Riot Platforms buys $291M in BTC rigs as miners rake it in from Ordinals

Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms is buying 66,560 Bitcoin mining rigs from manufacturer MicroBT, in one of its largest orders of hash-rate in the firm’s history — ahead of the Bitcoin halving scheduled for April 2024.

The additional purchase agreement totaled $290.5 million, Riot stated in a Dec. 4 statement — meaning it paid an average of $4,360 for each machine.

The right-to-purchase option was included in Riot’s initial agreement with MicroBT when it agreed to buy 33,280 machines from MicroBT in June. The two firms have now updated this agreement to provide Riot with options to purchase up to 265,000 additional miners from MicroBT on the same terms as the new order.

Riot’s CEO Jason Les said the purchase order is “the largest order of hash rate” in the company’s history and hopes the updated agreement will enable Riot’s mining performance to strengthen further.

Over 48,000 or 72% of the new machines will be MicroBT’s latest model, the M66S, which has a hash rate of 250 terahashes per second (TH/s), while the remaining machines will consist of the M66 (14,770) and M56S++ (3,720) models, Riot noted.

#news #btc #mining

Bitcoin breaks $41K as gold price reaches new all-time high

The price of gold has broken through a new all-time high, surpassing the significant level of $2,100 during the Asian session on Monday, Dec. 4. Meanwhile, Bitcoin has also surged above $41,000 for the first time in 19 months.

What's more, Bitcoin has now risen over 140% since the beginning of the year.

Insights from Matrixport’s research head, Markus Thielen, suggest an even brighter future. With historical trends of post-bear market bull cycles and upcoming Bitcoin halving events as a backdrop, projections place Bitcoin at over $60,000 by April next year and as high as $125,000 by the end of 2024.

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Mastercard launches generative AI chatbot to help you shop online

Dynamic Yield by Mastercard, a digital personalization and artificial intelligence subsidiary of Mastercard, announced the launch of its Shopping Muse generative AI chatbot assistant for e-commerce on Nov. 30.

The AI system was revealed in a company blog post. According to Dynamic Yield, Shopping Muse is “an advanced generative AI tool that revolutionizes how consumers search for and discover products in a retailer’s digital catalog.”

Shopping Muse generative artificial intelligence
Generative AI systems, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E, are designed to convert colloquial user commands into text, video, audio or even computer code.

In the case of Shopping Muse, users can make plain-language requests in the context of an online marketplace, and the AI system will generate personalized recommendations via a process Dynamic Yield refers to as algorithmic content matching.

As Ori Bauer, CEO of Dynamic Yield by Mastercard, described it: “Personalization gives people the shopping experiences they want, and AI-driven innovation is the key to unlocking immersive and tailored online shopping. By harnessing the power of generative AI in Shopping Muse, we’re meeting the consumer’s standards and making shopping smarter and more seamless than ever.”

Dynamic Yield by Mastercard
Mastercard acquired digital personalization firm Dynamic Yield in 2022 from then-owner McDonald’s. Rebranded Dynamic Yield by Mastercard after the acquisition, the company has offices in Tel Aviv, New York, Tokyo, Riga, Barcelona and other locations around the globe.

It boasts hundreds of clients for its personalization and data services, with a reported 400 brands represented. The company joins Mastercard as it continues a years-long trend of acquiring or partnering with artificial intelligence firms.
Mastercard has entered into a partnership with Feedzai, an AI firm specializing in financial fraud detection. The firm’s software will be integrated with Mastercard’s proprietary security stack.

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12 days of unemployment later, Sam Altman is officially back at OpenAI

Sam Altman addressed employees in a company memo on Nov. 29, marking his official return to the top leadership position at OpenAI.
OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman has officially returned to office as the firm’s CEO, ending a whirlwind few weeks caused by his abrupt and unexpected temporary departure.

Addressing OpenAI employees in a company memo made public on Nov. 29, Altman confirmed that interim CEO Mira Murati will step down from her position and return to her previous role as chief technology officer.

Altman also confirmed a “new initial board” with Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor as chair, former United States Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, and Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of social question-and-answer website Quora. D’Angelo was on OpenAI’s board before the saga that unfolded in mid-November. Greg Brockman will also resume his role as OpenAI’s President.
“I have never been more excited about the future. I am extremely grateful for everyone’s hard work in an unclear and unprecedented situation, and I believe our resilience and spirit set us apart in the industry. I feel so, so good about our probability of success for achieving our mission,” said Altman to employees.

