Crypto

British Finance Minister Calls on Tech Giants to Stoke Growth in Nation amid Reformative Tax Hikes

Coinspeaker
British Finance Minister Calls on Tech Giants to Stoke Growth in Nation amid Reformative Tax Hikes

British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt recently indicated that he would push ahead with the country’s tax hikes. The Chancellor of the Exchequer also pledged post-Brexit reforms for growth in the United Kingdom.

On Friday, Hunt said in a speech to tech giants, “The best tax cut right now is a cut in inflation.” The British Finance Minister also intimated companies like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), and Meta (NASDAQ: META) on dispelling UK economic gloom. According to Hunt, there is a need to develop Brexit in such a way that it spurs economic growth in the country.

Amid his stated agenda regarding British tax hikes, Hunt mentioned that optimism in the European nation has been low recently. As a result of this optimistic “short supply,” the UK politician implored companies to help make the nation “the world’s next Silicon Valley.” According to Hunt, these companies were essential for Britain’s economic outlook and instrumental to its growth plans. However, the high-ranking British Cabinet member also suggested a mutually beneficial relationship between Britain and the corporations. In his Friday address, Hunt played up the market potential of the UK, saying, “Britain is vital for your future too.”

Finance Minister Explains Tax Hikes Necessary to Pull British Economy Out of Inertia

While stressing the importance of making the UK an appealing business hotspot, Hunt underscored the need for a favorable tax structure. According to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the country needs to attain “nothing less than the most competitive tax regime of any major country.” However, the British senior government official intends to angle for said tax regime amid the restoration of the planned rise in corporation tax from 19% to 25%. Hunt’s short-tenured predecessor Kwasi Kwarteng previously scrapped the corporation tax increment plans while in office.

Kwarteng was a Cabinet member of the short-lived Liz Truss government between September and October last year. While serving as Finance Minister between September 6th and October 14th, 2022, many of his policies proved unpopular with the British parliament and populace. These policies, including Kwarteng’s “mini-budget’s” economic policies and tax cuts, ultimately resulted in his dismissal from office. Following Kwarteng’s ousting, Truss appointed Hunt, who retained his role as Chancellor under Rishi Sunak following her resignation.

Pound Downturn

After Hunt’s’ reform’ speech, the British pound sank 0.25% to $1.237 against the US dollar. The sterling had initially recouped some of its losses from when Hunt’s speech began but ultimately regressed from Thursday’s six-week high.

In September, the pound sank to its lowest level against the dollar in 37 years amid several macroeconomic headwinds. These constraints included surging inflation, the highest among all G-7 nations, looming recession, and tax cuts.

At the time, the British currency slumped to a low of $1.135 against the US greenback before rebounding slightly to $1.1378. A few days later, the pound would further slide to $1.1029 per dollar and an all-time low of $1.03 to a dollar.

British Finance Minister Calls on Tech Giants to Stoke Growth in Nation amid Reformative Tax Hikes

Crypto

Swiss Non-Profit ZeroSync Association Brings zk-Proofs to Bitcoin

Coinspeaker
Swiss Non-Profit ZeroSync Association Brings zk-Proofs to Bitcoin

ZeroSync Association is bringing zk-proofs (Zero Knowledge) to Bitcoin (BTC) even as cryptographic techniques become popular on the Ethereum blockchain. Reports state that ZeroSync, a Swiss non-profit association, received sponsorship from crypto investment platforms Geometry Research and StarkWare Industries. The newly-formed association already has a working prototype, allowing users to validate the Bitcoin blockchain’s state and transaction history. ZeroSync’s prototype achieves this without downloading the entire chain or trusting a third party.

The ZeroSync Bitcoin zk-proofs prototype can verify Bitcoin consensus rules but not transaction signatures. In addition, the prototype also seems slow and still requires speed and security optimization. Despite these limitations, the main takeaway from the prototype’s development is that it works. Commenting on the Bitcoin zk-proof prototype, ZeroSync co-founder Robin Linus explained in a media session:

“It’s very much in the prototype stage. But the grand vision is that you download that one megabyte of proof, and that is as good as if you had downloaded the 500 gigabytes.”

On ZeroSync’s ability to verify transactions via cryptographic proof rather than just trusting honest nodes as suggested by pseudonymous Bitcoin developer Satoshi Nakamoto, Linus said:

“You don’t have to trust; that is the entire point. The proof proves it to you; that’s the great invention.”

In the Bitcoin white paper, Satoshi addressed the concept of simple payment verification (SPV) nodes existing on the BTC blockchain. According to the pseudonymous Bitcoin developer, these nodes are essential for small devices like mobile phones that cannot download the entire blockchain. “Verification is reliable as long as honest nodes control the network,” Satoshi had said at the time. However, the Bitcoin white paper author also pointed out that the verification process becomes compromised upon a network cyber-attack.

ZeroSync Bitcoin zk-Proofs Built on StarkWare Programming Language

ZeroSync is using Cairo, a StarkWare-enabled programming language, for the first version of its software. Weighing in on ZeroSync’s transformative potential of the Bitcoin blockchain, StarkWare’s ecosystem lead Louis Guthmann, said that “ZeroSync is the first production attempt to radically upgrade the Bitcoin protocol. It would transform the way people think about the system at a fundamental level.”

The zk-proof cryptographic technique has created a developer tool kit to facilitate applications such as proof-of-reserves on exchanges. In addition, ZeroSync also seeks to enable transaction history compression on second-layer protocols such as Lightning Labs’ Taro.

