Miami, host city of the Bitcoin 2022 event we recently visited, doesn’t own or manage the MiamiCoin cryptocurrency, although the coin has enjoyed the support of Mayor Francis Suarez, who at one point suggested it raised “the possibility of being able to run a government without the citizens having to pay taxes.” Now Quartz reports that since launching on August 3rd, MiamiCoin’s value has dropped by as much as 95 percent.

The CityCoin plan requires miners to acquire tokens on the Stacks (STX) blockchain that they can use to bid for MiamiCoin. The winning bidder receives 70 percent of their investment in MiamiCoin, while the city receives the other 30 percent in STX tokens.

Image: OkCoin exchange

At first, things seemed good — Suarez said the city received a $5.25 million payout from the project on February 2nd. However, 17 days later, the Miami Herald quoted the mayor saying “I don’t know whether it’s going to work,” as the coin’s value dropped to around four-tenths of a cent, and it sits at $0.0044 today, down more than 88 percent as reported by OkCoin, the only exchange that supports trading for the coin. Separately, Quartz obtained an email from CityCoins to the mayor’s office citing worries that his statements could trip “regulatory wires” — if the SEC investigated and decided the coin is unregistered security instead of currency, both CitcyCoin and the city could have to give investors their money back.

Quartz reports that Patrick Stanley, listed as a supporter on the CityCoins website, has apparently been a frequent contact for city officials, and says the currency could be used for local business transactions or universal basic income. None of those applications have become real, yet Stanley tweeted a picture just today of people apparently learning to develop projects that might use the crypto somehow. Quartz also mentioned one open city proposal, which would have the coin serve as a reward for people who call to report rideshare scooters left laying around.

Of course, Miami isn’t alone in its CityCoin push. In November, as Suarez promised to take a paycheck in Bitcoin, then-new New York City mayor Eric Adams said he’d take his first three paychecks in Bitcoin to top the stunt, and welcomed CityCoins to the area. Bitcoin reached its peak value of $69,000 in about that same week and is currently trading for about $30,000. The NYCCoin project that launched on January 24th, 2022, has shed some 98.58 percent from its value and is trading for $0.0014.

It’s been over a year since Mediatonic confirmed Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was coming to Xbox and Nintendo Switch. After some delays, the wait is almost over. The ridiculously fun battle royale platformer is coming to those platforms, as well as Epic Games Store, on June 21st. A dedicated PlayStation 5 version is on the way too. Full cross-play and cross-progression will be available across all platforms as well.

What’s more, Fall Guys is going free-to-play. Epic pulled a similar move with Rocket League after snatching up Psyonix. Existing players on PlayStation and Steam will receive a legacy pack, which includes three costumes and some other bonuses. Newcomers who pre-register can claim some swag as well. 

It’s not a huge shock that Fall Guys is coming to the Epic Games Store — Epic bought Mediatonic parent Tonic Games Group last year. Users have needed an Epic account to play Fall Guys since November, when cross-progression was added.

A new season will also get underway on June 21st. Mediatonic is resetting the counter and calling it Season 1: Free For All. It will be the first seasonal update since November and, as ever, there will be new levels and more cosmetics.

For the first time, there will be a premium (i.e. paid) season pass with 100 tiers and extra cosmetic items. Those who receive the legacy pass will get free access to the premium season pass for season one. A free season pass will still be available with other items to unlock. 

Crowns will no longer be used for currency to buy items in the store. The crown rank feature will be boosted with more rewards. Unspent crowns will be converted into Kudos. There will be another in-game currency called Show-Bucks, which can be used to buy the premium season pass. Costumes that are on the way include Ezio from the Assassin’s Creed series, along with Mecha Godzilla and Mothra.

There’s one more big update on the way: a level creator. This was announced as being “under construction” and, while it won’t be arriving any time soon, it’s an exciting feature to look forward to.

The game debuted on PS4 and Steam in August 2020 and was an instant hit, racking up millions of players on PC in just a few days and becoming the most-claimed game in the history of PlayStation Plus at the time. It seems player numbers have dropped quite a ways since the early days — having increasingly lengthy seasons likely hasn’t helped. However, the arrival of Fall Guys on more platforms, the free-to-play shift and a new season should all bring new and lapsed players into the fold.

The alleged gunman behind the attack in Buffalo, New York that left 10 dead and three injured on Saturday used Discord to discuss and share plans ahead of the assault, according to Bloomberg.

As far back as December, the suspect is reported to have used a private server on the popular chat service to describe his intentions to carry out an attack. He later shared links to Discord logs describing his attack plan and white supremacist views, according to Bloomberg. The report says that the suspect mentioned the terrorist who attacked a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand more than 30 times and used racist slurs and extremist phrases while in the app.

“As soon as we became aware of it we took action against it and removed the server in accordance with our policies against violent extremism,” a Discord spokesperson told Bloomberg. The company did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for more information on its moderation policies.

Discord’s moderation team “splits its time” between responding to user-reported messages and “proactively finding and removing servers and users” engaged in “high-harm activity,” the company wrote in 2021. That approach to moderation was created after Discord learned that white supremacists had used its app to organize the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

“Trust & Safety has spent a lot of time since 2017 trying to ensure that another event like Charlottesville isn’t planned on our platform,” the company wrote last year.

As recently as 2019, Discord was primarily relying on user reports to moderate its platform and not actively monitoring private or public servers, according to a PC Gamer story from that year. The company’s moderation team does have the ability to read messages from private servers, the story said, but Discord typically only did so when a message was reported by a user.

Saturday’s attack is being investigated as a hate crime, Buffalo police have said. CNN reports that the suspect, identified as Payton S. Gendron, told authorities he was targeting a Black community; 11 of the people shot were Black.

The suspect is also alleged to have used Discord to plan to livestream the attack. Video of the assault was broadcast live on Twitch, which claims to have stopped the stream “less than two minutes after the violence began.” Even so, footage has continued to spread online as major platforms struggle to crack down on new uploads of the horrific footage.