We’ve all encountered them: those annoying little boxes with distorted letters, traffic lights, or bike paths that you have to click on to prove you’re not a robot. But what exactly is a CAPTCHA, and why do they exist?

CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The concept is simple: a test that’s difficult for computers but easy enough for humans. This technology was invented in 1997 and became widely used around 2003. Today, there are various forms of CAPTCHAs, from distorted text to the well-known “I’m not a robot” checkbox.

Did you know that around 120 of the 200 most popular websites use some form of CAPTCHA? This means billions of CAPTCHAs are solved daily. Research shows that collectively, people have spent nearly 900 million hours solving these puzzles.

But CAPTCHAs do more than just prove you’re not a bot. For instance, Google uses the data to train autonomous vehicles, digitize books and historical documents, and, of course, improve its own AI models.

Still, it’s becoming increasingly clear that this technology is past its prime.

What happens when you click “I’m not a robot”?

More than you might think! It’s not the click itself that proves you’re human, but your behavior beforehand. Google’s reCAPTCHA analyzes factors like your mouse movements, device history, and cookies. Based on this, you’re assigned a score. If the score is high enough, you’re allowed to proceed.

While the technology is impressive, there’s a downside. Ironically, robots are now better at solving CAPTCHAs than humans. A recent study revealed that bots can solve a CAPTCHA in under a second with 99.8% accuracy. Humans, on the other hand, take an average of 9 to 15 seconds, with an accuracy rate of 50–84%.

To stay ahead of bots, CAPTCHAs are becoming increasingly complex. Think rotating 3D animals or identifying obscure objects in photos. But even these measures don’t help much — bots continue to outperform us.

The future of CAPTCHAs

With the rise of AI, the end of CAPTCHAs seems near. New solutions focus on behavioral analysis and invisible checks, such as Google’s reCAPTCHA v3. This version continuously monitors your behavior on a website without requiring you to solve puzzles. While this is more user-friendly, it also raises privacy concerns.

The evolution of CAPTCHA demonstrates how humans and technology continuously adapt to one another. It highlights what makes us human: our imperfections and creativity. But now that AI has surpassed us in this area, it might be time to rethink how we distinguish bots from people altogether.

Tip: Tired of solving CAPTCHAs yourself? The Google Chrome plugin AntiCaptcha can take care of them for you automatically!

This year, half of the world’s population will go to the polls. More than 4 billion people can vote during one of the 40 elections that are held there. Not all elections are likely to be democratic, as in Russia. But there are particular concerns about the negative impact of technology such as AI that could undermine elections.

The results of this year’s elections are expected to have significant and global implications for the future of democracy. But also for important topics such as human rights, security and climate action. In Bangladesh and Taiwan, voters already took to the bus to exercise their democratic right. World powers such as the US, India and the United Kingdom will follow later this year.

I have twice been able to participate in an election campaign as part of a political party’s campaign team. This introduced me to the role that technology plays in this. As:

Big data analytics to get to know voters, and targeted ads on social media to address specific target groups with a specific message.

But in an age of AI, even the most powerful democracies are frightened by the idea of ​​the negative impact technology can have on voting. So scared, in fact, that my colleagues at the World Economic Forum consider ‘AI-generated disinformation’ to be the biggest risk for 2024.

AI-generated disinformation

Media such as the New York Times and the BBC already warned about this in 2018. And countless scientific articles show what an unprecedented negative effect the spread of disinformation via social media can have on elections, by manipulating the online dialogue and destroying trust.

We’ve seen this before, of course. Cambridge Analytica, a political data analytics company, collected personal data from approximately 87 million Facebook users without consent. This data was used to create psychological profiles and distribute targeted political advertisements. The company claimed to have played a role in influencing approximately 200 elections worldwide.

AI weapons for mass disinformation

“Save your vote for the November elections.” Last month, a robocall went out impersonating US President Joe Biden. The message was aimed at voters in the US state of New Hampshire, advising them not to vote in the state’s presidential election.

