5 times crypto appeared in pop culture in 2023

CointelegraphPubblicato 2023-12-31Pubblicato ultima volta 2024-01-02

Introduzione

Society is past when even mentioning Bitcoin or Ethereum on a streaming series would make the news. Still, it’s good to look back on all the times crypto stepped out of the ecosystem and appeared in mainstream media — whether on Netflix, a comedy show, or any viral sensation.
NFT balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
2023 marked one of the first times in the 99-year history of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade that a design from the crypto and blockchain space was featured as either a balloon or float. In November, Viewers from around the country could see the blue cat and milk carton characters from Web3 firm Cool Cats Group’s nonfungible token (NFT) collection.
Just got back home after what was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a Character Designer.

Thank you everyone who came out to see the balloon and those who supported Cool Cats to make this moment happen. None of this would be possible without you.

WLTC pic.twitter.com/IwqCR1XvrT
— clon (@cloncast) November 26, 2023
Covering the Sam Bankman-Fried trial
Crypto’s so-called ‘Golden Boy’ Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried had already been arrested and charged by the time 2023 started, but the former FTX CEO’s luck took a turn for the worse as the year progressed. He was remanded to jail after intimidating his former girlfriend Caroline Ellison, called “the worst person I’ve ever seen do a cross-examination” by one of his defense lawyers, and convicted of seven felony counts in November.
SBF was the main subject of Michael Lewis’ Going Infinite book, released the same week his trial started. Compared to other enforcement cases in the crypto space, Bankman-Fried was seemingly the most high-profile figure, making him the target for mainstream media reports and late-night comedians:

Weekend Update Segment on Nov. 11, 2023 episode of Saturday Night Live. Source: YouTubeThe ‘Most Interesting Man in the World’ endorses Bitcoin
Actor Jonathan Goldsmith, who appeared as “The Most Interesting Man in the World” in an advertising campaign for Dos Equis beer starting in 2006, revived the character to promote Bitcoin (BTC) for Bitwise Asset Management ahead of a potential exchange-traded fund approval. Goldsmith drew a broad audience from the commercials, which included humorous “facts” about his character.
A word to the wise, from a man of few words. #bitcoinisinteresting https://t.co/wantGiAIqJ pic.twitter.com/x5MPbElEev
— Bitwise (@BitwiseInvest) December 18, 2023
Last Week Tonight
In April, John Oliver, the host of Last Week Tonight, did his second deep dive into cryptocurrency after more than five years. The comedian broke down the crypto market downturn of 2022 and related events, including the downfalls of FTX, Terra, and Celsius.
Here’s last night’s story about cryptocurrency, the crypto companies that have recently collapsed and, of course, dabbing: https://t.co/FUXVWAytRj
— Last Week Tonight (@LastWeekTonight) April 24, 2023
Futurama takes aim at Bitcoin miners
The animated sci-fi series Futurama, which went through another reboot in 2023, featured parodied a distant future in which Bitcoin mining experiences a boom in popularity after the price of the cryptocurrency rebounds after a thousand years. Jokes in the episode included moving to the Old West town “Doge City” and miners “using such colossal amounts of power that it’s ionizing the atmosphere.”

Letture associate

a16z: How Blockchain Fills the Gaps in AI Agent Identity, Payments, and Trust?

AI Agents are rapidly evolving from tools into autonomous economic participants, but they lack standardized ways to prove identity, authorization, and payment across environments. Blockchain infrastructure addresses these gaps by providing portable identities via wallets, programmable payments through stablecoins, and auditable transaction records on public ledgers. Key challenges include the absence of a universal identity layer (like "KYA" – Know Your Agent) for non-human entities, governance risks when AI systems control critical resources, and the need for trustless payment systems for agent-to-agent commerce. Emerging solutions include on-chain agent registries, encrypted credentials, and crypto-native toolkits that enable delegated authority and verifiable execution. Stablecoins and embedded payment protocols (e.g., x402) are enabling a new class of "headless merchants" where agents transact without human intervention. Trust shifts from manual oversight to cryptographic verification, as scalability demands automated accountability. Ultimately, blockchain allows agents to operate as permissionless economic actors while preserving user control through programmable constraints and transparent governance.

marsbit31 min fa

a16z: How Blockchain Fills the Gaps in AI Agent Identity, Payments, and Trust?

marsbit31 min fa

Exploring Physical World AGI with "Visual Reasoning", ElorianAI Raises $55 Million

ElorianAI, co-founded by ex-Google AI expert Andrew Dai and former AI specialist Yinfei Yang, has raised $55 million in early funding to develop next-generation AI systems with advanced visual reasoning capabilities. While current large models excel in text-based tasks like programming and math, they perform poorly in visual reasoning—even top models like Gemini only match a 3-year-old’s ability in basic visual benchmarks. The key limitation lies in the architecture of current vision-language models (VLMs), which first convert visual inputs into text before reasoning, losing critical spatial and structural information. ElorianAI aims to build a native multimodal model that processes and reasons directly in visual space, enabling deeper understanding of physical relationships, constraints, and environments. The company plans to release a state-of-the-art visual reasoning model by 2026, with potential applications in robotics, disaster management, engineering, healthcare, and AI hardware. By using high-quality, diverse, and synthetically generated data, ElorianAI intends to create models that don’t just perceive but truly understand and reason about the physical world—bringing us closer to visual AGI.

