Web3 hopefuls dream of a revolution, bringing decentralization and other power shifts. Is it small techs time to shine? For our AI and web3 deep dive, we asked seven experts from The Drum Network.

Recently, retailer Lush announced intentions to enter the web3 space while spurning big tech providers. A smart brand move or an early signal of a much-hoped-for decentralization coming from web3 technology? Only time will tell. For the time being, we asked a panel of experts whether opportunities for small tech players are opening up, or whether the established players are managing to own the revolution.

Rebecca Sykes, associate partner, The Brandtech Group

While tech can be a winner-takes-all sector, no one should feel victorious if the AI we champion does not reflect the society we deserve to live in. Generative AI has recently amazed many with its apparent magic, but we must not let the thrill of exploring its capabilities distract us from recognizing its biases.

Let's champion the tech making the excitement around generative AI an inflection point that empowers, not marginalizes. Examples? MissJourneys generative AI alternative creates artwork exclusively of women, celebrating female professionals if you ask the more mainstream platforms to visualize a professional, less than 20 percent of the results are women.

Hugging Faces open-source DiffusionBiasExplorer, meanwhile, lets users combine descriptive terms and see first-hand how AI models map them to racial and gender stereotypes.

Its important that the big tech AI race that promises to propel society into the future doesnt simply deliver the same things as in the past. Smaller tech companies will have a huge role to play in preventing that.

Justin Wallace, senior creative technologist, Momentum Worldwide

Web3 offers a new level of ownership ownership of data, identity, digital assets and privacy. But theres a huge problem. The barrier to entry right now is too high for most people to take advantage of those benefits.

Before service entities like Google ruled the web, it was companies like AOL that held the crown. Companies that provided access were synonymous with how the internet was changing our lives. Web3 is going to be the same. Meta is scrambling to be that usher. People dont want a road paved by a company. People want to chart that course collaboratively. People want authenticity over anything. Open access to a new and thriving community will bring more innovation than any tech company past its darling days.

Oliver Budgen, chief executive officer, Bud Comms

Small techs recent wins seem to have catalyzed an acceleration in big techs rollout of competing AI solutions. Big tech may also end up helping to propel small tech forward. The spate of layoffs at Google, Meta and Amazon will likely create a wave of newly unemployed engineers and leaders who have the vision, skills and motive to go on to create their own disruptive technologies, with the speed and agility advantages of a startup.

ChatGPT has deservedly snatched the headlines as the case study of a relatively lean company creating disproportionately world-changing innovation, but others are having just as much impact.

MidJourney is a great example of an AI-powered image generation technology that will transform the creative industry and probably deserves as much attention as ChatGPT. By now its likely youve already seen ad creative made by a computer without realizing it. This is going to have significant ethical implications for the industry at large.

Paige Power, client partner, Kepler EMEA

With so much swirling around the metaverse, web3 and AI, its only natural for more brands to be taking a stance on decentralizing away from tech giants. While theres so much temptation to be the first pushing decentralization, its important to not enter too soon or do it for the sake of being able to say you are doing it.

Web3, the metaverse and AI are about people having more ownership and control over the digital landscape. As businesses, creating real purpose behind their approach will be what separates those who really make an impact in entry, versus those who disrupt progress. We have to value history, like when traditional media channels were the dominant force. Businesses that successfully moved into the digital space didnt simply switch to digital for the sake of it.

Continuing to be a consumer first means leveraging emerging businesses, but also understanding that the tech giants will also have a place in the ecosystem.

John Campbell, managing director, Rabbit & Pork (part of the Tipi Group)

Speech recognition and speech synthesis are two of the core technologies behind Siri, Alexa, AI, and captions on YouTube.

These technologies allow Alexa to understand your speech, and they can create the voices used for automated messages found in call centers. As you would expect, Google Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure are all major players in this market. However, these providers tend to cater to the masses in terms of the speech they recognize and the voices they generate. This has led to specialist companies launching for untapped niches.

Niche providers include SoapBox Labs specializing in recognition for childrens voices; Speechmatics has coverage of 48 languages and can deploy on-premises, something the larger providers dont currently offer. Speechly can perform moderation which identifies profanity and hate speech. Well Said Labs produces synthetic voices, in real-time, which are more lifelike than larger providers, and in a wider range of accents.

Alistair Robertson, creative partner, Nucco

AI will revolutionize customer experience by driving personalization and engagement through the roof.

Just look at Chat.D-ID, the almost human personalized assistant. Or what Duolingo is planning with AI tutoring.

It wont be long until many of our interactions with brands (especially DTC and retail) use this type of personalized functionality.

