Dungeon Defenders II will implement ‘proof of skill’ algorithm for crytpocurrency rewards

Blockchain startup Signal Zero today announced a partnership with Trendy Entertainment to bring its Loot protocol to the massively popular game Dungeon Defenders II .

This marks the first major game release to feature baked-in cryptocurrency rewards. Dungeon Defenders II is a free-to-play game available on Steam, Xbox One, and Playstation 4. It was officially launched last year, and has since received numerous updates and expansions, and has been downloaded more than eight million times, according to data provided by Signal Zero.

The Loot platform will bring “proof of skill” based cryptocurrency rewards to the game in the form of tokens that can be exchanged for in-game items, third party gift cards, and other cryptocurrencies.

According to the developers of the Loot protocol, it does not leverage your computer’s GPU or CPU for mining functions. Instead, the “mathematics that are a result of measuring the gamer’s relative skill, performance and engagement in a game serve as an alternate form of crypto generation.”

According to Drew Curby , Chief Business Development Officer at Trendy Entertainment:

Dungeon Defenders II has enough gaming cred to make this announcement interesting. It’s easy to be skeptical of anything with the word “cryptocurrency” in it, especially in the gaming space, but the recent proliferation of paid rewards such as loot boxes into AAA titles means this makes at least as much sense as paying fiat currency for driver gear in Forza Motorsports 7 .

In this case, if the inclusion of a blockchain-based, decentralized token can be done seamlessly and without requiring gamers to be savvy with cryptocurrency, there’s a shot it could catch on. Proof of skill sounds a bit silly, but isn’t that what E-sports competitions are about anyway?

We’ll find out if Loot and Dungeon Defenders II are a match made in crypto-heaven once the protocol officially launches in the game, which should be early 2019. For more information visit Signal Zero’s Loot website here .

PSA: MetaMask reveals your Ethereum address to sites you visit, here’s how to hide it

There’s a setting that popular Ethereum service MetaMask doesn’t enable by default, and it’s putting users‘ privacy at risk.

MetaMask works as a gateway to decentralized apps (dapps) running on Ethereum’s blockchain. It’s a browser extension that seeks to simplify the use of cryptocurrency, which tends to intimidate unfamiliar users. It’s one of the most popular apps of its kind, boasting over a million installs on Chrome.

The company built a new “ privacy mode ” last year, designed to keep users from unintentionally broadcasting their Ethereum addresses to sites they visit while MetaMask is in use; these signals are known as “message broadcasts.”

Ethereum addresses are unique identifiers

A community member recently raised concerns over MetaMask’s “message broadcasts.” They detailed how (without privacy mode enabled) Ethereum addresses are detectable by “any advertisement, or tracker” while the user browses the web.

“[…] It sacrifices the privacy of everyone in the system because sites like Amazon, Google, PayPal, and others can link your blockchain transactions to credit card payments, thereby your identity, and the identity of the last person you transacted with – a person who wants to remain anonymous,” he wrote.

Hard Fork recreated the suggested method to see this in action. We installed a fresh version of MetaMask on a machine that had never used it before, and initiated a new Ethereum address.

Above is a screenshot of a “burner” address created using the MetaMask service. Note the string of letters and numbers underneath the QR-code.

Shortly after entering some basic code into the JavaScript console of my browser (replicating how third-party trackers would detect message broadcasts), I was gifted small packets of data containing the exact same Ethereum address that I had just “registered” with MetaMask.

In effect, MetaMask’s use of message broadcasts means the Ethereum addresses of its users can be relayed to ads and trackers, such as “Google+ like buttons, Facebook like buttons, Twitter retweeters, etc.”

Yeah, this is a problem, but fixing it could cause more

Sharing Ethereum addresses with any tracking service that requests it is certainly a little unsettling, but there are wider implications. Think of your Ethereum address as a unique identifier, you want to keep it separate from the rest of your online footprint at all times.

This is especially concerning when you consider that your address might be getting linked to your activity on some of the more fringe Ethereum dapps out there – like Spankchain . It seems an easy fix, but devs are still figuring out how to do it “safely.”

MetaMask has confirmed it’s aware of this issue. According to lead developer Dan Finlay, enabling privacy mode could damage older dapps still relying on making Ethereum address requests in this way.

“You’re right, we haven’t enabled this by default yet, because it would break previous dapp behavior, and we realized if we add the manual ability for users to ‘log in’ to legacy applications, we can add this privacy feature without breaking older sites,” he wrote in response . “PostMessage does expose the messages to all elements within a signed-in iFrame, and that could be more private.”

Finlay said MetaMask devs “need” to enable privacy mode by default, but there is no clear timeline for when the fix will be rolled out. For context, MetaMask had previously said it hoped to have the issue resolved by last November.

“We’ll be enabling privacy mode by default soon(er), the criticism that we’ve been slow on that is valid and we take it seriously,” he added, before commenting that backwards compatibility would also be an option for users who want to enable message broadcasts, for whatever reason.

So, if you have MetaMask installed, it’s best you double check if privacy mode is switched on. Follow these steps:

Click on the MetaMask fox head in the top-right corner of your browser.

Then, the little cartoon globe in the top-right corner of the window that pops up.

Hit “Settings.”

Scroll down until you see “Privacy Mode.” Make sure this is enabled (the slider is toggled to the right.)

You can now browse the internet without revealing your Ethereum stash to every site you visit. Thank me later.

Did you know? Hard Fork has its own stage at TNW2019 , our tech conference in Amsterdam. Check it out .

Google will ban cryptocurrency ads starting this June

In a bid to prevent web users from falling prey to scammy and risky cryptocurrency products and services, Google will begin banning “any advertising about cryptocurrency-related content, including initial coin offerings (ICOs), wallets, and trading advice,” on its AdWords platform starting this June.

That’s from Scott Spencer, director of sustainable ads at Google, who told CNBC :

The change will affect Google’s entire suite of advertising offerings , which means you won’t see ads in the company’s own services or on other sites that serve up Google ads, after it goes into effect.

The move follows Facebook’s decision to block cryptocurrency ads , which was announced at the end of January; the social network said that these financial products and services are “frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices,” and cited examples of ads that invited users to start binary options trading, buying into ICOs, and purchasing cryptocurrency.

At that time, I wrote that Google should follow Facebook’s lead, and it’s nice to see that it’s doing so. The only question is, why wait until June? It’s possible that the search giant has already sold ad inventory to customers wanting to promote their cryptocurrency and related products up until then.

The company also claimed in a blog post today that it removed some 3.2 billion ‘bad ads’ that violated its policies in 2017, up from 1.7 billion in 2016. Hopefully, it’ll be even more effective in battling misleading ads this year.

The Next Web’s 2018 conference is just a few months away, and it’ll be