Category: banking

It ain’t just about programmability

~ antonylewis2015 ~ 3 Comments

I read with interest JP Koning’s post “Programmable money isn’t new, we’ve had it for ages“. As an independent monetary economist, JP is well worth following on Twitter, and his blog Moneyness is one of the most thoughtful sources of fact-based commentary on how money is evolving.

Although I agree with the post’s content, I feel it’s missing a few key points about public blockchain based money vs the programmability of payment instructions today. This post is a respectful response and addition to the narrative, and should be read after reading and appreciating JP’s post.

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Audiobook Launch – The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains

~ antonylewis2015 ~ Leave a comment

Happy news! (and some insights into the mechanics of authoring and publishing a little further down the page)

I’ve just been told that the audiobook version of my book “The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains” is now available for preorder on Audible. It’s a great use of your Audible credits! If you’re not already on Audible, you get your first listen for free when you sign up. Click it!

This means you can upskill on bitcoin, blockchains, payments, and money when you’re out and about (ha)… Or more likely, when you’re inside, trying not to go insane, and wishing you could be out and about. What a great use of lockdown time!

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Ray Dalio on What Coronavirus Means for the Global Economy

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Ray Dalio is one of the best economic thinkers alive. On 9 April 2020, TED interviewed him about what coronavirus means for the global economy. Here is my summary. Any errors, omissions, misunderstandings are mine.

Ray Dalio on What coronavirus means for the global economy

Interviewer: Corey Hajim (TED)
Interviewee: Ray Dalio, Founder of Bridgewater Associates
Released 9 April 2020

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How unlike cash will CBDCs be?

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In this post I discuss several differences between physical cash, and what I imagine retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) might end up looking like. The main differences between CBDCs and cash are accessibility, anonymity, and interest.

Accessibility means “who can use it?”. Pretty much anyone can use cash.

Anonymity describes how much information about the payer and recipient’s identity is needed to make a transaction. Cash doesn’t require the payer or recipient to provide any identity information.

Interest describes how much the number goes up if you leave it sitting in its natural state without lending it to anyone. Physical cash does not have interest.

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Banking When the Bank is Shut – Token Maximalism

~ antonylewis2015 ~ 2 Comments

In this post I describe why freeing financial assets from the books of custodians and returning control of them to their owners as tokens could create significant benefits to an economy. This brings together concepts from traditional finance, cryptocurrencies, and enterprise blockchains.

Opening+hours+of+banks
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The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains

~ antonylewis2015 ~ 1 Comment

Last December I was approached by a publisher, Mango, who asked me if I would write a book about blockchain technology.  A little nervously, I agreed, and I’m excited to announce the result of six months of effort:

The basics of bitcoins and blockchains - book cover

The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains is an essential guide for anyone who needs to learn about cryptocurrencies, ICOs, and business blockchains.  Written in plain English, it provides a balanced and hype-free grounding in the essential concepts behind the revolutionary technology.

I wrote The Basics for an audience of business people, students, practitioners, and those who are simply interested in this technology.  I tried to make it entertaining even for those who are already working in the cryptocurrency or blockchain industry.  For example, did you know:

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MAS just released Corda for Central Banks… so what?

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I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to write about the open sourcing of Project Ubin Phase II, a key project that our team has been working on for the past seven months with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), ten banks, and our partner Accenture.

UbinPhase2
Ubin Phase 2 report

What is Project Ubin?  It’s probably the most advanced starter kit out there for anyone wanting to explore blockchains for banking:

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Blockchains and Central Banks – What Have We Learnt?

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This article was first posted on r3.com

Over the past couple of years, R3 has worked closely with a number of central banks to explore if distributed ledgers could support their policy goals, and I have had the privilege to participate in a number of these projects.

What have we learnt?  What is important?  What do central banks care about?  While I can’t speak directly for individual organisations, I have collated my own thoughts, and wanted to share these ahead of the Singapore FinTech Festival this year (13-17 Nov) when the results of Singapore’s “Project Ubin” experiments will be announced.

Update (post FinTech Festival): Read about the Open Sourcing of “Corda for Central Banks“!

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A Gentle Introduction to Interbank Payment Systems

~ antonylewis2015 ~ 4 Comments

How do banks pay each other?  In most countries, when banks want to transfer money to each other, perhaps upon instruction from a customer, they don’t put bundles of banknotes in vans, they pay each other digitally.  How does this work?

This post is intended as a primer about payment systems and explains correspondent banking, nostros, real time gross settlement (RTGS) systems and deferred net settlement (DNS) systems.  It supports other posts where I discuss decentralisation of these systems using distributed ledgers.

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