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The spirit of Web3 is all about building deep connections between the users and the product, enabling new and exciting reward and participation systems, as many brands look into Web3 to reach the next level of fan and customer loyalty. Azarus is the leading proponent of this approach in streaming, creating a whole new experience for streamers and their viewers thanks to gamified ads.

Ads are the lifeblood of the entertainment industry. As much as we might dislike most of them, without ads we also wouldn’t have any of our favorite YouTubers, Twitch streamers, sports channels and much more. But with Azarus, ads become exciting games that you play to compete for unique prizes from brands that you enjoy.

Azarus integrates with all the most used streaming platforms, including YouTube, Twitch or even TV streaming services. Only here, instead of boring insurance and sleeping pill ads, you see a cool trivia game sponsored by Nike (or whatever fits your bill — imagine you’re a sneakerhead in this scenario).

Not only do you get to show off your knowledge with all the other stream viewers, but you might also get a limited-edition prize from Nike as a physical reward. Or you may receive AZA tokens, which can be exchanged in a rewards store for over 35,000 digital items (mostly, games and game keys for both new and older titles), or even cold hard cash.

The games are fast-paced, lasting only a few seconds, and make you feel connected through a massively multiplayer and interactive experience. It’s like a digital stadium in your living room — a sneak peek into a world of mass VR integration.

Active Participation vs. Passive Viewership

The platform sees itself as modernizing entertainment to the modern age, specifically by using the fact that streams offer way more opportunities for engagement than TV. Interacting with a TV show back in the day required picking up a phone, which might have meant going to a different room. Though this was modernized with the advent of smartphones, streams are already streamlined, as they bring a combined viewership and engagement platform all in one.

Only the most active users will actively join Twitch chats, and for really large general-purpose streams it all becomes noisy. What Azarus is trying to do is to bring order to the chaos, and engage more people who otherwise couldn’t care less about chatting with others. The viewership experience becomes more bi-directional, and all without catering to very specific social urges.

The platform of course shares part of its proceeds with the streamers who integrate it in their channels, which benefits them both monetarily and from a user engagement standpoint. 

The platform distributed over $2M in rewards last year, with over 6 million unique players, so the phenomenon seems to be catching on.

Not Just an Average Crypto Platform

Now, while Azarus is a crypto project with its own tokens, this is only a means to an end here, which is different from many other startups that tried to merge blockchain with the “real world” or the wider digital realms.

Blockchain is used for its infrastructure, hosting the AZA tokens which are used for rewards. This gives a global nature to the platform right from the start, allowing anyone in the world to earn from Azarus, even if they live in a country with extremely poor financial infrastructure. 

While the tokens are mostly meant to be used for rewards in the Azarus store, they do have a monetary value as well, which is an interesting fringe benefit of tokenizing reward points.

The users don’t need to know anything about blockchain, as it’s all managed directly from the Azarus app and extension. Thus, it offers a neat way for people to gradually ease into the concept, but only if they want to. 

Azarus was recently acquired by Animoca Brands, a giant in the Web3 industry, which should give the platform all the resources it needs to scale even further. Already it’s been actively working with brands like Ubisoft and Logitech, which only goes to show even further that publishers and gaming industry brands are looking to reinvigorate their marketing.

Ultimately, Azarus is about creating a useful product for people so that we can improve the experience of watching and interacting with content. The fact that it’s a Web3 project is secondary to this fact.

The United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee (FSC) has taken a significant step in addressing the growing impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial services and housing industries.

On January 11, 2024, FSC Chairman, Representative Patrick McHenry, and Representative Maxine Waters jointly announced the establishment of a bipartisan Working Group on Artificial Intelligence.

The primary objective of this working group is to delve into the multifaceted implications of AI in the financial services sector.

This includes an examination of how AI is reshaping the financial services workforce by driving the development of new products, fortifying defenses against fraud, streamlining compliance processes, and bolstering regulatory tools.

Another critical aspect of the group’s mission is to scrutinize the existing regulatory framework governing AI usage and ascertain that any new regulations are well-balanced, taking into account both the potential benefits and inherent risks associated with AI deployment.

This endeavor builds upon the groundwork laid by the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence in the 116th and 117th Congresses.

It is worth noting that this newly formed working group differs from the one established by the New Democratic Coalition in August 2023.

While both groups share a common objective of crafting bipartisan policies to address the evolving AI landscape, the FSC’s AI working group boasts a truly bipartisan composition, comprising members from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

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Heading the bipartisan group are Representative French Hill, Chairman of the Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Inclusion Subcommittee, and Representative Stephen Lynch.

This dedicated team brings together a diverse set of perspectives and expertise to tackle the complex issues surrounding AI.

Among the group’s Republican members are McHenry, Hill, Young Kim, Mike Flood, Zach Nunn, and Erin Houchin.

On the Democratic side, Waters, Lynch, Sylvia Garcia, Ayanna Pressley, Sean Casten, and Brittany Pettersen round out the lineup.

