ivacaftor and ivacaftor) in People Ages 12 and Older With Cystic Fibrosis Who Have…

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (Nasdaq: VRTX) today announced results of a global Phase 3 study of TRIKAFTA (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor and ivacaftor) in people with cystic fibrosis (CF) ages 12 years and older who have one copy of the F508del mutation and one gating mutation (F/G) or one copy of the F508del mutation and one residual function mutation (F/RF). The study met its primary endpoint of mean absolute within-group change in percent predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 second (ppFEV1) from baseline through 8 weeks of treatment, demonstrating a statistically significant 3.7 percentage point (p<0.0001) improvement in ppFEV1 in patients treated with TRIKAFTA compared to their baseline after a 4-week run-in of treatment on ivacaftor or tezacaftor/ivacaftor. The study met all secondary endpoints, including a statistically significant mean within-group reduction of 22.3 mmol/L from baseline in sweat chloride (p<0.0001). The regimen was generally well-tolerated, and safety data were consistent with those observed in previous Phase 3 studies with TRIKAFTA.

The study is a post-marketing commitment in the U.S. and the results will be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In the U.S., TRIKAFTA is already approved for use in people with CF ages 12 years and older who have at least one copy of the F508del mutation, which includes the populations evaluated in this study. In June, Vertex received a positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) for the initial triple combination regimen application for people with CF ages 12 years and older with one F508del mutation and one minimal function mutation (F/MF) or two F508del mutations (F/F). Data announced today from this study will be submitted to the European Medicines Agency to support a potential indication expansion of the EU label, once European Commission approval has been granted for the initial triple combination application. Full study results will be submitted for presentation at a future medical meeting and/or publication.

The results of this study demonstrate that the triple combination provides significant additional benefit compared to existing CFTR modulator therapy for F/G and F/RF patients and adds to the robust body of evidence supporting the benefit of this medicine for patients with at least one F508del mutation, said Carmen Bozic, M.D., Executive Vice President, Global Medicines Development and Medical Affairs, and Chief Medical Officer at Vertex. We look forward to submitting these data to the EMA in support of a potential indication expansion of the EU label following initial approval.

About the 445-104 Study

The data announced today are from a global Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, parallel-group study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of TRIKAFTA in people with CF ages 12 years and older who have one copy of the F508del mutation and one gating mutation (F/G), or one copy of the F508del mutation and one residual function mutation (F/RF). All participants had a 4-week run-in period of either ivacaftor or tezacaftor/ivacaftor. Following the run-in, patients were randomized to receive TRIKAFTA or to remain on their prior regimen of ivacaftor or tezacaftor/ivacaftor for 8 weeks. Baseline was measured at the end of the run-in period, prior to the start of the 8-week treatment period. A total of 132 participants received TRIKAFTA and 126 patients were in the control group that received either ivacaftor or tezacaftor/ivacaftor.

The primary endpoint of the study, the mean absolute within-group improvement from baseline in ppFEV1 through 8 weeks of treatment with TRIKAFTA, demonstrated a statistically significant improvement of +3.7 percentage points in ppFEV1 (p<0.0001).

The study met all secondary endpoints, including, in the order of statistical testing hierarchy, statistically significant mean absolute within-group change in sweat chloride of -22.3 mmol/L (p<0.0001) from baseline through 8 weeks in patients treated with TRIKAFTA, and between-group mean changes of +3.5 percentage points in ppFEV1 (p<0.0001) and -23.1 mmol/L in sweat chloride (p<0.0001) in patients treated with TRIKAFTA compared to the control group of those who received ivacaftor or tezacaftor/ivacaftor.

Overall, safety data were similar to those observed in previous Phase 3 studies of TRIKAFTA, and the regimen was generally well tolerated. The majority of adverse events were mild or moderate. The most common adverse event that occurred in 15% or more patients, regardless of treatment arm, was headache. Serious adverse events were observed in 3.8% (n=5) of the patients who received TRIKAFTA and in 8.7% (n=11) of the patients who received ivacaftor or tezacaftor/ivacaftor. In the study, 2 patients taking ivacaftor or tezacaftor/ivacaftor and 1 patient taking TRIKAFTA discontinued treatment due to adverse events.

About Cystic Fibrosis

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a rare, life-shortening genetic disease affecting approximately 75,000 people worldwide. CF is a progressive, multi-system disease that affects the lungs, liver, GI tract, sinuses, sweat glands, pancreas and reproductive tract. CF is caused by a defective and/or missing CFTR protein resulting from certain mutations in the CFTR gene. Children must inherit two defective CFTR genes one from each parent to have CF. While there are many different types of CFTR mutations that can cause the disease, the vast majority of all people with CF have at least one F508del mutation. These mutations, which can be determined by a genetic test, or genotyping test, lead to CF by creating non-working and/or too few CFTR proteins at the cell surface. The defective function and/or absence of CFTR protein results in poor flow of salt and water into and out of the cells in a number of organs. In the lungs, this leads to the buildup of abnormally thick, sticky mucus that can cause chronic lung infections and progressive lung damage in many patients that eventually leads to death. The median age of death is in the early 30s.

About TRIKAFTA

TRIKAFTA (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor and ivacaftor) is a prescription medicine used for the treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF) in patients ages 12 years and older who have at least one copy of the F508del mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene. Patients should talk to their doctor to learn if they have an indicated CF gene mutation. It is not known if TRIKAFTA is safe and effective in children under 12 years of age. TRIKAFTA is designed to increase the quantity and function of the F508del-CFTR protein at the cell surface. The approval of TRIKAFTA was supported by positive results of two global Phase 3 studies in people ages 12 years and older with CF: a 24-week Phase 3 study in 403 people with one F508del mutation and one minimal function mutation (F/MF) and a 4-week Phase 3 study in 107 people with two F508del mutations (F/F).

U.S. INDICATION AND IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION FOR TRIKAFTA (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor and ivacaftor) TABLETS

TRIKAFTA is a prescription medicine used for the treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF) in patients aged 12 years and older who have at least one copy of the F508del mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene. Patients should talk to their doctor to learn if they have an indicated CF gene mutation. It is not known if TRIKAFTA is safe and effective in children under 12 years of age.

Patients should not take TRIKAFTA if they take certain medicines, such as: antibiotics such as rifampin or rifabutin; seizure medicines such as phenobarbital, carbamazepine, or phenytoin; St. Johns wort.

Before taking TRIKAFTA, patients should tell their doctor about all of their medical conditions, including if they: have kidney problems, have or have had liver problems, are pregnant or plan to become pregnant because it is not known if TRIKAFTA will harm an unborn baby, or are breastfeeding or planning to breastfeed because it is not known if TRIKAFTA passes into breast milk.

TRIKAFTA may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how TRIKAFTA works. Therefore, the dose of TRIKAFTA may need to be adjusted when taken with certain medicines. Patients should especially tell their doctor if they take: antifungal medicines including ketoconazole, itraconazole, posaconazole, voriconazole, or fluconazole; antibiotics including telithromycin, clarithromycin, or erythromycin; other medicines including rifampin, rifabutin, phenobarbital, carbamazepine, phenytoin, and St. Johns wort.

TRIKAFTA may cause dizziness in some people who take it. Patients should not drive a car, operate machinery, or do anything that requires alertness until they know how TRIKAFTA affects them.

Patients should avoid food or drink that contains grapefruit while they are taking TRIKAFTA.

TRIKAFTA can cause serious side effects, including:

High liver enzymes in the blood, which is a common side effect in people treated with TRIKAFTA. These can be serious and may be a sign of liver injury. The patients doctor will do blood tests to check their liver before they start TRIKAFTA, every 3 months during the first year of taking TRIKAFTA, and every year while taking TRIKAFTA. Patients should call their doctor right away if they have any of the following symptoms of liver problems: pain or discomfort in the upper right stomach (abdominal) area; yellowing of the skin or the white part of the eyes; loss of appetite; nausea or vomiting; dark, amber-colored urine.

Abnormality of the eye lens (cataract) in some children and adolescents treated with TRIKAFTA. If the patient is a child or adolescent, their doctor should perform eye examinations before and during treatment with TRIKAFTA to look for cataracts.

The most common side effects of TRIKAFTA include headache, diarrhea, upper respiratory tract infection (common cold) including stuffy and runny nose, stomach (abdominal) pain, inflamed sinuses, increase in liver enzymes, increase in a certain blood enzyme called creatine phosphokinase, rash, flu (influenza), and increase in blood bilirubin.

These are not all the possible side effects of TRIKAFTA. Please click here to see the full Prescribing Information for TRIKAFTA.

About Vertex

Vertex is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation to create transformative medicines for people with serious diseases. The company has multiple approved medicines that treat the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis (CF) a rare, life-threatening genetic disease and has several ongoing clinical and research programs in CF. Beyond CF, Vertex has a robust pipeline of investigational small molecule medicines in other serious diseases where it has deep insight into causal human biology, including pain, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, and APOL1-mediated kidney diseases. In addition, Vertex has a rapidly expanding pipeline of genetic and cell therapies for diseases such as sickle cell disease, beta thalassemia, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Founded in 1989 in Cambridge, Mass., Vertex's global headquarters is now located in Boston's Innovation District and its international headquarters is in London, UK. Additionally, the company has research and development sites and commercial offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Latin America. Vertex is consistently recognized as one of the industry's top places to work, including 10 consecutive years on Science magazine's Top Employers list and top five on the 2019 Best Employers for Diversity list by Forbes. For company updates and to learn more about Vertex's history of innovation, visit http://www.vrtx.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.

Special Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, statements made by Dr. Carmen Bozic in this press release, statements regarding the potential benefits of TRIKAFTA and our plans to submit data and full study results, and our expectations regarding potential approval for the triple combination regimen and a potential expansion of the EU label. While Vertex believes the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are accurate, these forward-looking statements represent the company's beliefs only as of the date of this press release and there are a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Those risks and uncertainties include, among other things, that data from the company's development programs may not support registration or further development of its compounds due to safety, efficacy or other reasons, risks related to approval and commercialization of our medicines, and other risks listed under Risk Factors in Vertex's annual report and subsequent quarterly reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available through the company's website at http://www.vrtx.com. Vertex disclaims any obligation to update the information contained in this press release as new information becomes available.

(VRTX-GEN)

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Positive Phase 3 Study Results for TRIKAFTA (elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor and ivacaftor) in People Ages 12 and Older With Cystic Fibrosis Who Have...

Researchers develop credit-card sized tool to understand how cancer cells invade host tissues – News@UofT

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

A group of researchers from the University of Toronto hasdeveloped a credit-card sized tool for growing cancer cells outside the human body, which they believe will enhance their understanding of breast cancer metastasis.

The device, described in a paperpublished on July 15inScience Advances, reproduces various environments within the human body where breast cancer cells live. Studying the cells as they go through the process of invasion and metastasis could point the way toward new biomarkers and drugs to diagnose and treat cancer.

Metastasis is what makes cancer so deadly, said the publication's corresponding authorAaron Wheeler, a professor in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, whose lab is located in theDonnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Researchin U of T's Faculty of Medicine.

