Lifeboat Foundation

Today, it was announced that the SingularityNET and TODA ecosystems will be joining forces to create scalable platforms and a product accelerator for decentralized AI.

The partnership brings blockchain AI pioneer SingularityNET and its enterprise-AI spinoff Singularity Studio together with TODA.Network and TODAQ from the TODA Protocol family.

Technical teams from both ecosystems are experimenting with bringing the two technologies together on the operational level, by building a “Singularity-on-TODA” system in which SingularityNET AI agents can optionally utilize the TODA protocol rather than Ethereum for their interactions.

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is limited by its astronomical electricity consumption and outsized carbon footprint. A nearly zero-energy alternative sounds too good to be true, but as School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC) Professor Rachid Guerraoui explains, it all comes down to our understanding of what makes transactions secure.

To explain why the system developed in his Distributed Computing Lab (DCL) represents a paradigm shift in how we think about cryptocurrencies—and about digital trust in general—Professor Rachid Guerraoui uses a legal metaphor: all players in this new system are “innocent until proven guilty.”

Continue reading “Researchers invent low-cost alternative to Bitcoin” »

Other companies are even closer than Google, and it’s about more than just cracking cryptocurrency. Mike has the details in this breaking report…

SHA-256 is a one way hashing algorithm. Cracking it would have tectonic implications for consumers, business and all aspects of government including the military.

It’s not the purpose of this post to explain encryption, AES or SHA-256, but here is a brief description of SHA-256. Normally, I place reference links in-line or at the end of a post. But let’s get this out of the way up front:

• Sept 11: Original disclosure
• Sept 11: Community skepticism
• Sept 12: Claim retracted: [announcement] [press]

One day after Treadwell Stanton DuPont claimed that a secret project cracked SHA-256 more than one year ago, they back-tracked. Rescinding the original claim, they announced that an equipment flaw caused them to incorrectly conclude that they had algorithmically cracked SHA-256.

“All sectors can still sleep quietly tonight,” said CEO Mike Wallace. “Preliminary results in this cryptanalytic research led us to believe we were successful, but this flaw finally proved otherwise.”

Continue reading “Was SHA-256 cracked? Don’t buy into retraction!” »

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption has failed to live up to expectations over recent years and fears around scams, fraud, and theft have not helped.

The bitcoin price, after its epic 2017 bull run, slumped last year– though has rebounded in 2019, climbing back above $10,000 per bitcoin.

Now, researchers have warned a staggering four out of the first five results returned when asking Google for a “bitcoin qr generator” led to scam websites–potentially furthering negative public perception around bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

The blockchain is public, yet a Bitcoin wallet can be created anonymously. So are Bitcoin transactions anonymous? Not at all…

Each transaction into and out of a wallet is a bread crumb. Following the trail is trivial. Every day, an army of armchair sleuths help the FBI. That’s how Silk Road was brought down.

The problem is that some of that money eventually interacts with the real world (a dentist is paid, a package shipped or a candy is purchased at a gas station). Even if the real-world transaction is 4 hops before or after hitting the “anonymous” wallet, it creates a forensic focal point. Next comes a tax man, an ex-spouse or a goon.

The first article linked below addresses the state of tumblers (aka “mixers”). They anonymize an open network by obfuscating the trail of bread crumbs.

Continue reading “Can Bitcoin Transactions be Made Private?” »

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency prices are well known to be closely tied to media and general public interest –-though that could be changing.

The bitcoin price has been climbing so far this year, rising some 200% since January, though has recently plateaued at around $10,000 per bitcoin after peaking at more than $12,000 in June.

Now, it appears Google searches for bitcoin and BTC, the name used by traders for the bitcoin digital token, could be being manipulated–-possibly in order to move the bitcoin price.

Owning one full bitcoin is becoming a recognized attainment goal. And thereby hangs a tale.

Is it just a numbers game? Isn’t the unit a bit arbitrary and meaningless?…

The logistics and the math are compelling. I recognized the importance of reaching this personal milestone more than 8 years ago. But I was a nobody. No one cared. Then, in April 2019, we started to see articles in legitimate venues about this concept—and articulated in exactly this way. I borrowed the title of this post from this article in Medium.

Who Says So?

Continue reading “The Race to Own One Bitcoin” »