2024-11-18 14:00

The new digital identity platform, Y, forgoes World Network's controversial biometric authentication for a system based on users' online activities. Over two years ago, Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, launched Worldcoin, a blockchain project known for its distinctive metal orb used to scan eyeballs. Recently rebranded as “World Network,” the platform provides users with digital passports — verified through the iris scans — to help online services differentiate humans from bots in an AI-driven internet. Now, a group of crypto veterans, including the co-founders of decentralized finance juggernaut Lido, are preparing to launch “Y,” a blockchain identity platform aimed squarely at competing with World Network. CoinDesk obtained an internal planning document for the new project. A person close to Cyber Fund, the venture firm led by Lido co-founders Konstantin Lomashuk and Vasiliy Shapovalov, confirmed the document is genuine. It lays out a vision for a new blockchain-based identity platform that skips World's controversial eyeball-scanning Orb. Cyber Fund declined to comment. Ekram Ahmed, the head of marketing and communications for the blockchain infrastructure project Celestia, told CoinDesk he was also joining Y as an advisor. The upcoming project is not otherwise connected to Celestia, Ahmed said. The document, titled "Y vs. WorldCoin," describes how Y plans to play up World Network’s controversies — from privacy concerns, to accusations of exploitative user recruitment practices, to a generalized phobia of the project's metallic iris-scanning orb — as it courts users. Rather than biometric data, Y will look at the traces people leave behind while using the internet to verify they are human. This method, according to the Y planning document, addresses privacy risks and minimizes fraud — in sharp contrast to World’s reliance on iris scans. Long-term vision Over time, Y's creators apparently intend to build a "Crypto SuperApp that allows users to privately build and earn from their digital identity." The vision isn't far off from that of World Network, whose product suite includes an identity-centric blockchain, crypto wallet and app ecosystem. The Y document is scarce on implementation details, focusing instead on how Y will be marketed as a "direct competitor to WorldCoin" – a strategy explicitly designed to "attract maximum attention." Like World, Y will ostensibly help internet users identify themselves as humans, which is expected to become increasingly important as AI tools and AI-generated content fool legacy identity solutions. The key difference between the two platforms will be how they authenticate users. Whereas World assigns users "World IDs" using biometric data – those creepy iris scans – Y "aggregates data from users’ existing socials and blockchain activity, and also employs the Ethereum Attestation Service" to verify users. The Ethereum Attestation Service is a set of tools people can use to formally "attest" to the accuracy of certain data, which can be useful for applications like user authentication. According to the authors of the planning document reviewed by CoinDesk, Y's authentication processes are designed to address some of WorldCoin's shortcomings, such as "eliminating risks related to biometric data leaks and minimizing opportunities for fraud." Y's "social-graph-based" approach is also meant to provide a more "nuanced numerical score" to determine a user's "personhood" compared to World's Orb, which delivers a simple binary reading on whether or not a person is human. Throwing shade According to the planning document reviewed by CoinDesk, Y's marketing will focus on World Network's "controversial aspects." Chief among the project's controversies has been its reliance on biometric data. World maintains that it securely encrypts iris scans, but as the authors of the Y document note, the service has nonetheless "sparked serious privacy concerns, resulting in bans in countries like Spain and Kenya." World has also led to the proliferation of black markets, where users can buy and sell scans to create fake accounts. Moreover, its reliance on centralized hardware and connections to OpenAI have sparked concern among some decentralization-minded crypto natives. If Y intends to compete head-on with World, it will need to make up a lot of ground in terms of user numbers. World launched in 2023 and has since onboarded more than 15 million users, according to numbers released last month by the project. Seven million of those users have reportedly been authenticated by World's Orb, with the rest opting for a lower-tier World ID that doesn't require eyeball scanning. Lido is the largest decentralized finance app on Ethereum, with more than $26 billion in "staked" deposits from investors who "stake" ETH with the platform to help power Ethereum's security. In addition to leveraging their clout among crypto netizens to promote Y, Lido's founders are likely to seize on World's connections to OpenAI in their bid to attract users. "With Sam Altman, co-founder of both WorldCoin and OpenAI, we have a real possibility that WorldCoin may follow the same path as OpenAI," the Y document states, noting that "OpenAI started as an open-source, non-profit project, but later became a closed-source for-profit corporation." It's unclear how — or whether — Y will leverage ties to Lido or any of Cyber Fund's other portfolio companies, which include the blockchain validator firm P2P.org and Ethereum layer-2 network Nil. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/11/18/lido-co-founders-said-to-plot-competitor-to-sam-altmans-world-network/