If cancer cells would simply stay in one spot, it would be easy to excise them and cure the disease. But when cancer metastasizes, cancer cells move through the body, making the disease difficult to treat.

We decided to apply our expertise in microfluidics to develop a new tool to aid in studying how cancer cells begin to invade into surrounding tissues in the first steps in metastasis.

Normally metastasis is studied in a petri dish cell culture or in whole animals. However, these model systems present problems in terms of cost, efficiency, or lack of representation.

An oversimplified system like cells in petri dishes doesnt mimic what happens in the body, while in an animal model, its difficult to isolate and study parameters that govern the invasiveness of a cell, saidBetty Li, a senior Institute of Biomedical Engineering PhD student and leadauthor of the paper.

Our system gives us control over all the specific parameters that we want to look at, while allowing us to make structures that better resemble what happens to the body.

The device consists of patterned metal electrodes which can move extremely small droplets around through the use of electric fields. By selectively changing the water-repelling properties of the surface at various points, researchers can pinch off the water droplets and form precise shapes.

In the paper, the researchers describe how they used a collagen matrix coated with a layer of basal membrane extract to mimic the structure of the breast tissue seen by breast cancer cells during the first step of metastasis.

By placing cancer cells outside of these tissue mimics, researchers could observe the invasion process in detail, including measurements of speed and location.

One interesting thing we observed is that not all cancer cells within the same population have the same invasiveness, Li said.Some invaded into the tissue mimics while others did not, which prompted us to look at what gives the invaded cells such an advantage.

Li and her team extracted cancer cells at various distances from the invasion point and subjected these cells to genetic sequencing.

We identified 244 different genes that are differentially expressed between the cancer cells that invaded versus the ones that didnt invade, Li said. This means that using the tool we developed, researchers in the future can develop therapeutics that target some of these genes to halt the cancer metastasis.

We think this type of tool will be quite useful to the community, as cell invasion is important in cancer and also a host of other (non-pathological) processes, like tissue growth, differentiation and repair, Wheeler said.

This research was funded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation,the Province of Ontario, and by U of T's Medicine by Design initiative, which receives funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

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CVM Researcher Develops Tool To Improve Chronic Wasting Disease Resistance In White-Tailed Deer – Texas A&M University Today

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Chronic wasting disease is a fatal syndrome found in white-tailed deer populations.

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Christopher Seabury, an associate professor of genomics at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences (CVM), has confirmed that certain aspects of the white-tailed deers response to chronic wasting disease (CWD) are moderately to highly heritable, or passed from parent to offspring, and can be predicted using a custom genomic tool designed by Seabury and his team.

This custom tool, a novel array designed by Seabury, can be used to predict a white-tailed deers responses to CWD exposure with high accuracy and specificity, meaning that the array is likely to become widely deployed for use in a genetic evaluation program aimed at reducing the prevalence of CWD.

Such a program would allow deer farmers, wildlife managers and regulatory agencies to selectively breed the least susceptible deer, thereby building healthier, more CWD-resistant populations. This tool and program could support herd health of both farmed and free-ranging deer populations; although the initial application of this technology is currently focusing on U. S. farmed white-tailed deer.

CWD is a fatal syndrome that causes weight loss, ataxia (as part of a degenerative disease of the nervous system), listlessness and other neurologic symptoms in both farmed and free-ranging U.S. mule deer, elk, moose and white-tailed deer populations.

CWD is recognized as a prion disease, meaning that an infectious misfolded protein (PrPCWD) is instrumental for behavioral changes, emaciation and progressive neurological disease leading to death. Another relevant prion disease known as Scrapie (PrPSc) affects both sheep and goats, and was first recognized in sheep as early as the 18th century.

Importantly, the prevalence of scrapie has been reduced by approximately 85% through afederal eradication program administered by USDA APHIS.

CWD is currently present in at least 26 U.S. states, multiple Canadian provinces and several areas in Eurasia, but its geographic distribution is expanding despite the implementation of surveillance programs that aim to contain and depopulate CWD-positive herds.

Some naturally occurring genetic variation within thePRNP gene which encodes the normal cellular prion protein has previously been associated with enhanced risk for CWD. However, this study clearly demonstrates that while some genetic variation within the PRNPgene has large effects on risk for CWD, selective breeding based uponPRNPinformation alone is insufficient to facilitate a rapid reduction in the overall prevalence of CWD in farmed U.S. white-tailed deer.

Seaburys research published in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics used molecular genetic techniques and machine learning to analyze DNA samples from deer with and without CWD.

He and his team confirmed the G96S genetic variant of thePRNPgene as having large effects on risk, while also demonstrating for the first time that genetic variation in other genes collectively explains more differential susceptibility and variation in disease progression thanPRNPalone; thereby necessitating a whole-genome approach to selective breeding.

The novel test designed and validated by Seabury in this study involves a custom Affymetrix Axiom single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array, which is used to collect genome-wide DNA profiles from white-tailed deer; for both association mapping and machine learning.

One of the most important things from this initial study is the mean genomic prediction accuracy, which hovers around 81 percent, Seabury said. This means that we can predict with about 81 percent accuracy the phenotype of a tested animal, and that we can accurately estimate the genetic merit of each animal, as it relates to CWD, by producing something called genomically-estimated breeding values.

This novel strategy for producing genomic predictions for risk of CWD in white-tailed deer could be used to mitigate CWD risk in both farmed and free-ranging deer populations.

White-tailed deer are very adaptable and prolific; often reappearing in free-ranging areas where depopulation or herd reduction was attempted to control CWD, Seabury said. Additionally, in regions where indigenous anthrax occurs, and has caused wide-spread dead-loss among white-tailed deer, managers have often reintroduced white-tailed deer by translocation. Wouldnt you like to be able to select deer for replacement that you felt would reduce the populations overall risk for CWD?

Seaburys next goal includes making the test an affordable and reliable tool that deer farmers and wildlife agencies can use to ensure healthier populations of white-tailed deer.

I want to achieve a final array designed to be so cheap that it can be widely used and implemented, Seabury said. Im going to strive to redesign the array to maximize the prediction accuracy, but also minimize the costs.

CVM Researcher Develops Tool To Improve Chronic Wasting Disease Resistance In White-Tailed Deer - Texas A&M University Today

The Prostate Cancer Foundation and Robert F. Smith Announce New Effort to Address Health Disparities for African American Men – BioSpace

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

LOS ANGELES, July 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --TheProstate Cancer Foundation(PCF) and Robert F. Smith, founder, chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, announce a new effort to reduce deaths from prostate cancer, one of the largest health disparities facing African American men today.

"As African American men are at an increased risk for being diagnosed or dying from prostate cancer, understanding their risk profile and applying this knowledge earlier with strategic detection, care, and decisions about cancer risk management is of utmost importance to address health inequity in the U.S.," said Smith. "This is why I made a personal commitment to help accelerate research, encourage African American men to participate in the study and subsequent testing, and develop new detection strategies that have the power to transform how we diagnose and treat this disease and help save lives."

The research Smith is supporting will lead to the development of the Smith Polygenic Risk Test for Prostate Cancer, a non-invasive, early detection test that will identify a man's lifetime prostate cancer risk using a combination of more than 250 genetic variants obtained from a single sample of saliva or blood. The Smith Test is expected to cost less than $90 USD and will be made available in PCF's dedicated Veterans Affairs (VA) network of Centers of Excellence, including the Robert Frederick Smith Center of Precision Oncology Excellence at the VA Chicago.

The test is part of a larger PCF research initiative to improve the understanding of genetic risk in African American men and transform early detection and imaging strategies, risk management, and clinical-decision making by men at highest lifetime risk of prostate cancer. The research, led by Dr. Chris Haiman, ScD, a genetic epidemiologist at the University of Southern California, and international colleagues is aimed at accelerating the reduction of prostate cancer disparities for African American men by 2030.

Prostate cancer affects more than three million men in the U.S., with one in nine men diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime. African American men are disproportionately impacted. They are 76 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than Caucasian men, and are more than twice as likely to die from the disease compared to men of other ethnicities. Earlier, strategic detection is a key step in finding a cure and ending the health disparity faced by men of African descent.

"Reducing prostate cancer disparities is at the heart of PCF's mission to end prostate cancer once and for all. This test will democratize access to genetic testing and machine learning algorithms for prostate cancer risk. It will have a historical impact in public health, racial health justice, and cancer research. We are profoundly grateful to partner with Robert to close the health equity gap and spare more men the hardship of a late-stage prostate cancer diagnosis," said Dr. Jonathan W. Simons, CEO of PCF.

Most genomic studies of prostate cancer have focused on men of European ancestry, and there is a vital need for additional resources to develop and optimize a polygenic risk score in those disproportionately affected. This new Smith-PCF initiative will increase the representation of African American men in the study and vastly expand the research to allow Dr. Haiman to quadruple the size of his study cohort, a key step to providing worldwide access to the Smith Polygenic Risk Test as soon as possible.

About the Prostate Cancer FoundationThe Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) is the world's leading philanthropic organization dedicated to funding life-saving cancer research. Founded in 1993 by Mike Milken, PCF has raised more than $830 million in support of cutting-edge research by more than 2,200 research projects at 220 leading cancer centers in 22 countries around the world. Thanks in part to PCF's commitment to ending death and suffering from prostate cancer, the death rate is down by 52% and countless more men are alive today as a result. The Prostate Cancer Foundation research now impacts more than 70 forms of human cancer by focusing on immunotherapy, the microbiome, and food as medicine. Learn more at http://www.pcf.org.

Connect with PCF: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn

MEDIA CONTACT: Donald Wilson for the Prostate Cancer Foundation(310) 428-4730press@pcf.org

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Bitcoin Surges to $9.3K for First Time in a Week Is it a Fakeout? – Cointelegraph

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

The price of Bitcoin (BTC), the top-ranked cryptocurrency by market capitalization, surged past $9,300 on July 21 for the first time in over a week. Following a low-volatility range, traders are seemingly turning cautiously bullish in the near-term.

Since late June, Bitcoin has been stuck in a relatively tight range between $9,000 and $9,250. It struggled to see a major price movement causing the volume to slump. After a quick upsurge from $9,150 to over $9,300, traders predict that a volatility spike is imminent.

The price surge coincided with a U.S. stock market rally, driven by a new round of stimulus. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said a $1 trillion stimulus deal is in the works.

The performance of top cryptocurrencies in the last 24 hours. Source: Coin360.io

Some traders say a break to the upside is likely, but declining volume is concerning

Several technical analysts say that the recent rally of Bitcoin could lead to a bigger rally in the short-term. Bitcoin faces key resistance levels at $9,550 and $9,800, and BTC saw steep rejections from both areas previously.

Crypto trader Philip Swift pinpointed that the two-month range of Bitcoin since May occurred above the 200-day moving average (MA), indicating that the uptrend of Bitcoin could be intact.

The trader said:

Promising little pump this morning. I suspect this will be the week we finally break out of the dreaded range.

The range of Bitcoin since May was above the 200-day moving average. Source: Philip Swift

Arthur Hayes, the CEO of BitMEX, also expressed his excitement towards Bitcoins minor rally. Hayes said BTC awoke from thee slumber, referring to its low volatility in the past week.

