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Only nine months of bitcoin supply in exchanges at current prices

Ana Mary Joseph
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Only nine months of bitcoin supply in exchanges at current prices
  • Each bitcoin halving sharpens the narrative of bitcoin as not just a currency, but a scarce digital asset, akin to digital gold.

Bitcoin exchanges have only nine months of supply at current prices due to the upcoming cryptocurrency halving, which reduces supply by 50 per cent.

Ben Zhou, Co-Founder and CEO of Bybit, one of the world’s top three crypto exchanges by volume, said that post-halving, the bitcoin supply squeeze is expected to intensify.

The halving is expected to take place on April 19 or 20, depending on the current rate at which bitcoins are created.

In bitcoin’s first halving in November 2012, bitcoin’s price rose from $12.35 to $127 five months later. After the second halving in 2016, bitcoin’s price doubled to $1,280 within eight months. And between the third halving in May 2020 and March 2021, bitcoin’s price rose from $8,700 to $60,000. 

Reserves depleting faster

According to the Bybit report, bitcoin reserves in all centralised exchanges have been depleting faster.

“With only 2 million bitcoins left, if we assume a daily inflow of $500 million to bitcoin spot ETFs, the equivalent of around 7,142 bitcoins will leave exchange reserves daily, suggesting that it will only take nine months to consume all of the remaining reserves.”

This technical event, written in bitcoin’s code, happens every four years. In simple terms, it is when the rewards for bitcoin miners are cut in half. This reduces the pace at which new bitcoins enter the market.

Moreover, the halving will make bitcoin twice as rare as gold, according to the report.

“The Stock-to-Flow (S2F) ratio is calculated by dividing the circulating supply of a commodity by its annual production, yielding a gauge of scarcity,” the report says.

“Bitcoin’s S2F ratio is around 56 before the upcoming halving, while gold is 60. After the halving in April 2024, bitcoin’s S2F ratio is projected to double to 112.”

Safest investment choice

Given this institutional investors have been ahead of the curve and positioned for this event in advance, especially since the US approval of Bitcoin Spot ETFs.

Zhou said that each bitcoin halving sharpens the narrative of bitcoin as not just a currency, but a scarce digital asset, akin to digital gold.

“This upcoming halving in 2024 will thrust bitcoin into an era of unprecedented scarcity, making it twice as rare as gold.”

The report stated that bitcoin is becoming the safest investment choice even for the most sophisticated investors in the crypto field as the price correlation between Bitcoin and the rest of cryptocurrency has been consistently high, and investment in bitcoin has also been regarded as the cryptocurrency with the lowest beta.

Researchers enhance the confidence levels of AI systems

Ana Mary Joseph
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Researchers enhance the confidence levels of AI systems
  • A new measure for distinguishing between high- and low- confidence AI decision making can significantly boost the safety and reliability of autonomous vehicles and other applications.

Can deep learning architectures achieve greatly above-average confidence for a significant portion of inputs while maintaining overall average confidence?

Findings by a new Bar-Ilan University study provide an emphatic “YES” to this question, marking a significant leap forward in AI’s ability to discern and respond to varying levels of confidence in classification tasks.

By leveraging insights into the confidence levels of deep architectures, the research team has opened new avenues for real-world applications, ranging from autonomous vehicles to healthcare.

The study was published by a team of researchers led by Prof. Ido Kanter from Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Physics and Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Centre.

“Understanding the confidence levels of AI systems allow us to develop applications that prioritise safety and reliability,” Ella Koresh, an undergraduate student and a contributor to the research, said.

Confidence gap

The typical aim of classification tasks is to maximise the accuracy of the predicted label for a given input. This accuracy increases with the confidence, which is the maximal value of the output units, and when the accuracy equals confidence, calibration is achieved.

Herein, several methods are proposed to enhance the accuracy of inputs with similar confidence, extending significantly beyond calibration. Using the first gap between the maximal and second maximal output values, the accuracy of the inputs with similar confidence is enhanced.

The extension of the confidence or confidence gap to their minimal value among a set of augmented inputs further enhances the accuracy of inputs with similar confidence.

For instance, in the context of autonomous vehicles, when confidence in identifying a road sign is exceptionally high, Koresh said the system can autonomously make decisions.

