Blockchain
Social media giants must decentralize the internet… Now!
Decentralized governance and blockchain solutions are best for the future of Big Tech.

Big Tech has been in the news a lot over the last decade. Initially, the coverage focused on the new possibilities that were created around communication and information sharing and the benefits that these would bring. New tech networks offered unprecedented tools, offering everything from reuniting families separated by emigration to assisting in the overthrow of autocratic regimes and restoring power to the people.
Next, we heard about the tremendous value Big Tech was creating, bringing billions of dollars to founders and workers, as well as the pension funds that invested in them. We knew they were a force for good in the world, not least because they never missed an opportunity to tell us this fact.
The sentiment toward Big tech changed near the end of 2016, fuelled by an unexpected result in the United States presidential election. Big Tech platforms were no longer tools to promote individuality and self-expression; they had swiftly become enablers of hatred and lies. Seemingly overnight, these companies went from darlings to pariahs, from bastions of free speech to being weaponized by malicious interests and rogue states to sway elections, planting false narratives. Individuals in control of the platforms went from defenders of freedom to being likened to dictators. Journalists wrote that Big Tech now had more capital than many governments and greater control of speech than any media outlet — without any democratic checks and balances or regulation to curb their worst impulses.
These events brought to the fore the amount of power that currently resides within Big Tech companies, along with the need to consider how we define speech in the modern world and how it should be amplified and regulated. That, in turn, touches on how the platforms that determine modern speech should be governed.
From decentralization to streaming
To address this, we should examine how the early internet unleashed so much creativity in its early days. Back then, the web was decentralized in its own way, with each website representing its own space, resulting in a vast network of nodes threaded together by hyperlinks. Some nodes were bigger than others, but none so big that they would distort the landscape or require specific regulation. The internet could be viewed as a vast garden, being added to with each additional website.
As both the network and the number of users grew, there was increasing demand for this network to be organized and made more efficient. Google capitalized on this by building an algorithm that searched the web and returned results and, in the process, kicked off a new internet that was defined by algorithms. Content was suddenly being recommended and defined by algorithms across music (Spotify), news (Facebook and Twitter) and entertainment (Netflix). The garden became a stream, and suddenly, we were all being influenced and directed by black-box algorithms that we knew very little about.
It is this new stream model of the internet that has caused such vitriol to be directed toward Big Tech. Big Tech companies dictate what content is acceptable to share and what should be promoted often by considering what is most beneficial to their bottom lines. Content controls are described as moderation for those who approve of them and censorship by those who disagree. The loudest voices dominate the conversation, often disproportionately favoring the Big Tech workforce and the traditional media — a small group with identifiable biases.
Back to the decentralized internet
What is the correct way to govern these massive platforms? Centralizing the power of founders is far too limiting, and outsourcing it to Californian employees and western media is only slightly better. Instead, we should look back to the decentralized internet of the past and see how we could recreate the period many older heads look back on with such nostalgia. Many claim that it is impossible to put this genie back in the box, given the enormous economic value that derived specifically from centralizing digital content and making it more accessible.
Blockchain has enabled decentralized governance of companies, allowing a form of democratic decision-making that is weighted toward those with skin in the game. Individuals buy governance tokens in a network, such as decentralized finance product suite Yearn.finance, which provides them with votes on the governance of that ecosystem while also holding independent value and/or providing dividends. Companies can be natively decentralized like Yearn, or transition to this model over time, like DeFi lender Aave. This model provides returns, aligns strategy with ownership, and removes the principal-agent problem that is rife in public and private organizations. Companies can use it to distribute admin fees to owners as well as make strategic decisions.
Public discourse on content moderation often draws from legal and philosophical concepts, with a liberal sprinkle of America’s first amendment, to construct a top-down solution. This presumes that a small number of people knows what is best for millions, even billions, of users. But decentralized governance, proven effective by the booming DeFi industry, may allow for a bottom-up solution that puts the power in the hands of users. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey even announced his interest in such an approach at the end of 2019.
Decentralized governance could be achieved by providing tokens to users, as described above, which, in turn, would allow them to vote on principles of moderation. This could even be calibrated to the issue at hand — members of minority groups might have a greater weighting in issues related to discrimination or religious groups on freedom of religion. Power users might have greater weighting to their votes than casual ones. By trusting the broader issue of moderation to the wider community, users are engaging in a social contract that will make them far more likely to buy into principles that are adopted. As well as making moderation more efficient, this would likely repair some of the reputational harm suffered by social media companies, creating a clear distinction between censorship and moderation.
