Unhashed Podcast – Proof-of-Mom

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On this episode of the Unhashed Podcast, we touch on Square Crypto venturing in to the hardware wallet space, a Casa client getting drugged on a date, and then destroy our bitcoin-only cred by venturing into projects moving from Ethereum to Solana, PS4 Crypto Mining in Vinnytsa, and TikTok shitcoin promoting, and a new Korean token that takes ‘shitcoin’ a little too literally.

1. “We’re doing it”. That’s what Jack Dorsey tweeted about Square’s plans to build a Bitcoin Hardware wallet. Hardware lead at Square Jesse Dorogusker stated “We have decided to build a hardware wallet and service to make bitcoin custody more mainstream. We’ll continue to ask and answer questions in the open. This community’s response to our thread about this project has been awesome – encouraging, generous, collaborative, & inspiring.”

2. Another Australia-based blockchain company Power Ledger is to migrate to Solana from Ethereum in search of higher speed and scalability. The firm also cited the lower energy output of Solana’s Proof-of-History (POH) and Proof-of-Stake (POS) mechanisms in an announcement Monday. The Power Ledger Energy Blockchain is built to audit and streamline the buying and selling of renewable energy. “The Power Ledger technology stack was built on a low-power POS consortium in 2016 before transitioning to a modified fee-less Proof-of-Authority Ethereum consortium chain in 2017,” co-founder John Bulich said. “That serves its purpose in the short term but the limitations of this solution were always very apparent, including low transactions per minute,” he added. The platform’s POWR tokens will still be used for existing clients and remain on the Ethereum network.

3. Jameson Lopp posted a story of a Tinder Date gone wrong for one of his Casa Clients, initiated conversation with a woman who claimed to be a “cryptocurrency trader” according to her profile. The two exchanged pleasantries and eventually met up in person. Beyond feeling like her pictures were slightly different from her in-person appearance, the date appeared to be straightforward. It wasn’t until the two decided to go back to the man’s apartment that things turned sour. According to the post, “While he was there we suspect the woman laced our client’s drink with scopolamine, also known as ‘Devil’s Breath,’ or a benzodiazepine. These drugs are well known to cause loss of inhibition and memory loss.” “Some time later, he believes the woman picked up his phone and asked him to show her how to unlock it and find his passwords,” states the blog post. It goes on to say, “Our client woke up the next day in his bed and noticed his phone was missing, though his wallet along with cash, debit cards, and ID were still there.”

4. Ukrainian authorities have raided an allegedly illicit crypto farm in the country. According to an official announcement from the Security Service of Ukraine, the facility was located on the former premises of JSC Vinnytsiaoblenergo, an electricity supply company. The illegal crypto miners concealed their activities by manipulating electricity meters to steal electricity from JSC Vinnytsiaoblenergo. Described as the largest underground mining operation discovered by the Ukrainian police, the farm housed nearly 5,000 computer equipment units, including 3,800 PlayStation 4 consoles, over 500 graphics cards, 50 processing units, notebooks, phones and flash drives. The SBU estimated the state’s monthly losses due to electricity theft — which had the potential to cause electricity shortages for the entire city of Vinnytsa — to range between $186,200 and $259,300. Several estimates show that Sony’s last-gen gaming console, PlayStation 4, is not the ideal rig to mine cryptocurrency. Given its slightly outdated configuration compared to many mining rigs available today, even a 16-console PS4 setup would fail to generate meaningful returns with legal electricity usage. – https://cointelegraph.com/news/ukrainian-police-seize-3-800-ps4-consoles-used-for-illegal-crypto-mining

5. TikTok announced on Friday that certain types of ads would no longer be allowed on their platform. Crypto-based promotional content was included among the now-verboten topics, according to an article from FT Adviser on July 8. The new guidelines on the social video posting site will specifically inhibit users from posting promotional content about financial products, regardless of the poster’s geographic location. “According to TikTok’s branded content policy, the promotion of all financial services and products is now globally prohibited,” the FT Adviser article detailed. TikTok was a hotbed for Dogecoin hype in 2020, when users shared related videos in an effort to get more folks to jump on the bandwagon. Other social media sites have also hosted notable financial markets discussion in recent months, with stock discussions on Reddit becoming prominent as well. “My interpretation of this is [TikTok] are clamping down on directly or indirectly sponsored content which leads to an affiliate link, for example to sign up to a trading platform and get free stocks,” Informed Choice’s client education head, Martin Bamford, told FT Adviser, adding: “We see a huge amount of this branded content on TikTok, usually from poorly informed commentators, who lure in followers with promises of riches, but in reality are making their money off people signing up via affiliate links.” It is unclear as to whether TikTok’s ban applies to all financial product discussions, or just those which are promotional in nature. – https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-ads-no-longer-allowed-on-tiktok

6. “Shitcoin” may no longer be solely a term used to describe altcoin projects with questionable value propositions, as one South Korean university professor has taken the term to a more literal dimension. Cho Jae-weon of the National Institute of Science and Technology in Ulsan, South Korea, has created an eco-friendly toilet system that produces fertilizer and energy from human excrement. Jae-weon, a professor of urban and environmental engineering, said the toilet system incorporates a vacuum pump that redirects human waste into an underground tank to produce biogas (methane). The professor’s experiment is reportedly utilizing the biogas to power a university building, gas stoves and water heaters among other things. “If we think outside of the box, feces has precious value to make energy and manure. I have put this value into ecological circulation,” the professor said. Jae-weon’s experiment also has a digital currency component with a native token called Ggool, which is used to incentivize the adoption of the eco-friendly toilet. Students earn 10 Ggool per day if they use the toilet and use the digital money to buy coffee, bananas and even books on campus. – https://cointelegraph.com/news/poopcoin-korean-professor-uses-bio-waste-to-mine-crypto

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