The Paraguayan Senate has approved a resolution supporting selling the country’s energy surplus to crypto mining companies, given the price and guarantees that these institutions offer. The declaration criticizes the subpar agreements that sell energy to Brazil for 25% of the fees collected for mining activities, calling to direct this energy to 20 new contracts […]
Bitcoin News
Worldcoin Adjusts Token Strategy; Shifts Orb Rewards and Alters Market Maker Agreements
Worldcoin, which uses iris biometrics to create a unique human identity database, said Sunday it is changing the distribution of its circulating WLD token supply and its market maker loan agreements. The project, launched in July, will decrease the loan amounts to market makers and will start rewarding operators with WLD instead of USDC.
Worldcoin Updates Token Supply and Loan Agreements
WLD’s circulating supply is now close to 134 million tokens, an increase from the 100 million at its debut. In an update published on Sunday, the company said this jump is attributed to more than 800,000 new and current users who claimed about 34 million tokens through free grants. To boost liquidity, Worldcoin provided 100 million WLD in loans to five market makers, with those loans set to end on October 24, 2023.
The company backed by Openai CEO Sam Altman has extended these loans to December 15 but has cut the overall loan amount to 75 million WLD. On October 24, market makers can return as many as 25 million tokens or buy them at a predetermined price, leading to a decrease in the circulating supply. Rewards for operators of Worldcoin’s Orb iris scanners will switch from USDC to WLD in the coming month.
“The WLD token was launched with a relatively low circulating supply of just above 100M WLD,” Worldcoin said. “This was due to the goal of creating a network of as many human beings as possible. To achieve this, the majority of the WLD token supply will be given to new and existing users in the form of user grants over the years to come.”
Worldcoin asserts that its iris biometric database will deter fraud and enhance access to key services like banking and voting. However, privacy proponents and governments have expressed worries over its centralized nature and data handling methods. Data watchdogs from France, Kenya, and other nations have raised concerns.
Even with its quick expansion, only 1.34% of Worldcoin’s overall token supply of 10 billion is currently in circulation. The initiative intends to keep awarding grants to expand its user community. These recent adjustments are intended to lessen the sway of market makers and to better reward network participants.
Bitcoin.com News has reported on several occasions that most of the WLD supply is currently dominated by Worldcoin and market makers. 750,157 unique addresses hold WLD today, and the top 100 holders command 92.74% of the maximum supply.
What do you think about Worldcoin’s latest update? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.
What Are Smart Contracts? Unpacking Today’s Digital Agreements
In the digital currency realm, smart contracts have enhanced the financial industry through tokenization, decentralized finance (defi) and other agreements in the form of self-executing code. But how exactly do they work? What benefits do they offer? Here’s a concise overview of smart contracts and their profound effect on trust and collaboration in our interconnected society.
Smart Contract Origins
If you keep up with cryptocurrency news you’ve likely heard of “smart contracts.” Smart contracts, in their current form, are self-executing agreements housed on a blockchain.
Fundamentally, the “smart” in smart contracts stems from automation, while the “contract” denotes a binding agreement or function that runs automatically. The idea of smart contracts was first posited by American computer scientist Nick Szabo.
Ethereum’s Role & Beyond
In the early 1990s, Szabo defined smart contracts as “a set of promises, specified in digital form, including protocols within which the parties perform on these promises.” Modern smart contracts, however, didn’t emerge overnight.
But with the advent of Ethereum, the blockchain’s Turing completeness and coding capabilities quickly made it the preferred platform for smart contract protocols. Ethereum’s Turing completeness means that, in theory, any computable function can be run on Ethereum, given sufficient processing power and time.
Programming With Solidity
This capability offers vast potential for the kinds of applications and contracts that can be developed, extending well beyond mere financial transactions. Typically, these contracts are coded in Solidity, a Turing complete language tailored for smart contract development.
Solidity code is then translated into bytecode, which the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) executes. Today, smart contracts facilitate a multitude of applications, including the trading of money, goods, real estate, tokenized bonds, securities and more.
The DAO Incident and Risks
Among the first smart contracts on Ethereum were a crowdfunding contract, a blockchain domain registration system, and digital assets and tokens. For instance, The DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization for venture capital, debuted in 2016.