2024-11-18 13:17

The company now holds 331,200 bitcoin acquired for roughly $16.5 billion and worth just shy of $30 billion. Self-described Bitcoin Development Company MicroStategy (MSTR) added to its bitcoin (BTC) stack, purchasing 51,780 tokens for $4.6 billion over the six days ended Sunday. With this latest purchase, the company — which began buying bitcoin in August 2020 — now holds 331,200 BTC acquired for about $16.5 billion. At the current price surrounding the $90,000 level, those holdings are worth just less than $30 billion. To fund this latest purchase, MicroStrategy tapped its at-the-market share issuance program, selling roughly 13.6 million shares for $4.6 billion. The company has about another $15.3 billion of stock it can sell under the current program, according to a regulatory statement released Monday morning. Over the weekend, Executive Chairman Michael Saylor took to X to tease this morning's purchase disclosure. Just one week ago, the company announced it had purchased 27,200 bitcoin for $2 billion, thus putting buys over the past few weeks to about 72,000 BTC for $6.6 billion. MSTR shares are down 1% premarket, but remain higher by nearly 400% year-to-date. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/18/michael-saylors-microstrategy-added-additional-51780-bitcoin-for-46b/

2024-11-18 12:18

AI studio SOAR, created by Ancestry founder Paul Allen, brings Project Liberty data sharing and storage portals for families and communities focused on local government. SOAR creator Paul Allen previously built a family social networking app on top of Facebook, which gathered 120 million users. Project Liberty says it is the leading bidder for the U.S. assets of TikTok in the event that they become available. Project Liberty, a decentralized social media offering, is making official what it calls a “deep partnership” with SOAR.com, a series of AI-powered data sharing and social networking portals created by Ancestry founder and serial entrepreneur Paul Allen. Backed by real estate billionaire Frank McCourt to the tune of $250 million, Project Liberty involves creating a publicly accessible database of people’s social connections, a so-called Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP). The project also leverages cryptocurrency in the form of Frequency, part of the Polkadot ecosystem. It’s hard to imagine how power could be any more concentrated than it currently is in the hands of social media platform owners like X's Elon Musk, suggesting now is an ideal opportunity for decentralized alternatives to attract new users. Allen’s SOAR AI studio includes a Family Portal (an application he built originally on Facebook with 120 million users), which will use AI-powered transcription tech to log and store a universe of familial interactions. Also included is a Citizens Portal, an easily searchable local community government data service with over a million hours of transcripts and information from city, county and state meetings. One of the main reasons Allen was attracted to Project Liberty is the promise given to users that they will forever remain in control of their data — a trust relationship that’s been abused in the case of Facebook and at Ancestry.com after he’d left the company, he said. This has to be done at the technology layer and not through some terms of service agreement that can be altered further down the line. “Did we want this kind of an outcome with a few trillion dollar companies controlling the internet? Not really,” Allen said in an interview. “We have sovereign citizenship in the countries we live in. We must have sovereign citizenship in the future of the web, respecting our human rights in the digital world.” Since establishing the Frequency blockchain, Project Liberty has recruited 1.3 million users. SOAR’s Family and Citizens will bring tens of millions more in the future, as people look for alternatives to existing all-powerful social media platforms, said Tomicah Tillemann, Project Liberty's president. As well as bringing decentralization it’s a chance “to do AI right,” he said. Project Liberty is also a prospective bidder for the U.S. version of Chinese-owned firm TikTok (the so-called “people’s bid”), should the firm be forced to sell to a U.S. owner. Tillemann said there has been a lot of activity around the TikTok bid and commitments of tens of billions of capital to participate in the effort. “We are widely regarded at this point as the leading bidder for the U.S. assets of TikTok in the event that they become available,” Tillemann said. “We are working with a wide array of stakeholders to ultimately bring TikTok and its 170 million U.S. users onto the same infrastructure that we're talking about in our partnership with the Frequency blockchain.” Project Liberty will host its inaugural Summit on the Future of the Internet in Washington D.C. on Nov. 21-22. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/11/18/project-liberty-joins-soar-to-challenge-centralized-social-media-giants-with-ai-decentralized-data/