However, in scenarios where confidence levels are lower, she said the system prompts for human intervention, ensuring cautious and informed decision-making.

Enhancing the confidence levels of AI systems holds profound implications across diverse domains, from AI-based writing and image classification to critical decision-making processes in healthcare and autonomous vehicles.

By enabling AI systems to make more nuanced and reliable decisions when faced with uncertainty, this research sets a new standard for AI performance and safety.

Galaxy AI helps Samsung regain its top slot in Q1 2024

Ana Mary Joseph
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Galaxy AI helps Samsung regain its top slot in Q1 2024
  • Apple, facing headwinds in strategic markets, came second with a 16 per cent market share.
  • All eyes are on Apple in 2024, which is highly likely to make an AI announcement that would provide opportunities for the brand to drive its premium offerings and reignite product innovation across its ecosystem.
  • Vivo, OPPO and Samsung aim to gain a larger share of the premium market by investing heavily in marketing and exploring new avenues for growth.

Even though Apple captured the top spot in 2023, Samsung successfully reasserted itself as the leading smartphone provider in the first quarter, driven by positive sentiment with the introduction of Galaxy AI.

Apple came second with a 16 per cent market share, facing headwinds in strategic markets such as China with the resurgence of Huawei.

Worldwide smartphone shipments grew 11 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2024.

“The worldwide smartphone market started the year on a positive note, marking a significant improvement on the same period last year. Q1 2023 struggled due to a sluggish economy and inflationary pressures,” Canalys Analyst Le Xuan Chiew, said.

But with the economy stabilising, new product launches and strong promotional efforts, he said the market has rebounded, offering smartphone vendors an excellent opportunity to revitalise growth.

Moreover, he said that vendors are seizing new opportunities by promoting premium offerings that set them apart, such as cutting-edge AI features and services on flagship products, and using ecosystem-based product strategies.

However, he said that all eyes are on Apple in 2024, which is highly likely to make an AI announcement that would provide opportunities for the brand to drive its premium offerings and reignite product innovation across its ecosystem.

Emerging markets on radar

 “The market is increasingly price-polarised. The entry-level segment is saturated, with new offerings from Xiaomi and TRANSSION. Meanwhile, vivo, OPPO and Samsung aim to gain a larger share of the premium market by investing heavily in marketing and exploring new avenues for growth,” he said.

By consistently promoting Galaxy AI, he said that Samsung has successfully boosted sales of its S24 series, which has surpassed the performance of its predecessor.

Looking ahead, he said that vendors are ramping up investments in emerging regions, such as Latin America and Southeast Asia as these markets boast a flourishing middle class, where smartphone penetration continues to rise compared with saturated markets, alongside evolving preferences for high-end models.

Xiaomi is coming back strong from the large declines experienced over the past two years and Transsion is becoming a stable presence in the Top 5 with aggressive growth in international markets.

Inventory correction

“Despite an upbeat market, it is vital that smartphone vendors keep a watchful eye on inventory levels,” Lucas Zhong, Canalys Research Analyst, said.

“With uncertain global inflationary conditions, vendors are exercising caution in inventory management to mitigate the risk of oversupply and ensure financial stability. Anticipating a slight inventory correction in the second quarter of 2024, the channel aims to digest the aggressive shipments of past quarters, making room for new launches later in the year to bring about more sustainable longer-term growth.”

Scientists find ways to secure quantum computing at home

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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Scientists find ways to secure quantum computing at home
  • Scientists at Oxford University Physics use an approach dubbed “blind quantum computing”, which connects two totally separate quantum computing entities – potentially an individual at home or in an office accessing a cloud server – in a completely secure way.
  • The results could ultimately lead to commercial development of devices to plug into laptops, to safeguard data when people are using quantum cloud computing services.
  • Clients can access remote quantum computers to process confidential data with secret algorithms and even verify the results are correct, without revealing any useful information.

Even though several cloud-based providers like Google, Amazon and IBM offer some elements of quantum computing, safeguarding the privacy and security of customer data is still a concern and a challenge.

Delegating quantum computations to a server carries the same privacy and security concerns that bedevil classical cloud computing as users are currently unable to hide their work from the server or to independently verify their results in the regime where classical simulations become intractable.

