Revolution Populi, a social network led by David Gelernter — a futurist and a distributed computing pioneer — is integrating Chainlink data oracles. Revolution Populi is trying to displace Facebook by creating a social network where users can post and share information about their lives, “but advertisers pay them, not Facebook.” The network is just the first of many distributed apps that the company plans to release in the near future. A futurist who predicted social networks and became a Unabomber target The idea in itself does not sound novel, as there have been quite a few projects in the …

UC Berkeley professor Barry Eichengreen argues that Facebook’s planned Libra stablecoin faces too many “insoluble” problems, and too much resistance from governments, to ever launch. “Libra is an interesting idea that will never see the light of day,” he told the Unitize conference on July 10. Eichengreen asserts that the stablecoin sector is largely ignorant of monetary economics and history. He said his economic work had led to invitations “to a series of lunches at excellent San Francisco restaurants with the founders and funders of prospective stablecoins.” “My conclusion was that my luncheon companions knew all about blockchain, but they …

Johann Schneider-Ammann, who served as the President of Switzerland in 2016, recently joined the board of Crypto Valley Venture Capital, or CV VC. CV VC is a venture capital firm that invests in crypto firms near Zug, Switzerland, the “crypto valley” of the namesake firm. Corresponding with Cointelegraph, Schneider-Ammann credited CV VC with creating “its own ecosystem,” but saw blockchain as a major factor in Switzerland’s future: “I am fascinated by the potential of this new technology and I am convinced that this gives us in Switzerland a unique opportunity to become a leader in the technology of the future.” …

Paul Grewal, a former US magistrate judge in California and Deputy General Counsel for Facebook, is joining crypto exchange Coinbase’s legal team. In a July 8 announcement on the Coinbase blog, the crypto exchange said the addition of Grewal will help “pave the way for the next phase of crypto awareness and adoption.” The new Chief Legal Officer will also lead the legal team as Coinbase partners with financial services regulators, and develops and releases new products and services. According to Coinbase, Grewal oversaw more than a thousand cases during his five years as a judge, and “played significant roles” …

In modern business, there are no areas left where blockchain enthusiasts will not try to use the technology. Distributed ledger technology is used in logistics, manufacturing, games and in facial recognition services. And although many projects cannot offer anything qualitatively new except for the principle of using blockchain, some projects manage to prove their practical benefits. Despite the illusion that marketing/advertising and blockchain tech are completely unconnected, some startups manage to use some of the advantages of blockchain technology in solving marketing problems. Babs Rangaiah, who leads global marketing solutions for the Interactive Experience unit of IBM, said: “Blockchain is …

The payments feature of the popular messaging platform WhatsApp remains suspended in Brazil, despite local regulators easing restrictions placed on its owner, Facebook. On June 24, Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense, known locally by its Portuguese acronym ‘CADE’ suspended an agreement between Facebook and Brazilian payment firm Cielo to process payments for WhatsApp. On June 30, it reversed the decision, however WhatsApp payments remain suspended as a result of parallel action taken by Brazil’s central bank. New information CADE reversed its sanctions on Facebook and Cielo after receiving information from the firms evidencing a substantial reduction in the risks …

Despite seeing substantial growth in popularity, topping Google search trends amid the recent halving, the coronavirus pandemic and mainstream coverage, the cryptocurrency industry has somewhat been left out of the advertising world by online ad networks, social media platforms and even national governments. In 2018, Facebook banned cryptocurrency advertising amid the initial coin offering hype. Later that year in March, Google followed, banning all advertisements of cryptocurrencies, especially ICOs, and binary options. In the same month, Twitter also banned all cryptocurrency advertising, except for a few public companies. Several social networks in China also applied bans to crypto advertising, following …

Facebook’s research and development engineers have launched a community platform built around predictions, encroaching on the territory of the emerging crypto-powered predictive market sector. Dubbed ‘Forecast’, Facebook’s new iOS app polls users on a variety of forward-facing issues, with respondents using in-app points to access surveys on the platform. Survey results will be made publicly available via the Forecast website. Facebook launches COVID-19 predictions The app is currently only available to invited users based in the United States and Canada while the platform is in beta testing. Prior to its invite-only beta launch on June 23, Forecast was tested internally …

In advance of its coming annual report, on June 24 the Bank for International Settlements released a special chapter from that report on digital payments — especially central bank digital currencies, a topic that’s attracted tremendous interest in recent months. The report encourages central banks to treat CBDCs as their future, saying: “One option at the frontier of policy opportunities is the issuance of CBDCs, which could amount to a sea change.” A recent shift in favor of CBDCs The BIS found that there had been a major bullish shift in sentiment for CBDCs since the beginning of this year …

Brazil’s central bank has ordered Mastercard and Visa to suspend processing money transfers on behalf of Facebook’s WhatsApp. According to official information shared with Cointelegraph Brazil, the Central Bank of Brazil (BC) took action against WhatsApp Pay “to preserve an adequate competitive environment” and allow the central bank to assess the risks posed by the firm to the country's existing financial sector. Visa and Mastercard will face heavy fines and administrative sanctions if they do not suspend activities relating to WhatsApp payments. Bank will assess the risks The Central Bank of Brazil (BC) has moved to suspend the operations of …

On June 17, the United States Department of Justice issued new recommendations to roll back decades-old protections for online platforms publishing third-party content. Section 230 and internet censorship Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act became law in 1996, as the public was only just coming to welcome the internet into their day-to-day lives. The controversial law freed platforms from legal liability for content from third-parties. The DoJ’s recommendations include ending immunity for content involving child abuse, terrorism and cyberstalking. It also argues that Section 230: “Does not apply in a specific case where a platform had actual knowledge or …

Telegram founder, Pavel Durov, lashes out at Facebook and Instagram for making money off of scammy ads that use Durov’s name and image. Through his Russian Telegram channel on June 17, Durov accuses the tech giant of turning the deaf ear to user complaints: “For over a year, Facebook and Instagram have been making money off of advertisements promoting scams that are being launched from my name. <...> These machinations are approved by Facebook’s moderators, which allows them the status of advertisement, thus misleading people.” Facebook has enough resources for political censorship One of the scams cited by Durov was …