Category: Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, blockchain association, Blockchains, Yogi Nelson

Coinbase’s Political Mobilization of Crypto Owners: Analyzing the Strategy

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis. Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered! As a bonus, a proverb is also included. Today’s question, was submitted by Eduardo from Panama, and he wants to know why Coinbase has decided to enter American politics and what difference will it make?

Eduardo, you came to the right place. I’ll answer your questions as you presented them, beginning with why Coinbase decided to get political. Of course Coinbase is the largest centralized American crypto exchange platform. Think of Coinbase as the Charles Schwab of crypto asset trading.

Coinbase has learned two old lessons. First, businesses need friends in politics, especially if they intend to disrupt powerful entrenched interest and incumbents. Coinbase failed to recognize incumbents transform their economic power into political might and thereby prevent, minimize, and/or sabotage new entries into the market. Second, Coinbase neglected to mobilize their constituency into a political movement from day one. Instead Coinbase relied on business and legal strategies to win the competition and failed to recognize the war has three fronts—business, legal, and political. Coinbase is now playing catchup. Essentially, Coinbase jumped into politics out of necessity. Let’s now examine Coinbase’s political strategy?

Coinbase claims 52M Americans own crypto. Coinbase didn’t cite a source but let’s suppose their numbers are correct. Crypto owners are adults and therefore of voting age. In the 2020 presidential election, 155M votes where casted: 81M for Biden and 74M for Trump. Neither candidate was “pro-crypto”. Both were anti-crypto, and crypto was not an election issue.

In 2024 crypto will most likely be a third-tier national issue, behind the economy, war, taxes, environment, abortion rights, gun control, Supreme Court, etc. However, for crypto-fundamentalists it could be a first-tier issue or tiebreaker voting matter. The questions then become how many crypto-fundamentalists voters are there, do they live in swing states where 1-2% make a significant difference, and what is their propensity to vote?

According to Coinbase, “… we are launching an effort to mobilize 52M crypto owners—younger and more diverse than the US population as a whole—into a powerful force heading into the 2024 election with an intense effort on nine key states”. Let’s examine this strategy.

A focus on nine key states makes sense on the surface. However, the swing states population are not younger and more diverse. Hence, there is a disconnect in the strategy. Moreover, younger, and diverse voters favor the Democratic Party. However, Republicans are perceived as more crypto friendly, particularly after Trump’s recent speech in Nashville at the Bitcoin conference. Will young and diverse voters abandon the Dems in meaningful numbers over crypto regulations–extremely unlikely.

Coinbase wants crypto to be a non-partisan issue; that makes perfect business sense. Coinbase is motivated to mobilize younger and more diverse voters because those are their customers. Dem voters are also younger and diverse. Hence, the smart political maneuver is for the Dems to capitalize on the efforts of Coinbase by becoming crypto friendly and motivate voters that are proportionately more in the Dems camp. Dems have every incentive to become crypto friendly because their natural constituency is there waiting. Making the switch now blunts the trend of crypto becoming a wedge issue. Additionally, it stymies the Republican party from developing an advantage with younger voters via crypto now. Harris can start by distancing herself from the anti-crypto zealous, e.g., Elizabeth Warren, kicking Gensler off the team, and appearing before the crypto community to listen, not just talk.

I conclude with a proverb from Estonia: “What village dogs will not eat wolves will not eat either”.

Sincerely,

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, Blockchains, Productivity, Yogi Nelson

Leonardo AI: Image Generation Software Beyond Co-Pilot | Review

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by Thomas from Los Angeles and he wants to know what other image generation software companies are available beyond Co-Pilot?

Thomas, you came to the right place.  As you know, I constantly compare image generation artificial intelligence software programs.  Generally, I use Co-Pilot by Microsoft.  However, your question trigger curiosity so I decided to broaden my options. During my research I discovered Leonardo AI and today, I’ll give my assessment.  However, I should start with a few words about Leonardo AI.

Leonardo AI is an Australian AI company specializing in image generation using artificial intelligence.  Although Leonardo AI is new and small, it is catching fire.  For instance, 1.2M artists have used the product to create over 1B images and more than 2.7M videos.  Holy momentum Batman!

Leonardo AI offers three products:  AI art generation; AI video generation; and transparent RPG generator.  Let’s examine each, beginning with AI art generation.  Essentially, Leonardo AI allows users to write instructions (called prompts in AI speak) to create images using artificial intelligence.  Check out the image I created using Leonardo AI.  Somewhat accurate self-portrait but I don’t have facial hair. My prompt (instruction) said:

Create an image of a 66-year-old Hispanic man with long hair in Puerto Rico using his laptop computer to learn image generation while sitting in a setting with vibrant colors. 

With Leonardo AI’s, Motion, you can turn your AI images into videos!  I tried it–loved it!  Impressive results for sure.  Basically, you can create a short video for a commercial or a special occasion.  Last, Leonardo AI offers a transparent RPG generator.  This function allows users to remove unwanted background visual elements from videos and images.  Now it’s time to discuss tasks Leonardo AI says are ideal use cases.

Topping the list, is using Leonardo AI to create a marketing campaign.  During a live presentation earlier this week, Jessie, Leonardo AI Senior Creative Creator, showed how the tools could be used to produce a campaign related to orange juice and apple juice.  The images she created were sensational, top quality, and engaging.  I did notice a troubling point.  Jessie instructed Leonardo AI to create an image of a woman drinking orange juice.  Jessie did not give any detail about what type of woman.  No race, age, appearance, etc.  Leonardo AI produced an image of a young, attractive, White woman.  Apparently, Leonardo AI was programmed with a bias.  Not good.

A second use case is AI graphic design.  For example, Jessie created lettering for the orange juice image poster that appeared to be made from orange fruit peel.  Without Leonardo AI, someone would need to physically peel the orange and shape the peel into the words orange juice, that would have been time consuming.  With Leonardo AI it took seconds to create, not hours.  Number three use case is AI for printed art.  With Leonardo AI you can constantly and affordably create printed art that is suitable for framing. 

Let’s conclude with a word about architecture and interior design.  Leonardo AI might be perfect for generating imaginative images if you are an architect or interior designer.  You can easily create endless possibilities for your clients at an affordable price point.

I conclude but not before leaving you with this proverb from Australia:  Keep your eyes on the sun, and you will not see the shadows.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, Blockchains, France, Yogi Nelson

A GLIMPSE AT MISTRAL—THE FRENCH LEADER IN THE AI REVOLUTION

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by Luis from Malibu and he wants to know is Mistral leading the French AI revolution?

Luis, you came to the right place. Your question has perfect timing. I just returned from France and am feeling the French vibe! Rather than covering the entire waterfront of AI developments in France, I’ll limit myself to a French company named Mistral.  Let’s start with a bit of background on Mistral, including its name which is French to the core–c’est la vie!

The word mistral has multiple uses in French.  Not only does Mistral mean a cold northwesterly wind, but it’s also not uncommon for companies in industries related to wind energy, sailing, or the environment to use it in their name. The French say it evokes a sense of power, speed, and a connection to the natural world. It can also mean masterly.  While traveling in France, I noticed Mistral as a last name as we say in the USA or as they say in France, the family name.  Holy multi-tasking word, Batman!  Now a word about the Mistral team and company mission.

With fewer than two dozen members, the Mistral team is small.  According to Mistral, their mission is to make frontier AI ubiquitous, and to provide tailor-made AI to all developers.  Mistral says, their mission requires fierce independence, strong commitment to open, portable, and custom solutions, and an extreme focus on shipping the most advanced technology in limited time.  How I discovered Mistral comes next, followed by what Mistral does, and what it offers.

Approximately three months ago I discovered Mistral while researching AI projects for this blog.  I attempted access but was denied.  Instead, Mistral put me on a waiting list of interested users and recently granted me access with a full disclosure that their large language model (LLM) is in beta testing status. 

Today, I put Mistral’s LLM, Le Chat, to the test against, two American companies—Open AI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Co-Pilot– by asking all three identical questions.  All three-offer free access to their LLM services.  I won’t detail the contest; it’s not necessary.  Essentially, Mistral is lacking behind the competition.  Why Mistral trails, is a matter of speculation.  Perhaps its funding related?  Or maybe Mistral team size means it’s too small to compete with the titans? Could be they started later?  I don’t know, but I do know the competition is ahead.  Okay, now we go beyond their LLM to a preview of Mistrals AI products. 

On their website, Mistral has a click option labeled La Plataforme (the Platform).  This is where you’ll find the heart of their offerings and services.  Basically, La Plataforme is a subscription service.  For a fee, Mistral offers access to their AI developer tools. Mistral claims the tools permits users to develop AI agents and other related products.  The subscription grants access to the latest Mistral models and to pay based on what you use.  That’s a good feature.  Moreover, users can set monthly spending limits and if there are multiple users with an enterprise, Mistral will centralize billing.  The subscription grants access to the corresponding documentation and of course users can create API keys to access Mistral AI.

Time to say “au revoir” (goodbye) but not before sharing this French proverb:  Only imbeciles don’t change their opinions.”   Well said, my French friends!

Sincerely,

Yogi Nelson

Blockchains, China, cryptography, Patents, Yogi Nelson

WHY ALL THE FUSS ABOUT 3924 3924, 3924, 3924, 3924, 3924, 3924

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered, mostly correct!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, submitted by Albert from Iowa and his question is, why the number 3924?

Albert, you came to the right place.  Let’s talk about this number, 3,924.  According to the Blockchain Global Patent Authorization, as of December 2020, there were 3,924 patents granted for blockchain technology worldwide.  For a new technology, 3,924 is a staggering number and as I said previously the number reflects 2020 statistics.  Holy worldwide adoption, Batman!