The voice, generated by AI, sounded incredibly real. This also shows the major problem with the rapidly developing AI technology. We’re no longer talking about photoshopping minor tweaks to how someone looks. We are talking about the large-scale creation and dissemination of very real-looking information, which can be fabricated by any technical layman.

An online test by the New York Times showed that many people blindly believe this type of fabricated information. Readers were invited to look at ten images and try to determine which were real and which were AI-generated. A bit the same as what Lubach does in his regular column with ‘MP of AI’.

The test showed how difficult it is to distinguish between real and AI-generated images. This was supported by multiple academic studies, which found that “faces of white people created by AI systems were perceived as more realistic than real photos,” according to journalist Stuart Thompson.

The democratization of disinformation

Social media reduced the costs of spreading misinformation or information. AI reduces the costs of its production. The easy-to-use dashboards of LLM AI models have already enabled an explosion of falsified information and so-called “synthetic” content. From advanced voice cloning to counterfeit websites.

The technology is deeply democratizing disinformation, providing highly sophisticated tools to any citizen interested in promoting their favorite candidate by spreading messages they want. People no longer have to be developers or Photoshop wizards to generate text, images or video. But they don’t necessarily have to work for a Russian or Chinese troll farm to sow chaos. In that respect, anyone can become a creator of political content and try to influence voters or the media.

It’s a global problem

In addition to Biden’s example in the US, we have also seen other concrete examples worldwide. For example, Venezuelan state media spread pro-government messages through AI-generated videos from newsreaders from a non-existent international English-language channel. They were generated by Synthesia, a company that produces custom deepfakes.

In the recent elections in Slovakia, AI-generated audio recordings circulated on Facebook, impersonating a liberal candidate discussing plans to raise alcohol prices and rig the election. During the Nigerian elections last February, an AI-manipulated audio clip wrongly implicated a presidential candidate in plans to manipulate ballots.

Old fraud, new tricks

Many types of fraud that we see are not new. Scammers have been doing voice cloning and using deepfakes to mislead people for years. The big difference here is really the simplicity with which every world citizen can do this themselves with tools that are freely available. I previously wrote about startups that make it possible to ‘bring back to life’ a deceased person with a short voice recording, some photos and film material as a 3D hologram, with which you can even have a conversation. In my view, that is a really great example of the power of convergence of technologies. But it can also be used incorrectly. According to the Financial Times, the number of scams in the financial sector is increasing at a record pace.

Recently, in a masterclass on the use of AI, I showed the participants how easy it is to create a fake ID. I did this in response to this Reddit post that went viral. The amazement quickly turned to astonishment. For example, you can close a bank account online at many organizations, such as banks. To successfully complete this process, identification is required by uploading an ID and a selfie that you take. A simple layman can now generate a fake ID using tools such as Midjourney. What does this do to all those so-called Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, which depend so heavily on this?

By the way, it is not only the negative impact of Generative AI that is being warned about elections. A recent report from Freedom House shows that more and more governments are also using AI to apply censorship to the population. For example, by checking internet access. Something we already see/saw in Turkey, Iran and Ethiopia.

Wash nose or strong fist?

Normally, large technology companies in the United States are often left alone. But in October last year, US President Biden signed a so-called ‘executive order’ to make AI-generated content mandatory watermarking. Unfortunately, many experts from both the government and technology companies have indicated that they do not even understand what they mean by ‘watermarks’.

Fortunately, early this year, 20 major tech companies (including Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok, X, Amazon and Adobe) pledged to help prevent AI misuse from impacting global elections. They signed the ‘Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections’. A ‘voluntary’ agreement with eight specific commitments to deploy technology to combat harmful AI content. You can think of detection mechanisms for the distribution of this type of content on their platforms, but also for generating it.

