Snippings

A massive new report from 65 organizations — the Ransomware Task Fore (which includes Microsoft, Amazon, FireEye, the FBI, and Europol ) — identifies cryptocurrency is as a key vector for cybercriminals to secure ransoms, and the task force calls on governments to step up their efforts to monitor and regulate blockchain payments.

Anne Boden, the founder of the UK “challenger” bank Starling thinks we are a decade away from cash vanishing. She told an FT podcast that she though that that cash could disappear as soon as 2030, but more likely “by 2033 or 2034”.

I popped in to “Key priorities for UK Fintech – next steps for policy, regulation and innovation” which had keynote sessions from my good friend Ron Kalifa, who chaired the UK’s fintech review, and Katharine Braddick (DG Financial Services, HM Treasury) and Charlotte Crosswell (CEO of Innovate Finance).

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How come if I want to change a £50 note at Starbucks they have to get the manager, but this guy can trade half a billion dollars worth of oil and no-one notices till the next day?

From Barclays ‘fat-finger trade’: can a typo error wipe £3bn off? | Evening Standard:

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But what if law enforcement goes to the biggest miners in the world (representing at least 51% of the hashpower) and tells them that if they continue to confirm easily identifiable mixing transactions, they will be accused of money laundering.

From On Fungibility, Bitcoin, Monero and why ZCash is a bad idea. – We Use Cash

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U.S. officials have arrested the alleged operator of a bitcoin (BTC, -1.19%) mixing service on allegations of laundering nearly $336 million in bitcoin over 10 years.

From US Officials Arrest Alleged Operator of $336M Bitcoin Mixing Service – CoinDesk:

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Bitcoin stolen from exchanges through hacks also went through Bitcoin Fog

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The U.S., by contrast, has few data protections built into its domestic laws—and the result has been that adversaries can monitor a huge swath of the U.S. population through the commercial data bought and sold by U.S. companies—a major risk for intelligence officers, law enforcement and military personnel operating in dangerous environments.

From The Ease of Tracking Mobile Phones of U.S. Soldiers in Hot Spots – WSJ:

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The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has just issued a report that makes a similar point, highlighting the four key pillars of digital infrastructures. The first of these is digital identity that can ensure authentication and validation of an individual’s identity, while simultaneous delivering both privacy and security. As you might imagine, I agree wholeheartedly. I thought about this again recently when 

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The U.S. government has built robust programs to track terrorists and criminals through warrantless access to commercial data. Many vendors now provide global location information from mobile phones to intelligence, military and law-enforcement organizations.

But those same capabilities are available to U.S. adversaries, and the U.S.—having prioritized a free and open internet paid for largely through digital advertising with minimal regulation of privacy—has struggled to effectively monitor what software service members are installing on devices and whether that software is secure.

From The Ease of Tracking Mobile Phones of U.S. Soldiers in Hot Spots – WSJ:

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At least four Turkish cryptocurrency platforms have gone offline since last week, with some claiming liquidity problems, after police began investigating fraud allegations connected to the exchanges and the central bank introduced measures to regulate the market for the first time.

From Turkey’s cryptocurrency crackdown gathers pace as lira falls | Financial Times:

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More than 2.5 million consumers in the UK are now happy to connect their accounts to trusted third parties in exchange for some value-added benefit. That’s up from 1.5 million in 2020, no doubt driven by the competitive innovation brought about by PS2D. However, open banking adoption across the rest of Europe seems to have been much slower, and even growth here in the UK is beginning to plateau.

A Europe-wide survey by thinktank ING polled 13 countries – including the UK – and found that only around 30% of consumers were happy for companies to share their data even after they had given consent. What’s more, only 35% of those polled had even heard of open banking capabilities. 

From Brand Confidence: How Has Open Banking Evolved And Do Customers Trust It?.

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