Tag: Blockchain

Blockchains

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL FINANCE ADOPTION ACCORDING TO MOODY’S?

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, comes from Oswaldo, in New York, and he wants to know what does Moody’s Investor Service (Moody’s) forecast for digital finance adoption in 2024 and beyond?

Oswaldo, you came to the right place.  On December 14, the Decentralized Finance office of Moody’s released a report, titled: 2024 Outlook: Digital Finance Slowly, Steadily Moves Towards Interoperability and Standardization.  The research was led by Christiano Ventricelli; here is the link:  https://www.moodys.com/research/Decentralized-Finance-and-Digital-Assets-Global-2024-Outlook-Digital-finance-Outlook–PBC_1386273?cid=web-ntrnlbnnr-16640  Before jumping into their forecast, first let’s understand who is Moody’s?

Moody’s has been around since 1908 and it offers credit ratings, macro-economic forecasting, and several other services, including Investor Service.   Moody’s produces research papers across numerous financial topics, including digital finance.  With that short introduction, let’s examine Moody’s four findings.

Mass Adoption Will Need More Interoperability and Standardization.  According to Moody’s, blockchain technology has numerous potential benefits, including greater efficiency and potential cost savings.  Blockchain enthusiasts agree.  I concur with Moody’s that until and unless blockchains reach interoperability the benefits of blockchain may not materialize.  What Moody’s did not say, but I will, is blockchains need a “Wi-Fi moment”.  Imagine if Wi-Fi was not seamless and users had to switch constantly to maintain a connection?  What a mess!  This is the state of public blockchains today. There are bridges under construction to connect blockchains, but most are too tiny, weak, and not suitable at enterprise scale.

Asset tokenization will keep growing, but reliable digital cash options remain elusive. Yes, asset tokenization will result in convergence between traditional and digital finance.  Agreed. And, yes, it’s true there are tech and regulatory risk considerations.  However, I part ways with Moody’s regarding digital cash adoption options.  Moody’s believes Central Bank Digital Currencies are better positioned to be a secure form of digital cash over stable coins.  In the USA probably true. However, across the globe government creditability on matters of monetary policy is at rock-bottom; hence, let’s withhold judgment.

Cryptocurrency market’s revival hinges on monetary policy and service operators’ regulatory compliance. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of industries whose viability hinge on monetary policy.  Cheap money is positive for crypto, and all assets. What drives crypto goes beyond interest rates and monetary policy.  Crypto is also an ideological movement.  Crypto enthusiasts want a new monetary policy–an alternative that Jerome can’t control.  Hence, suggesting the crypto market hinges on traditional finance is missing the point. 

As former federal bank regulatory compliance officer, I am unaware of any industry that can operate at scale outside regulatory compliance other than organized crime!  Holy criminal enterprise, Batman! Hence, the findings are not surprising.  And yes, crypto needs clarity.  Is it a security?  Is it a commodity?  Etc.

Digital asset regulatory frameworks advance, though regional differences will persist. Bingo, Moody’s is on target.  Europe, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates are all establishing regulatory clarity.  Therefore, regional differences will arise in crypto as they do in traditional securities regulations.  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF soon.  An Ethereum spot EFT is on the horizon. The SEC recently sued Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the USA, for selling unregistered securities.  Between the Coinbase case, and the 2024 Presidential Election, clarity maybe on the horizon.

I close with a proverb from Moldova: Wine is a traitor.  It starts as a friend and ends as an enemy.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, Yogi Nelson

IS BULGARIA A LEADER IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EDUCATION?

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, comes from Fernie, in Las Vegas, and he wants to know if Bulgaria is a leader in artificial intelligence education and research?

Fernie, you came to the right place. Rather than answer directly, I will share information about a certain institute located in Sofia, Bulgaria, and let you decide. Let’s jump right into it by shouting out the Institute for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Technology, INSAIT.
https://insait.ai/

INSAIT is a mere toddler; it was founded in April 2022. INSAIT is the first university in Eastern Europe dedicated exclusively to computer science and AI technology education. INSAIT is part of Sofia University, but functions autonomously. Holy independence, Batman!