The biggest tech platforms have user populations bigger than the world’s largest countries, but none of them have the equivalent democratic checks and balances that we look for in governance. Identifying complex pain points, such as censorship and moderation, and finding ways to empower users to own these processes gives them skin in the game and access to create a flexible policy mechanism to help heal the bruised reputations of Big Tech. It is in the companies’ best interests, too, as the reputational hit of poor content policies has led to antitrust speculation and calls to break up Facebook, for example.
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Luis Cuende is a co-founder of Aragon, a platform for building and running DAOs. Luis started his first open-source project at age 12. He got into Bitcoin in 2011, having been inspired by how crypto can bring freedom. In 2014, aged 18, he co-founded the blockchain timestamping startup Stampery. He holds multiple recognitions, including Forbes 30 under 30, MIT TR35, and best underage hacker of Europe by HackFwd.
Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/social-media-giants-must-decentralize-the-internet-now
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Blockchain
Kraken Daily Market Report for February 24 2021
Overview
- Total spot trading volume at $2.43 billion, up 18% from the 30-day average of $2.06 billion.
- Total futures notional at $742.6 million.
- The top five traded coins were, respectively, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Cardano, and Polkadot.
- Strong returns from Augur (+22%), Icon (+20%), Lisk (18%), and Compound (18%).
February 24, 2021 $2.43B traded across all markets today Crypto, EUR, USD, JPY, CAD, GBP, CHF, AUD |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|
XBT $50855. ↑4.0% $927.5M |
ETH $1694.5 ↑7.3% $442.0M |
USDT $1.0009 ↑0.06% $308.7M |
ADA $1.0666 ↑11% $140.5M |
DOT $36.359 ↑5.2% $112.8M |
USDC $1.0002 ↑0.01% $58.0M |
XDG $0.0552 ↑16% $46.8M |
XRP $0.4888 ↑2.7% $45.1M |
LTC $187.16 ↑5.4% $44.2M |
LINK $28.266 ↑8.8% $43.1M |
BCH $546.64 ↑5.9% $19.9M |
ATOM $20.971 ↑4.1% $17.4M |
XLM $0.4278 ↑11% $17.0M |
FLOW $22.203 ↑3.6% $14.8M |
UNI $26.741 ↑7.6% $13.7M |
GRT $1.9695 ↑16% $13.2M |
AAVE $398.38 ↑9.2% $9.83M |
ALGO $1.1312 ↑12% $9.67M |
KSM $259.95 ↑8.0% $9.22M |
XMR $218.18 ↓1.3% $9.14M |
DASH $253.84 ↑9.8% $8.88M |
EOS $4.0463 ↑5.0% $8.57M |
XTZ $3.8502 ↑8.5% $8.23M |
TRX $0.0492 ↑9.5% $4.84M |
DAI $1.0012 ↓0.01% $4.78M |
ICX $1.7515 ↑20% $4.63M |
QTUM $5.5107 ↑7.1% $4.55M |
SNX $20.534 ↑13% $4.44M |
OMG $5.0897 ↑8.7% $4.29M |
BAT $0.5229 ↑9.5% $4.29M |
SC $0.0113 ↑3.3% $3.78M |
WAVES $10.304 ↑10% $3.76M |
NANO $6.0203 ↑16% $3.59M |
YFI $36385. ↑8.8% $3.55M |
ZEC $131.65 ↑3.6% $3.33M |
FIL $37.762 ↑6.3% $3.21M |
COMP $452.55 ↑18% $2.38M |
OXT $0.5371 ↑8.4% $2.12M |
ETC $12.339 ↑8.4% $2.07M |
LSK $3.1380 ↑18% $1.93M |
KAVA $3.7965 ↑17% $1.57M |
MANA $0.2622 ↑13% $1.53M |
REP $35.637 ↑22% $1.49M |
CRV $2.2995 ↑7.7% $1.45M |
KNC $1.7123 ↑6.8% $982K |
MLN $41.951 ↑12% $834K |
PAXG $1804.9 ↓0.2% $778K |
KEEP $0.3739 ↑10% $710K |
STORJ $0.6370 ↑12% $670K |
ANT $4.7319 ↑10.0% $576K |
BAL $40.659 ↑16% $568K |
GNO $141.23 ↑11% $508K |
REPV2 $26.630 ↑8.9% $274K |
TBTC $54060. ↑9.8% $244K |
The post Kraken Daily Market Report for February 24 2021 appeared first on Kraken Blog.
