Here in Silicon Valley, by the time Facebook began making headlines, most already knew the name 'Winklevoss'. Facebook was starting to explode, MySpace was clearly dying out, and when the topic came up somebody would often ask 'Do you think Zuckerberg stole Facebook?'.  But as far who he may have stole it from 'Some twins he went to school with, named Winklevoss or something' is about all people knew.

It was the movie "The Social Network" most learned the name, and the story - where unfortunately they were portrayed so unlikeable, the audience rooted for Zuckerberg to win when they sued him claiming they were the rightful owners of Facebook.

There was no 'winner' - Zuckerberg settled out of court, but the Winklevoss twins sure seem to be winning big today.

With the legal battle behind them, they were ready to take their place in Silicon Valley, until startups began refusing their money...

Facebook was still considered a start-up, but the hottest one at the time, and these were the guys who just finished trying to sue them.  While nobody really knew who was right, that was enough for companies to decide to keep their distance.

So, they used that Facebook settlement money to invest in Bitcoin, which at the time was selling for $8 and had a community with an 'everyone is welcome' attitude. Their first venture beyond owning BTC was helping to fund BitInstant, launched at a time when the Silk Road was probably the reason most people were making their first bitcoin purchase. By no fault of their own, they found themselves shut down when the government claimed their site was being used by drug dealers laundering money.

The CEO, Charlie Shrem spent a year in jail, since their role as investors kept them distanced from the liability that comes with running day to day operations, they managed to remain free.

That's where the motivation to launch Gemini came from - and that's why it's the most regulated and government approved exchange out there...

In 2015 they became the first crypto exchange with the same license major banks hold, granted by the New York State Department of Financial Services - which holds enough weight this allowed them to open their doors to accept funds from all 50 states.

Since then Facebook and Crypto grew bigger than anyone could have imagined - and the Winklevoss twins and Zuckerberg can accurately be referred to as 'billionaires' because of it.

But who will the future favor? The Winkelvoss twins believe Facebook won't be around for the next decade...

“The idea of a centralized social network is just not going to exist five or 10 years in the future. There’s a membrane or a chasm between the old world and this new crypto-native universe. And we’re the conduit helping people transcend the offline into the online.” Tyler Winkevoss tells Forbes.

They're also helping to fund the tech to make it possible, becoming seed investors in Protocol Labs, which is focused on creating a decentralized internet that works independent of today's centralized server structure. 

Many in the crypto world will know the company from Filecoin, and later this year one of their workshops happens to be on building a decentralized social network, like Facebook.

The big shift is coming...

Frankly, Facebook seems to become more 'uncool' every day, if it didn't already earn that title when everyone's parents and grandparents joined. Zuckerberg has his own ventures into the crypto world in motion, but Facebook needs a facelift, and I doubt throwing some blockchain based features on top of it is the key to becoming cutting-edge again.

If successful, the Winklevoss twins won't be the next Zuckerbergs, no one will. That's the appeal - and they say playing the role of 'gatekeepers' in a decentralized world was never one of the goals. 

But in one sense, decentralization is like social media 10 years ago - we know it's going to be huge, but don't yet know exactly how it will fit into everyday life.

What dApp will be first to draw in hundreds of millions of users? I have no idea, but I'd bet my wallet it'll happen - and there's something exciting about that. On the other hand, I'm not sure if traditional social media has anything exciting on the horizon. 

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Author: Ross Davis 
E-Mail: Ross@GlobalCryptoPress.com Twitter:@RossFM
San Francisco Newsroom / Breaking Crypto News

The SEC says Ripple's $1.8 billion raised during it's ICO was raised illegally - and they want Ripple to give it back.

Ripple asks - why us, why now? As they compare their token with Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have already received the green light when the SEC publicly stated they are not a security.

Here's where it gets confusing...

The SEC argued that Ripple is indeed a security, as it was pre-mined and distributed among its executives before being publicly launched, while bitcoin and Ethereum were not.

Except...Ethereum was. They held an ICO, and sold pre-mined coins to investors during it.

Now, the SEC will be forced to release internal documents giving insight into how they decided to clear Bitcoin and Etherum...

Ripple took the SEC to court in order to find out how they decided in Ethereum's favor - and won.

The SEC has to release internal documents showing their methods of deciding what is and isn't a security, and once those documents are in hand, Ripple's lawyers believe they can use the SEC's prior decisions against them by saying if Ethereum isn't a security, neither are they.

The lawyers of Ripple Labs Inc. argue that for 8 years the SEC has not raised its voice in this regard, so now they must clarify what has led them to sue the executives of this company. Faced with this allegation, the SEC had recently responded that it was not its responsibility to notify in advance regarding potential infractions of the law.

Either way, today is a small win for Ripple that they hope will lead to a huge win around the corner. 

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Author: Mark Pippen
London News Desk / Breaking Crypto News

Goldman Sachs will soon offer its private wealth management clients a variety of options to to invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The bank aims to begin offering investments in the emerging asset class in the second quarter, according to Mary Rich, who was recently named global head of digital assets for Goldman’s private wealth management division.

Company says this decision is in response to what clients demanded...

Their private wealth management division is geared toward their wealthiest clients — investors with at least $25 million invested.  "There's a contingent of clients who are looking to this asset as a hedge against inflation, and the macro backdrop over the past year has certainly played into that," Rich said. "There are also a large contingent of clients who feel like we're sitting at the dawn of a new Internet in some ways and are looking for ways to participate in this space."

Where Goldman Goes, Others Follow...

