A library of snippets
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The researchers conclude that these scraps were being used as money, and that the fragmentation of bronze objects was aimed at obtaining ‘small change’ or cash.
From Scrap for cash: Bronze Age witnessed revolution in small change across Europe.
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The Internet is good at transmitting every kind of information from anyone to anyone else, except money, and money is the high-order bit.
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Twitter has launched a new “tip jar” feature that lets people send money to others on the social network.
From Twitter adds ‘tip jar’ to pay for good tweeting – BBC News:
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“Issues such as failed transactions and front-running are not subtle, costing users millions of dollars every day,”
From Analysis: Cryptocurrency ethereum is flourishing but risks linger | Reuters:
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Open account trade, where transactions are handled but not financed by a bank, is identified by the GAO as a “primary vulnerability”. Though banks carry out standard anti-money laundering (AML) and due diligence checks, and are required to report any suspicious activity detected, payments are usually handled automatically and with “limited visibility into the underlying reason”, it says.
“Banks generally do not review documentation such as invoices, bills of lading, or customs declarations in open-account transactions – as would be the case for transactions that are financed by the bank and where the bank is exposed to greater financial risk.”
From Trade-based money laundering a growing risk, US government told | Global Trade Review (GTR):
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The multiplication of private digital currencies and the potential for CBDC make all too clear the necessity of creating a global framework. More specifically, it shows the need for regulation to ensure that all these initiatives promote financial inclusion, security and consumer protection, efficiency in domestic and cross-border payments and broad resilience of the payments landscape.
From The Promise and Peril of Digital Currency in a Global Economy – Milken Institute Review:
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govcoins could cut the operating expenses of the global financial industry, which amount to over $350 a year for every person on Earth. That could make finance accessible for the 1.7bn people who lack bank accounts.
From :
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In contrast to many technology companies that think about regulatory risk, fintechs have to think about regulatory opportunity.
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What CBDC research and experimentation appears to be showing is that it will be nigh on impossible to issue such currencies outside of a comprehensive national digital ID management system.
Izabella is probably right about this.
Meaning: CBDCs will likely be tied to personal accounts that include personal data, credit history and other forms of relevant information.
Izabella is probably wrong about this (depending on what you mean by “tied”).
The practical steps needed to accelerate a UK digital identity ecosystem https://buff.ly/3aZ58je
“Using open banking APIs to build a digital ID system presents a fast and low-cost route, enabling broad adoption and inclusion through its wide availability.”
This is essence correct, but we must be sure to build a system that leverages bank identities to deliver a national entitlement service, based on verifiable credentials, not a national identity service based on outdated post-war notions of digitising the identity infrastructure created in Edwardian times as a bureaucratic response the the urban anonymity of industrial revolution-era Europe.
Spoiler alert: while this would be in their best interests, the banks show no sign of getting their act together to do this, so the government (if it takes the Kalifa report seriously and wants the UK to become a more competitive financial services jurisdiction) will have to make them.
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