Blockchain

The Sweet Spot for Programmable Money

The sweet spot for programmable money is: On a blockchain, aimed at businesses, issued by a central bank. Here’s why.

The post The Sweet Spot for Programmable Money appeared first on Bits on Blocks.

Published

12 months ago

June 20, 2020

Republished by Plato

Bank of Thailand just announced a project to develop a prototype system for a CBDC issued on a blockchain, accessible to businesses.

This is meaningful to me for two reasons:

I was part of the original team that created the Inthanon series of projects in 2018, and it’s great to see that these early pioneering efforts continue to be built upon.
I think that they have hit the near-term sweet spot for programmable money. They really seem to get it.

The three elements that stood out to me were:

It’s money on a blockchain
It’s initially aimed at businesses
It’s issued by a central bank

1. It’s on a blockchain

This is the most important bit. Issuing money that is defined by smart contracts paves the way for programmability. No longer is the money an inert number sitting in a database. The money comes with – is defined by – code.

Code that is transparent to all, and can be extended with other code to perform logical business processes (but without needing to pay for and rely on a business to do it).

Code that can be trusted to work as-is. Code that can be built on, and built on, and built on.

This is the basis of programmable money which will lead to incredibly useful designer money.

2) It’s initially aimed at businesses

Historically central banks have only issued digital money to banks and specific financial institutions. These are sometimes known as clearing banks – the elite club eligible to have a direct bank account with the central bank. This, of course, gives them an advantage over everyone else. There is a price to pay: there are hurdles to getting a license.

The fact that this CBDC is aimed at businesses is the sweet spot for two reasons:

Extending the club to a specific list of vetted business is less of a stretch for the central bank than figuring out how to make the money accessible to all households (a true ‘retail’ or ‘general purpose’ CBDC). It’s just bigger club.
Initially businesses have the capital, talent, and motivation to find a use for programmable money, in a controlled environment.

These two points give the central banks comfort – they have control over the system (That’s ok! It’s their debt after all!) and they can see how it evolves. They don’t need to worry about teenagers in pyjamas in their bedrooms innovating.

The tension, of course, is with the commercial banks. If corporates can access central bank money directly without holding it in a commercial bank account, commercial banks will need to up their game in terms of the value they offer. That’s… not a bad thing.

3) It’s issued by a central bank

Businesses today can, and do, use stablecoins (money issued by private sector entities, backed by commercial bank deposits). Examples are Tether, TUSD, USDC, PAX. And it’s not just crypto traders either. In some countries, particularly developing economies, non-crypto businesses are starting to use stablecoins for the 10x user experience improvement over local banking services.

However, these stablecoins have multiple layers of risk – the very least of them being operational risks associated with their issuer and the issuer’s bank.

Central bank issued money is the “safest” or “least risky” form of money, so businesses should prefer this over commercial bank stablecoins or e-money stablecoins, all else being equal.

Conclusion

While public blockchain stablecoins continue to innovate (and occasionally screw up) with breathtaking speed, this move by the Bank of Thailand is a meaningful step, and is probably the sweet spot for progress in the traditional financial sector.

Ultimately this form of programmable money will be available to all, on public blockchains. Either directly, or via automated trustless cross-chain atomic swaps. The teenager in pyjamas in their bedroom can, and should be, allowed to innovate. This is where real progress is made – when the collective imagination of unconstrained thinkers can build on each others’ ideas.

Source: https://bitsonblocks.net/2020/06/20/the-sweet-spot-for-programmable-money/

Blockchain

Ethereum Co-Founder Anthony Di Iorio Bets Big on the Future of Cardano and Polkadot

Published

35 mins ago

June 12, 2021

Republished by Plato

Anthony Di Iorio, a Canadian entrepreneur and the co-founder of leading smart contract platform Ethereum, said that he believes in the potential of Cardano (ADA) and Polkadot (DOT).

In an interview with crypto proponent Anthony Pompliano, Di Iorio, who is also the CEO and founder of Canadian blockchain startup Decentral and crypto wallet Jaxx, revealed that he has a diversified investment portfolio featuring several top projects, including Cardano and Polkadot.

A Big Fan of Cardano and Polkadot

He said:

“Now I’ve kind of fallen back to just simplicity. I’m in a number of different projects, but the majority of my stuff is in the top projects. I’m a big fan of Polkadot, I’m a big fan of Cardano.”

Di Iorio went on to narrate why he was so sure of the future of these two projects. He had joined the Ethereum development team earlier in 2012 when he met Vitalik Buterin at a Bitcoin conference.

He has formed strong relationships with other co-founders of Ethereum, including Vitalik Buterin, Cardano’s founder Charles Hoskinson, and Polkadot’s current CEO Gavin Wood.

Di Iorio admitted that while he worked with these men, he knew that they were goal-oriented and would help push these projects further.

He continued:

“Big fan of Charles, let’s say that. You know, taking some different approaches in the way that they’re doing things, much more on the academic side of what he’s done and bringing stuff forward. Real big fan of Gavin Wood… Knowing those guys from the days back at Ethereum – and knowing their drive and knowing their competitiveness and their smarts – I was able to see those projects for the last few years and know that they were gonna get to where they’ve gotten up to.”

Not Getting Lost in DeFi

Despite all the recent hype about DeFi, Di lorio pointed out that he is keeping his investments simple and investing in larger projects.

“Most of my stuff is in the top few things, Ether, Bitcoin, Cardano, Polkadot. I like Cosmos as well. And there’s a few others, but I’m not getting lost in all the DeFi stuff. I just think there’s not enough time, not enough energy. It’s a full-time gig to be running a lot of that stuff and keeping on top of stuff, so I’ve simplified my life quite a bit over the past few years.”

