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If there is a social media phenomenon getting some kind of popularity, Meta will try to jump in. We have seen the company copy different kinds of formats ranging from Stories to short videos after seeing the success of other platforms. Now, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company is working on a decentralized text-based app.

Meta confirmed this development in a statement but didnt give out details about when it plans to release the app.

Were exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe theres an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests, a Meta spokesperson said.

This new decentralized app, codenamed P92, is still under development as first reported by MoneyControl. According to the documents seen by the publication, the app will let users log-in through their Instagram credentials. This could irk people who might not want to share that data with another Meta app.

A report by Platformer said that the project will be overseen by Instagram head Adam Mosseri. The company is already involving the legal department to sniff out early privacy concerns before the app is public, the report added.

Metas move is seen as its attempt to build a Twitter alternative or a Mastodon competitor. The latter gained popularity after Elon Musk took over Twitter. The decentralized network is part of the Fediverse a network of decentralized servers that supports the ActivityPub protocol. Metas new app also plans to support ActivityPub, making it easier to connect with other instances like Mastodon, according to MoneyControl.

There are plenty of other tools that have implemented (or are planning to implement) ActivityPub support, including Tumblr, Flipboard and Flickr.

But decentralization is not limited to this protocol. Jack Dorsey-backed Bluesky launched its iOS app in beta last week. And messaging apps like Rocket.chat have embraced the Matrix protocol.

However, former Twitter engineer Blaine Cook told TechCrunch last year that the existence of competing protocols is a good thing.

I think the diversity of protocol is important, as is the diversity of the applications built on top of the protocols. That said, I strongly believe that interoperability between ActivityPub and Bluesky wont be difficult. The only thing preventing, for example, interoperability between Twitter and Facebooks timeline has been protectionist policies by those companies, he noted.

Its important to remember that Meta has tried making new apps and experiences that havent always taken off. In the past few years, it has killed experiments like the anonymous teen app tbh, Cameo-like app Super, Nextdoor clone Neighborhoods, couples app Tuned, student-focused social network Campus, video speed dating service Sparked and TikTok clone Lasso, just to name a few. So it wont be surprising if the new decentralized experience shuts down in a couple of years after the launch.

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Meta is working on a decentralized social app - TechCrunch

Made famous by her love of innovation, Cathie Wood's Ark Invest is naturally a fan of Bitcoin (BTC 1.16%). Every month a team of Ark analysts explore statistics on the Bitcoin blockchain and other economic trends in an effort to gauge Bitcoin's overall position in the market and where it might be headed.

This month's report looked back on February. It was full of valuable information for investors and highlighted why Bitcoin will likely remain at the top of the cryptocurrency asset class for years to come.

Despite retreating more than 14% at the beginning of March, likely due to uncertainty in the crypto landscape as talks of regulation heated up and more crypto-related businesses went bankrupt, Bitcoin has actually had a great start to 2023. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin is up nearly 50% and looks to be the most resilient as it is one of the most resistant and resilient to regulation. This comes from a combination of its vast decentralization and high levels of security.

After a successful January, its price climbed further in February thanks to a new technology called Ordinals, which was introduced to make the Bitcoin blockchain non-fungible token (NFT) compatible. Before Ordinals, only blockchains with smart contracts could host NFTs.

With the introduction of Ordinals, the average block size of Bitcoin hit a new all-time high. Ark analysts believe this is a bullish sign as they view the limited space in each block as being similar to real estate. The less block size available, the more valuable the space becomes as demand increases.

Although still in their infancy, Ordinals could prove to add even more pressure to block space demand. While the launch of Ordinals and a stellar February were a bit of good news for Bitcoin, it seemed to be short-lived.

While there is reason to be optimistic about Bitcoin's future, Ark believes there are two unknown factors that could dampen growth -- looming regulation and an uncertain macroenvironment.

As a result of multiple catastrophes in 2022, politicians and legislators seem to be turning up the heat in the regulatory environment. Just three months into the year, there have been multiple examples of fines and penalties being levied against crypto-related businesses by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).

This is likely due to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler's beliefs that a majority of cryptocurrencies are actually securities and therefore fall within reach of the commission's jurisdiction.

To start off 2023, the SEC has already announced a settlement with the cryptocurrency exchange platform Kraken to suspend its staking product. The agency also sent a warning to the stablecoin issuer Paxos, which stated that its products also met the criteria of a security and to cease its offering.

Ark believes that these efforts by the SEC and other government agencies will only pick up in 2023 and could prove to be detrimental for the majority of cryptocurrencies.

However, it also believes that Bitcoin is different from other cryptocurrencies due to its high levels of decentralization. This opinion has been reaffirmed as chairman Gensler is on record saying multiple times that he considers Bitcoin a commodity and, therefore, outside of his commission's control.