How can we ensure that AI and technology are forces for good rather than chaos? – Ravi Agrawal, Edit-in-Chief, Foreign Policy

Actions by Google, OpenAI and Microsoft

In addition, the companies have also announced numerous promotions separately. Google requires political advertisers to make it very clear whether content has been digitally modified or generated with AI. It has also limited the answering of election-related questions by its chatbot Gemini. Sister YouTube will require video creators to make clear whether they post AI-generated content or not.

ChatGPT owner OpenAI has indicated that it will introduce authentication tools that will allow the user to immediately see whether an image can be trusted or not. It has also said it will ban politicians and political campaigns using these tools. I’m curious what this will look like in concrete terms. A Dutch political party such as the BBB has of course already indicated that it partly wrote its election manifesto with GPT.

Major shareholder Microsoft is also introducing similar measures to verify content. It also said it has upgraded its search engine Bing to give users results from authoritative, verified sources.

Social media channels

In the past year, X has been in the news a lot due to the large amount of misinformation spread on the platform. This is partly because new owner Elon Musk fired the platform’s election integrity team. According to Musk, this actually undermined ‘election integrity’. X recently introduced ‘Community Notes’ as the most important (externally published) tool to combat disinformation. However, it is criticized by many experts as flawed, error-prone and inadequate.

Due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook parent Meta has been semi-forced to prevent the platform from being misused to influence elections for some time now. Meta also requires political advertisers to clearly state their names and to clearly indicate whether content is AI-generated.

Timestamp it with the trust machine

As I wrote before, I really see the convergence of several new technologies as the next big step forward. You see the coolest examples, such as:

drones powered by IoT and machine learning to spray crops, and

that blockchain and AI reinforce each other, by checking blockchain code (smart contracts) for bugs and storing AI data decentrally and rewarding owners for use with crypto.

While AI is currently causing a lot of disagreement and is reducing trust in the technology due to all the cases described earlier, blockchain is described as the ‘trust machine’. Due to its technological nature, for example, you cannot change any data that you have put on the blockchain. This ensures confidence in data in countless industries worldwide.

For example, blockchain can authenticate content with so-called ‘timestamping’ and thus give the viewer the confidence that it has not been tampered with. The Amsterdam startup Wordproof won a prestigious European innovation prize and has, for example, already timestamped all articles in the NRC. On the other side of the ocean, Fox (from Fox News, among others) uses blockchain technology (Polygon) to offer the same solution.

In Guatemala, last year’s elections were even put on the blockchain using this technology. Something I already wrote about in 2019 and which is now being experimented with by more and more governments.

Robo-volunteers and conversation partners

It’s not all doom and gloom surrounding the elections. In that respect, I also see plenty of areas where technology can have a positive impact.

For example, I recently had the opportunity to give a workshop on AI for a group of politicians and gave the example of setting up your own chatbot. Here I showed two (pre-made) examples:

A bot where I had uploaded the election manifestos of all parties and could therefore have a very simple, but effective, discussion about topics that are close to my heart.

But also bluntly for a party itself. You can upload anything here: voting behavior, blogs, newspaper articles, etc. Based on this, you can give a potential voter the opportunity to enter into a conversation as deep as they want. At a time and location of your choice.

That is a flat chatbot, but there are also politicians who use virtual volunteers in this way. A good example is the Democratic candidate Shamaine Daniels from the American state of Pennsylvania. She uses Ashley, an AI campaign volunteer, for her campaign. Democratic American presidential candidate Dean Philips has also launched the ‘Dean.Bot‘.

The answer to the fake IDs? For this purpose, reference is made to the much-criticized Worldcoin project, which I wrote about earlier. Due to the design of the technology, it would provide a real ‘proof of humanity’. Experts doubt this.

Liar dividends

Co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, has been warning widely about the negative impact of technologies such as AI on elections, for example.

One of the challenges, for example, is that campaign speeches are protected expressions. Candidates can in principle (in most democratic countries) say and do almost anything they want, without risk of legal consequences. Even if their statements are clearly incorrect, they are almost always released and are not addressed by, for example, a judge.