Arthur Hayes tweets about Bitcoins first breakout in over a week. Source: Arthur Hayes Twitter

Michael van de Poppe, a full-time trader at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, hinted that Bitcoin is cautiously optimistic. He said:

We've got our breaker and bullish move here, as the market is showing strength. I don't think $BTC will accelerate, as it's just still hopping around.

Binance Futures data shows that the majority of traders on the platform are majority long on Bitcoin and Ether (ETH).

Data from Datamish suggests there are substantially more long contracts than shorts in the entire Bitcoin futures market as well. Longs amount to 22,496 BTC, worth around $209 million. In contrast, shorts stand at a mere 5,555 BTC, worth less than $52 million.

Although the 200-day MA technically suggests an uptrend, historical data shows it could easily break down below it. Previous peaks witnessed in July 2019 and February 2020 both rejected above the 200-day MA.

Data from Santiment also shows that the volume of Bitcoin has declined in recent weeks. When an uptrend coincides with declining volume, it could hint at a fakeout.

Researchers at Santiment wrote:

BTC's overall trading volume continues to slide, and with so much focus on altcoins currently, Bitcoin's trading volume hitting a daily value of $12.25B Saturday marked the lowest single-day value since October 5, 2019 (a 9.5-month low).

The trading volume of Bitcoin continues to decline. Source: Santiment

The market remains mixed as BTC grinds through the new week. Technical indicators and macro fundamental factors, like Bitcoins hash rate and low exchange inflows, suggest an uptrend. But the low volume of BTC throughout the past two months remains a variable.

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Bitcoin Surges to $9.3K for First Time in a Week Is it a Fakeout? - Cointelegraph

Bitcoin And Other Crypto-Assets Excluded From Central Bank Experiments – Forbes

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

A picture taken on January 15, 2020 shows the facade of the Banque de France building in Paris. The ... [+] bank is working with the European Central Bank to re-imagine how new technologies can change the way money works.

The central bank of France is on the verge of conducting a series of sweeping experiments whose lessons could be used to change the way money works. Cryptocurrency wont be included. In a statement from the Banque de France, the nations central bank, which works together with the European Central Bank to determine the monetary policy of the continent, the institution today released the names of eight participants in the experiments and the scope of the work.

Participants are consulting giant Accenture ACN , settlement giant Euroclear, the HSBC bank, French firm, Iznes, etheruem platform LiquidShare, little-known startup, ProsperUS, crypto bank Seba, and Forge, Societe Generales digital capital markets spinoff. The broad parameters of the experiments include everything from testing regulation using digital currency to improve cross-border payments, an analysis of how a central bank digital currency should be made available, and importantly, to explore new methods of exchanging financial instruments (excluding crypto-assets) for central bank money.

The statement from one of the words leading central banks shows how the vaunted institutions are scrambling to learn the best that cryptocurrency, and its underlying blockchain technology have to offer, but only within limits. Neither blockchainthe shared ledger that lets bitcoin existnor the more sanitized word to describe the larger group of technologiesdistributed ledger technology were mentioned by name in the statement. As such, the work also helps define the limits of what any actual adoption of the technology might look like.

The strong mobilization around this call for candidates testifies to the interest of the actors of finance and technology for this approach aiming to explore the potential contributions of a digital money issued by the central bank to improve the functioning of financial markets, in particular interbank regulations, according to a Google GOOGL translation of the statement. A representative of the Banque de France declined to share any additional context.

Over the coming days, the Banque de France will begin conducting experiments with each of the candidates, according to the statement, with some of the projects expected to take as long as multiple months. Candidates were asked to respond to the banks call for applications for CBDC experiments by May 15. The experiments could have far-reaching implications to the decision-making processes for the central bank, which in addition to helping define Europes monetary policy and implement it in France, regulates Frances banks and insurance companies and ensures risk management.

Beyond the confines of France though, lessons learned from the central bank digital currency experiments will be contributed to the international work being led by the Eurosystem, the monetary authority of the European Union. Earlier this month, the bank joined Germanys central bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, and the European Central Bank in co-hosting a new innovation center in Europe within the framework of the Innovation Hub of the Bank for International Settlements.

In May, European Central Bank executive board member, Yves Mersch, confirmed in a speech at industry conference Consensus, that the European Central Bank was one of at least 66 central banks exploring how lessons learned from blockchain could change the very fabric of what we consider money.

For example, Chinas central bank, the Peoples Bank of China, has taken a giant first-mover advantage in the space, starting its CBDC experiments years ago, and currently testing a working implementation. If successful, one side-effect of CBDCs could be borderless transactions, possibly giving people the choice to store Chinese Renminbi in addition to, or instead of dollars, as a global reserve currency,

Based on what we know of the nearly pervasive experiments around the world looking into the nature of CBDCs, some of the other possible changes to the way money works could include giving citizens accounts at central banks, allowing them to occasionally bypass commercial banks and receive direct access to stimulus checks and more. Another possible, but controversial side-effect of central bank digital currencies could enable online payments while maintaining the privacy citizens have historically enjoyed with cash.

Skeptics of the CBDC concept argue that so long as central banks continue to have the authority to print or issue nearly unlimited amounts of the currency the underlying problems of inflation will continue to drive people to more distributed, deflationary alternatives such as bitcoin, which has a set amount. Other skeptics point to the unlikelihood that central banks will ever actually allow citizens the same privacy they have in the real world, online, and could use the technology as a way to track their own citizens spending habits.

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Bitcoin And Other Crypto-Assets Excluded From Central Bank Experiments - Forbes

Survey: 60% of Bitcoin Investors Will Die With Their BTC If Price Stays Below $10,000 | News – Bitcoin News

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

About 60% of bitcoin investors are willing to hold their coins until they die if the price fails to breach the key $10,000 level.

Now thats according to a Twitter poll by Peter Schiff. The gold-bug asked bitcoin hodlers: How much longer does the price of #Bitcoin have to stay below $10,000 before you will throw in the towel and sell?

With about 7 hours left for the poll to expire (at Press time), nearly 26,000 people have responded. At least 58% said they will hold the top crypto for as long as it matters, even if that means taking it to their graves.

Another 15%, or 3,900 people, said it will be a year before they decide to sell. Around 14% of the respondents said they will hodl for another three years and 13% for the next decade before opting to exit their positions.

It seems unfathomable that anyone would willingly die holding onto dear bitcoin because the price stagnated below the psychological $10,000 threshold. Rather, it is more plausible that Schiffs poll result illustrates the faith with which investors hold in regard to BTC, even as the price struggles.

Bitcoin bulls have struggled to gain momentum since the Bitcoin network scheduled supply cut of May 11 the event looked upon by many as a potential turning point for a bullish breakout. Previous such events have led to a major rally. Twice the price of BTC broke above $10,000 and twice it was rejected, at one point to as low as $8,600.

Today, BTC is trading at $9,248, down 0.9% over the last 24 hours, according to markets.Bitcoin.com data. The immediate target is to break above $10,000 and stay there. Analysts consider this level as important for sparking BTCs long-awaited price rally.

According to Chainlysis, a crypto data analytics company, most BTC investors do not want sell their assets because they regard it as digital gold. Of the 18.6 million BTC mined as of June 2020, around 60% is held by entities either people or businesses that have never sold more than 25% of the bitcoin theyve ever received.

The firm says only 3.5 million bitcoin or 19% of total circulating supply is actively traded throughout the world. Another 20% of the existing bitcoin supply has not moved from its current set of addresses in five years or longer what Chainalysis called lost bitcoin.

What do you think about the result of Peter Schiffs poll? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Survey: 60% of Bitcoin Investors Will Die With Their BTC If Price Stays Below $10,000 | News - Bitcoin News

Bitcoin ads must be regulated by UK government, Treasury proposes – Decrypt

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

The UK government wants to get rid of the misleading and inadequate promotions in the countrys cryptocurrency industry.

Today, Her Majestys Treasury put forward a plan to have the UKs financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, gatekeep the crypto companies allowed to advertise their services in the country.

The government laid out the issue in a July 2018 report: Adverts often overstate benefits and rarely warn of volatility risks, the fact consumers can both grow and lose their investment, and the lack of regulation.

Since the reports publication, the UK government recorded an increase in the number of people using cryptocurrencies. In the past year, the government found that the number grew by 2.35%, from 1.5 million people to 2.6 million people; 35% of British HODLers surveyed said they had been swayed by advertisements.

So, to make sure that crypto companies arent deceiving investors, the Treasury proposes that the FCA assume control over a regulatory gateway that crypto companies looking to advertise their products must pass through.

The governments mostly concerned by fungible assets that can be traded on spot exchangessuch as trading Bitcoin or Ethereum on Binance, for example. Crypto companies advertising investments services (think crypto investment houses and spurious auto-trading companies), exchanges, and airdrops would all have to be approved by the FCA.

Digital collectibles, like CryptoKitties, as well as cryptocurrency assets that operate in closed systems, like crypto-based supermarket loyalty points, would be exempt. If a company promotes their products nonetheless, the FCA can force it to withdraw the advertisements.

Before it puts laws into place, Her Majestys Treasury has opened up its proposal to public consultation; interested parties have until October 26 to do so.

Jumping the gun, Decrypt has reached out to some of the companies that would be affected by this regulation. Some welcome the idea, while others think it would stifle the UKs crypto industry.

I think this is good news, Stani Kulechov, CEO and founder of London-based crypto loans company Aave, told Decrypt. If the government intervention weeds out the scammers, its the right way to go, he said.

Mariana Gospodinova, general manager of Crypto.coms Europe business, likwise told Decrypt that the legislation is a good idea. This move is good for the industry, as it will eliminate dubious scammers trying to cash in on cryptocurrency, she said.

And itll be good for business, too: Gospodinova said itll help distinguish companies that are committed to compliance from the fly-by-night schemes that dupe newcomers out of their funds by selling them snake oil masquerading as cryptocurrency.

That is, so long as the FCAs legislation isnt overly onerous and that the FCA applies a light touchshe contrasted this to New Yorks difficult-to-obtain BitLicense.

But not everyones on board. Konstantin Anissimov, the executive director of crypto exchange CEX.IO, told Decrypt that the regulation could be devastating.

The proposed regulation ispointless since within the spot market, there is a very limited amount of misleading one can do as the fees are clear, and the prices of the crypotasset are also clear, he said.

All this will do, then, is make it more difficult to market crypto products, according to Anissimov. He said this could be devastating for such a fast-paced industry as crypto and will most likely hurt the retail investors who will no longer be able to utilize the best market opportunities.

On the other hand, Anissimov conceded that one benefit of the regulation could be a potential increase in the public's trust in crypto, which could then lead to a greater uptake of crypto among the masses.

But only if the whole process is not overburdened with bureaucracy and delays, he said.

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Michael Caselli impressed by innovation of Bitcoin SV platform – CalvinAyre.com

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Bitcoin was always designed to be a perfect match for the gambling industry, with its ability to conduct cost efficient and fast payments, while also providing an immutable audit trail that regulators love, and data networking opportunities for enterprising developers. CG London was a great exhibition of this, and it brought out non-executive chairman ofClarion Events Michael Caselli, who reflected on gamblings history with Bitcoin.

