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Ohio Accepting Cryptocurrency for Tax – Pure Personal Interest or A Move to Future?

Ohio is becoming the first state to accept crypto as tax payments on https://ohiocrypto.com/.

The move is made by Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel. Born in Sep. 1977, he had made several moves after being elected as Ohio State Treasurer in Dec. 2010, including OhioCheckbook.com that posts all state spending information on the internet for better government transparency.

The current cryptocurrency accepted is Bitcoin, with more to come. A third party cryptocurrency payment processor, BitPay, will serve between taxpayers and Ohio State Treasury, so that the former will pay crypto and the latter will receive dollar.

Although the State Treasurer himself is said to be an enthusiast of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, it might as well be seen as a state-level move to differentiate itself and embrace the future tech world. According to TechCrunch, Ohio has other moves to become tech-friendly including a technology hub forming in Columbus, home to one of the largest venture capital funds in the Midwest, Drive Capital. And Cleveland (the city once called “the mistake on the lake”) is trying to remake itself in cryptocurrency’s image with a new drive to rebrand the city as “Blockland”, etc. Columbus also reported last year that its Smart Columbus program had an expanded $417 million in resources to turn Columbus into the testing ground for intelligent-transportation systems.

Politics and future development is more interconnected than ever. Policy makers are becoming smarter and seeing/learning the tech future as others. “Policy infrastructure” played an important role in the past and will continue to do so. Each city/state may have a specialization and leveraging its hub effect. Blockchain is one of those “specializations” that many are going after. China and US are no different in terms of this strategy of development.

For Being Written In History? First Gene-edited Babies

Twin girls (Lulu and Nana) were born this month in China and they might be making a history. Applying CRISPR-cas9 to disable the CCR5 gene, which plays a key role in HIV infection, Jiankui He revealed details about the “surgery” in an exclusive interview with AP released on Monday.

At Shenzhen

According to AP, He studied at Rice and Stanford before going back to China. He opened a lab at Southern University of Science and Technology (SUST) of in Shenzhen, where he also has two genetics companies.

He has been on leave from teaching since early this year, but he remains on the faculty and has a lab at SUST.

Partner

The U.S. scientist who worked with him on this project after He returned to China was physics and bioengineering professor Michael Deem, who was his adviser at Rice in Houston. Deem also holds what he called “a small stake” in — and is on the scientific advisory boards of — He’s two companies.

All about making a headline and a history?

The motivation to prevent HIV is good, and justifiable according to George Church. But for many stakeholders in this case, other things come into play. It is political.

“Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing” was to held in Hong Kong from Nov.27 to Nov.29 (Beijing time). The He Lab uploaded videos on YouTube on Nov.26. No coincident.

Things like this could have been discussed thoroughly beforehand. Why is that related parties are “shocked” now?

The plan could have been reported months ago and open to comments/discussions. Why is that no industry associations are aware of anything?

Even the news and YouTube videos could have been written and released the day after the twin was born. Why waiting?

I believe in the future of gene editing; and it will eventually be used in humans, babies and embryos someday. But how this particular news unfolds makes me kinda uncomfortable.

It is understandable that someone (not only about He) wants to make a history, wants to be the “first”.

It is as well understandable that some others are not happy that the “first” title has been stolen.

…

But I would rather see science & technology less political and less about fame, making history or setting standards/principles.

When science & technology are being pursued largely for showing off, it is pathetic.

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An Often-Ignored Factor Affecting Wine Industry – Global Warming

In wine’s history, we human began to enjoy/produce those fermented grape beverages some 6,000-9,000 years ago.

Monrovia
Cabernet Sauvignon Grape

The well-known classification system for Bordeaux wines started in 1855 by Napoleon III using their producers’ names.  A château (a french house/castle) usually gives its name to the wine produced in its neighborhood.  The system has five levels for red wine, with Premiers Crus being the best, which now includes 5 châteaux.

winewordsandvideotape.com
Château Lafite Rothschild

But after nearly 200 years, things have changed fundamentally, e.g. global warming among many others.

Wine is essentially a pre-industrial-age agricultural invention. Grapes are inherently affected by climate changes (including not only temperature, but also drought for example).

What we deemed best in 1850s should be different from those in today’s league table.

Source: Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites

Due to global warming, the best grape varieties and growing locations for wine can hardly stay the same by the end of 21st century. Some have predicted that average global temperature could rise by 11.5° F this century if no human interventions to mitigate the causes.

A relatively extreme prediction in a 2013 study claims that wines from Burgundy, Napa Valley and other premium regions, will disappear within the next 50 years (and blue regions are future suitable areas to grow grapes).

Global change in viticulture suitability | Source: PNAS

However, wine to some extent is like art works. Values of wine aren’t mostly depending on how it tastes; many other factors such as traditions or experience are making it a more complex industry.

