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Dall-E might turn out to be a less straightforward case, though. As with GPT-3, its appearance generated intense interest, perhaps because while most people can write text, many of us cannot draw to save our lives. So having a tool that could enable us to overcome this disability would be quite a boon.

From AI-generated art illustrates another problem with technology | John Naughton | The Guardian.

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It also, of course, generates images beyond copyright.

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The legislative audit found the Maryland State Lottery and Gaming Control Agency (SLGCA) “did not investigate individuals who won multiple high-dollar lottery prizes to identify patterns of potential collusion between players and lottery-related vendors or officials.”

The report cited eight people who each won a “high-dollar” prize at least 200 times in 2020. In total, the eight individuals won 2,305 times to amount to $4.5 million.

From Audit Reveals Same People Won Multiple Big Prizes in Maryland Lottery  – Montgomery Community Media.

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Over $1.9 billion was stolen in cross-chain hacks in the first half of 2022, according to a new blog post by crypto analytic firm Chainalysis.

But in order to function, bridges must hold large amounts of both tokens. Such liquidity pools make them enticing to hackers. Bridges “allow for blockchains to talk,” says Grauer. “But we’ve also created these honey pots for malicious actors.”

From Over $2 Billion Stolen This Year In Blockchain Bridge Hacks Expose DeFi’s Achilles Heel.

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Let’s consider an example with two blockchain networks: Chain A and Chain B.

When transferring tokens from Chain A to Chain B, the bridge can be designed to lock the token on Chain A and mint a new one on Chain B. In this scenario, the total number of circulating tokens remains constant but is divided across the two chains. If Chain A held fifteen tokens and then transferred five tokens to Chain B, Chain A would still have fifteen tokens (with five tokens locked), but Chain B would have five more.

The owner of the minted tokens can redeem them at any time; they can burn (or destroy) them from Chain B and unlock (or release) them on Chain A. Because Chain A has always possessed a locked copy of each token, its value remains consistent with the Chain A market price. This “lock-and-mint” and “burn-and-release” procedure ensures that the quantity and cost of tokens transferred between the two chains remain constant.

From Blockchain bridges: Guide to cross-chain data sharing – LogRocket Blog.

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The value of 500-euro notes in circulation fell by the most in three years in July, recording its third-largest drop since the ECB stopped production at the end of 2018 to prevent and rein in its use for criminal activities. The decline in 200-euro notes last month was the biggest on record.

From Demand for Euro Banknotes Dwindles After ECB Ended Negative Interest Rates – Bloomberg:

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Michael Casey, who is pretty thoughtful about these things, went so far as to talk about the coming “Privacy Wars” between governments and citizens.

The Coming Privacy Wars
Whether governments like it or not, demand for privacy is growing – and will perhaps even accelerate the more they try to suppress it.

From The Coming Privacy Wars:

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retail investors’ net trading volumes of stocks and cryptocurrencies are highly positively correlated. Theoretically, this micro-level pattern translates into a cross-asset class correlation. Evidence suggests that the pattern emerged in March 2020, and that stocks preferred by crypto-traders exhibit a stronger correlation with Bitcoin.

From The end of the crypto-diversification myth | CEPR:

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“It’s hard to buy anything anymore without being asked if you want to pay over time,” said Marshall Lux, a fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.

From Buy now, pay later is not a boom, it’s a bubble, Harvard fellow says:

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In addition, BNPL’s rapid growth is driven primarily by younger consumers, with two-thirds of BNPL borrowers considered subprime, Lux noted, making them especially vulnerable to economic shocks or a possible downturn.

“These are the people that can’t afford to be hurt,” he said.

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Abouammo worked as a media partnerships manager for the Middle East and North Africa region at Twitter from 2014 to 2015. A top official in the Saudi government approached Abouammo, who accepted bribes amounting to $320,000, including a luxury watch and hundreds of thousands of dollars deposited into a Lebanese bank account opened in the name of a relative.

In exchange, Abouammo provided his handlers the identifying information of an account known as Mujtahidd, the handle of a pseudonymous activist critical of Riyadh, and protected information on other accounts.

From Ex-Twitter Employee Found Guilty of Spying for Saudi Arabia:

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Stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle now hold $80bn worth of short-term US government debt, highlighting the expanding role of digital asset players in traditional financial markets.

From Stablecoin issuers hold $80bn of short-dated US government debt | Financial Times:

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