Lifeboat Foundation

Blockchain is a digital technology that allows a secure and decentralized record of transactions that is increasingly used for everything from cryptocurrencies to artwork. But Yale researchers have found a new use for blockchain: they’ve leveraged the technology to give individuals control of their own genomes.

Their findings are published June 29 in the journal Genome Biology.

“Our primary goal is to give ownership of genomic data back to the individual,” said senior author Mark Gerstein, the Albert L. Williams Professor of Biomedical Informatics and professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, of computer science, and of statistics and data science.

Following an early morning vote in Albany on Friday, lawmakers in New York passed a bill to ban certain bitcoin mining operations that run on carbon-based power sources. The measure now heads to the desk of Governor Kathy Hochul, who could sign it into law or veto it.

If Hochul signs the bill, it would make New York the first state in the country to ban blockchain technology infrastructure, according to Perianne Boring, founder and president of the Chamber of Digital Commerce. Industry insiders also tell CNBC it could have a domino effect across the U.S., which is currently at the forefront of the global bitcoin mining industry, accounting for 38% of the world’s miners.

The New York bill, which previously passed the State Assembly in late April before heading to the State Senate, calls for a two-year moratorium on certain cryptocurrency mining operations which use proof-of-work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions. Proof-of-work mining, which requires sophisticated gear and a whole lot of electricity, is used to create bitcoin. Ethereum is switching to a less energy-intensive process, but will still use this method for at least for another few months.

When reading about the emerging cryptoworld and the new opportunities presented by blockchain technology, you may be enchanted by rags-to-riches stories with billions made overnight, or perhaps be horrified by scams, where the founders of fraudulent projects skip off to Tahiti with their investor’s money. However, it’s doubtful that the first thing that pops into your mind will be grizzly tales of extortion, kidnapping, and even murder. But for blockchain pioneers, falling victim to these horrific crimes is a very real risk that they must be wary about every day.

The explosive profit potential of cryptocurrencies has attracted a myriad of extortionists, scammers, and outright criminals over the years since Bitcoin was first launched in January of 2009. Some developers have had their companies’ reputations damaged by such conmen, and some have ended up beaten, kidnapped, and even killed.

One business that found itself the target of such nefarious opportunists was a Singapore-based company called Skycoin, which is still dealing with the fallout from these attacks to this day. After taking the rather innocuous decision to hire a marketing company to do PR and improve their website, the project and its co-founder found themselves caught in a web of blackmail, deceit, and crime that most people would only encounter in a crime thriller directed by Quentin Tarantino.

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BITCOIN 14ZMLNppEdZCN4bu8FB1BwDaxbWteQKs8i.
BITCOIN CASH 1LhXJjN4FrfJh8LywR3dLG2uGXSaZjey9f.
ETHEREUM 0x1f89b261562C8D4C14aA01590EB42b2378572164
LITECOIN LdB94n8sTUXBto5ZKt82YhEsEmxomFGz3j.
CHAINLINK 0xDF560E12fF416eC2D4BAECC66E323C56af2f6666.

Continue reading “Personal Identity, Mind-Uploading, and the Teletransportation Paradox” »

The U.S. Department of Treasury today sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Blender.io used last month by the North Korean-backed Lazarus hacking group to launder funds stolen from Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge.

In the wake of the attack, Sky Mavis (the bridge’s creator) revealed that hackers breached the Ronin bridge on March 23 to steal 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC tokens in two transactions worth $617 million at the time, the largest cryptocurrency hack in history.

The previous most significant theft of cryptocurrency was the $611 million Poly Network hack in August 2021.

Crypto’s biggest skeptics see plenty of reasons to criticize the industry, but generally at the heart of most complaints is a belief that crypto is contributing very little to society while burning massive amounts of energy.

While crypto’s believers could squabble over the former point until they’re blue in the face, the latter is a little harder to deny. Bitcoin uses an estimated 204.50 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year at current rates according to the oft-cited tracker built by Digiconomist, this number is equal to the power consumption of Thailand. Meanwhile Ethereum’s energy footprint is half the size but still comparable to the power consumption of Kazakhstan. In 2018 the United States reported its total consumption of electricity as 4,222.5 TWh.

For some legislators, those numbers are hard to swallow. This week, the New York State Assembly passed a bill that had team crypto up in arms. The bill blocks the formation of crypto mining firms in the state that rely on non-renewable power. It notably doesn’t apply to existing facilities. A corresponding bill is currently making its way through the Democrat-controlled state senate. everyone, and welcome back to Chain Reaction.