Alarm Over Bitcoin Mining 4966

The amount of electricity consumed by bitcoin mining is not the global environmental crisis it is often portrayed to be. This is the professional assessment of Dr. Katrina Kelly-Pitou,  a research associate in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

‘New Technologies Are Energy Intensive’

Writing in an article penned for non-profit academic media outlet The Conversation, Kelly-Pitou criticizes the characterization of bitcoin mining’s energy consumption as some sort of fatal design flaw, stating that the general narrative around cryptocurrency as an environmental risk is a gross oversimplification that encourages the spread of factual inaccuracies as received wisdom.

Explaining why she thinks of the so-called “bitcoin energy crisis” as a red herring, she says:

“I am a researcher who studies clean energy technology, specifically the transition toward decarbonized energy systems…New technologies – such as data centers, computers and before them trains, planes and automobiles – are often energy-intensive. Over time, all of these have become more efficient, a natural progression of any technology: Saving energy equates to saving costs.”

At a time when a lot of the conversation around the future of bitcoin mining is dominated by statistics such as the fact that it currently consumes almost as much electricity as the Republic of Ireland, Kelly-Pitou believes that to restrict the conversation to the energy consumption of bitcoin mining alone is to miss a larger truth about energy and environmental concerns.

In her opinion, the use of renewable energy allows for increased power consumption for any purpose including bitcoin mining without having any negative environmental impact. The conversation should instead, she says, be centered around where the electricity used to power cryptocurrency mining comes from and how it is generated.

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CME Group Announces Launch of Euro-denominated Bitcoin and Ether Futures 5183

CME Group, the world’s leading derivatives marketplace, today launched Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures.

“The launch of these new futures contracts builds on the strong growth and deep liquidity we have seen in our existing U.S. dollar-denominated Bitcoin and Ether futures contracts,” said Tim McCourt, Global Head of Equity and FX Products, CME Group. “Our new Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures will provide institutional clients, both within and outside the U.S., with more precise and regulated tools to trade and hedge exposure to the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap.”

Bitcoin Euro and Ether Euro futures contracts will be sized at five bitcoin and 50 ether per contract. These new contracts will be cash-settled, based on the CME CF Bitcoin-Euro Reference Rate and CME CF Ether-Euro Reference Rate, which serve as once-a-day reference rates of the euro-denominated price of bitcoin and ether.

These new futures contracts will be listed on and subject to the rules of CME.

For more information on this product, please visit https://www.cmegroup.com/cryptocurrencies#explore-our-cryptocurrency-products.

As the world’s leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world’s leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing.

OpiPets: The Rise of Blockchain in Formula 1 4892

Formula One is one of the greatest sports in the world and brings about the best automobile teams which compete for the title yearly. From the racing tracks in Spa to the roads of Monte Carlo in Monaco, Formula One has developed into a billion-dollar industry with teams and drivers boasting a cult following globally.

The relationship between Formula One and the blockchain industry has grown in recent years. In part due to the growing adoption of crypto and blockchain technology. Crypto.com made a significant splash when it was announced as a Global Partner of Formula One in 2021. They are not alone. Binance, FTX, Velas, Bybit, Tezos and memecoin project Floki have established partnerships within Formula 1.

The familiarity between Forumla 1 and blockchain companies demonstrates the acceleration of consumer adoption of blockchain and crypto related products and services. Where Shell, Hewlett Packard and Coke once stood, cryptocurrency exchanges, harware wallets and blockchain protocols now lead the way. The success of new concepts like NFTs has also inspired Formula One teams looking to increase consumer engagement through limited card collections that provide exclusive content and access for fans worldwide.

Opis Group and OpiPets took part in the Monaco NFT and Swim week conference which took place during the Grand Prix weekend. As one of the oldest and most prestigious dates on the F1 calendar Monaco played home for a hive of blockchain related activity.

OpiPets, a Free Play-to-Earn project and sister company Opis Cloud showcased their use cases and product development with other successful projects and tech investors.