Another challenge is the fact that according to research, disinformation thrives best on small platforms. Platforms that, unlike their bigger brothers, have not yet announced how they will tackle disinformation. These are platforms that often have much less budget for things such as content moderation.

But another interesting study from 2018 also shows evidence for the so-called ‘liar dividend’. It suggests that as the public becomes more aware of the fact that AI can generate video and audio in a convincing manner, the ‘bad actors’ will actually label authentic and real content as ‘fake’, which, according to the authors, creates an even more unclear information provision. towards the voters. With all its consequences.

Will AI have the same or even worse impact on this year’s elections? Time will tell. I still have hope that technology can help prevent use by ‘bad actors’. We will see in the coming year whether all the measures have helped and the great fear has been for nothing.

Nurture is being replaced by an algorithm. I’m calling out the real-time experiment that’s being run on us and democracy right now.– Ian Bbraker, president of the Eurasia Group

More and more Dutch people know and can offset solar panels. But due to the convergence of technologies such as AI, crypto, Internet of Things and blockchain, you as a consumer can suddenly make money with the ‘dormant’ maintenance of countless other infrastructure networks. Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) are springing up like mushrooms. In this article I share everything about this new tech trend.

Help to find aliens. That seemed cool to me when I was a kid, when I donated a piece of my computer memory to the SETI@Home project. This was started in 1999 by scientists at the University of Berkeley. Anyone who had spare computer power could donate it to the project.

With this you could help find extraterrestrial life. Unfortunately without success and the project has now been discontinued. There are other so-called ‘Boinc projects’ from the university around biology, mathematics and astronomy.

Thanks to all the crazy new technologies, it is now also possible to earn money passively with these types of projects. Not by setting up drop shipping or selling expensive ‘financial freedom courses’, but by helping to keep energy networks, cloud storage and WiFi networks running and to provide AI computing power.

PIN so you can use your PIN again

Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) is the name for blockchain networks that use digital tokens to encourage communities (not companies) to run physical infrastructure networks (think mobility, electric vehicle charging and telecommunications). From making and maintaining to operating it. The term first appeared in November 2022. Blockchain knowledge platform Messari started using the name DePIN for its content, after a Twitter vote on the matter.

Build together, maintain together

Setting up and maintaining infrastructures such as power grids and transport systems costs a lot of money. Usually it is the big companies that do this because it is so expensive and complicated. As a result, there is little competition. This means that these large companies can determine almost everything about prices and services. But thanks to new technologies like blockchain and the fact that almost everyone has the internet these days, we can now build these systems in an open and distributed way.

That is why there is now a DePIN for more and more infrastructures. These networks are open to anyone to participate in, meaning both regular consumers and businesses can help make them better. As a thank you for their help, you receive a reward, such as crypto, a piece of the network and sometimes even products or services that the network offers.

Initially there were four sectors of DePINs (servers, wireless, sensors and energy networks), but due to rapid development, this has now been divided into two main sectors (physical and digital), containing all kinds of subsectors. This current map of Messari provides a beautiful overview

Here you see the rapidly growing ecosystem of DePIN solutions; physical infrastructure networks (vehicles for mobility networks, solar panels for energy networks, hotspots for wireless networks and servers for cloud networks).

From dashboard cams to data, from WiFi to Uber

How does that work in practice? 8 nice examples under the microscope.

1. Hivemapper

Hivemapper uses the ‘drive-to-earn concept’. It allows users to participate in road image collection and create a decentralized version of Google Maps through car dashboard cameras. Users earn HONEY tokens for every piece of data they provide.

2. Sorj

Storj is a great competitor for cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Amazon and Google. It allows data to be stored in a decentralized manner using blockchain technology. With encryption techniques, Storj ensures that you can store and share data securely and efficiently, without having to rely on traditional cloud storage methods. Anyone who offers space to store data will receive the STORJ token in return.

