Major League Baseball Is Going Crypto (engadget.com)

The blockchain gaming company Lucid Sight is partnering with Major League Baseball to launch MLB Crypto Baseball. Engadget's Daniel Roberts explains: Ethereum, launched in 2015, is a decentralized platform for "smart contracts," which are automated agreements for an exchange of value. It runs on a blockchain, the same peer-to-peer, immutable, public ledger technology that bitcoin runs on. The cryptocurrency of Ethereum is ether. Because of Ethereum's usefulness for smart contracts, it has become a proving ground for blockchain-based games, where users collect and trade one-of-a-kind items that no one can duplicate or steal. On a blockchain, each digital item (or contract) is verified and tamper-proof.

In MLB Crypto Baseball, users will pay in ether to buy digital avatars tied to specific moments in recent games. They can then sell the items, or in some cases, earn rewards and stickers. The game is a decentralized app, or "dApp." [...] To play the game at launch, users must own some amount of ether and must transfer it to a web plug-in called MetaMask. (CryptoKitties works the same way.) Lucid Sight hopes to have an easy mobile app ready shortly after launch. "We are not building this just for tech savvy people," says Lucid Sight cofounder Octavio Herrera. "That said, the game will roll out in stages. So yes, for version 1 you will need ether, you will need MetaMask, it will be a little bit difficult to get into. But I do think people will open up Coinbase accounts, buy some ether, and transfer it to MetaMask, in order to collect these things they'll enjoy so much."

Comments

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[Anonymous Coward]

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APK

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That makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to spice up the one game that's even more boring than soccer.

You rotten bastards like & use my work... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

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Aw, poor little Juden shekelboy, lol... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

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Lucid Sight is trying

[Anonymous Coward]

But check out the graphics from one of their recent games. There are screenshots. They aren't trying very hard.

Re:Lucid Sight is trying

[Anonymous Coward]

I use PhotoShop daily! :)

I have a hearing loss in one ear, so my audio will always be suspect. I use a Zoom H2 audio recorder with a pop filter 12" away from my mouth, Audacity to clean up and normalize the audio, and sync the audio to the video and apply a "voice enhancement" eq to the audio in the video editor.

My PC has an eight-core processor and a Nvidia 1050 Ti 4GB video card. A minute of 1080p video renedered on the processor takes a minute. A minute of 1080p video rendered on the Nvidia card takes 10 seconds. I don't think an iPad has the same performance of my PC for rendering videos longer than a short clip.

I can't imagine using Photoshop without a keyboard and mouse, or not being able to access my files from my file server. Video rendering on the iPad will probably suck donkey balls.

Blackmagic also charges high prices for their gear as Apple does. Need an HDMI to USB3 capture device? Blackmagic is $300. Any generic company is $50.

I take public transit. A local bus take me down the street to pick up the express bus, the express bus drops me off in Palo Alto, and a local bus take me down the street to my job. An hour each way. Driving through Palo Alto during rush hour is insane. Since I work in government I.T., I start work at 7:00AM.
--
Going to a comic con this weekend? Check out my channel

Re:Lucid Sight is trying

[Anonymous Coward]

I use PhotoShop daily! :)

I have a hearing loss in one ear, so my audio will always be suspect. I use a Zoom H2 audio recorder with a pop filter 12" away from my mouth, Audacity to clean up and normalize the audio, and sync the audio to the video and apply a "voice enhancement" eq to the audio in the video editor.

My PC has an eight-core processor and a Nvidia 1050 Ti 4GB video card. A minute of 1080p video renedered on the processor takes a minute. A minute of 1080p video rendered on the Nvidia card takes 10 seconds. I don't think an iPad has the same performance of my PC for rendering videos longer than a short clip.

I can't imagine using Photoshop without a keyboard and mouse, or not being able to access my files from my file server. Video rendering on the iPad will probably suck donkey balls.

Blackmagic also charges high prices for their gear as Apple does. Need an HDMI to USB3 capture device? Blackmagic is $300. Any generic company is $50.

I take public transit. A local bus take me down the street to pick up the express bus, the express bus drops me off in Palo Alto, and a local bus take me down the street to my job. An hour each way. Driving through Palo Alto during rush hour is insane. Since I work in government I.T., I start work at 7:00AM.

