Značka: Features

A successful cyberattack on critical infrastructure — such as electricity grids, transportation networks or healthcare systems — could cause severe disruption and put lives at risk. 

Our understanding of the threat is far from complete since organizations have historically not been required to report data breaches, but attacks are on the rise according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. A recent rule from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission should help clarify matters further by now requiring that organizations “disclose material cybersecurity incidents they experience.”

As the digital world continues to expand and integrate into every facet of society, the looming specter of cyber threats becomes increasingly more critical. Today, these cyber threats have taken the form of sophisticated ransomware attacks and debilitating data breaches, particularly targeting essential infrastructure.

A major question coming from policymakers, however, is whether businesses faced with crippling ransomware attacks and potentially life threatening consequences should have the option to pay out large amounts of cryptocurrency to make the problem go away. Some believe ransoms be banned for fear of encouraging ever more attacks. 

Following a major ransomware attack in Australia, its government has been considering a ban on paying ransoms. The United States has also more recently been exploring a ban. But other leading cybersecurity experts argue that a ban does little to solve the root problem.

Ransomware and the ethical dilemma of whether to pay the ransom

At the most basic level, ransomware is simply a form of malware that encrypts the victim’s data and demands a ransom for its release. A recent study by Chainalysis shows that crypto cybercrime is down by 65% over the past year, with the exception of ransomware, which saw an increase. 

“Ransomware is the one form of cryptocurrency-based crime on the rise so far in 2023. In fact, ransomware attackers are on pace for their second-biggest year ever, having extorted at least $449.1 million through June,” said Chainalysis.

Even though there has been a decline in the number of crypto transactions, malicious actors have been going after larger organizations more aggressively. Chainalysis continued:

“Big game hunting — that is, the targeting of large, deep-pocketed organizations by ransomware attackers — seems to have bounced back after a lull in 2022. At the same time, the number of successful small attacks has also grown.”

The crippling effect of ransomware is especially pronounced for businesses that heavily rely on data and system availability.

Ransomware revenue is up. (Chainalysis)

The dilemma of whether to pay the ransom is contentious. On one hand, paying the ransom might be seen as the quickest way to restore operations, especially when lives or livelihoods are at stake. On the other hand, succumbing to the demands of criminals creates a vicious cycle, encouraging and financing future attacks.

Despite promises of “decentralization” and “trustless ownership,” the vast majority of crypto games today are, at best, partially decentralized. Web3 is the branding, but in reality, most are “Web2+.” Game assets live on-chain, yet the game logic, state and storage remain off-chain on centralized servers.

Why? Simply put, it’s not easy to build a fully decentralized game on-chain. Blockchains in 2023 are still far too slow for processing the gargantuan number of transactions that video games require. Lattice CEO Ludens tells Cointelegraph:

“Building a fully on-chain game right now is a little bit like building video games on a computer from the 1980s. We don’t yet have complex on-chain games yet because the blockchains – even Layer 2s – are not powerful enough right now.”

Furthermore, developers have to make important tradeoffs when using blockchain technology to make the game widely accessible to non-crypto audiences.

For instance, Aurory’s developers created a hybrid inventory system called Syncspace, which allows players to leave their assets in Aurory’s custody, but move them into their Solana wallets if they wish.

Lea Thompson — aka Girl Gone Crypto — declares that she will not put her 225,000 Twitter followers to sleep with the same old boring “breaking” news tweets about crypto.

She explains that using “breaking” to share news that everyone knows is pretty lame.

“It is kind of generic. It is easy engagement, and there is not any personality or anything interesting about it.”

BREAKING: literally everything— Girl Gone Crypto (@girlgone_crypto) November 9, 2022

“By the time I’d have posted the news, five other accounts would have probably posted about it,” Thompson says. 

Instead, Thompson likes to put a spin on the latest news, dish out some interesting commentary, or crack jokes to give her followers something different from the rest of the pack.

It’s this quirky mindset that has made her a crypto sensation on Twitter, and it all began with her ukulele playing. 