2024-11-18 10:53

The total cryptocurrency market hits a new all-time high of $3.025 trillion as bitcoin consolidates around $92,000. To the general populace, bitcoin is considered a risk-on asset due to its volatility and perceived correlation with U.S. equities. In 2024, bitcoin and nasdaq have gone up or down together on the same day only 52% of the time. Bitcoin (BTC), the largest token by market capitalization, is currently around the $92,000 price mark, up over 115% year-to-date. At the same time, the total cryptocurrency market has just breached $3.025 trillion, a new all-time high according to the metric TOTAL on TradingView. The market perceives bitcoin as a risk-on asset; one of the riskiest assets in the market, the higher the degree of risk, the further out on the risk curve the asset is. Bitcoin has an implied volatility of approximately 60% over the past 30 days, according to Glassnode data. However, the implied volatility has come down from over 100% in 2021. If bitcoin is held correctly in self-custody the fundamental properties of bitcoin support the idea of no inherent counterparty risk with the asset. As bitcoin is considered a risk-on asset, it tends to have a high correlation with U.S. equities, which are also a risk-on asset, but again, not as far on the risk curve as bitcoin. Looking at TradingView data, on a 30-day correlation basis, over the past five years, bitcoin has experienced periods of 1:1 correlation with the Nasdaq Composite. This was very much the case for 2021 and 2022 when both assets rose together and fell together; some would say they were joined at the hip. This trend continued into the first half of 2024, when bitcoin broke its all-time high, and went above $73,000 in March. However, since March, the Nasdaq has continued to make new all-time highs while bitcoin consolidated in a long-range between $50,000 and $70,000. But since Donald Trump won the U.S. election on Nov. 6, bitcoin has only continued to soar, while the nasdaq has stagnated. The current 30-day correlation between the two assets is just 0.46, one of the lowest recorded levels in the past five years. While in September, we observed a negative correlation of almost -0.50. Since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, bitcoin went on to make new highs above $93,000, while the Nasdaq also went on to make new all-time highs shortly after. However, the interesting part is the Nasdaq has fallen further away from its all-time high, of 4%, while bitcoin is just over 1.5% away from new highs. Out of the 222 trading days so far in 2024, bitcoin CME futures (which trades five days a week) and the Nasdaq have either fallen or risen together just 52% of the time, according to data from Investing.com. However, three of the past four trading days have seen bitcoin rise while the Nasdaq has fallen. This may be a small sample size, but it is something to keep an eye on. Fidelity data shows two charts. The chart on the left shows the sharp ratio of major asset classes over the past five years. A sharp ratio compares an investment's return with its risk; according to the data, bitcoin would be the best asset class in terms of performance against its risk. Second is how major assets are correlated with the S&P 500; bitcoin has only a 19% correlation with SPX, a relatively small correlation. The data implies that bitcoin will be correlated to risk-on assets at certain moments, especially in times of risk-on or risk-off. However, the data shows that over a long period of time, and especially in the back half of 2024, we are starting to see a divergence in the correlation between bitcoin and the Nasdaq. As bitcoin becomes a larger asset class, now the seventh largest asset by market cap, it is expected to start to trade on its own as the market has a better understanding of the asset. Bitcoin and ether's correlation weakens This is also the case between the two largest tokens by market cap, bitcoin and ether (ETH). Since 2019, ether and bitcoin have had a 1:1 correlation, with a brief dip in 2021, when ether soared beyond bitcoin during the bull market where bitcoin stagnated. However, on a 30-day rolling correlation, bitcoin and ether now just have a 0.35 correlation, which is the second lowest recorded level. The expectation is that as the market continues to gain a better understanding of these two assets, they may have a 1:1 correlation in certain moments, but over a long enough time frame, assets that used to be correlated may start to deviate away from one another. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/18/bitcoins-correlation-to-us-equities-and-ether-weakens-van-straten/

