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Thoughts tagged "web3"

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It’s a shame to see Sci-Hub falling for web3 hype and adding a pumpfun memecoin ticker to their webpage. Blockchain-based DNS does not automatically mean “decentralized”, and 3DNS — the company behind .box — is based in the US and would be subject to US court orders.

Sci-Hub is now available on two new domains: [redacted] and [redacted].box. What is special here is that .box domain is blockchain-based, which makes it decentralized and somewhat more resistant to censorship (hopefully!) The domain address was donated to Sci-Hub by user. The website also runs a new version of Sci-Hub with boxed design (under construction at the moment, but will be running on all mirrors soon)

Someone unaffiliated with Sci-Hub created the memecoin, claiming to be fundraising, but said only 20% of proceeds would go to Sci-Hub. Founder Alexandra Elbakyan herself condemned this.

Alexandra Elbakyan
@ringo_ring
Nov 16, 2024
thanks! indeed it would be much easier for me if he donated 'normal' bitcoin or ethereum. I'm not good in these new crypto tokens, and I do not understand them very well

EenAir
@aidooebenezer79
Nov 16, 2024
I understand that Bitcoin and Ethereum are more familiar, but the SciHub token on Solana represents our support for you and the SciHub community. It’s a way to show our commitment to open knowledge and support SciHub innovatively.

Alexandra Elbakyan
@ringo_ring
Nov 16, 2024
if someone uses Sci-Hub name to collect donations for Sci-Hub, sending only 20% to Sci-Hub -- that's not a 'commitment to open knowledge' that's a fraud. I'm not going to participate in it.

EenAir
@aidooebenezer79
Nov 16, 2024
I understand the confusion! To put it simply, $SciHub is like a "meme token," but with a purpose. Meme tokens are fun and often used by communities to show support or raise awareness for a cause.

Alexandra Elbakyan
@ringo_ring
Right now there is more harm done than help. Suppose someone reads that Sci-Hub received $4M USD in donations (which is not actually true) that would simply put me in danger

Alexandra Elbakyan
@ringo_ring
Nov 16, 2024
I think the offer is ridiculous. If that is $scihub token, then 100% should be donated to Sci-Hub, right? you can take commission, but it should be at least 80% Sci-Hub + 20% your bonus for collecting donations?

EenAir
@aidooebenezer79
Nov 16, 2024
Actually, that's not the case. The $SciHub token is a publicly sold token, similar to how Bitcoin works. No one can own 100% of the token. It is being purchased by supporters, and the aim is to show community support for SciHub.

Alexandra Elbakyan
@ringo_ring
I did not ask you to support Sci-Hub by "publicly selling" the project. Thanks!

dump.fun
@dumpyfunny
Nov 16, 2024
Wow u are ignorant asf. We doing u a favor. We don't need ur grifty ass

I guess things changed bc there is now a crypto ticker showing the memecoin price on the Sci-Hub front page, and the donations page also prominently lists it.

A crypto ticker below the usual Sci-Hub header, showing prices for bitcoin, Solana, and a SCIHUB memecoin

Sci-Hub has long fundraised by accepting donations of major cryptocurrencies, which makes sense. But the memecoin seems like a terrible idea, and it’s not clear what they’re even trying to do with the web3 domain.

“Crypto researcher Molly White skewered [Chris Dixon’s Read Write Own] with the delight of Pete Wells after downing an Almond Joy cocktail at Guy Fieri’s Flavortown.”

“Dixon tells me that White is ‘a professional anti-crypto person.’ ”

“Chris Dixon’s Campaign to Overhaul Crypto’s Grifty Reputation” (archive) – Bloomberg

even the crypto industry journalists are over it

I have started playing a new game that helps me make it through the constant stream of crypto conferences in Hong Kong. Every time I hear a speaker trot out statements about “real life use cases” or “onboarding the next billion people to web3,” I take a shot ofbaijiuto remind myself that there are worse things than listening to these empty stock phrases. The Hong Kong government, it seems, is determined to make me consume the contents of every sorghum distillery from here to the Russian border.

Kickstarter's bizarre blockchain announcement in December 2021 makes so much more sense now that we know Andreessen Horowitz secretly promised them $100 million to pivot to a blockchain-based product built on the also-a16z-backed Celo blockchain.

At the time, I wondered why COO Sean Leow was so insistent on the move despite being apparently very confused about the whole concept.

Kickstarter's COO, Sean Leow, did an interview with The Beat to discuss the announcement. He seemed to be a little bit confused on the whole concept throughout, and seemed to believe that "open source" is some sort of competing idea to blockchains. At one point he stated, "We believe that that data can be structured in a way through a blockchain where it ... can move in a much more efficient and effective way between services ... in a way that open source doesn't allow". Later in the interview he spoke about governance, saying, "our understanding is that [governance] is done more effectively with blockchain then with open-source."

– February 2022 Web3 is Going Just Great entry

I suspect Tom McKay , then writing at Gizmodo, didn't know how right he was:

How this will actually work, [begin highlight] beyond Kickstarter being able to yell “blockchain” like a spell to summon investors [end highlight] or maybe getting a cut of every project that runs on the resulting protocol, is unclear. A white paper explaining how the

the bitcoin price is up, which means it's time for endless comments from crypto bros who somehow both 1) know that i'm critical of crypto and 2) have no idea why i'm critical