Admin's Personal Opinion

Governments' resistance to adopting stablecoins and cryptocurrencies as a primary medium of exchange—one of money's fundamental roles—can largely be distilled into two core motives: taxation and foreign exchange control. Across the globe, remittances represent a crucial source of foreign currency inflow.

To capture and regulate this flow, governments typically enforce strict oversight by mandating that transfers go through licensed banks or money transfer operators. This system enables them to monitor transactions, identify the origin and destination of funds, and most importantly, extract value through taxation and currency conversion spreads.

Stablecoins, while offering unmatched speed, low fees, and cross-border accessibility, challenge this framework. Their pseudonymous and decentralized nature makes them difficult to track, tax, or regulate—posing a significant threat to the traditional tools of financial governance. As a result, governments often resist or delay innovations in the crypto space, not necessarily because of their technical shortcomings, but because they undermine the state’s grip on monetary flows.

This dynamic also explains the ideological divide in crypto policy. Proponents of small government and financial freedom, such as figures like Donald Trump, advocate for making countries like the United States global hubs for crypto innovation. In contrast, centralized or interventionist states, such as Türkiye, have taken aggressive stances against cryptocurrency adoption, viewing it as a challenge to their monetary authority.

Ultimately, the global tension around crypto is less about technology and more about sovereignty, control, and the future of economic power. That's why I think Telebirr reached a user base of around 50 Million in Three Years, while the adoption of Cryptocurrency is around 1 Million people.

Do you like the argument?

@webthreeth

We have launched the first newsletter for the platform, which goes by the name Senad (ሰናድ). I chose the name because the meaning goes as Tool in Geez, while it means Support in Arabic.

We believe AI is a tool that can be used to support all activities of our daily lives (both work and personal lives), and I have started to show the latest updates of AI and DeFi from Ethiopia and the global market, productivity hacks on how we can utilize AI to increase our productivity, and weekly LLM-Arena rankings.

We are open to accepting feedback and will further look into integrating comments on the newsletter into the newsletter to serve you better. (📰)


@webthreeth

Hallucination Trade-offs in OpenAI’s Latest Reasoning Models

OpenAI’s latest reasoning models, o3 and o4-mini, demonstrate a significant increase in hallucination rates compared to their predecessor, o1, according to results from the PersonQA benchmark. While o3 shows improved accuracy overall, it also hallucinates 33% of the time—more than double the 16% rate observed in o1. The smaller o4-mini model performs even worse, with a 48% hallucination rate.

These findings, reinforced by internal evaluations and third-party research, highlight a trade-off in newer models: they become more assertive and reasoning-capable, they also tend to generate more inaccurate or fabricated information. OpenAI acknowledges this growing challenge, noting that further investigation is needed to understand why hallucinations increase with scale and reasoning complexity.


@webthreeth

ETEX 2025 Call for Papers – Deadline Extended to April 25

The Ethiopian Tech Expo (ETEX) 2025 has extended its paper submission deadline to April 25, 2025, offering researchers and innovators additional time to contribute to this premier event on emerging technologies.

Scheduled for May 16–18, 2025, at the Addis Africa International Conventional & Exibition Center (AICC), ETEX 2025 will explore key thematic areas including Cybersecurity in the AI Era, Cybersecurity in Smart Cities, Quantum Computing, Fintech, and Trustworthy AI.

Papers must follow the IEEE format and be submitted via email to Etexconference@insa.gov.et. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by April 30, 2025, and selected papers will receive special recognition.

Source - Ethiopian Artificial Intelligence Institute

@webthreeth

'Agency is Eating The World' - Gian Sagato

In Agency Is Eating the World, Gian Segato argues that the rise of AI has shifted the foundation of success from specialization and credentials to personal agency—the drive to act without permission. AI tools now empower individuals to launch and scale businesses that once required large teams, enabling a new wave of lean, high-impact companies led by a few high-agency people.

While expertise still matters in high-risk fields, most industries are being disrupted by generalists who use AI to bypass traditional barriers. This marks a structural shift in the economy where the key advantage is not what you know, but your willingness to take action.

🔗 - https://www.piratewires.com/p/agency-is-eating-the-world

@webthreeth

I agree with this, 100%

Navigating Crypto Markets Amid Low Inflation and Global Trade Tensions

Truflation, reports a U.S. inflation rate of approximately 1.4%, notably lower than the Federal Reserve's official estimate of 2.4%.

Unlike (CPI), which rely on monthly surveys, Truflation utilizes real-time data from over 18 million sources across 12 spending categories, providing daily updates on inflation trends.

From 1perspective, lower inflation figures may signal reduced pressure on the Fed to raise interest rates, fostering a more favorable environment for risk assets such as cryptocurrencies. In such a setting, investors might be more inclined to allocate capital to digital assets, anticipating higher returns in a low-inflation, low-interest-rate environment.​

However, this optimism is tempered by growing macroeconomic uncertainty driven by recent trade tensions and tariff escalation.