It was signaled to Altman that he would be reinstated as CEO on Nov. 22, only two days after he was initially fired. During that time, he agreed to lead a new advanced artificial intelligence (AI) research team at Microsoft under Satya Nadella’s leadership, which presumably fell through.

Microsoft gets non-voting seat on OpenAI board

Altman revealed that Microsoft will also be included as a non-voting observer on the new board.

“We clearly made the right choice to partner with Microsoft and I’m excited that our new board will include them as a non-voting observer,” he said.

A board observer is an individual who is permitted to attend and participate in meetings of the board of directors but, as implied, has no voting rights, acting more as an adviser.

Microsoft initially wasn’t expected to be offered a seat by OpenAI, according to a Nov. 29 report by Reuters, which cited a person familiar with the matter.

This is despite Microsoft having invested $13 billion into OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, across several deals dating back to 2019. Looking ahead, Altman said he would be focused on advancing the firm’s research plan, improving its products, and better serving customers as the top three priorities for his (technically) second stint as CEO.
In the same official announcement, Taylor stressed that OpenAI would “enhance the governance structure” with “an independent committee of the Board to oversee a review of the recent events” to provide more stability to the firm. He hopes Microsoft’s addition to the board will help steady the ship.
“From technology to safety to policy [...] we are pleased that this Board will include a non-voting observer for Microsoft,” he said.

SEC seeks public input on Franklin Templeton, Hashdex Bitcoin ETFs

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has announced the next steps in its consideration of the proposed Franklin Templeton and Hashdex spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) bids.

The agency has requested written comments on both proposals to approve or deny the applicants’ Forms 19b-4.

SEC Form 19b-4 is a public disclosure approved by the SEC Trading and Markets Division separately from Form S-1, the offering prospectus subject to Corporate Finance Division approval. The SEC’s requests have an open period of 35 days from their publication in the Federal Register for both comments and responses to comments.

The proposed rule changes — effectively applications — that would allow the trading of the ETFs were filed in late September. The Hashdex ETF would be traded on the New York Stock Exchange Arca and Franklin Templeton’s on Cboe BZX. On Nov. 15, the SEC extended its deadline for deciding on the applications.

#news #btc #etf #sec

Vitalik Buterin: AI may surpass humans as the 'apex species'

Super-advanced artificial intelligence, left unchecked, has a “serious chance” of surpassing humans to become the next “apex species” of the planet, according Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin

In a Nov. 27 blog post, Buterin, seen by some as a thought leader in the cryptocurrency space, argued AI is “fundamentally different” from other recent inventions — such as social media, contraception, airplanes, guns, the wheel, and the printing press — as AI can create a new type of “mind” that can turn against human interests, adding:

“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.”

Buterin argued that unlike climate change, a man-made pandemic, or nuclear war, superintelligent AI could potentially end humanity and leave no survivors, particularly if it ends up viewing humans as a threat to its own survival.

“One way in which AI gone wrong could make the world worse is (almost) the worst possible way: it could literally cause human extinction.”

“Even Mars may not be safe,” Buterin added.

Buterin cited an August 2022 survey from over 4,270 machine learning researchers who estimated a 5-10% chance that AI kills humanity.

However, while Buterin stressed that claims of this nature are “extreme,” there are also ways for humans to prevail.

Brain interfaces and techno-optimism
Buterin suggested integrating brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to offer humans more control over powerful forms of AI-based computation and cognition.

A BCI is a communication pathway between the brain's electrical activity and an external device, such as a computer or robotic limb.

This would reduce the two-way communication loop between man and machine from seconds to milliseconds, and more importantly, ensure humans retain some degree of “meaningful agency” over the world, Buterin said.

Buterin suggested this route would be “safer” as humans could be involved in each decision made by the AI machine.

“We [can] reduce the incentive to offload high-level planning responsibility to the AI itself, and thereby reduce the chance that the AI does something totally unaligned with humanity's values on its own.”

The Ethereum co-founder also suggested “active human intention” to take AI in a direction that benefits humanity, as maximizing profit doesn’t always lead human down the most desirable pathway.

Buterin concluded that “we, humans, are the brightest star” in the universe, as we’ve developed technology to expand upon human potential for thousands of years, and hopefully many more to come:

“Two billion years from now, if the Earth or any part of the universe still bears the beauty of Earthly life, it will be human artifices like space travel and geoengineering that will have made it happen.”

#news #AI #VitalikButerin #OpenAI