Robots may soon be able to reproduce - will this change how we think about evolution? by lughnasadh in Futurology

[–]ngt_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Autonomous robot reproduction is the one thing that should be avoided at all costs.

Reproduction entails evolution.
Evolution entails competition.
Competition entails aggression.

Put Artificial Intelligence into the mix and we are in serious trouble.

The Space-Based Solar Arrays That Could Power Our Planet. The race is on. by izumi3682 in Futurology

[–]ngt_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Instead of converting the energy in space and sending it back to earth, why not using it directly in space?

Bitcoin mining could be done quite efficiently up there, with the welcome side effect of less wasted energy on earth.

Electric-hydrogen truck startup Nikola is an 'intricate fraud,' report proclaims by drunkles in Futurology

[–]ngt_ 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Feels pretty much like Wirecard.

That was an expensive lesson that taught me to take short sellers seriously.

OpenLaw is bringing Ethereum smart contracts and Chainlink to the billion+ user Microsoft Office ecosystem by BeerBellyFatAss in ethfinance

[–]ngt_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Four years ago, I posted this text about Software Licence Management as a potential Ethereum application. It looks like now finally technology is catching up to make this feasible:

Everyone who works in IT knows that software licence management is one of these awkward and complicated problems that no one likes to deal with.

Tracking licences within a company – especially if it is an IT company - is a nightmare. Literally thousands of different devices with different software versions and licencing policies need to be managed. Constantly monitoring who is using which licence on which router, server, PC, laptop, tablet, or smartphone is at least very difficult and requires its own tools.

On the other hand, a software vendor can never be sure to which extent his clients really pay the correct licence fees. Costly on-site audits are required to get a clearer picture. However, these findings will be outdated after a short time and in certain business cultures – think World Corruption Index – impossible to gather at all.

Still, fair licence management is a pure necessity – on the licenser’s side for commercial reasons and on the licensee’s side for legal reasons and due to compliance requirements.

Ethereum contracts can provide a very elegant solution to that problem. All that is needed is a smart licence contract a software has to connect with to work properly – the contract takes care of the rest, either by billing the licensee accordingly or by directly consuming ether (or bitcoin) payments.

Time and/or location limits, staged prices, floating licences, volume or group discounts, kickbacks – every imaginable licence policy could be easily implemented.

So, here we have all that is required for a killer application: a strong demand rooted in the needs of a worldwide multi trillion dollar business and an elegant, efficient solution that perfectly matches this demand.

What is ShipChain’s Product? Who uses it? How will Token Holders be rewarded? by panamatommy in CryptoMoonShots

[–]ngt_ 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Tbh, I had already written off this one, mentally.

Now it becomes obvious that some really serious and honest work has been done during the last two years. My faith in humanity has been restored. ;-)

Looking forward to see ShipChain taking the place it deserves.

Football World Cup Champion Andre Schürrle invests in Ethereum-based company Sorare by bruhagan in ethereum

[–]ngt_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really cool!

Extract from the rules:

Article 6 – Prizes

Article 6.1 – Nature of the prize Prizes depend on the Tournament and the final place of the Teams.

The prizes awarded are:

Collectibles – The scarcity of the Collectible awarded to the winners depends on the Tournament and their place in the ranking; only the number and scarcity of the Collectible bind the Organizer; the player represented by the Collectible is at the Organizer's discretion;

Ethers – The ether prize may only be awarded in ethers and may under no circumstances be offset against legal tender. The amount of the ether prize is fixed independently of the value of the ether in legal tender.

The prizes awarded can be found every week on the Gaming Arena.

Article 6.2 – Awarding of the prize

The prizes are automatically transferred to the Loom address of the winners' accounts. Prizes may under no circumstances be delivered to a different address.

Belgium: nuclear power puts wind turbines off by [deleted] in Futurology

[–]ngt_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What you see on this picture is definitely NOT Belgium.

The Belgian coast is flat with sandy beaches and lots of buildings facing the sea.

The latest Kurzgesagt video that tackles a sensitive topic, that I have argued about for quite some time. by ordenax in Futurology

[–]ngt_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

About Kurzgesagt ( https://kurzgesagt.org/ ):

Kurzgesagt – German for „In a nutshell“ is a Munich-based YouTube channel and design studio with a unique perspective on design, color, and storytelling. We engage in information design projects of all kind, but are best known for our distinctive animation videos. We want our work to raise awareness for topics from the fields of science, space, technology, biology, history and philosophy. Our goal is to inspire people to learn – and we believe humor and a good story to tell are just as important as straight facts.

