offer “a compelling prospect for creators and their audiences.”
Aave (AAVE), the decentralized finance lending platform, launched the Lens Protocol ecosystem on the Polygon (MATIC) blockchain as their way to challenge centralized social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook. What started with an open letter to garner support around the idea that content creators should own and control their digital identities, led to developing a Web3-native social network powered by NFTs.
In a Twitter Spaces conversation the company hosted this week, Stani Kulechov, CEO and Founder of Aave, described the mission behind Lens Protocol.
“We wanted to build a social media protocol, or essentially a social graph, and make those profiles on-chain, following the relationships on-chain and creating a permissionless way to distribute content between a creator and the audience.”
Kulechov and his developer team dug into the problems with current social media platforms. According to one of the developers who goes by @Zer0dots on Twitter, “We’re people. We’re not products. We’re not numbers nor data points.” He’s referring to content on users’ feeds, whether it’s a photo on Instagram or a Tweet, that Meta or Twitter can sell as data to marketers. He described how Lens Protocol wants to make the move away from “users being the products” to giving creators enough ownership to choose how their content is distributed.
1/ Something is blooming… https://t.co/UMUs3qT3SD
— LensProtocol.eth (@LensProtocol) February 7, 2022
Basically, the protocol enables users to create a profile, which is a fully composable NFT. These dynamic NFTs contain the history of all posts, reposts, comments, and other content generated including music, commentary, art, photography and video. A key difference is that profiles are tied to a wallet address, and owners can choose how to monetize their content. A follower can also collect someone else’s publication and receive a tradable follow NFT.
“And you can choose who gets to collect them,” said @Zer0dots. “You can choose what logic gets executed. Is there is a fee? Is it a bonding curve that is subscription? Or is it only specific addresses you want? There’s so many different options.”
During the Twitter Spaces session, the Aave team also suggested the possibility of turning profiles into a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO. A follower can opt in to have voting and delegation power over what could be a DAO profile.
Related: First cross-chain governance proposal passes on Aave
Aave likened this new ecosystem to an open source “developer garden” where they invite the community to “grab fertilizer” and build upon the protocol, anything from social apps and analytics platforms to DAO tooling. The company’s goal is to mirror real-life social interaction that isn’t tied to a platform’s changing algorithms and policies.
For now, the Lens Protocol code is available to test on the Polygon Mumbai Testnet. According to Kulechov, Polygon was the chain of choice due transaction speed and cost effectiveness, and since applications can be deployed to any chain because it’s Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible.
Stani Kulechov, the founder of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) lending protocol, Aave has spearheaded the emergence of Lens Protocol, an ecosystem that seeks to boost a permissionless, composable, and decentralized social graph that makes building a Web3 social platform easy.
With many developers putting their hands in the gauntlet towards the establishment of a functional social platform to take on big tech. The Lens Protocol’s design capabilities will help creators build applications to improve user experience rather than scaling. The resident on the Polygon Network takes care of the scaling provisions.
As unveiled by the protocol, the ecosystem will be supported by Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), which will enable users to tokenize profile pictures and contents shared on their pages.
“Lens Protocol has familiar social media functions like having a profile, commenting, resharing a post, and more – but unlike social media of the past, Lens Protocol is powered by NFTs, so you own and control all of your content,” one of the tweets reads, “Profile NFTs are the main primitive of the Lens Protocol. These dynamic NFTs are composable, non-custodial & permissionless. Individual addresses can own profile NFTs, an address can have multiple profile NFTs & a profile NFT can be owned & run by a DAO via a multisig wallet!”
To trail a different path from the big tech companies operating a social media platform, the Lens Protocol will incentivize some key actions taking place on the platform, including sharing contents and trading of the tokenized collectables generated on the platform. The Lens Protocol has earmarked a reasonable fund to back developers looking to build applications on the platform.
The Lens Protocol is lifting off with backing from Polygon Network and other Web3.0 name service providers. With Lens Protocol coming to challenge outfits like Jack Dorsey-backed BlueSky, decentralized social finance is billed to be resuscitated with the new crave surrounding NFT and metaverse engagement.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong attends Consensus 2019 at the Hilton Midtown on May 15, 2019 in New York City.
Getty Images
A couple weeks ago, it would’ve been hard to identify a great deal of common threading between Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook billionaire, Daniel Ek, the Spotify billionaire, and Brian Armstrong, the Coinbase billionaire.
More recently, a link between the three has become pretty apparent: none of them want an active role deciding what belongs on their sites. This won’t shock anyone familiar with the past five years for Zuckerberg, who has long insisted it shouldn’t be his company’s responsibility to referee what belongs on the web. But it’s not something we’ve thought a lot about in connection to Ek and Armstrong, who seem willing to withstand the same hellish conversation and debate around content moderation that has enveloped Facebook (and other social media companies) for much of the last decade.
Armstrong is the latest to wade into this thicket. Late Friday evening, he published a new blog post to Coinbase’s website, outlining a strategy for deciding what NFTs will trade on the exchange once it adds the tokens to its platform: In short, Coinbase will allow pretty much everything—as long as its not funding something illegal. “We believe that governments, not companies, should be deciding what is allowed in society,” he writes, sounding quite Zuckerbergian. The only thing that could get Coinbase to change its mind, Armstrong says, is pressure from a partner like Apple or Google. They might (very theoretically) threaten to remove Coinbase from their app stores if it doesn’t take down a controversial NFT. “Our approach is to be free speech supporters, but not free speech martyrs, and to make accommodations if it is essential for us to function as a business,” Armstrong writes (the bold emphasis his).
