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“Identity is one of our most fundamental human rights. Yet, in the age of surveillance, commodification and centralization, it is under threat.
Major internet platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google established themselves partially by achieving a sufficient level of consensus over their legitimacy as credential providers. Authentication systems are the key pathway through which these networks lock-in their subjects into extractive, scarcity-based, economic and social contracts.
The underlying architecture and ownership structure of these centralized identity protocols exposed society to surveillance, political manipulation and data theft. Eventually, this wealth of data accrues into credential monopolies, a perfect apparatus for anti-democratic practices.
Authentication mechanisms fundamentally shape socioeconomic, sociopolitical and socio-technical systems.
While Web 2.0 served, to an extent, to democratize content, it failed to drive meaningful political inclusion, partly due to a lack of protections against the creation of fake identities. Blockchain networks have similarly decentralized the creation of money, but the possibility of distributing this value equitably (e.g. in the form of a Universal Basic Income) was equally hampered by the lack of robust identity frameworks that could safeguard these currencies from attackers creating fake accounts to obtain more than their fair share of value. Addressing this foundational problem is the raison d’etre of Proof of Personhood.
Proof-of-personhood shifts the prevailing perspective on authentication. Instead of asking “who are you” – and then unilaterally exploiting and monetizing that personal data – it limits itself to “is this the only account you control?”
To formalize such unique online personas, new solutions entirely abstract objective markers of identity (such as name and nationality), which can easily be controlled, aggregated, repackaged, manipulated and subverted; instead favoring the use of subjective, human inputs (such as interpreting, conversing, or vouching).
In contrast to hyper-individualistic applications such as dark markets, where anonymity comes at the expense of accountability, these protocols are designed to foster prosocial, community-oriented behavior, where both users and applications are significantly limited in their ability to exploit and attack each other.
Paradoxically, the constraints they impose lead to unprecedented levels of both individual and collective agency. For the first time, they are creating a viable framework for social applications to be constructed upon an enduring bedrock of collective agency, consent and data dignity. In doing so, the heightened assurances and social richness of the offline world can be harnessed by online environments – moving them away from the current wild west paradigm of power concentration, inaccessibilities, fake identities and distorted social signaling.
In their earliest applications, proof-of-personhood networks are already manifesting several of cypherpunk’s most far-fetched dreams. Universal Basic Income cryptocurrencies, peer-to-peer democracies and public goods funding are simply a few of these newly piloted applications — which are now for the first time operationally possible. Human-only networks make space for cooperative and collective modes of economic functioning.”
“The launch of Eth2 staking is the bond offering for the decentralized economy. A decentralized, global economy entirely built on the internet. And people are just starting to wrap their heads around it.
In a matured state, the yield of the internet’s new settlement layer can become the risk free rate of a decentralized financial ecosystem and a benchmark for valuing the cost of trustless value transfer.
As internet bonds grow in popularity, creating a shared terminology and understanding around them will be critical to global adoption.
The Internet bond is an entirely new asset for financial markets. It allows anyone in the world to invest, participate, and profit off an open-sourced, decentralized digital economy.
The Eth2 Internet Bond is here.”
See Also: How to protect your Ethereum wallet
“However you feel about Joe Biden’s apparent victory in the most difficult presidential election in living memory, you’d be foolish to believe all is well in this country. Governance itself is broken. Too many people feel they have no agency, their voices aren’t heard, they have no means to shape policies that are dictated by vested interests.
We need a system designed for a globalized economy and an internet-connected society, one that favors transparency, accountability and efficiency, and which mitigates the influence of hidden, vested-interest money.
Applying the lens of decentralization and programmable contracts to big societal issues can help expose where current thinking is wrong. It can reveal how centralized control of information and transactions enables powerful interests to influence policy and, in so doing, undermine the free market.
Quadratic voting is designed to help small groups of voters who care deeply about particular issues while still constraining them from overly skewing results.
Blockchain-based tracing systems might not only give taxpayers a transparent view of how their taxes are being spent but also incorporate programmability. For example, the actual, uniquely identified dollars that you contribute could be channeled directly and transparently into identifiable services that immediately benefit you and your community.
Whether these ideas work or not, policymakers must restore the social covenant between those who govern and those who are governed. And that comes down to trust.
We are the principals in this relationship. As our representatives, government leaders are supposed to be our agents. But if there is insufficient trust in them, people instead see them as competitors.
As has been seen in countless failed states, a vicious, self-fulfilling cycle can arise. People avoid paying taxes so as not to feed the kleptocracy, which starves the state of the resources it needs, encouraging more corruption and theft by police and other employees of the state. The endgame in all that is a collapse in the most important expression of the state’s relationship with its people: its currency.
Buying bitcoin is one way for people to protect themselves from future governance failures. But it’s more important that we find solutions to prevent those failures.”
“Gensler taught a course at MIT about how Bitcoin and blockchain could be used in finance. He also penned an op-ed for Coindesk last December, in which he called Bitcoin a “catalyst for change,” despite its being prone to scams and manipulation.
As Biden cinches the presidency, adding Gensler to his roster suggests that pro-crypto regulation could—could—be on the cards.”
See Also: Crypto Impact Unclear After Joe Biden Unseats Donald Trump as Next US President
“The Associated Press today logged its projection that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States on the blockchain.
The idea is to publish the results of the US election cryptographically on the blockchain because, ‘In an era of misinformation, the need for verifiable information has never been greater.‘”
“Ethereum has just become the top 200th asset in the world, according to AssetDash. The cryptocurrency had to overtake a company that manufactures aircraft and spacecraft to achieve this feat. Ethereum also beat Volkswagen AG and Spotify.
In contrast, Bitcoin currently sits 21st on the list of top 200 assets by market capitalization.“
“When he was managing the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust Fund, Miller beat the S&P 500 for 15 years. On Friday, Miller warned of inflation “coming back” with the Federal Reserve “gunning the money supply” and future fiscal relief coming from Congress.
Following MicroStrategy’s purchase of $425 million in bitcoin, Square’s $50 million bitcoin investment and PayPal’s support of crypto buying and selling on its platform, Miller said every major investment bank and high net worth firm will eventually have exposure to bitcoin or commodities like gold.
Everybody is going to want to own at least some bitcoin because of its asymmetric properties.”
“The world of decentralized finance (DeFi) could be picking back up after adding over $1 billion to its smart contracts in just one week.
In the past 24 hours, the price of yearn.finance is up 32%, while Aave has risen by 15.13% and Chainlink, nearly 7%.”
See Also: Circle’s high-yield USDC business accounts take aim at DeFi
“Unknown miner(s) grabbed control of 57.4% of the network’s hashpower. While the attack is underway, the protocol is warning users to wait for extra confirmations on transactions for payment finality.
GRIN coins were down 2.23% to $0.235 at press time.”
“Cred listed estimated assets of between $50 million and $100 million and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million.
In October, the lender published a cryptic letter saying that it has experienced “irregularities” in the handling of “specific” corporate funds by a “perpetrator of fraudulent activity.””
“The Tokyo-based company said that the new system will meet the technical needs of electronic voting, including the prevention of double voting, accurate storage of voting content, voter confidentiality, and management of operation records.
In addition, it will enable voters to check their own voting results, providing the cryptographic ability to verify that the recording and aggregation processes for the votes on the blockchain network was performed correctly.”
The Disrupt 