Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest (04/26/2020)

Why Chris Giancarlo Considers A Digital Dollar Mission-Critical For The World
Ex-CFTC Chair Chris Giancarlo explains his future vision of digital dollars as well as what defines a digital dollar. He believes the digital dollar is bigger than any one issue and is about who owns the future, and the Digital Dollar Project is neutral on monetary policy.

Digimentality: Fear and Favoring of Digital Currency
Going cashless offers societal benefits. Among them are lower costs due to reduced production and handling of coins or banknotes and better financial tracking that can resolve tax gaps and expose shadow economies, International exchange and remittance could also be simplified as digital economies hold promise for unbanked or underserved populations. But the topic is divisive due to clashing stakeholder interests, not to mention risks around data privacy or cyber security.A 2020 survey from The Economist Intelligence Unit sought to uncover more granularity on what those divisive issues are from a user-base perspective.

The dForce and Hegic DeFi exploits, and why Smart Contracts are bad
The problem with smart contracts is that by design they’re hard or impossible to alter, which requires the most painstaking code review and analysis so that you don’t lose money to an exploit, but you make more money by being quick to market. DeFi apps that use chains of smart contract programs to automate complex financial transactions enable attacks to be chained too. Unsurprisingly, it’s a continuing dumpster fire, reliably delivering comedy gold. The problem with DeFi is not the technology, though that’s bad too — it’s that people are greedy and foolish.

Malta’s Financial Services Authority warns unlicensed virtual financial assets companies
Malta initiated legislation to regulate virtual financial assets in 2018 and invited companies to operate on the island during the transitory phase that ended at end-October 2019, after which they were supposed to register. Six months after the deadline, 57 of the 83 companies which responded to the call have not applied for licensing, despite the Malta Financial Services Authority’s multiple reminders to them since November 2019. The MFSA is still reviewing the other 26 applications. /

Posted from Diigo: https://www.diigo.com/user/kiffmeister/Fintech