Building an innovative P2E ecosystem

Although Play-to-Earn has attracted over a million users within its first two years, majorly due to its promise to reward players with crypto and NFT ownership, it is still faced with an uphill climb in terms of broader mainstream adoption.

The start-up costs for new players are a major barrier to the widespread adoption of P2E games. Participants must spend up to a thousand dollars to begin. Many people cannot afford to test it and often regard it as a risky investment. Many players are still dissatisfied after attempting to recover their initial investment.

Contrary to the original idea, many so-called P2E games have transitioned into Pay-to-Earn. This is due to their unsustainable tokenomics which invariably makes them abandon their original ideals.

OpiPets is one of the few projects that distinguishes itself from the popular model. It’s a free P2E online game in which players are rewarded with cryptocurrency and the ability to create, battle, obtain, and trade their own NFT OpiPet characters.

OpiPets uses the P2E concept and focuses on giving the community actual ownership of assets produced and digital economies and new ways to generate income.

More developments on the horizon

The OpiPets team has continued to work tirelessly to significantly reduce the adoption barriers that limit the popularity of blockchain games. It also plans to launch its game in Q3 2022. The game is expected to include exciting features and products for users to explore its ecosystem and acquire new assets.

AuroraFS DApps Development Capabilities to Be Enhanced 4849

Recent news reveals that AuroraFS has progressed in its vision and direction concerning the development of the next generation of DApps which will be deployed on the decentralized P2P cloud storage and distribution network. AuroraFS announced intentions to begin building DApps which will run on the content storage and streaming network, in addition to Web3Tube.

Web3Tube is the decentralized video storage and sharing application which has been in full test mode for over a month now. Web3Tube was the first decentralized application to display the power and ability of the decentralized cloud network known as AuroraFS. Now, with the expansion into development of more DApps, the search for DApps developers is on.

What do the New Development Plans Look Like?

The development of the next generation of DApps has triggered a search for Decentralized Application Developers to bring talent to AuroraFS in order to deliver just that. In order for the AuroraFS blockchain network to begin generating future DApps that will run on and demonstrate the power and expansiveness from the peer-provided global data resource pool, it will require fresh ideas and talent, so the network set out to find both.

The ideas are not only coming from contributors and advisors to the network, but also the AuroraFS network community has been asked to weigh-in and submit ideas for the next wave of DApps to be developed. It certainly presents as a sensible move since the community would be expected to have an instrumental part in operating those DApps on the front end. The community has been asked to play an intricate role in the development of the network in this way, as AuroraFS demonstrates by action, an evidential degree of trust in the opinions and views of its community, Web3Tube video creators, network users, AuroraFS and Web3Tube contest and campaign winners and airdropped AUFS token holders.

“We were excited to get feedback from the AuroraFS community. They’re using the network actively on Web3Tube and involved in all of the contests and upgrades that have been made to the decentralized network, so it is certainly a good idea to consider their valuable feedback for the next phase of AuroraFS DApps.” – Warwick Powell, Gauss Aurora Lab Design and Research Leader

DApps on AuroraFS up Until Now

Until now, the focus has almost exclusively been on Web3Tube, the initial DApp developed to demonstrate the vast capabilities of the AuroraFS decentralized content network. It took a great deal of time, while Web3Tube was in its conceptualization stage as AuroraFS was still deep in its development phase, just beyond theory and hypothesizing. Since that time, a downloadable version of Web3Tube went live and has been available since March, when future airdrop campaigns began.

Web3Tube is comparable to a platform such as YouTube, but innovative in that it is fully decentralized. To accomplish this, Web3Tube depends on the fully decentralized, yet fully secured AuroraFS innovation which combines state of the art technologies to create data efficiency advanced enough to deliver HD quality in a fully decentralized and secured environment. To pull this off and still maintain anonymity and integrity simultaneously, has in fact been an achievement thus far for AuroraFS, which motivates the decision and drive for the development of more DApps in this season.

