John Naughton, who I always read, drew my attention to an excellent rant from Dave Winer about the infuriating tendency of chatbots to pretend that they’re your friend.

“Can we have a rule,” Dave wrote, “that AI bots must by default behave like a computer?

I suggest we adopt the 

xxx

The high fees for the mules mean that this service is often offered for free to criminals in the UK, undercutting other organised money-laundering operations.

From: Chinese state-linked gangs ‘using students to launder money in UK’.

xxx

xxx

Roughly $750 billion in bitcoin sits in addresses vulnerable to future quantum attacks.

From: State of Crypto 2025: The year crypto went mainstream – a16z crypto.

xxx

xxx

Adoption is accelerating. Monthly adjusted stablecoin transaction volume has exploded to new all-time highs, approaching $1.25 trillion in September 2025, alone.

Notably, this activity was largely uncorrelated with broader crypto trading volume — indicating the non-speculative use of stablecoins and, more to the point, their product-market fit.

From: State of Crypto 2025: The year crypto went mainstream – a16z crypto.

xxx

Visa and Mastercard are reported to be nearing a settlement with US merchants over a decades old dispute about the fees the merchants pay for accepting credir cards. Under the proposed settlement, Visa and Mastercard would steadily interchange fees over several years and relax the “honour all cards” rules so that merchants that accept one kind of Visa credit card no longer have to accept all kinds of Visa credit cards. Card acceptance would instead be divided into several categories such rewards credit cards, credit cards with no rewards programs and commercial cards

This would mean a noticeable change at the check out. Some merchants decide not to accept rewards cards, which charge them higher fees, and face the risk of declining sales. You can understand their perspective. If am a clothes shop, I might well find it annoying to pay a higher fee to accept cards to that card issuers can reward the customers with points from another merchant, an airline or a hotel chain that is nothing to do with me. We know, I think, roughly how the dynamics will change

 

xxx

Durbin argues that the European Union limits payment networks from charging more than 0.3% in transaction fees, and that hasn’t eliminated rewards programs. But those rewards are sharply reduced in the EU. To take one example, the Revolut Metal cashback card, offered by a London-based bank, offers 1% for purchases outside Europe, but only 0.1% for purchases inside the EU.

From: Is the Credit Card Competition Act Really Going to Destroy Rewards Programs?.

xxx

 

 

 

ight in turn have mor eof an impact at retail point-of-sale that is immediately obvious. As the management conultancy McKinsey has pointed out in the past, account-to-account (A2A) payments have yet to gain traction with merchants.

(A item of payments trivia for you is that no-one uses Zelle to pay in supermarkets in America but people use it all the time to pay in supermarkets in Venezuela.)

One reason is that, in the absence of a regulatory framework, banks have been at a competitive disadvantage in staking out a strong presence in the payments marketplace. Also, Americans love their credit cards and the rewards that come with them, so dislodging the popularity of cards is perhaps the biggest challenge to US adoption of A2A.

From: The role of US open banking in catalyzing the adoption of A2A payments | McKinsey.

xxx

 

xxx

What it does show, though, is that there are clear subsidies at play. Someone, somewhere is subsidizing my points habit – no longer the merchant, it is now other BA or Amex customers. Indeed, such subsidies are the most controversial aspect to the model. A 2022 Federal Reserve paper estimates that in the US, credit card rewards induce an aggregate annual redistribution of $15.1 billion “from less to more educated, poorer to richer, and high to low minority areas.” Cardholders with superprime scores typically earn money with the use of reward cards while subprime and near-prime cardholders lose out.

From: The Points Guy – by Marc Rubinstein – Net Interest.

xxx

 

 

Rewards Trajectories

xxx

Taking advantage of this system requires diligence and restraint to avoid paying more in interest and fees than you gain in rewards.

From: Credit Card Rewards and Points Like AmEx Give Gen Z Luxury Lifestyle – Business Insider.

