Snippings

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As of July 29, 2024, governments around the world hold 2.2% of Bitcoin’s total supply, or 471,380.6 BTC, worth $32.7 billion.

From: Governments Now Hold 2.2% of All Bitcoin | CoinGecko.

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The US has something like $20 billion worth (at current prices).

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“I can assure you that the humans in the rest of the world, all the normal people — because you all are not normal, sorry to say, you’re special in some way — the normal people are not ready,” Schmidt told the Princeton crowd.

From: Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Says ‘Normal People’ Are Not Ready for AI – Business Insider.

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One of the things that’s worth saying is that none of us thought, when we invented social media, that we would become a threat to democracy

From: Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Says ‘Normal People’ Are Not Ready for AI – Business Insider.

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I remember when an old friend of mine, Keith Gold (who is something of an expert in banking technology) told of his experiences with his bank. Keith is the Treasurer of his local Bridge Club. In this capacity, he recieved an invitation from his bank to open a business savings account online. As that sounded like a reaonable idea, he tried to do it online but without success, so as a desparate last resort he telephoned the bank. After some 20-30 minutes talking to two different memebers of staff, he was sent a link to follow for online account opening. Needless to say, it did not work this time either, so he telephoned again and went through another 20-30 minutes with two more members of staff before the account was opened. As he pointed out at the time, he gave up an hour and a half of his time to speak with four different bank employees to make a deposit of around £5,000 and an interest rate of around 1%.

This is totally unsustainable, and is the sort of thing that any reasonably competent AI working on this behalf could have taken care of in a few minutes. The AI woul dnot bother telephoning the bank, it would first of all go through a discovery phase, pinging banks with business accounts to get the interet rate (and terms and conditions, of course) and then choosing the best one based on the rates and rights. After a few minutes it will have made the best choice and can then use open banking to move the Bridge Club’s money to the best destination, all while Keith enjoys a few rubbers.

AI can’t come soon enough for me. My bank sent me a message saying that that I could borrow up to £20,000 (or whatever it was) for my business and I thought it might be a good time to get a new MacMini, MacBook Air and a few other bits and pieces. So I clicked on the link, which took me to a page that told me to call my business banking team by phone, which of course I couldn’t be bothered to do. I look forward to the time when I can tell my trusted Money Supermarket bot to go and get me a business loan then use it to order the new kit.

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AI-based agents—we can call them digital fiduciaries (DFs)—are programmed by your own Net fiduciary to help sift through and make transparent an array of potential options while respecting your privacy.

From: Personal data Economies: Waze and the Future of Personalized Health Intelligence.

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It seems like those strategic opportunities presented themselves. SwiftConnect this month raised $37 million in a Series B round led by Quadri Ventures, with participation from HID, Egis Capital Partners, Klingenstein Fields Advisors, Crow Holdings, JLL Spark, Navitas Capital, and Spring Rock Capital.

From: SwiftConnect lets workers access the office with a smartphone swipe | TechCrunch.

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While it’s growing at a healthy clip, SwiftConnect faces potential headwinds. Mobile-centric access control systems can leave workers in a lurch if their smartphones shut down. And systems such as SwiftConnect’s have raised privacy concerns.

From: SwiftConnect lets workers access the office with a smartphone swipe | TechCrunch.

Actually, walking around with a badge showing your name and where you work seems like more of a privacy concern to me, but there you go. 

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Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree are the lifeblood of the bike theft industry in London, providing the ready supply of people willing to spend hundreds or thousands of pounds on a dubiously-sourced secondhand bike.

From: How to catch a London bike thief – by Jim Waterson.

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Dave Birch outlines why banks need to start thinking about Y2Q, which is when quantum computing will make some current encryption technology obsolete

From: Here is your November 2024 -January 2025 issue of Financial World.

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Waze uses the travel patterns of many to deliver individually specific transparency into potential route options of interest. The user is not aware of the identity, the automobiles, the intended routes of other drivers, yet benefits from their collective experience to shed light on what would be the best route to choose at any moment in time. With a rigorous, privacy protecting trust framework, these principles can expand to provide health intelligence transparency which could benefit both our health and financial well-being.

From: Personal data Economies: Waze and the Future of Personalized Health Intelligence.

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