Summary:
John McAfee Announces He’s Releasing A Physical Cryptocurrency; Baidu Reveals Energy-Efficient Blockchain Protocol; CEO Of Kik, Which Recently Had An ICO, Says “Almost Nobody Should Be Looking Into Blockchain”
John McAfee Announces He’s Releasing A Physical Cryptocurrency
According to CCN, cybersecurity expert/pioneer John McAfee announced that he is releasing a physical cryptocurrency called the “McAfee Redemption Unit” (MRU). McAfee announced this on Twitter, and confirmed the announcement in an interview with Crypto-News India.
The physical notes come in seven denominations, ranging from 1 to 500 MRUs. Three MRU notes feature pictures of Bitmain founder Jihan Wu, cryptocurrency entrepreneur Brock Pierce, and Bitcoin.com owner Roger Ver.
341,000 MRU notes of different denominations have been printed, with a total circulation of 6,050,000 MRU. That gives the MRU a market cap of $60.2 million. According to a message printed on the notes, they can only be redeemed in person in Mexico during a two-hour window each day, at which time the owner will be given a particular date, time, and location in the United States in which he or she will be able to meet with McAfee to convert it into Fiat. People may only redeem 100 MRUs at a time.
Baidu Reveals Energy-Efficient Blockchain Protocol
According to Coin Telegraph, the Chinese internet company Baidu has announced a new blockchain protocol aimed at reducing mining energy consumption.
Chief scientist at Baidu’s blockchain division Xiao Wei revealed the protocol at a conference on the weekend, and referred to it as “Super Chain”.
Wei explained that Super Chain can
“insert and remove consensus mechanisms to solve the current energy consumption problem,” and that it’s also “compatible with the development system of Bitcoin and Ethereum.”
Super Chain is part of Baidu’s Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) initiative which launched this January.
CEO Of Kik, Which Recently Had An ICO, Says “Almost Nobody Should Be Looking Into Blockchain”
According to CCN, Kik CEO Ted Livingston gave a surprising opinion at a tech conference earlier this week: “Almost nobody should be looking at [blockchain].”
Livingston clarified his position by stating:
“Unless you’re trying to build one of the most-used cryptocurrencies in the world, it’s very low odds that blockchain is going to create value for you…What does blockchain do at the end of the day? It allows you to have a database that’s trustless. That can be applied in a bunch of ways, but most of those ways, you still need trust.”