Adding to potential regulation, Ark views the current macroeconomic environment as being less than ideal for more-risky assets like Bitcoin to grow. Analysts pointed to a handful of metrics like the monetary velocity, trends in consumer spending, and patterns in the 10-year Treasury yield as a reason to believe that not only will riskier assets continue to struggle but that a recession might even be looming.

While it remains unknown as to whether our worst fears come to be, Ark analysts painted a clear picture that in the current economic and regulatory landscape, Bitcoin is the safest option for those looking to invest in cryptocurrency. It reiterated this stance with a variety of supporting statistics, such as mining difficulty and the long-term holder supply, which show that even in the depths of a bear market, Bitcoin's blockchain is still relatively healthy.

As the future remains unclear, Bitcoin offers crypto investors a refreshing sense of hope that no matter what happens, it can still continue on its path of price appreciation.

RJ Fulton has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Here's What 1 of the Smartest Investors on the Planet Is Saying ... - The Motley Fool

On March 10, after days of uncertainty spurred on by $1.8 billion in surprise bond losses, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed, sending a tidal waves worth of ripple effects throughout the financial industry. The event quickly prompted the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve, and the FDIC to step in to effectively circumvent catastrophe and assure depositors of access to all of their funds, whether insured or not.

While the situation is still developing, the seeming fiasco has left those in traditional finance to shudder in remembrance of the 2008 financial crisis. Yet, the context of the collapse that SVB was a significantly popular choice for venture capitalists and tech startups has urged more contemporary investors (like those in Web3) to remark about the potential of decentralization in eschewing central bank issues.

But even so, in the days since the debacle, its become clear that the NFT space mightve actually dodged a bullet itself with help from regulators. Because while Web3 staunchly purports to be decentralized, some of the most prominent players seemingly only narrowly escaped being caught up in the debacle.

How did the 16th largest bank in the United States become the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history? To summarize, the collapse came down to two major factors.

The first is that, within the last year, the Federal Reserve has raised the Federal funds rate by nearly five percentage points in an attempt to tame inflation. These higher interest rates significantly chipped away at the value of long-term bonds that SVB and many other banks took on previously when interest rates were next to nothing.

The second factor concerns the quick and broad decline in tech revenue and venture capital experienced within the U.S. In response to the wane, startups had opted to withdraw funds held in SVB, meaning that the bank was facing significant unrealized losses in bonds while simultaneously, customer withdrawals were escalating. This, in turn, caused a run on the bank where customers panicked and all attempted to withdraw their money at once.

Only two days after the SVB closure, the Department of the Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC released a joint statement saying that depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13, and that no losses associated with the resolution of SVB would come from taxpayer dollars.

The statement also mentioned that regulators took these unusual steps because SVB presented a significant risk for the U.S. economy. While regulators continue to look for a buyer for SVB and the uncertainty for what comes next is mounting, HSBC has acquired SVB UK for a symbolic 1.

Outside the traditional finance world, those in the blockchain industry are doing their best to understand how the situation might have, and could still, affect their stomping grounds.

Not to be confused with the fall of FTX, this latest three-letter acronymous fiasco had a significantly less detrimental effect on the NFT space than the aforementioned failed crypto exchange. Thanks to the actions of the Federal Reserve and FDIC, the many accounts housed under SVB which included consumer accounts as well as those of high-profile companies like Roblox, Buzzfeed, Etsy, and more were made whole as of March 13.

But the fact remains that the SVB collapse couldve very significantly affected the blockchain industry. Because apart from crypto companies like Avalanche, BlockFi, Ripple, Pantera, and others that had funds locked up in the SVB debacle, numerous NFT adjacent entities wouldve been in for a world of hurt as well. Here are a few examples.

One of the most immediate and impactful concerns arose from the untethering of the USDC stablecoin. USDC lost its 1/1 peg to the U.S. dollar only hours after SVB was closed, and Circles $3.3 billion cash reserves (about eight percent of the funds backing USDC) went into limbo. Although the situation has since been rectified, USDC has yet to return to the $1 peg as Signature Bank (another institution critical to USDC holdings) was seized in the wake of a similar bank run.

The Proof Collective which has grown increasingly in popularity over the past few years thanks to the success of projects like Moonbirds,Oddities,and Grails became an immediate concern for the NFT community in the aftermath of the SVB news. Addressing the Proof community via Twitter, the project team confirmed that Proof held cash in SVB, although they didnt state how much. Further, they noted that they had diversified assets across ETH, stablecoins, and fiat.

When word first came down about SVB, many also looked to the popular PFP project Azuki (helmed by ex-big tech entrepreneur Zagabond) to see if it was affected. Yet, Zagabond quickly dispelled worry, stating to the projects thousands of Discord members that SVB was only one of their many banking partners and that the bank held less than five percent of project funds.

