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Respondents ranked improved fraud detection, simplification of regulatory compliance and easier account onboarding as the key areas in which potential efficiencies and savings would justify the expense. Half those surveyed said Digital Company ID would lead to more secure payments and avoid payment scams. Just under 60% thought it would help reduce the time taken to submit company accounts, complete tax returns or apply for a license or permit for compliance purposes. And 65% thought it would save money when opening a bank account.

From: Most SMEs would pay for a Digital Company ID service.

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The report indicates that people aged 45-plus have a preference for physical debit cards, while people aged 18 to 44 were more likely to favour digital wallets. However, despite digital payments being the default option for some people, more than half (51%) of those surveyed said they had used cash in the past week.

From: Majority of UK adults no longer carry a wallet or a purse.

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This leads us back to Stripe, and a question that hangs over the entire project: can it avoid repeating Libra’s fate? What happens when the antibodies of the financial system—the powerful incumbent banks and card rails—identify Tempo as a new threat and begin to swarm?

What makes the situation fascinating is the paradox at its heart. After a decade of spectacularly failed attempts to build their own private blockchain clubs, the big banks are finally, grudgingly, coming around to the idea that open, permissionless networks are the only way forward. At the very same moment, a new generation of challengers, led by Stripe and Circle, are betting everything on the opposite idea: that the future belongs to slick, branded, proprietary chains.

From: Stripe’s Tempo And The Ghost Of Facebook’s Libra’s Past.

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Digital identity is the missing layer of the internet. Without it, everything we build rests on sand.

From: Digital identity is the infrastructure crisis no one admits.

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Under the plans, customers of AIB, Bank of Ireland and PTSB will be able to send, request and split payments instantaneously with the new Zip Pay service by using the mobile numbers of their contacts who are also using the service.

From: Irish banks unite to take on Revolut with P2P payments app.

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The first law of financial bubbles is this: it is easy to know when you are in one, but difficult to know when it will pop. Still, those who study the issue have identified three signals that tend to mark the beginning of the end. The first is when the demand curve inverts, meaning that demand increases as prices rise. Two highly respected financial economists, José Scheinkman of Columbia University and Hyun Song Shin of the Bank for International Settlements, called attention to the occurrence of this phenomenon during the internet/dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and in the run up to the 2008 global financial crisis.
The second signal is when the exponential increase in price calls forth new supplies as many others try to get in on the action. Even in the digital world, it takes longer to generate a new asset than it does for the price to move. In the case of crypto, price moves are instantaneous; similarly, private equity markets move much faster than anyone hoping to build a new large language model (LLM) can. Finally, in the terminal stages of a bubble, demand is increasingly fed by uninformed, amateur investors. 
DIVERGING PATHS
All three signals appear to be flashing red in the crypto and AI markets.

From: What Will Remain After the AI and Crypto Bubbles? by William H. Janeway – Project Syndicate.

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2021

I have long held the view that while cryptocurrencies themselves may or may not have a future as money, the evolution of digital assets that are secured by the underlying networks (“tokens”) points towards new services, markets and institutions that may well lead to a better financial sector.

From: Tulips, steam and decentralised finance.

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Multiple cables cut off Saudi Arabia
Microsoft announced via a status website that the Mideast “may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea.” The Redmond, Washington-based firm did not immediately elaborate, though it said that internet traffic not moving through the Middle East “is not impacted.”

NetBlocks, which monitors internet access, said “a series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea has degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries,” which it said included India and Pakistan. It blamed “failures affecting the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.”

From: Red Sea cables are cut, disrupting internet in Asia and the Mideast | AP News.

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A compact, deep-sea, cable-cutting device, capable of severing the world’s most fortified underwater communication or power lines, has been unveiled by China – and it could shake up global maritime power dynamics.
The revelation marks the first time any country has officially disclosed that it has such an asset, capable of disrupting critical undersea networks.
The tool, which is able to cut lines at depths of up to 4,000 metres (13,123 feet) – twice the maximum operational range of existing subsea communication infrastructure – has been designed specifically for integration with China’s advanced crewed and uncrewed submersibles like the Fendouzhe, or Striver, and the Haidou series.

From: China unveils a powerful deep-sea cable cutter that could reset the world order | South China Morning Post.

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2021

I have long held the view that while cryptocurrencies themselves may or may not have a future as money, the evolution of digital assets that are secured by the underlying networks (“tokens”) points towards new services, markets and institutions that may well lead to a better financial sector.

From: Tulips, steam and decentralised finance.

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