FreeCryptoCurrency.Me

At an event Monday, FinCEN staffers discussed the “why” of a new proposal that has crypto fans concerned.

IBM scored a new patent last week that hints at potential uses of blockchain-based consensus in gaming environments — particularly those of the massively multiplayer variety.

The patent, entitled “Gaming concensus protocol for blockchain,” was awarded on November 10. First filed in 2018, the patent outlines examples by which a game’s participants — particularly those in a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game — would participate in the ordering of transactions that make up the game’s flow of information. Players would, in effect, be akin to bitcoin miners in that their hardware and software resources would be used to order transactions in blocks.

What’s more, those peers could potentially get paid for contributing their resources to the game. As the document explains:

“In one embodiment, the consensus algorithm is provided as a service from the game network to any blockchain network, thus blockchain networks can delegate consensus to a distributed network of game clients within the gaming peers. In the preferred embodiment, for each transaction processed by the massively multiplayer online gaming network, a fee would apply. These fees may be distributed between the participants of the consensus round (i.e. participants/users associated with each gaming peer ) as an incentive, be used to maintain the network infrastructure or any other purpose that serves the gaming network and the players.”

As the document goes on to stress, this player-centric consensus model only forms one part of the overall system. But their role could expand should sufficient computing power be assembled.

“The gaming peers would only perform consensus on the ordering of the transactions. The execution of smart contracts remains within the blockchain network. In some embodiments, smart contract execution could be moved to the massively multiplayer online gaming network if the gaming peers have sufficient computing power to perform the additional task of executing the smart contracts and if the business case allows it in terms of security and confidentiality,” the document explains.

To date, IBM has not revealed much in the way of its thinking on the gaming and blockchain front. The tech giant published a third-party blog post in February about the ways in which the technology intersects with the gaming world, highlighting the use of non-fungible tokens for in-game assets.

© 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

SkyBridge Capital is giving itself an opening to indirectly invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

A world in which bitcoin becomes the global reserve currency is a world many of us would not want to live in.

When crypto companies are denied liability insurance, they are disincentivized from innovating.

The exchange is discontinuing its own BGBP stablecoin, an “experiment” that obviously wasn’t a success.

A pair of filings for SkyBridge Capital — the investment firm founded by Anthony Scaramucci — indicates that the company is eyeing investments that give it some exposure to digital assets.

SkyBridge Capital is a so-called fund of funds, meaning it invests in other funds. As the filings note:

“The Company may seek exposure to digital assets (as defined herein) by investing in Investment Funds that provide exposure to digital assets. Investments by the Company and/or Investment Funds may also be made in companies providing technologies related to digital assets or other emerging technologies.”

As the filings later note: “Investment Funds may hold long and short positions in digital assets. Digital assets (also known as “virtual currencies,” “cryptocurrencies,” “coins” or “tokens” or similar terms) are assets that are issued and/or transferred using technological innovations such as distributed ledger or blockchain technology and include, but are not limited to, Bitcoin.”

The filings — dated November 13 and 16 — don’t contain any information on whether SkyBridge has moved to make any investments in this arena. The filing was first spotted by researcher Kevin Rooke.

During an appearance on The Block’s The Scoop podcast, Scaramucci — the firm’s founder and managing partner — spoke about the headline-generating comments from macro investor Paul Tudor Jones on bitcoin. 

“There is an era coming where everybody is going to want to own something that is less manipulated by the governments as it relates to a store of value,” Scaramucci said at the time.

© 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Rise in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths could dent consumer confidence and retailer revenue during the crucial holiday shopping season.

Miners in China have reportedly been struggling to pay for electricity after authorities started cracking down on OTC brokers in the country.

A loophole in MakerDAO’s collateralized debt market enables positions to be closed far more leniently than intended due to an oversight in the auction process.