Our very own Rebecca Liggero Fontana bumped into Caselli at the event and asked what brought him out. Its right down the road, its the ideal location for me, he said. Gaming industrys here, its a huge global hub and I thought I better come down because I know a lot of other guys from the industry wanted to come down, and are coming down. And whats interesting, anything blockchain is exciting, theres got to be an application that were looking for now. A lot of companies are innovating and trying to find their applications for anything blockchain, and Bitcoin SV is just a really great platform with good throughput, good transaction volumes, the ability to do quite a lot of stuff on the application layers that you cant do on some of the coins, and it just makes a lot of sense that the gaming industry is coming down and Im here to support.

Bitcoin SV, having finally unleashed the power of unlimited scaling on the blockchain, was impressing plenty of visitors at the conference, and Liggero Fontana asked what potential Caselli saw in it. Decentralized solutions are good for a number of different things like exchanges, he said. Trust is an issue, so where theres ever a trust issue for any application, then theres a good solution for that. Trust issues may exist in countries which are yet to regulate, which dont have a regulator thats overseeing whats going on, and then players could really self-regulate whats happening by using an immutable blockchain.

But while Bitcoin SV has only recently started unleashing the true potential of blockchain technology, the concept itself has been around a number of years, and Caselli reflected on how the gambling industry has approached it. We were at fever pitch maybe six, seven years ago whenever things started to kick off, when Bitcoin got to its, you know, $100 value and then climbed to a thousand dollars, he said. And that was exciting and everyones looking at, saying Where does this work, where does this work? And I think there was a lot of adaptation at that time to kind of move the systems over on the payment side of things. And then when smart contracts came out, there was a whole bunch of people launching tokens and launching projects so they can go and they could fund themselves, create some applications in gaming.

Caselli still feels that excitement, and with the ability to store both value and data, he sees big things coming. With the ability to create applications, who knows where were going to go in the future.

Weve interviewed Caselli recently about how the pandemic has affected the gambling industry. You can catch that chat, and all of our future videos, by subscribing to our CalvinAyre.com YouTube channel.

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Michael Caselli impressed by innovation of Bitcoin SV platform - CalvinAyre.com

Bitcoin And Modern Soft Fork Activation Bitcoin Magazine – Bitcoin Magazine

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Taproot, a proposed protocol upgrade that would improve Bitcoins privacy and flexibility, is in its late stages of development. Bitcoin Core contributors agree that the upgrade would benefit Bitcoin, and so far it generally appears to be welcomed by the wider Bitcoin ecosystem as well. Its therefore likely that Taproot will make its way into a Bitcoin Core release, with other Bitcoin implementations possibly to follow.

But one question remains: how should the Bitcoin network itself upgrade? Taproot is a consensus protocol change, which means that Bitcoin nodes must somehow switch from the old rules to the new rules without splitting the network into factions enforcing different rules. For various reasons, this has in the past sometimes proven to be a challenge.

Improved strategies to activate protocol upgrades are now being contemplated.

The good news is that Taproot will be a soft fork. This type of upgrade adds or tightens rules as opposed to a hard fork which removes or loosens rules. The nice thing about adding or tightening rules is that anything that an upgraded node considers valid, a non-upgraded node considers valid, too. (If an old node accepts both transaction types A and B, but new rules only allow transaction type A, the old node would remain compatible on a network enforcing the new rules.)

Bitcoins earliest soft forks were activated though flag days. Developers (in particular, Satoshi Nakamoto) embedded a future date in the code of a new Bitcoin software client release, specifying a point in time where upgraded nodes would enforce the new rules. Miners and users were encouraged to upgrade before that date to avoid network splits. (As an aside, in those days, miners and users were more often the same people than they are today.)

Since non-upgraded nodes remain compatible with new rules, a handy benefit of soft forks is that if a majority of hash power enforces the upgrade, the entire Bitcoin network finds consensus on their version of the blockchain. This also means there is less of a pressing need for all nodes to be upgraded immediately when the new protocol rules are enforced, allowing users some flexibility. (Though users are encouraged to upgrade nonetheless; they are ultimately the ones enforcing the new rules by rejecting transactions and blocks that break them.)

Since about 2012, soft forks have increasingly utilized hash power as a coordination mechanism to coordinate a switch to new rules. By embedding a bit of data in their blocks, miners can signal to other miners and the rest of the network that they upgraded their software, and thus are ready to enforce the new rules. Once enough hash power signals support, all upgraded nodes are triggered to enforce the new rules.

Over the course of a few upgrades, this strategy evolved into Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 9 (BIP 9). BIP 9 was, for example, the mechanism used to activate Bitcoins last soft fork upgrade, Segregated Witness (SegWit). Miners were given a year to activate the upgrade, requiring 95 percent of blocks within any difficulty interval to include a readiness signal bit. If after a year this hadnt happened, the activation period would expire, and the upgrade would have failed. (It could then of course simply be tried again.)

For SegWit, however, BIP 9 did not play out smoothly. As with some of the previous upgrades, some miners probably didnt get around to upgrading for some time due to apathy: there often isnt a very big incentive for miners to upgrade fast. But a bigger problem was that some miners had come to understand the signaling process as a sort of vote on the upgrade, where instead of signaling readiness, they would (or would not) signal support for it. Worse, some miners ended up using this vote to block the upgrade in order to try and gain political leverage over the Bitcoin development process, and/or they voted against the upgrade in order to covertly benefit from a quirk in the Bitcoin protocol which the upgrade would fix.

After an extended period of intense drama, SegWit ultimately did activate, but only after alternative Bitcoin clients included new activation schemes. BIP 148, included in the BIP 148 client run by some users, was programmed to only accept blocks signaling support for the protocol upgrade starting on a flag day. Meanwhile, BIP 91, included in the btc1 client and run by miners just ahead of the BIP 148 flag day, effectively lowered the hash power requirement from 95 percent to 75 percent. Faced with a potential split network and a possible loss of income, the obstructing miners conceded. But for most Bitcoin Core developers, BIP 9 had revealed itself to be a suboptimal solution, and they started thinking of alternatives.

BIP 8 was an early alternative for BIP 9, proposed by BIP 148 author Shaolinfry and Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core contributor Luke-jr. It initially resembled BIP 9, but with one crucial difference: instead of the upgrade failing after a year of insufficient hash power support, it would do the exact opposite and activate the soft fork at that point in time. Similar to a flag day, all upgraded nodes would from then on start enforcing the new rules. Miners whod still have failed to upgrade would risk mining blocks that upgraded miners and users would reject.

The main idea behind BIP 9 is that assuming of course that users upgrade miners cant block the soft fork and therefore cant use this leverage to their benefit. They can speed activation up and help coordinate a smooth protocol upgrade, but the upgrade will eventually happen even if they dont activate it themselves.

A more recent draft of BIP 8 includes some notable changes. For one, BIP 8 allows nodes to be configured for two different policies when the signaling period is about to expire: forced activation, as explained in the previous two paragraphs, or no forced activation, like with BIP 9. Furthermore, instead of activating the upgrade itself, nodes (if so configured) actually enforce signaling for the upgrade. Blocks that do not signal support for the upgrade are then rejected, hence still guaranteeing the upgrade, at least for the upgraded nodes. The combination of these two changes has the interesting property that if a majority of all Bitcoin hash power is compelled to signal support for the upgrade, even BIP 8 nodes that arent configured to enforce signaling will go along with the upgrade,

An argument against BIP 8, and its forced signaling (or automatic activation) in specific, is that it can be risky, especially on a shorter timeline. If a hash power majority and at least some users dont upgrade, this scheme could split the network between upgraded and non-upgraded nodes. Assuming most users support the upgrade, this would likely resolve in favor of the upgraded part of the network eventually. But non-upgraded users would risk losing funds in the meantime, while non-upgraded miners would waste hash power to the detriment of Bitcoins security.

This risk is probably best countered by offering enough time to upgrade. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees on how much time is enough; some think forced signaling could start within a year, others believe it should take several years.

Another complication with BIP 8 is setting defaults for forced signaling. If forced signaling is switched off by default, users could find themselves uncoordinated, increasing the risk of network splits. If on the other hand forced signaling is chosen as the default in a Bitcoin Core release, the historically widespread adoption of Bitcoin Core virtually guarantees that the upgrade will happen. Some believe this would give Bitcoin Core developers too much influence over Bitcoins protocol rules. For this reason, BIP 8 coauthor Luke-jr prefers BIP 8 with forced signaling to exclusively be deployed through special clients, similar to the BIP 148 client.

Others argue that Bitcoin Core developers always release software to their best judgement, while keeping user demand in mind and avoiding contentious upgrades; setting BIP 8 defaults should be no exception to this policy. If anyone disagrees with the choices Bitcoin Core developers make after all, they can simply choose not to upgrade to a new release or even fork the Bitcoin Core code to launch a competing client altogether.

While Bitcoin Core developers indeed seek to take user demand into consideration and try to avoid contentious upgrades, not everyone is convinced this is always perfectly possible. Perhaps concerns about a proposed upgrade only surface when the software is deployed in a new release. Perhaps whole new issues arise after this release. Or perhaps Bitcoin Core developers simply missed something.

This is one reason why Bitcoin Core contributor Matt Corallo proposed a strategy dubbed Modern Soft Fork Activation. Modern Soft Fork Activation consists of three steps, together essentially realizing a combination of BIP 9 (or: BIP 8 without forced signaling) and BIP 8 with flag day activation (though forced signaling could be an option as well).

As the first step, BIP 9 would allow miners to activate the soft fork through hash power. If miners dont activate it in (say) a year, the first activation window expires. Then, as the second step, developers take some time to analyze why activation failed, and reconsider the proposal if they do find a concern with it. If they find there was no problem with the proposal, however, the third step is redeployment of the soft fork, this time using BIP 8 with flag day activation: miners get another chance to activate the proposal with hash power, but if they fail again, the soft fork activates when this second signaling period ends. (During this second signaling period, the hash power activation threshold could also be incrementally lowered over time, Bitcoin Core contributor AJ Towns suggests.)

By explicitly committing to BIP 8 redeployment if it turns out theres nothing wrong with the proposal, Corallo believes the strategy would offer the benefits of BIP 9 without the downside. The code is put out there during the first signaling period for everyone to consider, miners can coordinate a smooth upgrade if they so choose, and with no forced activation developers can take their time to reconsider the proposal if activation does initially fail. Meanwhile, miners would have much less to gain from blocking the upgrade for no good reason, as everyone knows it will eventually activate anyways.

The main argument against Modern Soft Fork Activation is that without miner cooperation, the process would take relatively long, and some consider the BIP 9 step a waste of time altogether. Corallos original proposal includes one year of BIP 9 signaling, followed by six months to reconsider, and finally two years of BIP 8 signaling before automated activation: a total of three-and-a-half years. While this timeline is of course not set in stone yet, shortening the different steps by too much would leave less time for reconsideration and/or upgrading (increasing the risk of network splits).

