nickovs - Slashdot User

Submission + - Melania Trump launches her own cryptocurrency

Submitted by nickovs on Monday January 20, 2025 @03:25AM

nickovs writes: As if the world needed another cryptocurrency, Melania Trump has launched a "meme" crypto token of her own, $MELANIA, a crypto "asset" created and tracked on the Solana blockchain. Whether this will be interpreted as wanton grift, a cashing in on celebrity or an opportunity to invest in supporting the new First Lady will likely depend on where you sit on the political spectrum.
It should be noted that, according to the BBC:

Disclaimers on the websites of both the $Trump and $Melania coins said they were "not intended to be, or the subject of" an investment opportunity or a security.

Submission + - Not mining Bitcoin is now more profitable than mining it

Submitted by nickovs on Thursday September 07, 2023 @08:23PM

nickovs writes: The Register reports that the Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms made more money in August from not mining Bitcoin than from doing so, as s result of credits that the company received for not running its mining rigs.

Not only did it make more money from power credits and demand response credits than it did from mining coins, the company's monthly report shows that August credits totalled $31.6M, more than two and half times the total value of bitcoins mined in July, when energy prices, and credits, were significantly lower.

The Register reports that:

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) operates a demand response program that allows big energy consumers, like Riot, to earn power credits for using less of it for operations and selling power back to the grid, as well as additional credit for being enrolled in its demand response programs.

Submission + - Masayuki Uemura, designer of the Nintendo Entertainment System, dies

Submitted by nickovs on Tuesday December 14, 2021 @10:11AM

nickovs writes: The Times has an obituary for Masayuki Uemura, designer of the first Nintendo Entertainment System console. The NES was not the first video game console:

But in 1985, the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States changed the industry forever. The unassuming gray box with its distinctive controllers became a must-have for an entire generation of children and prompted Nintendo’s virtual monopoly over the industry for the better part of a decade as competitors pulled out of the market in response to the company’s dominance.

The quality of the games that became available for the NES, including titles like Super Mario Brothers, made it much more appealing than pervious boxes and that lead to its commercial success. These games would not have been possible without the hardware that Uemura designed.

Submission + - Blue Origin gets a paying customer

Submitted by nickovs on Thursday March 09, 2017 @09:49AM

nickovs writes: Blue Origin was started as a "moon shot" company by Jeff Bezos and recently claimed that it would be offering an "Amazon-like" delivery service to the moon by 2020. In the mean time it seems their customers will be slightly closer to Earth: this week they announced that they now have a paying customer in the form of the satellite TV company Eutelsat. While this isn't a huge technical milestone it is a major business milestone, turning Blue Origin from a hobby business into one which might eventually make a profit. According to a New York Times article:

The commercial partnership brings Blue Origin closer in line with SpaceX, created by Elon Musk, which has been launching satellites and taking NASA cargo to the International Space Station for several years.

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