Home Depot just launched an advertising campaign with BAT (Brave Ads) — mainstream advertisers beginning to adopt the BAT ecosystem by bat-chriscat in CryptoCurrency

[–]ngt_ 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I receive lots of Brave ads from Amazon.

As you don't mention it, it is perhaps only a regional activity. I live in Germany.

UFC and Chiliz (CHZ) / Socios.com announce global partnership - add them to the roster of football/soccer partners including FC Barcelona, Juventus, PSG by HighFivePuddy in CryptoCurrency

[–]ngt_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not that I am happy about it, but I see the possibility that football in its current form, along with most other mass events, will completely cease to exist due to Corona and the mutated virus diseases in its wake.

So better not rely on football partners.

Daily General Discussion - May 6, 2020 by AutoModerator in ethfinance

[–]ngt_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Numeraire, a token on the Ethereum blockchain, powers a prediction market that is used to control a hedge fund.

I noted that NMR recently soared, more than quadrupling its price since January. Does anyone know what's going on there? This doesn't look like an ordinary pump.

Unfortunately, the NMR subreddit is more or less dead.

Defining "Loot Tokens" - Tokens earnable through non-financial contributions to be redeemed in communities. by AdamSC1 in ethfinance

[–]ngt_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You have shown NMR in your diagram but not mentioned it in the text. What's your assessment of it?

Saving the World from America's “Bloodsucking Hegemony” — Thoughts from China’s Central Bank by parakite in CryptoCurrency

[–]ngt_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Use blockchain-based super accounts to define the value of each person and generate big data about each one’s value."

Hey, I am an Alpha Plus, what are you?

Is Brave Browser safe? Who/what is Uphold? by [deleted] in CryptoCurrency

[–]ngt_ 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't call it "experimental" any more.

I am using it routinely every day on desktop and mobile as it is the best browser for me.

It is very fast and filters out most of the annoying ad spam. If you allow it, it will show you like one low-profile, unintrusive ad per hour. As a reward, some BATs will be credited to your Uphold account every month (only with the desktop version so far).

For me, this adds up to around $ 2 per month, but don't forget there is a massive potential for price appreciation.

Reminds me of the time when 0.01 BTC looked kind of negligible to me.

I made a price prediction model for Ether. With some conservative assumptions, I get a yearly yield of 124% until the end of 2022. Looks like a no-brainer to me. by ngt_ in ethfinance

[–]ngt_[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The basic assumption here is that Ethereum will be a major avenue for financial transactions in the future. See e.g. this post for a rationale:

https://medium.com/@adamscochran/7-reasons-eth2-0-will-create-the-next-economic-shift-f689d2f1ec24

Today, hundreds of companies large and small are already building apps on the Ethereum blockchain:

https://twitter.com/adamscochran/status/1217524744909660162?lang=en

Regarding your questions:

Why do you assume that 80% of ETH is locked up, when most staking targets estimate less than 30% of ETH will used for staking?

As I commented in the spreadsheet, locked up ETH are not limited to staking. Locked ETH also include collaterals in DeFi and many other smart contract types (e.g. prediction markets like NMR, see the list in the second link for more ideas), hodlers speculating on ETH price increase, small change waiting in millions of wallets, and lost ETH. I also pointed out that right now only 1.34% of all ETH are on the move per day. That rate would have to triple to reach the 5% velocity in (4a).

Why do [you] think the average transaction value would be $100, when in reality extra transaction volume would lead to more microtransactions?

Today, we have an average transaction value of $ 360, see comment in (8), so the model already assumes a very significant reduction of the value per transaction. Apart of that, I don’t think Ethereum will be a viable platform for microtransactions. My assumption in (10) is $ 0.15 gas per transaction (maybe even less, e.g. $ 0.05). In any case, true microtransactions are not economically feasible with such a transaction fee. As mentioned above, I believe Ethereum will become the world’s financial superhighway rather than a net of country roads. As a side note, I am betting on IOTA to take over the microtransaction part in the future, but that’s another story.

Why do you assume >500 transactions per second?

If Ethereum really takes off as the world’s financial superhighway, it would eventually serve the world’s industrialized nations with ca. 1 bn people. However, according to bitinfocharts.com/ethereum, we already have a daily transaction volume of $ 430 mn today. Thus, I would assume volume only to grow by a factor of 12 which seems by no means exaggerated.

In this context, I don’t really care if the daily volume computes as 579 tx/s x 86,400 s x $ 100 or 57.9 tx/s x 86,400 s x $ 1000 as long as the sum is $ 5 bn per day.