Photo: The Canadian Press

FILE – An advertisement for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin displayed on a tram, May 12, 2021, in Hong Kong. Sometime in the next few days or even hours, the “miners” who chisel bitcoins out of complex mathematics are going to take a 50% pay cut — effectively slicing new emissions of the world’s largest cryptocurrency in an event called bitcoin halving. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

The “miners” who chisel bitcoins out of complex mathematics are taking a 50% pay cut — effectively reducing new production of the world’s largest cryptocurrency, again.

Bitcoin’s latest “halving” appeared to occur Friday night. Soon after the highly anticipated event, the price of bitcoin held steady at about $63,907.

Now, all eyes are on what will happen down the road. Beyond bitcoin’s long-term price behavior, which relies heavily on other market conditions, experts point to potential impacts on the day-to-day operations of the asset’s miners themselves. But, as with everything in the volatile cryptoverse, the future is hard to predict.

Here’s what you need to know.

WHAT IS BITCOIN HALVING AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Bitcoin “halving,” a preprogrammed event that occurs roughly every four years, impacts the production of bitcoin. Miners use farms of noisy, specialized computers to solve convoluted math puzzles; and when they complete one, they get a fixed number of bitcoins as a reward.

Halving does exactly what it sounds like — it cuts that fixed income in half. And when the mining reward falls, so does the number of new bitcoins entering the market. That means the supply of coins available to satisfy demand grows more slowly.

Limited supply is one of bitcoin’s key features. Only 21 million bitcoins will ever exist, and more than 19.5 million of them have already been mined, leaving fewer than 1.5 million left to pull from.

So long as demand remains the same or climbs faster than supply, bitcoin prices should rise as halving limits output. Because of this, some argue that bitcoin can counteract inflation — still, experts stress that future gains are never guaranteed.

HOW OFTEN DOES HALVING OCCUR?

Per bitcoin’s code, halving occurs after the creation of every 210,000 “blocks” — where transactions are recorded — during the mining process.

No calendar dates are set in stone, but that divvies out to roughly once every four years.

WILL HALVING IMPACT BITCOIN’S PRICE?

Only time will tell. Following each of the three previous halvings, the price of bitcoin was mixed in the first few months and wound up significantly higher one year later. But as investors well know, past performance is not an indicator of future results.

“I don’t know how significant we can say halving is just yet,” said Adam Morgan McCarthy, a research analyst at Kaiko. “The sample size of three (previous halvings) isn’t big enough to say ‘It’s going to go up 500% again,’ or something.”

At the time of the last halving in May 2020, for example, bitcoin’s price stood at around $8,602, according to CoinMarketCap — and climbed almost seven-fold to nearly $56,705 by May 2021. Bitcoin prices nearly quadrupled a year after July 2016’s halving and shot up by almost 80 times one year out from bitcoin’s first halving in November 2012. Experts like McCarthy stress that other bullish market conditions contributed to those returns.

Friday’s halving also arrives after a year of steep increases for bitcoin. As of Friday night, bitcoin’s price stood at $63,907 per CoinMarketCap. That’s down from the all-time-high of about $73,750 hit last month, but still double the asset’s price from a year ago.

Much of the credit for bitcoin’s recent rally is given to the early success of a new way to invest in the asset — spot bitcoin ETFs, which were only approved by U.S. regulators in January. A research report from crypto fund manager Bitwise found that these spot ETFs, short for exchange-traded funds, saw $12.1 billion in inflows during the first quarter.

Bitwise senior crypto research analyst Ryan Rasmussen said persistent or growing ETF demand, when paired with the “supply shock” resulting from the coming halving, could help propel bitcoin’s price further.

“We would expect the price of Bitcoin to have a strong performance over the next 12 months,” he said. Rasmussen notes that he’s seen some predict gains reaching as high as $400,000, but the more “consensus estimate” is closer to the $100,000-$175,000 range.

Other experts stress caution, pointing to the possibility the gains have already been realized.

In a Wednesday research note, JPMorgan analysts maintained that they don’t expect to see post-halving price increases because the event “has already been already priced in” — noting that the market is still in overbought conditions per their analysis of bitcoin futures.