Yes, but what did you have for breakfast and did you post it on FB?

Re:Lucid Sight is trying

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, Star Fox looks great on that new N64 emulator.

*eyecross*

[Hognoxious]

Didn't understand a word of that.

Think I'll wait for the movie to come out.

Re:*eyecross*

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, when I was 9, after carrying the bucket of lard in the woods one more time for my uncle he made me a surprise and took me see the Giants!

Not quite like football player but still pretty good :)
--
Going to a comic con this weekend? Check out my channel

Re:*eyecross*

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Didn't understand a word of that.

"Bitcoin Beanie Baby Baseball Cards"

Major League Baseball is worried that a future enraged, confused and heavily armed O. J. Simpson will rob a baseball card traders convention in Las Vegas, claiming that he is just "looking for his shit".

With Bitcoin Beanie Baby Baseball Cards, there is nothing physical to steal.

So, what can he do . . . raid a data center . . . ?

Re:*eyecross*

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! just get some Funko!!!

Funko has been doubling each year for the last five years. I now own more shares of Funko stock than actual Funkos. I was so impressed with the investor presentation that I adopted it for my own YouTube content strategy.

That's why out of all my dividend-paying stocks that I've own, Funko is one of the riskiest stock that I own. Most anaylsts peg Funko as a speculative buyout target. It's more liklely to be bought out before the Funko bubble bursts.

Silicon Valley Comic Con 2018 has the same number of visitors (~70,000) and the same economic impact as Super Bowl 2018. SVCC is not even one of the larger comic cons in the US.

If you want to attend some tinfoil-hat action, check out AlienCon. The viewers of Ancient Aliens believe in alien abductions, abortions performed by aliens and MAGA when I attended AlienCon 2016 in Silicon Valley. AlienCon 2018 is coming to Baltimore in November. It will be interesting to see how "authoritative" YouTube will be with the UFO nutters.

Three reasons why Stan Lee had to be at Silicon Valley Comic Con 2018: 1) Steve Wozniak was schedueld to be M.I.A. from his own show while traveling back from Russia; 2) Jeff Goldblum cancelled his Sunday-only appearance to spend all three days at the Dallas Fan Expo 2018; and 3) Stan Lee's management team needed him to make them money by signing 400 comic books from comic book dealers for $50K.

I suspect most of my 1K+ followers are bots. Very few are real people. I just use my ten-year-old Twitter account to pimp my YouTube videos to comic con crowds over the weekends. I had 25.3K impressions and an average engagement rate of ~3% (that's great by traditional advertising standards) in the last 28 days.
--
Going to a comic con this weekend? Check out my channel

Re:*eyecross*

[meglon]

I'm thinking it's something like that Pokemon Go, only staring really boring baseball game characters.

Re:*eyecross*

[Anonymous Coward]

lol so now we can get "limited edition" bitcoins wooooooooo !!!!! touched by MLB PLAYERS WOWWWWW

Re:*eyecross*

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. If I understood that correctly (no guarantees), they're essentially talking about in-app purchases but with the additional headache of having to acquire a cryptocurrency first.

Here is an idea for free

[Sqreater]

Do it with collectibles like coins. Own the blockchain version of a particular coin. Buy and sell collectibles of all kinds without the hassle of actually dealing with a physical copy. Why not blockchain stamps also. Cars too. Anything people collect can be blockchained I believe. People who own and warehouse a thing can sell the blockchain ownership rights to it. End of physical auction houses.

Re:Here is an idea for free

[Anonymous Coward]

Great idea!!!

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Get some silver Coins like the canadian year of the monkey!!

Also, I find AmazonTM the gretest thing since sliced bread and helps taking care of my health at retirement with the Amazon long tail revenue streams!

All you need to do is find a website with a permissive TOS, say, Slashdot, create a Python script to scrape your own comments, sprinkle Amazon affiliate links in various posts, and then re-post past links whenever possible. You can even make video of yourself going to pick up AmazonTM parcel at the convenience store and post it on your youtube channel for more redundant revenue streams.