3. React Network

The React Network is an energy network that rewards users for their contributions to building a decentralized and environmentally friendly electricity grid system. It aims to create stable energy by encouraging users to plug in their batteries and share excess energy.

4. Helium

Helium is a DePIN project that builds a decentralized wireless network that allows users to earn tokens (HNT) in exchange for providing a wireless connection. Users can deploy Helium hotspots to provide wireless connectivity in an area in exchange for HNT tokens. It is also expanding its network with Helium Mobile. The Helium Mobile service combines the Helium network with the 5G mobile network. Users in the US can now enjoy cheaper mobile subscriptions for $20 per month.

5. NATIX Network

NATIX Network builds a DePIN from smartphones that work as AI-powered cameras and collect important mobility data. Consider the amount of traffic and road conditions in certain areas. It built a dashcam app that people can download for free and leave on while driving. This app processes the feed from the phone’s camera and converts it into anonymized insights, rewarding the user with tokens for sharing these insights. The phones form the physical infrastructure network and the mechanism that powers this network and distributes the rewards runs on-chain.

6. Render Network

Render Network is the first platform to decentralize the power of GPU rendering. This allows people who do creative work, such as designers and animators, to easily expand their GPU rendering projects using powerful computers around the world. The Render Network is designed to support a variety of compute-intensive tasks. All this happens quickly and efficiently via a blockchain network that connects people directly, without errors or delays. Furthermore, this system ensures that rights at work remain secure.

7. Bit tensor

Bittensor is also called the baby of AI and crypto. Bitcoin has given us a decentralized currency. It took power away from banks and governments and put it back in our hands. Bittensor does the same, but for artificial intelligence (AI). So not run by the well-known names such as OpenAI, Google or Amazon, but a DePIN Network, where everything needed to run an AI comes together. The TAO token rewards people for their efforts and is worth more than 620 euros at the time of withdrawal.

8. Teleport

Teleport is an open source and decentralized version of Uber. They are building a network of drivers and passengers worldwide. Instead of Uber algorithms, they set prices themselves and maximize the value they can get out of it. With this new protocol, it wants to ensure that more money goes to drivers, that passengers pay less per trip and that more money stays in the local economies.

The benefits of DePINs

I am very enthusiastic about these new technological possibilities compared to traditional physical infrastructure:

It’s decentralized One of the key benefits of DePIN is the shift from a centralized to a decentralized model. DePIN removes the dependency on a single entity or large corporation to set up and maintain the physical infrastructure.

Scaling at lightning speed By crowdsourcing physical infrastructure, DePINs can scale faster than traditional projects at a fraction of the cost by being distributed to network participants and offset by future growth and revenue. NATIX now has thousands of users and maps the world faster than Google.

Community instead of enterprise Rather than relying on a centralized enterprise, communities can own the hardware that makes up the network that delivers the goods and services they need and use. This aligns stakeholder interests to promote adoption and growth. For example, ELOOP ensures that anyone can make money when someone takes a ride in a Tesla, even the person using the vehicle.

‘Sharing Economy’ model DePIN applies the principle of the sharing economy. The costs and responsibilities of establishing and maintaining infrastructure are distributed among supply-side participants (service providers), creating a more cost-effective and equitable model.

Cheaper Startup By crowdsourcing the hardware and its maintenance, DePINs operate at a fraction of the capital and operating costs of traditional companies. While telecom companies must invest billions in the infrastructure and real estate to host it and maintain armies of employees to support it, DePIN’s incentivize network members to take care of this while everyone benefits.

Still a lot of work to be done!

In the first wave of DePIN projects, numerous models were experimented with, many mistakes were made, and a lot was learned. However, I still see a number of challenges for this cool new tech trend:

If the price of tokens fluctuates a lot, some people may be reluctant to participate in DePIN projects. People who help with the offering will be paid with the project’s tokens. But if the price keeps changing, they’re not sure if they’ll make a profit. There are ways to reduce this risk, but they are not always easy for everyone. In addition, if tokens suddenly become much more expensive, people who want to pay for services may be deterred. A good plan for how the tokens are used and priced is therefore important to keep prices stable.

