Year of SAM outs 🫣 💣
OpenAI minus Sam Altman. Former CTO Mira Murati the new CEO. Worldcoin hits the slope down. Vitalik as a Jester NFT sold for $400k. Polygon gas fees spike 1,000%. ENS developers threaten a lawsuit.
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2023 has been the year of SAM in trouble.
In a shocking turn of events, Sam Altman, the outspoken CEO of artificial intelligence giant OpenAI, has been ousted from the company with immediate effect.
This decision comes less than two weeks after Altman presided over OpenAI's DevDay conference, unveiling notable enhancements to its ChatGPT generative AI service.
The move follows OpenAI's decision to halt new paid subscriptions due to overwhelming demand, coupled with recent outages attributed to alleged Russian hackers.
And how did this come about.
Remember - we don't really know. Not yet, anyway. But then there is diplomacy and statement to be made.
Lack of Candour: According to an official statement released by OpenAI on Friday, Altman's removal was attributed to a lack of consistent candour in his communications with the board. The company expressed concern that this hindered the board's ability to fulfil its responsibilities, leading to a loss of confidence in Altman's leadership.
Need for New Leadership: The necessity as OpenAI progresses, signalling a significant shift in the company's direction.
Recent Developments and Challenges: Coinciding with Altman's departure, OpenAI's chief technology officer, Mira Murati, has been appointed as the interim CEO.
Some more resignations come in. Greg Brockman, the board chairman and co-founder of OpenAI, would be stepping down from his role but remaining at the company as a direct report to Murati.
Who is Mira Murati?
A relatively less-known figure than Altman, Murati is an Albanian engineer who moved to Canada as a teenager.
She played a crucial role in overseeing the development of key OpenAI products, including ChatGPT, Dall-E, and Codex.
Engineering Background and Tesla Experience: Before joining OpenAI in 2018, Murati worked at various tech startups, including Tesla, where she contributed to the development of the Model X crossover SUV.
Her engineering background positions her well to lead a company at the forefront of AI innovation.
Shared Vision on AI Regulation: Murati shares a similar perspective with Altman on the importance of meaningful AI regulation.
She acknowledges the potential for catastrophic events and sees an existential threat to civilisation without proper safeguards against AI advancements.
"There is a possibility for really horrible things, even catastrophic events...the existential threat that, you know, it’s basically the end of civilisation."
Balancing Development and Safety: Murati has been against slowing down OpenAI's development pace for the sake of preventing dire outcomes.
She has dismissed calls for a pause on advanced development as naive, asserting that OpenAI deploys models with care and responsibility.
"The idea of a pause assumes that we deployed these models without a lot of care and sort of irresponsibly, but that’s really just not the case."
Interaction with the Real World: Murati has been an advocate of allowing world-changing technologies to grow and interact with the public.
She believes that building such technologies in isolation is challenging, highlighting the need for real-world contact and feedback to enhance model robustness and safety.
"It is tough to build these technologies in a vacuum, without contact with the real world...make the model more robust and safer."
What happens to the Worldcoin?
It goes down boss.
Following Sam Altman's departure from OpenAI, the associated Worldcoin (WLD) token experienced more than 10% drop. Now with a market capitalisation of around $225 million.
Worldcoin's Recent Performance Worldcoin's token value dropped 42% from its all-time high of $3.30, recorded in July upon exiting beta. The project saw $141 million in trading volume over the past 24 hours.
Market Reaction Beyond Worldcoin Despite Worldcoin's decline, the broader AI coins and token category showed resilience, with a 30% growth in market cap to $5.4 billion in the past 24 hours.
WLD Token and Project Background Worldcoin's token, WLD, operates on the Ethereum platform. Despite facing criticism and controversies, the project raised $125 million by October 2021 and launched out of beta in July 2023.
Governments' Concerns and Scrutiny Worldcoin faced resistance from governments like Kenya, which outright banned it, citing security, privacy, and financial concerns. Other nations, including the UK, Germany, and France, also scrutinised the project's use of iris-scanning technology.
Worldcoin's Core Operations: Focuses on authenticating human identity online using the World ID mechanism. Users undergo iris scanning to join the network and receive Worldcoin, inspired by universal basic income discussions.
Altman is also a co-founder of Tools for Humanity, responsible for the Worldcoin global crypto project. While Altman's removal from OpenAI raises questions, it remains unclear if it is related to the controversial Worldcoin initiative, which faced resistance for its retinal scan collection methods earlier this year.
TTD Blockquote🎙️
SAMA, the FORMER OpenAI guy …
"if i start going off, the openai board should go after me for the full value of my shares”
This is the story that will unfold, fold and unfold in the days to come.
We don't know much, but we sure will know a lot and a lot that we didn't expect in the days to come.
Remember, there is always love. There always will be.
TTD WTF 🙄
An NFT painting titled "EthBoy," depicting Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin as a jester sold for 200 ETH (approximately $392,308) on the secondary market.
This sale injects optimism into the NFT ecosystem, which has faced challenges in recent times.
Historical Significance: "EthBoy" initially gained attention in November 2020 when it was auctioned for 260 ETH, marking it as the most expensive NFT artwork at the time.