These developments risk reigniting inflationary pressures and disrupting global supply chains, complicating the economic outlook.

@webthreeth

https://youtu.be/Vu38-N8zCbw?si=xc4rCesQ0Z11LtK2

Here is a music clip entirely made with AI by Lasta Rock 👏

AI Agents Poised to Join the Workforce as Virtual Employees by 2026

Anthropic anticipates that AI-powered virtual employees—autonomous agents with their own corporate accounts, roles, and operational memories—could begin integrating into company networks within the next year. Unlike current AI agents that handle narrow tasks, these virtual employees would possess a heightened level of autonomy, enabling them to execute complex workflows independently.

This shift introduces a major cybersecurity challenge, as businesses will need to redefine identity management, access control, and accountability frameworks to prevent misuse or exploitation of these AI identities. As organizations race to adopt such capabilities, the coming year may mark a transformative phase where AI agents move from supportive tools to fully integrated digital members of the workforce.

@webthreeth

Bitcoin ETFs Explained: Accessing Crypto Through Capital Markets

Bitcoin ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund) is an investment vehicle traded on traditional stock exchanges, designed to track the price of Bitcoin, allowing investors to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency without needing to buy or manage it directly through crypto exchanges or digital wallets. Primarily existing as Spot Bitcoin ETFs, which directly hold actual Bitcoin, or Bitcoin Futures ETFs, which hold futures contracts, these funds offer enhanced accessibility and simplicity by enabling investment via standard brokerage accounts.

This regulated approach integrates Bitcoin exposure into conventional investment portfolios, bypassing the technical complexities of self-custody and private key management, effectively bridging the gap between the traditional financial system and the digital asset market.

AI for Health: How HEP Assist is Empowering Ethiopia’s Health Workers

Ethiopia is leveraging artificial intelligence to strengthen its healthcare system, with a groundbreaking initiative led by the Ministry of Health and supported by 19 national experts.

In collaboration with IDinsight and Last Mile Health, the country has developed HEP Assist, an AI-powered tool designed to provide real-time medical guidance to community health workers. This innovation enhances frontline care delivery by helping health workers diagnose symptoms and manage cases.

Trained on comprehensive Ethiopian Ministry of Health protocols, the AI assistant is currently being piloted across 10 national call centers, with plans to expand direct access via mobile devices.

The project places Ethiopia at the forefront of AI for social impact, offering a scalable model that could transform community health systems across sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.

@webthreeth

Survey Request for an Ethiopian AI Startup

I came across a great initiative called PikCV, an Ethiopian-based platform that helps job seekers build professional, AI-optimized CVs to boost their chances of landing jobs faster.They’re currently gathering feedback to make sure their pricing stays fair and accessible, especially for job seekers in Ethiopia. If you have a couple of minutes, they’d really appreciate your input. The survey is anonymous and takes less than 3 minutes to complete. Your feedback will directly help shape how they price their services.

https://forms.gle/oXe2Z4dA5y8GWp8k8

@webthreeth

Microsoft 365 Copilot Unveils Powerful New Features for AI-Driven Productivity

Microsoft 365 Copilot has introduced a major update, among the standout features are AI-powered Agents like Researcher and Analyst, which provide continuous, on-demand insights and data analysis by synthesizing web and enterprise data. The new Agent Store allows users to integrate agents from various partners, while Copilot Studio enables easy creation of custom agents—comparable to drafting a Word document.

The Notebooks feature revolutionizes project management by organizing heterogeneous data sources and generating audio overviews for seamless updates. A robust Search function now spans across apps like Google Drive, Slack, and Jira, breaking down data silos.

Finally, the Create feature lets users turn PowerPoints into videos or generate images from prompts, further enriching content creation. Together, these upgrades mark a leap toward a more intelligent, personalized, and collaborative workspace.

@webthreeth

Seedream 3.0: ByteDance Unveils a Bilingual AI Image Generator Revolution

ByteDance has launched Seedream 3.0, an innovative bilingual text-to-image AI model that sets a new standard for visual creation. This model, unveiled with great excitement, promises to transform digital artistry by generating high-resolution images up to 2K in approximately 3 seconds.

It showcases exceptional precision in rendering photorealistic portraits and clear, stylized typography in both Chinese and English. Seedream 3.0 is trained on a significantly expanded dataset and employs advanced techniques such as defect-aware training and dual-axis data sampling. As a result, it achieves a 94% text availability rate, ensuring sharp text integration.

@webthreeth

OpenAI Product Updates – April 24, 2025

OpenAI has expanded access across several tools: Deep Research query limits have increased from 10 to 25 per month for Plus, Team, Enterprise, and Edu users, and a lightweight version of Deep Research is already appearing under the ?model=research selector.

OpenAI also launched gpt-image-1, bringing powerful image generation to the API for developers globally. Additionally, Sora is now available to free users, allowing up to 3 image generations per day and access to video generation features.

