Crypto.com launches ChatGPT-based AI user assistant Amy

Crypto meets AI

Crypto.com launches ChatGPT-based AI user assistant Amy

The crypto exchange launched its AI user assistant to inform users about industry insights, including real-time token prices, projects and historical events.

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues its pervasive entry into industries worldwide. The latest crypto industry adoptee is Crypto.com, which announced its new generative AI user assistant.

Crypto.com announced “Amy” on May 2. The crypto exchange’s new AI companion is built to inform users about the industry, including real-time token prices and projects, historical events, and more. According to the announcement, Amy, which uses ChatGPT as its base, is currently in the pilot phase to “gather learnings” before future expansion.

Abhi Bisarya, the executive vice president of product at Crypto.com, says the company is “bullish” on the usage of AI in crypto.

“As with other businesses and sectors, we see incredible potential and opportunity in the convergence of AI with the crypto industry and our platform specifically.”

A Crypto.com spokesperson told Cointelegraph that although these are the “early days” of generative AI, there is potential for “massive positive implications” for many industries if done responsibly.

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“This is particularly the case for crypto when it comes to helping educate users about the underlying technology and financial services more broadly.“

As for drawbacks, the spokesperson said they expect a lot of feedback from this AI pilot, which will be “integrated into future upgrades.“

Related: Coinbase exec uses ChatGPT ‘jailbreak’ to get odds on wild crypto scenarios

Crypto.com joins the ranks of other cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets in the space by integrating the AI feature into its platform. OKX exchange recently launched an AI algorithm to capture crypto market volatility.

The Web3 infrastructure company Solana Labs announced its own ChatGPT-based plugin on April 26, which uses AI to fetch blockchain data to check wallet balances, transfer tokens and purchase nonfungible tokens.

Binance also launched an AI chatbot. Like Crypto.com, the Binance chatbot emphasizes user education as part of its Web3 academy.

The cryptocurrency exchange and digital asset trading platform Bitget recently pledged $10 million toward developing the Fetch.ai ecosystem by “providing consultations on marketing” and other services to help Fetch expand its business network.   .... ' 

UK as a Crypto Hub?

UK Government promises robust crypto regulation

Ministers want to make the UK a crypto hub,   By Tom Singleton, Technology team

The government has published proposals for crypto-asset regulation it hopes will "manage" the risks of the "turbulent industry".

The sector has had a calamitous year, with assets collapsing in value by an estimated 75% from their peak of about $3 trillion in November 2021.

Ministers estimate up to 10% of UK adults now own some form of crypto.  They plan to use existing regulations for the industry, rather than creating a bespoke regime.

The Treasury says that will allow crypto to benefit from the "confidence, credibility and regulatory clarity" of the existing system for financial services, as set out in the UK's Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA).

It wants to create a level playing field between traditional and emerging financial services, where the principle is "same risk, same regulatory outcome". But it also acknowledges some crypto businesses may simply choose to continue operating in offshore jurisdictions that "do not impose equivalent market-abuse rules".

'Fair standards'

The Treasury says its proposals - which it's now consulting on - will:

 - lay down rules on crypto-asset promotions which are fair, clear and not misleading

 - enhance data-reporting requirements, including with regulators.

 - implement new regulations to prevent so-called pump and dump, where an individual artificially inflates the value of a crypto asset before selling it.  

Ministers say the measures will "mitigate the most significant risks" of crypto technologies, while "harnessing their advantages".   Economic Secretary to the Treasury Andrew Griffith said the government remained "steadfast in our commitment to grow the economy and enable technological change and innovation - and this includes crypto-asset technology".

"But we must also protect consumers who are embracing this new technology - ensuring robust, transparent and fair standards," he added.  ... ' 

Crypto's Winter and Generative A.I.'s Spring?

 Colleague Steve King Writes:

 Crypto's Winter and Generative A.I.'s Spring

The Washington Post's 'Crypto winter' has come. And it's looking more like an ice age starts with:

A year ago, the crypto world was booming, with prices for Bitcoin and Ethereum at all-time highs, celebrities stumbling over each other to promote expensive digital art, and logos from blockchain companies gracing sports stadiums and Super Bowl ads. That era is over.

