Friday, August 4th. As the week comes to an end we can focus on the highlights of the crypto industry over the past few days.
Intel to integrate AI into products soon, CEO says
In a Q2 2023 earnings report, Pat Gelsinger announced plans to incorporate artificial intelligence into every product the company makes, The Verge reports.
“AI is going to be in every hearing aid in the future, including mine,” he said at earnings call.
Artificial intelligence and cloud solutions may not necessarily coexist, Gelsinger added. He suggested that the new features would be implemented on the front-end rather than in the cloud.
“Whether it’s a client, whether it’s an edge platform for retail and manufacturing and industrial use cases, whether it’s an enterprise data center, they’re not going to stand up a dedicated 10-megawatt farm,” the CEO explained.
Intel has previously showcased the performance of the Meteor Lake AI processor. The key feature of the chip is a special neural engine dubbed Versatile Processing Unit.
It is worth noting that in February 2022, Gelsinger criticized bitcoin for its environmental impact. Later in April 2023, Intel revealed that it would cease production and support for the Blockscale series of chips designed to mine the first-ever cryptocurrency.
HRF to give away 20 BTC as part of bug bounty
Human Rights Foundation (HRF) will allocate 20 BTC to developers for improving the Bitcoin protocol.
The bounty program is focused on ten open source enhancements to the alpha cryptocurrency, with six of them targeting mobile wallets.
Finding bugs in open source design components for bitcoin projects, which currently rely heavily on Figma’s native software, is set to be one of the tasks. Their aim is to offer developers free access to the Bitcoin user interface guide.
Another activity involves developing a protocol for the decentralized social network Nostr, which provides end-to-end exchange of personal messages by means of relays and in a serverless way.
Developers will receive 2 BTC (approximately $60,000) from the Bitcoin Development Fund for each of the improvements.
According to Alex Gladstein, HRF’s Director of Strategy, the bounty program aims to speed up the development of additional protocol features and ultimately broaden the financial freedom for dissidents and human rights defenders worldwide.
“HRF sees bitcoin as an integral facet in the fight for human rights. Human rights defenders face constant attacks through their bank accounts. However, Bitcoin allows them to keep working,” Gladstein said.
The Bounty Program will run until late 2024.
BTC outflows hit historic highs
From July 22 to July 28, outflows from crypto investment products totaled $20.9 million, compared to $6.5 million a week earlier. This is the estimate given by analysts at CoinShares.
Trade activity dropped from $1.2 billion to $915 million.
Bitcoin products accounted for 93% of total outflows ($19.4 million).
Customers withdrew $3.1 million from the entities that allow short-Bitcoin, against $5.5 million in the previous reporting period. The negative dynamics lasted for the fourteenth consecutive week.
“Investors have been taking profits in recent weeks, with the sentiment for the asset overall remaining supportive,” analysts explained.
As for Ethereum funds, they reported outflows of $1.9 million compared to inflows of $6.6 million in the previous reporting period.
Other altcoins have collectively raked in $3 million. During the last eight weeks, the figure has reached $19 million.
In the prior week, Cardano, Solana, and XRP-based funds attracted $0.6 million, $0.6 million, and $0.5 million, respectively. Investors withdrew $0.4 million from Avalanche Products.
SEC charges HEX founder
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is suing Richard Heart, founder of HEX, PulseChain and PulseX, for alleged sales of unlisted securities.
According to the agency itself, the entrepreneur raised more than $1 bln through tokenization of three projects (HEX, PLS and PSLX) starting in 2019. The lawsuit says he promoted them as “an investment designed to make people rich.”
“Heart called on investors to buy crypto asset securities in offerings that he failed to register. He then defrauded those investors by spending some of their crypto assets on exorbitant luxury goods,” said Eric Werner, Director of the Fort Worth Regional Office.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the suit asserts violations of securities law provisions. In addition, the SEC also charged Heart with fraud – he purportedly pocketed money from PulseChain investors.
“Instead of using these funds to develop and promote the network, Hart and PulseChain spent at least $12 million on luxury goods,” the SEC added.
In particular, the regulator mentions the rare black diamond The Enigma. It made it into the Guinness Book of World Records back in 2006 as the largest cut diamond in the world. As of last February, Heart declared himself the buyer of the diamond at a Sotheby’s auction for $4.29 mln in crypto.