WHAT ABOUT MINERS?

Miners, meanwhile, will be challenged with compensating for the reduction in rewards while also keeping operating costs down.

“Even if there’s a slight increase in bitcoin price, (halving) can really impact a miner’s ability to pay bills,” Andrew W. Balthazor, a Miami-based attorney who specializes in digital assets at Holland & Knight, said. “You can’t assume that bitcoin is just going to go to the moon. As your business model, you have to plan for extreme volatility.”

Better-prepared miners have likely laid the groundwork ahead of time, perhaps by increasing energy efficiency or raising new capital. But cracks may arise for less-efficient, struggling firms.

One likely outcome: Consolidation. That’s become increasingly common in the bitcoin mining industry, particularly following a major crypto crash in 2022.

In its recent research report, Bitwise found that total miner revenue slumped one month after each of the three previous halvings. But those figures had rebounded significantly after a full year — thanks to spikes in the price of bitcoin as well as larger miners expanding their operations.

Time will tell how mining companies fare following this latest halving. But Rasmussen is betting that big players will continue to expand and utilize the industry’s technology advances to make operations more efficient.

WHAT ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT?

Pinpointing definitive data on the environmental impacts directly tied to bitcoin halving is still a bit of a question mark. But it’s no secret that crypto mining consumes a lot of energy overall — and operations relying on pollutive sources have drawn particular concern over the years.

Recent research published by the United Nations University and Earth’s Future journal found that the carbon footprint of 2020-2021 bitcoin mining across 76 nations was equivalent to emissions of burning 84 billion pounds of coal or running 190 natural gas-fired power plants. Coal satisfied the bulk of bitcoin’s electricity demands (45%), followed by natural gas (21%) and hydropower (16%).

Environmental impacts of bitcoin mining boil largely down to the energy source used. Industry analysts have maintained that pushes towards the use of more clean energy have increased in recent years, coinciding with rising calls for climate protections from regulators around the world.

Production pressures could result in miners looking to cut costs. Ahead of the latest halving, JPMorgan cautioned that some bitcoin mining firms may “look to diversify into low energy cost regions” to deploy inefficient mining rigs.

Adblock test (Why?)

Source link

Trump Media, the parent company of the former president’s Truth Social, alerted Nasdaq Inc. on Thursday of what the company suspects is illegal activity driving down the price of its shares.

In a letter to the exchange, Devin Nunes, the CEO of Trump Media (DJT), laid out what he believes could be deemed “naked” short selling.

Naked short selling involves someone selling shares they don’t own or have not borrowed. They will often then try to buy shares at a reduced price to cover themselves. This practice is generally illegal. Whereas legitimate short sellers, people who seek to benefit from declines in the value of a company’s shares, borrow the shares before selling.

The letter was made public Friday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Nunes also noted in the letter that shares of the company were on a list the Nasdaq maintains that’s “indicative of unlawful trading activity.”

“This is particularly troubling given that “naked” short selling often entails sophisticated market participants profiting at the expense of retail investors,” he said.

Representatives from Nasdaq and Trump Media did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The company, which is majority-owned by former President Donald Trump, is down by around 50% from the all-time high it set on March 26, the day after it merged with a blank-check acquisition company to go public.

Shares of company have been on a wild ride since.

Although the company is still worth billions of dollars, it is struggling to make money and needs cash. Experts have warned investors to be careful if they choose to trade the stock, because the company doesn’t have the fundamentals to back up its sky-high valuation.

Trump Media lost $58 million in 2023 and made just $4.1 million in revenue.

Shares of the company ended Friday’s session about 9.6% higher.

This story has been updated with additional developments and context.

CNN’s Nicole Goodkind contributed to this report.

Adblock test (Why?)

Source link

Since joining a community that dreams of an internet free from giant corporations that can exploit users’ time and data, Victoria West’s digital artwork has been exhibited across the globe.

West, a photographer and digital artist based in Burton, 30 kilometres southeast of Fredericton, has had her work shown in Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Townsville in northeastern Australia, Miami, New York City, and even a museum in Albuquerque, N.M., — all through connections she’s made in Web3.

