A library of snippets
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The US Navy is working on ways to build, deploy, and control thousands of small drones that are able to flock together to overwhelm anti-aircraft defenses with sheer numbers, budget documents reveal.
From The US Navy wants swarms of thousands of small drones | MIT Technology Review:
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“Between 2003 and 2018, the number of automatic-roller car washes (that is, robots washing your car) declined by 50 percent, while the number of hand car washes (that is, men with buckets) increased by 50 percent,” the economist commentator Duncan Weldon told me in an interview for my podcast, Plain English. “It’s more like the people are taking the robots’ jobs.”
From How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Western Europe – The Atlantic:
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Almost 1 year into the bitcoin bear market, most who bought bitcoin in 2021 are facing heavy losses and appear to be waiting for any rallies to close their position. A record number of bitcoin units haven’t been used for any transaction in the past 6 months, currently at 78% of total and this number continues to rise
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JP Morgan has made a strategic investment in Tilia, the payments platform initially built to power the economy of online virtual world Second Life.
Tilia is built for game, virtual world and mobile app developers, handling payment processing, in-game transactions, as well as payouts to creators by converting in-world tokens to fiat currency including USD.
From JP Morgan invests in Second Life’s payment platform Tilia:
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The Netherlands in general has a high preference for digital payment methods — it has the lowest cash usage in the eurozone, and behind the Nordic countries when the whole of Europe is taken into consideration.
The data further reveals that of all online payments recorded, 41.1% were bank transfers, 36.1% were card-based, 19.2% were mobile payments, and 2.9% used buy now, pay later (BNPL).
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Shares in a regulated retail money market fund, issued as security tokens on a public blockchain under the applicable securities legislation, might be an alternative. Like stablecoins, they would be pegged to a unit of fiat currency but would pay interest.
From The future of stablecoins is commercial bank money | Financial Times:
But these would, as far as I understand things, be digital assets not stablecoins.
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The Netherlands in general has a high preference for digital payment methods — it has the lowest cash usage in the eurozone, and behind the Nordic countries when the whole of Europe is taken into consideration.
The data further reveals that of all online payments recorded, 41.1% were bank transfers, 36.1% were card-based, 19.2% were mobile payments, and 2.9% used buy now, pay later (BNPL).
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JCB, the Japanese card payment network, recently announced a central bank digital currency (CBDC) proof of concept with IDEMIA and a Malaysian fintech. The aim is to demonstrate that Tokyo merchants can take CBDC with existing payment cards and payment infrastructure. More interestingly, JCB also announced a second project for machine-to-machine (M2M) offline payments, which could potentially be used for CBDC.
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PayPal has announced plans to replace passwords with passkeys, adding a new level of security while catering to a growing cohort of consumers who want password-free commerce. Passkeys will roll out first to iPhone, iPad or Mac users on PayPal.com before expanding to other platforms as they add support for passkeys.
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SIBOS, first held in 1978, is the jumbo international annual banking conference organised by SWIFT. It sees itself as the premier global financial services event and it attracts senior people from across the sector. I was one of the 10,000 or so people there this year and, amongst other things, took part in an interesting (and very well-attended, I have to say) on stage “fireside chat” about the metaverse with Paul Clarke, who used to be the CTO at Ocado and knows a thing or two about building systems for the mass market. I also wandered into a couple of discussions about central bank digital currency (CBDC) and the future of payments in general.
(Overall, I would agree with The Economist’s view that the metaverse and digital currency drew the crowds, alongside the “decades old” issues of cross-border payments and trade finance.)
Digital currency I can understand. How digital currencies might work is of considerable interest to SIBOS delegates because
But the metaverse? Why was this so interesting to an audience of mainstream, blue chip bankers?
First of all, the metaverse will be a place to meet and engage with customers.
Secondly, the metaverse will be a place where transactions will take place and therefore will need financial services of various kinds, starting with payments. If digital dollars, yen and euros can be exchanged in the metaverse, along with other kinds of digital assets, then it will become a low cost
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Payments might provide part of the answer. Payment industry professionals feel the challenges of online payment every day: carpet-bombed by fraud attacks, margins eroded by high fees and challenges with delivery and fulfilment.
In such circumstances, it’s no surprise to hear that banks and merchants are keen on an environment that promises low to zero fees, instant fund transfers and fulfilment either online, or via local logistics partners through the metaverse.
Citi GPS’s vision for payment in the metaverse sees cryptocurrencies existing alongside Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs, or digital versions of fiat currencies) and stablecoins, or digital versions of fiat currencies.
It argues that fiat currencies themselves, in the form of tokenised credit and debit cards or digital wallets, are likely to have a lesser role and says that payment will be realised using blockchain-enabled rails, making the exchange of value faster and cheaper for transacting parties.
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Finally, the metaverse will open up new opportunities for financial services that do not exist outside of it.
These three factors taken together explain why normally conservative banking institutions are exploring the metaverse. Take take just one example, Deutsche Bank published a report that points to a future of multiple metaverse ecosystems, with interoperability through standard solutions and protocols for digital identity, credentials and asset ownership (which is similar to the definition that I used at SIBOS) that could “usher in the next e-commerce revolution” as it becomes more mainstream.
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Management consultant firm, McKinsey, believes that this trickle of money could become a river of capital, or as it surmises as “too big for companies to ignore….it has the potential to be the next iteration of the internet”, estimating that by as near as 2030, over $5trillion of money a year will be spent p.a. in the metaverse. This vast sum is more that the GDP of Japan, at $4.97trillion p.a. – significant, since it is the third largest country in the world.
From By 2030, metaverse revenues p.a. to be worth more than the GDP of Japan.
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So what is the key role of the mainstream institutions who were at SIBOS.
Well, I think that banks in particular have the opportunity to take key roles in both the digital asset and digital identity ecosystems.
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The myriad applications of Web 3.0 are likely to illustrate the critical need for user-centric digital identity. Users will expect granular controls over how and when their information is shared. If Web 3.0 truly consumes all aspects and functions of our transactional existences (particularly from mobile devices), users will need to “unlock” different aspects of their identities depending on the use case.
From Identity for Web 3.0, the Metaverse and Beyond – Liminal.co:
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Snippings