INSAIT is backed by technology elites, including two of Switzerland’s most prestigious universities and global technology behemoths, i.e., Google, DeepMind, and VMware, etc. INSAIT says its sole focus is on scientific excellence, conducting world-class research, attracting outstanding international scientist, and training the next generation of technology leaders. Let’s peruse their course offerings, beginning with machine learning.

Machine Learning. INSAIT defines machine learning as the area of computer science that focuses on extracting knowledge from large data sets and using this knowledge for making predictions and decision making. INSAIT believes the combination of colossal data sets and increasing access to powerful computation means there are exciting opportunities for data-driven algorithms.

Computer Vision. According to INSAIT, computer vision is an interdisciplinary field that studies algorithms through which computers can comprehend images at a high level. INSAIT says, and with good reason, there are numerous applications for computer vision, including autonomous driving, robotics, object recognition, gesture analysis, tracking, scene understanding, medical images, and embodied AI. Will AI be peeking through my window? LOL.

Quantum Computing (QC). Quantum computing is hyper computing. QC can leverage the properties of quantum states. Look out!!! QC is revolutionary and will make what is now impossible or impractical, possible in seconds. Holy no speed limits, Batman! INSAIT is focused on the software side of QC, including programming languages, optimization, verification, and algorithms.

Cyber Security. INSAIT intends to become a cyber security tour-de-force. INSAIT says it will focus on cryptography and developing new security protocols, including communication systems. Holy bat shield, Batman!

Automated Reasoning. Reasoning is what makes human intelligence and allows us to draw conclusions based on logic, says INSAIT. Not surprisingly, INSAIT has a focus on automated reasoning related to fundamental math and logic questions. Their automated reasoning program examines decision making under uncertain conditions. Fabulous! All of life works under uncertain conditions! LOL!

Natural Language Processing. Speech perception is central to human language. According INSAIT, natural language process is the study of computational techniques for automated processing and analysis of speech and text. INSAIT aims to develop principled algorithms for processing massive amounts of text and speech data and insights based on linguistics. INSAIT keep in mind, the spoken word is only half of all communication!

INSAIT also supports graduate studies in data management, algorithms, and computer programming languages. A complete buffet of AI graduate education for the amazing price of $36,000 per year, including room and board. If I were 22 again I would … but I’m closer to 122 LOL.

Time to end with a proverb from Bulgaria, where they say, “A slip of the foot is not nearly as dangerous as a slip of the tongue.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence

WHAT IS THE PAUL ALLEN INSTITUTE FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

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 comes from in Mark, Naperville, USA. Mark wants to know, what is the Paul Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence?

Mark, you came to the right place. Let’s take a moment first to understand, who was Paul Allen. Mr. Allen made his fortune as a Microsoft co-founder. Perhaps his name sounds familiar from the Microsoft connection? Allen passed away in 2018 at age 65. Too young! Lol! Before Allen’s passing, he established three research institutions, including the AI research.

Paul Allen AI Institute, commonly known as AI2, was established in 2014. AI2 is in Seattle and Tel Aviv, Israel. The mission of AI2 is “…to contribute to humanity through high impact AI research and engineering.” Let’s dive into what AI2 produces–it generates plenty—beginning with Aristo.

Aristo. Aristo was AI2’s first project. The concept powering Aristo was to create a “Digital Aristotle” capable of answering users’ questions, and ultimately holding a discussion. Aristo was designed to understand elementary science by reading relevant text. In 2019 Aristo scored over 90% on a collection of multiple-choice, eight grade science exams. Better than me, lol! AI2 readily admits Aristo remains incapable of understanding science in a meaning way. Holy ancient Greek, Batman!

Semantic Scholars. Semantic Scholar accelerates scientific breakthroughs by helping scholars locate and understand key research results, make important connections, and overcome information overload. AI2 says Semantic Scholar is an AI-based search engine for scientific literature, including more than 200 million papers covering all scientific disciplines. It draws 10M users monthly. Semantic Scholar can decode PDF files to extract and understand the full-text content beyond titles, authors, and references to include figures and concepts. Semantic Scholar played a leading role in creating the Covid-19 open research dataset.

