"On August 17, 2015, Tierion announced that it has been contracted by the Connecticut government to aid officials in surveying 200 of the top technology firms in the state. The company’s job is to gather responses to survey questions and then create the blockchain receipts that are needed for timestamp and content verification of each respondent’s answers. The reasoning behind the use of this technology is simple: it will help the state avoid potential disputes over the data."
I was not aware that the block chain could be used for anything other than recording transactions... Does this mean that the block chain could potentially be used for other purposes as well?
Yep, I'm sure it can be used to store any kind of data.
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Great ideas all!
We can certainly use some social promotions, that is a great idea.
I'm hoping to create a "wizard" to allow people to create a customizable widget for their site.
We may or may not have someone to work on an app. Apple products are outside of my realm of knowledge at the moment, but I think we can create one for instant notifications of new content/updates.
I haven't explored any syndication methods, but that sounds like an excellent idea as well.
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A couple updates on DCEBrief: Added a few new pages - Policies, About, Meet the Team, etc... Links are at the bottom of the page. Working on some DCEBrief promotions. -Submitted to news aggregates (Google, Bing, Yahoo, News360). -Created social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook). https://twitter.com/DCEBrief https://www.facebook.com/DCEBrief (Still working on facebook page) -Working on creating a site widget that one could add to their site to display DCEBrief content -Thinking about adding a policy that will allow people to use our content with proper attribution. What else can we do to promote the site?
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Happy Tuesday everyone! Just wanted to say how much I appreciate this forum. It has been a necessary tool for learning the way digital currency works. YouTube has also been surprisingly helpful. Looking forward to better understanding every day. ![Cheesy](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif) You too Kris! That is great, glad you are picking up a lot. If you happen to find any good videos to share, we have a thread on CryptoMoms for it: http://cryptomoms.com/forum/general-discussion/9/cryptocurrency-video-thread/110/If you haven't seen it already.
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Excellent article. Good to know that even local and state governments are beginning to see the immense value of the technology. A trusted global digital currency for every worldwide to participate has immense value for humanity. We are very passionate in our mission to accomplish that ultimate goal. I agree, it is an excellent article and perfect for DCEBrief. Great choice for the picture - it is breathtaking! ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif) Hartford Connecticut, beautiful city.
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Things are looking good everyone. The first week of school is finished so back to a "normal" routine. I will be more present from now on. I received this in my email and wanted to share: Bitwage Connecting You to Financial Freedom Hello, I recently came across your contact information while I was researching Bitcoin enthusiasts. </ br> I'd like to take the opportunity to tell you a little bit about Bitwage and our Payroll Solutions tailored for you---the individual: BITCOIN PAYROLL INDIVIDUAL Receive any percentage of your wage or salary in Bitcoin regardless of your employer signing up. No bank account required. </ br> How it works: We give you a bank account number. You tell your employer or payroll provider to send your payroll to that bank account. You get Bitcoin Next Day after Deposit. </ br> Simple right? We would love to hear from you if you are interested in our payroll solutions. You can learn more and sign up at https://www.bitwage.com. Please feel free to contact us at info@bitwage.com so we can help you get set up to receive a bitcoin wage--your first "bitwage" from Bitwage! </ br> Best, </ br> Lily Baker Account Manager © Bitwage 2013-2015 | Unsubscribe Bitwage, Inc. 60 Spear St. #1100, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA Bitwage Ireland, Ltd. Blair House, Upper O'Connell Street, Ennis, Co. Clare, Ireland Anyone else receive such an email? I will look into it and ask about DNotes as well. This would be very beneficial to the non-technical user and we might be able to use this in conjunction with the CRISP for Employee Benefits. I will keep you posted. Congrats Marc! In the future, I expect many will be able to be paid in digital currency. It will help stimulate the ecosystem and drive liquidity. Bitwage has been around for a while, but it certainly would be helpful if they accepted DNotes. Thanks!
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This article pre-dates the 2008-09 financial crisis and the dawn of bitcoin, but it gives you something to think about now that we are beginning the age of global digital currencies. I don't think a single worldwide currency will ever happen or is even a good idea, but I do think having the option of a global currency like DNotes is the best idea. I haven't looked very far to see what the author thinks of bitcoin now, but he did make the usual comments (an article from 2013) about bitcoin's lack of trust, volatility, gambling, speculation, etc. A Single Global Currency"...US$400 billion of annual transaction and exchange costs will be eliminated" - The Single Global Currency (book) "The book also argues that if we had a single global currency, worldwide assets would increase by about $36 trillion" The article goes on to explain how a single currency would help eliminate global imbalances, crises and speculation, etc. http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/58347.htmlGreat find Chase, I'd love to read the book when I have time.
