A library of snippets
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there is no reason to believe that an intermediated CBDC would prove attractive to the small percentage of the population that is currently unbanked, pay them more interest on their savings than they could earn elsewhere or provide them any financial service at a cost less than they pay now.
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Mitsubishi UFJ has pulled the plug on its blockchain-based online payment network, Global Open Network Japan (GO-NET Japan), citing the “recent hard business environment” for payments.
Developed as a joint venture with vendor Akamai, GO-NET Japan was designed in response to the rise of the Internet of Things, enabling pay-per-use, micropayments and other developing IoT-enabled payment transactions.
These can’t work on a blockchain because they must work with at least intermittent connectivity.
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The Off Chain Internet: Decentralized Identity & Verifiable Credentials – Evin McMullen
From The Off Chain Internet: Decentralized Identity & Verifiable Credentials – Evin McMullen – YouTube.
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The biggest DeFi companies in the world just announced Verite, a decentralized identity solution for the global crypto ecosystem
TL;DR: Last Thursday, many of the most notable DeFi companies announced Verite, a set of open source, decentralized identity protocols built for individuals and institutions engaging in the global crypto financial ecosystem.
What They Say: “With Verite, users can get a portable credential similar to a ‘verified status’ badge that they can take across chains and protocols to prove claims about their identity. DeFi protocol developers get the benefit of identity-verified participants, without having to collect or store sensitive user information.” – Kim Hamilton Duffy, Director of Identity & Standards, Centre.
Why it Matters: From the press release – “Centre, Circle and Block will collaborate on Verite to promote broader adoption of crypto payments and decentralized finance. Early feedback on Verite, and commitments to collaborate on shared decentralized identity standards going forward, includes major ecosystem leaders Algorand, Coinbase, Compound Labs, ConsenSys, Espresso Systems, Hedera Hashgraph, Ledger, MetaMask Institutional, Phantom Technologies, Solana Foundation, Spruce and Stellar Development Foundation.” It is hard to tell if they are simply listing all of the top players in the DeFi space or naming the companies committed to this effort. One major player missing from the list is Ripple… but the rumor is they were part of the initiative before opting out sometime early last year.
This initiative is big – bigger than big – huge. While one of the major reasons for the existence of Verite is to help crypto exchanges satisfy Travel Rule obligations, the other practical use cases are truly endless. This can be as much as an unlocking mechanism for identity verification businesses built to support web3 as it can be the ultimate nail in the coffin. Companies with strong customer relationships and built for ecosystem interoperability will find much success.
Steve Wilson
We should be able to “tap and prove” any important fact and figures about ourselves – as easily as we tap and pay with a mobile phone at any one of 100s of millions of terminals globally.
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The Off Chain Internet: Decentralized Identity & Verifiable Credentials – Evin McMullen
From The Off Chain Internet: Decentralized Identity & Verifiable Credentials – Evin McMullen – YouTube.
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Ingenico’s Axium product line, which uses the Android operating system to support payments and business services, is live in Europe and is in pilot testing in North America. Ingenico’s products are geared toward Android devices largely because Apple typically does not allow third parties to develop for the Near Field Communication chip that powers Apple Pay and would play a role in the upcoming Tap to Pay on iPhone.
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“For the terminal makers it’s a chance to grow beyond payments,” said consultant Sara Elinson, Americas fintech and payments M&A Leader for EY in New York. The Apple announcement has pushed point-of-sale payments innovation “into the background” in favor of other value-adds for merchants and consumers, she added.
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The global point-of-sale terminal market was valued at about $72 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $117 billion by 2026, according to Mordor Intelligence. The point-of-sale software market is also growing quickly, expected to expand from about $17 billion in 2021 to more than $42 billion in 2027, according to Statista. This suggests merchants will need to support both point fixed terminals and mobile systems, at least for the next few years.
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The global point-of-sale terminal market was valued at about $72 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $117 billion by 2026, according to Mordor Intelligence. The point-of-sale software market is also growing quickly, expected to expand from about $17 billion in 2021 to more than $42 billion in 2027, according to Statista. This suggests merchants will need to support both point fixed terminals and mobile systems, at least for the next few years.
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The states and territories have agreed to work with the federal government on a national digital ID system, sparking fresh warnings from privacy advocates who have likened the proposal to the controversial ‘Australia Card’ plan of the 1980s.
From National digital ID plan sparks ‘Australia Card’ warnings:
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Tom Robinson of Elliptic
“This might push launderers and criminals to use Monero to a greater extent — they will see how traceable the bitcoin was in this case and this will push them to using Monero instead,” he said. “We have to accept that untraceable digital cash does exist. The question is how we deal with it.”
From Crypto ‘communities’ need to be more neighbourly | Financial Times:
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Both payment platforms are rolling out e-CNY as a payment option, and neither is excluded from using the digital yuan. My Alipay app already sports a prominent red e-CNY symbol and has a wallet available to accept and spend the currency.
While integration on Alipay and WeChat is far from complete, it is clear the People’s Bank of China has always intended coexistence. In December 2020, senior officials said “WeChat and Alipay are wallets, while the digital yuan is the money in the wallet.”
From China’s digital yuan is not death knell for Alipay and WeChat Pay | South China Morning Post.
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