CalvinAyre.com is shutting down. The change comes as Calvin Ayre himself shifts his focus completely to the world of cryptocurrencies.
One could argue CalvinAyre.com has been on its way out for a while as a news source, but it appears that Ayre himself is calling time of death now. It is the end of an era.
The landing site for CalvinAyre.com is currently a message from Ayre in which he explains why he is moving on.
"In 2009, despite having relinquished any active role in the online gambling industry years earlier," he begins. "I launched CalvinAyre.com due to my dissatisfaction with the news sites that then dominated discussion of the gaming sector. I found their coverage too deferential to the established giants of the day and too oblivious of the changes I saw looming on the horizon."
The most important of these changes, in Ayre's view, was the adoption of crytpocurrencies by the gambling industry.
Back in 2011, Ayre wrote a predictive article in which he imagined that Bitcoin would become a big deal, but not before it was structurally overhauled.
At that time he wrote that "[2011] will be the year a modified version of Bitcoin hits the net. Someone is going to figure out how to make this work and when they do, all the anti-gambling, over-regulating authoritarian governments will be exposed as emperors without clothes."
He was wrong. The new tech didn't come. Bitcoin trundled on. Though, in his view at least, he was only wrong about the year. Enter CoinGeek.com.
Forking right
Ayre is moving on to a new project: CoinGeek.com. Founded in 2017, CoinGeek serves in part as a cryptocurrency news agency and in part as the promotional arm for Dr. Craig Wright and "his" Bitcoin Satoshi Vision technology.
The About page on the website describes it as "the authority on blockchain technology, with a focus on the original Bitcoin, Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV)."
"Original" is a contronym, and both meanings apply here.
BSV is two hard-forks away from Bitcoin proper (original, adj. new or unusual). On the other hand, Wright and Ayre claim it represents the true vision of the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto (part of whom, not incidentally, Wright claims to be). Here we have (original, adj. first or earliest).
Ayre is heavily invested in the BSV tech right now as the announcement on CalvinAyre.com makes clear. Unlike many in the media and cryptocurrency industry, Ayre does not appear to suspect Wright of playing fast and loose with the truth. He believes fully in Wright's claims to be Satoshi.
"Bitcoin was given new life through Satoshi’s re-emergence – in the more tangible form of Dr. Craig Wright," Ayre writes. "And the release of Bitcoin SV (BSV), the only technology that remains true to the vision Satoshi outlined in his famous white paper (released one year before CalvinAyre.com’s launch)."
Ayre goes on to describe BSV's "unparalleled scaling capacity" which "offers heretofore unthinkable possibilities for data management."
This wouldn't be the first time blockchain tech was touted as a solution to the world's problems. But the events of 2020 seem to have done wonders for Bitcoin's value and acceptance.
It will be interesting to see if BSV can catch up with Ayre's assistance.
What will happen to CalvinAyre.com?
Though CalvinAyre.com will no longer be updated, it will remain up for the time being. Ayre explains that it will now serve as an archive for the publication's decade or so of articles.
"My primary focus may have changed," Ayre writes in his annoucement. "But you never forget your first love. So for those who came looking for archived CalvinAyre.com gambling articles, they live on here."
Many of the gambling-based staff writers have written emotional articles saying goodbye and serving as cover letters for their newly updated CVs. On the other hand, CalvinAyre.com's crypto authors have transitioned smoothly to the new site, for the most part.
The original site's interviews and highlight videos were all moved to the CalvinAyre.com YouTube channel last year. They will remain there for the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, we must all bid farewell to one of the gambling world's icons. Goodnight, sweet print.
Featured image source: Flickr
