SENS Research Foundation Raises at Least $20 Million in the First Two Days of the Pulse Chain Airdrop
A warning: we're going to be talking about the strange world of blockchains and cryptocurrency today, about which I am far less informed than is the case for matters relating to aging. Blockchains are a way to solve problems in distributed collaboration, allowing enforcement of transactions and outcomes without the need for a trusted third party. Implementations to date, most notably Bitcoin and Ethereum, have used the cost of large amounts of computation as the barrier that prevents cheating, but that requires a collectively equally large ongoing expenditure on computation on the part of participants in the network. That is an expense that people have been happy to undertake, as the rewards for participating outweigh the costs. Nonetheless, the community is now at the point at which the output of entire power stations goes towards fueling data centers dedicated to blockchains.
One of the trends underway in this strange world is an attempt to move away from the use of computational cost as an enforcement mechanism ("proof of work") to something based on provable ownership of tokens ("proof of stake"). This has turned out to be a technically difficult challenge and is an area of active research and development. One of the major blockchains, Ethereum, is on the verge of making that switch, but progress has been slow enough to allow one particular group to forge ahead with a plan to clone the Ethereum network with their own implementation of a proof of stake mechanism, calling the new project Pulse Chain.
The Pulse Chain principals believe they have finessed the legal side of things to allow for cloning a whole new blockchain and handing out tokens to everyone already on Ethereum without falling afoul of the SEC. Thus this looks a lot like easy funds, profit for nothing, to cryptocurrency insiders. Much (not all, but much) of the entrepreneurship that takes place within the cryptocurrency space can be viewed as some form of get rich quick scheme at the core, but there is a great deal of altruism along the way. Blockchain insiders donate their wealth to their favored charitable causes to a noteworthy degree, sometimes via the publicity events that have come to be called airdrops, a gift of tokens, after the old trope of helicopter money. There is a lot to unpack in that choice of name, regarding the views and sense of humor to be found in the blockchain community.
Which comes to the point of this post. The Pulse Chain principals are running an airdrop to gain publicity for the launch of their newly cloned blockchain. They, like many in that space, are in favor of the work of the SENS Research Foundation on the foundations of human rejuvenation. So, in a sizable act of charitable giving, they have connected donations to the SENS Research Foundation to the receipt of tokens on the Pulse Chain for the next ten days or so. In a few days at the end of last week, SENS Research Foundation received more than $20 million in donations, about four years of their present budget. That will make a big difference to the future of work on the foundations of rejuvenation biotechnology!
Why this much support for rejuvenation research now? The SENS Research Foundation has in the past few years received smaller, but still sizable donations of cryptocurrency from various noted figures in that community. This particular example is, I think, the strong support of a founder of a new blockchain, coupled to cryptocurrency insiders voting with their feet regarding their opinion on whether Pulse Chain will become a functional, valuable blockchain - i.e. will they see a rapid increase in the value of their tokens. They see profit in making a donation in order to access the Pulse Chain launch airdrop. There are other incentives under the hood, but that is about the long and the short of it. As is usually the case, one cannot look at this sort of thing without considering that we live in interesting times. The future is an odd place to be exploring, one day at a time.
The Pulse Chain Sacrifice Stage Has Started
Donations sent to the addresses at SENS.org/donate may be tax deductible for you. You must follow the SENS.org PulseChain instructions. Sacrifices to SENS.org during the sacrifice phase earn 25% less points compared to sacrifices at Pulse.info. SENS.org can also accept stocks and bank wires. Once the sacrifice phase is over, the total sacrifice points for each sacrificer's address's points (at the same metamask address) are totaled up across all the supported chains and the SENS.org report. This creates a list of sacrificers ranked by total points from largest to smallest. Everyone's sacrifice is publicly viewable during the period by checking the public balances of the sacrifice addresses list on each chain. This way you might know when you want to sacrifice some more to move up in the rankings.
SENS Research Foundation: Pulse Chain Airdrop Now Live
Please do not make your donation until you have read ALL of the instructions below and sent all of the required information.
You can donate to SENS Research Foundation in any currency, including any cryptocurrency that is traded at Coinbase (note that, in particular, this means we cannot accept HEX or XRP). Check our DONATE page for all the methods of donation that we accept at. There is no minimum donation threshold that must be met. If it's a cryptocurrency, it will have to be a coin that we accept - any coin that Coinbase trades - and our addresses are listed on our donation page cited above. To verify that your donation is yours, we are asking that you either send a source address (if it's a non-custodial wallet), or we'll give you a random number that your crypto donation must end in (if your wallet is on an exchange).
Once your donation is processed, we'll send you a confirmation email that will include your date of donation, its USD value, and your provided ETH wallet address within 48 hours of your donation. If this is correct, you have no further actions to take. If it is incorrect, you have 24 hours to correct any errors. After that, we will send that exact information to Richard Heart to finalize your entry into the Airdrop. Don't worry, the actual date of your donation is the date that will be sent to Richard Heart, regardless of when we get the information to him.
