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There was a startup about a decade ago when crypto was just kind of becoming a mainstream-ish thing, where if someone emailed you, it would intercept it if it w

There was a startup about a decade ago when crypto was just kind of becoming a mainstream-ish thing, where if someone emailed you, it would intercept it if it wasn’t on your contact list, and the app would automatically ask them for a bitcoin bribe to have you actually get the email to land in your inbox. I wonder weekly whatever happened to that company. I wish it took off. I get 100+ emails like this “handbook” a day and discard all of them. Want my attention? Spend your ad dollars on it, literally.

avarun 2y ago
You're referring to Balaji Srinivasan's startup, Earn, right? It was acquired by Coinbase and became Coinbase Earn, at which point Balaji became Coinbase's CTO, around 2018. I believe it's since been shut down.
- csomar 2y ago
  > In September 2024, Srinivasan started The Network School, a school for people interested in developing "network nations" and "decentralized countries." Located in Forest City, Johor, Malaysia, the school had an initial enrollment of 150. Students are required to have an admiration of “Western values,” to believe Bitcoin is the successor to the US Federal Reserve, and to trust AI over human courts and judges.[21] From Wikipedia. Quite interesting. Will make sure to visit next time am in Malaysia.
  - alexp2021 2y ago
    Won't be easy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/18/malaysia-china-real-estate-countrygarden-forestcity/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/18/malaysia-china-real-est...
  - dbspin 2y ago
    > Students are required to have an admiration of “Western values,” to believe Bitcoin is the successor to the US Federal Reserve, and to trust AI over human courts and judges. Faith based education alive and well. That final requirement seems... Interesting to say the least.
guappa 2y ago
Ah slack promised me to send me some swag if I responded to a survey done on the phone by a real person. They never sent anything at all.
mananaysiempre 2y ago
Proof of work as a way of making spam expensive was literally one of the suggested applications of hashcash, the first proof-of-work scheme (no ledger yet), at the time of its announcement in 1997[1]. [1] http://www.hashcash.org/papers/announce.txt http://www.hashcash.org/papers/announce.txt
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  Next year: Hashcash consumes a fifth of the energy in the world. Wonder if malware in that timeline would steal computing from victims to spam other victims.

avarun 2y ago

You're referring to Balaji Srinivasan's startup, Earn, right? It was acquired by Coinbase and became Coinbase Earn, at which point Balaji became Coinbase's CTO, around 2018. I believe it's since been shut down.

csomar 2y ago
> In September 2024, Srinivasan started The Network School, a school for people interested in developing "network nations" and "decentralized countries." Located in Forest City, Johor, Malaysia, the school had an initial enrollment of 150. Students are required to have an admiration of “Western values,” to believe Bitcoin is the successor to the US Federal Reserve, and to trust AI over human courts and judges.[21] From Wikipedia. Quite interesting. Will make sure to visit next time am in Malaysia.
- alexp2021 2y ago
  Won't be easy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/18/malaysia-china-real-estate-countrygarden-forestcity/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/18/malaysia-china-real-est...
- dbspin 2y ago
  > Students are required to have an admiration of “Western values,” to believe Bitcoin is the successor to the US Federal Reserve, and to trust AI over human courts and judges. Faith based education alive and well. That final requirement seems... Interesting to say the least.

guappa 2y ago

Ah slack promised me to send me some swag if I responded to a survey done on the phone by a real person. They never sent anything at all.

mananaysiempre 2y ago

Proof of work as a way of making spam expensive was literally one of the suggested applications of hashcash, the first proof-of-work scheme (no ledger yet), at the time of its announcement in 1997[1]. [1] http://www.hashcash.org/papers/announce.txt http://www.hashcash.org/papers/announce.txt

ASalazarMX 2y ago
Next year: Hashcash consumes a fifth of the energy in the world. Wonder if malware in that timeline would steal computing from victims to spam other victims.