Snippings

Back in the dark times of the 1970s (we had strikes and power cuts in the UK) when I was what our American cousins would call a high school sophomore, I volunteered to take some additional exams, known as Certificates of Secondary Education (or “CSEs”), along side my “Ordinary Levels” (or “O Levels”). In those long ago days, you needed these O Levels in order to stay on at high school and study for “Advanced Levels” (of “A Levels”) which you needed to join the select band of individuals going on to university. CSEs were designed, if I remember correctly, for people who were going to leave school and go to work.

In addition to the hatful of O Levels that I was “studying” for, I took two CSE exams. The CSE in Computer Science had only just been introduced and it was not taught at my school but thanks to the encouragement of some truly unique teachers (to whom I will be eternally grateful) a group of were encouraged to teach ourselves after school. The other CSE, which was taught in the school, was Commerce.

I loved my CSE Commerce course. You learned how to type, some rudiments of what business is and so on. For working class kids growing up in Swindon, this was genuinely useful, as was learning about bank accounts, cheque books, mortgages and so on. By the time I went to university, I was ready to enter middle class life with a Barclays Bank account, a Barclaycard and a cheque book. I wouldn’t say I was an expert on personal finance (as my bank manager of the time would testify) but I had sufficient grasp of the basics to function effectively.

 

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Financial literacy in America is not only low but has steadily declined over time.

That is the conclusion of research from Finra, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. In 2009, the average respondent to its triennial survey could answer three out of five simple financial literacy questions correctly. By 2021, this number had fallen to 2.6. Worse, out of the 27,000-plus people surveyed, only 4 per cent were able to answer all questions correctly. This suggests many lack a basic understanding of concepts like inflation, compound interest and risk diversification.

An older — but more sweeping — study led by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services offered equally dismal findings. The US is ranked number 14 in terms of financial literacy, behind Singapore and the Czech Republic. Norway, Denmark, and Sweden tied for first place.

From Financial literacy: educating youngsters to be right on the money | Financial Times:

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Banco Central abrirá protocolos do Pix para países que queiram ‘copiar’ tecnologia de graça

From Banco Central abrirá protocolos do Pix para países que queiram ‘copiar’ tecnologia de graça – InfoMoney.

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Central Bank president Roberto Campos Neto said this Friday (11), that the municipality should release the Pix protocols in November so that other countries can copy the instant payment system for free. “Now, in November, we will open everything that we did in Pix, in terms of protocol, to all central banks that want to copy it, for free”, he said.

Campos Neto’s statement was made at an event organized by the CFA Society Brazil, in São Paulo.

digital assets
The president of the Central Bank also said that the autarchy wants to encourage banks to act as custodians of digital assets. “Exactly so you don’t have a custody concentration problem and because we think it will increase the efficiency of banks when they start to see assets and liabilities in the form of tokens”, he commented.

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This consists of a combination of proof of assets and proof of liabilities. There are technical challenges in making good protocols for both, but we can and should go as far as possible to make headway in both, and open-source the software and processes as much as possible so that all exchanges can benefit.

From Having a safe CEX: proof of solvency and beyond – HackMD.

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The ideal long-term solution is to rely on self-custody

From Having a safe CEX: proof of solvency and beyond – HackMD.

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This is all really good: far from CEX vs DEX being a binary, it turns out that there is a whole spectrum of options, including various forms of hybrid centralization where you gain some benefits like efficiency but still have a lot of cryptographic guardrails preventing the centralized operator from engaging in most forms of abuses.

From Having a safe CEX: proof of solvency and beyond – HackMD.

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In the longer-term future, this kind of ZK proof of liabilities could perhaps be used not just for customer deposits at exchanges, but for lending more broadly. Anyone taking out a loan would put a record into a polynomial or a tree containing that loan, and the root of that structure would get published on-chain. This would let anyone seeking a loan ZK-prove to the lender that they have not yet taken out too many other loans.

From Having a safe CEX: proof of solvency and beyond – HackMD.

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Automated content generation: Large language and image AI models can be used to automatically generate content, such as articles, blog posts, or social media posts. This can be a valuable time-saving tool for businesses and professionals who create content on a regular basis.
Improved content quality: AI-generated content can be of higher quality than content created by humans, due to the fact that AI models are able to learn from a large amount of data and identify patterns that humans may not be able to see. This can result in more accurate and informative content.

From How Generative AI Is Changing Creative Work.

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The one part of FTX’s empire that did have a license from U.S. futures regulators was among the few FTX entities that didn’t file for bankruptcy. FTX US Derivatives—an arm of FTX US—continues to operate as LedgerX, the original name of a U.S. exchange FTX acquired in October 2021. LedgerX sells only a handful of derivatives, like bitcoin futures and ethereum swaps, all of which must be fully collateralized positions.

From How FTX Peddled Risky Derivatives—and Let Its Own Traders Run Wild — The Information.

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Perpetual futures work like this: Instead of buying cryptocurrency outright, traders post a fraction of the market price as collateral and buy a contract that exposes them to the price swings of the token, with gains and losses magnified in either direction. For example, if bitcoin costs $20,000, a trader could post just $1,000. If the price of bitcoin goes up 5%, the trader’s gain is 100%; but if the price of bitcoin goes down 5%, the trader’s loss is also 100%.

From How FTX Peddled Risky Derivatives—and Let Its Own Traders Run Wild — The Information.

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Throughout the pandemic, via three separate statutes, the 10 major US passenger airlines together received more than $54 billion in direct payments ($25 billion, $15 billion, and $14 billion). Congress also appropriated another $25 billion in subsidized loans from the US Department of the Treasury (only a fraction of which airlines have used) and suspended the 7.5 percent excise tax on domestic air travel as well as payments to airports and contractors.

From The 2020 Bailouts Left Airlines, the Economy, and the Federal Budget in Worse Shape Than Before | Mercatus Center:

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