The rate of spread of coronavirus through the human population may be slowing, but the pandemic seems well on the way to claiming another permanent victim: physical cash. That seems […]
Two key European Union laws—the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5)—are hindering the future growth of financial technology (‘fintech’) and blockchain businesses in the […]
To understand bitcoin, think of it as a technology rather than as a speculative financial asset, a leading computer scientist said this week. “People often talk about bitcoin as an […]
Entrepreneurs are competing in an intensifying race to design the future standards for the transmission of money. Gauge war The western English town of Gloucester was once the frontline of […]
The leading cryptocurrency’s design features cause it to behave weirdly: the more speculators buy bitcoin, the greater the short-term downward pressure on its price. “There are two features of bitcoin […]
Bitcoin mining is one of the riskiest industries in the world. Now a new financial product aims to make the activity a little less dangerous. Hashrate futures, launched last week […]
In the last decade, everyone has been able to join networks like Airbnb and Uber to rent out their property or labour. The sharing economy now extends to electricity, where […]
If money is ‘the most successful story ever invented by humans’, as Israeli historian Yuval Harari tells us, then the narrative is about to take a fantastical turn. That’s my […]
Social network Telegram is abandoning its plans to launch a new blockchain, the firm announced yesterday in a blogpost from its chief executive, Pavel Durov. Together with the recent decision […]
Digital identity systems promise a way out of the coronavirus slump. But as they have major implications for money systems, politics and democracy, getting them wrong could have disastrous repercussions. […]