The current resale value far exceeds the original sale, highlighting the evolving dynamics of the NFT market.
Changing NFT Landscape: The NFT ecosystem has undergone significant changes since "EthBoy" was first minted. Crypto art and PFP NFTs achieved record-breaking sales during the 2021 NFT bull run.
The landscape has shifted, and the once-mandatory creator royalties, which provided artists with a percentage of secondary sales, have become optional on major platforms like OpenSea.
Creator Royalties Crisis: The NFT ecosystem is facing a crisis as creator fees, once considered a crucial incentive for artists, have become optional on major platforms. OpenSea, in particular, has struggled to attract customers and maintain revenue during the current bear market.
"EthBoy" Resale: The recent resale of "EthBoy" on OpenSea demonstrates a unique commitment to creator royalties.
The new owner chose to pay the 10% creator royalty of 20 ETH to Async Art, the platform that facilitated the artwork's creation, as a voluntary act, providing a $39,230 tip.
Perpetual Revenue Sharing: In a novel approach, "EthBoy" creators had initially committed to sharing one third of future creator fees with the artwork's first buyer, perpetually.
This innovative model aimed to showcase the advantages of on-chain art sales and the dynamic nature of the NFT market, with the artwork's creators and buyers embracing unique approaches to creator royalties amid the evolving landscape.
Where’s ETF? 🚨
BitGo CEO Mike Belshe ain't bullish about Bitcoin ETF, not as yet anyway - "I think it's quite likely we have another round of ETF rejections before we get the positive news."👇🏻
TTD Numbers 🔢
1000 %
Gas fees on the Ethereum layer-2 solution, Polygon, experienced an unprecedented surge of over 1,000%, peaking at $0.10.
Surge in Gas Fees on Polygon's Layer-2 Amidst POLS Token Minting Frenzy
Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal expressed surprise at the elevated transaction activity.
POLS Token Minting Frenzy: Dune Analytics data revealed a frenzy of enthusiasm for minting the POLS token, with over 102 million MATIC tokens (worth $86 million) used as gas during the minting process.
Token Details: The POLS token is based on the PRC-20 protocol, functioning similarly to the Bitcoin Ordinals-derived BRC-20 token standard. At the time of the report, only 8.7% of the total POLS supply had been minted, with just over 18,100 owners claiming the token.
Network Impact: The surge in gas fees caused by the POLS minting activity led to an increase in computing effort required for transactions, reaching a peak of 882 gwei. Gas fees on Polygon have since returned to typical levels.
Bitcoin Parallel: Similar to Polygon, the Bitcoin network experienced a prolonged spike in activity following the release of the Ordinals protocol in May. This protocol allowed users to mint NFTs directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain, resulting in a surge in fees not seen since April 2021.
TTD Drop 💧
ENS Founder Warns Unstoppable Domains of Lawsuit Threat
Nick Johnson, founder and lead developer of Ethereum Name Service (ENS), has urged Unstoppable Domains to drop a recently awarded patent or face legal action.
Patent Dispute: Unstoppable Domains was granted its first patent, US11558344, in January. According to Johnson, this patent is "based entirely on innovations that ENS developed and contains no novel innovations of its own."
ENS's Perspective: All ENS work is under open-source licenses, and standards are publicly available for implementation. Attempts to contact Unstoppable Domains about the issue have reportedly failed, prompting ENS to take a more assertive stance.
Legal Action Warning: ENS Labs is prepared to challenge the patent, believing it to be derivative of their own inventions. Johnson has warned Unstoppable Domains to put legal weight behind its public relations commitment regarding the patent pledge.
“We are thus requesting that Unstoppable Domains put legal weight behind its PR commitment, with an unconditional and irrevocable patent pledge.”
Unstoppable Domains' Response: Matthew Gould, one of the alleged inventors from Unstoppable Domains, responded, inviting ENS to join the Web3 Domain Alliance. Pushing for coexistence of multiple naming systems and collaboration beyond ENS and UD.
“I think your proposed solution doesn’t take into account the fact that we want there to be multiple naming systems - not just ENS - and the only way to ensure that future is to have a place where everyone collaborates.”
Concerns from the Crypto Community: Bob Summerwill, executive director of the Ethereum Classic Cooperative, highlighted concerns about Unstoppable Domains requiring organisations to join the Web3 Domain Alliance for technology rights, seeing it as a potential threat to the open-source ethos.
“You are retaining the right to patent attack anybody who does not comply and join your alliance.”
Innovation ownership in the blockchain domain space has always been a contentious issue. It has also been the one that that pushed the spanner to the broader issue of ensuring collaboration and coexistence among various naming systems in the blockchain industry.
TTD Surfer 🏄
Coinbase Raises USDC interest rate to 6%. USDC’s supply has rapidly fallen during the past year to under 25 billion, its lowest level since 2021.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has raised concerns about the disinformation campaigns conducted across the internet using artificial intelligence (AI) deepfakes.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has unveiled its plan to launch a live wholesale CBDC used for settlements by local banks.
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