Final Mentions and Next Steps for AuroraFS

With development plans for the next phase of DApps certain, AuroraFS moves closer to its expected token and mainnet launch in Q3 of this year. The exact date in Q3 has not been determined, as improvements in a strive for the utmost quality, are still regularly being made to the network and the Web3Tube application alike.

The final round of the third official future airdrop contests and campaigns also recently ended, and the Gauss Aurora Labs team of AuroraFS contributors, have made multiple appearances in blockchain and tech events. Members of the team were present at Blockchain Week in Australia at the end of March, and also FinTech21 which was held in Melbourne on May 18th and 19th. So then exposure has been a focus as the Gauss Aurora Labs team looks to educate individuals about the new blockchain development still not fully released.

What’s the Craze Around The Next War, a blockchain-based Play-To-Earn shooting game? 5280

The Next War

Shooting games have been a popular genre with one the largest user base of all. And with blockchain technology making inroads in the gaming industry, why not make the best out of both and create something fun and exciting? So, here we are with The Next War (TNW), a game that takes the Battle Royale style a step ahead.

While there are a bunch of other games in the market, none of them are sustainable. You spend a few hours playing one but does that help in any way apart from the excitement derived during that particular time. That changes now!

You can now play The Next War and earn rewards that can be converted into real-world assets. Even better, you can earn without really playing the game but by just being a part of the ecosystem. Now that we have your attention, let’s get started on what The Next War offers to gamers.

Graphics are at par with other shooting games

Graphics are one of the prime aspects a gamer looks for, and we have got that just right. With the best team of developers and gamers, we, more than anyone else, realize how critical graphics are and made it our top priority to provide the best experience in terms of visuals and gameplay.

The Next War is developed using Unreal Engine, one of the most powerful set of tools to create real-time 3-D visuals. The captivating visualization and immersive environment are all set to amaze you.

Exciting Game Modes to keep you glued

The Next War offers a bunch of game modes to cater to everyone. Whether you are a fan of playing solo, like to team up in-game or maybe start with a team, we have got it all covered.

The Battle Royale mode starts with you parachuting to a shrinking map with a bunch of others. Your goal here is to outlast the other players and be the last one standing. To achieve that, you can team up. And, as the map shrinks, players will be forced to fight off opponents and claim victory.

The Guild War is another exciting game mode where you will be participating with a bunch of teammates in a bid to conquer. It’s held once a week, you can use tanks and robot NFTs to put up a fierce fight and defeat the opponents.
The other three modes include Battle Pass, World-Class Tournament, and Leaderboard, with each offering you chances to win exciting rewards.

Heard of Play-to-Earn, we offer Watch-to-Earn!

TNW offers three modes where you can earn without actually playing the game. First is Support-to-Earn, where you can win rewards by supporting your favorite player or team.

The second is Bid-to-Earn, which is an auction-style mode in the marketplace. But unlike any other auction, it’s not just the highest bidder that takes the rewards home, here the participants chosen at random also get to win exciting prizes.

The third and probably the most interesting of all is Watch-to-Earn. In this mode, all you have to do is watch the live stream of a game and earn rewards. Earning couldn’t have been any simpler!

The Next War offers interoperability with Sandbox

We at The Next War have acquired a 3×3 land in the Sandbox for you to interact with the community from across the globe, play games, watch tournaments, and showcase your prized NFT collection. This will provide a seamless bridging between blockchains in the near future.

$TNG and $TNC, the two native tokens at stake

The $TNG or The Next War Gem is the primary token that will be used as a medium of exchange in the TNW ecosystem. Players can use it to purchase NFTs from the marketplace, get tournament access, and play mini-games. It can also be used to be a part of our Alpha/Beta, and those who manage to accomplish the missions stand a chance to double their tokens.

$TNC or The Next War Coin is a secondary token with an unlimited supply to power the ecosystem. Players can use it to purchase several items and utilities that might come in handy in-game.