Take your weekly click-and-collect grocery order: instead of navigating the polished but faceless e-commerce site, you just speak to an AI assistant who can tell you when theres an appointment, notes down your order, can offer you suggestions based on what you bought last week and what you might be missing and wishes you a cheery goodbye. All at your own convenience.

Henry Daubrez, chief exec and chief creative officer, Dogstudio/Dept:

There are a few AI tools that are less visible but can help with defining your own models without hardly any technical knowledge. This can mean avoiding legal issues, but also building your own design style.

Leonardo AI is already an interesting contender, with a vertical solution allowing you to go through the different steps of a project. AI tools can generate an entirely new line of products by reducing coding time from weeks to hours, and costs from thousands to hundreds. When combined, these elements create a whole new creator economy.

Read more:

Is The AI Revolution An Open Door For small Tech? - The Drum

In a move long planned, the Agency for Cultural Affairs has relocated half its divisions from Tokyo to Kyoto as part of the effort to decentralize the government and empower local communities.

The relocation is the largest move ever of administrative functions out of Tokyo and the result of a plan originally made in 2016 to move government organizations out of the capital.

The relocation marks a fresh start for the agency and gives Kyoto a key role in supporting arts and culture, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on March 26 atthe new offices opening ceremony in the ancient capital.

Kyoto representatives lobbied hard for the agency to move there, saying that given the citys history, it can support the nations cultural heritage.

The relocation of central government ministries and agencies is something that has never been done in the past, said Shigeru Ishiba, then minister in charge of revitalizing local economies, in 2016 to emphasize the significance of the move.

However, the governments decentralization initiative, meant to revitalize regional economies, has seen only limited success so far.

Only three government organizations have moved their offices from Tokyo to elsewhere and only partly.

For example, while the Agency for Cultural Affairs six divisions (with about 390 officials) relocated to Kyoto, the other seven (withabout200 members) remain in the capital.

The original plan from 2016 said the entire agency would be relocated.

The Kyoto divisions include those in charge of religious matters and cultural properties, including those on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Excerpt from:

Cultural affairs agency moves only some of its offices to Kyoto | The ... -

The United States commodities regulator received a crash course on decentralized finance (DeFi) on March 22. Crypto executives briefed the regulator on key issues affecting the space, including exploits, decentralization and digital identities.

As part of a scheduled first meeting of the CFTCs Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) in Washington D.C., members from the crypto space gave presentations to the regular intending to cover critical issues currently impacting DeFi.

CFTC commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero opened the meeting with prepared remarks, saying understanding how DeFi works is important as policy decisions related to DeFi are currently being made by regulators and lawmakers.

The panel began with an explainer on DeFi and blockchain technology by Ari Redbord, head of legal and government affairs at blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs.

He outlined the claimed benefits of blockchains, namely transparency, immutability and privacy, saying it could allow regulators to balance the right to privacy with the need for security.

Redbord and Nikos Andrikogiannopoulos, the founder of analytics firm Metrika, jointly outlined the benefits and issues currently facing decentralization, concluding that the benefits far outweigh the challenges, which they believe will self-resolve.

Weve reached a point in time where we can no longer ignore decentralization, Andrikogiannopoulos said. Not only do we have to embrace it, but I think its our duty to lead it in the right direction.

Redbord highlighted the total value that entered DeFi in the last two years, saying it was stress tested during FTX [...] and did not fail. DeFi is absolutely here to stay.

DeFis total value locked is around $49.1 billion, according to DefiLlama, rising from around $15 billion at the beginning of January 2021.

Carole House, executive in residence of venture firm Terranet Ventures, and Jill Gunter, chief strategy officer of blockchain infrastructure company Espresso Systems, then provided an overview of the current solutions for digital identity and noncustodial wallets, using the examples of the Ethereum Name Service and MetaMask wallet.

Related: CFTC continues to explore digital asset policy considerations in MRAC meeting

Fireblocks founder Michael Shaulov and Trail of Bits founder Dan Guido then presented the exploits and vulnerabilities that have, and continue to, take place in the market.

All the hacks, they are extraordinarily public, and its usually your users and other outside firms that find out about them before you do, Guido remarked, which he said instills a need for perfection in crypto firms.

Throughout 2022, the top 10 exploits in crypto alonesaw over $2 billion lost, with DeFi on the receiving end of 113 exploits out of the 167 carried out across the year.

Shaulov then briefly explained the exploits carried out against the Ronin Bridge, BadgerDAO and the recent Euler Finance exploit.

The DeFi portion of the meeting ended with members unanimously voting for creating a Digital Assets and Blockchain Technology Subcommittee.