Until this, Armstrong hasn’t really needed to express any views on free speech or content moderation, issues not really applicable to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ether. NFTs are different, though, and the digital images, art and collectibles effectively combine crypto and content together. During the past boom year for NFTs, most of the criticism has revolved around the skyrocketing prices for these assets, which lack any underlying financial value. Those increasing prices have brought greater attention to the space, more NFTs being created. The ability to trade them on a more mainstream platform like Coinbase will only widen this further. And Armstrong is girding himself for a debate about whether Coinbase should allow, say, a right-wing group’s NFTs to trade on Coinbase. That’s a harder call to make than whether to pull down an obvious scam or fake, one redolent of the discussion that has risen over what Facebook should permit on its site.
Ek has adopted a similar stance. Like Coinbase, Spotify had largely avoided any content moderation controversies. But like Coinbase, its expansive attitude has pushed it to contend with one now. How’d that happen? Joe Rogan happened. Over the last few weeks, criticism for his remarks about covid and use of the N-Word have mounted, prompting calls for Spotify to cut ties with him. But he is a prize asset for the company, one reportedly costing it $100 million, the amount Spotify pays as his show’s exclusive distributor.
The exclusivity makes Rogan’s relationship with Spotify is different than the ones the app has had with most artists placing content on its platform, who are free to post it elsewhere, too. Plenty of people have argued the exclusivity makes Spotify Rogan’s publisher, and as a result, Spotify should act more like a traditional publisher would in dealing with Rogan.
Ek doesn’t buy this and maintains Spotify is a platform, which lets him argue that the company doesn’t control any of the people publishing on its site, including Rogan. Fundamentally, it’s the same argument Armstrong makes about Coinbase. As such, both men would argue it’s not their job to police speech on their apps. Whether that freedom of expression involves a podcast or an NFT.
What’s most striking about Ek and Armstrong’s willingness to take this stand on content moderation: doing so hasn’t gone particularly great for Zuckerberg.
Since the 2016 presidential election, Zuckerberg has sung the same tune that Ek and Armstrong have now picked up. Over those years, Facebook and Instagram have taken some steps to curb toxic content. Holocaust denialism, for example, is now banned, a change from a few years ago but only an incremental change—as most such moderation shifts have been at Facebook. Zuckerberg has mostly stuck to his beliefs, even as it has meant a recent plummet in stock price, declining growth at Facebook and jettisoning the Facebook brand last year to rebrand his company around plans for a new social network based around virtual reality, the metaverse.
No one is sure what the metaverse will look. But experts have been clear that the emergence of the new technology—and increased interest around it—will likely add to concerns around moderation rather than tamp them down. Not all too dissimilar to the circumstances now surrounding Ek and Armstrong.
The team behind Aave has launched Lens, a social media protocol that makes extensive use of non-fungible tokens.
Lens will use NFTs to manage data including user profiles, publications, and relationships with followers.
Lens is built on Polygon, a second-layer network for Ethereum. It will also make use of IPFS for off-chain storage.
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The team behind the DeFi platform Aave has launched Lens, a social media protocol that relies on NFTs for data management.
Lens Will Promote User Data Ownership
Today’s announcement describes Lens as a social media platform “powered by NFTs, so you own and control all of your content.”
For end users, the experience will be similar to traditional social media. However, certain data such as user profiles and follower relationships will be represented by non-fungible tokens.
This will allow users to monetize and freely manage those pieces of data. For example, users can hold multiple profile NFTs in a crypto wallet, sell NFTs that represent follower relationships, or manage DAO voting by working with follower NFTs.
Furthermore, users will be able to create various “publications” such as posts and comments. Users can also create mirrors of content, which seem to be similar to retweets on Twitter.
Though publication data will be stored on-chain, the protocol will also support IPFS hosting for the off-chain storage of large files such as videos, music, and images.
Lens Protocol is also advertising its features to developers, calling itself a “composable and decentralized social graph” that “makes building a Web3 social platform easy.”
Relationship With Aave and Polygon
Lens Protocol has close ties with Aave, a leading DeFi protocol and crypto lending platform with $11 billion of locked value.
Aave acknowledged Lens today, stating that Lens is made by the “by the dev team who brought you the Aave Protocol.”
Aave founder Stani Kulechov also confirmed that the “Aave fam launched the Lens Protocol” and has changed his icon to the Lens logo. Kulechov was also one of the first to hint at the idea of the social network protocol as early as January 2021.
Despite those connections, Lens does not appear to be built directly on Ethereum, as Aave is. Rather, it is built on top of Polygon, a second-layer network for Ethereum noted for its low-energy consumption.
Aave itself has previously worked with Polygon. In March 2021, Aave worked with Polygon to avoid congestion on Ethereum. In April 2021, the two projects partnered to offer liquidity mining rewards.
Disclosure: At the the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH and other cryptocurrencies
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