To better fit into the market, The Next War decides to launch the mobile version instead of a PC version.

We intend to hold an IDO by May 2022 where gamers thrilled with the idea of The Next War can invest. Also, there is the largest tournament for shooters planned in the coming months to spread awareness. The alpha and beta testing are scheduled to be conducted in the third quarter of 2022.

To find more about The Next War and stay updated with the day-to-day developments, check our website and follow us on all social media platforms.

To learn more about The Next War visit www.thenextwar.io

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheNextWar
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/thenextwar
Telegram: https://t.me/thenextwarofficial
Medium: https://medium.com/@thenextwar.io
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyydRibwk1JvoVAqlIloTSQ
CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/the-next-war/

Algorand Looks to Prove Why Algoracle Is Needed in the Contemporary Blockchain and Crypto Sector 4637

As the complexity of current dApps (decentralized applications) on Algorand grows, so must the infrastructure, notably oracles, to enable significantly higher and better feature sets. In the Algorand ecosystem, Algoracle’s opinions on off-chain computing are therefore worth discussing in key detail.

What is it exactly?

Since smart contracts are unable to access external data on their own, all Web 3.0 technology is built on the foundation of the most crucial of blockchain middleware, oracles. The current generation of decentralized oracle networks therefore seeks to connect real-world, off-chain data to blockchains. As the complexity of contemporary dApps grows however, oracles must also mature and expand to accommodate significantly higher and deeper feature sets as aforementioned.

The next major frontier in oracle development is indeed off-chain computing, which essentially allows oracles to handle significantly more advanced programming logic as well as data aggregation requests on behalf of smart contracts in a permissionless way before publishing the data on-chain. As such, streamlining and enhancing the functionality of oracle off-chain computation not only greatly improves smart contract execution, cost efficiency, and scalability, but it additionally provides decentralized applications with an excellent quality of life features that we often take for granted in Web 2.0, which includes things like push notifications and transaction automation, without requiring dApps to rely on multiple services with varying levels of centralization.

Why is any of this important?

It is simple to envision that as teams construct more sophisticated dApps, the kinds of data sourcing, processing, and computing will become increasingly complicated. An application would often need to pull data from numerous sources while applying certain parameters and filtering logic. Aggregating data from several APIs, selected statistical methodologies, and various data types implies that these activities quickly get needlessly complex. As a result, more efficient methods of doing off-chain processing and applying logic to various circumstances and use cases are critical.

Furthermore, most EVM oracles currently offer rudimentary ways for requesting certain APIs, allowing users to choose the URL or JSON from which to send data, although they do not natively support data aggregation logic. Aggregated data streams are frequently built up or enabled on a case-by-case basis, resulting in data centralization and inflexibility regarding logic application.

A considerably superior oracle design, from the perspective of a developer, would thus enable off-chain data aggregation for general computation. Simply put, oracles should function similarly to Layer-2 smart contracts, where any high-level programming language may be utilized to execute trustless reasoning. Builders ought to have access to a uniform interface that is pre-programmed with this specific goal in mind.

So what’s the issue and how can Algorand help?

Sadly, due to outdated code and the necessity to manage backwards compatibility for current clients, the previously mentioned crucial quality-of-life changes and additions are extremely difficult to execute in existing V1.0 oracles. Attempting to roll out improvements that would improve off-chain computing in present state oracles would hence be analogous to adding new components to an already-flying airplane. Due to this, most oracle V2.0 upgrades would often still leave developers maintaining a plethora of interfaces, both for data feeds and Layer-2 operations.

Algoracle is working on creating a unified interface with off-chain processing in mind, made possible by the intelligent implementation of the Algorand consensus. The significance of Algorand’s Pure Proof of Stake (PPoS) consensus is that its advantages can be simply duplicated for oracle data. The PPoS strategy, based on the Byzantine consensus, avoids standard Proof-of-Stake (PoS) security issues by fortifying the network with an emphasis on a transparent majority without bias based on each validator’s entire stake.

In other words, instead of forced token lockups and the risk of big stakeholders exerting monopolistic control over the network in PoS, PPoS will instead introduce an egalitarian method which randomly selects validators from the entire validator body, thereby removing entry barriers along with any minimum stake requirements.

Since its inception, Algorand has been able to achieve incredible performance, scale, and 100% uptime because of this random selection mechanism, also known as the Verifiable Random Function (VRF) cryptographic sortition. Silvio Micali, the creator of Algorand, was a fundamental architect behind the concept of VRFs, which are now one of the most important building elements for cybersecurity and cryptography applications.

The importance of VRFs

Essentially, a VRF is a tamper-proof random number generator. Such a resource is extremely beneficial for smart contracts dealing with lotteries, auctions, assignment or selection of roles, or any other activity that requires trustlessly verified unpredictability.

Algoracle can deliver a superior ‘VRF-as-a-service’ offering while also creatively deploying VRFs at the node network consensus level to reach peak oracle efficiency by piggybacking on Algorand’s PPoS consensus and bottom-up creation of a unified interface.

By integrating VRFs at a lower level, Algoracle is hence able to deliver improved reliability and effectiveness. Algoracle’s implementation of VRF in PPoS consensus, which ensures assured random sampling of validators, permits not just next generation off-chain computing, but also many essential functionalities taken for granted in the Web 2.0 world that currently evade the offers of oracle providers today.

About Algoracle

Algoracle, the first dynamic, decentralized oracle network constructed on the Algorand blockchain, was developed in the autumn of 2021 and won first place in the Encode’s Algorand Hackathon.

The goal of Algoracle is to provide easy and accessible oracle solutions to help dApps built on Algorand access off-chain data safely, precisely, and fast. By providing decentralized participation which is guaranteed for all independent node operators and users wishing to contribute to the network for economic stimulation, Algoracle intends to be the most reliable, secure, and easy up-to-date real-world data source.

Algorcale believes that real-time data is incredibly useful and should be transmitted in a straightforward, accurate, and timely manner. It therefore aspires to be one of the blockchain sector’s major open-source oracle networks in the decentralized data processing ecosystem.

Also, Brave New Coin, Amberdata, Kaiko, and Nomics, are just some of the current partners. Meanwhile, Bankrolled, Glitter Finance, Equito Finance, Upside Finance, Prismatic, Webblen Network, Mercury Labs, AlgoGuard, and others are the major clients. In terms of biggest achievements, the seed round was successfully closed, and a vital partnership with Amberdata was also established. The mainnet launch, as well as the launch of the GORA token, along with providing VRF and computation capabilities are among the main points of focus for the next 12 months.

Popular BTM Operator: Bitcoin of America Welcomes Shiba Inu Coin to Its Bitcoin ATMs 6552

Bitcoin of America has officially announced the newest addition to their Bitcoin ATMs (BTMs). Shiba Inu coin is now available at Bitcoin of America ATM locations. Bitcoin of America has more than 1800 BTMs across 31 states. They recognized the growing popularity of Shiba Inu and decided it was time to include it in their BTMs. Bitcoin of America also offers Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum options. This news comes after their recent addition of Dogecoin in March of this year.

Bitcoin of America is a popular virtual currency exchange registered as a money services business with the United States Department of Treasury (FinCEN)(RegNum). They are known for their top-of-the-line customer support while also providing a fast and hassle-free transaction.

Bitcoin of America makes it easy for everyday businesses to get their hands on a Bitcoin ATM and for customers to buy Bitcoin. They take care of their host locations by providing passive income, increased foot traffic, and marketing. They even handle customer support and any maintenance/installation services.

The popular operator has made many updates to its BTMs and services over the past year. They launched their universal kiosks, which operate as a traditional ATM combined with BTM functions. Bitcoin of America has created a point-of-sale system for their tablet program, which has allowed businesses to accept cryptocurrency as a new form of payment. Bitcoin of America is constantly expanding and improving its services.