Overview
- Total spot trading volume at $2.43 billion, up 18% from the 30-day average of $2.06 billion.
- Total futures notional at $742.6 million.
- The top five traded coins were, respectively, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Cardano, and Polkadot.
- Strong returns from Augur (+22%), Icon (+20%), Lisk (18%), and Compound (18%).
February 24, 2021 $2.43B traded across all markets today Crypto, EUR, USD, JPY, CAD, GBP, CHF, AUD |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|
XBT $50855. ↑4.0% $927.5M |
ETH $1694.5 ↑7.3% $442.0M |
USDT $1.0009 ↑0.06% $308.7M |
ADA $1.0666 ↑11% $140.5M |
DOT $36.359 ↑5.2% $112.8M |
USDC $1.0002 ↑0.01% $58.0M |
XDG $0.0552 ↑16% $46.8M |
XRP $0.4888 ↑2.7% $45.1M |
LTC $187.16 ↑5.4% $44.2M |
LINK $28.266 ↑8.8% $43.1M |
BCH $546.64 ↑5.9% $19.9M |
ATOM $20.971 ↑4.1% $17.4M |
XLM $0.4278 ↑11% $17.0M |
FLOW $22.203 ↑3.6% $14.8M |
UNI $26.741 ↑7.6% $13.7M |
GRT $1.9695 ↑16% $13.2M |
AAVE $398.38 ↑9.2% $9.83M |
ALGO $1.1312 ↑12% $9.67M |
KSM $259.95 ↑8.0% $9.22M |
XMR $218.18 ↓1.3% $9.14M |
DASH $253.84 ↑9.8% $8.88M |
EOS $4.0463 ↑5.0% $8.57M |
XTZ $3.8502 ↑8.5% $8.23M |
TRX $0.0492 ↑9.5% $4.84M |
DAI $1.0012 ↓0.01% $4.78M |
ICX $1.7515 ↑20% $4.63M |
QTUM $5.5107 ↑7.1% $4.55M |
SNX $20.534 ↑13% $4.44M |
OMG $5.0897 ↑8.7% $4.29M |
BAT $0.5229 ↑9.5% $4.29M |
SC $0.0113 ↑3.3% $3.78M |
WAVES $10.304 ↑10% $3.76M |
NANO $6.0203 ↑16% $3.59M |
YFI $36385. ↑8.8% $3.55M |
ZEC $131.65 ↑3.6% $3.33M |
FIL $37.762 ↑6.3% $3.21M |
COMP $452.55 ↑18% $2.38M |
OXT $0.5371 ↑8.4% $2.12M |
ETC $12.339 ↑8.4% $2.07M |
LSK $3.1380 ↑18% $1.93M |
KAVA $3.7965 ↑17% $1.57M |
MANA $0.2622 ↑13% $1.53M |
REP $35.637 ↑22% $1.49M |
CRV $2.2995 ↑7.7% $1.45M |
KNC $1.7123 ↑6.8% $982K |
MLN $41.951 ↑12% $834K |
PAXG $1804.9 ↓0.2% $778K |
KEEP $0.3739 ↑10% $710K |
STORJ $0.6370 ↑12% $670K |
ANT $4.7319 ↑10.0% $576K |
BAL $40.659 ↑16% $568K |
GNO $141.23 ↑11% $508K |
REPV2 $26.630 ↑8.9% $274K |
TBTC $54060. ↑9.8% $244K |
The post Kraken Daily Market Report for February 24 2021 appeared first on Kraken Blog.
Source: https://blog.kraken.com/post/8041/kraken-daily-market-report-for-february-24-2021/
Blockchain
New Crypto Rules in Thailand Could Require Traders to Show Income Before Opening Trading Accounts
Thailand seeks to introduce a new set of rules for retail crypto investors, specifically targeting those who want to open accounts. The Thai financial watchdog could require domestic crypto exchanges to ask traders for proof of income. Thai SEC Could Also Ask Crypto Investors to Prove Their Knowledge of the Market According to a Bloomberg […]

Thailand seeks to introduce a new set of rules for retail crypto investors, specifically targeting those who want to open accounts. The Thai financial watchdog could require domestic crypto exchanges to ask traders for proof of income.