NFT community members also quickly voiced concern for Yuga Labs following SVBs closure. Yet, similar to Azuki, the brand made it clear that the fiasco wouldnt affect their business or plan in any way. Yuga founder Greg Solano announced via Discord that the company had super limited financial exposure to the situation.

Memeland, the Web3 venture studio created by Hong Kong-based meme-centric entertainment website 9GAG, was similarly minimally affected by the SVB collapse. Taking to Twitter, Ray Chan, CEO and Co-founder of 9GAG, shared that Memeland had only around $40,000 held in the bank, with no plans of withdrawing. He went on to voice his lack of concern about the fiasco as well, stating, when SVB falls down as quickly as FTX did, crypto and NFT dont look so risky at all.

Its no stretch to say that the implications of the SVB closure mightve been significantly worse had regulators not stepped in to guarantee deposits. Even considering the minimal exposure that most major NFT players had to the bank, Web3 wouldve surely felt ripples from the Circle situation alone, as USDC is a highly popular stablecoin to those in the NFT space.

Yet, a few key takeaways have emerged in response to the near-catastrophic experience. The most prominent of which has everything to do with the already widely held Web3 ethos: decentralization. Of course, this goes far beyond advocating for decentralization and keeping funds out of the central banking system (as many already do). Because the major lesson learned from the SVB fiasco is that to mitigate crypto and NFT risk, users should absolutely not keep all their assets in one place.

Surely, NFT-native users will have heard this warning time and time again. Aside from following the best practices in Web3 security, locking up assets for safekeeping or even simply spreading assets throughout multiple secure wallets and accounts could help mitigate risk significantly.

So goes the adage: Dont put all your eggs in one basket.

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A Web3 Cautionary Tale: The Biggest NFT Brands Had Funds in SVB - nft now

We have had three decades of decentralized local governments. Next month will mark the 30th anniversary of panchayati raj, when the 73rd and 74th amendments gave Constitutional status to rural panchayats and urban municipal councils. The conventional wisdom is that panchayati raj is a great idea, the amendments were faulty and while local government has created tens of thousands of local politicians, improvements in local governance itself have been marginal.

We have had three decades of decentralized local governments. Next month will mark the 30th anniversary of panchayati raj, when the 73rd and 74th amendments gave Constitutional status to rural panchayats and urban municipal councils. The conventional wisdom is that panchayati raj is a great idea, the amendments were faulty and while local government has created tens of thousands of local politicians, improvements in local governance itself have been marginal.

The idea of decentralizing power and situating it close to citizens has appeal. Yet, whatever political theory advertises, it must pass the empirical test. The crop might be bounteous, but it must grow on Indian soil. After 30 years, can we really claim that we are better off with panchayati raj than without it? Even its most fervent proponents will argue that this barrel is half-full. Only if you scrape the bottom, I would add.

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The idea of decentralizing power and situating it close to citizens has appeal. Yet, whatever political theory advertises, it must pass the empirical test. The crop might be bounteous, but it must grow on Indian soil. After 30 years, can we really claim that we are better off with panchayati raj than without it? Even its most fervent proponents will argue that this barrel is half-full. Only if you scrape the bottom, I would add.

The argument that the amendments had flaws or its implementation was undermined by Indias political economy avoids confronting more fundamental issues. In any case, as Ambedkar said, However good a constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad. However bad a constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove to be good." So we are back to the question of whether the crop of panchayati raj can grow well in the soil of Indian society. There are four broad reasons to challenge the assumption that grassroots democracy delivers.

First, as Ambedkar argued, there is an absence of fraternity at all levels of Indian society. People of an Indian village or town do not have a shared sense of civic community. There is, instead, an intense inter-group competition for resources, status, power and opportunities. Politics is primarily devoted to pursuing and managing this competition and, as a consequence, is poorly equipped to manage common resources or delivering quality public services. Can panchayati raj create the fraternity that is essential to its success? The empirical evidence suggests it does not: on the contrary, to the extent that caste and community identities are poles around which political mobilization takes place, it has perhaps created the opposite.

Second, the claim that local politics will lead to better governance must contend with the reality that Indian voters do not connect their electoral decisions with the delivery of better public services or economic development. The number of politicians who have been re-elected based on their track record of improving law-and-order, building infrastructure and raising growth is small. Populism, corruption, caste and communal mobilization are far more effective in winning elections at the state and national levels. Why should it be any different at panchayats or municipalities? After all, its the same electorates.

Third, people dont expect panchayati raj institutions to be accountable because the link between paying them direct taxes and receiving public services is weak. If you pay a part of your income to the local council to pay for schools, roads and hospitals, and if you are convinced that there is a connection between them, you are likely to hold the councillors accountable. This happens, to some extent, in urban resident welfare associations, where the payer-to-voter ratio is high. But it does not happen in panchayats and municipalities, as the direct taxpayer-to-voter ratio is very low.