However, scientists at Oxford University Physics have addressed this issue by using an approach dubbed “blind quantum computing”, which connects two totally separate quantum computing entities – potentially an individual at home or in an office accessing a cloud server – in a completely secure way. Importantly, their new methods could be scaled up to large quantum computations.

The research promises to unlock the transformative potential of cloud-based quantum computing and the full power of next-generation quantum computing could soon be harnessed by millions of individuals and companies.

“We have shown for the first time that quantum computing in the cloud can be accessed in a scalable, practical way which will also give people complete security and privacy of data, plus the ability to verify its authenticity,” Professor David Lucas, who co-heads the Oxford University Physics research team and is lead scientist at the UK Quantum Computing and Simulation Hub, led from Oxford University Physics, said.

Secret algorithms

Quantum computing is developing rapidly, paving the way for new applications which could transform services in many areas like healthcare and financial services. It works in a fundamentally different way to conventional computing and is potentially far more powerful.

However, it currently requires controlled conditions to remain stable and there are concerns around data authenticity and the effectiveness of current security and encryption systems.

By using blind quantum computing, study lead Dr Peter Drmota of Oxford University Physics, said that clients can access remote quantum computers to process confidential data with secret algorithms and even verify the results are correct, without revealing any useful information.

“Realising this concept is a big step forward in both quantum computing and keeping our information safe online.”

Unique combination

The researchers created a system comprising a fibre network link between a quantum computing server and a simple device detecting photons, or particles of light, at an independent computer remotely accessing its cloud services. This allows so-called blind quantum computing over a network.

Every computation incurs a correction which must be applied to all that follow and needs real-time information to comply with the algorithm. The researchers used a unique combination of quantum memory and photons to achieve this.

“Never in history has the issues surrounding privacy of data and code been more urgently debated than in the present era of cloud computing and artificial intelligence,” Lucas said.

“As quantum computers become more capable, people will seek to use them with complete security and privacy over networks, and our new results mark a step change in capability in this respect.”

The results could ultimately lead to commercial development of devices to plug into laptops, to safeguard data when people are using quantum cloud computing services.

Russia tops list of world’s first “cybercrime index”

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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Russia tops list of world’s first “cybercrime index”
  • Ukraine is ranked second, followed by China, the US, Nigeria and Romania.
  • The data was gathered through a survey of 92 leading cybercrime experts from around the world who are involved in cybercrime intelligence gathering and investigations.
  • The study will enable the public and private sectors to focus their resources on key cybercrime hubs and spend less time and funds on cybercrime countermeasures in countries where the problem is not as significant.

Russia houses the greatest cybercriminal threat, followed by Ukraine, China, the US, Nigeria and Romania, according to a team of researchers that have compiled the first ever ‘World Cybercrime Index’.

Although the geography of cybercrime attacks has been documented, the geography of cybercrime offenders – and the corresponding level of “cybercriminality” present within each country – is largely unknown.

The data collection for this project, following three years of intensive research, was carried out as part of a partnership between the Department of Sociology, University of Oxford and UNSW Canberra Cyber and funded by CrimGov, a European Union-supported project based at the University of Oxford and Sciences Po, designed to introduce and validate a new framework for the study of organised crime.

The index shows that a relatively small number of countries house the greatest cybercriminal threat.

Iran is ranked eleventh while the UAE is ranked twenty-fourth and Pakistan at forty-fourth.

The data was gathered through a survey of 92 leading cybercrime experts from around the world who are involved in cybercrime intelligence gathering and investigations.

Countermeasures

Where the cybercriminals live is not necessarily where the cyberattacks are coming from. An offender from Romania can control zombies in a botnet, mostly located in the United States, from which to send spam to countries all over the world, with links contained in them to phishing sites located in China. The cybercriminal’s reach is not limited by national borders.

As cybercriminals often employ proxy services to hide their IP addresses, carry out attacks across national boundaries, collaborate with partners around the world, and draw on infrastructure based in different countries, superficial measures do not capture the true geographical distribution of these offenders.

The survey asked the experts to consider five major categories of cybercrime, nominate the countries that they consider to be the most significant sources of each of these types of cybercrime, and then rank each country according to the impact, professionalism, and technical skill of its cybercriminals.

Dr Miranda Bruce from the University of Oxford and UNSW Canberra and Co-author of the study said the study will enable the public and private sectors to focus their resources on key cybercrime hubs and spend less time and funds on cybercrime countermeasures in countries where the problem is not as significant.

