Having A Gas: This Week In Crypto Pop Culture, February 18-22

It’s Friday, February 22, everybody! Hopefully you have your Oscar picks locked in for this weekend. Personally, I have «The Favourite» taking home Best Picture, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Patriots somehow nabbed that award. Bill Belichick can find a way to win anything. (Plus, they could use some good news right about now.) But before the big night, ETHNews is here with Having A Gas, where we round up some of this week’s lighter crypto and blockchain news.

Is 15 Percent the Standard on Twitter?

Tippin announced the beta release of its new Google Chrome extension that allows individuals to send bitcoin payments over the Lightning Network to Twitter users who have also installed the extension. With the extension installed, a lightning bolt symbol appears next to the «like» and «retweet» buttons. Selecting that lightning bolt allows you to tip the Twitter user in bitcoin.

As we all know, the cryptosphere hates when money is given away on Twitter, so Tippin may have a hard time catching on. However, if Tippin eventually offers more kinds of cryptocurrency to give gratuities with, there’s a chance tipping could become the cryptosphere’s own version of a subtweet.

See an imaginably bad hot take in your feed? Tip a couple dogecoin and make them deal with owning it.

Is someone bogging down your timeline with unnecessary tweet after unnecessary tweet? Tipping them a KodakCoin should cause enough confusion to give you a much needed break.

Think someone should just leave Twitter all together? Tip some Ether. They’ll get the hint.

Internet of Hockey Things

This week, the National Hockey League’s LA Kings announced the launch of their blockchain-based app, the AR Authentication App. The app allows LA Kings merchandise and memorabilia to be verified on a blockchain, ensuring authenticity. Using the app, fans scan a certificate-of-authenticity sticker either on the merchandise or on the memorabilia’s certificate. If your merch or memorabilia is authentic, an exclusive video message from the Kings’ president or hockey hall of famer Luc Robitaille plays, certifying you as the piece’s owner. If you choose to sell or gift the merch/memorabilia, ownership can be transferred on the blockchain through the app.

If there’s one thing sports fans love more than authenticating their team’s memorabilia on a blockchain, it’s questioning their team’s effort during a down season. Currently, the LA Kings are last in their conference with a record of 23-31, and with no chance of making the playoffs, what’s keeping players from taking a few minutes off here or there? Blockchain authentication, that’s what. The app already has augmented reality capabilities, so a player’s sweat coverage percentage could be documented on the blockchain, checked against the average sweat coverage percentage of the top three teams in each division (the teams guaranteed to make the playoffs), giving us definitive, immutable proof that a player has or hasn’t given up on a season.

The LA Kings’ interim head coach, Willie Desjardins, already feels the team hasn’t given up, so what’s there to lose?

Millennials Are Killing Cash

Global investment platform eToro released a survey this week showing that 43 percent of millennial online traders trust cryptocurrency exchanges more than US stock exchanges. Additionally, 71 percent of millennials who don’t trade online feel they would invest in crypto if it was offered by a traditional institution.

As a millennial, I can confirm that cryptocurrency is, at the very least, intriguing. The only problem is, as a member of the burnout generation, the thought of figuring out how to actually own cryptocurrency and become part of the crypto community fills me with dread. However, I think I’ve found a solution that will solve my paralyzing fear, plus spur on mass adoption, plus help millennials get a little extra cash.

Now, we all know baby boomers are hard workers, but they’re also getting old. How do you fix the aging process? By pumping their boomer veins full of young millennial blood. So, if we combine the boomers’ work ethic with millennial blood, we’ll create a hard-working group of people who love cryptocurrency. The boomers will then work to create easier ways to get into cryptocurrency, the millennials will buy in with all the extra cash they have from selling their blood to old people, and presto! Mass adoption.

Chant it with me: «Millennial blood for crypto adoption! Millennial blood for crypto adoption!»

That’s it for Having A Gas. Join us next week, and remember, [insert clever catchphrase here].

Nicholas Ruggieri studied English with an emphasis in creative writing at the University of Nevada, Reno. When he’s not quoting Vines at anyone who’s willing to listen, you’ll find him listening to too many podcasts, reading too many books, and crocheting too many sweaters for his dogs, RT and Peterman.

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