Due to the long time until potential forced activation, some also argue that miners can try and gain some political leverage after all: they can delay the upgrade for years.

Another, recent suggestion circulating through Bitcoins tech channels is perhaps best described as a bit of a merger between BIP 8 and Modern Soft Fork Activation, at least in spirit. The unnamed proposal would deploy a long BIP 8 signaling period, perhaps as long as Modern Soft Fork Activations three-and-a-half years, after which forced signaling triggers. However, if after (say) one year the upgrade didnt activate yet, developers would take some time to reconsider the proposal, like they would with Modern Soft Fork Activation.

If developers would find no problem with the proposal, and instead were to conclude that it simply hadnt activated due to miner apathy or another invalid reason, they could opt to deploy a new soft fork in the style of BIP 91, used during SegWit activation. This would effectively lower the hash power threshold for activation, presumably speeding up the process.

If, on the other hand, developers would find a problem with the proposal after all, they could deploy a new soft fork that would fix the problem, or even undo the original soft fork (in this case, Taproot) altogether. Assuming Modern Soft Fork Activations three-and-a-half-year timeline until forced signaling, there ought to be enough time left to take care of this.

The main argument against this proposal is probably that its not very elegant to deploy a soft fork that undoes another soft fork, if so needed. More concretely, it requires that miners and users upgrade to new releases before deadlines are reached, or risk splitting the network.

Finally, as a bit of an outlier idea, Bitcoin Core contributor Jeremy Rubin suggested that a concept he invented called Probabilistic Bitcoin soft forks, or Sporks, might be more incentive compatible than typical hash power enforced softforks.

The heart of the problem of BIP 9, Rubin argues, is that miners can delay upgrades at no cost of their own. Simply refusing to signal readiness for an upgrade is free, while it potentially offers them political leverage.

With Sporks, the readiness signal is no longer taken from a bit of data that miners include in the blocks they mine, but derived from the block header hash: the randomly generated proof of work they produced by investing time and resources. Upgraded nodes would agree that a small subset of valid block header hashes statistically to only be found every six months or so would trigger the upgrade.

Per the randomness of hashes, a miner would not control whether he produces regular block header hashes or upgrade-activating block header hashes; hed statistically just happen to churn out one of the latter sporadically. So, if his invested resources happen to generate an upgrade-activating block header hash, hed have two choices. Either, publish it to the Bitcoin network, earn the block reward, and activate the soft fork. Or, withhold from publishing, delaying the soft fork by about six months on average in our example but in doing so also giving up the block reward. Delaying the upgrade would come at a significant cost.

The main problem with Sporks right now is probably that its a relatively new idea, that hasnt been developed yet let alone tested in the wild. While some do consider the concept interesting, its as of yet not the most likely contender for Taproot activation.

Authors note: The debate on soft fork activation (and Taproot activation in specific) is in flux; this is a non-exhaustive overview of the different upgrade proposals, especially when it comes to variants of the proposals with alternative parameters and other tweaks, and all their pros and cons.

Another idea, which has been gaining some traction since this article was written (mostly), is to first deploy BIP 8 with a relatively long signaling period (say, two years), configured without forced signaling at the end of this signaling period. This allows miners to activate the soft fork relatively normally, as they have done several times in the past. However, if after some time (say, six months) the soft fork isnt activated, and there doesnt appear to be a good reason for the delay, a new client can be released with BIP 8 configured to force signaling near the end of the existing signaling period, or sooner. Assuming most miners then activate the soft fork either before or during this forced signaling period, both sets of BIP 8 nodes (with and without the forced signaling configuration) would enforce the soft fork on activation.

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Bitcoin And Modern Soft Fork Activation Bitcoin Magazine - Bitcoin Magazine

‘Wonder Woman’ Illustrator and British Artist Terry Flaxton to Sell Ethereum-Backed Art – Bitcoin News

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

The non-fungible token (NFT) and blockchain-backed collectible economy continue to see demand and the digital art market Makerplace has seen enormous growth recently. A number of well known artists have started to participate, as work from the acclaimed comic book illustrator Jose Delbo and 4K video art from Terry Flaxton will be sold on the premier market for rare digital art.

Just recently news.Bitcoin.com reported on the growing blockchain-backed metaverse and the non-fungible token (NFT) evolution. In the report, it was discussed how the sales of blockchain-powered non-fungible token sales crossed the $100 million mark.

Not only is there more than 18,500 wallets on Opensea, the largest NFT marketplace, but another marketplace dubbed Makerplace is seeing a lot of attention from buyers and popular artists. Makerplace is essentially a market for blockchain-backed digital art collections. The website states:

Every digital creation available through Makersplace is an authentic and truly unique digital creation, signed and issued by the creator made possible by blockchain technology. Even if the digital creation is copied, it wont be the authentic and originally signed version.

One specific artist who will host artwork for sale on Makerplace is the British artist Terry Flaxton who is well known for his analog video content, photography, film, and sound composition work. Flaxton has held over 200 exhibitions globally and he will be selling a 4K video project called Under Every Desert a Sea.

Currently, there is a pending offer for one out of the ten Flaxton-created 4K videos being sold for 2.2 ETH ($512). Flaxtons video on Makerplace is also linked through Opensea and the listings description says:

Under every Desert a Sea began its life with images of the Mojave desert that are now so abstracted they appear to be water.

Another well known artist who will be featured on Makersplace web portal will be the comic book illustrator who worked on the DC Comic Wonder Woman series from 1976 to 1981. The comic book artist Jose Delbo also worked on the Thundercats, Transformers, and Brute Force comics in the eighties and nineties for Marvel.

On July 23, 2020, Delbo will be selling a digital Superman drawing and a digital comic book as well. Reports note that Delbo will be answering questions about his digital work during an exhibition hosted in Decentraland.

The art scene worldwide is steadily transforming into an online art industry, and digital art sales are growing every year. At the current growth rate, blockchain and NFT markets like Makerplace and Opensea may someday outshine popular digital art venues like Redbubble, Artfinder, Artplode, Ugallery, and Saatchi Art.

In contrast to the traditional digital art marketplaces that have transpired during the last few years, markets like Opensea and Makerplace sell blockchain-based and NFT art with immutability.

Sales on both markets can be seen in real-time every day and people are spending their precious cryptocurrencies on digital art. For instance, a few pieces of digital art that recently sold on Makerplace include works like Vandalism ($333), Rudbeckia ($153), and a form of pixelated art called Pxlpet Not a Virus ($617).

What do you think about digital art being sold on Opensea and Makerplace? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Art by Jose Delbo, Makerplace, Terry Flaxton, Opensea,

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'Wonder Woman' Illustrator and British Artist Terry Flaxton to Sell Ethereum-Backed Art - Bitcoin News

Tesla Eating Bitcoins Lunch as Realized Volatility Hits 3-Year Low – Cointelegraph

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Bitcoin (BTC) set another dubious record on July 15 as realized volatility sank to its lowest in three years.

According to data from on-chain analytics resource Skew, 30-day realized volatility recorded its smallest reading since 2017 this week.

Realized volatility refers to volatility as defined by various timespans. Low volatility tends to concern traders and analysts, particularly over extended periods, as a kickback is all too often triggered afterward.

Earlier this month, 10-day realized volatility hit 20%, its lowest since the period immediately before BTC/USD crashed to $3,100 in December 2018.

As Cointelegraph reported earlier this month, trading volumes were also down at the time, fuelling expectations that volatility would soon return to the market.

Since then, Bitcoins anticipated big move has yet to appear, with a trading corridor between $9,000 and $9,500 remaining in place.

BTC/USD realized volatility comparison. Source: Skew/ Twitter

For Cointelegraph Markets analyst filbfilb, however, there was plenty of potential for a major correction towards $8,000. Specifically, he told subscribers of his Telegram trading channel on Tuesday, the 20-week moving average (MA) at $8,200 provided a realistic support level. Alternatively, BTC should reclaim its 50-day moving average, currently close to $9,400.

Overall my position remains very cautious, he summarized.

Until then its just sideways chop until proven otherwise so I'm happy to sit that out and wait for confirmation.

In the meantime, Bitcoin is providing little inspiration, with even Tesla stock beating it on volatility.

#Bitcoin realized volatility on a three years low, Tesla is eating bitcoin's lunch! Skew commented.

Tesla has surprised by posting multiple new highs despite multiple calls for a massive correction continuing for several months. Since its recent bottom on March 18, $TSLA has gained over 300% to trade at $1,516 at press time.

Even at $1,200, Teslas market cap was over 30% larger than Bitcoins.

Tesla stock price eight-month chart. Source: TradingView

Tesla CEO Elon Musk continues to be known as a possible cryptocurrency supporter, with mysterious tweets on topics from Bitcoin holdings to Dogecoin (DOGE) causing considerable interest among users.

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Tesla Eating Bitcoins Lunch as Realized Volatility Hits 3-Year Low - Cointelegraph

Windmill Brixton hosts thrash live-stream – Brixton Blog

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Oozing Wound. Image: Joe Martinez Jr

Chicago band Oozing Wound are live-streaming a full show from the The Windmill, Brixton, on Saturday 18 July from 11am to 11pm British summer time (UTC+01)

The live video will be streamed in HD quality byMusic Everywhere.

They suggest that interested people shouldregister in advanceto avoid problems in catching the stream.

Oozing Wounds label Thrill Jockey say they are a mass of contradictions; weed lovers whose music hits with a breakneck head-banging force, dealing with nihilism, yet remains fun.

Oozing Wound emerged from the Chicago underground noise warehouse scene and their music is equal parts sludge and thrash, noise and riff-loaded rock.

Guitarist and vocalist Zack Weil, drummer Kyle Reynolds and bassist Kevin Cribbin blend ferocious energy, sonic experiments and blunt lyricism on their latest recording,High Anxiety.

The Windmill is currently operating as a socially distanced pub from 5 to 11pm Monday to Thursday; from 5pm to 1amon Fridays; noon to 1am on Saturdays; and noon to 11pm on Sundays.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/savewindmillbrixton

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Windmill Brixton hosts thrash live-stream - Brixton Blog

Is this the sanest debate on race yet? – The Spectator USA

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

The race debate is rapidly descending into a one-note diatribe where white accountability has become the only game in town. White liberal voices now dominate an increasingly febrile narrative but alongside mainstream flagellations about systemic racism and white supremacy, a less hysterical, more nuanced discussion is taking place.

Black centrist and conservative intellectuals have been quietly trying to unpick whats really been going on across western democracies. Their conclusions run counter to the mainstream story we are all being impelled to sign up to, namely that injustice runs deeper than mere skin color.

Conservative economist and social theorist Thomas Sowell, who recently turned 90, has been trying to open up just such a debate for over five decades but media elites have largely ignored his well-mannered persistence in favor of a noisier, more divisive grievance lobby. Sowell, currently a senior fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution, has criticized simplistic arguments around reparations and social justice, arguing that a culture of victimhood, stoked by white liberals is actually holding black men in particular back. In his books The Economics and Politics of Race,Ethnic AmericaandAffirmative Action Around the World, Sowell suggests that many problems identified with African Americans are anything but unique. He argues that for equality to exist, the most disadvantaged in our society need to be lifted out of the prison of low expectation and victimhood regardless of race. Rather than encouraging the most vulnerable to destroy the moral virtues and institutions designed to play to their better natures and thus improve life-chances, Sowell believes we should be setting in place measures that encourage full participation in the structures that have kept America functioning across the centuries and yes that includes embracing capitalism and the nuclear family. Instead of focusing entirely on the unfairness of the system, those in power should be inspiring a generation to better themselves through a radically improved education system, a return to personal responsibility and a belief in something beyond the narrow confines of the self in other words workable solutions that avoid empty nihilism and easy despair.

***Get a digital subscription toThe Spectator.Try a month free, then just $3.99 a month***

Black conservatives such as Sowell have always struggled to be heard above the din of the ideologues but now a younger, more vocal demographic has entered the fray via podcasts and long form discussion forums. This week biologist and evolutionary theorist Bret Weinstein assembled a smorgasbord of mostly young African American academics in a fascinating two-hour round table discussion that tries valiantly to unravel the root causes of the current malaise. One of the guests, Chlo Valdary who developed the Theory of Enchantment, an innovative framework for social emotional learning, believes that America is experiencing a crisis of meaning and that spiritual undernourishment has led to a retreat into polarizing groupthink where the cult of diversity and inclusion has singularly failed on its promise to unite. In this expanding spiritual void, politics has become the new religion and the popularity of books such as Robin diAngelos White Fragility reflect a culture that demands we turn on ourselves rather than seek out solutions. But Valdary remains optimistic, believing that the majority of Americans have grown tired of being whipped into a frenzy by an increasingly infantilized, Twitter-mob-obsessed media.

Elsewhere black conservative thinkers such as Larry Elder and Candace Owens are daring to push back against the current orthodoxy even if that means being demonized and hounded by an indignant, mainly white liberal stronghold who simply cannot stomach dissenting voices especially from a racial demographic they believe owes them unwavering loyalty.

Anyone who feels disheartened by the culture wars rapid descent into ad hominem attack and empty posturing should seek out these brave new voices who seem determined to unite rather than divide.

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Is this the sanest debate on race yet? - The Spectator USA

Art, beauty and the task of humanities – Daily Times

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Man can live without science, he can live without bread, but without beauty, he could no longer live because there would no longer be anything to do to the world. The whole secret is here, the whole of history is here. (Dostoevsky)

Laotzes and Kants respective remarks about beauty as the usefulness of the useless, and purposiveness without purpose, are recalled in Martha Nasubaums choice of the title of her work Nor for Profit: Why Democracy Needs Humanities.

Given the modern penchant for utility and commodification that reserves only a small corner for arts in museums and seeks profit by organising art exhibitions, and impoverished modern souls not ready to live and die for beauty, the twentieth century has been the ugliest as Ananda Coomaraswamy noted. Our standard references to immortal works of art and architecture usually go to ancient or medieval times against traditional cultures that glorified God by cultivating beauty within and without,

It is imperative to take stock of arts that have been the temple of beauty and are today widely sought to partly fulfil our hunger for transcendence. We need to take note of the role of arts and humanities in the central task of fashioning humans and giving them the motivation to live soulfully or meaningfully and in the refinement of culture as against civilisation, (a distinction often ignored). Cultivating beauty, which is said to be the fulfilment of religion (Ihsan is Husn paida kerden) in a famous prophetic tradition (hadith-i-Jibriel) is what has been forgotten despite a penchant for the so-called beauty industry.

Cultivating beauty is what has been forgotten despite a penchant for the so-called beauty industry

According to all traditions, it is possible to reclaim the paradise whose image we harbour deep inside and it is education that involves humanities that has a role here. In an age when politicians and even universities might claim that the humanities dont matter and we ought to steer students into science, technology, engineering and math and we find such things as the recent report of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on the crisis in the Humanities entitled The Heart of the Matter, philosopher and novelist Rebecca Goldstein has been, thus, paraphrased by a reviewer: The humanities assert the sanctity of the individual, help us puzzle out the meaning of existence, teach us to examine our assumptions and urge us to consider others assumptions, she said. The study of the humanities might be under siege right now, but it will prevail, she said. Nietzsche, whose fascination with a sort of post-religious or supra-religious mysticism is little appreciated, didnt fail to recognise that religion was useful for providing meaning, community, and helping to deal with the problems of life. His first suggestion was to replace religion with philosophy, art, music, literature, theatre, and other parts of the humanities to provide similar benefits. Art indeed has been central to postmodern philosophers in the task of overcoming nihilism. It is central to Nietzsche and Heidegger and we can find its contemporary articulation in All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly. The role of art, of tragedy, of play, of beauty, of everything, that humanities engage with is writ large in the pages of every contemporary text that treats, in non-religious or non-theistic terms, the question of meaning. Arnold has been proved right. It is another matter how far this endeavour succeeds and whether we need to contend with it.

It is sad to note that despite realising the significance of art and beauty, they stand exiled from our midst. We have failed to take sufficient note of pleas of artists wedded to beauty. Against traditional man, we have largely forgotten beauty in our houses, in our surroundings, in cities, in villages, in souls. And that explains suffocating lives we live. It is museums that are beautiful and they are generally from ages past when mans religion was a beauty and not utility. Today, our architecture is, generally speaking, designed for utility or vanity. And that has given us a largely ugly, homogeneous, and inhospitable world where all cities look alike and you can find suffocating monotony of banks, malls, schools, hospitals that are designed without regard for vivifying symbolism and for the dead customers/clients/alienated individuals or hired workers. They are best for the dead.

To be true to human or better mans divine image is the heart of humanities as traditionally conceived. Humanities are not to be reduced to sciences but taken as guardians of culture, as creators of value that others then exchange. In a country where the role of God/Sacred or religion is considered important in the framing of the constitution, humanities and their place and funding need to be a priority even if it would be led to question current framing of humanities in the dominant secularizing episteme. Humanities are central to the task of fashioning souls so should be autonomous as madrasahs have been or funded by the community.

Or Madrasahs have to be integrated to universities or revitalized in the classical sense when they performed the role of humanities. A few suggestions from Manazar Ahsan Gilani and Newman regarding marrying the classical idea of university/madrassah with the modern institutions substituting them are worth considering in this context.

Beauty, as the splendour of the Truth and attractive power of the Good or perfection, is also a noetic (knowledge giving) beside an aesthetic notion and satisfies that longing to know the Real or what is considered absolute. Invoking the theology of the aesthetic and emphasising reading art as a ritual for purification and support to contemplation one could counter pervasive crisis of meaning or values in postmodernity that has impacted humanities construction of the human. Martin Lings study Shakespeare in the Light of Sacred Art and Harold Blooms Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human may be read to retrieve the torn and forgotten image of the human, pontifical theomorphic man in the wake of the dominance of sciences at the cost of humanities in the modern world.

The writer can be reached at marooof123@yahoo.com

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Art, beauty and the task of humanities - Daily Times

LETTERS: Readers’ thoughts on victimless crimes, parks and voting by mail – Waco Tribune-Herald

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

We taxpayers work too hard for our money to see it misused and to not have a say in where it goes.

Parks are precious

Throughout the pandemic, doctors have been touting the benefits of the outdoors. As cities across Texas closed parks for the Fourth, it became painfully clear that we need our parks now more than ever.

Parks are undeniably the safest places to escape the monotony of a quarantine spent indoors. The CDC even recommends visiting parks close to your home because of the positive impact they can have on your health, both physically and emotionally.

Parks have been described as the key to reducing the burden on our health-care system. However, they are notoriously underfunded, which leads to their deterioration and decreased use.

Luckily, theres an easy solution. The Great American Outdoors Act is entering the House and would provide increased funding to better maintain our parks and make up for decades of underfunding. Congress needs to pass this act so Americans can continue reaping the benefits our parks provide.

Voting by mail

For those who believe vote-by-mail is the way to go, you might consider this: New York had an election nearly three weeks ago and theyre still counting ballots.

LETTERS: Readers' thoughts on victimless crimes, parks and voting by mail - Waco Tribune-Herald

From Arvind Fashions to Peter England, apparel makers are betting on anti-viral fabric but they might not nece – Business Insider India

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

Both Arvind and Peter England have partnered with the Switzerland-based HeiQ, a leader in the textile innovation sector, to bring out the anti-viral collections. HeiQ Viroblock claims to reduce viral infectivity by 99.99% and also says it is one of the first textile technologies in the world to claim such efficacy on SARS-CoV-2.

HeiQ Viroblock is a special combination of our advanced silver and vesicle technology that has been proven effective against the human coronavirus 229E and SARS-CoV-2, causing Covid-19, with 99.99% reduction of virus in 30 minutes. It is a safe, hypoallergenic and patent pending technology, said Carlo Centonze, CEO, HeiQ Group in a statement.

"The demand for textile with antimicrobial material has picked up in the market amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and these are being used to manufacture N95 masks, surgical masks, PPEs and food packaging bags. While its true efficacy in the long term is yet to be proven, however, in the short and medium term this trend will certainly be relevant to the manufacturers," said Pinakiranjan Mishra, Partner and Leader, Consumer Products and Retail, EY India.

But the big brands arent the only ones to begin marketing anti-viral fabrics. Smaller companies like Nirvana Being, denim fashion brand Freakins are selling anti-viral masks.

Meanwhile, Nirvana Being said that their masks are viral filtration efficiency (VFE) is certified and tested by Nelson Labs, USA. "We also do not have any form of coating on our masks as coatings tend to disappear after one wash. All our products were created for the mass market after thorough research wherein the team realized that COVID-19 particles have a diameter of close to 0.12 microns, and standard media and HEPA filters, which are somewhat porous, cannot filter nano-particles smaller than 0.3 microns. Therefore, Nirvana Being developed a filter using nanotechnology to filter at 0.1 micron. In short, our masks are designed to filter particles which are even smaller than COVID-19 particles with high efficiency," Jai Dhar Gupta, founder and CEO, Nirvana Being told Business Insider.

But it is important to remember that they are not proven to be effective against COVID-19 and therefore, no matter what you are wearing, you can never be too safe.

Bitcoin Founder Satoshi Nakamoto Believed To Have $10.9 Billion Worth Of BTC – International Business Times

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

KEY POINTS

A new research by analytics firm Whale Alert reveals that the miner known as "Patoshi",while mining during the early days of Bitcoin, is in possession of 1,125,150 BTC, worth $10.9 billion. Patoshi, who is believedto beBitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, has also made the effort to protect the network from attacks during Bitcoins early days.

Patoshi is the name given by analyst Sergio Demian Lerner to the early Bitcoin miner who has a distinct pattern in themining activity. Lerner believes Patoshi is Satoshi based on a pattern left by using a modified version of Bitcoin Core, which Satoshi allegedly used.

The particular pattern could be found at the beginning of the network and also in the blocks that mined the Bitcoins sent to Hal Finney, the first person to received Bitcoins through the network. By connecting the two pieces of information together, Whale Alert deduced the identity of Patoshi.

