Cryptocurrency

Masa Network’s AI Data Marketplace will be an interoperable network for the world’s personal data, launching across multiple blockchains from day oneMasa Network, the world’s leading decentralized personal data network, has announced its integration with LayerZero, an interoperability protocol that seamlessly connects blockchains and allows developers to build omnichain applications, tokens and experiences. The integration with LayerZero will enable communication for the Masa Data Network which will be launched on a dedicated Avalanche Subnet, with Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain. The MASA token interoperability will further expand to Polygon, Base, Celo and more in the future via LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) Standard, which enables native cross-chain token transfers.Masa is set to launch its native MASA token alongside the Network Mainnet on or around April 11th, 2024. Masa aims to shift the control of personal data back to users in the AI era. A person’s digital footprint and social graph is encrypted and stored in a completely private way in a Zero-Knowledge Soulbound Tokens (zkSBTs) data locker on the Masa Network. Users can own, share and earn from their personal data to train AI models, power AI agents, and power innovative AI applications. Users earn MASA tokens as rewards when their data is used by developers to power the decentralized AI economy.Calenthia Mei, the Co-founder of Masa, said, “Masa is thrilled to be integrating with LayerZero Labs, who has become the industry standard for interoperability. Masa wants to empower users to own, share, and earn from their data, no matter which blockchain network their data is on. With LayerZero’s support, we are excited to be cross-chain and interoperable from the very beginning.”With the explosion of AI models, Masa has emerged as a leader in supplying vast amounts of privacy-first personal training data, powering the future of AI applications. It has amassed over 1.4 million unique wallets and over 37 million proprietary data points. Developers can utilize Masa Network’s massive collection of private-by-default user data to train AI models, build innovative apps, power decentralized advertising, and more. Masa will also be providing out-of-the-box large-language models for real-time data searching within the network. Simon Baksys, VP of Business of Development at LayerZero, commented “We are excited to collaborate with Masa to enhance privacy and innovation in AI development. The integration of LayerZero infrastructure with Masa’s ecosystem, will enable accelerated development of personalized AI applications while ensuring user data remains private and secure.”About LayerZeroLayerZero is an interoperability protocol that connects blockchains (50+ and counting), allowing developers to build seamless omni-chain applications, tokens, and experiences. The protocol relies on immutable on-chain endpoints, a configurable Security Stack, and a permissionless set of Executors to transfer censorship-resistant messages between chains.For more information, visit: Website | X | DiscordAbout MasaMasa is the world’s personal data network, empowering users to own, share and earn from their data. In the AI era, Masa is building a scalable, secure, and resilient global data market, where millions of developers can build innovative applications using privacy-first user data. Masa has amassed over 1.3 million unique wallets and over 37 million proprietary data points in its exponential growth since launch in August 2022. It has raised more than $9.2 million in funding from leading investors such as DCG, Anagram and GoldenTree, and was incubated by Coinlist’s Seed Program and Binance’s Most-Valuable-Builder Accelerator.ContactItai [email protected] article was originally published on Chainwire More

How This Californian Startup Is Revolutionizing Real Estate Investment through Ethereum-Based TokenizationUSP, an innovative tokenized real estate investment marketplace and platform, is thrilled to announce its official launch on Republic.com/uspc, a leading crowdfunding portal. This move marks a huge milestone for USP, an incredibly-early tokenized real estate project on the Ethereum network, as well as a major win for investors across the globe seeking to tap into the lucrative world of U.S. real estate investment through cutting-edge blockchain technology.USP’s platform democratizes access to real estate investing, enabling investors of any size and background to participate in the ownership of commercial properties. With an already robust portfolio valued at $52 million and situated throughout Southern California, USP sets a new standard in the tokenized real estate landscape.Key Highlights of the USP Launch:USP sets itself apart by utilizing the Ethereum blockchain to tokenize properties, enabling global investment without minimum requirements and facilitating peer-to-peer trading. This innovative approach contrasts sharply with traditional real estate investment methods like crowdfunding platforms, private equity, and REITs, which typically cater only to accredited investors with high minimum investment thresholds and offer little to no liquidity. Through this application of tokenization, USP is essentially democratizing access to traditionally inaccessible real estate assets, making it 100 times easier to become a landlord of real world assets (RWAs).”Our launch on Republic.com is a leap forward