A library of snippets
xxx
A new research paper by Ben Charoenwong, Robert M. Kirby and Jonathan Reiter says that the only type of stablecoin that can guarantee to hold its USD peg under all conditions – and therefore be a credible safe asset – is one that is fully backed by hard dollars in the manner of a currency board.
xxx
xxx
Hong Kong is pushing ahead with its exploration of a retail central bank digital currency, launching a discussion paper on the policy and design aspects of a potential e-HKD.
Last year the Hong Kong Monetary Authority released a technical white paper on a possible e-HKD, looking at design options for issuing and distributing retail CBDCs, including an arrangement that allows transaction traceability in a privacy-amicable manner.
xxx
xxx
Three US Senators will introduce a bill that would stop US app stores from hosting any app that supports payments with China’s digital yuan, saying Beijing could use it to spy on US citizens.
From US Bill Would Ban Digital Yuan from Google, Apple App Stores:
xxx
xxx
Ji-hye, an office worker from South Korea and mother of three children under the age of five, said she had invested all her savings in the cryptocurrency after reading of the 20 per cent yield and seeing that Daniel Shin was involved in the project.
“I tried my best to accumulate savings but the bank rate seemed way too low during this high inflation period. I was desperately looking to find ways to make more savings for my three kids,” said Ji-hye, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.
“I saw my savings grow day by day with the 20 per cent interest rate, so I borrowed more money from the bank and put more on terra. It is all my fault not to look into it more deeply before I invested, but I am in despair without my savings.”
From $40bn crypto collapse turns South Korea against the ‘Lunatic’ leader | Financial Times:
xxx
The just-published fourth report in the series on The Future of Banking from the IESE Business School identifies payment systems as one of the key challenges for banks moving forwards.
xxx
The digitalisation of financial services presents formidable tests for incumbent financial intermediaries, firms, exchanges and regulators. The fourth report in the series on The Future of Banking examines the growing impact of technology on financial markets and institutions and identifies the key challenges in payment systems, the use of big data and trading in markets.
xxx
Data can also inhibit competition. Firms obtain data from transactions. More data begets
more activity and still more data, and returns to scale are obtained as firms increase size.
This data feedback loop might create problems for competition since, as a firm becomes
larger, it might monopolise the market. If this happens, the efficiency gains may not be
passed on to consumers, which could be detrimental for welfare. In financial services,
the policy tension is between extending the perimeter of bank regulation to all financial
service providers and thus constraining financial innovation (and implicitly extending
a state protection umbrella to the new entrants) or keeping the new entrants out of the
regulatory perimeter completely and tilting the playing field in their favour.
xxx
But when I check in on the discourse, and I witness people only slightly younger than myself earnestly discussing the merits of action-hero movies that as far as I can tell were generated by AI, or at least by so much market data as to be practically machine-spawned, I honestly think I must be going insane.
xxx
xxx
But if you charge fees in the hyper competitive world of crypto you will lose market share. So the incentive has always been to play the “delta one” game. I.e. take the proceeds and invest them in assets that will OUTPERFORM the dollar.
You then get to pocket any outperformance for yourself while returning the par value dollar return to the customer. The least risky way to do this is to invest in higher yielding “safe assets” that are highly correlated to the dollar.From Why financial engineering has gone full circle with Terra – The Blind Spot:
xxx
xxx
chipsets launching with Android 13 must support the Identity Credential Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) at feature version 202201 or later
From Google is changing how new Android 13 devices should store driver’s licenses.
xxx
xxx
Top Opportunities for Trusted Identity Service
eCom Fraud – Mid-Tier merchants with high fraud rates (ex Airlines, Hotels, Auto Rental, AirBnB, Auto supply, …etc) – $2B in US. The top opportunity is for processors to integrate, next is for eCom specialists (Stripe, Shopify, Adyen, …)
Non-FS account opening (government, healthcare, insurance, …etc) – $200M
Age verification (gaming, car rental, cannibas, alcohol) ($500M)
New Consumer Direct Use Cases – Document Signing – $100M (2 yr view)
Add identity to something else.. commercial contracts, online dating, used car sales,
xxx
Snippings