Donovan Choy

LatAm Firm Hashdex Joins Bitcoin Spot ETF Scrum With Distinct Plan

The largest crypto asset management firm in Latin America, Hashdex, is officially throwing its hat in the ring of SEC suitors seeking approval to operate a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). For years, the SEC has ignored or rejected Bitcoin ETF applications for cryptocurrencies—at least for spot markets. But when investing juggernaut BlackRock submitted an application for a Bitcoin spot ETF in June, it reignited industry interest around the possibility of such an investment vehicle. Encourage...

‘Bad Actors’: Last PepeCoin Founder Claims PEPE Could Still Thrive

Crypto’s biggest memecoin in the 2023 bear market has officially been rugged. On-chain sleuths on Twitter caught a whopping 16 trillion PEPE tokens (worth about $16 million) being sold on various centralized exchanges like Binance, Bybit, KuCoin and OKX on Thursday. PepeCoin’s market capitalization plummeted 26% to a low of $315.72 million before recovering 7.7% to $342 million at the time of writing. After two days of silence, someone claiming to be the project’s last remaining founder apologi...

John Riccitiello, CEO, Unity Technologies, on PlayerOne Stage during day two of Web Summit 2017 at Altice Arena in Lisbon. Image: David Fitzgerald/Web Summit

AI Will Make Games 'Faster, Cheaper and Better': Unity CEO

The most impressive video gaming worlds take hundreds of game designers, graphic artists and musicians many years to create. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) will drastically cut that time down by roughly five to 10 times, predicts Unity’s CEO John Riccitiello. Riccitiello reflected on the future of gaming in the age of AI for a recent Associated Press report. From the way the sun reflects off a blade of grass to how in-game non-playable characters (NPCs) behave, generative AI can efficie...

Now You Can Create Tunes via Bitcoin With an On-Chain Music Engine

Inscribing artwork, games, and even meme tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain would have seemed unimaginable a year ago—but thanks to Ordinals, it’s all happening. And over the weekend, someone used the protocol to put a fully on-chain music engine onto Bitcoin. The “Descent Into Darkness Music Engine” was inscribed onto the Bitcoin blockchain on Saturday, with 10 editions minted and sold as individual Ordinals. By entering a few keywords, anyone—not just the owner of each inscription—can instantly...

'Rate Limit Exceeded': Elon Musk Riles Twitter Users With Latest Clampdown

The walls around the walled garden of Twitter were raised even higher this week. Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced Saturday that the blue bird app is taking steps to limit verified accounts to reading 6,000 posts daily, while unverified accounts and new unverified accounts are being capped daily at 600 and 300 respectively. To address extreme levels of data scraping & system manipulation, we’ve applied the following temporary limits: - Verified accounts are limited to reading 6000 posts/day- Unve...

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Image: Shutterstock

Ex-Trader Ordered to Pay $54 Million CFTC Fine Over Crypto Fraud

Another alleged crypto fraudster that profited heavily from the 2017 ICO bull mania is now facing the music, a whole 41 months after he was charged by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on February 11, 2020. Previous CFTC cases against financial fraudsters in crypto, such as CabbageTech, Mirror Trading International, or Empowercoin have taken far less time to resolve. The CFTC today announced the judgment from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for a perma...

Barbara Thaler, Member of the European Parliament, speaks about the AI Act on June 13, 2023. Image: Mathieu Cugnot/European Union

Europe Moves on AI Regulation to 'Counter Dangers to Democracy'

As the United States scrambles to make its mind up on tech regulation, the European Union is taking another major step towards Big Tech regulation in the world of artificial intelligence (AI). The European Parliament overwhelmingly voted on Wednesday to pass a new draft law of the Artificial Intelligence Act with 499 votes in favor, 28 against, and 93 abstentions. The final version of the law is expected to be voted on sometime in late 2023. “The AI Act will set the tone worldwide in the develop...

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Stories by Donovan Choy