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Category: economics – Page 138

Microsoft is investing $1 billion in OpenAI to support us building artificial general intelligence (AGI) with widely distributed [https://openai.com/charter/]

Economic benefits. We’re partnering to develop a hardware and software platform within Microsoft Azure which will scale to AGI. We’ll jointly develop new Azure.

AI supercomputing technologies, and Microsoft will become our exclusive cloud provider—so we’ll be working hard together to further extend Microsoft Azure’s capabilities in large-s.

Read more | >

A developer is betting $1 billion on the largest development ever in Reno, Nevada, as the city reduces its economic reliance on the gambling industry.

Jacobs Entertainment Corplans to transform a 20-block area on the west side of Downtown Reno into a residential and entertainment district called the Neon Line District.

Colorado-based Jacobs Entertainment, led by chairman and CEO Jeffrey Jacobs, is known locally for two gambling properties in Reno, the Gold Dust West Casino and the Sands Regency Casino. According to the company’s website, Jacobs developed a similar district in Cleveland, the Nautica Entertainment Complex, which has 2 million visitors a year.

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This post is structured as a question-&-answer. That’s because it was originally an answer at Quora, a Q&A site at which I am a Bitcoin columnist.

What is a ‘Paper Wallet’

A paper wallet is the ultimate offline wallet. It simply means that the private address to your crypto wallet is printed on paper — either as a string of characters, a QR code, or a series of seed recovery words.

If you destroy any electronic copy of your original wallet (e.g. the private keys that give you access to your wealth), then hiding this piece of paper is very similar to hiding a bar of gold. The only way that someone can steal it or know the amount it represents is to get their eyes and hands on something physical. They would need to know that you tucked it into your mattress or behind a secret panel of your cellar wall.

Continue reading “What is a ‘paper wallet?’ Do I need one?” | >

But a less-noticed win for DeepMind, the artificial-intelligence arm of Google’s parent Alphabet Inc., at a biennial biology conference could upend how drugmakers find and develop new medicines. It could also dial up pressure on the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies to prepare for a technological arms race. Already, a new breed of upstarts are jumping into the fray.

Alphabet’s DeepMind cracked a problem that long vexed biologists, heating up a technological arms race in health care.

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Any major breakthrough in extending human life would drastically alter population projections. The social effects, while obviously huge, would depend on whether the years of senility were prolonged, too; whether women’s age at menopause would increase; and how families would be structured if many generations were alive at the same time. Expensive treatments to extend human lives could also have implications for inequality; as in many other areas of technology, the wealthy would be most able to afford such services.

Almost everyone would welcome an extension of their healthy lifespan, and some scientists are looking at increasingly extreme ways to achieve that. But any major breakthrough in this area could have unwanted and far-reaching demographic, social, and economic implications.

CAMBRIDGE – Humans have long sought the elixir of youth, so it is not surprising that even non-scientists closely follow the latest research into aging. But is what most people consider simply a fact of life actually a “disease” that can be cured? Or is there some insurmountable limit to the lifespan of human bodies?

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This afternoon, an automated bot at Quora suggested that I answer a reader question. Quora is essentially an “Ask the expert” web site. It is the world’s largest, cataloged and indexed Q&A repository.

This is the question I was asked to answer:

Some pundits believe Bitcoin is a fad, while others seem to feel that it is better than sliced bread. I like sliced bread.* Is Bitcoin really that cool? —Or is it just a lot of Geeky hype?

One other columnist answered before me. Normally, I pass on an invitation, if a question has already been answered. But in this case, the individual answering the question has yet to see the light. He has wandered into the Church of the Blockchain, but he just didn’t realize that the man sweeping the floor is the prophet.

Continue reading “About the Fuss: Is Bitcoin really important?” | >

Here is another economics/policy question that I was asked to address at Quora. It provides great fodder for a quick Lifeboat economics review.

The US used quantitative easing to deal with one monetary crisis, and a bailout of the automotive and banking industry to deal with another. If nations, economies or individuals begin to embrace a decentralized currency, they will inevitably shift away from government issued money. Won’t this hinder a nation’s ability to intervene in a crisis?

Answering this question goes to the very heart of the ethics and politics of cryptocurrency.

Yes. Without centralized control over monetary policy, government options for intervention in a money crisis would be severely limited. But this fact may lead to a false impression…

Continue reading “Does decentralized currency thwart crisis intervention?” | >

I find it encouraging that so many people want to know if they should get into Bitcoin. But, I am discouraged when I discover that “getting into” is a euphemism for investing, trading, flipping or HODL (Buy, then hold on for dear life).

Sure, Bitcoin is deflationary. If widely adopted, it is likely to increase in value. But adoption is being thwarted by traders. Today 95% of cryptocurrency transactions are by individuals or organizations buying or swapping cryptocurrency rather than using crypto to buy apples, a new car, or a family vacation.

Many people consider Bitcoin to be risky and not just as an investment! They think its risky to use a payment instrument. The perception of risk is associated with its widely fluctuating exchange rate. In the end, the exchange value won’t matter at all, because Bitcoin will be the money and not the dollar, yen, euro or pound. But, unfortunately, even though the argument for widespread adoption is compelling, it will not occur while we continue to see spikes and plunges on a graph.

If you are waiting for volatility to abate, then we need adoption beyond bleeding edge adopters (so called Geeks and nerds). And I am not referring to traders. We must arrive at a day when the fraction of transactions driven by purchase & sale, debt payment, salaries, memberships, fees, and settlements and big companies quoting grain, oil or ships dwarfs the fraction driven by speculators & investors. This is the only way to trigger the series of reactions that will lead to stability, ubiquity and public trust.

Trading is only one way to profit from the cryptocurrency market—and it is, by far, the most risky. In fact, if you employ the tools and techniques of technical analysis (i.e. you study graphs of performance over time), then you certainly won’t make money. In fact, you will lose your shirt.

I don’t recommend trading as a core strategy for building a career around cryptocurrency. You can make a decent living with a real crypto career, or a consulting sideline. We will get to a few suggestions below. But, if you wish to invest, day trade or HODL, stick to gradual, dollar-cost-averaging instead. Choose a small, monthly budget that doesn’t take food off the table and that you can afford to lose. This is the method of anyone who built great wealth through equities, including Warren Buffet.

Other ways to profit from cryptocurrency

Continue reading “Profit from Bitcoin with out Investing or Trading” | >