Whale Alert also found out that Patoshi adjusted his mining speed between blocks to maintain the average time of 10 minutes. The analytics firm thought this was done to protect the network from a 51%attack, a malicious takeover of the network by bad actors. Also, Patoshi made sure he maintained 60%of the processing power while leaving enough blocks for other miners. The more miners joined the network, the more secure it was and the lesser the chance for a 51% attack to be successful. When Patoshi decided the network was strong enough, he reduced his blocks per 10 minutes so others have more chance of mining a block.

At some point, however, it became difficult to track Patoshis blocks so it was impossible to know if Patoshi (or Satoshi) had continued or stopped mining. Whale Alert said the node or computer (miner) used to mine the Patoshi blocks was turned off around May 2010. In total, 907 BTC was spent from the Bitcoins mined on the Patoshi blocks and 1,122,693 BTC was unspent.

Around the same time, Satoshi was active in the BitcoinTalk forum until Dec.12, 2010. Satoshi's last verified communication was an email to then-Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen. I wish you wouldnt keep talking about me as a mysterious shadowy figure, the press just turns that into a pirate currency angle, Satoshi said.

Gold-colored Bitcoin coin on ground Photo: Andr Franois McKenzie on Unsplash

Bitcoin Founder Satoshi Nakamoto Believed To Have $10.9 Billion Worth Of BTC - International Business Times

The Famous AI Turing Test Put In Reverse And Upside-Down, Plus Implications For Self-Driving Cars – Forbes

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

AI and the Turing Test, turned round and round.

How will we know when the world has arrived at AI?

To clarify, there are lots of claims these days about computers that embody AI, implying that the machine is the equivalent of human intelligence, but you need to be wary of those rather brash and outright disingenuous assertions.

The goal of those that develop AI consists of one day being able to have a computer-based system that can exhibit human intelligence, doing so in the widest and deepest of ways that human intelligence exists and showcases itself.

There is not any such AI as yet devised.

The confusion over this matter has gotten so out-of-hand that the field of AI has been forced into coming up with a new moniker to express the outsized revered goal of AI, proclaiming now that the goal is to arrive at Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

This is being done in hopes of emphasizing to laymen and the public-at-large that the vaunted and desired AI would include common-sense reasoning and a slew of other intelligence-like capacities that humans have (for details about the notion of Strong AI versus Weak AI, along with Narrow AI too, see my explanation at this link here).

Since there is quite some muddling going on about what constitutes AI and what does not, you might wonder how we will ultimately be able to ascertain whether AI has been unequivocally attained.

We rightfully should insist on having something more than a mere provocateur proclamation and we ought to remain skeptical about anyone that holds forth an AI system that they declare is the real deal.

Looks alone would be insufficient to attest to the arrival.

There are plenty of parlor stunts in the AI bag-of-tricks that can readily fool many into believing that they are witnessing an AI of amazing human-like qualities (see my coverage of such trickery at this link here).

No, just taking someones word for AI having been accomplished or simply kicking the tires of the AI to feebly gauge its merits is insufficient and inarguably will not do.

There must be a better way.

Those within the AI field have tended to consider a type of test known as the Turing Test to be the gold standard for seeking to certify AI as being the venerated AI or semantically the AGI.

As named after its author, Alan Turing, the well-known mathematician and early pioneer in the computer sciences, the Turing Test was devised in 1950 and remains pertinent still today (heres a link to the original paper).

Parsimoniously, the Turing Test is relatively easy to describe and indubitably straightforward to envision (for my deeper analysis on this, see the link here).

Heres a quick rundown about the nature of the Turing Test.

Imagine that we had a human hidden behind a curtain, and a computer hidden behind a second curtain, such that you could not by sight alone discern what or who is residing behind the two curtains.

The human and the computer are considered contestants in a contest that will be used to try and figure out whether AI has been reached.

Some prefer to call them subjects rather than contestants, due to the notion that this is perhaps more of an experiment than it is a game show, but the point is that they are participants in a form of challenge or contest involving wits and intelligence.

No arm wrestling is involved, and nor any other physical acts.

The testing process is entirely about intellectual acumen.

A moderator serves as an interrogator (also referred to as a judge because of the designated deciding role in this matter) and proceeds to ask questions of the two participants that are hidden behind the curtains.

Based on the answers provided to the questions, the moderator will attempt to indicate which curtain hides the human and which curtain hides the computer. This is a crucial judging aspect. Simply stated, if the moderator is unable to distinguish between the two contestants as to which is the human and which is the computer, presumably the computer has sufficiently proven that it is the equivalent of human intelligence.

Turing originally coined this the imitation game since it involves the AI trying to imitate the intelligence of humans. Note that the AI does not necessarily have to be crafted in the same manner as humans, and thus there is no requirement that the AI has a brain or uses neurons and such. Thus, those devising AI are welcome to use Legos and duct tape if that will do the job to achieve the equivalence of human intelligence.

To successfully pass the Turing Test, the computer embodying AI will have had to answer the posed questions with the same semblance of intelligence as a human. An unsuccessful passing of the Turing Test would occur if the moderator was able to announce which curtain housed the computer, thus implying that there was some kind of telltale clue that gave away the AI.

Overall, this seems to be a rather helpful and effective way to ferret out AI that is the aspirational AGI versus AI that is something less so.

Of course, like most things in life, there are some potential gotchas and twists to this matter.

Imagine we have set up a stage with two curtains and a podium for the moderator. The contestants are completely hidden from view.

The moderator steps up to the podium and asks one of the contestants how to make a bean burrito, and then asks the other contestant how to make a bologna sandwich. Lets assume that the answers are apt and properly describe the effort involved in making a bean burrito and in making a bologna sandwich, respectively so.

The moderator decides to stop asking any further questions.

Voila, the moderator announces, the AI is indistinguishable from human intelligence and therefore this AI is declared forthwith as having reached the pinnacle of AI, the long sought after AGI.

Should we accept this decree?

I dont think so.

This highlights an important element of the Turing Test, namely that the moderator needs to ask a sufficient range and depth of questions that will help root out the embodiment of intelligence. When the questions are shallow or insufficient, any conclusion reached is spurious at best.

Please know too that there is not a specified set of questions that have been vetted and agreed upon as the right ones to be asked during a Turing Test. Sure, some researchers have tried to propose the types of questions that ought to be asked, but this is an ongoing debate and to some extent illuminates that we are still not even quite sure of what intelligence per se consists of (it is hard to identify metrics and measures for that which is relatively ill-defined and ontologically squishy).

Another issue exists about the contestants and their behavior.

For example, suppose the moderator asks each of the contestants whether they are human.

The human can presumably answer yes, doing so honestly. The AI could say that it is not a human, opting to be honest, but then this decidedly ruins the test and seemingly undermines the spirit of the Turing Test.

Perhaps the AI should lie and say that it is the human. There are ethicists though that would decry such a response and argue that we do not want AI to be a liar, therefore no AI should ever be allowed to lie.

Of course, the human might lie, and deny that they are the human in this contest. If we are seeking to make AI that is the equivalent of human intelligence, and if humans lie, which we all know that humans certainly do lie from time-to-time, shouldnt the AI also be allowed to lie?

Anyway, the point is that the contestants can either strive to aid the Turing Test or can try to undermine or distort the Turing Test, which some say is fine, and that it is up the moderator to figure out what to do.

Alls fair in love and war, as they say.

How tricky do we want the moderator to be?

Suppose the moderator asks each of the contestants to calculate the answer to a complex mathematical equation. The AI can speedily arrive at a precise answer of 8.27689459, while the human struggles to do the math by hand and come up with an incorrect answer of 9.

Aha, the moderator has fooled the AI into revealing itself, and likewise the human into revealing that they are a human, doing so by asking a question that the computer-based AI readily could answer and that a human would have a difficult time answering.

Believe it or not, for this very reason, AI researchers have proposed the introduction of what some describe as Artificial Stupidity (for detailed facets of this topic, see my coverage here). The idea is that the AI will purposely attempt to be stupid by sharing answers as though they were prepared by a human. In this instance, the AI might report that the answer is 8, thus the response is a lot like the one by the human.

You can imagine that having AI purposely try to make mistakes or falter (this is coined as the Dimwit ploy by AI, see my explanation at this link here), seems distasteful, disturbing, and not something that everyone necessarily agrees is a good thing.

We do allow for humans to make guffaws, but having AI that does so, especially when it knows better would seem like a dangerous and undesirable slippery slope.

The Reverse Turing Test Rears Its Head

Ive now described for you the overall semblance of the Turing Test.

Next, lets consider a variation that some like to call a Reverse Turing Test.

Heres how that works.

The human contestant decides they are going to pretend that they are the AI. As such, they will attempt to provide answers that are indistinguishable from the AIs type of answers.

Recall that the AI in the conventional Turing Test is trying to seem indistinguishable from a human. In the Reverse Turing Test, the human contestant is trying to reverse the notion and act as though they were the AI and therefore indistinguishable from the AI.

Well, that seems mildly interesting, but why would the human do this?

This might be done for fun, kind of laughs for people that enjoy developing AI systems. It could also be done as a challenge, trying to mimic or imitate an AI system, and betting whether you can do so successfully or not.

Another reason and one that seems to have more chops or merit consists of doing what is known as a Wizard of Oz.

When a programmer is developing software, they will sometimes pretend that they are the program and use a facade front-end or interface to have people interact with the budding system, though those users do not know that the programmer is watching their interaction and ready to interact too (doing so secretively from behind the screen and without revealing their presence).

Doing this type of development can reveal how the end-users are having difficulties using the software, and meanwhile, they remain within the flow of the software by the fact that the programmer intervened, quietly, to overcome any of the computer system deficiencies that might have disrupted the effort.

Perhaps this makes clear why it is often referred to as a Wizard of Oz, involving the human staying in-the-loop and secretly playing the role of Oz.

Getting back to the Reverse Turing Test, the human contestant might be pretending to be the AI to figure out where the AI is lacking, and thus be better able to enhance the AI and continue on the quest toward AGI.

In that manner, a Reverse Turing Test can be used for perhaps both fun and profit.

Turing Test Upside-Down And Right Side Up

Some believe that we might ultimately be headed toward what is sometimes called the Upside-Down Turing Test.

Yes, thats right, this is yet another variant.

In the Upside-Down Turing Test, replace the moderator with AI.

Say what?

This less discussed variant involves having AI be the judge or interrogator, rather than a human doing so. The AI asks questions of the two contestants, still consisting of an AI and a human, and then renders an opinion about which is which.

Your first concern might be that the AI seems to have two seats in this game, and as such, it is either cheating or simply a nonsensical arrangement. Those that postulate this variant are quick to point out that the original Turing Test has a human as a moderator and a human as a contestant, thus, why not allow the AI to do the same.

The instant retort is that humans are different from each other, while AI is presumably the same thing and not differentiable.

Thats where those interested in the Upside-Down Turing Test would say you are wrong in that assumption. They contend that we are going to have multitudes of AI, each of which will be its own differentiable instance, and be akin to how humans are each distinctive instances (in brief, the argument is that AI will be polylithic and heterogeneous, rather than monolithic or homogeneous).