West warned it was a “rabbit hole,” but what she found in wonderland she doesn’t believe she’d find anywhere else.

Web3 is a future version of the internet. 

WATCH | Step inside Eden’s Dye, Victoria West’s NYC exhibit:

N.B. photographer explains how AI has freed her art from constraints

3 days ago

Duration 2:23

The work of Victoria West, a photographer and digital artist based in Burton, was recently showcased at an immersive exhibit in the Big Apple.

Web1, West said, was the first version of the internet, in which users passively consumed information.

As the 2000s dawned, Web2 emerged, and users could now post their own content — think Twitter, blogs, YouTube. People are now creating more and more in digital spaces, but the downside of Web2 is that corporations are technically still the owners of all that creation, and they could take your data and potentially do with it as they please.

Enter Web3, which still exists more in theory: nobody and everybody owns the internet. This version aims to be decentralized. It doesn’t eradicate the distrust some people have in mega companies like Google and Meta — it just removes the need for it, because no one person or organization can own the blockchain Web3 operates on. 

West said within Web3 there’s an art movement, with artists working together and taking control of their work. Imagine if Leonardo da Vinci had an internet connection, as well as Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello. It’s the renaissance all over again, West said, except it’s happening with digital art.

“And it’s happening online on a much bigger scale.”

Before learning about W3 in 2021, West said she was in a photography bubble.

Photography isn’t the art form West imagined herself pursuing when she was younger. But when she bought a camera after the first commercial digital models arrived on the market in the mid-2000s, she was hooked.

“I was bothering everybody around me to take their portrait,” she said.

She built up her portraiture business, becoming involved with the Professional Photographers of Canada and competing in photography contests. Still, West didn’t want to just capture moments — she wanted to make them. 

That’s when artificial intelligence came on the scene. 

West was using Midjourney, a generative AI program, when it was still in beta testing. Around the same time she became involved with Web3, she experimented with blending AI-produced textures into her photography. In her business, AI quickened her workflow and allowed her to change backdrops and furniture. 

While creating a piece in 2023 called When I Die, West wanted to design a man underground with roots blossoming into a tree. Well, there aren’t any blossoming trees in Canada in February, West joked — so she made the tree using AI.

“I feel like someone took handcuffs off me, and I’m free,” she said.

Lauren Cruikshank, an associate professor in culture and media studies at the University of New Brunswick, has spoken about the use of AI in universities, but she also thinks about it through an artistic lens.

From the camera to spell check, Cruikshank said the same discussion happens with each new medium: how much of the artistry belongs to the artist, how much to the tools they’re using?

“For some people where it gets uncomfortable is where the role of the human is minimal compared to how much the AI tool is creating or having creative influence,” she said.

With AI, Cruikshank agreed there are degrees — there’s a difference between prompting an AI to generate an image of a beautiful sunset and claiming it as your artwork and what West is doing, combining AI with her own artistry. 

“That sounds really compelling to me,” Cruikshank said.

When West first saw Lume Studios on Broadway in lower Manhattan, the place she’d eventually display Eden’s Dye, her immersive art exhibit, she knew she wanted it immediately.

She collaborated on the exhibit with some of her Web3 friends. Los Angeles actors and poets Laurence Fuller and Vincent D’Onofrio wrote poetry to accompany each piece of art, which West created using both photography and AI. A coder friend joined the crew, and the result was a floor-to-ceiling immersive exhibit. West’s collaborators also choreographed performances to complement the art, using music produced by AI.

“Why wouldn’t I do that if I can?” West asked. “It’s freeing, I think, and lets you push the boundaries of photography and what you can do with it.”

While the exhibit leaned heavily on romantic, classical themes and Baroque aesthetics, Eden’s Dye is almost a premonition: minted, digital artwork taking up entire walls in people’s homes, flowers growing from code, experiencing art in virtual realms.

Demand will only grow, West said. Technology will progress and the internet will change. But what she really wanted was for people to walk into Eden’s Dye and be amazed by the art they were experiencing.

“They came because of the art, and they were there enjoying the art. You don’t really need to understand anything beyond that.”

Adblock test (Why?)

Source link