As more established financial institutions invest in crypto more companies are expected to follow, and there may not be any company with more followers than Goldman. 

While Tesla may have opened the pipeline between the crypto world and mainstream investors, Goldman may have just opened the floodgates. 

The NFT craze has seen some wild things so far, but this is one nobody saw coming.   If you haven't caught up with the trend, all you need to know is that NFT stands for 'non fungible token' and is a cryptocurrency token that serves as a unique digital certificate of ownership that cannot be edited, duplicated, or preproduced without permission from the owner.

Putting an image, video, song inside of one of these is currently the best way to make sure an artist and their art are never separated.

Sure, whatever the media is can still be copied, but no one can copy the NFT file that goes along with it - they'd need to hack tens of thousands of computers at once (the entire Ethereum network) in order to get a fake to pass authentication. So think of it like an autographed copy, but the person who signed it is always with it, ready to say yours is the real deal. 

The hype around NFT's is currently in that phase where things get a bit ridiculous. Thankfully this story isn't about another easily excited fool with money, throwing it away on things like 'buying' a tweet... which of course does not give the buyer any ownership or control over the actual post on Twitter.  Still, some sucker paid $2.9 million for a screen shot of the first tweet ever posted by CEO Jack Dorsey which reads 'just setting up my twttr'.

But maybe the buyer isn't a total fool - experts speaking to the BBC agreed it's a 'highly valuable asset' since it's the 'the first tweet, of the person who invented this'.

If you thought tweets selling for millions was something you'd never see, you probably didn't see this coming either...

The World's Most Famous Master Artists Return - As Artificial Intelligence...

Leonardo de Vinci, Salvador Dali, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, MC Escher, Pablo Picasso, Monet and more, they're all back thanks to a team of researchers who embarked on a side project, where they go by the name 'Robot Resurrection'.

Their name really says it all, these long-dead artists are being resurrected... digitally.

Robot Resurrection Is Bringing Back The Big Names...

The Scary Part Is: It Worked, So Well It Even Startled The Team...

There will be 10 images in their first series called 'Masters Mashups' which has one famous artist, paint a well known image of another famous artists. The first 2 are out now on NFT auction sites.

Robot Resurrection describes the process of creating their first piece:

"First we taught the AI everything about Salvador Dali's style, having it conduct a deep study of every piece available. 

It looks for things we as humans would never see, imagine examining every 1/100th of an inch of every painting. The color, then the color of the section to the left, right, above, below.  The brush movement that put those colors there, how forceful or gentle it was, how much paint was used, etc...

Then once we see the AI has more data on an artist than any human could ever gather - we tell it: BECOME HIM.

From that point on we're in control of an intelligence that only knows 1 thing: how to paint like Leonardo De Vinci"

The first shows us what the Mona Lisa would look like if Salvador Dali painted it, instead of Leonardo de Vinci.

The second piece has AI Van Gogh, painting MC Escher's famous sphere.

A Real NFT Use Case...

Honestly, putting one of these in your collection makes a lot more sense to me than buying a tweet, and it really is a great use case for NFTs.  It *has* to be done digitally.

Any other image can be printed on paper, or song recorded on tape - but when people hear a computer is making the art, people already expect to view it on a screen. It's not weird that it's a file.

You can view or bid on their work on Mintable's NFT marketplace.

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Author: Matt Miller
London Newsroom / Global Crypto Press
Breaking Crypto News

The Raido Foundation has launched the Raido Network blockchain network. We believe this network provides an ideal environment for quick, safe, and user-friendly cryptocurrency transactions (and, going forward, transaction-based smart contracts). Below we outline some of the key points about the project and tell you about how you can experience the network for yourself. We look forward to helping you towards your investment goals.

The Raido Network aims to provide the tools needed for a next-generation blockchain network. The project has been going from strength to strength for two years, and is now entering a new and exciting phase of its journey. Following the initial coin offering (ICO) in 2018 and the launch of a crypto exchange in March 2019, this year has seen the launch of the genesis block and the main functions of the core network.

The network uses Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS), which is the most popular consensus model (it has been used successfully by Ethereum previously), and its accounting unit is RDO. Transactions are validated by master nodes, software that has exclusive rights and maintains the consensus throughout the network by using coins that project participants delegate to it. Meanwhile, coin holders receive a portion of the network commission.

The Raido Network aims to address the issues faced by modern blockchain architectures in six key areas:

Processing speed. The block is created after at least one signed transaction is received, meaning transactions are confirmed rapidly.

Participation in management. Coin holders participate directly by voting on changes to network parameters and the implementation of improvements.

Improvement opportunities. The network offers a voting mechanism and opportunities for improvement, allowing it to evolve and adapt.

Transaction costs. Transaction costs are fixed, allowing for predictable business-processes implementation based on work with the network, including escrow functions.

Scalability. Raido’s DPoS network principles prevent resource wastage when processing transactions, while still maintaining high system throughput.

Applicability. The next stage of the network’s development is to create a platform for high-performance smart contracts that connect secure external data and decentralized applications with escrow functionality.

We are looking forward to the launch of the consensus algorithm this autumn, followed by the escrow smart contracts next spring. The first version of the decentralized application platform due in spring 2023.

Support and development are overseen by the non-profit Raido Foundation. More details about the network’s operations and links to the Block Explorer wallet can be found on the foundation’s site (link below).

If you would like to experience our network for yourself, please see the details of the network and useful links to the wallet and block explorer on the foundation’s website: https://raido.network

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Information Provided via Press Release
Distributed by Global Crypto Press Association
Press Release Distribution for industry.