Back in 2017, Thompson hopped on the Steemit bandwagon, a popular blogging platform at the time. She started posting videos of her playing ukulele covers and getting paid in Steemit’s crypto token, STEEM, whenever her stuff got upvoted. 

Although Thompson was raking in crypto for strumming out ukulele covers, she admits she wasn’t “even that good.” 

Oddly, her ukulele crypto side hustle brought about unexpected invitations to speak at various crypto events.

“‘We think your story about earning crypto playing ukulele is really cool; we want you to come share it at our conference,’ so I ended traveling all over the world and meeting so many cool people working in the industry. It was such a fun experience.”

Thompson admits she was quite surprised considering she wasn’t even making crypto content. However, it was a turning point for her as she realized that the corporate life in marketing and sales wasn’t her true calling. 

Just left my corporate job in the tech industry to go full-time crypto!! 😍Got myself a little gift for finally being my own boss. ☕️ pic.twitter.com/ev2LoWp9fj— Girl Gone Crypto (@girlgone_crypto) January 13, 2021

Thompson ditched her job and made a bullish career move by going all-in on crypto: “In 2019, I decided to launch a crypto channel. At that point, I’d been using crypto, learning about crypto, launching some social channels, and what I’ve been doing ever since.”

So, you’ve deposited some cryptocurrency onto an exchange. You expect that these funds will be held in your name as a liability, with safeguards in place to make sure that you can withdraw them when you wish.However, this is not necessarily the case.Sitting down with Magazine, Simon Dixon, CEO of global online investment platform BnkToTheFuture, warns that the murky lines between regulations in the crypto industry mean that customers must be extremely cautious about where they stash their crypto.

“[The cryptocurrency industry] was created by businesses that want to build financial institutions, and robust financial history has shown that if you leave them to their own devices, they won’t respect client money.”

Take FTX for example. Dixon notes that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly treated customer funds as if they were his own, tipping billions into Alameda Research.

“FTX would use those assets for their sister company hedge fund and then find themselves in a position where the hedge fund had lost all of their money,” Dixon says, emphasizing that this led to there being no assets for clients to withdraw.

Dixon has invested more than $1 billion in “over 100” different crypto companies, including Kraken and Ripple Labs. One of the projects BnkToTheFuture raised money for turned out to be one of the biggest crypto disasters in recent times: bankrupt crypto lending platform Celsius.

Before its collapse in July 2022, Celsius was allegedly using money from new customers to pay off attractive yields promised to other existing customers. He says Celsius caught investors and customers off guard by treating their client money “as if it were their own.”

Crypto opponents like United States Representative Brad Sherman characterized this behavior as endemic to the cryptocurrency ecosystem:

During the #SBF saga, I said the supporters of #crypto will say that Sam Bankman-Fried was just one snake in a crypto Garden of Eden. But in reality, crypto was a Garden of Snakes.Since then, we seem to catch another snake every few weeks.#Celsius https://t.co/0Fgz6yYj7D— Congressman Brad Sherman (@BradSherman) July 13, 2023

So, what are all the other crypto exchanges actually doing with your money? Even if they’re not outright frauds, can you trust exchanges to safeguard your funds?

There are hundreds of crypto exchanges across the globe, spanning from more trustworthy to outright fraudulent. 

Crypto market tracker CoinMarketCap tracks 227 of these exchanges, which among them have an approximate 24-hour trading volume in July of around $181 billion (if you ignore accusations of rampant wash trading).

Adrian Przelozny, CEO of Australian crypto exchange Independent Reserve, tells Magazine that consumers should “always be mindful” of the distinction between the business model of an exchange versus a broker.

An exchange usually keeps its customers’ assets directly in its own storage. This means they can’t really use those assets to make extra profit for themselves. Przelozny explains that Independent Reserve has enough liquidity on the platform so that when you place an order on the exchange “you are trading against another customer.”