marsbit1 h fa

Exploring Physical World AGI with "Visual Reasoning", ElorianAI Raises $55 Million

marsbit1 h fa

This Time, OpenAI Eliminated 90% of Human Designers

OpenAI's latest release, GPT-Image 2, marks a paradigm shift in AI-generated imagery, moving beyond aesthetic quality to logical reasoning and contextual understanding. The model introduces a "thinking mode," where it performs background reasoning—such as mathematical calculations and geographic knowledge—before generating images. This enables highly accurate and context-aware outputs, like a livestream overlay showing precise distance metrics or a brand-aligned poster design. The model excels in rendering Chinese text with remarkable accuracy and aesthetic quality, a significant improvement over previous versions. It supports multi-turn conversational editing via the new Responses API, allowing iterative refinements similar to chatting with a large language model. While GPT-Image 2 demonstrates unprecedented capabilities in commercial applications like marketing material and illustration—potentially displacing many human designers due to its cost efficiency—it still has limitations. Minor artifacts in fine text details persist, and complex prompts can cause extended processing times. Additionally, the technology raises ethical concerns around deepfakes and digital trust. Overall, GPT-Image 2 transitions AI image generation from a novelty to a powerful production-ready tool, redefining industry standards and pushing the boundary of what’s possible in visual AI.

marsbit1 h fa

This Time, OpenAI Eliminated 90% of Human Designers

marsbit1 h fa

20 Billion Valuation, Alibaba and Tencent Competing to Invest, Whose Money Will Liang Wenfeng Take?

DeepSeek, an AI startup founded by Liang Wenfeng, is reportedly in talks with Alibaba and Tencent for an external funding round that could value the company at over $20 billion. This marks a significant shift, as DeepSeek had previously relied solely on funding from its parent company,幻方量化 (Huanfang Quantitative), and had resisted external investment. The potential valuation would place DeepSeek among the top-tier AI model companies in China, comparable to competitors like MoonDark (valued at ~$18 billion) and ahead of recently listed firms like MiniMax and Zhipu. The funding—which could range from $600 million (for a 3% stake) to $2 billion (for 10%)—is seen as a move to secure resources for model development, retain talent, and support infrastructure needs, particularly as competition in inference models and AI agents intensifies. Both Alibaba and Tencent are eager to invest, not only for financial returns but also to integrate DeepSeek into their broader AI ecosystems. However, DeepSeek’s leadership is cautious about maintaining independence and may prefer financial investors over strategic ones to avoid being locked into a specific tech ecosystem. Alternative options, such as state-backed funds, offer longer-term capital and policy support but may come with slower decision-making and potential constraints on global expansion. With competing AI firms accelerating their IPO plans, DeepSeek’s window for securing optimal terms may be narrowing. The final decision will reflect a trade-off between capital, resources, and strategic independence.

marsbit1 h fa

20 Billion Valuation, Alibaba and Tencent Competing to Invest, Whose Money Will Liang Wenfeng Take?

marsbit1 h fa

After Losing 97% of Its Market Value, iQiyi Attempts to Use AI to Forcefully Extend Its Lifespan

After losing 97% of its market value since its 2018 peak, iQiyi is aggressively pivoting to AI in a desperate attempt to survive. At its 2026 World Conference, CEO Gong Yu announced an "AI Artist Library" with over 100 virtual performers and a new AIGC platform, "NaDou Pro," promising faster production and lower costs. This shift comes as the company faces severe financial distress: its market cap sits near delisting thresholds at $1.36 billion, with significant losses, declining membership revenue, and depleted cash flow. The AI strategy has sparked controversy. Top actors have issued legal threats against unauthorized digital replicas, while in Hengdian, over 134,000 background actors are seeing their already scarce job opportunities vanish as AI replaces them for background roles. iQiyi's move represents a fundamental shift from being a high-cost content buyer to a landlord" to becoming a "platform capitalist" that transfers production risk to creators. This contrasts with competitors like Douyin (TikTok's Chinese counterpart), which is investing heavily in *real* actor-led short dramas, betting that authentic human connection retains users better than AI-generated content. The article draws a parallel to the 1920s transition to "talkies," which made cinema musicians obsolete but ultimately enriched the art form. In contrast, iQiyi's AI drive is framed not as an artistic evolution but as a cost-cutting measure that could degrade storytelling, replacing genuine human emotion with algorithmically calculated stimulation and potentially numbing audiences' capacity for empathy. The core question remains: can a company focused solely on financial survival preserve the art of storytelling?

marsbit1 h fa

After Losing 97% of Its Market Value, iQiyi Attempts to Use AI to Forcefully Extend Its Lifespan

marsbit1 h fa

Trading

Spot

Futures