Monitoring emergence of new hotspots

“The research that underpins the Index will help remove the veil of anonymity around cybercriminal offenders, and hope that it will aid the fight against the growing threat of profit-driven cybercrime,” Bruce said.

“We now have a deeper understanding of the geography of cybercrime, and how different countries specialise in different types of cybercrime.”

“By continuing to collect this data, we’ll be able to monitor the emergence of any new hotspots and it is possible that early interventions could be made in at-risk countries before a serious cybercrime problem even develops.”

Jonathan Lusthaus, Associate Professor from the University of Oxford’s Department of Sociology and Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and Co-author of the study, said that cybercrime has largely been an invisible phenomenon because offenders often mask their physical locations by hiding behind fake profiles and technical protections.

“Due to the illicit and anonymous nature of their activities, cybercriminals cannot be easily accessed or reliably surveyed. They are actively hiding. If you try to use technical data to map their location, you will also fail, as cybercriminals bounce their attacks around internet infrastructure across the world. The best means we have to draw a picture of where these offenders are located is to survey those whose job it is to track these people,” Dr Lusthaus said.

The World Cybercrime Index is the first step in a broader aim to understand the local dimensions of cybercrime production across the world, Professor Federico Varese from Sciences Po in France and Co-author of the study, said.

“We are hoping to expand the study so that we can determine whether national characteristics like educational attainment, internet penetration, GDP or levels of corruption are associated with cybercrime. Many people think that cybercrime is global and fluid, but this study supports the view that, much like forms of organised crime, it is embedded within particular contexts,” Varese said.

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Wearable electronic vest turns fish into underwater spies

Naushad K. Cherrayil
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Wearable electronic vest turns fish into underwater spies
  • An underwater vest containing an antioxidant MXene hydrogel captures disturbances in the water flow caused by the movements of fish to understand their adaptive behaviours and ethological characteristics.
  • The device features a pair of pseudocapacitive pressure-sensing units, offering a robust and noninvasive approach for the in-depth study of aquatic behaviours.

Researches from National University of Defense Technology have pioneered a wearable tagging electronic device, referred to as an underwater vest, which adeptly captures disturbances in the water flow caused by the movements of fish to understand their adaptive behaviours and ethological characteristics.

The device utilises an advanced MXene hydrogel known for its remarkable sensitivity to changes in water pressure. The device features a pair of pseudocapacitive pressure-sensing units, offering a robust and noninvasive approach for the in-depth study of aquatic behaviours.

The hybrid hydrogel electrodes were developed through cross-linking MXene with holey-reduced graphene oxide nanosheets and further modification with 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium dicyanamide ionic liquids, which increased the interfacial capacitance and long-term interfacial activity of the MXene.

Consequently, the sensing unit exhibited ultrahigh sensitivity in an aquatic environment for 60 days and superior high-pressure resolution (10 Pa) within a wide working range of 1 MPa.

Ultimately, an underwater vest integrated with such sensing units clearly distinguished and recorded fish locomotion. 

Advancing aquatic research

A koi fish with a length of about 30 cm was placed in the sensing vest and used as the experimental subject, and it was placed in a water tank with a depth of about 40 cm.

Moreover, an underwater camera (S3, Ezviz Technology Co., Ltd.) was placed in the tank to track changes in the locomotion of the fish.

Whether a fish turns, speeds up, or dips, the vest’s pseudocapacitive pressure-sensing units register these actions with unparalleled precision.

“This wearable device significantly advances aquatic research. It transcends the constraints of traditional systems and paves the way for comprehensive studies on fish behaviour and their ecological interactions,” Dr. Jiafei Hu, the lead researcher from the National University of Defense Technology, said.

Moreover, he said the introduction of the underwater vest signifies a major advancement in research methodologies, enabling precise, real-time insights into fish behaviours and their environmental dynamics.

“Its implications for environmental conservation, aquatic ecosystem studies, and the development of sophisticated monitoring technologies are profound and far-reaching.”

The potential applications of underwater vests are promising and attractive; additionally, the underwater vests can be used for recording fish movements and migration routes and even for monitoring weak flow fields, such as seismic waves and ocean currents.

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