On the flip side, brokers may entail counterparty risks to other exchanges by holding customers’ crypto assets on the exchange to earn some extra money.This helps the broker rake in more funds, but it also puts the customer at risk. Przelozny emphasizes that brokers cannot earn a return using clients’ assets without taking a risk.

He warns that with a brokerage-type business model, when you place an order, that platform has to essentially run off in the background to acquire the asset you want.

“The platform has to get the liquidity from another exchange, so they place the order on behalf of the customer and then that customer is actually exposed to counterparty risk.”

A counterparty risk is when there is a chance that another party involved in a contract might not hold up their end of the deal. It gets riskier when a broker keeps customer funds or assets on another exchange because if that exchange goes bust, the customer assets could go down the drain as well.

It’s a word that would probably send shivers down the spines of the executives at Australian-based crypto broker Digital Surge, which found itself in hot water right after FTX went down.

The Australia-based broker went into administration after it had transferred $23.4 million worth of its assets to FTX, just two weeks before the whole collapse happened in November 2022.

Digital Surge managed to pull off a lucky escape with a bailout plan; however, it did involve directors Daniel Rutter and Josh Lehman personally chucking $1 million into the mix.

Crypto lender BlockFi and crypto exchange Genesis weren’t so lucky: Both ended up filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to being exposed to the FTX mess.

#Genesis was an institutional crypto lending platform for other crypto lenders so here are the publicly disclosed Chapter 11 creditors. Expect #Gemini to file Chapter 11 with $765m exposure. Also listed is #Abra $30m & #Ripio $27m. Full disclosure I am a shareholder in Abra. pic.twitter.com/xkFlNaZGrP— Simon Dixon (@SimonDixonTwitt) January 20, 2023

So, while an exchange has fewer avenues to generate profits compared to a broker, it prioritizes the safety of funds. 

Dixon explains that if a crypto broker is storing client assets on another exchange, such as Binance, for example, the broker should be transparent with the client that “if anything were to go wrong” with Binance, the assets would be hard to retrieve. 

In the case of the crypto exchange side of BnkToTheFuture, Dixon makes it clear that as a “registered virtual asset service provider,” it has to have disaster recovery, and all clients’ assets need to be distributable at all times, even if the parent company “goes down.”

“We actually can’t use [client assets] in any way shape or form as per our [securities] registration,” Dixon says.

He explains that a securities registration holds an exchange to a higher standard, as it sets policies in place that need to be tested against them regularly.

A securities registration basically requires an exchange to hold those assets and maintain comprehensive records verifying the customer as the real owner of those assets, as well as the exchange being subject to regulatory inspections.

Coinbase’s and Binance’s recent legal troubles with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission stem from allegations of operating as unlicensed securities exchanges, meaning both weren’t held to the recordkeeping and safeguard requirements that a license would mandate.

What happens after I deposit funds into a crypto exchange?

So, what actually happens when you deposit $50 or $50,000 into an exchange and buy some crypto?

In the exchange model, where users trade directly with one another, it’s like a one-on-one deal. When your digital asset order is executed, your money goes straight to the person you’re buying from. The assets stay within the exchange throughout the whole transaction.

When it comes to a brokerage-type model, you’re buying the asset from the broker directly.

So, the money goes into the broker’s trust account first. Then, the broker takes that money and uses it to acquire the assets you want. Essentially, they’re playing matchmaker between your money and assets. The asset is then generally held on another exchange.

Jameson Lopp has been on the front lines of the battle between technologists and those who want to preserve Bitcoin as it is since the scaling debates of 2015–2017.

The topic arouses such passion that many suspect it was a disgruntled Bitcoiner opponent who called down an armed SWAT team to his home, leading him to famously go underground. Lopp blamed the 2017 incident on the “same old same old: Bitcoin philosophy and scaling debate arguments. A few of the more extreme cases think I’m some kind of manipulative monster.”

Dear anonymous coward who just sent dozens of cops w/ rifles to my house w/a false hostage situation report: I am not so easily intimidated.— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) October 16, 2017

Lopp, who is currently the chief technology officer for decentralized wallet service Casa, is an advocate for cautious progress who commands respect among the Bitcoin community.  