They also have a wide supply, the best of latte and clif/power bars at the best cost, espicially if you make a friend buy them for you with your own affiliate link!

Also, I still use my iPhone 6s and reduce my monthly bill from $80 to $50. As a phone and a video camera, the iPhone 6s isn't obsolete and I use it to make my videos on youtube. As a Sprint very special customer for 20+ years, Sprint will always give me a new iPhone for free if I decide to stop using the 6s as a phone in the next several years.
--
Going to a comic con this weekend? Check out my channel

Re:Here is an idea for free

[Megane]

You think you're just joking.

Re: Here is an idea for free

[Sqreater]

Not joking. Aware of kitties.

Fake creimer

[Anonymous Coward]

Fake creimer

Re:Fake creimer

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-dairy creimer?

I see

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure I didn't understand what the fuck this was talking about, but I am still quite certain that it is completely retarded just the same.

Re: I see

[c6gunner]

I'm pretty sure I didn't understand what the fuck this was talking about,

It's cryptokitties for baseball dweebs. Like collecting baseball cards but without the cards.

but I am still quite certain that it is completely retarded just the same.

Yep. You know it'll make money though, so "retarded" is more descriptive of the target audience rather than the venture itself.

Better Idea

[dohzer]

A better idea would be blockchained loot boxes containing baseball cards.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

[Anonymous Coward]

CryptoKitties works the same way.

Let explain it to you in four words.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another speculation instrument.

Oh boy! More funny money!

[Chas]

And the new buzzword is "CRYPTO!"

Like "The Cloud" before it.

And like "The Internet" before that.

*Dumb Idea* + *BUZZWORD* = a bunch of stupid lemmings screaming "BRILLIANT!" and diving off their cliffs.

immutable?

[dontbgay]

Accenture recently proposed a blockchain editing tool. Sure seems like immutable isn't what it used to be.

It's only a matter of time before blockchain is easier edited than the actual books

Re:immutable?

[Ol Olsoc]

Accenture recently proposed a blockchain editing tool. Sure seems like immutable isn't what it used to be. It's only a matter of time before blockchain is easier edited than the actual books

Damn, I laughed when I read that article. Of course, the financial industry "needs" to get in there and massage the data.

Re:immutable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Accenture recently proposed a blockchain editing tool. Sure seems like immutable isn't what it used to be.

It would be less incorrect for you to say "Sure seems like blockchain isn't what it used to be"

A blockchain isn't undetectably immutable because each transaction is signed based on those before it.

What Accenture is claiming to have made is some other non-blockchain software. Their software doesn't do anything a blockchain does. So if course its editable.
Quickbooks is editable, does that reflect poorly upon real blockchain software simply because Quickbooks renames their software to "Quickbooks blockchain edition" ?

(Sadly these days, it seems like to most people that would be the case)

That's just stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

And pete rose wants to know if you can use it to bet on major league games...

Re:That's just stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone associated with baseball is allowed to "gamble" now, other than Pete Rose. Except they don't call it gambling anymore, they call it "fantasy sports."

Pete Rose's major fault was, he was gambling and MLB was not getting a cut of the funds.

i just got an idea.

[Blaede]

What if we put CRYPTO...in the CLOUD...via MOBILE...using a THIN CLIENT...on the INTERNET?!?!?!?

You just made me a rich person.

Re: i just got an idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot AI, cyber, blockchain, and Apps!

Re: i just got an idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Synergize!

Re: i just got an idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to bring this up in my scrum because it may be a disruptive tech

Crypto-Collectibles?

[Xnet Project]

I have a feeling if Major League Baseball continues down this path the the term "Crypto-Collectibles" will be coined at some point in the marketing realm for collector items.

Re:Crypto-Collectibles?

[Ranbot]

..."Crypto-Collectibles".... marketing... collector items.

Tangentially related to the idea of "crypto-collectibles" (and I don't see a better place to put this thought)...

