DeepFakes, Bitcoin Farms, and a Kanye West Mural
It’s time for some tech Tuesday and there’s a bit going on.
Deep fakes are a growing concern these days, especially with all of the misinformation out there.
They have been used in some cases for fun, but in others to hurt or ruin people’s careers. It’s a trend we’ve seen especially among successful women, where nude or pornographic fakes are made to ruin their reputation.
I’m not really sure why a person’s body or sexuality would ruin someone these days, but society says it can.
Well, the future answer to this problem might lie in the blockchain. Blockchain is a secure way to track content – not just its source, but any changes something may have gone through.
By putting social things like photos and videos on a blockchain, it’s verified by a series of computer, which then all agree upon it. Should the content be altered, the network would know immediately when and where it changed – allowing for people to prove a deep fake had occurred.
If you want to know more about the technical aspect of how the security would work, check out the link to the World Economic Forum article in our show notes.
The great thing about blockchain is it increases transparency and accountability while still allowing for a level of privacy if you want it.
Last week, Bitfarms announced they would be opening a mega bitcoin mining farm in Argentina.
They’ve secured a contract with a private power company to provide 210 megawatts of infrastructure to the farm.
It’s worth noting that Bitfarms is publicly traded on the NASDAQ so you may want to look into them.
It was reported that in September, Bitfarms had a 1.4 exahash per second rate.
If you aren’t aware of what a hash rate is, that’s the speed at which a mining rig is able to process transactions on a proof-of-work system like bitcoin or Ethereum.
Bitfarms chose to set up its new mining farm in Argentina because it’s somewhere that has low demand for power consumption, making rates cheaper than a lot of places and allowing for room to grow.
Room to grow is very important. Since the crackdown on China, a lot of miners are trying to set up shop in new regions. One of the places a lot of miners are moving to in the US is Texas.
Texas is currently home to the largest mining farm in the US, about 160 miles south of Dallas in Rockdale Texas.
The facility currently uses about as much power as 150,000 homes – and it’s not the only mining farm in that area.
More and more are popping up in Texas – but there’s becoming a large concern that the state’s electrical grid can’t handle it.
If you remember, over the winter Texas’ electrical grid had some pretty big disasters. Thousands were left without power during one of the worst storms it’s seen.
Some advocates of the mining industry entering Texas say that the farms can provide more stability by powering down during peak times, and using more energy when fewer people are using the grid.
Of course, that means adding more infrastructure and regulation to see it happen – and some skeptics are concerned miners won’t follow the rules considering that less power means less money.
If you are the type of person who is interested in mining – good news. Intel Arc GPUs
This comes after NVidia’s GeForce products had light has rate limiters put on them to discourage miners from buying them all up. In a previous episode, we discussed how it was worked around by hackers and developers.
Intel has come out saying that they are going to take a neutral stance when it comes to crypto mining, and allow buyers to decide what their graphics cards are used for.
Right now it’s not known how well the Alchemist ARC cards will do when it comes to mining – but I’ll keep you up to date when it hits the market.
Well, it’s time to discuss the NFT world.
Jason Peterson, who is a Chicago-based artist unveiled a Kanye West Mural at the intersection of North Sangamon Street and West Lake Street.
Peterson has decided to auction off the mural as an NFT, contributing to a growing trend we see where the digital and physical world is crossing paths in the NFT market.
The mural contains a QR code on the left side. The owner of the NFT, and essentially the mural, will have their information linked to the QR code and allow people passing by to find out more about the owner by scanning it.
The piece is being auctioned off on YeahProbablyNothing and will end on October 23.
If you are looking for a new place to mint or purchase NFTs, FTX US is launching a new marketplace to rival markets like Open Sea.
In launching the platform FTXUS’s president, Brett Harrison said we hope to provide both US and global users with a regulated marketplace that is intuitive and responsive to their needs..
This of course comes after we mentioned yesterday that Open Sea’s marketplace regulation has come into question about offensive work being sold that goes against their own terms of services.
FTX US will mint NFTs using Solana, and they are expected to add support for Ethereum in the near future.
In the gaming world, Vulcan Forged is launching the first-ever decentralized exchange for NFT gaming tokens.
Vulcan Forged is a play to earn platform designed as an easy-to-play and easy-to-build ecosystem. It’s a community-based project that promotes the development of world-class blockchain games by supporting developers through its development of programs.
Their entire ecosystem is powered by its own PYR token, which is a cross-platform currency.
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Resources:
Blockchain can help combat the threat of deepfakes. Here’s how
Bitfarms Starts Construction of Mega Bitcoin Mining Farm in Argentina
Will The Texas Electric Grid Be Able To Handle State’s Bitcoin Mining Rush?
Intel Arc GPUs to Ship Without Cryptocurrency Mining Limitations
Kanye West Mural Now Being Auctioned off as NFT
FTX US Launches NFT Market — Users Can Trade and Mint Solana NFTs, ETH Support on the Way
NFT Gaming Pioneer Vulcan Forged Launches First-Ever DEX for Gaming Tokens