People mainly participate in DePIN projects to earn money. If the price of the tokens rises, new users will be added more easily. But if the price drops, people may quit. Especially for projects with a small market value and little trade. It is difficult to solve this problem, but projects that provide really useful services will attract more people. Not just those who want to make a quick buck.

It’s really still in its infancy. Many people outside the crypto world are not yet aware of these types of projects. Let alone these kinds of ways of maintaining infrastructures. This is because many people are not yet familiar with how blockchain works and find cryptos complicated. That is why few people now see the benefits of these new, decentralized services. So there is still a long way to go in the field of awareness, adoption and education.

The future of DePIN

It is of course unlikely that DePIN will replace old infrastructures in the short term, but it can help, by using unused resources and providing services where this would be too expensive for traditional companies. In this way, DePIN networks can coexist alongside the old systems and help where they fall short. Especially in places that are difficult to reach. This also makes it easier for smaller groups or people to help build infrastructure.

When I see the first projects, what is required technically and what steps you have to go through to actually get started with it yourself, then that is still a bridge too far for most consumers. Too complicated, too cumbersome. So I also see DePIN projects collaborating with well-known Web2 companies such as Google and Amazon to make it easier for everyone. This means that users can work via a regular Web2 interface, without knowing that DePIN and blockchain technology is being used in the background. This makes using DePIN just as easy as existing web services, but with additional benefits such as lower costs and more openness.

We are on the cusp of a revolution in how we think about building and maintaining our physical and digital world. I think DePIN can play a great role in this. Hopefully this blog has inspired you to experiment with it yourself!

It wasn’t just fireworks during Chinese New Year last week; Bitcoin rose above $50,000 due to the growth of large capital and small users. With the current growth, the number of users worldwide could reach a billion in the coming year. Digital coins are also as popular as ever in the Netherlands. More than two million Dutch people have already invested in it. But what mistakes are made and how can you prevent this? In this article you will find 6 tips.

Due to the AI ​​hype, many other cool technologies seem to be losing out in media attention. The great thing about the underlying blockchain technology is that almost all data is transparent. This allows you to make many great analyzes about its use and adoption worldwide. Governments and law enforcement agencies do this with a platform like Chainalysis, consumers go to Glassnode, which also continuously posts incredibly interesting analyzes on YouTube.

The expectations in 2024

As I wrote before in my 2024 trend article about crypto: we are going from the most boring to a significantly important year. My first prediction has already come true: the bridge to the big boys has been built. The American stock market watchdog SEC has approved a so-called ‘Bitcoin ETF’. This makes it suddenly very easy for large investors to invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. They no longer have to buy and store the cryptos themselves, but can easily invest in large quantities through a third party. In the first few days, more than $4 billion flowed to these parties, exceeding the trade in a precious metal such as silver. More than 50,000 Bitcoins have already been purchased for these ETFs.

I can’t explain you how ridiculous this is – Nate Geraci, ETF Institute

But there are still a number of events planned in the coming months that could have a very positive effect on the market. It is therefore not only the interest of major investors that is increasing, but also consumers. I notice it in the many phone calls and texts I receive from people for advice, but also in the discussions with students during lectures I give and keynotes at events.

The market forces that I learned during my finance studies clearly apply here. Interest increases exponentially with price increases. You can also see this clearly in the ‘Fear & Greed index’.

But with all my enthusiasm, I also see many things going wrong.

Rugs & Romance, Pig Butchering & Ponzis

When I started crypto in 2015, I bought my first Bitcoins for around $100. The same year I sold them for $800, because I was going to organize a TEDx event offline in a jungle for a while and therefore could no longer keep an eye on the prices. Indeed, it wasn’t my best entry into crypto, with the current price hovering around $40,000.