Featured image courtesy of Business Insider

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Source: https://cryptopotato.com/ethereum-co-founder-anthony-di-iorio-bets-big-on-the-future-of-cardano-and-polkadot/

News

What you should know if your bank is exposed to Bitcoin

Published

1 hour ago

June 12, 2021

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On one hand, El Salvador recently became the first nation to officially declare Bitcoin as its legal tender, and on the other, several nations have recently opined that their indigenous banks face a ‘threat’ from the world’s largest crypto-asset. Nevertheless, the rise in the adoption of cryptocurrencies has been accompanied by regulators taking the fast-growing market seriously.

Banks will now face “the toughest” capital requirements for their holdings in Bitcoin and other crypto-assets under global regulators’ plans to brush off the insecurity offered by the “volatile” crypto-market.

Using money laundering, reputational challenges, and massive price swings as the base of their proposal, the Basel Committee on Banking and Supervision is in the news after it explicitly stated that the banking industry faced “increased risks” and “financial stability concerns” from crypto-assets.

Accordingly, they have now placed Bitcoin in the “highest risk” category. The aforementioned committee comprises a host of nations and global institutions as its members.

The Basel Committee isn’t alone, however, with a Bank of International Settlements exec recently commenting that El Salvador’s Bitcoin policy is an “interesting experiment.”

*BITCOIN PUT IN HIGHEST RISK CATEGORY IN BANK CAPITAL PROPOSAL

— *Walter Bloomberg (@DeItaone) June 10, 2021

What’s more, the panel proposed a 1250% risk weight be applied to a bank’s exposure to Bitcoin and certain other cryptocurrencies. Bloomberg’s estimates highlighted,

“In practice that means a bank may need to hold a dollar in capital for each dollar worth of Bitcoin, based on an 8% minimum capital requirement.”

However, stablecoins and other tokens tied to real-world assets are set for lower capital requirements. The report further highlighted,

“The capital will be sufficient to absorb a full write-off of the crypto asset exposures without exposing depositors and other senior creditors of the banks to a loss.”

The proposal did not specify any specific timeline, and hence, the implementation of these rules can take a couple of years. The proposal is, however, open to public comment before it comes into effect. It should also be noted that the committee said that the initial policies were “likely to change” several times as the market “evolves.”

Even though banks like HSBC have been cautious about stepping into crypto-trading, a few big names, like Standard Chartered Plc have announced their entry into the space.

As for Bitcoin, it fell by over 3.7% in the last 24 hours to trade at $35,418 at press time.

Source: Coinstats

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Source: https://ambcrypto.com/what-you-should-know-if-your-bank-is-exposed-to-bitcoin/

Blockchain

Why Amp is the Best Altcoin You’ve Never Heard Of

Published

3 hours ago

June 12, 2021

user

Crypto Summer Pt. 2

Nordstrom, GameStop, and Ulta already support it

Canva

I work with a crypto wizard.

Yesterday the wizard gave me a piece of advice: “Hey man, your fly is down.” After that, he told me to look into Amp, otherwise known as Crypto-Square.

Amp is the brainchild of Flexa and ConsenSys and aims to make real-world crypto transactions instant and verifiable.

Through this ERC-20 token, retailers can accept Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum without having to wait 10 minutes or more for the network. Today Nordstrom, Lowes, Baskin Robbins, GameStop, Ulta Beauty, Office Depot, AMC Theaters, and Petco are just some of the stores that support Amp.

That’s right, you can go to these retailers and use Flexa’s SPEDN app (pronounced spend) to easily buy things with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

Mind-blown.

And if that wasn’t enough, Coinbase just listed Amp yesterday. Coinbase-approved altcoins often skyrocket in price as 56 million users are nothing to scoff at.

Here’s everything else you should know about this project.

There’s only one thing that Flexa and ConsenSys created Amp to do: Act as collateral. Amp guarantees that real-world transactions go through instantaneously due to collateralization.

Flexa, the company that created Amp, is the puppet master attempting to make cryptocurrency the new global financial system. They initially launched a Flexa token years ago, but ditched it for Amp and a close partnership with ConsenSys.

“The new Amp token demonstrates Flexa’s unrelenting commitment to DeFi and to building new technologies that will democratize access to payments for people all over the world,” Tyler Spalding, CEO of Flexa wrote in a blogpost.

Flexa eventually wants to use Amp to guarantee home purchases, loan distributions, and fiat exchanges.

Can you guess it? Go ahead — on three…

ONE, staking!

Oh, sorry I got excited.

Staking on Amp is just like providing to a liquidity pool on Uniswap or any other DeFi protocol. I just imagine a giant Uncle Sam poster pointing at you saying “we need your tokens.”

This is another reason why Amp works. It follows the old Army adage “K.I.S.S.” or Keep it Simple Stupid. In the past few months, Amp is one of the only altcoins I feel like I can explain to my mother. That’s a good thing.

If you want to add to the Amp collateral pool you can stake on Gemini or on the SPEDN app to earn around 5.5% interest on your Amp tokens.

Three words should make you very bullish about an altcoin: ‘Real-World Use’

Many altcoins over-engineer their projects to death and bog their white papers down with technical mumbo jumbo to make you think their team is smarter than you. Amp is not one of these projects. It keeps it simple, stupid.

Moreover, Amp is the leading technology making it possible for retailers to exchange cryptocurrencies. It’s so ahead of the pack that dozens of businesses are already using it.

It’s a no-brainer 10x, in my opinion.

Amp is trading at $0.06 at the time of publishing with a market cap of $2.59B (for reference the market cap of Ethereum is $276 B)

Source: https://medium.com/yardcouch-com/why-amp-is-the-best-altcoin-youve-never-heard-of-5644e0459cce?source=rss——-8—————–cryptocurrency