#167: How China’s digital currency might go global

Dollars to doughnuts

Sponsored by IBM Chain Letter Blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and why they matter Dollars to doughnuts 10.17.19 Welcome to Chain Letter! Great to have you. Here’s what’s new in the world of blockchains and cryptocurrencies. Libra’s terrible week is no cause for pessimism (says Facebook). Six more of the digital currency project’s members—Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, eBay, Booking Holdings (which owns Booking.com and other travel sites), and popular Latin American payment platform Mercado Pago—have followed PayPal’s example and withdrawn from the group. This is fine, says Facebook’s blockchain lead David Marcus. “The pressure has been intense,” Marcus said in a tweet last Friday after saying he respected the decisions by Visa and Mastercard to “wait until there’s regulatory clarity for Libra to proceed.” He continued: “I would caution against reading the fate of Libra into this update.”  Facebook’s plan to launch a global digital currency has received a chilly reception from policymakers and central bankers around the world. Most recently, letters sent by two US senators to the CEOs of Mastercard, Visa, and Stripe expressed “deep concerns” about Libra, and warned that their companies may see more regulatory scrutiny because of their involvement with the project. In a television interview this week on CNBC, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he thinks the defections happened because Libra is not yet “up to par” with respect to anti-money-laundering regulations. “And I assume some of the partners got concerned and dropped out until they meet those standards,” he said. The Libra Association is marching on, however. On Monday, the 21 remaining organizations met in Geneva to sign a charter for the organization and name a board of directors. Marcus will sit on the board along with Katie Haun from Andreessen Horowitz, Bitcoin wallet provider Xapo’s CEO Wences Cesares, general counsel for PayU Patrick Ellis, and Kiva chief of strategy Matthew Davie. Meanwhile, Bertrand Perez, COO and interim managing director for the Libra Association, told CNBC that he remains “confident” there will be 100 members by the time the currency launches, and that other firms, including banks and financial institutions, have expressed interest in signing on. (Meme by KC Green) China might fill the global digital currency void: If regulators in the US don’t let Facebook launch Libra, China’s much-anticipated digital renminbi “may be strategically positioned to become the de facto global digital currency in emerging economies,” according to global investment bank RBC Capital Markets. That’s because people will be able to access the currency via popular Chinese payment apps like Alipay and WeChat, argue analysts Zachary Schwartzman and Mark Mahaney in a new research note. Based on recent research and conversations in China, the authors believe that Alipay and WeChat are beefing up their anti-money-laundering safeguards—including the ability to use passport photos and facial recognition software to confirm the identities of foreigners—in preparation for the new digital currency, which the central bank could launch as early as next year.   Two former financial regulators say the US should digitize its dollar. In a forceful new opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, J. Christopher Giancarlo, the former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and Daniel Gorfine, the CFTC’s former chief technology officer, warn that a global digital currency issued by big tech company or a rival central bank could “eventually erode the dollar’s status as the most popular currency for international exchange.”  “Complacency in the face of this threat risks lasting damage to the US economy,” write Gorfine and Giancarlo, who say the solution is to issue a digital dollar. They propose a “government sanctioned blockchain protocol, created and maintained by an independent nongovernmental group but administered by banks and other trusted payment organizations.” Such a system would lower payment transaction costs for business and consumers and usher in “new economic models based on real-time transactions and microtransactions,” Giancarlo and Gorfine write. They add that it would also “extend the central role of the US dollar in global finance and allow it to compete confidently in the new digital era.” Sponsor Message The smarter MFT solution for better visibility and monitoring Today, 55% of all system integrations include file transfer activity in one way or another. According to one survey, 4% of FTP-based file transfers fail on average which can lead to major disruptions.   The impact on mission-critical IT business requirements like data security and regulatory compliance have prompted a modern MFT solution by IBM that provides real-time visibility, monitoring, and reporting of your file-based transactions.   Read this analyst report to see how IBM has fine-tuned its MFT offering with Secure File Transfer.  Read the report Loose change Fill your pockets with these newsy tidbits. Facing a lawsuit from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Telegram might be forced to put its global cryptocurrency plans on ice. (TR) +Telegram’s ICO: Give us $2 billion and we’ll solve all of blockchain’s problems (TR) Bermuda residents can now pay their taxes and for government services using USD Coin, a dollar-backed digital currency created by Circle in collaboration with Coinbase. (CoinDesk) Bitcoin surveillance helped feds take down a massive child sexual abuse site. (TR) Venezuelan officials say that nearly 100 retail stores now accept the nation’s sovereign cryptocurrency, the petro. (Decrypt) Over-the-counter cryptocurrency trading has exploded in China, fueled in part by the controversial dollar-backed stablecoin Tether. (Bloomberg) The heads of three US financial regulators with jurisdiction over cryptocurrency have issued a joint statement to “remind” crypto companies of their obligations related to anti-money-laundering and countering terrorist financing under a law called the Bank Secrecy Act. (CFTC) +The US government has a hidden weapon it could deploy against Bitcoin (TR) Blockchain analytics firm CipherTrace says its new service makes searchable the transactions of more than 700 cryptocurrencies. (CoinDesk) 5G and quantum computing are making it possible to unleash new business opportunities. But they could also create new security risks or even move the balance of geographical power. Join the experts at Future Compute 2019 to prepare for what's next. The Money Quote "Now we have an elephant in the sandbox." —Benoit Coeure, European Central Bank board member, speaking with Bloomberg in advance of the release of a new report from Group of Seven (G-7) on stablecoins. The “sandbox approach,” in which new financial technology products are piloted in limited settings with light-touch regulatory constraints, is no longer appropriate in the age of Libra, he said. We hope you enjoyed today's tour of what's new in the world of blockchains and cryptocurrencies. Send us some feedback, or follow me @mike_orcutt. Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up for free Computing, but not as you know it. December 2-3, Cambridge MA View this in a browser You received this newsletter because you subscribed with the email address contacto1745.send-mail@blogger.com Edit email preferences   |   Unsubscribe from all emails Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