The crazy prices mean that many people are always looking for a cryptocurrency that also has the potential to rise exponentially (preferably in a short period of time) (‘mooning’ in crypto language). They don’t go for the ‘safer’ choices like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but coins like memecoins (which I recently wrote about) BONK that rise 15000% in a short time.

Create your own crypto

Nowadays you can create your own crypto in a few seconds. If you use a good marketing device for this, and completely spam channels such as X and Telegram, you can also increase the price in a short time. When the price has risen a lot, sell your own coins and count your profit.Pump & dump they call this. And that is extremely illegal, but something that occurs every day in various forms in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.According to research, 350 new ‘scam cryptos’ were created every day.

SCAMS

There are all types of SCAMS in cryptocurrency, from Pig Putchering and traditional Ponzi Scams, to Rug Pulls and Romance Scams. With the many positive applications that really have an impact on people, it is of course a shame that there is also such a dark side. But it is difficult to eliminate in today’s fast-paced digital world. Unfortunately, there are still countless gullible consumers who fall for this every day and have lost many billions of euros in recent years. How can you prevent this? By reading up on the crypto in which you want to invest in advance. In 2019 I already wrote an article about this with practical tips.

Better warm than cold

The underlying technology of cryptocurrencies is developed around a decentralized idea. You are your own bank here. You can carry out transactions directly yourself, without the need for an intermediary such as a bank, credit card or service provider such as Paypal. And you have your own digital wallet, where you store access to these digital coins. In addition, more and more people are storing this on a so-called ‘ledger’; a kind of USB stick.

The decentralized idea is great, but unfortunately still too complex for most consumers. For example, people lose the password and backup codes. And because everything is decentralized, there is no central helpdesk that you can call. The name ‘crypto’ says enough about the cryptographic way of working. It is so secure that you will never be able to access your coins again if you lose the password and backup codes.

Lost Bitcoins

I have already spoken to a number of people who have lost their coins in this way. You can still see on the internet that they are in a digital wallet, but you can no longer access them to sell them, for example. There are countless stories, such as a man who bought 7,000 Bitcoins for a few euros in the early days and put them on a ledger. But he can no longer access it because he no longer remembers the password. $280 million gone.According to blockchain analysis company Chainalysis, of the 21 million Bitcoins alone, 3.7 million have been lost and are now impossible to recover.

Although I am a big fan of the decentralized idea of ​​the technology, I do not see most people storing their cryptos in a digital wallet themselves. They leave them at the exchange where they bought the coins. There is always a helpdesk there that can give you access to your coins again if, for example, you have lost the password. The only risk you can run here is that a stock exchange goes bankrupt.

On home soil

That brings me to the third tip: look carefully at the exchange where you buy your cryptos. Plenty of exchanges have gone bankrupt in the past, along with all their customer funds. Names like Mt. Gox, FTX and Quadriga are still fresh in the minds of many people. Netflix already made a very interesting documentary about this:

The European crypto legislation ‘MICAR’ will come into effect in the coming year. In the run-up to this, many Dutch stock exchanges have already passed an extremely strict inspection by the Dutch Bank (DNB). A big step forward, because a number of obscure parties have opted for money and left the Netherlands. In addition, the remaining parties have been put through the wringer by the DNB in ​​their registration for months, that in my view a registration is really a ‘quality seal of approval’.

So check in advance in the DNB register whether the party is also established in the Netherlands.

Stable, not volatile

All well and good; virtually everyone who is in crypto is in it to make a profit on the investment. Yes, I also work with technology every day, but I am really in the minority there. Almost everyone who owns cryptos hopes to make a profit on that investment. But then you have to invest in crypto coins that can also increase in value. Some of the most popular cryptos are so-called stablecoins. These are coins that always retain their value.

