Humans have long sought answers to the fundamental questions of our existence. How did we get here? What is our purpose? Should I buy the dip? For some, the answers lie in churches full of sacred texts. But others place their faith in the house that Satoshi built, and on the blockchain.
Matt Liston, former CEO of cryptocurrency company Augur, recently collaborated with artist Avery Singer to found a blockchain-based religion called 0xΩ, pronounced “Zero Ex Omega”.
Last year Anthony Lewandowski, an AI developer formerly with Uber, unveiled an AI-based religion called “ Way of The Future .” And, at the time, it seemed like the strangest modern technology-inspired religion we’d see.
But Liston’s religion seems like the ultimate “HODL my beer” to that sentiment.
It’s hard to make sense of 0xΩ based solely on what Liston and Singer have told the media, but there’s enough information to make some assumptions. Business Insider reports Liston said:
That sounds a whole lot like “we’re going to upload our souls to the blockchain,” and, if that’s true, we’d absolutely love to see the white paper on that.
It might be easier to understand a religion that worships an AI, like Lewandowski’s Way of the Future, because, well, machines can communicate with us. Some theories on artificial general intelligence indicate that one day machines could become sentient, perhaps even surpassing humans in intellect. So, it follows, there’d be some folks willing to take the early plunge and try and get on our future robot overlords’ good sides.
Blockchain, on the other hand, seems better suited to facilitate worship than recieve it — but we’re not judging. Singer, for example, indicated to Business Insider that she believed people might one day tokenize a piece of art she’d created as a form of prayer.
The art in question? A narwhal with a doge head and an Etheruem tail. Yep, seems about right.
Credit: Avery Singer
Share your thoughts on the decentralization of God in the comments section below — or just put a prayer on the blockchain and hope it reaches us.
The never-ending Mt. Gox saga: Cryptocurrency recovery deadline pushed back (again!)
I hate to be the bearer of bad news , but victims who lost money as a result of Mt. Gox ‘s implosion will have to wait even longer to get their refunds.
The news comes after the trustee, tasked with refunding users, again decided to extend the submission deadline for claims.
In a statement released earlier this week, Nobuaki Kobayashi said a Tokyo District Court had issued an order to extend the deadline until March 31, 2020.
Kobayashi announced the deadline extension just one day before the current one, which was agreed in April , expired.
When it collapsed in 2014, Mt. Gox was the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, handling approximately 70 percent of all Bitcoin transactions.
It officially filed for liquidation in April 2014, claiming 750,000 BTC had been lost , although 200,000 BTC was later recovered from a “forgotten” wallet .
Nobuaki Kobayashi was appointed a trustee after former CEO Mark Karpeles failed to safely operate the exchange .
Last summer, a press release was published on the Mt. Gox website alongside an online tool for submitting claims, signaling it was readying to return $1 billion in stolen cryptocurrency .
As frustrating as it must be for victims, it seems they have no other choice but to sit and wait for their cryptocurrency to be returned.
SEC charges EtherDelta founder with running unregistered securities exchange
In what could prove to be a groundbreaking case, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the founder of cryptocurrency trading platform EtherDelta, Zachary Coburn, with running an “unregistered national securities exchange.”
The order claims EtherDelta facilitated more than 3.6 million orders for ERC20 tokens (a popular Ethereum-based token protocol), many of which purportedly fall under local federal securities laws. “ EtherDelta offered trading of various digital asset securities and failed to register as an exchange or operate pursuant to an exemption,” the order reads.
The filing further notes that EtherDelta purportedly brokered most of these transactions after the SEC issued a report warning that cryptocurrency exchange platforms are required to register or operate pursuant to an exemption. It appears EtherDelta didn’t get the memo though.
“EtherDelta had both the user interface and underlying functionality of an online national securities exchange and was required to register with the SEC or qualify for an exemption,” said SEC co-director of enforcement, Stephanie Avakian.
The SEC says that Coburn has already consented to the order and agreed to pay over $300,000 in fines and penalties. For the record, the investigation is still ongoing, and Coburn has neither admitted or denied the findings of SEC’s report.
While regulators are finally starting to pay attention to blockchain and cryptocurrency tech, the legal status of such digital assets remains mostly a grey area. Earlier this year, the SEC suggested that Ethereum is “ too decentralized ” to be considered a security. But this ruling implies this might not necessarily be the case for Ethereum-based tokens.
