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North Korean authorities have recently stepped up efforts to alleviate public distrust in money vouchers, or donpyo. Even the country’s government officials are uncertain why the vouchers were issued, which has led the authorities to convene lectures aimed at educating them about the new currency.

South Korean media first revealed the creation of donpyo in September. Initially, observers speculated that the vouchers were a strategy to absorb foreign currency, comparing them to “donpyo exchanged for foreign exchange” issued in the late 1970s. Recently, however, the leading opinion is that they are temporary banknotes to ensure the smooth circulation of currency.

However, ordinary people and even cadres have failed to comprehend what the money vouchers are for, and many are avoiding them altogether. Amid growing distrust in the “untrustworthy banknotes,” merchants, for example, are treating KWP 5,000 vouchers like they are worth just KPW 2,500 or KPW 3,000.

From North Korea steps up efforts to increase public trust in money vouchers – Daily NK:

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Ok fine, the story that WoW removing Siphon Life was the direct inspiration to Ethereum is exaggerated, but the infamous patch that ruined my beloved warlock and my response to it were very real!

From The bulldozer vs vetocracy political axis:

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The NSW government has earmarked $8.9 million to begin work on a personalised digital wallet that will allow citizens to prove their identity and share decentralised credentials.

The funding, which will be sourced from the state’s $2.1 billion digital restart fund, was revealed in the NSW half-yearly budget update [pdf] yesterday.

The Department of Customer Service first revealed plans for the digital wallet or “credential vault”, last month, when it issued an expression of interest to find the necessary underpinning platforms.

From Service NSW gets funding to begin work on digital ID wallet – Strategy – Software – iTnews.

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These changes impact Amazon purchases made in the UK because Amazon UK processes its payments in the EU, and Amazon purchases are made without the cardholder being present.

As a result, a credit card payment from a UK-issued card is classed as ‘cross border’ and is liable for the 1.5% interchange fee on an online purchase.

As a result, it is true that Brexit-related regulatory changes have facilitated the increased charges made by Visa and Mastercard for processing card payments made online in the EU by UK-based card holders.

However, this is only part of the story: remember, Amazon has only banned Visa payments and yet the regulatory changes also apply to Mastercard. This indicates that the decision needs to be understood within the context of a rapidly growing and changing online payments landscape.

Like many large tech companies, Amazon is increasingly entering the financial services sector. Now, it so happens that it offers its own Mastercard credit card, and it seems likely that its decision not to ban the use of Mastercard reflects an intention to not exclude its own UK Amazon Mastercard customers from making online purchases with their credit card

From Why has Amazon banned UK Visa credit cards? – UK in a changing Europe.

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The technology behind Aadhaar is proprietary, non-modular, and mandates the collection and processing of biometric data for identification and identification purposes, namely fingerprints, iris scans and facial scans.

From ID systems analysed: Aadhaar | Privacy International.

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This problem can be traced to the decision by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to introduce biometric refugee registration in the mid-2000s.

From When ID leaves you without identity: the case of double registration in Kenya | Privacy International.

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Decentralized countries may supersede nations. The most influential civilization-scale entities will exist entirely online, a consequence of digital lives becoming more valuable than physical ones. “Decentralized countries” will coordinate and govern our virtual terrain.  ‍
Our sense of identity will be altered by these changes. Today, humans have a mostly monogamous relationship to nations — try and profess allegiance to more than one and things get complicated. In the future, we may be “promiscuous nationalists,” moving between digital states depending on circumstance.

From The Decentralized Country | The Generalist.

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Could a great struggle for digital democracy against the Chinese surveillance state and Silicon Valley surveillance capitalism really form the foundation for a social movement supporting national renewal?

From Can Big Tech Serve Democracy? – Boston Review.

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Taiwan has also built a rapid response system to disinformation attacks, which occur more frequently there than they do in any other country in the world (according to some observers, because of its proximity and importance to China). Some experts believe that this has helped dampen the deep polarization along ethno-political lines related to time of migration to the island and feelings toward the mainland. Taiwan also managed arguably the best COVID-19 response on the planet, balancing the strongest economic growth in Asia in 2020 with the world’s lowest per capita death rate among countries with reliable data.

From Can Big Tech Serve Democracy? – Boston Review.

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Banking-as-a-service (BaaS) is hardly a new endeavour for Starling, Raisin DS became its first commercial client all the way back in 2018, and the bank even won a UK government contract to provide payment services for the Department for Work and Pensions.

Starling now counts 30 clients of its BaaS offering, up from 25 in September, including SumUp, CurrencyCloud, Moneybox and, most recently, Standard Chartered.

Indeed this November, Standard Chartered announced Shoal, a new ‘flanker’ brand launching in 2022 for consumers to invest in green and sustainable projects, and with accounts powered by Starling Bank.

From Exclusive: Starling Bank plans to take its banking-as-a-service offering global – AltFi.

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