AllenNLP. AllenNLP executes groundbreaking research in natural language processing, including improving systems’ performance, accountability, and advancing scientific methodologies for evaluating and understanding systems.

PRIOR. PRIOR is the computer vision research team. The goal is advanced computer vision leading to AI systems that can perceive the world, reason about it, and act within it. PRIOR has three research priorities: 1) embodied AI systems capable of interacting with objects, humans, and other agents in the real world; 2) vision and language multi-modal systems that can perform tasks that require an understanding of visual and language data; and 3) computer vision for the common good, e.g., a platform that can detect illegal fishing vessels via satellite imagery.

Green AI. Green AI is dedicated to reducing the cost of training and using AI systems—less expensive AI systems are accessible to more practitioners and contribute less to climate change.

Mosaic. Mosaic was formed in 2018 with the goal of building AI with common sense. Common sense is the ability to acquire and use every day experiential knowledge. Obviously, Ais lack commonsense. Good luck with this one. Lol.

AI Environment. Applied AI for climate modeling and wildlife protection.
• Earth Ranger: Software that aids ecologists and wildlife biologists make more informed wildlife conservation decisions.
• Skylight: Helps reduce illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing through technology that provides actionable intelligence for maritime enforcement.
• Climate Modeling: The goal is to improve the world’s understanding of climate change, its effects, and what can be done now.
• Wildlands: Machine learning to support wildland fire management.

We conclude with a Norwegian proverb: Behind the clouds, the sky is always blue.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Uncategorized

WHAT DID VITALIK BUTERIN RECENTLY SAY ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis. Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where questions are answered, mostly correct! Here no question is too mundane. As a bonus, a proverb is also included. Today’s question comes from Art in San Francisco, CA. Art asks what does Vitalik Buterin think of artificial intelligence?

Art, you came to the right place. Before I explain Vitalik’s thoughts, let’s know Buterin first. Vitalik is a 29-year-old Russian Canadian computer programmer and a co-founder of Ethereum. Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain network, known for pioneering smart contracts, among other advancements in computation. From an early age Vitalik demonstrated an amazing ability to grasp mathematics and computer science. That’s not a surprise given his father was a computer scientist. Holy, like father, like son, Batman! Given his genius with computers, it makes sense you would ask what Vitalik makes of AI.

On November 23, Vitalik published his “My Techno Optimism” paper.
https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2023/11/27/techno_optimism.html?ref=bankless.ghost.io Vitalik’s summary perspective is below followed by highlights from across the major points of his paper.

“I believe in a future that is vastly brighter than the present thanks to radically transformative technology, and I believe in humans and humanity. I reject the mentality that the best we should try to do is to keep the world roughly the same as today but with less greed and more public healthcare. However, I think that not just magnitude but also direction matters. There are certain types of technology that much more reliably make the world better than other types of technology. There are certain types of technology that could, if developed, mitigate the negative impacts of other types of technology. The world over-indexes on some directions of tech development, and under-indexes on others. We need active human intention to choose the directions that we want, as the formula of “maximize profit” will not arrive at them automatically.”

Vitalik Buterin, My Techno-Optisium

Buterin argues there are very high costs to delaying technological progress. He cites life expectancy improvements and the internet, as evidence for not holding back technological advancements. Vitalik makes the case for using advancements in AI to solve environmental challenges, including climate change.

Vitalik believes AI is fundamentally different from previous advancements in technology and therefore requires significantly more consideration. Vitalik says AI is the creation of a new and powerful brain whereas previous inventions were contraptions. “AI is a new type of mind that is rapidly gaining in intelligence, and it stands a serious chance of overtaking humans’ mental faculties and becoming the new apex species on the planet”, says Buterin. Vitalik cites scientists that are worried AI could wipe out humanity! Holy doomsday, Batman!