This naturally leads to the next question.  What countries lead in blockchain patents?  According to Lexology, U.S. companies accounted for 39% of all patents granted, South Korea comes in second with 21%, and China was a close third at 19%.  In other words, the US, South Korea, and China accounted for 79% of all blockchain patents globally up to year 2020.  But that is backward looking data.  If we want to understand the next wave, we must examine pending patent applications as that tells a forward-looking story. Okay, let’s do it.

In Digital Finance by Baxter Hines, he cites The Block as the source for pending patents.  According to that source, Chinese companies should dominate the next wave of blockchain patents.  In fact, the top five companies with blockchain patents pending are all Chinese.  Tencent, Alibaba, and Ant Financial alone have 1,263 patents pending whereas the top three American companies (Walmart, IBM, and Microsoft) have only 123.  Is there more to the story?  I think so.  Read on. 

Let’s go back to 2019.  In 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping identified the advancement of blockchain technology as a national priority and declared China will “lead the next wave of digital transformation” and called for greater study, investment, and regulation.  What happened next?

Well, in typical top-down authoritarian fashion, more than 35,000 firms responded to Xi’s appeal by registering their companies as “blockchain related” and expanding the use of blockchain technology into their businesses’ operations.  Holy jumping right on the task, Batman! But hold on there is more to the story.

Of the 35,000 that responded only 730 qualified for the Chinese government’s blockchain certification (2%).  Nevertheless, more than 10,000 blockchain patent applications were filed!  But quantity and quality are not always synonymous, and the Chinese government approved only a small fraction of the applications.  Perhaps, Xi needed to be more explicit in his order.  I suggest he try this next time: “Listen up comrades.  We need lots of high-quality world class blockchain patents.”  Lol!

Research and development into blockchain technology is big business.  There is a battle for blockchain technology supremacy between the US and China, with South Korea in the hunt also.  The winner of this battle will have an advantage across many developing technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI).  Many technology analysts are forecasting a fuse of blockchain, AI, and the internet of things (IOT) converging into a tsunami of tech advancements in the next decade.  Hold on to your safety belts, Batman!

I close today with a proverb from Denmark, where people say:  Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry.  Wise words indeed!

Until next time.

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, Blockchains, cryptography, Yogi Nelson

WHAT IS CRYPTOGRAPHY?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered, mostly correct!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by William from La Puente, CA and he wants to know what is cryptography?

William, you came to the right place.  William the only reasonable place to start is with a definition.  Let me answer by referring to an awesome movie called My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  In the movie the father of the bride would constantly say, “… the Greeks invented that, the Greeks did that first, etc.”  Well perhaps the old man had a point because in the case of cryptography the word comes from the Greeks.  Kryptos means hidden and graphein is to write; hence, cryptograph is to write in a hidden manner.  Holy hidden message, Batman!

Okay the word has its origin in Greece, but what does cryptography do?  Essentially, cryptography provides information protection/security.  Using cryptography, data can be transformed by substitution.  For example, an early and primitive form of substitution cryptography was to shift every letter three spots.   A sentence that would normally read like this: “Encrypted using Caesar cipher” becomes Hqfubswhg xvlqj Fdhvdu fiskhu.  The other method, known as transposition, involves moving the order of characters of words by a pre-determined agreement.  No, it’s not pig Latin!  Lol.

Cryptography concepts are likely foreign; hence, we should start slowly. I’ll cover just three topics today and save the rest for later.  Let’s start with the security services of cryptography, there are four. 

First is authentication.  By authentication I mean the assurance the communicating entity is legitimate.  Second, data confidentiality.  In other words, the protection from unauthorized disclosure.  The third is data integrity.  In this context I mean the data has not been altered; it was received exactly as sent.  Last, comes non-reputation.  Non-reputation refers to the notion that the receiver can prove the alleged sender sent the message.  Impressive!

We are off to a fast start.  Let’s try two more topics beginning with cryptographic keys. 

In cryptography there are two types of key systems–symmetric and asymmetric.  Symmetric is where one key is used to encrypt and decrypt messages.  The keys are essentially shared by the two parties and the data is transferred via a secure network.  However, authentication nor non-reputation is provided, and the origin of the message cannot be determined.  Let’s compare that to asymmetric cryptography. 

In asymmetric there are public and private keys.  The public key is derived from the private.  As you can guess, asymmetric was developed due to the problems with symmetric cryptography.  Asymmetric wins the crypto security battle handily.  However, if you lose your private key there is no way to access the data, value, or information that was sent!  You best hold on tight!

Hashing is an ideal spot to end the lesson.  Hashing, (I don’t mean potatoes, although I love hash browns) in cryptography is the process of transforming data or a string of characters into a short and fixed length value.  The value produced is unique; no other record has it.  Hashing algorithms are used to perform the hashing process in three steps:  1) data input; 2) hashing function #; and 3) hash output (of a fixed length). By the way, blockchains make extensive use of hashing.  More on that later.

There is more to say but for now I’ll stop with a proverb from our friends in Tajikistan, where they say:  In every drop of water, there is a grain of gold.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson