If you’re a fan of subverting the Iranian government—and who isn't—don’t HODL your stash on Binance. To comply with US regulators, the crypto exchange has demanded its Iranian traders withdraw their funds, after Iran’s rial currency was sanctioned by Trump in April.
The Bitcoin community in Iran was thriving. A travel agent told Decrypt in July that he’d switched to the currency to skirt sanctions on the dollar. And really, Iran is the perfect use case for bitcoin; a country whose people, clear as day, are actually being failed by fiat currency, not just fedora-toting namby pambies pretending to be oppressed because daddy won’t share his hedge fund.
And Binance wants to ban them.
Thrilling trailer for an un-thrilling game
It’s hard to get people pumped for a card game, even if it’s on the blockchain. Either you’ll bore them to sleep, or trick them into a false state of excitement that will rapidly subside when they realize it’s just a load of paper. New Coinbase-backed blockchain card game Gods Unchained manages to uncomfortably straddle both extremes in its new trailer (!!!).
For the few who don’t know, Gods Unchained is an Ethereum based trading game that promises “decentralized ownership” of its “Magic: The Gathering”-inspired cards (almost like real cards!). It raised, somehow, $2.4 million in an initial seed-funding round earlier this year and one of its not-real cards has already sold for $60,000. If nothing else, it’s proof the “blockchain” tag has genuine appeal in collectibles, as we saw with CryptoKitties.
So the trailer. A colossal demon that probably isn’t real rasps “Blood, Gore, Bone, Tears... ‘These are the only currencies I accept.’” (He also accepts ETH, which he neglects to mention.) Then is a parade of review-excerpts that, judging by the usernames, sound like they were lifted from a Stormfront discussion forum. (“Fast, furious gameplay”-TrumpSC.)
Spliced into this are shots of the game itself, which, in an industry that now fully renders horse-testicle-shrinking, seems a bit naff. It’s basically online blackjack, with little explosion noises that give it the illusion of being really exciting and fun and an actual battle when really you’re just dying slowly in your study chair clicking on rectangles. Gee, at least play games that you can pretend are more fun than life.
Morning McAfee
Ever wanted the thrill of paying inordinate sums of money for rare art, without the hassle of actually getting to own it?
Enter leathery old man John McAfee, who has announced his partnership with Maecenas, which is conducting the “first ‘perpetual’ digitalization and tokenization of a Picasso work of fine art.” (It’s not clear which work specifically, but rest assured, it’s a “masterpiece.”)
What this means is that the painting is made “perpetually inaccessible” yet is also sort of co-owned by token holders, who decide upon the painting’s physical release from wherever the hell it’s being kept after a “minimum amount of time has passed well into the future.”
Upon which, we assume, the token holders will pass the masterwork to and fro among themselves, endlessly, like an unloved bastard child.
In other news:
- Bitcoin Cash splits in two, nobody has a clue what will happen next.
- Erik Voorhees’s past comes back to bite him.
- The DEX taking a last stand against the SEC
Read next: Bitcoin Cash preamble