Local governments can raise more revenues under various heads under their purview. But they dont. Their own revenues as a share of their total budget have been declining over the last decade. We can blame centrally sponsored schemes and non-decentralization of state finances for this, but how do you explain lack of interest in collecting property and other taxes that municipalities ought to? As Arvind Subramanian told me, The closer the government is to the people, the more unwilling it is to raise taxes." The downshot is that broadening the tax base is tantamount to narrowing the electoral base. Why would panchayati raj be more accountable for its governance responsibilities?

Finally, the lack of a republican consciousness among our citizens cannot be ignored. Democratic institutions are about role-playing: mayors, officials and magistrates are not exemplary individuals parachuted from another planet. They are ordinary citizens given constitutionally ring-fenced roles to play. It is not that we are incapable of playing these roles, but rather, nobody spends any effort educating citizens on their roles and responsibilities. Civic education is woefully short of demographic growth.

Indias raucous public sphere is filled with demands for a lot of things: one that is conspicuously missing is demand for decentralization. When was the last time there was a public agitation for more power to the panchayat"? Why, Bengaluru has not had a municipal corporation for over two years and people are going about their daily lives as usual.

Like they say about democracy, we could argue that panchayati raj is the worst form of government except for all the alternatives. I think thats a cop-out. Instead of worshipping at its altar, we should be thinking of more effective models that can improve grassroots governance in Indian conditions in the information age.

Nitin Pai is co-founder and director of The Takshashila Institution, an independent centre for research and education in public policy

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It is time to ask if the panchayati raj model really works for India | Mint - Mint

Primary.Health

The public health platform meets security, privacy, and compliance requirements for preeminent industry certification

SAN FRANCISCO, March 16, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Primary.Health, a software platform for public health and digital diagnostics outside the clinic, announced today that its systems and platform have earned HITRUST Risk-based, 2-year Certification, the highest level of information protection and compliance assurance. Specifically, HITRUST certifies that Primary.Healths systems residing at Amazon Web Services comply with all U.S. HIPAA security regulations and PCI, ISO 27001 and NIST security standards. Primary.Healths diagnostic technology and data have been recognized as meeting key healthcare regulations and requirements for protecting and securing sensitive private healthcare information.

According to HITRUST, this milestone puts Primary.Health in a select group of organizations worldwide that have earned HITRUST certification. It validates that Primary.Health is meeting critical compliance requirements across a wide range of industry standards and frameworks, as well as federal and state regulations.

Technology gives us power through information, but that means nothing if data is not secure. Our HITRUST Certification validates our system to protect customer data. Secure data enables us to provide diagnostic solutions for large public and private organizations committed to protecting their populations, noted Toni Nandwana, CISO at Primary.Health.

The HITRUST Assurance Program helps organizations address security and data protection challenges through a comprehensive and flexible framework of prescriptive and scalable security controls by including federal and state regulations, standards, and frameworks, and incorporating a risk-based approach.

HITRUST certification provides the highest level of assurance for the healthcare industry, which has greater risk exposure for patient data and systems due to protected health information, data volumes, regulatory compliance, and other risk factors.

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In todays ever-changing threat landscape, HITRUST is continually innovating to find new and creative approaches to address challenges, said Jeremy Huval, Chief Innovation Officer, HITRUST. Primary.Healths HITRUST Risk-based, 2-year Certification is evidence that they are at the forefront of industry best practices for information risk management and compliance.

HITRUST certification required a comprehensive review of Primary.Healths platform, data storage environments, and software in conjunction with their Information Security Management Program (ISMP), policies and procedures, and continuous training requirements for all staff.

Primary.Health is committed to the highest level of security for our data and broader software, Nandwana said. This HITRUST certification assures our partners that Primary.Health is committed to leading in info risk management, compliance and data protection.

About Primary.Health

Primary.Health is powering the decentralization of care in public health. With access to easy and affordable diagnostics, Primary.Health is helping community leaders to reduce administrative burden, automate clinical workflows and integrate with the healthcare ecosystem. Primary.Health provides program management software and program design services enabling schools, public health, pharmacies, employers, and communities to remain safe and healthy. Primary.Health powers 10,000 sites across the U.S. and has helped to administer over 13 million tests and over 1.5 million vaccines. Through our work with the largest, most complex organizations at the height of the pandemic, Primary has earned the experience and trust to provide superior diagnostic testing for flu, COVID-19, STI, HIV, RSV and other conditions that threaten population health. Contact us today to learn more at https://primary.health/.

Media:Ali NixPrimary.HealthPrimary.health@highwirepr.com

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Primary.Health Achieves HITRUST Certification, the Highest ... - Yahoo Finance