Looking at market size, the third coin is currently ‘Tether’: a stablecoin that is always worth $1. Very useful if you do not want to expose yourself to strong price fluctuations. But investors who invest in this and think they will make a profit will soon be deprived of illusions. I see a lot of new investors investing in these types of coins because they don’t cost much. Better 1000 Tethers than ‘only’ 0.01 Bitcoin. They also call it ‘poor man’s gold’ in the crypto ecosystem.

So do you want to invest with the aim of making a profit? Then check in advance whether you are not accidentally investing in a stablecoin.Here you can find a nice overview.

Aaaaaaaand… it’s gone!

Smart in crypto, with every click: a great campaign from the Dutch government to inform young people in particular about the risks of cryptos.

“A lot of information is shared about cryptos on social media, but financial influencers are not always neutral and transparent. If you are thinking of buying cryptos, make sure you know what the risks are and do not get blinded by promised high returns. Only spend money you can afford to lose and remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it often is.” – Minister Kaag

I don’t encourage anyone to invest in crypto. Everyone really has to decide for themselves how savings can be put to work. Shares, crowdfunding or crypto; Everyone really has to make their own decision about this. But I say very clearly ‘savings’ here. Because unfortunately, in the many interactions I have when giving lectures and keynotes on this subject, I notice that there are many people who also invest with, for example, borrowed money.

Invest in Crypto

Just borrow a few hundred euros (or even more) to invest in crypto. And due to the rapid rise of certain currencies, you will have recouped that investment tomorrow and you will be ‘financially free’. You can buy a Lamborghini or fly in a private jet, like many of those influencers do. At least, that is what many influencers tell you in an expensive course they offer and from which only they ultimately make money. These cars and private jets are often even rented to present an even more beautiful image.

The most important tip I always give people when they consider investing in crypto: only do so with money you can afford to lose. The value of a coin can drop significantly in a short period of time. For example, during the last crash in 2022, 70% of cryptos lost more than 90% of their value. If you have just borrowed money to invest in it and you have to pay it back, then you are in trouble. Something that unfortunately more and more people are discovering, according to Nibud.

Myths and fake news

I always try to look very objectively and positively at all developments in the ecosystem. For years I have seen many cool applications of cryptos and the underlying blockchain technology worldwide, which really have an impact on people and society. But I also see the previously described scams and mistakes that people make, with all the consequences that entails. I am really trying to make a clear distinction between facts and fables here. The transparent nature of the underlying blockchain technology provides independent researchers with a wealth of data and information.

“Crypto is mainly used by criminals”

According to Interpol and the EU, the share of regular money (cash and digital transactions via banks) is much larger than that of cryptos. The number of crypto transactions that are classified as ‘illegal’ is also increasingly decreasing.

“Crypto is boiling the oceans”

One of the most lively discussions surrounding crypto remains the energy consumption of so-called ‘mining’. Bitcoin’s energy consumption is equal to that of the energy consumption of the entire Netherlands. It would boil oceans from all the heat.

For me, the biggest challenges in the world are the biggest business opportunities. This is also reflected in the rapid development of the underlying blockchain technology of, for example, the second largest crypto Ethereum. There, an incredible upgrade in the code has reduced energy consumption by 99.98%.

And what about Bitcoin mining? One of the largest accounting and consulting organizations in the world, KPMG, came here at the end of last year with an extensive and very interesting report.

Bitcoin miners have started reusing heat for various purposes, such as heating greenhouses, homes, offices or swimming pools.

Some miners use flared gas for mining, which reduces methane emissions. Money was made on what would otherwise be wasted energy.

Idle and wasted energy is a major problem for renewable energy installations, due to a mismatch between supply and demand. While this can lead to low or even negative prices for the utilities, miners can consume that energy, providing an incentive for new, renewable energy sources.

With all the cool developments currently in the field of technological improvements and global adoption, I am and remain very enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies. I will continue to follow this with enthusiasm for Frankwatching in the coming year.

This article is absolutely not financial advice and should not be viewed as such. It should only be seen from an informational perspective. Do your own research before investing in crypto. Crypto can be lucrative, but also risky.