Lisk.js Full Agenda Released with Coding Challenges, Workshops, Prizes and More!

📌 Save the date - November 19, 2019

Don't miss our end of year event The event will have two segments 12pm - 6pm: developer workshops & coding challenges 6pm - 11pm: presentations, networking & afterparty Lisk.js 2019 agenda    ◴ 12:00 - 13:00    Registration Grab your goodie bag at the registration desk and enjoy a large variety of pizza.   ◴ 13:00 - 13:30    Introduction Prior to the workshops, we will give a short intro to the Lisk SDK and custom transactions.   ◴ 13:00 - 15:30    Developer Workshops 1. Lisk.Bike Workshop 🚴 Learn about the eco-friendly blockchain use-case built by our Lisk developer community in the Netherlands. 2. Supply Chain Use Case Lab 🔬Apply the Lisk SDK to a real-world blockchain use case. Learn how to put together a Raspberry Pi, photoresistor, humidity sensor, and custom transactions to create a decentralized supply chain tracking system using the Lisk SDK.   ◴ 15:30 - 16:00    Break Enjoy tasty vegan donuts and coffee to refuel before the challenges begin.   ◴ 16:00 - 18:00    Coding Challenges Join the coding challenges to win one of the three prizes.   ◴ 18:00 - 18:30    Networking Enjoy drinks and finger-food with the Berlin developer community.   ◴ 18:30 - 18:45    Welcome Speech Lisk founders will open the event with their welcome speech.   ◴ 18:45 - 19:00    Prize Winners Announcement The prize winners from the SDK workshop challenges will be announced on stage.   ◴ 19:00 - 19:20    Research Presentation "The fairest of them all? An overview of Lisk's newly researched DPoS algorithm."  Our researchers will discuss properties and objectives of the new DPoS mechanism to 1. disincentivize coalitions, 2. make it open and fair while lowering the barrier to entry, 3. offer vote flexibility and 4. enable efficiency to process the votes.   ◴ 19:20 - 19:50    Development Presentations "P2P Network Scalability: An introduction to partial mesh network topology." "Network Security: How mechanisms like eviction & penalties mitigate network attacks." "Software Testing: One guideline to test them all: a new approach to software testing." "Micro-Services: Supporting blockchain-based products with service-oriented architecture."   ◴ 19:50 - 20:00    Break Questions about our research, platform and SDK will be collected during the break.   ◴ 20:00 - 20:30    Panel Discussion A Q&A session with the Research & Development teams.   ◴ 20:30 - 21:00    Lisk Ecosystem Presentations 1. Lisk Center Utrecht: The blockchain hub of the Netherlands 2. Sidechain Solutions: Valuable solutions for growing the Lisk Ecosystem 3. GNY: Next generation predictive machine-learning platform   ◴ 21:00 - 23:00    Networking & Afterparty Enjoy drinks and good music with local developers, the Lisk community and team. RSVP Today   Stay updated with Lisk:       Copyright © 2019 Lisk Stiftung, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website Lisk.io. Our mailing address is: Lisk Stiftung Dammstrasse 16 Zug 6300 Switzerland Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.