• AI,  Cryptocurrencies,  Privacy

    Controversial Worldcoin Scans Retinas at ETH NYC, Skips Over its Messy History

    Is Big Brother attempting to recruit all the young devs?

    In our ongoing series exploring the increasing intersections of blockchain and AI, we’ve highlighted both novel approaches to combining the two exponential technologies in sectors like healthcare that impact everyone, as well as how blockchain can ensure both privacy and transparency. The latter is particularly important given the risks posed by AI — its potential to eliminate millions of jobs, including those previously deemed more immune to technology, the acceleration of deep fakes that threaten our increasingly slippery hold on what is true, the reduction in the ability of humans to control weapons of mass destruction and more. (And as evidence that these are collective concerns, when you type “biggest…

  • Bitcoin,  Bridging solutions,  Ethereum,  Protocols

    Multi-year effort to improve Bitcoin-to-DeFi bridging crosses Threshold

    Network announces redemptions for tBTC

    Threshold Network announced this week that it has completed a multi-year effort to upgrade its Bitcoin-to-DeFi bridge tBTC from its original structure and security model launched in 2020. Specifically, the protocol added redemption capability – that is, the ability for customers to not only put their bitcoin in escrow and mint tBTC (an ERC-20 token) but also reverse the process and “unmint” back to BTC.  This is the latest in a string of Threshold announcements beginning in January with tBTC minting, an integration with interoperability protocol Wormhole in May and four subsequent partner launch announcements, three involving Ethereum “Layer 2” (L2) scaling juggernauts Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism.   The reason given…