Thai SEC Could Also Ask Crypto Investors to Prove Their Knowledge of the Market
According to a Bloomberg report, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Thailand is likely preparing the ground to require investors to show their income or assets before opening accounts.
Ruenvadee Suwanmongkol, the secretary general of the country’s financial watchdog, pointed out that anyone who isn’t allowed to trade cryptocurrencies via their accounts can invest through licensed managers. She added:
It’s a big concern as most crypto investors on domestic exchanges are very young, such as students and teenagers. We realize those people love innovations and technology, but investments in these assets have enormous risk.
Moreover, the general secretary said that non-qualified crypto traders could invest via financial advisers only if they’re licensed by the SEC.
The watchdog is set to unveil its new rules on crypto trading over the week, ahead of a public hearing scheduled for March. Officials involved in the meetings are expected to evaluate recommendations from local exchanges and brokerages.
Although it’s not confirmed, the general secretary suggested that investors have to prove some knowledge of the market before being allowed to open crypto accounts for trading.
Six Licensed Crypto Exchanges Operating in Thailand so far
The rhetoric from the Thai SEC is now shifting to a cautious one towards the cryptocurrencies’ risks. However, they keep granting licenses to crypto businesses in the nation. So far, in terms of digital asset exchanges approved, there are only six operating legally in Thailand.
They are Bitkub, BX, Satang Pro, Huobi Thailand, ERX, and Zipmex. All six licensed crypto exchanges are approved for both cryptocurrencies and digital tokens, except for ERX, which is only approved for the latter.
The SEC distinguishes cryptocurrencies as “created for the purpose of being a medium of exchange for the acquisition of goods, services, or other rights.”
On the other hand, digital tokens are created “for the purpose of specifying the right of a person to participate in an investment in any project or business, or to acquire specific goods, services, or other rights under an agreement between the issuer and the holder,” said the financial watchdog.
What do you think about the words from the Thai SEC general secretary? Let us know in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
Blockchain
Crypto Analyst Who Called 2018’s Market Boom Reveals His Main Altcoin Position
A top cryptocurrency strategist that has gained a large following on social media after accurately calling bitcoin’s 2018 bear market bottom above $3,000, has revealed his main altcoin position on a little-known cryptocurrency. The pseudonymous analyst, known as Smart Contractor on social media, told his over 100,000 followers he has been seeing signs the market […]

A top cryptocurrency strategist that has gained a large following on social media after accurately calling bitcoin’s 2018 bear market bottom above $3,000, has revealed his main altcoin position on a little-known cryptocurrency.
The pseudonymous analyst, known as Smart Contractor on social media, told his over 100,000 followers he has been seeing signs the market correction has bottomed out this month, and sees a surge in bitcoin’s price to $60,000 as a possibility.
The trader, as Daily Hodl reports, revealed he has a large position in the scalable smart contract platform TomoChain (TOMO), which per his words has the potential to double in value against the flagship cryptocurrency. Smart Contracter used technical analysis for his prediction:
The price of TOMO has, according to CryptoCompare data, already moved up over 86% in the last 30 days, as each token is now trading at $2.4, up from a little over $1 a month ago. The cryptocurrency was below that mark for most of last year.
Smart Contracter also pointed to the S&P 500 index which, according to him, shows investors’ risk appetite is recovering, and a bull period in the equities market could also benefit crypto, he said. The analyst also named the FTX Token (FTT) as a cryptocurrency he is eyeing, as it could bounce back harder than other cryptoassets.
On social media, he said the native cryptoasset of the popular derivatives trading platform FTX “will be one of the strongest and first to recover,” based on the chart’s structure. The trader added he sees the price of FTT crossing over the $40 mark to hit a new all-time high as the cryptocurrency market recover.
It’s worth noting Smart Contracter is famous for, in June 2018, predicting the bear market that was seeing the price of bitcoin drop from a then all-time high near $20,000 would end with the coin trading at $3,200. The prediction was nearly accurate, as BTC hit the target in December of that year.
Featured image via Pixabay.
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