The subcommittee will focus on the why of DeFi, what problems it solves, use cases, vulnerabilities, and proposed legal and policy frameworks.

Magazine: Best and worst countries for crypto taxes Plus crypto tax tips

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CFTCs tech committee gathered in DC to talk DeFi Heres what was discussed - Cointelegraph

MOSDEX

As fractional reserve banking systems continue to experience pressure in a rising rate environment, crypto assets like Bitcoin have experienced inflows as investors look for a place to store investable capital. MOSDEX continues to enhance their infrastructure to support these inflows by offering a lucrative staking platform for passive income.

New York, NY, March 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- It's becoming clearer every day that the financial world is in the midst of a seismic shift, with bank closures sweeping across the US and raising serious questions about the stability of traditional banking systems. In response, forward-thinking experts in the cryptocurrency industry are pushing for decentralized financial infrastructure, which is safer and more reliable.

The cryptocurrency industry has been hit hard by the recent collapse of three banks, including Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank, both of which had established themselves as supporters of the sector. This unsettling turn of events has sent shockwaves through the crypto community, as investors and traders alike grapple with the fallout of these banking failures.

In a world where traditional finance has long dominated, digital assets have emerged as a disruptive force, challenging the status quo and offering individuals a new way to take control of their finances. Among these digital assets, Bitcoin has become a symbol of liberation, empowering everyday people to break free from the grip of the banking system.

As the crypto industry continues to grow and evolve, there has been a shift towards acceptance of the need to collaborate with banks to comply with regulations, pay taxes, and administer payroll. However, digital asset companies remain committed to maintaining their core values of decentralization, transparency, and inclusivity and are leveraging cutting-edge technology to revolutionize the financial landscape. The recent banking crisis has compelled crypto industry experts to champion decentralized financial infrastructure like MOSDEX as a more secure and reliable alternative.

Story continues

MOSDEX Staking Based Arbitrage Platform May Offset Banking Risks

Early in the year,Mosdex introduced its staking-based arbitrage platform, complete with an advanced automated arbitrage engine that scans multiple order books across various exchanges to identify the most profitable trades, allowing users to earn daily passive income through its proprietary profit-sharing model.

Mosdexs innovative platform offers Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) holders a secure way to earn passive income without the risks associated with traditional financial systems. By staking their BTC or USDT, users can virtually act as liquidity providers while enjoying recurring daily earnings.

The Mosdex Arbitrage Platform leverages automated and pre-determined mechanisms to calculate a 24-hour expected return that is highly competitive, possibly reaching up to 0.68% ROI daily. Users can choose from liquidity packages ranging from brief periods of 14 days, 30 days, or 90 days, with expected returns displayed upfront before the contract is locked.

Profits can be claimed on a daily basis directly from the user-friendly dashboard as soon as they are available, provided that the rewards exceed or equal $10. This eliminates the waiting time and provides added convenience for users.

Here are some of the benefits users can enjoy from the MOSDEX staking platform:

MOSDEX provides users with a low-risk way to earn recurring passive income by staking their BTC or USDT on the platform.

Unlike traditional liquidity provision methods that carry the risk of impermanent loss, MOSDEX limits this risk by using user assets for arbitrage activities, which perform trades within milliseconds to capitalize on price differences across different exchanges.

Users can choose from various liquidity packages, with expected returns shown upfront, and claim profits on a daily basis from the dashboard.

With an expected daily ROI of up to 0.68%, MOSDEX offers a highly competitive alternative to traditional banks and other investment options.

MOSDEX takes the security of its users' assets very seriously, following industry best practices for data protection, access rights, and encryption, and performing periodic internal and external audits to maintain the highest standards.

MOSDEX also offers a referral program where users can invite others to join the platform and receive a 0.6% rebate for each stake made by a referred user.

To start earning passive income with MOSDEX and take advantage of its secure and low-risk staking platform, visit their website athttps://mosdex.com today.

About Mosdex

Mosdex Limited is a Finnish financial and technology company. The Mosdex platform, which is the key product offering of Mosdex Limited, operates in a completely online and automated environment without a need for physical infrastructure.

The completely anonymous team at Mosdex has built an ecosystem of arbitrage tools for digital assets (cryptocurrencies). The platform has been audited, a detailed report can be found athttps://docs.mosdex.com/resources/audits. For information about Mosdex and its workings, please head out to the white paper:https://docs.mosdex.com/resources/white-paper.