This development aligns with President Joe Biden’s Executive Order from October 30, 2023, which places a significant emphasis on the responsible development and use of AI.

The newly formed FSC working group will play a pivotal role in assessing and implementing the directives outlined in the Executive Order within the committee’s purview.

As AI continues to reshape the financial landscape, this bipartisan initiative signifies a commitment to ensuring that AI benefits are harnessed responsibly while mitigating potential risks.

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Several FTX clients have urged a U.S. bankruptcy judge to reconsider the defunct crypto exchange’s valuation of their cryptocurrency deposits, which is based on 2022 prices.

They argue that FTX’s approach is preventing them from benefiting from the recent surge in crypto prices.

The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, in support of the debtor’s motion to estimate claims based on digital assets, believes that collectively estimating claim values, as proposed in the motion, is the most efficient way to simplify the claim reconciliation process and expedite Chapter 11 confirmation.

The Debtors’ motion states that if the court determines that cryptocurrency deposits are not part of the estate, the appreciated cryptocurrency, which has grown by more than $5 billion since the petition date, must be returned to customers in kind and not used to pay administrative claims, among other things.

FTX’s bankruptcy plan outlines a reimbursement in U.S. dollars based on cryptocurrency prices at the time of the November 2022 bankruptcy filing.

FTX argues that U.S. bankruptcy law mandates valuing claims using that date, while customers contend that this method undervalues cryptocurrencies that have surged since the 2022 market low.

Sunil Kavuri, an FTX creditor activist, raised objections to the debtor’s motion to estimate claims.

When contacted by Cointelegraph, Kavuri clarified that his lawyers,

READ MORE: CFTC Issues Recommendations to Mitigate DeFi Risks in U.S. Financial Markets

Moskowitz and Boies, advocate for customers to receive “at least the value of crypto back” since property rights remain unresolved.

In addition to the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, FTX customers worldwide submitted letters to the U.S. bankruptcy court challenging FTX’s valuation approach before the Thursday deadline. FTX intends to have its list of cryptocurrency prices approved at a court hearing scheduled for January 25 in Wilmington, Delaware.

Some customers argue that the proposal unfairly favors stablecoin holders and external investors who acquired FTX bankruptcy claims at a lower cost, while holders of Bitcoin (BTC) and other volatile assets are left at a disadvantage.

The values of three major cryptocurrencies held by FTX customers—Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), and Solana (SOL)—have substantially increased since FTX declared bankruptcy.

Additionally, customers oppose the company’s decision to value its equity shares and token, FTT, at $0, which would erase over $700 million in FTT and FTX equity held by customers under the bankruptcy plan.

In a court filing on December 27, 2023, FTX argued that determining crypto prices based on the bankruptcy petition date is the only practical approach for initiating customer repayments.

FTX also pointed out that other bankrupt crypto firms like Celsius Network, BlockFi, and Voyager Digital had been permitted by courts to use petition-date prices to assess their customer claims.

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Ethereum’s community is currently embroiled in a debate sparked by Vitalik Buterin’s recent proposal to increase the gas limit on the network.

Buterin’s suggestion, made on January 11th, called for a “modest” 33% boost in the gas limit, aiming to enhance network throughput.

The proposed gas limit increase from the current 30 million to 40 million would potentially allow more transactions per block, thereby increasing the network’s overall throughput and capacity.

However, Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden raised some concerns about this move in a blog post titled “Why increasing the gas limit is difficult.”

One of the primary concerns is the expansion of the blockchain state, which encompasses account balances and smart contract data.

Currently, the state requires approximately 267 gigabytes (GB) of storage space, and increasing the gas limit would only exacerbate this issue.

While storage costs may be relatively low, accessing and modifying this expanding data would become progressively slower, with no clear solutions for managing state growth.

Furthermore, increasing the gas limit would also lead to longer synchronization times and complicate the development of diverse Ethereum clients, according to Wijden.

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Gnosis co-founder Martin Köppelmann echoed these concerns, highlighting the potential bandwidth increase associated with raising the gas limit.

Péter Szilágyi, Ethereum’s team lead, also acknowledged the downsides of increasing the gas limit, emphasizing the faster growth of the state, the quicker slowdown of synchronization, and the heightened potential for denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.

The gas limit represents the maximum amount of work and gas expended when executing Ethereum transactions or smart contracts in each block.

It serves to maintain block sizes within reasonable limits to preserve network performance and synchronization.

Potential solutions to these challenges include proposed upgrades such as EIP-4444, addressing chain history expiration, and EIP-4844, which introduces “blobs” to improve rollup data availability and mitigate long-term growth trends.

Software developer Micah Zoltu contributed to the discussion, emphasizing the importance of enabling real-world users to run Ethereum nodes on everyday machines.

However, achieving this goal becomes more challenging as the state and full blockchain size continue to expand, emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to Ethereum’s scalability and accessibility.

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