Snippings

After all, scientists estimate that two-thirds of the universe is dark energy, which as we all know is because advanced civilisations discovered Bitcoin before we did and that’s where all the energy has gone.

James Cunha, the Boston Fed senior vice president leading the prototype effort

“We think it’s important that we not wait for the policy debate because then we’ll be a year or so behind,” Cunha said. “This will take significant outreach to the industry and serious debate.”

From Federal Reserve’s Digital Dollar Push Worries Wall Street – Bloomberg.

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Neha Narula is the Director of the Digital Currency Initiative, a part of the MIT Media Lab focusing on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

Our most important challenge that we need to address is to figure out how to preserve user privacy while preventing illicit activity.

From Technology Development of Digital Currency | Cato Institute:

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Banks can be expected to resist the adoption of CBDC

From Some Thoughts on Central Bank Digital Currency | Cato Institute:

Indeed but at some point they will have to wean themselves from the narcotic of CBDC and develop some actual value-added services instead of, as David Andolfatto (a Senior Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) writes, adding ridiculous toll-booths across the highways and byways of commerce.

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As Senator Carter Glass once remarked, policy should endeavor to remove all toll gates set upon the highways of commerce (Glass 1917). A basic payment system is very much like a public highway system. Sure, we could erect toll booths every five miles. We might even erect toll booths on public sidewalks, public parks, and so on. At some point, the practice of attempting to recover every nickel and dime of user cost at its source seems not only impractical, but also ridiculous.

From Some Thoughts on Central Bank Digital Currency | Cato Institute:

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Norway’s National CyberCrime Center is trying to pry open Monero and Dash—two cryptocurrencies known for their privacy-protection capabilities—amidst the search for missing person Anne-Elisabeth Hagen.

From Norwegian Police Trying to Crack Monero and Dash in Missing Person Case – Decrypt:

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Society’s response to ransomware is an example of a collective action problem. The public would be better off if everyone cooperated and refused to pay money to ransomware operators. With no incoming ransom income, the ransomware business would be unprofitable, attacks would cease and the collateral damage would stop.

From Ban All Ransomware Payments, in Bitcoin or Otherwise – CoinDesk:

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Lending money and then recouping it later, plus something extra, is economically a loan. Calling it a fee may exempt it from certain regulations, but it does not change its nature.

From A few small banks have become overdraft giants:

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The explosion of overdraft fees makes basic banking expensive for people living paycheck to paycheck. Banks and credit unions generate over $34 billion in overdraft fees annually by one estimate. What those with money experience as ‘free checking’ is quite expensive for those without. Prior research has focused on who pays overdraft, finding a small number of people (9%) are heavy overdrafters accounting for 80 percent of the fees. Not as carefully researched is whether this is just a small part of banks’ general business model, or whether for some banks overdraft has become their main source of profit. In fact a few small banks have become overdraft giants relying on overdraft fees as their main source of profit. These banks are really check cashers with a charter. Why do bank regulators tolerate this?

Aaron Klein
Senior Fellow – Economic Studies
AaronDKlein
For six banks, overdraft revenues accounted for more than half their net income. Three had overdraft revenues greater than total net income (meaning they lost money on every other aspect of their business).

From A few small banks have become overdraft giants:

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GDS is advocating for a simple solution that would let citizens prove their identity online, instead of manually scanning proofs of residence or bank statements for verification purposes. But “a simple digital identity solution that works for everyone,” as it is described by Read, is easier said than done.

From The government wants to have another go at digital identity. Can it get it right this time? | ZDNet:

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