Nice,
provided the SENS foundation could cash the coins at least at current value the funding might make the difference, personally for me, to reverse the aging before i die...
This is seismic news. This could raise to 100 millions dollars in the end of the 20 days of sacrifice phase. But this is not the only good news. Aubrey, in his last interview, stated that the mysterious rich investor (probably bezos) will come out publicy in august. There's also a new thing that he can't speak too much about at this moment. At some point, there was also a potential 10 digit donation but I'm not too good in english to confirm it.
Link of the interview : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqlNiLHKm_o&ab_channel=LondonFuturists
Really hoping that pulsechain becomes a successful coin... this will give reason for new coins to follow a similar strategy (giving out airdrops as rewards for donations).
I don't know a ton about crypto, but I (as well as my friends and many people I know) have been looking for a coin to get in on the ground floor of, and the ability to say "if it doesn't work out and I lose all my money, at least I gave to SENS!" was what put me over the edge.
My biggest donations to SENS ever came about because of this possible get-rich-quick reward.
But, geesh, if SENS gets a huge donation from a billionaire, how much more money are they really going to need eh?
Also, Aubrey stated they are at "20million and counting" when total coin sacrificed was at around 160million or so ( https://pulselead.xyz/ ). At this point, I would guess 500mil sacrificed (it's slowing down).... so maybe 50mil for sens?
Who knows, just guessing at this point. Either way, it's already a huge win for SENS!!!!!
I think/hope that a high net work individual is going to set up a foundation. I think there is also a high chance that it winds up doing basic research rather than trying to remove the damage at the roots of aging.
I don't know much about 'crypto currencies' and 'block chains' and I am not involved in buying or trading in these currencies.
But I know enough to conclude that these currencies are frauds - similar to pyramid schemes and Ponzi schemes and other get rich quick frauds. … Most investors will lose their real money and a few founders and controllers will get fabulously rich in real money (such as government printed United States dollars).
Humans who study and research aging are scientists and they should apply scientific method of thinking to economics, money, and currencies.
Real economic value is created by human labor (making real material products and real useful services) All other so-called values are fictiscious - false values. Crypto currencies are not backed by any 'use values', therefore , they are frauds.
Then, there is the reality of 'zero sum game'. Those who win , doing at the expense of those who lose. Winners of a lottery defraud those who bought tickets but didn't win ( losers).
Scientists and researchers at SENS will refuse to be paid in crypto , they will want government issued money as payment for their labor.
I have no idea how this crypto works, but I hope SENS takes the money (in hard cold cash), before it evaporates. My opinion:)
I put some money in oil stocks last year. From 1 month ago until now, value dropped over 25%. So, you never know.
Why Aubrey? Why is this who you stake the future on??
https://hackernoon.com/is-hex-is-the-most-notorious-scam-in-the-history-of-cryptocurrencies-r9m53azs
https://www.cointelligence.com/content/confronting-richard-heart-of-hex-spam-king-and-crypto-scammer/
https://www.reddit.com/r/HEXcrypto/comments/ka5e8z/hex_scam_here_are_the_facts/
https://hex.com/scam/
@david Who cares ? SENS get a lot of REAL money since donations are done with all currencies but not HEX. So even in the case HEX is a scam and have no value, SENS donations are real money. People are free to use their money the way they want.
@Jonathan Weaver
Sorry but the optics are horrible on this...
Whether you are of the half of the world which thinks these crypto tools are the future of money, or the other half which thinks this is the playground of gamblers and money launderers, this guy is not a public face that SENS needs at all at this stage...
@Robert---> you're dumb if you invest in oil. Invest here and give min 10% of your ROI To SRF --->
https://wefunder.com/lppfusion/ask
Some of you negative guys are trully clueless about the crypto space and its nuances.
@nicolas d:
"I don't know much about 'crypto currencies' ... But I know enough to conclude that these currencies are frauds"
You don't know anything about anything, that's the only thing you prove with your statement.
The crypto space is full of all kinds of problems and scams just like everything else in life. But that doesn't mean everything is a scam.
If you don't like cryptos stay away from them, they're not for you. And if you don't want SENS to receive their donations go ahead outmatch their donations and then you can attach strings and demand they stay away from cryptos.
@David Petrov:
All the links you posted use retarded arguments and are written by the same types of morons that would've called Aubrey De Grey a scammer in his early days of establishing SENS.
This is nonsense
Put your money into real start-ups directly and own common stock - there is no need to go through an intermediary like SENS especially when there are dozens of good companies with great platforms looking for investors
Crypto is crap
It will always be guys like Richard Heart who are skating the line between outright illegal and revolutionary ideas who push forward progress.