Buterin, is equally concerned with “digital authoritarianism”. Vitalik points out Open AI, with a mere 500 employees, services 100,000,000 customers with immensely powerful machines! Power could be centralized by just a handful of people one day, is Vitalik’s worry.

Vitalik pens a lengthy narrative regarding the e/acc movement. According to Vitalik, e/acc is “… fundamentally about an appreciation of the truly massive benefits of technological progress, and a desire to accelerate this trend to bring those benefits sooner.” Jeff Bezos is the most prominent advocate. In a point-by-point fashion, Buterin shares what he believes are the implications of e/acc across a range of topics, including: military technology, decentralized governance, cyber security, multi-planetary living, world government, to name a few topics.

We conclude today with this proverb from the Dominican Republic: With patience and calm, a donkey can climb a palm tree. Well said my Caribbean brethren!

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Uncategorized

WHAT MONETARY SYSTEM DOES THE CARDANO BLOCKCHAIN USE?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis. Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your questions are answered, mostly correct! Here no question is too mundane. As a bonus, a proverb is also included. Today’s question is from Bhante Chandra from Kandy, Sri Lanka, and he wants to know what monetary system does the Cardano Blockchain use?

Bhante, you came to the right place. Let’s start first with explaining Cardano. Cardano is a decentralized, open source blockchain network that burst onto the scene in 2017. Charles Hoskinson, Cardano’s founder, created Cardano as a third generation blockchain. Bitcoin and Ethereum were generations one and two, respectively. Of course, Bitcoin was released by an anonymous developer (Satoshi Nakamura) in 2008, and Ethereum by a team, including Hoskinson, in 2015.

Cardano is recognized for its research-based approach. Cardano technology is based on nearly 200 peer reviewed academic research reports. Critics say Cardano is slow to the market; Cardano proponents acknowledge the critique. However, Cardano advocates say they are oven cooking not microwaving. Fair point! First and second generation blockchains were energy gluttons because they were constructed with proof of work consensus systems; Cardano was built using a proof of stake consensus system making it extremely energy efficient. Love a green blockchain!

Cardano is focused on solving the blockchain trilemma problem of balancing speed, scalability, and security. Essentially, the trilemma problem in blockchain says the more one or two issues are solved the worse off are the remaining. Holy no way out, Batman! Cardano also is recognized for its smart contract capabilities. Smart contracts facilitate the transfer of value from peer to peer without intermediaries. Now about the monetary system.

The Cardano network uses crypto currency to pay for transactions. Cardano currency is known as ADA, named after the famous British female mathematician and computer programmer, Ada Lovelace. Smaller denominations of ADAs are called Lovelace and they go out six decimal places, .000006. Bust out the calculator!

Cardano began with a total supply of 45B ADA. However, not all were release upon inception; that would be irresponsible. Instead, Cardano has phased in ADA distribution. Cardano is de-inflationary by design, meaning the supply of ADA decreases with time.

Let’s talk about the Cardano treasury and your personal Cardano treasury. Cardano’s treasury has three revenue sources: minting; donations; and taxation from block rewards. Great! Now, how does an individual grow their personal Cardano treasury? Here too there are multiple avenues. You could, for example, purchase ADA on an exchange, such as Coinbase. Suppose you purchased ADA, what next? Well, you could earn additional ADA by “staking it”. Staking is blockchain/crypto jargon for earning rewards. Think of it as interest payments for locking up and “lending” your ADA. Or you can operate your own stake pool and earn ADA directly. Operating a skating pool requires technical computer skills; learn and earn!

Once you have a bag of ADA, where to keep the stash is the question. Here again you have options. You can store your ADA on a centralized exchange, e.g., Coinbase. There are pros and cons to centralized exchanges, that go beyond this post. Or you can self-custody your stack; that too comes with advantages and disadvantages. Several self-custody wallets are available, including Typhon Wallet, Flint Wallet, or Yoroi Wallet.

A special thanks to Cardano and Emurgo Academy for supplying the information for today’s post. Time to go, but not before sharing an Egyptian proverb: “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell a man is wise by his questions.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson