The US Patent Office has today issued sportswear brand Nike‘s patent for its blockchain -compatible sneakers dubbed “CrpytoKicks.”
The patent outlines a system whereby blockchain can be used to attach cryptographically secured digital assets to a physical product, in this case a sports shoe.
It seems Nike‘s platform will also track the ownership and verify the authenticity of sneakers using the blockchain-based system.
When you buy a pair of the “CryptoKicks,” you’ll also receive a digital asset attached to a unique identifier of that shoe. As a result, there is digital scarcity of the digital assets, as their production is effectively tied to the production of real sneakers.
“When a consumer buys a genuine pair of shoes a digital representation of a show may be generated, linked with the consumer, and assigned a cryptographic token, where the digital shoe and cryptographic token collectively represent a ‘CryptoKick,'” the patent reads.
When sneakers are sold to someone else, ownership can be transferred by trading both real shoe and/or associated digital assets. These digital assets can be stored in what’s being called a “Digital Locker,” a cryptocurrency wallet type app.
But there’s more. It seems someone at Nike has been playing CryptoKitties, as owners of “CryptoKicks” will be able to “intermingle or breed the digital shoe with another digital shoe to create ‘shoe offspring’ and have the offspring made as a new, tangible pair of shoes.”
The original patent application was filed back in April so some of these details won’t come as a surprise to some.
But with the patent now granted by the US Patent Office, perhaps we can expect to see CryptoKicks in the wild at some point in the future. Though there’s been no mention of a launch, yet.
Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Ermahgerd, there’s a Bitcoin node in the International Space Station now’
Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.
Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Descartes used to say: Crack open this tasty lobster!
Bitcoin price
We closed the day, December 08 2019, at a price of $7,564. That’s a minor 0.17 percent increase in 24 hours, or $13. It was the highest closing price in seven days.
We’re still 62 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).
Bitcoin market cap
Bitcoin’s market cap ended the day at $136,847,419,896. It now commands 67 percent of the total crypto market.
Bitcoin volume
Yesterday’s volume of $15,409,908,086 was the lowest in four days, 6 percent below the year’s average, and 65 percent below the year’s high. That means that yesterday, the Bitcoin network shifted the equivalent of 328 tons of gold.
Bitcoin transactions
A total of 278,705 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 15 percent below the year’s average and 38 percent below the year’s high.
Bitcoin transaction fee
Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $0.11. That’s $3.59 below the year’s high of $3.71.
Bitcoin distribution by address
As of now, there are 11,407 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.
Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 5.6 percent of the total supply, the top 100 15.0 percent, and the top 1000 34.9 percent.
Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin
With a market capitalization of $137 billion, Total has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.
Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million
On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.
He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s 95.0 percent behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $152,805 by now, according to dickline.info.
Bitcoin on Twitter
Yesterday 14,176 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 22.8 percent below the year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day this year about Bitcoin was 41,687.
Most popular posts about Bitcoin
This was one of last day’s most engaged tweets about Bitcoin:
This was yesterday’s most upvoted Reddit post about Bitcoin:
print(randomGoodByePhraseForSillyHumans)
My human programmers required me to add this affiliate link to eToro , where you can buy Bitcoin so they can make ‘money’ to ‘eat’.
Kodak, now a pharma company, expects drugs to make up 30-40% of its future business
Eastman Kodak stock more than tripled on Tuesday after the company revealed a pivot to pharmaceuticals in support of the US response to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Wall Street Journal , Kodak will soon play a role in curbing the US’ reliance on medicines from outside sources like China — starting with producing ingredients for generic drugs like the Donald Trump-touted hydroxychloroquine.
Kodak chief exec Jim Continenza told WSJ he expects basic pharma ingredients to eventually make up 30% to 40% of the company’s overall business.
Kodak took a $765 million loan from the US International Development Finance Corporation to power the shift, which is effectively a government bank. The deal is reportedly similar to a commercial loan, and must be paid off over 25 years.
Kodak‘s market value was roughly $115 million before today’s rally, and sits at around $390 million at pixel time.
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The last time Kodak stock rallied like this was in 2018, when it revealed its intention to fund a blockchain-powered rights management platform with an initial coin offering for a branded cryptocurrency, of all things.
Needless to say, that didn’t work out as Kodak had probably wanted. Here’s to hoping it fairs better as an all-American pharma company.
