Snippings

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For VCs to be viable beyond low-risk use cases, they must be embedded within a governance framework that provides the “commercial accountability” to complement the “cryptographic assurance”.

From: Governance in Payments | Noyes Payments Blog.

Indeed. The core issues of liability and interchange must be agreed if we are going to see any progress at all. Now, it is clearly not beyond the bounds of human ingenuity to come up with an optimisation to balance the interests of the stakeholders with the interests of society as a whole. One ancient template for such might be found buried in the sedimentary layers of digital identity from the early days. Identrust opted for a (bank-centric) model of transactional liability. In other words, if you say that I am Dave Birch, and I use that credential to get a loan, and it then turns out I am not Dave Birch at all, then you should be liable for the loan default, but not for any contingent liabilities.

This must be linked to an interchange model that maybe charges different interchanges amounts depending on the nature of the transaction, not the size of the transaction. Buying a beer with proof of age, 0.002 cents. Buying a house with proof of mortgage offer, $20 or something.

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Big Tech groups are losing a political battle in Brussels to gain access to the EU’s financial data market, despite Donald Trump’s threats to punish countries that “discriminate” against US companies with higher tariffs.

With the support of Germany, the EU is moving to exclude Meta, Apple, Google and Amazon from a new system for sharing financial data that is designed to enable development of digital finance products for consumers.

Such a decision would hand a significant boost to banks in their efforts to fight off a competitive threat from Big Tech groups, which they fear will use their data to disintermediate them from their customers while extracting much of the value of knowing people’s spending and saving behaviour.

After more than two years, negotiations on the Financial Data Access (FiDA) regulation are entering the final stages in coming weeks, with Big Tech groups facing almost certain defeat, according to diplomats.

From: EU to block Big Tech from new financial data sharing system.

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In the UK, one in four people aged 18 to 34 own crypto, according to a survey last year. Men are three times as likely to do so than women. The London thieves’ tactics seem to target this demographic

From: Your phone gets stolen. Your crypto may be next.

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PayPal’s investment comes as part of Stable’s $28 million seed funding round, which saw participation from Bitfinex and Hack VC.

In addition to the investment – the size of which was not disclosed – Stable users will be able to use PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin for commerce and financial transactions on the Stablechain.

From: PayPal invests in Stable layer 1 blockchain.

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Another issue was whether digital ID would lead to health workers being required to check the immigration status of patients.

From: Keir Starmer set to unveil digital ID scheme.

Either the wallet presented to obtain health care has this has a CAN-USE-NHS credentail or it does not. If it does not, then end of story..

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Officials said Starmer was determined to plough ahead with launching a digital ID scheme, despite Sir Tony Blair’s costly and failed attempt to roll out compulsory ID cards in the 2000s.

The announcement may come at Labour party conference later this month, according to two people briefed on the matter. They cautioned that the finer details of the scheme were still being ironed out and that the timeline could change.

One of the models being looked at would involve giving a digital ID to every person with a legal right to be in Britain — either through citizenship or legalised immigration status, according to one of the people.

From: Keir Starmer set to unveil digital ID scheme.

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Then one grabbed his iPhone from his hand. After a chase, the thieves fled in a car.

As the car disappeared, d’Ippolito accepted that he’d lost his iPhone. But his plight was actually much worse: he was about to lose his life savings. Over the next few hours, he says, his crypto wallet was emptied of nearly £40,000 worth of assets.

From: Your phone gets stolen. Your crypto may be next.

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For some, the first day pop reflects an inefficiency in the process. One estimate puts the amount of money “left on the table” across all IPOs in 2021 at $28.65 billion. Bill Gurley, a partner at venture firm Benchmark, has long been a critic, arguing that it transfers value from selling shareholders to banks’ preferred clients. He quotes a 1999 Goldman Sachs memo: “The hot deals are obviously a currency, which can be used to please institutions, please high net worth individuals…etc.”2

From: Class of ’25 – by Marc Rubinstein – Net Interest.

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EU member states and the European parliament are hoping to reach a deal on the final text of the regulation this autumn. The potential exclusion would risk renewing transatlantic tensions after Brussels and Washington agreed on a trade deal in late July. Trump has repeatedly threatened retaliatory tariffs against countries whose taxes or laws that treat US tech companies unfairly.

Big Tech lobbying groups are already warning that consumers — not just platforms — will lose out if the current direction holds.

“FIDA’s original vision was to give people control over their own data and access to better, more innovative financial services”, said Daniel Friedlaender, head of Computer & Communications Industry Association Europe, whose members include many Big Tech groups. “By bowing to incumbent banks, the EU is going to limit consumer choice and entrench legacy players who already hold ‘gatekeeper’ power over customer data.”

From: EU to block Big Tech from new financial data sharing system.

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“By bowing to incumbent banks, the EU is going to limit consumer choice and entrench legacy players who already hold ‘gatekeeper’ power over customer data.”

From: EU to block Big Tech from new financial data sharing system.

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