in our mission to simplify real estate investment and make it accessible to the average person,” said Johnney Zhang, Founder of USP. “We believe in breaking down barriers to investment, and through our platform, we’re not just offering a piece of lucrative U.S. real estate; we’re offering a piece of the future.”Investment Opportunity on Republic.com:For a limited time, investors can contribute to the future development of the USP tokenized real estate marketplace, as well as its current real estate assets. This investment opportunity represents a stake in both the technological advancement of the USP platform and its existing tokenized real estate portfolio.About USP:USP is a tokenized real estate investment platform that empowers investors from anywhere in the world to invest with as little as $1. Our platform simplifies the investment process, democratizing real estate ownership and providing a secure and transparent way for users to build their portfolios. For more information about USP and to become part of this groundbreaking investment opportunity, visit their official website.Contact:Stephanie ArcherDirector of Investor [email protected]/linksContactVP of MarketingAndrew R. [email protected] article was originally published on Chainwire More

(Reuters) – Inflows into the nine recently launched exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to bitcoin have resumed their upward trajectory this week after the cryptocurrency’s price bounced back from its dip last week.”The resumption in bitcoin’s strong performance is sparking renewed interest in the ETFs,” said Todd Rosenbluth, head of research at VettaFi, an analysis firm.The nine funds that made their debut in January pulled in more than $1.2 billion in assets in the first three days of this week, according to data from BitMEX Research. In the first two days of the week, the leadership shifted from BlackRock (NYSE:BLK)’s iShares Bitcoin Trust to the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund. The latter attracted more than double the flows into BlackRock’s fund, BitMEX data showed, before the iShares ETF regained the lead Wednesday with the strongest inflows it has recorded since mid-March.The one fund that continues to buck this trend is the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which existed as a publicly traded trust before it converted into an ETF on the same day the other nine ETFs launched. It has seen steady outflows since then, regardless of bitcoin’s price movements. In the first three days of this week, those outflows reached $862.2 million.”At the moment, the numbers are all skewed by Grayscale,” said David Mercer (NASDAQ:MERC), CEO of LMAX Group, an institutional cryptocurrency exchange.However large these flows may be for the ETF market, they’re “a rounding error” when compared to the total market capitalization of bitcoin itself, Mercer added. Still, he noted, ETF flows seemed to be dictating bitcoin’s price at present. “One thing’s for sure: the bitcoin price couldn’t rally when you saw outflows in the ETFs,” Mercer said. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sam Bankman-Fried, the former billionaire cryptocurrency wunderkind, is set to be sentenced on Thursday over his conviction for stealing $8 billion from customers of the now-bankrupt FTX exchange he founded.Bankman-Fried, 32, faces the prospect of decades behind bars after a jury found him guilty in November on seven fraud and conspiracy counts. His sentencing is due to start at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan.The hearing will mark the culmination of Bankman-Fried’s downfall from an ultra-wealthy cryptocurrency entrepreneur and major political donor to U.S. authorities’ biggest trophy to date in a crackdown on malfeasance in digital asset markets. He faces a statutory maximum of 110 years, but will likely receive less. Prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of 40 to 50 years for what they say was one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history.”His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalization; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people’s money,” the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, which charged Bankman-Fried in December 2022, wrote in a March 15 sentencing memorandum.Bankman-Fried’s defense lawyer Marc Mukasey urged Kaplan to give him far less time, arguing that a sentence of less than 5-1/4 years would be appropriate. Mukasey said FTX customers would likely be made whole in the bankruptcy process, and that Bankman-Fried worked diligently after the exchange’s November 2022 collapse to recover funds.”The memorandum distorts reality to support its precious ‘loss’ narrative and casts Sam as a depraved super-villain,” Mukasey wrote in a March 19 court filing, referring to prosecutors’ sentencing proposal.Several FTX customers have written to Kaplan expressing dismay that they will be compensated based on the value of their cryptocurrency at the time of FTX’s bankruptcy, rather than the higher levels at which those assets trade today.Bankman-Fried has vowed to appeal his conviction and sentence.’PROMISE OF FALSE HOPE’A Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, Bankman-Fried rode a boom in the values of bitcoin and other digital assets to a net worth of $26 billion, according to Forbes magazine, before he turned 30. Bankman-Fried became known for his mop of unkempt curly hair and commitment to a movement known as