TL; DR
- Microsoft releases new versions of Bing and Edge browser integrating ChatGPT technology.
- Shanghai Upgrades has successfully activated its first public test net, Zhejiang.
- The ENS DAO’s on-chain proposal to sell 10,000 ETH to pay for operating costs has been approved.
- SBF appeals judge’s decision to publicly reveal identities of two bail persons.
- Kazakhstan President signs bill restricting energy use for cryptocurrency mining.
- The Sandbox has reached a partnership with the government of Saudi Arabia for their Metaverse project.
- The number of non-zero Ethereum addresses has surpassed 94 million, a new historical high.
- Upon the launch of zkSync 2.0, security measures such as limited daily withdrawal amounts will be implemented.
- The Ethereum domain chatgpt.eth was sold for 6 WETH.
- OpenSea has launched Seaport to aggregate listings from marketplaces & projects built on top of Seaport
- A Bitcoin address that has been inactive for over 10 years was activated and transferred 412 Bitcoins.
- Crypto news outlet The Block has laid off 27 people, nearly half of whom are editors and researchers.
- The RSS3 ecosystem product Hoot.it is set to integrate with ChatGPT.
- South Korea prosecutors say Serbia ready to help fraud investigation into Terra’s Do Kwon
- SPACE ID has successfully completed its 10-million-dollar strategic round of funding, by Polychain Capital, dao5, Foresight Ventures and others.
- Reddit is partnering with NFL to launch the 57th Super Bowl Avatar.
- The EVM-compatible chain developed by Chiliz has produced its genesis block.
1. Microsoft releases new version of Bing search engine integrating ChatGPT technology. Microsoft states that Bing’s search results include information from OpenAI’s large-scale language model. Bing also has a new chat window providing shopping lists and suggestions, travel suggestions, and Q&A games. Additionally, the technology is built-in to Microsoft’s Edge browser, capable of summarizing PDF files and generating LinkedIn posts among other tasks.
2. Ethereum Foundation DevOps Engineer Barnabas Busa announced the successful activation of the Shanghai upgrade after the first public test network, Zhejiang, reached its predetermined height.
3. The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) DAO community has seen its proposal to “sell 10,000 ETH to pay for the next two years of operational costs” approved on-chain. This proposal, along with the previously approved working group funding request proposal, is currently waiting for execution.
The proposal suggests that 10,000 ETH be converted to USDC to ensure that the ENS DAO has enough funds to cover the operational costs for 18 to 24 months. As of January 18, 2023, 10,000 ETH accounts for approximately 25% of the total ETH held by the ENS DAO and the registry controllers.
4. CoinDesk reports, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), former CEO of FTX, has appealed a judge’s decision to allow the public disclosure of the identities of two people who signed a $250 million bond for his bail. SBF’s parents also co-signed the bond, but the identity of others is currently unknown. SBF’s lawyers claim that the confidentiality of their identities is due to the fact that the parties may face personal threats. As a result of the appeal, US Judge Lewis Kaplan’s ruling will be at least suspended until February 14.
5. CoinDesk reports, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the President of Kazakhstan, has signed a law restricting the use of energy by domestic cryptocurrency miners. The new law only allows licensed miners to use the power from the national grid when there is surplus energy. Miners using renewable energy, imported power, or those who are not connected to the grid will not be subject to these restrictions.
6. Sandbox co-founder and CEO Sebastien Borget stated that the partnership was signed during the Leap Tech conference in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, with the Digital Government Authority (DGA). Details of the collaboration between The Sandbox and the Saudi Arabian government will be announced in the coming weeks.
7. As of February 7th, the number of non-zero addresses on the Ethereum chain has surpassed 94 million, reaching 94,014,612, a new historical high.
8. As the Ethereum second layer network based on ZK Rollup, zkSync announced that at least $3.5 million has been invested in auditing, bug bounties, and competitions. However, to ensure the best possible security, zkSync 2.0 will also implement additional measures. These measures will include limiting early funding movements, ensuring that developers have enough ETH for contract deployment and testing transactions, reducing the risk of the system losing substantial value in its early stages, implementing “speed bump” measures to limit daily withdrawals to 10% of TVL, and limiting the consequences of any security vulnerabilities, using OpenZeppelin for automatic monitoring and alerts in critical situations.
9. The Ethereum domain chatgpt.eth was sold for 6 WETH (approximately $10,000) at 14:15:11 UTC on February 8th.
10. OpenSea has announced the launch of its experimental program to aggregate the Seaport ecosystem, with the aim of aggregating NFT marketplaces and projects built on the open-source NFT protocol Seaport. Currently, it has integrated Ethereum domain service batch processor, Ens.vision; the NFT market for generative art, Sansa; and the music NFT project Sound.xyz.
11. A Bitcoin address (1MMXRAo6CZQ5KuLkboQ3tULhZZtj3ovmjT) that had been dormant for 10 years was activated and transferred 412 bitcoins, worth around $957,600 at 5:09 AM UTC on February 8th.
12. Crypto news website The Block laid off 27 employees on Friday, affecting multiple departments including editing, research, engineering, sales, revenue, and company operations, with nearly half being editors and researchers. The former CEO Mike McCaffrey resigned last December and The Block’s website announcement revealed that he had secretly received a $43 million loan from SBF.
13. The RSS3 eco-product, Open Web search engine Hoot.it, is set to integrate with ChatGPT and is recruiting its first batch of testers. Hoot.it enhances and optimizes more Web3 and other open network content training on top of ChatGPT to give users a better experience when searching for content. Hoot.it is developed and operated by the RSS3 team and supports the Ethereum and Nostr ecosystems.
14. SPACE ID recently announced the completion of a $10 million strategic round of financing, with lead investments from Polychain Capital and dao5. The company had previously completed a seed round of financing led by Binance Labs in September, and launched the .bnb domain service. Since then, over 360,000 domains have been registered and over 100+ applications have announced integration with SPACE ID protocol, including BscScan, Trust Wallet, and more. SPACE ID recently announced a 2.0 upgrade, offering a one-stop-shop Web3 domain and identity platform to discover, register, trade, and manage Web3 domains, and has launched multi-chain domain services.
15. Reddit announced it is collaborating with the National Football League (NFL) to release the 57th Super Bowl Avatar, which will be made available to users for free. The 57th Super Bowl will take place on February 12, 2023 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.