In February, 2014, I trekked down from my office in Midtown to a little boutique on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. The goal was to visit New York City’s first bitcoin ATM. I purchased about 1/10th of a bitcoin – a couple hundred dollars back then, if I recall correctly. I had bought my first bitcoin in 2012 and was one of the first ever to mention the words “cryptocurrency,” “bitcoin” and “ripple” in the mainstream press when I wrote about it all for Esquire (the George Clooney cover, Dec 2013). Still in its infancy, bitcoin was only just beginning to move beyond money hobbyists and doomsday preppers. There in…
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NYTimes Blockbuster: We Got Satoshi
Carreyrou claims bitcoin inventor is Adam Back
You’ll never get me to say anything bad about the guy who uncovered the full extent of the Theranos con. In this time of Passover, had John Carreyrou done nothing but write Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup and the Wall Street Journal articles that preceded it, it would have been enough for us. But Carreyrou’s assertion today in the New York Times that he’s solved the mystery of Satoshi and it’s Adam Back … we don’t think so. Carreyou begins his million-word Times article describing how he had long been obsessed with solving Bitcoin’s original riddle – the identity of its inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto. By…
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Is Brazil the Next Frontier for Crypto?
Election in this fall pits familiar names amid evolving crypto
The announcement last week by Ripple of a “major expansion of its presence across Brazil” should be viewed not just as a press release by a company but a broader sign of institutional digital asset adoption in one of the world’s fastest-growing financial markets. And that adoption will only accelerate if Trump ally and crypto friend Flávio Bolsonaro is elected president this Fall. According to Ripple’s announcement, Ripple will seek a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license from the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB). That accords to Brazil’s new virtual asset regulatory framework and also reflects the “compliance-first vibe” that has been Ripple’s hallmark over the company’s decade-plus history. With…
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Harnessing AI’s Limitless Potential
Head of Machine Learning at Iterate.ai Calls for Less Hysteria, More Nuance
The recent op-ed published by The New York Times, “The AI Duopoly: Microsoft and Google’s Stranglehold on Our Future,” makes clear that a more balanced discourse around artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on society is warranted. While Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson present a dire and pessimistic view of AI as a tool wielded primarily by Big Tech, the reality is that AI holds vast potential for diverse actors and contexts. Like all technological advancements, AI is not solely the domain of a few tech giants but a catalyst of innovation for businesses of all sizes. With a thoughtful approach and careful implementation, AI can help level the playing field, enabling…