Speaking from an undisclosed location, Lopp says he worries the backlash against Ordinals NFTs might result in lower support for much-needed future upgrades. Ordinals were largely an unexpected result of the 2021 Taproot soft fork.

“The problem that I see is that there’s a lot of ossification proponents out there. And they’re pointing at Ordinals and inscriptions and saying, ‘You see, this is what happens when you change the protocol. It gets abused and used in ways that were not intended,’” he says.

But Lopp says the alternative is every bit as risky. He has carefully considered the problem of  Bitcoin’s “ossification” — where the network becomes so big “it kind of gets crushed under its own weight and unable to change itself.”

Jameson Lopp enjoys a beer bought with Bitcoin. (Twitter)

Lopp uses email as an example of an internet protocol that ossified in the 1990s, leaving it with little ability to deal with the massive volumes of spam that subsequently arose.

Instead, corporations constructed expensive centralized reputation services on top to sort out spam from legit emails, and today, large numbers of emails that don’t comply with the arcane rules of the systems simply disappear into a black hole. And users are still deluged with spam.  

Since 2021, pop superstar Taylor Swift has been rerecording and releasing her entire back catalog of albums in an effort to break away from her previous record label and gain greater control over her art.

The fact she has to go through such a painstaking, expensive process just to recover what most would consider rightfully hers highlights how the music industry can be a complicated, confusing place for young artists. It has a well-deserved reputation for being a space where enthusiastic musicians often unknowingly enter into unfavorable or exploitative record contracts. 

“I would say maybe 10% of musicians have a good understanding, 1% of musicians have a great understanding, and 0.1% of musicians have an amazing understanding” of the legal and financial structure behind the music industry, Justin Blau tells Magazine. Also known as 3lau, Blau is a popular DJ and the founder of Royal, one of a handful of companies working to bridge the divide between the traditional music industry and blockchain.

Web3 or blockchain is often hyped up as the “Promised Land” for musicians, where the music industry will be democratized and decentralized, and where musicians will earn a larger slice of the profit pie by connecting directly with fans through NFTs. 

One rising use case for “music NFTs” is tokenizing a song’s royalties, allowing fans to earn a percentage of the revenue generated by their favorite artists’ music.

But music copyright law and royalty collection are highly complicated, and very much off-chain. So, where exactly does blockchain fit in, and what do artists and fans gain from its introduction?

“Any kid who doesn’t learn something about Bitcoin is missing out,” says Bitcoin advocate Ben De Waal.

De Waal explains that his 12-year-old daughter Samantha has already convinced “a couple” of her schoolmates and a teacher to hop on the Bitcoin bandwagon, though she’s not attempting to “orange pill the entire school”… yet.

Ben De Waal. (Supplied)

Thanks to her upbringing in a “Bitcoin family” that has largely abandoned fiat currency, Sam is now a Bitcoin ambassador wunderkind nicknamed The Bitcoin Kid.

De Waal himself discovered Bitcoin “around 2010” and dedicated his life to it around 2016 (sadly, after he deleted 200 Bitcoin!). He’s worked in engineering leadership positions at both Swan Bitcoin and Lightning Labs and explains he first introduced Sam to children’s books about Bitcoin when she was just 10 years old.

Just two years after she read her first Bitcoin book, Sam found herself on the grand stage of BTC Prague 2023 in mid-June, delivering a speech about Bitcoin.

Oh, and she had to follow MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor’s presentation, too.

Seems like she nailed it, though – she was “the best” speaker at the conference according to Peter McCormack, the host of the incredibly popular podcast What Bitcoin Did.

It’s her second big conference appearance, following a presentation at Adopting Bitcoin in 2022. 

Adults shouldn’t feel too bad, though — kids have a natural advantage when it comes to understanding and learning about Bitcoin.

Scott Sibley, co-author of the children’s book Goodnight Bitcoin, believes this is because kids haven’t really latched onto a specific form of currency yet.

