If you think you have seen every ridiculous thing on blockchain possible, you’d be wrong, so wrong. Because they just keep coming. You can now make a whale squirt on command, courtesy of the incredible disruption that blockchain is.
Roeland P. Lanparty, a blockchain developer, integrated Steem cryptocurrency payments with an artificial whale fountain in the Netherlands. Users can go to steemwhale.io to make a small donation and watch the whale spray water live.
The users can pledge any amount between one and 100 Steem (1 Steem = $1.61 at the time of writing) to see the whale squirt.
The whale fountain only operates from 09:30 AM and 9:30 PM Central European Time (CEST), though — so make sure you don’t make a payment outside of these timings (Lanparty has since clarified that all donations sent outside of operating hours will be refunded).
I gave the platform a try and it works as described. I had to wait a while to see the whale squirting after the payment got processed, but the website does warn there might be a 20-second delay in the livestream.
I won’t lie though. It was quite a satisfying and fun experience to make a fake whale squirt in Netherlands from the foothills of the Himalayas in a manner of a few seconds. Here’s a screenshot of the whale spraying water all over as I did it:
But if you don’t like my screenshot, you can watch a live demonstration of the project from the Harlingen harbor, where the whale fountain is physically located:
Lanparty says that he took the project just for fun and to show the power of Steem blockchain in processing quick transactions.
“I was asked to write a code for the whale fountain to squirt randomly, so I thought it would be fun to integrate cryptocurrency payments and let users squirt it randomly,” Lanparty told Hard Fork. “I also found the analogy between the whale fountain and the ‘whale’ slang used to signify wealth in the cryptocurrency community funny.”
Lanparty believes that integrations like his may seem a bit far-fetched, but displaying a variety of possibilities with the technology will be beneficial in showing its utility to the world.
It is also worth noting that Lanparty is not the first to integrate blockchain payments for peculiarly funny things. While he wants to showcase the power of Steem’s blockchain, Lightning Network developers have also been doing the same.
These might seem like stupid use-cases of blockchain, but I — for one — appreciate that they work rather than the hundreds of initial coin offering (ICO) projects that promise to put mighty things on blockchain without actually doing anything.
3 ways the blockchain industry is slowly moving towards gender equality
Research from eToro , conducted earlier this year, indicates that blockchain is witnessing a major gender divide – only 8.5 percent of cryptocurrency users are female.
It’s obviously a problem. As we move into a new era of blockchain and cryptocurrency, one where it could potentially become universally adopted, it’s clear that the voices and opinions of women – and everyone, really – are needed to help us get there.
We’ve noticed that things are moving in the right direction, and it’s encouraging to see. At our blockchain event, Hard Fork Decentralized , we’re offering women an 85-percent discount on tickets to lessen the inevitable gender gap that’s become inherent at industry conferences.
We’re not alone, either. Here are some others who actively promote a gender-balanced blockchain future, in a variety of different ways:
Women in power
Recently, a Swiss cryptocurrency association announced that they needed more female leaders . Local news reported that they would appoint two new female board members, following accusations that it had become a “boy’s club.”
While it’s slowly becoming more normalized to see women in power in the industry, it’s still big news when it happens. Take, for example, this article on IBM’s female-led blockchain team , which still has to explain the merits of the women in charge. My hope is that in 20 years’ time, a woman’s qualifications won’t need to be so heavily used as justification.
Education
Lightning Labs co-founder and CEO Elizabeth Stark announced scholarships for female blockchain devs in New York City earlier this year, in an aim to lessen the gender divide.
This isn’t just happening in Western countries, either. In Afghanistan, where it’s common for women to not have access to their own money, cryptocurrency can be a very empowering tool. Code to Inspire , a nonprofit coding school for girls in Herat, Afghanistan, trains women in technical literacy so they can have financial and social independence.
The #MeToo Movement
In China, activists have turned to blockchain in order to document the stories of sexual assault victims . In retaliation to government censorship on social media, using blockchain is a way of ensuring that these stories are never altered or destroyed.
It’s not a perfect solution, as the government can still take down websites that allow for this documentation on the blockchain, but it’s inspiring to see women use the technology to stand their ground and make their voices heard.
All of these efforts are paving the way for a gender-equal blockchain and cryptocurrency industry. We’ve certainly got a long way to go – there’s so much more to be done – but these examples are a great step in the right direction.
At Hard Fork Decentralized, we’ve invited some inspiring women to share their ideas, perspectives, and experiences about the future of blockchain. We’ll be hosting Kavita Gupta, Founding Managing Partner at ConsenSys, Margarita Khartanovich, Editor-in-Chief at Binary District, Ayelet Noff, Founder and Co-CEO of Blonde 2.0, and more.
If you’d like to join us, we’d love to have you. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned blockchain expert or simply interested in learning about cryptocurrency – there’s something for everyone.
You can get our 85-percent discount on tickets right here . We can’t wait to see you in London on December 12-14!
IBM joins efforts to create the blockchain equivalent of the ‘Yellow Pages’
Remember those massive yellow books that everyone used to collect by the front door? If you thought they were gone and buried, think again. Someone is making the blockchain equivalent and IBM just joined.
IBM has just announced that it has joined a project which aims to deliver a cataloge-like platform of blockchains and blockchain-based businesses.
The project, known as the ’Unbounded Registry,” will be led by blockchain development firm HACERA. The news coincides with the registry’s official launch, making IBM a founding member.
According to its mission statement, HACERA seeks to create a “decentrlaized cross-blockchain registry that brings permissioned and permissionless blockchains together through a directory of blockchain networks.”
This would effectively create a platform that creates interoperability across different blockchains allowing them to interact and transact regardless of specific protocols. It is perhaps best considered as a sort of catalogue.
“As the number of blockchain consortiums, networks and applications continues to grow we need a means to list them and make them known to the world, in order to unleash the power of blockchain.” Jerry Cuomo, IBM’s Vice President Blockchain Technologieswrites. “The Unbounded Registry, built on blockchain technology, provides a decentralized means to register, look up, join and transact across a variety of blockchain solutions, built to interoperate with all of today’s popular distributed ledger technologies.”
Cuomo characterizes the project as a sort of “Yellow Pages” of the blockchain.
Like with other permissioned blockchain systems, members will have to apply in order to join the registry.
IBM and HACERA’s have not yet revealed the specific criteria for being part of this registry. However, if HACERA really is trying to solve the interoperability challenge, then it would make sense that as many blockchains as possible should be allowed to join.
Hard Fork reached out to HACERA to clarify how a blockchain can become part of the registry, we will update this piece as we find out.
