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Business, Crypto, News, Observation, Tech

Cryptocurrency-funded groups called DAOs are becoming charities – here are some issues to watch

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Cryptocurrency is becoming a more familiar way to pay for things.

One option is as part of a crowd, through a decentralized autonomous organization. In this relatively new kind of group, also called a DAO, decisions and choices are governed by holders of one kind of cryptocurrency token, such as ethereum or bitcoin. DAOs also use “smart contracts” that make decisions through online votes by all participants who wish to weigh in and other forms of automation.

DAOs are essentially clubs that harness both crowdfunding and cryptocurrency to operate in arenas from art to sports. They are also cropping up in philanthropy.

One good example is the Big Green DAO. Launched in late 2021, it’s tied to a decade-old food justice charity that had revenue in excess of US$9 million in 2019.

Big Green’s founder is Kimbal Musk, who is Elon Musk’s brother and a member of Tesla’s board. The DAO version of his nonprofit promises to “disrupt philanthropic hierarchies” by reducing overhead spending and shaving other expenses.

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New terrain

Based on my research regarding crypto-assets, I believe that there are several considerations that donors and charities should keep in mind as these arrangements emerge.

First, DAOs have little if any formal infrastructure. Some states simply require one individual to be designated as the agent of record. Wyoming passed a law in 2021 – the first of its kind in the United States – that legally recognizes DAOs as legal entities. It still requires the DAO to be organized as a Wyoming-based limited liability company, with an individual identified as the registered agent.

In theory, at least, when combined with the quick nature of how DAO decisions are made, this means that nonprofits can achieve more and respond more quickly to changing circumstances, while spending less on administrative staff and other kinds of overhead.

Until now, most cryptocurrency donations to charities simply provided capital to eligible organizations that operate like any other standard nonprofit.

For tax purposes, donating cryptocurrency is like giving away stocks, bonds or other property, rather than donating money. This means, typically, that cryptocurrency donations actually provide donors with a larger tax benefit versus cash donations. If a donor were to instead liquidate their cryptocurrency prior to making a gift, they would first have to pay capital gains taxes, and they would have less money to give away.

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However, it’s unclear whether funds can legally flow to, through and out of a charitable decentralized autonomous organization.

Nonprofits are subject to regulatory enforcement and need to be chartered in a particular state. So far, it’s unclear how regulators, such as the Internal Revenue Service or state charity offices, will be able to monitor or audit these groups.

It’s also unclear whether the very nature of DAOs is compatible with charitable donations.

In most, if not all, instances of for-profit DAOs – or even DAOs organized for a specific one-time purpose, such as attempting to purchase an original copy of the U.S. Constitution – cash or appreciated property that is contributed to the organization is exchanged for governance tokens. The tokens essentially represent a fractional form of collective ownership.

This could be problematic. When donors make charitable contributions, they relinquish the money or asset they just gave to the charity. A basic condition for having a donation be eligible for favorable tax treatment by the authorities is that the donor gets nothing of value in return.

The authorities may eventually determine that the distribution of virtual tokens to donors, even if those tokens aren’t used for anything outside the scope of the nonprofit, violates this precondition.

Wild rides

The clearest risk with those gifts is probably their volatility.

Overall, the cryptocurrency’s total market value sank to $1.6 trillion on Feb. 3, 2022, down from $2.85 trillion three months earlier.

Charities either need to convert these donations into U.S. dollars right away, as they do with donated stocks, or gamble regarding their future value.

Despite all the operational, financial and legal obstacles nonprofit DAOs face, I’m excited about the opportunities with these crowd-managed charities funded by cryptocurrency donations because of their potential for a high degree of transparency paired with low overhead.

Sean Stein Smith, Assistant Professor of Economics and Business, Lehman College, CUNY

Originally published from The Conversation by Sean Stein Smith and republished under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Books, Documentaries, Entertainment, Movies

Digging Deep Can Payoff: Netflix Suggestion Engine can be Challenging

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Finding ‘The Professor and the Madman’ was an exception to the often frustrating process

Click to see ” Professor and the Madman” Also available on Amazon.

How many times have you searched or browsed the various suggestions prepared for you by the Netflix algorithm, only to get lost in confusion? Perhaps it’s a little like a self-driving car or a spell-checker, when it works you feel magically guided to your destination (or spelling) but when it doesn’t work, you are likely in trouble. 

Choosing the newest or the most watched is no fool-proof either. Often, when a better movie rises organically to the Netflix top ten, it’s an older film that people discovered all at once, for some reason, rather than a new release or “original” production. 

Such was the case when, after I made a series of unwatchable depressing choices, and then stumbled on “The Professor and the Madman”.