And it's true. 

Thanks to a long list of frauds and criminal schemes - topped off by FTX's collapse - the crypto hype cycle is over. For now.

And replacing it is a major new hype cycle for generative A.I. 

Generative A.I. - an umbrella term for A.I. that doesn't just analyze existing data but creates new text, images, videos, code snippets, and more - had already established itself as tech's latest big thing.

ChatgptBut with the launch of ChatGPT, the hype around generative A.I. has reached a fevered pitch.  ...  ' 

Expect and Fear the Trading Bot

Be very careful ... 

I, Trading Bot

Algorithms are being unleashed on the crypto markets.

By Nathan Thompson  in CoinDesk

Opinion

 Movies about stock traders and investors often depict Wall Street mercenaries with great hair or uber-nerds wedded to their computers, but the age of the human trader is already a thing of the past. Welcome to the age of the “bot.”

Trading bots use algorithms that execute trades when certain market conditions are met. Since the early 2000s there has been strong growth in these bots especially as market data has become more sophisticated. Now the algorithms are being unleashed on the crypto markets.

Nathan Thompson is the lead tech writer at Bybit. This article is part of CoinDesk’s Crypto 2023 series.

Algorithmic trading is used across most capital markets. According to a 2020 report from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 78% of market trades were performed by “trading centers [that] depend on automated systems and algorithms.” Other commentators peg the volume of stock trades coming from bots at 60% to 70%.

Institutional traders rent or create their own bots that activate when the market hits certain conditions. These algorithms constantly search markets for the right trade setups, such as finding oversold stocks or trading a breakout. When they find the right conditions bots run scripts that determine the position size, execute the trade, employ stop-losses and exit automatically.

The bots are not perfect because they are created using past data, but the latest artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology are already being employed – making them faster and more efficient than ever. Further, bots take the emotion out of trading (helping to stymie some of the emotional burden of investing in volatile markets).

See also: Become a Better Crypto Trader by Avoiding These Cognitive Biases | Opinion

“Reason is a slave to the passions” as philosopher David Hume said, and humans are by definition constantly at risk of making bad decisions based on emotions. For example, the infamous “revenge trade” happens when a trader fires ill-advised bids into the market in a desperate attempt to recoup a large loss, usually compounding their defeat.

More insidious is the fact that people don’t like being wrong. This makes them stay in a trade too long out of an irrational attachment to the company or digital asset when exiting is the best strategy.  ... ' 

Ethereum Completes Merge and Rehaul of Blockchain, Stock Falls

Will this be enough?   

Ethereum Merge Brings 'Sell-the-Fact' Price Move in Crypto Markets  in CoinDesk

The price stability that prevailed after Ethereum's shift to a more energy-efficient "proof-of-stake" network suddenly evaporated as ether slid 9.1%, its worst day since late August.

By Jocelyn Yang, Omkar Godbole

The price of ether (ETH) tumbled suddenly in cryptocurrency markets Thursday, ending a stretch of price stability that prevailed in the hours after the Ethereum blockchain completed its historic shift to a more energy-efficient "proof-of-stake" blockchain, known as the Merge.

At press time, the second-largest cryptocurrency was down 9.1% to $1,489, its biggest daily decline since Aug. 26. By contrast, bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency, was down only about 2% on the day. The CoinDesk Market Index was down about 4%.

The sudden price dump looks like a "buy-the-rumor, sell-the-fact" response, said Riyad Carey, a research analyst at crypto data firm Kaiko.

“There is still a lot of leverage in ETH markets, so volatility should be expected and will probably be welcomed by traders who watched the Merge go by without much of a move up or down,” Carey told CoinDesk in a written note. “We’ve also seen market depth decrease and spreads increase, so that will likely factor into larger price movements.”

The 'Ethereum Merge trade' unwinds 

CoinDesk reported earlier on blockchain data showing that investors were sending ETH to crypto exchanges in droves – often taken as a sign that holders are getting ready to dump. The cumulative inflow of $1.2 billion was the largest in six months.

