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The original Captain Kirk of Star Trek and now the pitchman for Priceline.com, William Shatner, has been signed on as spokesperson for a Vancouver-based developer of alternative energy projects that announced plans to build a solar-powered bitcoin mining operation in an abandoned southern Illinois factory.
Don't ask him to explain how bitcion works however.
“The concept is so, I guess the word is bizarre,” Kirk’s alter ego, William Shatner, said by phone Wednesday. “You have to blank your mind and say, ‘What is blockchain, again? How does mining operate, again?’ The concepts are really strange, and yet when you begin to grasp it, it makes sense.”
Bitcoin mining harnesses computer networks to validate and record transactions that use the virtual currency, a task for which “miners” are paid in bitcoin (a single unit was going for more than $6,200 Wednesday). The process requires huge amounts of electricity, and that’s where Solar Alliance CEO Jason Bak saw an opportunity.
Farhad’s Week in Tech: Bitcoin and the Scams Below The Whole Lot
This week, John Griffin, a famous investigator of economic frauds, reported that the large run-up within the value of Bitcoin final 12 months was not simply the product of genuine curiosity in Bitcoin. As a substitute, a minimum of half of the value leap was more than likely brought on by a price-manipulation scheme organized by individuals related to Bitfinex, a big Bitcoin-trading service, Mr. Griffin wrote in a prolonged paper. (Bitfinex has denied any wrongdoing.)
The fraud alleged by Mr. Griffin doesn’t recommend any flaw within the blockchain itself, however it does go far in undercutting the high-flying rhetoric about how blockchains would possibly usher in a brand new period of far-flung belief.
Plus ‘Toxic’ Suspected Manipulation Sees Bitcoin Futures Sink 55% in 2018
Appearing on CNBC this week, Brian Stutland, CIO of Equity Armor Investments, dismissed the idea that Tether (USDT) is being used to short the BTC futures markets as “far-fetched,” saying:
“I know there’s a lot of talk out there about [BTC price] manipulation by some professor who has probably never traded any significant money … if people were producing Tether to go ahead and then buy Bitcoin, then to me it seems that Tether should go to zero, not Bitcoin.”
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