Social Links

Telegram:https://t.me/MOSDEX_Official

Twitter:https://twitter.com/MOSDEX_Official

Medium: https://medium.com/@Mosdex

See original here:

MOSDEX Offers Investors Alternative From Banking Turmoil with Innovative Staking Platform - Yahoo Finance

There was a period, back in the euphoria of cryptos 2021 bull market period, when Solana was the blockchain name of the moment, spoken about as the next big thing, and with, according to its advocates, the potential even to outdo Ethereum in the race to become the foundational network of choice for web3 developers.

There were multiple reasons for this optimism, not least the fact that it had backing from VCs keen to promote its virtues. And, on balance, it should be noted that Solana does have significant characteristics in its favor. Most advantageously, its fast and cheap, two critical factors in attracting developers, who should in turn attract further users.

Remember that this was prior to the Ethereum Merge, a time when there were significant doubts as to whether Ethereum would ever make its long-promised transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. Constant delays in the execution of Ethereums protocol change were beginning to foster a sense that scaling would, in turn, be delayed, and that sky-high fees and network congestion would never be resolved.

Additionally, Ethereum Layer 2s were not as prominent as they are now, and, although it was known that The Merge would not solve scaling issues on its own (such issues still exist), execution would at least indicate that development was proceeding in the right direction.

Keep Reading

Against this backdrop, alternative Layer 1 blockchains, including not only Solana, but also Cardano, Avalanche and others, provided a compelling alternative. From here, Solana picked up in activity, thanks to its simplicity (no friction-adding Layer 2s required) and, at a time when blockchain-based digital art was making headlines for some huge sales, its NFTs. In fact, Solana would quickly become the second most-well known network for NFTs (after Ethereum) and evolved into an active community of NFT creators, traders and collectors, who were optimistic about the future of the network.

Amidst the bullishness around Solana, the blockchain also ran into some problems, which would, over time, become increasingly conspicuous.

A recurring fault was the issue of network outages when the entire blockchain would effectively stop working. The most recent of these occurred last month and lasted for almost twenty hours, and after that came a total of fourteen outages throughout 2022. The first breakdown in Solanas history was in December 2020, the same year as its launch, and when the blockchain was still serving only a relatively small number of users.

Solana has also been criticized for a perceived lack of decentralization, a factor which is vitally important in the crypto world. One reason for this is the networks initial token allocation when, according to data from research platform Messari, almost 50% percent of the blockchains native token, SOL, went to project insiders, with very little allocated to a public presale. Since staked SOL enables the operation of network validators, we can infer that a small number of holders exercise outsized control over the validation of transactions.

Criticism of Solana as a VC-centered project became even more of an issue towards the end of 2022 when FTX collapsed. The wreckage around this catastrophe was of particular relevance to Solana due to the networks links with Sam Bankman-Fried. The disgraced CEO of FTX had invested $314.2 million in Solana Labs, through the FTX-linked Alameda Research, and had lauded Solana in interviews, creating a perception, once the post-downfall reality about FTX had come to public light, of a disreputable connection.

Solana was certainly looking worse for wear towards the end of last year, but 2023 has, lately, seen hints that a comeback may be in the works. Notably, there has been recent news about the Worldline payment services provider entering into a partnership with Solana.

This integration means web3 projects operating on Solana will gain access to the Payment Orchestration platform run by Worldline, which removes the need for projects to create multiple payment integrations since Worldlines platform directly connects with over 300 payment providers and methods, including fiat on/off ramps.

This development follows Worldline announced plans to provide services within the Decentraland metaverse project, indicating that web3 and crypto-oriented development are on its radar as areas to expand into.

There has also been growing anticipation about the in-development Solana phone, called the Solana Saga. This product was announced back in the summer of 2022 and has been expected to ship in early 2023. Its an Android device augmented for web3 applications and payments, and, if it arrives soon, will come at a time when crypto urgently needs to go mobile in order to demonstrate that practical integration and daily use cases are a reality.

Additionally, there is speculation about Render Network migrating to Solana. Render is specialized in decentralized hardware solutions (specifically, GPU rendering), and in a proposal about the potential move, its Founder, Jules Urbach, stated that: Solana has the right mix of speed without compromising security (vs side-chain approaches). No decision has yet been made, and there is a 21 day community feedback period, which began on March 20th.

The Foundation released a primer on RNP-002 today.

The post details RNP-002: Layer 1 Network Expansion.

In accordance with RNP-000 there is up to a 21 day community feedback period that begins today! We would love your feedback. https://t.co/90j0gmhCOw

As with much of web3 and crypto, Solanas future is unclear, but, while issues around network reliability are ongoing, and there may continue to be criticism about a perceived lack of decentralization, it appears that there are some potentially constructive developments lining up.