In this time of mandatory streaming, big screen production values are more important than ever

Based on a loved book of the same name, originally published as “The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words” by British writer Simon Winchester, first published in England in 1998. For the USA and Canada the title was changed to “The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary”

Unlike many featured Netflix titles which come across as budget-conscious direct to streaming productions the fist thing noticeable in the opening sequence is that this is a “real movie” with a serious cinematic presentation. It only gets better from there. 

Above: Photo / Netflix

Starring Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Natalie Dormer, Eddie Marsan, Jennifer Ehle, Jeremy Irvine, David O’Hara, Ioan Gruffudd, Stephen Dillane, Laurence Fox, and Steve Coogan, there’s a rare combination of megastar acting talent in a setting that is both age appropriate (the lead characters are both late in life as the drama unfolds) and produced with absolutely impeccable and ensemble acting.

Read more: Netflix excites with 71 Movies to be released during 2021

Unlike so many films that appear to have a concept that was half based on a calculation in the production budget – for example “An Imperfect Murder” and “The Midnight Sky” which seem to reduce the number of characters and screen time as a way to produce something with a higher change of recouping costs and producing profit, rather than any artistic or aesthetic inspiration, “The Professor and the Madman” is a full cinematic experience that translates to any screen. 

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Coronavirus

How Reliable is Coronavirus Data? Indications of Manipulation, not just in China

Many factors contribute to the haze of confusion surrounding the facts

The coronavirus pandemic is sowing confusion across the globe, not just medically but in the representation of fact vs. hopes. Since, 1918, most of the world has not experienced anything akin to a global outbreak of this magnitude. In order to navigate this novel landscape, quality, consistent, and factual information is essential. Unfortunately, many journalists are already getting the boot during the shutdown, which causes trusted reporting to be less available, but the stifling of facts does not stop there, as now scientific integrity may be in question too.

As harrowing as COVID-19 is, the disease is presenting new opportunities for scientists and medical researchers. Academically speaking, it is an irresistibly hot topic, and any significant contribution to its study could launch a career. Thus, there is a budding competitiveness amongst the scientific community, with many researchers rushing to uncover something (anything) about the coronavirus and get it published.

Read More: Words We Live By, a.k.a How Coronavirus has changed Language

According to a new post on Harvard Law’s Bill Of Health website, a recent study from Stanford University epitomizes the chaotic drive for scientific corona-findings right now. The Stanford study is documented in an unpublished paper titled, “COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence In Santa Clara County, California.” It describes a procedure whereby the scientists tested multiple Santa Clara County residents for the SARS-Cov-2 antibody, which causes COVID-19. The ultimate findings suggest that many more Santa Clara residents had the virus than sought treatment for it.

By extension, the scientists suppose that this conclusion could be true for other parts of the world as well. If it is, it could significantly alter the reported data as well as the global reaction to the virus.

Peers in the scientific community, however, express skepticism towards the Stanford study, citing dire flaws in its methodology. First off, Stanford improperly selected its subjects for the tests. Rather than creating an algorithm for testing random individuals from the Santa Clara area, it fished for volunteers on Facebook, attracting people more likely to seek out testing in the first place and ergo, more likely to have symptoms. Using social media also means that they probably drew in a younger crowd, catering to a demographic that is less at risk and therefore less prone to hospitalize or report feeling sick.

Critics also note some inconsistencies in the data itself, particularly the section that takes into account the risk-factor of faulty equipment or inaccurate results. Overall, the results are more than a little suspicious, depicting a possible example of scientists getting excited over this unprecedented natural phenomenon and jumping to conclusions.

Read More: “Wuhan Diary” reveals inside accounts of Coronavirus Lockdown During the Peak

Politics, ratings and money are putting pressure on journalists and scientists alike

Of course, the scientific community meets even greater discrepancies when findings get thrown into the blenders of media and politics. Even when the science remains rightfully impartial, different forces can twist or manipulate data to tell a different story.

“If refusing to mislead the public during a health crisis is insubordination, then I will wear that badge with honor,”

Rebekah Jones in an interview with Chris Cuomo of CNN

In Florida, for example, Department of Health scientist recently lost her job for refusing to skew data. In a statement to CBS, she said that the Department wanted her to “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen.”

Jones’ job at the Department was to create Geographic Information Systems (maps) of Florida that topographically represented the spread of COVID-19 across the state. Her work was widely praised and her departure comes non-coincidentally around the same time that Florida Governor Ron Desantis is trying to reopen stores, restaurants, and barber shops across the Sunshine State.

In a leaked email, Jones warned other Florida Health Department workers to be weary of forthcoming data produced by the state, for it could easily be meddled in corrupt agendas.

Science, by definition, is the objective study of what is. When warped to fit a subjective point of view, though, it becomes something very dangerous—a destructively deceitful force disguised as the truth. Nowadays, truth is an unfortunately delicate term, but it is a necessity to conquer our current circumstance. If we lose science as the impartial study of truth, then we lose the facts, and thus lose our grasp on reality.

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