Microsoft to Sponsor the Ethereum DΞVCON1 Conference
“DΞVCON1 is very excited to work with Microsoft and we look forward to having them in London.”Microsoft’s head of US Technology Financial Services, Marley Gray, explained more specifically why Microsoft had taken an interest in this international and decentralized technology event:“Microsoft is excited to sponsor and attend Ethereum’s DevCon1. We find the Ethereum blockchain incredibly powerful and look forward to collaborating within the Ethereum Community. We see a future where the combination of Microsoft Azure and Ethereum can enable new innovative platforms like Blockchain-as-a-Service. This will serve as an inflection point to bring blockchain technology to enterprise clientele”.
Ethereum DevCon1 Is Bringing Interesting Companies and People Together… For a Better FutureAlready, it has been confirmed that not only will Microsoft be in attendance, but so will Nick Szabo. That is actually no surprise given that Szabo coined the term “smart contract” many many years ago and has become increasingly vocal on the internet as his pet idea has started to come to fruition. Smart contracts are a large part of Ethereum’s mainstream appeal, though the concept is still in the process of gaining momentum. The future prospects of robots and computers replacing humans for certain types of jobs has always been on the fringe of human imagination. The more you think about smart contracts, the more you realize that such a futuristic world couldn’t exist in a stable state without something like smart contracts. As panelists at the Money20/20 conference stated:
“Cryptocurrency is the most natural way for machines to pay machines.”
Bitcoin-inspired blockchain technology, of which Ethereum definitely is, has seen a lot of validation lately. Other Bitcoin-inspired blockchain technology like BitShares is also gaining traction, though not in the form of Microsoft sponsorships. Besides the fundraising and actual release of Ethereum’s Frontier alpha and a shaky first few days, the formation of a conference is a milestone that most “altchains” never achieve – not that there was any doubt that Ethereum would make it this far, anyways. After all, even Imogen Heap has even started using Ethereum, why wouldn’t Microsoft be next?
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Family to travel across the US, apending only Bitcoin
their family of four this week, during which they will only spend
bitcoin.
Washington on Friday, the first stop on the “Uncoinventional Living
Tour”, for the Bitcoin in the Beltway conference.
annual Porcupine Freedom Festival and then to Kansas City, Missouri –
Bleish’s hometown – over the Independence Day holiday before returning
back to Texas.
Fighting a different way
and Bleish are both grassroots activists that spent years fighting the
political system in the US. Each helped start local political action
committes that focused on constitutional activism, civil liberties and
anti-police state causes in their hometowns of Austin, Texas and Kansas
City, respectively.
realisation that they needed to change their lifestyle choices – opting
instead to look for ways of being self-sufficient and building
communities separate from government influence. Bush told CoinDesk:
“We
started to think that if we really want to change the world to create a
more free society, the first thing we can do is to change the way we
live and start to live more free ourselves, and stop participating in
centralised or coercive institutions … Both of us began to realise that a
lot of work we were doing wasn’t making us more free. In fact, it was
just exhausting us and spending all our energy and our money and our
time.”
The Blush family farm
off the grid, the family moved just outside of Austin, to start a farm
on which it produces its own food, provides its own source of water and
harvests its own alternative energy.
lifestyle to be realised, they’ve set goals: to produce 50% of their own
food, store 50% of their own water, and reduce their dependency on the
central energy grid by 50%.
said Bush. “Trying to document and educate people about the values of
living a voluntary, natural life.”
their lives as they learn each day from their lifestyle, their
communities and themselves, as well as teach others how everyone can be
self-reliant and free from government influence – without fighting.
After they’ve wrapped filming for episodes five and six of “Sovereign
Living” they hope to be able to share it with the world through a media
streaming service like Netflix or Hulu.
Planning ahead
mentioned that this is the first time in their bitcoin experience where
they’ve had enough tools and resources to live on bitcoin alone, citing
platforms such as Gyft and eGifter, as well as the recent news by Expedia. Nevertheless, she emphasised the amount of effort it takes to plan a bitcoin-only itinerary:
“It’s
hard, it’s taken a lot of pre-planning. I had to look at every single
stop along the way and see what gas stations they had to make sure that
we were buying the appropriate amount of gift cards for each gas
station.”
the northeast of the country, she found Exonn gas stations at each stop,
but that on the drive back home there weren’t any – but there were BP
stations.
added: “I want the world to know that it is possible to travel the
country using bitcoin only. And it’s not only possible but you can do it
comfortably and take care of a family of four along the way.”
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The Rise of Cryptosponsorships
Dogecoin, the Internet meme turned cryptocurrency, has never had trouble gaining publicity. In January the Doge community sponsored the Jamaican bobsled team at the Sochi Olympics, then in March the Dogecoin subreddit sponsored NASCAR driver Josh Wise at Talladega Speedway. It was an idea, it seems, that has spawned a host of imitators.
For those who don’t know, this is an annual road race from France (this year the starting points are Paris in the north and Bordeaux in the south) down through Spain to Marrakesh, Morrocco. The race is only open to students aged 18 to 28, and they may only use Renault 4 cars. The teams have 10 days to make it from start to finish, over a course that includes 1,500 miles of harsh North African desert. Established in 1997 in Rennes, the 4L Trophy is mainly done to provide children with school supplies. This year an estimated 80 tons of school furniture was delivered by 2,648 students representing 1,324 teams from 1,460 colleges. With a market cap of less than $200K at the time of this writing, it is unclear if the KARMA team will be able to raise the funds necessary to participate in the race, With a volume of 50 billion KARMA in existence, it seems that they wish to compete with both doge and Reddcoin as the default tipping currency for the internet, so this could see the value rise as people buy KARMA to help sponsor the team.
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Image courtesy: abc.net.au
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Another athlete being sponsored by crypto is Elsa Hammond who is attempting to row 2,400 miles across the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii in the first Great Pacific Race. Consisting of soloists or teams up to four, there are no sails or motors allowed, making this is a grueling test of physical and mental stamina. To help offset the cost ($336,000) Ms. Hammond, the only European contestant in the race, is asking donors for $70 (42 Pounds Sterling) per mile. In exchange Hammond will add your special woman’s name to her boat. She has also secured a sponsorship from Ultracoin whose founder has promised “substantial” amounts of Ultracoin after the completion of the event. With Ultracoin set to peak at 100 million coins the term “substantial” could really be anything, so that will be interesting to watch.
At the time of this writing Ultracoin has a market cap of over $400,000 and sell for roughly $.03 each, so the sponsorship could be significant. This would definitely be a good thing for Hammond since she plans to donate to gender equality charity The Great Initiative, as well as the Plastic Oceans Foundation.
VERTCOIN
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