This world is hard to keep up with, thb. I probably spend 2 – 2.5 hours a day on Twitter keeping up with as much as I can, at least within tech, politics, and finance – that’s what my feed is comprised of.
In an effort to distill the big tech stories that came out this past week, here are the top things I think you need to know now:
Congress seeks to understand Cryptoland
Here, a Forbes contributor gives us all the key points from Wednesday when Congress held a hearing about cryptocurrencies and blockchain and how they are impacting the U.S. Here’s what I took away, from his takeaways:
- Congress wants to be the adults in the room (…… umm ok….) and help the cryptocurrency space grow responsibly as part of having a vested interested in securities and economic growth
- “Proper regulation doesn’t always mean intrusive regulation.” I sure hope not. And then this: “In some cases, there may not be any regulation at all.”
- “Understanding why blockchain technology is valuable:” should the Howie Test be the standard in determining if something is a security? Personally, I don’t think so – it is too ambiguous and can be framed to fit a myriad of security/not security explanations.
- And from Amber Baldet who testified: “Blockchain technology is not the answer to every problem.” Yes, thank you.
Augur launched and the first bets are in
One of the first companies ever to host an ICO, Augur, the Ethereum-blockchain prediction market protocol, has finally launched after being in development for three years. Augur launched the week before last (finally!!), and the big news this week was that the first bets to be made on the prediction market had just paid out to the tune of $20k.Well done to the early adopters who took a chance right out of the gate on the tech. This news is important because such a protocol incentives use of the blockchain by a mainstream audience, and makes it possible for anyone to make a market, about just about anything. You can bet on political outcomes, sports, your next grade, or whether my dog will let me brush her teeth tonight. Try it.
Congress wants to understand social media in 2018
They had a hearing on what it takes to ban a Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube account, on account of all the fake stuff out there, and the users (scammers, jerks, and/or bots), who abuse the platforms with hate, conspiracy theories, and harassment. They heard from the three tech giants about their “content filtering practices.” It was a good effort, but ultimately the hearing fell on party lines and it seems that it became a left vs. right conversation….
Critics warm up to Tesla’s Model 3 after giving it a bashing
In April a small firm from Detroit that critiques new cars, Munro & Associates, said that Tesla’s Model 3 was both poorly constructed and very costly to build. They’ve since reversed the second point – the Tesla Model 3 has been found to be profitable for the company. It’s a PR win for Elon.
Civic has purchased Identity.com with plans to launch an identity marketplace
News broke last week that Vinny Lingham’s team had purchased Identity.com (for a lot of money), in order to launch a marketplace for users to sell companies access to their data. Coindesk explained it as: “Identity.com will serve as a hub for businesses that have information and those that need it. So, rather than one company selling data about its users directly to another firm, the first company that can verify data would share that attestation with the user, who would then share it with the second firm that needs the information.” Now we can have control over who gets to our own data? I’m looking forward to trying this out.
And
Last night I spoke at an event that featured five different perspectives on blockchain. I was asked how I know what I know about this industry, and I said, Twitter. Check out who I follow for the who’s-who in Cryptoland.