“In many ways, it’s easier for kids to learn about Bitcoin because they don’t have the baggage of thinking it’s new or different.”

Goodnight Bitcoin is an origin tale recounting how Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin and sent the first Bitcoin to Hal Finney.

“Goodnight Bitcoin tells the story of Satoshi and Hal as they attempt to create the impossible: a new money called Bitcoin,” Sibley says.

Back in 1984, a U.K. television advertisement for Kit Kat chocolate bars was set in a music label’s office where a keen young band played their demo for a bored music executive. Afterward, they were served the famous chocolate bars and the manager said:

“You can’t sing, you can’t play, you look awful… you’ll go far.”

This is as close as I can get to explaining the appeal of memecoins to sensible, smart and intelligent people. But don’t be fooled: Smart people are making a lot of money out of dumb memecoins — invariably at the expense of not-so-smart people without good timing.

PEPE is making memecoins great again. (Twitter)

And timing is everything in memecoins, which typically have no utility for anything except having fun and making money. So, without any fundamentals to trade on, can you still take a “smart” approach to making money by trading memecoins?

On Yavin, co-founder and head of business at Syndika, comes in with a hard “no” to that idea.

“Anyone who says they have any trading strategies with memecoins is talking absolute BS,” he says, adding the only reason memecoins have experienced a rush of interest this year is because of the bear market and crypto winter.

“People need to do something with their investments, and they cannot wait until the next bull run. These people are not interested in investing in the real projects that take years to build. And they’re all about flipping and all about making a quick buck. That’s the reason,” says Yavin. 

Among the more memorable displays at Bitcoin 2023 is a real-life toilet with the logos of various non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies. It’s an ad for a booth selling “buttwipes” that are “moistened with the tears of no-coiners.” The marketing message is clear: Bitcoin is the real thing — everything else is a shitcoin that belongs in the toilet. 

But only a few steps away is another booth selling trading solutions for BRC-20 tokens, which some have labeled shitcoins for Bitcoin. Across the walkway are more booths slinging NFT minting software — also on Bitcoin. The conference even hosts a Bitcoin NFT art gallery. 

As Miami hosts the largest Bitcoin conference for the third year in a row in May, the air feels markedly different. Though there are only 15,000 attendees compared to last year’s 35,000, the atmosphere has an energy and freshness that’s a world away from the gloom and bear-market blues that one might expect after the massive drops from the 2021 highs.

Bitcoin is the real thing — everything else belongs in the toilet (Elias Ahonen)

What’s changed this year is the ordinal renaissance, brought on by the recent reality of not only NFTs but tokens being issued on the Bitcoin blockchain. There are certainly haters — with some calling for a fork to undo the Taproot updates that made “spam” possible on the chain. 

But despite the Bitcoin community’s traditional hatred for NFTs, tokens and DeFi, however, things are surprisingly quiet. Despite the blowback online, almost no one Magazine encounters at Bitcoin 2023 has anything particularly bad to say about Ordinals — and some did not even realize they are related to Bitcoin. 

Among old-school Bitcoiners — in circles where the cryptocurrency that starts with “E” can barely be mentioned without drawing comments of derision regarding “monkey pictures” and scam coins — the Ordinal NFT phenomenon is decisively met with a quiet acceptance or shrug. Most old-timers aren’t interested but appear to accept that this is what the “young people” want today — that Bitcoin needs to change with the times. 

Are Bitcoiners quietly accepting a new era where the network takes on a radically new role in the Web3 ecosystem, or is this the calm before the Bitcoin purist storm? 

After nearly a decade of gridlock, the United States may finally be on the cusp of crafting a cohesive policy framework for digital assets. In Congress, lawmakers are mulling a variety of proposed bills governing everything from stablecoins and securities rules to sanctions. The 2024 presidential race, meanwhile, may be the first to see crypto as a focal point.  

