Kiffmeister’s #Fintech Daily Digest (01/02/2021)

Bitcoin (BTC) is going through the roof today, blowing through $33,000 to hit all-time highs, apparently led by massive buy orders on Coinbase. It was trading at $33,200 when I hit the “publish” button.

Cash Like Features Of Central Bank Digital Currencies Can Enhance Financial Inclusion, Privacy, And Disaster Readiness

Vipin Bharathan does a deep dive into a recent paper published by Visa that describes a P2P offline payments solution that addresses occasional offline needs. The offline balance on the protected device is created during an online session, and consistency with the accounting system  is achieved upon reconnection to the network. The solution depends on an offline payment system protocol that prevents double-spending using digital signatures generated in the trusted execution environments (TEEs) available on most modern smart mobile devices (but perhaps not featurephones?).