The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day |
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Welcome to The Node! This is Ben Schiller to take you through the latest crypto news. In today's news: Bitcoin traders buoyed by ETF inflows; Kraken considers nuclear as part of data center strategy; Polkadot’s $245M treasury draws criticism; Worldcoin hires Google, X and Apple execs for security and privacy. The takeaway: "DeSci" can add transparency and accountability to scientific research (Azeem Khan).
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Bitcoin ETFs See Record Inflows |
Bitcoin (BTC) bulls may have reason to cheer in the coming weeks as possible seasonal cycles boost prices of the largest cryptocurrency after months of declines and rangebound trading. BTC has traded between $59,000 and $74,000 since April, weighed down by billions in sales, upcoming selling pressure, outflows from exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and peak negative sentiment among retail traders. But a historically bullish month of July could soon change that. The first day of the month saw U.S.-listed ETFs record nearly $130 million in inflows – their highest since early June after more than $900 million in outflows over the month. |
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Kraken is considering using nuclear energy to power its data centers, amidst an expected boom in decentralized finance (DeFi) and increased demand for its services, the company’s chief technical officer, Vishnu Patankar, said in an exclusive interview with CoinDesk. The exchange is not looking to build its own reactors, but is considering partnering with energy providers that can supply nuclear power with small modular reactors (SMRs). These reactors can be co-located with data centers and don’t have space or weather constraints, according to Patankar. “With institutions moving into the crypto asset class and activity moving on-chain, the need for reliable fiat onramps continues to grow,” Kraken’s CTO said. “Bolstering our energy resiliency means we strengthen a direct avenue into the crypto ecosystem, supporting its continued growth.” The crypto exchange is looking to secure its energy supply given the massive surge in demand from artificial intelligence (AI) and high performance computing (HPC) firms which is changing the landscape in terms of power stability, Patankar said. Kraken is exploring nuclear power options in North America and Europe. |
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Polkadot, one of the crypto industry’s earliest Ethereum rivals, spent $87 million worth of DOT tokens on various activities for the first half of this year, doubling from the pace of the prior six months, community representatives for the blockchain published in a treasury report over the weekend. The treasury has just over $245 million worth of DOT left for spending, an amount community members estimate will last for two years at current prices. The first-half spending represents a more than 125% jump from the nearly $25 million spent in the second half of 2023. Marketing and outreach activities accounted for the biggest chunk of spending, with over $36 million spent on advertisements, events, meetups, conference hosting, and other initiatives. These efforts were intended to attract new users, developers, and businesses to the ecosystem. Software development costs were the second-largest money sink, with over $23 million used to build services, such as wallets and toolkits to support developers. Some $15 million was spent on liquidity provision and incentives on Polkadot-based trading platforms. |
Worldcoin Hires Web2 Execs |
Tools for Humanity (TFH), builder of decentralized identity project Worldcoin, has hired four seasoned experts to beef up areas like privacy, security and identity management. Damien Kieran joins as chief privacy officer, having held the same position at X (formerly Twitter), and general counsel at BeReal.
Adrian Ludwig, who served as director of Android security at Google and chief information officer at Atlassian, a developer of collaboration software, becomes chief information security officer. Ajay Patel, who led the Google Payments identity team, becomes head of World ID.
Rich Heley, who previously held vice president and executive roles at Apple, Meta and Tesla, becomes chief device officer, overseeing Worldcoin’s retina-scanning orb, the means of collecting human identity data.
Worldcoin’s unique approach to biometric data harvesting may be divisive, but there’s no doubt a gathering AI and machine learning revolution has increased the need for proof of humanness and tackling online fakery, particularly as half the world’s population votes in elections this year.
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The Takeaway: Better Ways to Fund Science? |
The following is a guest post from Azeem Khan, cofounder of Morph, a L2 on Ethereum.
A common trope of those who discredit Web3 is that it’s trying to solve a problem no one has. And, perhaps it’s easy to see it that way when you mostly see celebrities launching meme coins to self-enrich themselves and leaving their fans being the bag holders when the tokens go to zero. Or the animal JPEGs from the last cycle in 2021 that had values as high as six and seven figures. I’ve found myself disillusioned at those things too.
What if that wasn’t the case, though? What if Web3 was at the precipice of one of the most exciting times for building real-world value since the inception of the idea of blockchain? Welcome to Decentralized Science (DeSci).
DeSci is a movement leveraging blockchain technology to create a fair and equitable infrastructure for scientific research. It aims to enhance the processes of funding, creating, reviewing, crediting, storing, and disseminating scientific knowledge through the use of Web3 tools, including tokens, NFTs, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
By fostering an open and incentivized environment, DeSci seeks to empower community-driven collaboration in the scientific field. All the tools we've been using can now be applied in ways that create both societal and monetary value. Maybe the world wouldn’t hate us so much if we could deliver this across verticals but starting with scientific innovation is a good one.
One might be tempted to ask why we need DeSci if we already have the traditional scientific method that’s been delivering value for longer than most of us realize. Well, with just a bit of research, you’ll understand that traditional science really needs an overhaul. The problems lie with publishing, reproducibility, funding, the way IP works and even how the data is stored. Publishing scientific work is fraught with challenges, starting with the exorbitant fees charged by publishers. These publishers rely on unpaid labor from scientists, reviewers, and editors to generate content, yet charge the public — who indirectly fund this research through taxes — high prices for access. Web3 tools have the potential to address this issue by creating open-access platforms that incorporate legitimacy and incentive mechanisms, effectively bridging this gap. Without naming the guilty publications, I’ll just say it’s all the best ones. Read the full op-ed here.
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