effective altruism, which encourages talented young people to focus on earning money and giving it away to worthy causes. He was one of the biggest contributors to Democratic candidates and causes ahead of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.But prosecutors say the responsible image he cultivated concealed his years-long embezzlement of customer funds. At trial, three of his former close associates testified that he directed them to use FTX customer funds to plug losses at his crypto-focused hedge fund, Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried testified in his own defense that he made mistakes such as not implementing a risk management team, but denied he intended to defraud anyone or steal customers’ money. In their sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said Bankman-Fried could commit fraud again if released at a young age. They pointed to his personal writings in the weeks following FTX’s collapse, in which he mused about options for restoring his image such as “come out against the woke agenda” or pushing the idea that “SBF died for our sins.””It is realistic that he will settle on a narrative, lean into it, and convince other people to part with their money based on lies and the promise of false hope,” prosecutors wrote. More

This event marks one of Deribit’s largest expiries, with $15.2 billion worth of contracts set to be settled, according to CoinDesk. Bitcoin options, which represent 62% of the total notional open interest due for settlement, account for $9.5 billion, while Ether options make up the remaining portion.The impending expiry will reduce the total notional open interest across all maturities by 40% and 43% for Bitcoin and Ether, respectively. This reduction in open interest is noteworthy as it reflects the dollar value of all active contracts at a given time on Deribit, where a single option contract equals one BTC or one ETH.According to Deribit’s chief commercial officer, the bulk of these options are expected to expire in the money (ITM), which effectively triggers upward pressure or volatility in the market. An ITM call option allows the investor to buy BTC or ETH at a strike price lower than the current market rate, resulting in a profit.With Bitcoin’s market rate around $70,000, roughly $3.9 billion worth of Bitcoin options are on track to expire ITM, constituting 41% of the total quarterly open interest. Similarly, 15% of ETH’s total quarterly open interest, valued at $5.7 billion, is set to expire at ITM. These high levels of ITM expiries, which are unusual compared to previous cycles, may lead to increased market volatility, especially given the recent price rallies in both Bitcoin and Ethereum.The concept of “max pain” points to the strike price at which the highest number of options (both call and put) would expire worthless, causing maximum financial loss to option buyers. For this quarter’s expiry, the max pain points are set at $50,000 for BTC and $2,600 for ETH. Historically, prices have tended to move toward these max pain points before rallying after the expiry, suggesting a pattern that might repeat.Dealer hedging activities are also expected to contribute to market volatility. David Brickell, head of international distribution at FRNT Financial, highlighted the dealers’ gamma positioning. With dealers short around $50 million of gamma, primarily concentrated at the $70,000 strike for Bitcoin, the forced hedging around this level could lead to “whippy, choppy moves” as the expiry approaches. Gamma refers to the rate of change in an option’s delta, which measures the sensitivity of an option’s price to changes in the underlying asset’s price. Market makers, who typically maintain a neutral exposure while providing liquidity, could amplify price movements through their hedging activities. More

Nick Emmons, co-founder and CEO of Upshot, highlighted the move from traditional, centralized AI systems, dominated by a handful of powerful companies, to a decentralized approach that leverages blockchain technology for greater transparency and collaboration.Decentralized AI transforms opaque, centralized systems into transparent networks that coordinate machine intelligence for common goals. This shift not only democratizes AI but also ensures that applications can operate in a trustless environment, free from the need to rely on a select group of organizations.Despite the growth of open-source AI, with platforms like Hugging Face offering over 450,000 models, Emmons points out that these developments often occur in isolation. For AI to be truly decentralized, he calls for a collaborative effort among developers to create models that learn from one another over time.Emmons highlights the necessity of reimagining the AI stack to decentralize its development and application fully. This involves all layers of AI, from computing power to data processing and model training. Decentralization then can be achieved through markets that incentivize collaboration and use blockchain technology to facilitate transparent, trustless interactions.The decentralization of AI also offers a way to distribute control over technology, align development with diverse needs, and safeguard against mass surveillance and manipulation. Facing a critical crossroads in artificial intelligence development, Nick outlines a compelling argument for the decentralization of AI. The current dichotomy presents two imperfect choices: sacrifice decentralization