Look at Uber or Tesla or Amazon how many laws they are violating all the time as they just push forward without permits, often breaking state laws, and then battling in court, until it becomes a fait accompli.
And raising huge money from investors with super risk and the usual hockey stick graphs.
Anti-aging will get more wild, to be honest we aren't even at the wild west stage yet. There is maybe a few $billion invested now, but as this thing explodes it will get intense.
We are at like the frontier stage and some people offering 1,000 acre plots in the middle of nowhere.
If SENS makes any money from crypto donations (and I really hope they do) then it's simply because of the greater fool theory whereby people buy more and more overvalued assets hoping to sell them on to a "greater fool" for a profit.
The problem is that crypto currencies have no intrinsic value - their value is not supported by government reserves and income as with real currencies.
I'm sure SENS will take whatever they can get but I bet they prefer dollars, pounds and euros.
Funny... the longest comment threads on this blog are always people having opinions about other peoples money. Lulz.
Fantastic news! Keep the money flowing!
We shouldn't care about whether the money comes from crypto coins or dollars, as long as SENS can use it!
@Nicolai
"We shouldn't care about whether the money comes from crypto coins or dollars, as long as SENS can use it!"???
Sounds like what you learn in Money Laundering 101....
@ Pam Bertand
Why? Crypto money isn't necessarily from criminal sources, just as fiat money isn't necessarily from legal sources.
In fact, there are a lot of people who bought bitcoins very early when it was worth only a few cents and got rich just by waiting.
Wow!! I was some days away, not following this blog and other news sites, and now I found this! O_o
I'm not surprised about the stupid comments about crypto being an scam. The net is full of people making strong claims about things the barely know. It would be really stupid to use cryptocurrencies for money laundering, since they are not anonymous like fiat money, gold, etc.
It's the second time I've seen Abrey nearly crying in a video. This gives an idea of how transformative this event is for the field.
Can someone who understands this stuff put it in perspective please?
Does SENS actually get $25 million in cash wired to their account?
Or are there some intermediary steps involved?
Thank you
Hi Greg. Everybody in this campaign donates $ to SRF and when the campaign ends Richard Heart will give them some amount of Pulse Chain coins proportional to the $ donated (probably). I say "probably" because it's not like a contract. Since SRF is a non-profit, it can't sell coins in exchange of dollars. Also, the donators could not have tax exemptions for their donations (since they would not be donations anymore). But Richard Heart would probably, on his own will, just donate some coins to the donators of SRF.
In summary, yes. SRF has now $ 25M+ in its bank account.
@Antonio
Thanks for that - good to know
What can we buy/exchange with the Pulse Chain coins?
@Greg: Nothing yet, I think, but it aims to be a replacement of Ethereum, so maybe in the future you can buy with it anything you can buy with Ethereum now.
It always amazes me to read how ignorant and opinionated the average person that surfs the internet is. Block chain technology is transforming the world. And it's only started with money. And it's not done changing the way money is stored transacted and even used. All you people so hyped about fiat currency. While the government is just printing it at will. Banks might as well be printing it as they just give away more debt. I say hold on to your money. Hell don't even invest it. Save it for a rainy day is what you do. And when you become homeless because the world has evolved around you. You can burn it to stay warm. Because weather you believe in crypto or not doesn't change the fact that we are right on course for our current currency to be replaced by a new form. There has never been a currency to last thru the ages. And the dollar euro and yin are going to be no exception to the rule. History tells us this. Modern science tells us this. And common sense tells us this. The problem is. Common sense ain't so common anymore.
Basically anything to do with money/investing is a scam on some level.
Families who worked for generations and built up properties in great capitals.. that today goat herders are walking their goats through the ruins of those cities..and those half-acre plots of land are worth nothing.
You invest in the stock of a great company, who then gets poor management and poor board of directors who lose most of the money.
And fiat currencies of nations which went into the usual plan of tyranny, feudalism in one form or another and in time their nation collapsed and the fiat worth nothing.
Besides in the distant past, look at land value today, you buy a property in a nice city. People in charge of the city change the rules after you bought, now your property is worth 1/4 as when you bought it.
What do you do when they jack up the property taxes and the city controllers crush your renters(lockdowns for example).
And the opposite happens too. Your family had a few 100 acres of crappy farmland on the edge of some poorly ran city that was going downhill. Things change, the city grows and grows and wealth explodes there, and now you are rich... and you get development permission.(and imagine the corruption in who gets development permission and who doesn't)
The only scam is if they are not disclosing everything or if they are lying about what you are getting.
Of course the grey area is when things are being pumped and overselling the potential uses and upside.. but shall we say the same about properties and stocks?
The exchanges themselves are stepping up over time, as happened in stocks. The NYSE and NASDAQ are private organizations with requirements for listed and traded companies on their exchanges.