If in the near-ish future average people could easily and unobtrusively display virtual/crypto collectibles, then it becomes less crazy to think they could have real world demand/value. For example if AR becomes commonly-used technology, which really isn't a far-fetched idea, then it would be pretty natural for people to use AR to display opinions or interests in subjects as they already do with T-shirts, bumper-stickers, jacket patches, keychains, ball caps, posters, photographs, trinkets, license plate covers, etc. In an AR-capable world with blockchain to prove authenticity, the early adopters could have something relatively rare and valuable. Virtual (i.e. not-real) stuff goes against everything I conceive of as value, but only the stuff no one expects to have value ends up rare and valuable. If not for all those kids who used to jam Mickey Mantle rookie cards into their bike spokes to make noises, the card probably wouldn't fetch more than $3 million at auction today ( http://www.sportingnews.com/ml... ).

Put that idea down on paper...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and then put it in the toilet; I WANT TO WIPE MY ASS WITH IT.

Oh, a video game

[Anonymous Coward]

I got to the third paragraph before I realized this was about a video game, as opposed to baseball.

Re:Oh boy! More funny money!

[blackprint]

Lemmings don't actually commit suicide. Let's not sully the good lemming name by connecting them to our marketing zombies.

ERC-721

[fulldecent]

Hello, I'm the lead author of ERC-721 (the "Non-fungible Token Standard" or "Deeds") which is how collectable crypto-assets can work interoperability with crypto-collecting wallets.

I believe this is the technology that is implied to power MLB Crypto Baseball.

Right now I am skeptical that this project is real. First all of the news is related to ICO/blockchain news/nerd news. Can anybody point to a press release or Tweet FROM Major League Baseball that confirms this licensing deal is authentic? I have seen other crypto companies that announced a deal with Visa and Mastercard, later to find out that those companies did not actually authorize any deal.

Also the website here https://www.lucidsight.com/ does not have a trademark symbol next to MLB Crypto Baseball. Nor does it have a registered trademark symbol next to the MLB logo. Nor does the bottom of the website say "The MLB logo is a registered trademark of Major League Baseball." So I'm going to say this is pretty much bullshit. I went to the LIMA licensing conference in Las Vegas this year -- entities like MLB don't draft rookies like Lucid Sight.

In other news, the 0xcert promo video (I'm an advisor to them) did just release a promo video listing collectable baseball cards as a target use case. So we are planning to make this work. And if MLB is reading this, call me.

Re:ERC-721

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, I'm the lead author of ERC-721 (the "Non-fungible Token Standard" or "Deeds") which is how collectable crypto-assets can work interoperability with crypto-collecting wallets.

I write psychotic diatribes on the walls in my own excrement. But at least I'm harmless.

Impersonating me? Please... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: You impersonating me proves you wish you were me & imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - but you = poor imitation.

* You even "threatened me" by promising you would impersonate me as you STALKED ME too by your UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous trollings of myself also https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...

APK

P.S.=> Grow up & do something useful w/ yourself ... apk

Re: Impersonating me? Please... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Did someone drop you on your head when you were still a toddler?

You type a lot about inane bullshit.

Impersonating me AGAIN? Please... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: You impersonating me proves you wish you were me & imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - but you = poor imitation.

* You even "threatened me" by promising you would impersonate me as you STALKED ME too by your UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous trollings of myself also https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...

APK

P.S.=> Grow up & do something useful w/ yourself ... apk

Wha?

[Rick Zeman]

Was there even any content in that article beyond the buzzwords?

STOP CALLING PROOF OF WORK CRYPTO! RAAAARRR

[Anonymous Coward]

For pete's sake, please STOP calling proof-of-work and proof-of-stake and whatever other hash-collision BS you're basing your next Ponzi-scheme on "Crypto". Crypto is a prefix and means nothing by itself. Crypto-what? Crypto-sandwiches? Crypto-fidgetspinners? If anything, it already has a well-established history of implying -graphy, as in cryptography, which hash collision systems ARE NOT.

I know it's a losing battle, but let's please try not to ruin the implied meaning of 'crypto' like 'hacker' was.

Re: STOP CALLING PROOF OF WORK CRYPTO! RAAAARRR

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, no, language changes. Crypto is a crypto currency. Deal with it.

dapp MetaMask CryptoKitties

[Anonymous Coward]

dapp MetaMask CryptoKitties - makes me feel stupid - does this mean anything?

Re:Oh boy! More funny money!

[Chas]

It's, again, another "popular term" that's understood.