Visit Calistoga

While similar to other industries that the established or incumbents are not willing to/refuse to change, new opportunities will rely on new vineyards/newcomers and those choose to expand or create new brands.

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Beyond Meat Go IPO and Non-animal Food Trend

From Vegetarians to non-animal meat-like food, we are entering an age of synthetic foods going mainstream.

Beyond Meat – story and IPO

Beyond Meat (BYNd), a start-up who made the first 100% plant-based burger, filed IPO with SEC recently and will become the first of its kind to trade on Nasdaq.

The founder grew up in Maryland with a family farm business. The company was founded in 2009, with initial operation, and manufacturing in Maryland. The foundational technology was licensed from two researchers in nearby universities. And initially, the company built its presence with Whole Foods Market in mid-Atlantic.

Beyond Meat was funded by venture capitals, including Kleiner Perkins (16.1% pre-IPO stake), Obvious Ventures, among others, totaling $140+ million before IPO. The latest round valued the company at $550 million last year.

The IPO filing indicates a $100 million raise. Currently, the most important product is the Beyond Burger, selling through various grocery chains and other channels, representing 71% of 2017 sales.

Beyond Beyond Meat

Within this space, the most famous startup might be Impossible Foods, sold in many restaurants including The Counter. It raised $114 million this year from investors including Temasek.

Other initiatives include the new plant-protein-based drink by Starbucks, although not a popular offering.

I think for sure in the future food market, the overall percentage of plant-based food will increase and animal-killing will be decreased by a lot. Whether eventually most of the food will be entirely synthesized remains a question for now.

At least in 30-50 years, I think the benefits of non-plant-based food are non-obvious. But the non-animal trend will be more influential and be part of everyone’s life, not just for vegetarians.

A Glimpse into Instagram’s Commercial Efforts

  • I will keep this updated
  • Based on personal ins screenshots

Effort One – Bis/Org official page and promotion

E.g.

Similar to FB’s news feed ads; similar to ads in Wechat Moments, etc.

Effort Two – Ads in Instagram Stories, in three forms: Learn More, Shop Now, Subscribe

E.g.

Currently Instagram hasn’t provide direct shopping/subscription function; it is linking to third-party websites.

But I could see it is possible to bypass Amazon or Apple ID subscriptions.

Effort Three – cosponsored

E.g. (from a public account through search)

This is more like a platform and pairing influencers with businesses. Provide a way for influencer to monetize and change the way businesses used in promotion.

Effort Four – cross suggestion/reference

It is not formally introduced to users. But it is enabled by Instagram’s ecosystem.

E.g., after I followed an independent hotel in Palm Spring, I got three likes from JW Marriott Desert Springs (a nearby hotel).

Also, I got followed by collegehousephilly after following DailyPennsylvania (student-run newspaper at Penn, mostly seen by Penn students); Philly is short for Philadelphia, where Penn is located.

Will keep updating this post.

A Great Symmetry?

A random thought here…

San Francisco = New York City (Manhattan)| in terms of the central hub in west/east, financial and corporate presence, high rise apartments

San Jose (South Bay) = Philadelphia | in terms of specialized industries, lead in Information Age (semiconductor) & lead in Industrial Age

Los Angeles + San Diego = Orlando + Miami + Key west | In terms of weather, travel and entertainment industries, life styles

So California is a semi-country.

In the Age of Services Bundling

The recent departure of Google Cloud’s CEO leads to many discussions on the business models. Specifically, Google Cloud service is usually co-marketed with other enterprise services provided by Google. For businesses that rely heavily on Google’s internet advertising, it feels a combination of a natural need of using its Cloud and an external soft-pressure from Alphabet.

US enterprise cloud business is mainly comprised by 3 companies – Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Amazon is famous for its 7-year head start. However, Microsoft Azure has surpassed AWS in revenue for the first time in Q2 this year.

[Some thoughts on cloud business: with its dominating position in enterprise market, and its Office suite going online with subscription model, Microsoft is definitely capitalizing a lot on the bundling with Azure cloud services. Google definitely wanted to replicate the business model, but found itself lack of comparable presence in the enterprise market – e.g. direct relationships, sales reps. That was probably the reason Alphabet brought in Diane Greene, co-founder of VMWare, in Nov. 2015 with all the enterprise connections and experiences behind her.]

The bundling + subscription is everywhere. Amazon Prime is a bundling, with original unlimited free two-day shipping to Amazon Music/Video/Fresh/Now, etc.; Netflix is essentially a bundling – with some core contents plus other programs; AT&A Direct TV is another example; Square is bundling terminals (POS), employee management…

It is so prevalent that I would like to say that instead of “software eating X”, it is “bundling X and just subscribe together”.