Monat: August 2022

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Nas Academy partners with Invisible College to launch a crypto academy for web3

Nas Academy is going deeper into the web3 ecosystem thanks to its partnership with Invisible College.

Creator tech platform Nas Academy announced on Tuesday, August 9th, that it has partnered with Invisible College to launch a cryptocurrency academy for web3.

According to the press release shared with Coinjournal, the partnership will lead to the launch of the world’s first bundle of courses that can be unlocked with an NFT collection. 

The team revealed that more than $2,000 worth of courses would be made available initially, covering topics like NFT investing, Community Building, Video Editing, and Crypto fundamentals.

The press release added that starting on September 1st, Invisible College members who hold a Decentralien NFT will be able to unlock more than 18 web3 and creator courses on Nas Academy for free.

Invisible College is a school focused on helping people learn, invest, and build in web3.

The library includes courses from some of the world’s top creators and investors, including Zeneca, Nuseir Yassin, and Ben Yu.

While commenting on this latest development, Nas Academy CEO Nuseir Yassin said;

“Web3 is more than just a compelling topic for courses. We believe NFTs can reinvent the way students consume online education and allow people to own a piece of the internet. That’s why we wanted to partner with a visionary community in the form of Invisible College. We are excited to build together to help educate and bring the next wave of users into web3.”

The Nas Academy said this catalog of courses would empower students to build, influence, and invest in the future of the internet.

Invisible College Co-Founder Nick deWilde commented that;

“Lately, there’s been lots of debate about web3 use cases. The way we see it, combining a catalog of high-quality courses with an NFT collection is a fundamentally new way to empower students to own their education. And there’s no way we could have pulled it off without web3 technology. 

We also needed a forward-thinking partner who was willing to innovate with us. Fortunately, the Nas Academy team are just the type of crazy dreamers who could help us expand our vision and make it a reality.

Finally, we’d like to thank all of the creators who have joined this historic collaboration. They’ve produced some incredible classes that we’re excited to share with a brand new audience.”

Invisible College said it would also be working with Nas Academy to onboard leading web3 instructors to teach courses on the platform, with the goal of becoming the largest web3 learning library on the internet. 

Nas Academy is a technology platform that empowers creators to build communities through education.

The post Nas Academy partners with Invisible College to launch a crypto academy for web3 appeared first on CoinJournal.

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USDC’s blacklist of Tornado dApp shows the danger of centralisation

Circle is blocking USDC transactions connected to the Tornado Cash decentralised application, a move that is seen by many as a clear danger of centralisation.

Earlier this week, the United States Treasury Department added more than 40 cryptocurrency addresses allegedly connected to controversial mixer Tornado Cash to the Specially Designated Nationals list of the Office of Foreign Asset Control, or OFAC.

Following this latest development, Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, reportedly froze over 75,000 USDC worth of funds linked to the 44 Tornado Cash addresses sanctioned by OFAC. 

Marius Ciubotariu, the co-founder of Hubble Protocol, commented that Circle’s move shows the danger of centralisation. Ciubotariu said;

“Circle’s decision to follow along with the US Treasury and ban users of Tornado from buying or selling USDC tokens is an extremely worrying development that threatens the integrity of cryptocurrency, and decentralized finance in particular.

An estimated $437 million of assets have been blocked as a result of this decision, one that will surely impact all manner of users of the cryptocurrency mixing service. More importantly, though, it underlines how dangerous it is to have one centralized company managing over $54 billion of assets in crypto.”

Ciubotariu pointed out that the precedent that this could set for the future of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) smart contracts is also alarming. In the future, it could be possible to see these contracts written with an opt-in clause that would allow node validators to decide not to process a transaction due to a black/watchlist. 

Circle’s move is a wake-up call to the crypto industry

Stefan Rust, CEO of Laguna, pointed out that Circle’s action is a wake-up call to the cryptocurrency industry as it shows the danger of centralisation. Rust said;

“Circle’s move to ban users of the Tornado cryptocurrency mixing service from trading USDC sets an extremely dangerous precedent and should be a wake-up call for everybody working in the cryptocurrency industry. While much is being said of Tornado’s links to the North Korean state-backed hacking group Lazarus, the likelihood that North Korean users make up anything more than a tiny fraction of a percent of Tornado’s users is small.”

Rust added that the blacklist capability could be (and is) written into Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) token contracts is a huge vulnerability and point of coercion for the industry. 

He added that people warned about the consequences of this feature being added to the USDC contract from day one. Rust added that;

“Now we have a centralized company at the mercy of US regulation running the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world – and over $55 billion of market cap is on the line. This is truly a scary move. Imagine having a business where your closest competitor could shut you down by adding one row to a database it has complete control over?”

The CEO of Lugana added that while the US Treasury claims their move is due to Tornado Cash allegedly helping to launder $7 billion of money gained from cybercrimes, there are no doubt innocent users caught up in this that have used Tornado for totally legitimate privacy reasons.

Some of the biggest stablecoins, including Tether (USDT), USDC, and BUSD, are issued by centralised entities. 

The post USDC’s blacklist of Tornado dApp shows the danger of centralisation appeared first on CoinJournal.