Despite being the first DAO, it faltered due to a flaw in its smart contract. So, while smart contracts offer numerous benefits, they come with inherent risks such as software bugs, tainted oracle data, and the potential loss or theft of contract-controlling credentials.
Varied Use Cases
Comprehensive audits, formal verification, simplifying contract design, bug bounties and following best development practices can reduce these risks. Nevertheless, challenges with smart contracts persist. Yet, they have ushered in trustless peer-to-peer trading via decentralized exchanges, and streamlined lending and borrowing processes to facilitate collateral-backed loans and interest accrual.
They’ve enabled the birth of digital tokens that represent tangible assets like real estate, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), commodities, stocks, and more. Additionally, they’ve given rise to decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and other automated services, including file storage, prediction markets and shared computing power.
It’s safe to say that smart contracts have and still are revolutionizing the digital currency landscape, offering automation, security, and diverse applications. As they continue to evolve, their influence on trust and collaboration in our digital society is undeniable and transformative.
What do you think about smart contracts? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.
US Bitcoin Corp Secures Hosting Agreements for 150,000 Bitcoin Miners
On Thursday, the bitcoin mining company U.S. Bitcoin Corp revealed the firm has successfully secured hosting agreements with five different companies to install 150,000 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) bitcoin miners. The bitcoin mining machines will be hosted in data centers situated in Texas and Nebraska. The chosen sites for this endeavor are U.S. Bitcoin Corp’s Charlie, Delta, and Echo locations.
U.S. Bitcoin Corp Partners with Industry Leaders to Deploy 150,000 Bitcoin Miners in Texas and Nebraska
Despite the challenges faced during the crypto winter of 2022, a significant surge in bitcoin mining operations is now underway. On May 18, U.S. Bitcoin Corp (USBTC) unveiled its ambitious plan to unleash a formidable army of 150,000 mining machines. The latest deployment will be executed in collaboration with five prominent bitcoin mining operations: Marathon Digital, Foundry USA, Sphere 3D, Decimal Group, and Teslawatt.
USBTC sealed a multi-year deal to host their machines at the company’s Charlie, Delta, and Echo locations. The Charlie facility, nestled in Kearney, Nebraska, will be one of the hosting sites, while the Delta site is located in Granbury, Texas. Notably, the Echo mining site in Upton County, Texas, co-located with a wind farm, is a shared facility with joint ownership between USBTC and Nextera Energy (NEE). This partnership with NEE was solidified in December 2022 when USBTC acquired its stake from Compute North.
“Our most recent partnerships with major hosting customers showcase our commitment to collaborative growth and innovation,” Asher Genoot, the president of USBTC said in a statement. “We continue to expand operations across sites both fully owned by USBTC and operated in partnership with pioneering site owners like Generate Capital and Nextera Energy.”
Genoot added:
We are committed to driving the future of sustainable and efficient bitcoin mining infrastructure and our ability to secure major hosting contracts at these sites is a testament to this vision and our operating capabilities.
Following in the footsteps of others in the industry, USBTC joins a wave of mining companies deploying machines on a global scale. Notably, Cleanspark made headlines by acquiring 65,000 bitcoin miners from Bitmain, with the transactions occurring on two separate occasions in 2023.
Another significant move came from Stronghold Digital, who forged a strategic partnership with a subsidiary of the mining rig manufacturer Canaan. Stronghold’s collaboration aims to unleash the power of 400 petahash per second (PH/s) through the deployment of Avalon-made ASIC machines.
What are your thoughts on the recent expansion of bitcoin mining operations and the partnership between U.S. Bitcoin Corp and leading industry players? Share your insights and opinions in the comments section below.
Russian Gas Giant Gazprom to Use Blockchain in Gas Supply Agreements
n Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has welcomed a blockchain initiative by the countrys state-owned gas giant Gazpromn
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Korean Regulator Tells Crypto Exchanges to Revise User Agreements
South Korean regulators, whose decisions have shaken cryptocurrency markets in the past, are reportedly cracking down on exchanges’ contract terms.
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