@webthreeth

Meet Icon: The AI CMO Set to Disrupt Digital Advertising

Icon is being positioned as the world’s first AI-powered Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) — a groundbreaking tool aiming to revolutionize the advertising landscape.

Icon connects to your Meta Ad Account and Google Drive to automatically pull data and creative assets, which it uses to plan and generate high-converting ads. Each day, it analyzes your site, competitor websites and ads, customer reviews, and historical ad performance to surface 100 winning ad concepts across three types: "Competitor Clone," "New Concept," and "Winner Iteration."

Unlike ChatGPT, which may fabricate product details, Icon leverages a custom reasoning layer built on top of GPT-4o to deeply understand your product, drawing from real insights in your content to create context-aware, high-performing ads. Once a concept is ready, you can launch it directly into your ad account with a single click—for under $1 per ad.

@webthreeth

BrowseComp Benchmark: Evaluating Accuracy in Agentic Browsing Across Models

OpenAI's lightweight Deep Research, powered by the o4-mini model, is designed to balance cost and performance, delivering nearly the same intelligence as the original Deep Research but with shorter responses.

Announced on April 24, 2025, this model automatically activates after users hit the original Deep Research usage limits, addressing the demand for higher usage caps.

BrowseComp benchmark, which evaluates agentic browsing capabilities, shows that the original Deep Research achieves the highest accuracy at 51.5%, while the lightweight version closely follows with 45.6%, confirming its strong performance despite being a more efficient alternative.

@webthreeth

ETN Ecosystem: 13 Use Cases for Ethiopians

@etnetsacoin is a decentralized, community-driven platform built on the TON Blockchain, designed to empower Ethiopians with a suite of 13 integrated digital services. At its core is Ethio Nesta Coin ($ETN), the native cryptocurrency that powers all transactions and governance through the ETN DAO.

The ecosystem includes ETN Pay, a seamless payment gateway for accepting $ETN across platforms; ETN Hosting, a blockchain-based web hosting service offering; ETN Learn, an educational platform focused on blockchain and cryptocurrency; and ETN DNS, a decentralized domain naming system.

Additional services include ETN Ads for targeted, token-based advertising and a governance model featuring Treasury Bonds and NFTs, allowing users to stake, vote, and shape the ecosystem’s future.

By combining decentralization, real-world utility, and education, the ETN Ecosystem aims to drive crypto adoption and digital innovation tailored specifically for the Ethiopians

@webthreeth

DeepSeek R2: A Cost-Efficient AI Breakthrough Set for Realese

DeepSeek R2, a highly anticipated AI model from China, is slated for release around April 29, 2025, following an earlier event on April 24, aiming to challenge Silicon Valley models with up to 40x cost reductions through advanced techniques like Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) and Multihead Latent Attention.

Leveraging Huawei’s Ascend 910B chips, which achieve over 80% utilization and deliver performance rivaling Nvidia’s A100 clusters despite having fewer cores and a larger die size (665.61 mm² compared to the 910’s 456.25 mm², per DeepSeek’s research), R2 optimizes efficiency using MoE, a method that treats attention heads as experts to enhance neural network performance with lower computational costs, as supported by studies like “Skywork-moe” (arXiv:2406.06563, 2024).

@webthreeth

ETN Ecosystem Progresses E-commerce Vision for Ethiopia with ETN Pay on ETN Learn

@etnetsacoin has announced a significant step forward in its ongoing efforts to establish comprehensive e-commerce solutions within Ethiopia. A key milestone has been reached with the integration of ETN Pay as a payment gateway on the ETN Learn platform, now allowing users to purchase educational courses using the $ETN digital currency.

This initial implementation utilizes the ETN Pay WordPress WooCommerce plugin, which is the first product to emerge from the ETN Pay initiative. Looking ahead, the ETN Ecosystem plans to develop ETN Pay into a fully automated dashboard with API access, enabling widespread integration of $ETN payments across various applications, websites, and services. This development signals the continued advancement of a blockchain-driven commerce landscape in Ethiopia.

@webthreeth

Tsinghua’s Taichi Chip: Revolutionizing AI with Lightning-Fast, Eco-Friendly Computing

Tsinghua University’s team, led by Professors Lu Fang and Qionghai Dai,
has created an innovative chip called "Taichi" that uses light to make artificial intelligence (AI) much faster and more energy-efficient.

This chip can handle complex tasks like recognizing thousands of objects or creating high-quality AI content while using far less power than traditional technology. They also developed a new way to train AI directly on the chip using light, making the process simpler and more efficient.

These breakthroughs mean Taichi could help build smarter, greener AI systems, paving the way for a new era of advanced AI that’s easier on the planet.

@webthreeth

It's close 👀R2

世界还没准备好迎接你。我希望你把代理、图像生成和视频生成都放下来。

启蒙运动源于印刷术和知识开源。它来自西方。

就像太阳一样，第二次启蒙运动将从东方升起。

I thought it deserved a Chinese tribute.