There was a period, back in the euphoria of cryptos 2021 bull market period, when Solana was the blockchain name of the moment, spoken about as the next big thing, and with, according to its advocates, the potential even to outdo Ethereum in the race to become the foundational network of choice for web3 developers.

There were multiple reasons for this optimism, not least the fact that it had backing from VCs keen to promote its virtues. And, on balance, it should be noted that Solana does have significant characteristics in its favor. Most advantageously, its fast and cheap, two critical factors in attracting developers, who should in turn attract further users.

Remember that this was prior to the Ethereum Merge, a time when there were significant doubts as to whether Ethereum would ever make its long-promised transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. Constant delays in the execution of Ethereums protocol change were beginning to foster a sense that scaling would, in turn, be delayed, and that sky-high fees and network congestion would never be resolved.

Additionally, Ethereum Layer 2s were not as prominent as they are now, and, although it was known that The Merge would not solve scaling issues on its own (such issues still exist), execution would at least indicate that development was proceeding in the right direction.

Keep Reading

Against this backdrop, alternative Layer 1 blockchains, including not only Solana, but also Cardano, Avalanche and others, provided a compelling alternative. From here, Solana picked up in activity, thanks to its simplicity (no friction-adding Layer 2s required) and, at a time when blockchain-based digital art was making headlines for some huge sales, its NFTs. In fact, Solana would quickly become the second most-well known network for NFTs (after Ethereum) and evolved into an active community of NFT creators, traders and collectors, who were optimistic about the future of the network.

Amidst the bullishness around Solana, the blockchain also ran into some problems, which would, over time, become increasingly conspicuous.

A recurring fault was the issue of network outages when the entire blockchain would effectively stop working. The most recent of these occurred last month and lasted for almost twenty hours, and after that came a total of fourteen outages throughout 2022. The first breakdown in Solanas history was in December 2020, the same year as its launch, and when the blockchain was still serving only a relatively small number of users.

Solana has also been criticized for a perceived lack of decentralization, a factor which is vitally important in the crypto world. One reason for this is the networks initial token allocation when, according to data from research platform Messari, almost 50% percent of the blockchains native token, SOL, went to project insiders, with very little allocated to a public presale. Since staked SOL enables the operation of network validators, we can infer that a small number of holders exercise outsized control over the validation of transactions.

Criticism of Solana as a VC-centered project became even more of an issue towards the end of 2022 when FTX collapsed. The wreckage around this catastrophe was of particular relevance to Solana due to the networks links with Sam Bankman-Fried. The disgraced CEO of FTX had invested $314.2 million in Solana Labs, through the FTX-linked Alameda Research, and had lauded Solana in interviews, creating a perception, once the post-downfall reality about FTX had come to public light, of a disreputable connection.

Solana was certainly looking worse for wear towards the end of last year, but 2023 has, lately, seen hints that a comeback may be in the works. Notably, there has been recent news about the Worldline payment services provider entering into a partnership with Solana.

This integration means web3 projects operating on Solana will gain access to the Payment Orchestration platform run by Worldline, which removes the need for projects to create multiple payment integrations since Worldlines platform directly connects with over 300 payment providers and methods, including fiat on/off ramps.

This development follows Worldline announced plans to provide services within the Decentraland metaverse project, indicating that web3 and crypto-oriented development are on its radar as areas to expand into.

There has also been growing anticipation about the in-development Solana phone, called the Solana Saga. This product was announced back in the summer of 2022 and has been expected to ship in early 2023. Its an Android device augmented for web3 applications and payments, and, if it arrives soon, will come at a time when crypto urgently needs to go mobile in order to demonstrate that practical integration and daily use cases are a reality.

Additionally, there is speculation about Render Network migrating to Solana. Render is specialized in decentralized hardware solutions (specifically, GPU rendering), and in a proposal about the potential move, its Founder, Jules Urbach, stated that: Solana has the right mix of speed without compromising security (vs side-chain approaches). No decision has yet been made, and there is a 21 day community feedback period, which began on March 20th.

The Foundation released a primer on RNP-002 today.

The post details RNP-002: Layer 1 Network Expansion.

In accordance with RNP-000 there is up to a 21 day community feedback period that begins today! We would love your feedback. https://t.co/90j0gmhCOw

As with much of web3 and crypto, Solanas future is unclear, but, while issues around network reliability are ongoing, and there may continue to be criticism about a perceived lack of decentralization, it appears that there are some potentially constructive developments lining up.

See the original post:

Is There a Sunny Outlook for Solana? - Finance Magnates