While both sides of the aisle are playing valuable roles, Republicans — especially influential congresspeople like Tom Emmer and Patrick McHenry — have emerged as the industry’s most important allies. However, the GOP’s pro-crypto bias may also be its downfall. From uncritical crypto “maximalism” to Orwellian surveillance paranoia, Web3’s industry bromides have crept into the party’s campaign rhetoric and, worse, its policy proposals. In seminal upcoming legislative opportunities, such as the House’s draft crypto regulatory bill, Republican policymakers must focus on putting “America first.”

Buying a small-town soccer club with the aim to propel it into the Premier League — the world’s most popular football league — is a script suitable for a Netflix series.

In fact, actor Ryan Reynold’s bid to revitalize lower-league Welsh soccer team Wrexham FC has already caught the attention of Disney+ writers. 

It’s a quaint, quintessentially British underdog story of how an ultra-rich Hollywood actor can do something different with his wealth. However, Reynolds has no connection to Wrexham; he flies in for most games, and he’s unlikely to live out the rest of his days building out the deprived historic mining town.

The story has netted mainstream media attention from the likes of the BBC, the Guardian and Sky News.In the Bitcoin world, a similar story is unraveling. However, it’s spearheaded by a local boy who’s using Bitcoin not only to boost the Real Bedford Football Club but his hometown as well.

McCormack holding a trophy.

In the Bitcoin world, Peter McCormack is a familiar face, hosting the most popular podcast What Bitcoin Did. According to the Guardian and the BBC, he is a blogger and “crypto guru” invariably betting on Bitcoin 

Over the past two years, he has strived to turn around the beleaguered Bedford FC by using Bitcoin. Real Bedford reached promotion in May, buoyed by new uniforms, new logos and, crucially, a new legion of fans. 

However, Real Bedford is also what McCormack calls the “Bitcoin football team.” Not only does he achieve his boyhood dream of running a successful football team, but it also seeks to discretely encourage fans and onlookers to engage with the world’s largest digital currency, Bitcoin. 

But does the club have the legs to make it into the Premier League? And what’s the point of putting the Bitcoin logo on the shirt, hosting Bitcoin meet-ups before every game, and inviting key opinion leaders of the Bitcoin world to games? And what on earth must the locals think of the “orange-pilled” takeover?

McCormack bought Bedford FC in 2021 during the heady highs of the bull run when BTC was comfortably above $40,00 and talk of the Bitcoin price hitting six figures dominated Cointelegraph headlines. Propelled by the high Bitcoin prices, the club secured half a million dollars in sponsorship for the first year. 

Despite buying the club being a boyhood dream, most people thought McCormack was mad to take on the running of a football club with the fanbase garnered from a volatile digital currency: 

“I think this is one of these projects whereby I don’t think anyone really understood at the start. They’re like, ‘Whatever doesn’t make any sense.’”

Local media thought McCormack was crazier still. The BBC and other British mainstream media caught wind of the story, characterizing it as the latest crypto bro to splash out on a self-indulgent purchase.

Jeff Booth, the author of the Bitcoin book The Price of Tomorrow, tells Magazine that even if it is a wealthy Bitcoin investor splurging on a passion, it’s a non-issue — particularly as Bitcoin is part of the project: 

“Through his interests, he infects others through so other people that like football. Other people that want to follow his interests to take this to a championship, Premier League and everything else, now have an impression that they can join the ride and be part of it.”

Ultimately, Booth explains, “I couldn’t care less what he wants to do […] He’s using this vehicle to be able to advance a whole bunch of other stuff, which is really cool.”

Despite the critical treatment in the media, two years on, McCormack and his team are still wiping down tables in the clubhouse bar, traveling to away games, hosting Bitcoin meet-ups and even washing the Real Bedford’s uniforms in his home — all while the price per BTC has crashed and Bitcoin continues to take a beating in popular media. Plus, the club will sport a women’s team with plans to expand into disabled and youth teams.

Real Bedford commentator Will Roberts compares McCormack to a “pantomime villain […] who sort of comes in and radicalizes everything, changes everything, and everyone automatically goes against it.” It’s only natural that it ruffles a few feathers: 

“But the closer you get, the more you understand what a good person he is and what a good organization he’s running because it is an organization — not just a football club.” 