Zero-knowledge proofs deploy cryptography to prove information validity without revealing the information itself. Using zk-proofs to validate the Bitcoin network sees nodes sync instantaneously instead of taking hours or days to download excessive data.

zk-Proofs on Ethereum

Zk-proofs have exploded in popularity on the Ethereum network, with the recently-launched Polygon zkEVM Beta being a prime example. Yesterday reports stated that the Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta offered decentralized app (dApp) users lower gas fees.

The announcement also revealed that Ethereum co-developer Vitalik Buterin would conduct the first transaction on the network’s zk Virtual Machine beta.

Swiss Non-Profit ZeroSync Association Brings zk-Proofs to Bitcoin

Crypto

American Rapper Jay-Z’s Net Worth Now Estimated to Be $2.5B

Coinspeaker
American Rapper Jay-Z’s Net Worth Now Estimated to Be $2.5B

American rapper and founder of Roc Nation music label, Jay-Z has seen a dramatic rise in his net worth over the past year according to Forbes. Per the figures released, Jay-Z is now worth as much as $2.5 billion in what comes as a prophecy come true for the 53-year-old rapper.

Jay Z was not one of the founders of rap music in the United States, but he certainly was among the early pioneers. At the time when he was starting his career back in the 90s, he had to combat the demoralizing notion that it is important to be an artist and make good money. With his success today, Jay-Z has proven every one of the myths he grew up with wrong.

“That was the greatest trick in music that people ever pulled off, to convince artists that you can’t be an artist and make money,” he said. “Hip-hop from the beginning has always been aspirational. It always broke that notion that an artist can’t think about money as well.”

While Jay-Z is known as a music icon, his wealth accumulation can be attributed to his wide-ranging investment in different companies. Jay-Z’s wealth over the past year comes typically from the Armand de Brignac champagne and D’Usse cognac. His stakes in the firm contributed in part to making Jay-Z the first rapper to cross the $1 billion net worth back in 2019.

Even without releasing a single album over the past year, there has been no slowing down in the growth of Jay-Z’s wealth which as early as last was valued at $1.4 billion as of last year. The impressive feat of this growth is even more compounded seeing the economic turmoil experienced in the global financial landscape in the Year-to-Date (YTD) period.

Jay-Z’s Net Worth and Wealth Ideology

As far back as 2010, the veteran investor known as the Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett pointed out the greatness of Jay-Z as it concerns the propensity to generate wealth. In the sit-out, a discovery was made by the veteran rapper concerning the similarities in stock and investing.

As described, this similarity is hinged on betting on what one understands, connecting both Buffett and Jay-Z.

“Music is like stocks, there’s the hot thing of the moment” Jay-Z told Forbes following the interview at the time. “People tend to make emotional decisions based on that. They don’t stick with what they know.”

With current valuations, Jay Z is now ranked as the 1,210th richest person alive. The sale of his music streaming platform Tidal to Block Inc (NYSE: SQ) for $302 million has also contributed to the growth of Jay-Z’s wealth in recent times.

Just as Buffett predicted, Jay-Z is becoming an entrepreneur that young people can learn from.

American Rapper Jay-Z’s Net Worth Now Estimated to Be $2.5B

Crypto

Parts of Twitter Source Code Leaked Online

Coinspeaker
Parts of Twitter Source Code Leaked Online

As per a legal court filing, some parts of Twitter’s source code have been leaked as Elon Musk‘s Twitter is now seeking information about the responsible person.

Last week on March 24, Twitter issued a subpoena to the software collaboration platform GitHub for a user identified as “FreeSpeechEnthusiast”. The user had reportedly shared excerpts of Twitter’s source code without permission. In the court documents, the Twitter counsel said that the purpose of this subpoena was to identify the users responsible for sharing this source code.

As a result, social media company Twitter asked the US District Court for the Northern District of California to order GitHub to produce all information of the “FreeSpeechEnthusiast” user. GitHub hasn’t commented on this matter yet.

However, the Microsoft-owned platform complied with Twitter’s request of removing the source code last Friday. A GitHub spokesperson also told CNBC that the company shares all DMCA takedowns publicly. This specifically occurs when a copyright holder requests the removal of content from a website.

As per the DMCA request shared by GitHub, the company removed “proprietary source code for Twitter’s platform and internal tools”. GitHub hasn’t said whether any of its users were able to access the repository before they took it down. As per an internal investigation by Twitter, people who were responsible for the leak left the company last year.

Twitter to Open Source Its Code

Last week, Twitter chief Elon Musk announced that the company has planned to open source its code on March 31st. In his tweet last week on March 18, Musk wrote:

Our “algorithm” is overly complex & not fully understood internally. People will discover many silly things , but we’ll patch issues as soon as they’re found! We’re developing a simplified approach to serve more compelling tweets, but it’s still a work in progress. That’ll also be open source. Providing code transparency will be incredibly embarrassing at first, but it should lead to rapid improvement in recommendation quality. Most importantly, we hope to earn your trust.

Elon Musk has been working actively ever since he acquired Twitter in October 2022 to make the company profitable. For this, the billionaire took some radical steps such as introducing mass layoffs, relaunching a new verification program with a Twitter subscription, etc. During one of the recent conferences, Elon Musk mentioned how poorly monetized is the Twitter platform.

“Every single day on, average, which is – I think it comes to a really interesting point which is to – just it’s startling how poorly monetized that is – because you have to say like how valuable is that attention 100 to 130 million hours of human attention per day of people that read – so these are the generally the smartest people in the world, the most influential people in the world,” he said.

Parts of Twitter Source Code Leaked Online