The counterargument is that the AI is presumably going to be merely some kind of software and a machine, all of which can be readily combined into other software and machines, but that you cannot readily combine humans and their brains. We each have a brain intact within our skulls, and there are no known means to directly combine them or mesh them with others.

Anyway, this back-and-forth continues, each proffering a rejoinder, and it is not readily apparent that the Upside-Down variant can be readily discarded as a worthwhile possibility.

As you might imagine, there is an Upside-Down Turing Test and also an Upside-Down Reverse Turing Test, mirroring the aspect of the conventional Turing Test and its counterpart the Reverse Turing Test (some, by the way, do not like the use of Upside-Down and instead insist that this added variant is merely another offshoot of the Reverse Turing Test).

You might begrudgingly agree to let the AI be in two places at once, and have one AI as the interrogator and one as a contestant.

What good does that do anyway?

One thought is that it helps to potentially further showcase whether AI is intelligent, which might be evident as to the questioning and the nature of how the AI digests the answers being provided, illustrating the AIs capacity as the equivalent of a human judge or interrogator.

Thats the mundane or humdrum explanation.

Are you ready for the scary version?

It has to do with intelligence, as Ill describe next.

Some believe that AI will eventually exceed human intelligence, arriving at Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI).

The word super is not meant to imply superman or superwoman kinds of powers, and instead of that, the intelligence of the AI is beyond our human intelligence, though not necessarily able to leap tall buildings or move faster than a speeding bullet.

Nobody can say what this ASI or superintelligence might be able to think of, and perhaps we as humans are so limited in our intelligence that we cannot see beyond our limits. As such, the ASI might be intelligent in ways that we cannot foresee.

Thats why some are considering AI or AGI to potentially be an existential threat to humanity (this is something that for example Elon Musk has continued to evoke, see my coverage at this link here), and the ASI presumed to be even more so a potential menace.

If you are interested in this existential threat argument, as Ive pointed out repeatedly (see the link here), there are just as many ways to conjure that the AI or AGI or ASI will help mankind and aid us in flourishing as there are the doomsday scenarios of our being squashed like a bug. Also, there is a rising tide of interest in AI Ethics, fortunately, which might aid in coping with, avoiding, or mitigating the coming AI calamities (for more on AI Ethics, see my discussion at this link here).

That being said, it certainly makes sense to be prepared for the doom-and-gloom scenario, due to the rather obvious discomfort and sad result that would accrue going down that path. I presume that none of us want to be summarily crushed out of existence like some annoying and readily dispatched pests.

Returning to the Upside-Down Turing Test, it could be that an ASI would sit in the moderator's seat and be judging whether conventional AI has yet reached the aspirational level of AI that renders it able to pass the Turing Test and be considered indistinguishable from human intelligence.

Depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go on this, at some point the Turing Test might have two seats for the ASI, and one seat for AI. This means that the moderator would be an ASI, while there is conventional AI as a contestant and another ASI as the other contestant.

Notice that there is not a human involved at all.

Maybe we ought to call this the Takeover Turing Test.

No humans needed; no humans allowed.

Conclusion

It is unlikely that AI is going to be crafted simply for the sake of making AI, and instead, there will be a purpose-driven rationale for why humans opt to create AI.

One such purpose involves the desire to have self-driving cars.

A true self-driving car is one that has AI driving the car and there is no need for a human driver. The only role of a human would be as a passenger, but not at all as a driver.

A vexing question right now is what level or degree of AI is needed to achieve self-driving cars.

Some believe that until AI has arrived at the aspirational AGI, we will not have true self-driving cars. Indeed, those with such an opinion would likely say that the AI has to achieve sentience, perhaps doing so in a moment of switchover from automation into a spark of being that is called the moment of singularity (for more on this, see my analysis at this link here).

Hogwash, some counter, and insist that we can get AI that is not necessarily Turing Test worthy but that can nonetheless safely and properly drive cars.

To be clear, right now there is not any kind of AI self-driving car that approaches anything like AGI, and so for the moment, we are faced with trying to decide if plain vanilla AI can be sufficient to drive a car. Quick aside, for those interested in AI, some refer to any symbolic approach to AI as GOFAI or Good Old-Fashioned Artificial Intelligence, which is both endearing and to some degree a backhanded slight, all at the same time (see more at my explanation here).

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The Famous AI Turing Test Put In Reverse And Upside-Down, Plus Implications For Self-Driving Cars - Forbes

Seasteading 101: How to Build the Worlds First Floating …

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Danzig

In 2017, 40 percent of entrepreneurs were female, representing a 58 percent uptick in female-owned businesses from a decade prior. Fifty-six percent of college students are female, a complete reversal from fifty years prior, when 58 percent of men filled university halls. Yet in 2017, only 2.2 percent of venture capital (VC) money went to women-founded companies. Society has changed, yet the worlds of start-ups and venture capital are still predominantly run by white men.

Big Think was founded in 2007 by Victoria Montgomery Brown and Peter Hopkins. As with many start-ups, the fundraising process provides quite a story, one that Brown has now decided to tell. Her forthcoming book, Digital Goddess: The Unfiltered Lessons of a Female Entrepreneur (HarperCollins Leadership), reveals how this website came to beand how women can overcome barriers in a male-dominated business world.

Below are six lessons from Brown's chapter on raising capital when you have no money or product. Brown writes that there are essential qualities for starting a business that help you navigate the terrain, such as a having a strong vision and maintaining unflinching tenacity. While some of these came naturally to Brown, others were hard-fought lessons that changed her for the better. The chapterand the bookis a reminder that with perseverance and dedication to learning, anything is possible.

Use whatever will get you in the door

The greatest challenge every start-up faces is "first money in." Many investors are willing to back a good idea only when someone else has already committedand they like to know who that someone else is.

In some ways, being a female founder has its advantages. As Brown writes, a Boston Consulting Group study shows that female-run start-ups outperform male-run start-ups, generating 78 cents in revenue per dollar invested compared to men at 31 cents. That's solid data, but you still need to get in the door.

Brown leaned heavily on her master's degree from Harvard Business School. This helped tremendously for her first investor meeting with Founder Collective co-founder David Frankel. He was enthusiastic, but he wanted to know who else was interested. Brown turned to former Harvard University president, Larry Summers. His buy-in increased Frankel's interest; he became the lead investor.

Meeting with such heavyweights is no easy matter for entrepreneurs with no product or history in founding a company. As Brown writes, "Study after study confirms that people tend to equate confidence with competence." Presenting Big Think confidently made the impression needed to secure funding.

With two investors in, landing Nantucket Nectars founder Tom Scott and billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel was not as challenging as one might assume. Brown writes, "Getting the first investor feels impossible, but if you can pull it off, getting the second is sometimes surprisingly easy."

Quit your day job

This is one of the hardest aspects of being an entrepreneur. Not only do founders not have the capital needed to launch their company, they sometimes work for years without paying themselves. If investors are going to put money into your project, they have to know you're serious about success.

"People don't like to fund things if the entrepreneur and CEO don't have their entire skin in the game. You better have something big to lose, or how are people going to believe you are all in?"

With no income or savings, Brown quit her day job in order to devote her every waking hour to Big Think. Self-imposed deadlines made sure she hit her targets. Founding a company isn't comfortable; waiting for relief will only distract you from the work that needs to get done.

"If you truly want to start somethingwhatever it may bewaiting won't helpput yourself in a position where you must do it."

Three months after quitting her day job, money showed up in Big Think's bank account.

Build momentum

If you're trying to convince investors to believe in youand it is you that they're investing in, more than your productshow them traction, even when you don't have it. Go out and make it happen.

"Our investors needed to be intrigued by the idea and see its potential to succeed and to scale, but they also needed to see that I was actually in a place of discomfort if it didn't work out."

Securing funding before showing a minimal viable product (MVP) is no easy task. Brown knew that she had to show something. Big Think started as a video platform; she needed experts to appear on video. Through their networks, Brown and Hopkins contacted Richard Branson, Moby, the Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman, and famed architect Lee Mindel. They wanted them to be anchors.

Convincing high-profile business leaders, artists, and academics to partake in a new project is as daunting as landing VCs. When these figures inevitably asked about precedent for such an initiative, Brown turned a potential negative into a positive. "No one. We are reaching out to a very select, initial group of experts to kick-start it."

Making people feel critical to a project's success is a powerful way to get their endorsement, Brown writes. More importantly, it worked. A risky play between content generators and financial backers worked out. Big Think had momentum.

Do your research

As mentioned, investors are often more interested you than your product. As Brown writes, fundraising is "about creating a situation where investors get a real glimpse of who you are and why they should invest in you."

It's not a one-way street. You should also be interested in them.

"Be truly interested in the person you are meeting or don't bother meeting."

Brown advises looking beyond LinkedIn profiles and superficial bullet points. Investigate their interests, such as their passions and philanthropic pursuits. Understand why they might be interested in your venture and where it intersects with their business. Discuss topics outside of the investment opportunity. Engage them as people, not bank accounts.

"Helping others feel attractive and specialnot in a sexual way but in a human wayhelps them see you as a more attractive person, too. But you have to mean it."

Learn to say yes

The discomfort of being a founder includes stretching your boundaries. PayPal famously iterated numerous times before finding success. Flexibility is key if you want to survive. Sometimes that means admitting your limitations.

"Here's something major that HBS [Harvard Business School] taught me. You don't need to know how to do things, you need to know how to ask people to do things for you."

Finding the right people is one aspect of saying yes. By admitting your limitations, you say yes to help. But there's also saying yes to projects you're not entirely capable of pulling off.

After scoring a sponsorship with Pfizer, the second Big Think project was with MSNBC. The media company had a deal to provide expert-driven content with GE and SAP. They just didn't have a team to produce it. Being nimble, Big Think could turn it around quickly.

"Smaller companies with greater agility can take advantage of this situation if they just have the courage to step up and offer."

Instead of focusing on the negatives, such as not having a website or even equipment, Brown and Hopkins saw the opportunity. They said yes, and completed the project without a hitch, because they had the foresight to say yes.

Learn to say no

Not everything demands a yes, however. Discernment matters in the frenetic world of start-ups.

There are investors, there are people that connect you with investors, and there are charlatans. As the latter often suck up oxygen in any room they enter, it's easy to confuse bluster with their capabilities.

And so we meet "Jake," who in the early days of Big Think promised a lot, demanded more, and delivered nothing.

"He hadn't brought us any investors, he hadn't booked any experts, he hadn't helped us put together the deck, so what were we doing spending time with him? He felt sort of sleazy, like a smooth talker but not a doer."

Brown told Jake he was not getting equity without deliverables during their final meeting. This news did not go over well. Jake yelled and stormed out. Such momentary discomfort is a low price for not giving up even a piece of your business. Calling our charlatans demands that you say no. Thankfully, for the future of Big Think, one bad evening paid off in the long run.

Credit: Harper Collins

Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter, Facebook and Substack. His next book is "Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."

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Use whatever will get you in the door

Quit your day job

Build momentum

Do your research

Learn to say yes

Learn to say no