Bitcoin branding

The club’s Bitcoin branding isn’t very subtle. The strips are bright orange with the Bitcoin logo on the abdomen. The club was established during a block height as opposed to a date, and almost everything can be bought or paid for in satoshis (small amounts of Bitcoin). Why bother? Why go to great lengths to advertise a volatile digital currency that’s understood by a select group of Brits? 

McCormack is a marketer by profession, and Bitcoin is one of the most recognizable brands worldwide. There are now Real Bedford supporters clubs in Ghana, Tanzania and even Malaysia. The supporter base for Real Bedford rivals teams five divisions higher, and matches are live-streamed and enjoyed by Bitcoin advocates worldwide.

Satoshi’s name and a nod to the maximum number of Bitcoin, 21 million, on the team’s kit.

Gandalf (not his real name), who is part of the marketing team at Bitcoin mining company Braiins, tells Magazine:

“If you just bought Bedford and called it Bedford and it was just the local team, we wouldn’t all be here. Like, he’s been very clever about making it a Bitcoin thing and then that gets new support and new attention into the club.”

A local elected councilor for the Liberal Democrats, Jake Simpson attends the last game of the season. He explains to Magazine that, thanks to the Bitcoin takeover, Bedford is gaining “international attention, which is bringing international money. And you know, when your business and you accept cryptocurrencies, your customer base expands massively.” 

“You know, you’re attracting more people, which is why there’s so many international people here already because they’re interested in cryptocurrency — they’re interested in Bitcoin, which is bringing them here to Bedford.” 

Bitcoin puts places on the world map — from Bitcoin Beach in El Zonte to Bitcoin Lake in Guatemala or Bitcoin Jungle in Costa Rica. In doing so, it can raise up less economically advantaged communities and regions around the world. That’s the second part of the Real Bedford story, as McCormack says he wants to “raise up his town.”

What do the locals think?

Over the course of 30 street interviews conducted in Bedford, the overarching sentiment toward Bitcoin is negative. One Christian preacher says that the surveillance element to digital currencies was unnerving — before realizing that he might be confusing CBDCs, or central bank digital currencies, and Bitcoin. 

There’s a huge sentiment gap between the Bitcoin believers and the Bedford locals. One Bedfordian simply says, “Avoid”; others call it an outright scam and that they wouldn’t want to lose their money in such a scheme. Some locals have heard of the Real Bedford takeover; others knew of McCormack’s story. 

Few locals can accurately explain what Bitcoin is or what it does — highlighting that some of the criticism could come from a position of ignorance or an unwillingness to engage with the currency frequently labeled a threat to the environment or a “dark tool” by mainstream media. 

McCormack is aware of the negative views that cloak Bitcoin. There is no desire to “force Bitcoin” onto the people of the town — it’s about using the team as a Trojan horse for greater levels of Bitcoin adoption:

“I don’t want people buying it and losing money and don’t force it on people who come to the ground. They can see it, they can come to our meetups, but it’s a soft touch.”

The Real Bedford website, for example, shows a statement saying, “Why you shouldn’t buy Bitcoin.”

Real Bedford’s reasons not to buy Bitcoin.

Some of the locals are converts, however. Sampson says, “It’s great to see Bitcoin come into my town […] It’s massive, and it just makes me feel really proud to be from Bedford and makes me really excited, to be honest.”

“I think they’ve still got to be a lot of education around it. On how, you know, my mom or my dad can go to a coffee shop and buy Bitcoin. They wouldn’t feel comfortable about doing that yet. But that sort of thing happening in the town can only boost an economy in a way.”

What’s the score so far? 

As opposed to bleating about Bitcoin to Bedfordians, McCormack has firmly stuck a flag in the ground and called Bitcoin advocates around the world to visit: 

“I don’t talk about Bitcoin much here because Bedford’s a deprived town, and I don’t want people thinking, ‘Oh my God, there’s that guy who’s made some money on Bitcoin.’”However, that hasn’t stopped fans — of Bitcoin or the team — from taking Bitcoin adoption into their own hands.

