A library of snippets
2021
I have long held the view that while cryptocurrencies themselves may or may not have a future as money, the evolution of digital assets that are secured by the underlying networks (“tokens”) points towards new services, markets and institutions that may well lead to a better financial sector.
xxx
xxx
Multiple cables cut off Saudi Arabia
Microsoft announced via a status website that the Mideast “may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea.” The Redmond, Washington-based firm did not immediately elaborate, though it said that internet traffic not moving through the Middle East “is not impacted.”NetBlocks, which monitors internet access, said “a series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea has degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries,” which it said included India and Pakistan. It blamed “failures affecting the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.”
From: Red Sea cables are cut, disrupting internet in Asia and the Mideast | AP News.
xxx
xxx
A compact, deep-sea, cable-cutting device, capable of severing the world’s most fortified underwater communication or power lines, has been unveiled by China – and it could shake up global maritime power dynamics.
The revelation marks the first time any country has officially disclosed that it has such an asset, capable of disrupting critical undersea networks.
The tool, which is able to cut lines at depths of up to 4,000 metres (13,123 feet) – twice the maximum operational range of existing subsea communication infrastructure – has been designed specifically for integration with China’s advanced crewed and uncrewed submersibles like the Fendouzhe, or Striver, and the Haidou series.
xxx
2021
I have long held the view that while cryptocurrencies themselves may or may not have a future as money, the evolution of digital assets that are secured by the underlying networks (“tokens”) points towards new services, markets and institutions that may well lead to a better financial sector.
xxx
xxx
He avoided detection by waking up early and creeping into the branch to switch the money back into the bank registers, which were checked daily. He also forged his colleagues’ signatures when he needed to balance the books for the ATMs.
From: NatWest branch manager who stole £344,000 from ATMs given suspended sentence.
xxx
It took eight years for the bank to notice this.
xxx
Agentic commerce
Facilitate low-cost, instant payments for agents to autonomously execute transactions.
xxx
xxx
As detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study, coauthors Petter Törnberg, AI and social media assistant professor, and research assistant Maik Larooij simulated a social media platform that was populated entirely by AI chatbots, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o large language model, to see if there was anything we could do to stop social media from turning into echo chambers.
They tested out six specific intervention strategies — including switching to chronological news feeds, boosting diverse viewpoints, hiding social statistics like follower counts, and removing account bios — to stop the platform from turning into a polarized hellscape.
To their dismay, none of the interventions worked to a satisfactory degree, and only some showed modest effects. Worse yet, as Ars Technica reports, some of them made the situation even worse.From: Scientists Created an Entire Social Network Where Every User Is a Bot, and Something Wild Happened.
xxx
When Patrick Collision of Stripe announced the launch of the Tempo blockchain he described it as the `”payments-oriented L1” optimised for financial services in the real world. This is, generally speaking, because they were designed with other goals in mind. In particular, they were designed to be censorship resistant and able to find consenus even in the presence of untruthworthy participants, neither of which are of interest to mainstream financial services organisations.
Tempo’s “design partners” include Visa, banks and challenger banks, so naturally some commentators wondered just how interesting a development this new ditributed ledger really is. Christian Catalini frames the issue with characterisitc insight, saying the if “corproate chains” such as Tempo succeed that it will be that crypto was not a revolution, but a failed coup. If we replace existing financial sector incumbents and payment networks with new players and schemes run by new fintech giants, will anything really change for the individual, organisational and goverment payers and payees?
At the time of the launch, Collision said that Tempo will help with payment acceptance, global payouts, remittances, microtransactions, tokenized deposits, agentic payments “and more”. This will certainly shine what Edwar Prasad calls “a harsh light on pervasive inefficiencies in modern financial systems” and clearly show how the new technology of distributed ledgers can deliver fast, cost-effective and inclusive systems for both domestic and cross-border payments.
The best response to the rise of dollar-backed stablecoins is not to encourage the use of domestic currency private versions or even issuing retail central bank digital currencies.
Instead, the priority should be to develop more robust and inclusive domestic payment systems.
Commercial banks will find it difficult to survive if they cede their role in intermediating payments. They must find ways, through the adoption of new technologies but also by offering better products and service, to compete.
Stablecoins are playing a valuable role in catalysing improvements in financial markets and forcing commercial and central banks to up their game. This will be their true legacy.
From: Stablecoins will force finance to modernise.
xxx
I think this is also an argument in favour of not only open banking, but open everything in order to bring real competition to the finance sector.
The fact is that no-one wants to be their own bank. We (the public) want instuttions that will protect us in a regualtoed environemtn that has business models other than insiers ripping the facts off of outsiders.
xxx
What makes the situation fascinating is the paradox at its heart. After a decade of spectacularly failed attempts to build their own private blockchain clubs, the big banks are finally, grudgingly, coming around to the idea that open, permissionless networks are the only way forward. At the very same moment, a new generation of challengers, led by Stripe and Circle, are betting everything on the opposite idea: that the future belongs to slick, branded, proprietary chains.
From: Stripe’s Tempo And The Ghost Of Facebook’s Libra’s Past.
xxx
xxx
What stablecoins are really doing is shining a harsh light on pervasive inefficiencies in modern financial systems and showing how new technologies can fix them by creating efficient, cheap and broadly accessible means of domestic and cross-border payments.
The best response to the rise of dollar-backed stablecoins is not to encourage the use of domestic currency private versions or even issuing retail central bank digital currencies.
Instead, the priority should be to develop more robust and inclusive domestic payment systems.
Commercial banks will find it difficult to survive if they cede their role in intermediating payments. They must find ways, through the adoption of new technologies but also by offering better products and service, to compete.
Stablecoins are playing a valuable role in catalysing improvements in financial markets and forcing commercial and central banks to up their game. This will be their true legacy.
xxx
Snippings