By most accounts, the Ethereum blockchain appears to have dodged major technological snafus that might have led to a much deeper price crash. ... ' 

Ethereum going to proof of stake?

 Ethereum going to proof of stake?  Far less carbon emissions. 

Ethereum Merge: How Crypto's Carbon Footprint Is About to Shrink

By CNet.July 15, 2022

Whether you own cryptocurrency or not, the Ethereum Merge is a big deal. In the works since 2014, the long-delayed Merge will see ethereum, the second-biggest blockchain behind bitcoin, become nearly carbon neutral.

That is of huge consequence. Cryptocurrency critics argue that coins like bitcoin and ether are useless and use enormous amounts of electricity. The first point is polarizing and subjective, but the second is unequivocally true. In an era when more people than ever view climate change mitigation as society's No. 1 priority, the carbon emissions of bitcoin and ethereum are too conspicuous to ignore.

In the Merge, ethereum will adopt a system known as proof of stake, which has been planned since before the blockchain's creation in 2014. Because of its technical complexity, and the increasingly large amount of money at risk, it has been delayed multiple times. The Merge is part of what in the past was called "ether 2.0," a series of upgrades that reshape the blockchain's foundations. Mid-September is the goal deadline.

From CNet

View Full Article    

The Intelligent Crypto Thesis

Don't understand this as yet, but reaching out.  

Opinion Essay

AI and machine learning will usher in new forms of digital assets from intelligent NFTs to self-determining DeFi protocols.   This essay is part of CoinDesk's 'Big Ideas' series.

By Jesus RodriguezLayer 2   Jun 5, 2022 at 4:08 p.m. EDT in Coindesk

“Software is eating the world” has become one of the iconic phrases of the last decade of the software industry. Quoted in 2011 by software legend and venture capitalist extraordinaire Marc Andreessen, it synthesized the idea that companies that operated mostly in the physical world were transitioning to the digital economy in a trend that will essentially transform every company as a software company.

Jesus Rodriguez is CEO of IntoTheBlock, a blockchain and cryptocurrency market analysis firm. This article is a preview of a talk he will give this week on the Big Ideas stage at Consensus 2022 in Austin, Texas.

In recent years, the evolution of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) has permeated all areas of the software industry, leading many experts to claim that “machine learning is eating software.” Crypto and digital assets are rooted on the foundation of code and programmability and, consequently, are likely to be influenced by ML-AI trends. The intersection of ML-AI with digital assets is likely to usher in a new era in which intelligence becomes a native component of crypto assets.

The idea of intelligent crypto assets is conceptually trivial but full of practical challenges. Which are some of the fundamental ML trends that can rapidly impact the next generation of crypto assets? How about the main scenarios that can benefit from intelligence capabilities in crypto or some of the key technical challenges that need to be overcome for crypto to become intelligent. This essay explores some of these ideas and develops a thesis about the potential of the intersection of crypto and ML.

Only crypto can be natively intelligent

An important point to realize when thinking about AI-ML in the context of crypto-assets is that crypto is the only asset class in history that has the potential to become natively intelligent. AI-ML capabilities in traditional asset classes such as commodities or equities are implemented in vehicles like robo-advisors or quant strategies that live outside the asset itself. Even though there is an obvious role for those vehicles in the crypto space, crypto assets can natively embed those AI-ML capabilities in the assets. This benefit is, obviously, a side effect of the programmable and digital capabilities of crypto. Crypto assets are based on code and that code could take the form of AI-ML models.   .... ' 

Scammers on Crypto

Passed on to me  ... 