2024-11-18 09:18

According to BCA Research analysis of fractal patterns, the bitcoin price might climb above $200,000. Despite bitcoin's recent surge, one analysis shows the price might rise as high as $200,000. A gauge based on 260-day fractal patterns is not even close to the levels seen at previous bull market peaks, BCA Research said in a note Thursday. While bitcoin (BTC) is still hovering below the six-figure mark, one firm is confidently predicting the price could more than double from the current market rate of $90,000. Yes, you read that right. According to BCA Research, bitcoin's ultimate target could be more than $200,000. The prediction is based on bitcoin's "260-day fractal dimension complexity," a measure of the patterns that appear in bitcoin's price changes. The metric remains well above 1.20, a threshold that has signaled bull market peaks when the reading is lower. BCA Research suggests that this time a drop below that level could correspond to prices exceeding $200,000. The gauge measures the complexity of the price changes over 260 days. It is a signal based on the quantification of the dimensionalities of fractals, which are patterns that appear at various scales and are often observed in nature and mathematics. In financial markets, fractal analysis identifies recurring patterns and informs predictions. A higher fractal dimension complexity means difficulty interpreting price trends, making market movements more unpredictable. A declining reading suggests that price patterns are becoming more predictable and stable. Low readings can represent complacency in the market, a false sense of security among traders that prices could continue to move in a particular direction. Such a situation is usually seen at bull market tops. "Despite bitcoin's election-fueled rally, its 260-day complexity is not yet close to the 1.2 level that would signal the start of another crypto winter," the BCA Research team led by Chief Strategist Dhaval Joshi said in a Nov. 14 note to clients. "Hence, while we should expect a near-term retracement, bitcoin's structural uptrend is intact with an ultimate destination of $200,000+." The team said the value of bitcoin's network effect has substantial upside and as global wealth rises, the value of the network effect of both gold and bitcoin will also increase. "In the case of both gold and bitcoin, their network effect comes from the collective belief that they are the non-confiscable assets to own in a fiat monetary system. And that certain portion of total wealth must be held in these non-confiscable assets as an insurance against hyperinflation, banking system failure, or state expropriation." https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/18/bitcoin-near-a-record-high-might-be-just-half-the-journey-as-bca-research-signals-200k/

2024-11-18 08:02

While on-chain metrics show no uptick in Runes protocol on chain metrics as of Monday, these typically follow social activity and narratives, with prices leading afterward. Memecoins like PUPS, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON, and BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT are becoming popular beta bets for Bitcoin's growth. The Runes protocol, which facilitates the creation of fungible tokens directly on Bitcoin using its UTXO model, has overtaken BRC-20 in market capitalization. Memecoins serve as a speculative asset during times of low volatility in other crypto sectors. Bitcoin-based memecoins are gaining traction among some crypto traders on X as a beta bet on bitcoin (BTC) amid its surge to lifetime peaks, making the sector a hot narrative to watch for everyday traders. Tokens such as PUPS, DOG•GO•TO•THE•MOON (DOG), BILLION•DOLLAR•CAT (BDC), MEME, among others, have gained as much as 35% in the past 24 hours to lead gains among all tracked categories, CoinGecko data shows. Smaller tokens such as CYPHER•GENESIS (CYPHER) has risen over 77%. The market capitalization of Runes tokens, the protocol that supports these assets, have flipped BRC-20 (another Bitcoin-based protocol) in the past 24 hours, data shows. Such moves came as BTC added more than 30% in the past 30 days on the back of Republican Donald Trump’s presidential election, boosting sentiment and growth across the sector for his pro-crypto stance. Runes were created earlier in 2024 to facilitate the creation and management of fungible tokens on Bitcoin. Runes allow users to create fungible tokens, which are interchangeable digital assets similar to how Bitcoin itself or Ethereum's ERC-20 tokens function. These utilize Bitcoin's Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs) model. Each UTXO can hold any amount of various Runes, making the management of tokens more aligned with Bitcoin's native structure, potentially reducing network congestion caused by "junk" UTXOs from other token standards like BRC-20. Data, however, show no uptick in Runes protocol on chain metrics as of Monday. Onchain metrics typically follow social activity and narratives, with prices leading afterward. Beta bets are a way to gain exposure to a network, ecosystem or asset using related tokens. Since early 2023, memecoins have emerged as the preferred beta asset for various ecosystems, such as Ethereum or Solana, which has contributed to their appeal among investors. Interest in memecoins generally comes amid low market volatility in more serious crypto sectors, such as layer-2s or storage, and rising negative sentiment around tokens backed by venture capital funds – which are increasingly perceived as overpriced and a bad bet for retail traders. The focus on meme coins to bet on growth isn't unique to Bitcoin. Several Solana-based meme coin tokens surged from December 2023 to March as the network’s SOL tokens took off – contributing to ecosystem growth and attention — while fuelling the mothership’s prices. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/11/18/missed-btc-rally-to-93k-bitcoin-memecoins-could-be-next-to-watch/