From the trunk of a car in the Real Bedford parking lot, Chris Gordon of Bitcoin payments service Bridge 2 Bitcoin shows a local Bedfordian how to accept Bitcoin. He tells Magazine:

“So, it was a business owner who’s interested in accepting Bitcoin payments, and it’s a completely new concept to him. So, it so happens that I happen to have a point-of-sale device in the back of the car.”

Gordon talks the local fan through the options in the hope that a “few businesses in Bedfordshire start to accept Bitcoin soon.” Bitcoin is already the payment of choice in the clubhouse, and for Real Bedford merchandise — and given that paying in Bitcoin looks different from paying with Visa or cash — it can raise some eyebrows. 

Moreover, the mingling of both Bitcoin and soccer fans in a relaxed, pitchside environment is an opportunity for those unfamiliar with the cryptocurrency to ask questions. Matches can be long, drawn-out affairs of 0-0 draws lasting 90 minutes with a 15-minute break. Asking about the giant B on the players’ shirts or the fact that the club was founded at a block height — not on a date — could pass the time.

Crypto own goal?

Bitcoin’s market cap is roughly half a trillion dollars. Crypto, however, has a far greater fanbase and is worth over $1 trillion.Real Bedford, however, is a Bitcoin-only club. Its Twitter page is against fan tokens, NFTs and DAOs — the entirety of the crypto world outside Bitcoin.

Commentator Roberts, who knew “nothing” about Bitcoin prior to working at Real Bedford, explains that the people of Bedford are “getting there.”

“A lot of people are made further aware of potentially the differences between not just grouping cryptocurrencies tougher — and that Bitcoin is definitely a separate entity to that.”

The crypto distractions at the club are sponsors. Gemini, Casa and other crypto company logos are displayed on billboards around the stadium, which McCormack hopes to expand and renovate through Bitcoin sponsorship. Despite his devotion to Bitcoin, he’s aware that taking advantage of the speculation in crypto could benefit the club:

“If I did a shitcoin, I could raise a billion, and I would get this club in the Premier League in nine years because you have the money to do it. I could build a 200-million-pound stadium if I did a shitcoin. It’s really tempting.”

Ultimately, Real Bedford is a Bitcoin-only club. McCormack only holds Bitcoin and is focused on building Bedford with Bitcoin in mind. However, getting Real Bedford into the Premier League is a long-term, perhaps lifelong commitment. With the first promotion out of the way, it’ll be the 2030s before Bedford has a team in the most prestigious football league.

McCormack shares. a joke with Cointelegraph.

McCormack’s undeterred, however. “I’m going to be here for the rest of my life here in Bedford at every game I can possibly be at trying to lift up my town.” And the way to get this lower-league team into the Premier League? 

“It requires hard work, a bit of luck and for Bitcoiners to get behind it.” 

Joseph Hall
Joseph is a research and interview journalist with a keen interest in the monetary policy implications of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

Just as we don’t allow just anyone to build a plane and fly passengers around, or design and release medicines, why should we allow AI models to be released into the wild without proper testing and licensing? 

That’s been the argument from an increasing number of experts and politicians in recent weeks. With the United Kingdom holding a global summit on AI safety in autumn, and surveys suggesting around 60% of the public is in favor of regulations, it seems new guardrails are becoming more likely than not. One particular meme taking hold is the comparison of AI tech to an existential threat like nuclear weaponry, as in a recent 23-word warning sent by the Center of AI Safety, which was signed by hundreds of scientists:

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Extending the metaphor, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is pushing for the creation of a global body like the International Atomic Energy Agency to oversee the tech.

“We talk about the IAEA as a model where the world has said, ‘OK, very dangerous technology, let’s all put (in) some guard rails,’” he said in India this week. 

Libertarians argue that overstating the threat and calling for regulations is just a ploy by the leading AI companies to a) impose authoritarian control and b) strangle competition via regulation.