for cutting-edge proprietary AI or commit to strictly decentralized alternatives that, while promising, currently fall short of their centralized counterparts in performance.Emmons explains that overcoming this dilemma requires concerted efforts across all participants in the AI ecosystem. The goal is to create a collaborative environment where decentralized AI can thrive without sacrificing access to advanced technology. This involves ensuring decentralization spans the entire AI stack, from data collection to model deployment, to maintain a trustless, accessible architecture.The centralization of AI, while efficient in terms of coordination costs, concentrates power and control, which ultimately harms innovation and privacy. In contrast, decentralized AI promises numerous benefits, including collective intelligence, universal access, tamper-proof outputs, scalability, privacy protection, and reduced bias. To transition towards a decentralized AI future, Emmons calls for a new edition of the AI stack as an open ecosystem, encouraging synergy between components traditionally siloed within closed systems. This shift could democratize AI development, ensuring broad access to AI tools and technologies, and mitigating the risks associated with centralized control.Toufi Saliba, the CEO and founder of HyperCycle, told Investing.com that he believes artificial intelligence is “arguably the most important innovation since the internet itself.”Saliba highlighted the critical role of collaborative development in the future of AI, stressing the need for “shared training models and open source technology” to unlock its full potential. He compared the evolution of the internet with the path AI must take, noting, “Just as the web would have never taken off if it had remained under the control of ARPA, for AI to realize its true potential, its development needs to be collaborative.” Saliba called for “decentralized systems that enable innovators to iterate on existing models,” fostering an ecosystem where the best ideas can flourish. He concluded with a vision of the future where such an approach enables “this transformative technology to change the world.” More

The world’s largest cryptocurrency climbed 0.4% over the past 24 hours and traded at $70,424.8 by 08:17 ET (12:17 GMT).Bitcoin traded rangebound for two weeks after rushing to record highs earlier in March, as slowing capital flows into the recently-approved spot exchange-traded funds suggested that enthusiasm over the cryptocurrency was now cooling.Pressure from the dollar, which shot up to one-month highs this week, also limited any major gains in Bitcoin, especially as dovish comments from major global central banks saw traders largely prefer the greenback as a high-yielding, low-risk currency.Markets were now focused squarely on PCE price index data- the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, which is due on Friday, and is likely to factor into the bank’s outlook on interest rates.While the Fed is still projecting 75 basis points of rate cuts in 2024, any signs of sticky inflation could potentially tighten that outlook. Higher-for-longer interest rates bode poorly for Bitcoin, given that the token usually thrives in high-liquidity, risk-heavy markets.After the PCE data, Fed officials Jerome Powell and Mary Daly are also set to speak at separate events later on Friday. Any more cues on the Fed’s stance on interest rates and inflation will be closely watched, especially as other Fed officials struck a somewhat hawkish tone this week.Governor Christopher Waller said on Wednesday that the bank was in no hurry to begin trimming interest rates, citing sticky inflation and enough headroom from a strong U.S. economy to keep monetary conditions tight.Sentiment towards crypto markets was also rattled by a key development in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN).A U.S. judge ruled that the lawsuit, which was announced in 2023, can move forward, but dismissed one claim the SEC had made against Coinbase.The SEC recently won a major legal victory against XRP token issuer Ripple, and was reportedly seeking $2 billion in penalties from the firm.But the SEC-Coinbase suit is a key point of focus for crypto markets, given that it could potentially determine whether crypto tokens are governed by U.S. securities law.This uncertainty also kept Bitcoin trading in a tight range.But despite its treading water for two weeks, Bitcoin was still set for an over 50% gain in the first quarter of 2024, boosted chiefly by increased capital flows after the U.S. approval of spot ETFs earlier this year.By comparison, the S&P 500 was up 11% in Q1, while gold was up about 6.5%.The upcoming quarterly expiration of bitcoin and ether options contracts, valued at several billion dollars, could trigger bullish market volatility, market watchers observed.This Friday at 08:00 UTC, Deribit, the biggest cryptocurrency options exchange, is set to settle contracts worth $15.2 billion.Of this, $9.5 billion or 62% pertains to bitcoin options, with ether options making up the remainder. According to Deribit, this $15 billion expiration is among the largest in its history, erasing about 40% to 43% of the total notional open interest for both bitcoin and ether.Deribit’s Chief Commercial Officer, Luuk Strijers, noted that a significant volume of options expiring in-the-money (ITM) could potentially push market volatility higher.[Ambar Warrick contributed to this report] More