Reports show scammers cashing in on crypto craze    from ftc.gov     By Emma Fletcher

From Super Bowl ads to Bitcoin ATMs, cryptocurrency seems to be everywhere lately. Although it’s yet to become a mainstream payment method, reports to the FTC show it’s an alarmingly common method for scammers to get peoples’ money. Since the start of 2021, more than 46,000 people have reported losing over $1 billion in crypto to scams[1] – that’s about one out of every four dollars reported lost,[2] more than any other payment method. The median individual reported loss? A whopping $2,600. The top cryptocurrencies people said they used to pay scammers were Bitcoin (70%), Tether (10%), and Ether (9%).[3]  

Crypto has several features that are attractive to scammers, which may help to explain why the reported losses in 2021 were nearly sixty times what they were in 2018. There’s no bank or other centralized authority to flag suspicious transactions and attempt to stop fraud before it happens. Crypto transfers can’t be reversed – once the money’s gone, there’s no getting it back. And most people are still unfamiliar with how crypto works. These considerations are not unique to crypto transactions, but they all play into the hands of scammers.

Reports point to social media and crypto as a combustible combination for fraud. Nearly half the people who reported losing crypto to a scam since 2021 said it started with an ad, post, or message on a social media platform.[4]   ... ' 

Evading Sanctions with Crypto?

As was mentioned to me by my DC connections, their concern is that  Crypto evade such government attempts?  Below the intro to a longer article

Russians are using crypto to evade sanctions — but it’s not just the elite in Thenextweb

Is investing in crypto really going to help Russians?

Fearing Russia’s elite will evade economic sanctions by converting their wealth to cryptocurrency, high-profile US Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren has introduced a bill into US Congress to stymie Russian crypto transactions.

Warren warned a Senate committee hearing:  So no one can argue that Russia can evade all sanctions by moving all its assets into crypto. But for Putin’s oligarchs who are trying to hide, you know, a billion or two of their wealth, crypto looks like a pretty good option.

The bill does not seek to impose a blanket ban on all Russian cryptocurrency transactions. But it would give the US government the authority to ban US companies from processing cryptocurrency transactions connected to sanctioned Russian accounts and to apply secondary sanctions to foreign cryptocurrency exchanges doing business with sanctioned Russian individuals, companies, or government agencies.

But is it even necessary?

Even though the evidence shows that Russian cryptocurrency transactions have been increasing in both number and value in the past month, the scale suggests buyers are ordinary Russians seeking to hold on to their savings as the value of the ruble crashes.

Targeting sanctions

The economic sanctions imposed on Russia for invading Ukraine are naturally hurting the entire Russian economy. Their intended target, though, is to hit Putin and the billionaire oligarchs who support his rule where it hurts most.  A cornerstone of this strategy is stopping these individuals from using or moving their wealth around by freezing the assets they hold overseas and blocking financial transactions.

But the continued operation of cryptocurrency exchanges in Russia, such as Binance, Yobit, and Local Bitcoins, has been worrying US officials for some time. Even before Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, the US Treasury Department warned cryptocurrencies could undermine the sanctions already imposed on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Ruble’s falling value

Our first graph below shows why ordinary Russians have good reasons to buy cryptocurrency. Since the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, the ruble’s value against the US dollar has fallen by as much as 40%, from $US1 being worth 76 rubles to 132 rubles. At the time of publication, $US1 was worth about 109 rubles.

The ruble falls off a cliff  .... ' 

Selling NFT Art in Strange Places

I would be careful about this.

 An NFT Art ATM?  By Reuters, March 4, 2022

The first in-person non-fungible token (NFT) vending machine has been installed in New York City by digital art collecting platform Neon.

The "NFT ATM," located in a small storefront in Lower Manhattan's financial district, sells QR codes connected to pieces of online art ranging in price from $5.99 to $420.49.

Customers do not know which piece of digital art they have purchased until they scan the QR code, which allows them to display the art on any smartphone, laptop, or tablet.  Neon's Kyle Zappitell said the target customer is "the crypto curious, the people who tried to buy cryptocurrency or they were interested in buying an NFT, but they just hit too many barriers." ...

While digital art is mostly offered via cryptocurrencies, the NFT ATM accepts fiat currency; you can use a credit card to make a purchase. ...

From Reuters   

Notes on Usage

“Crypto” Means “Cryptography,” not “Cryptocurrency”    in Schneier

I have long been annoyed that the word “crypto” has been co-opted by the blockchain people, and no longer refers to “cryptography.” I’m not the only one.   ....   With lots of comments.