Now, I don’t have sufficient diligence or restraint to ensure that I get more in rewards than I pay out in frees. But a bot does. So what happens to these schemes when they are being used by bots, not people?

That Business Insider article also quotes a chap who says that every year he goes through his list of cards to see which ones paid for themselves and which ones did not, then he cancels the ones that do not wash their face. I don’t have time for that and even if I did I’d prefer to spend it playing Dungeons & Dragons. Bots, however, could do this day in and day out.

Speaking as someone who stared playing Dungeons & Dragons long before it was cool, I was delighted to read in the Financial Times that companies (they cite McKinsey as one example) are using role-playing games (RPGs) in virtual worlds to assess candidates. This is because the companies think this leads to fairer assements compared to traditional methods.

What an excellent idea, which again reinforces my suggestion that a national Dungeons & Dragons strategy is an imperative, not only as a mean to support and enhance boding and friendship in the community as a whole but also to sharpen thinking across the age spectrum and at the far end of that spectrum, create a bulwark against failing mental capacity.

(You don’t need me to tell you just how effective Dungeons & Dragons is at stimulating the imagination and curiosity, but if the country needs a champion to advance the cause to the benefit of net welfare, I stand ready to answer the nation’s call.)

Dungeons & Dragons is not the only RPG, of course. There are many others, all with dedicated fans. There are the old favourites “Call of Cthulhu” and “Traveller”, set in American and space, respectively. One my current favourites is Free League Publishing’s fantastic “Alien”, set in the universe of the Alien movie franchise, but in the past I’ve also enjoyed Runequest and Stormbringer (the Runequest system but set in the world of Elric of Melnibone). If you want to get away from the stresses of modern live and you’re not at a football match, then there’s nothing better than sitting around a table with friends and creating shared narrative in an imaginary space.

If I were a recruiter, I would definitely base my assessment of candidates on their ability to make decisions under pressure (“the Beholder moves out of the shadows and into the torchlight, what do you do!”) and on their ability to stay calm and think clearly (“I cast Sheild of Faith and then try to stealth behind the pillar”), but whether other companies are as enlightened I’m nor sure. 

The news that Amazon is suing Perplexity to try and stop the AI startup from helping consumers to buy from their popular online marketplace brings to the fore the growing tension between companies providing agentic AIs and companies that provide products and services. Retailers, including apparel retailer Everlane and home furnishing firm Brooklinen, say they are holding off on partnering with OpenAI because they do not know how they will be able to iidentify consumers making purchases. Why is this such a big deal? Well, it is because purchase data is a key assets and if retailers allow OpenAI (and others) access to that data then they become vulnerable because once the platforms have this data then they can “go directly to advertisers and sell inventory based on the same data”. Indeed. Once again, what looks like a payments issue is actually and identity issuer.

 

From: OpenAI’s Commerce and Apps Efforts Divide Consumer Firms — The Information.

xxx

xxx

Retail banks could unlock hundreds of million of dollars a year in additional profits through large-scale deployment of artificial intelligence, says Boston Consulting Group. The consultancy believes banks have an “abundance of attributes that sit squarely in AI’s sweet spot”, such as enhanced customer support, personalisation of service and offers, and the automation of manual or repetitive tasks.

From: AI to ‘unlock $370bn’ a year in additional bank profits – The Banker.

xxx

It must be noted that Amazon is currently promoting its own AI shopping assistant, Rufus, launched earlier this year. The Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told investors in an earnings call that they expect “over time to partner with third-party agents” which I take mean to that they envisage the future shopping experience being customer AIs of various kinds talking with Rufus.

xxx

The global market for virtual idols and streamers is projected to reach $4 billion by 2029, according to market research firm QYResearch. The South Korean government has pledged to invest tens of millions of dollars into the metaverse, which comprises many virtual worlds including the one owned by Meta. The nation enacted the world’s first metaverse law last year, which promises administrative and financial support for metaverse companies.

From: Metaverse K-pop idols reshape fame and labor in South Korea – Rest of World.

xxx