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Speaking of banks... Here comes another permissioned blockchain, so I have to ask; What happens when there is a quagmire (my favorite govt / bank word) of these blockchains because everyone wants their own? Will they work together or will it create chaos? There could be thousands of tokens around the world which would require conversion, etc. Sounds like fiat, but what do I know. lol UBS to Develop Yet Another ‘Permissioned Blockchain’ for BanksIn April, Bitcoin Magazine reported that UBS was planning to investigate blockchain technology in a new innovation lab based in London. The innovation lab is located in Level39, Europe’s largest technology accelerator space for finance and cyber-securities, and focuses on exploring the role of blockchain technology in financial services. UBS, a Swiss global financial services company with its headquarters in Basel and Zürich, is the biggest Swiss bank and is considered as the world’s largest manager of private wealth assets, with more than 2.2 trillion Swiss francs (CHF) in invested assets. In August, the bank launched a “Future of Finance Challenge” for financial technology entrepreneurs and startups. The Future of Finance Challenge covers a broad range of emerging fintech areas, including blockchain technology and applications, cryptocurrencies, distributed ledgers, security and privacy verification and smart contracts. Now, the blockchain vision and strategy of the giant Swiss bank are becoming clearer. UBS is working on a prototype virtual currency that it hopes will be used by banks and financial institutions as a basis to settle mainstream financial markets transactions, The Wall Street Journal reports. The new virtual currency, dubbed “utility settlement coin,” would be used for post-trade settlements between financial institutions on private financial platforms built on blockchain technology. For example, UBS might have its own blockchain-based platform to issue bonds, and another bank might have a blockchain-based stock-trading platform, but both would use the same utility coin for settlement. The bank doesn’t plan to issue the new digital coin itself but hopes to work with other banks, regulators and financial service providers for an industrywide product. Hyder Jaffrey, the bank’s e-commerce commercial director, said UBS had already reached out to potential partners, but would not comment on specific institutions. The utility settlement coin is a “permissioned blockchain” similar to the Bankchain project recently announced by Bitcoin exchange itBit. Permissioned blockchains, also endorsed by Accenture and Digital Asset Holdings CEO Blythe Masters, are the new trend in Wall Street’s uneasy flirtation with Bitcoin. Basically, permissioned blockchains would offer the advantages of digital currencies powered by public blockchain – fast and cheap transactions permanently recorded in a shared ledger – without the troublesome openness of the Bitcoin network where anyone can be a node on the network anonymously. Using the utility settlement coin or similar systems, financial institutions could settle trades in seconds rather than days, which could lead to reduced risk, lower operational costs, and increased efficiency. To achieve this vision, UBS is partnering with blockchain fintech startup Clearmatics, based in London. The key difference between Clearmatics’ implementation of the blockchain technology and Bitcoin is the fact that only authorized participants can validate transactions. “Unlike cryptocurrency blockchains, validators are authenticated and legally accountable,” states the Clearmatics website. A recent post on the Clearmatics website, titled “No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement,” provides a point-by-point analysis of the original Bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto from the point of view of the financial establishment, and a clear outline of the reasons why banks and mainstream financial institutions won’t touch permissionless blockchain networks like Bitcoin. “To serve as a replacement for the legacy technology implementing registered, book-entry assets, a distributed ledger of financial assets will have to ensure a tight correspondence between what the ledger and the law say is the state of who-owns-what,” notes the post. “This is obviously incompatible with a protocol based on anonymous transaction validators; the law will not treat a ledger record as authoritative if everyone knows that the current longest chain contains blocks generated by an anonymous attacker who replaced a bit of history that was chronologically prior. But the bitcoin protocol has no mechanism for dealing with this scenario, no mechanism for bringing ledger state and legal state back into alignment.” According to the company, Clearmatics’ permissioned blockchain infrastructure is not only “thousands of times more efficient” than the Bitcoin network, but also places a governance structure over the validators to ensure resistance to attacks. The Wall Steet Journal article wisely mentions critiques to UBS’ approach and permissioned blockchains in general. In particular, former Bitcoin Foundation director Jon Matonis is persuaded that private, permissioned blockchains might fall short of their objectives. “It could end up being very similar to centralized payments networks we have right now, without the benefit of the network effect of bitcoin,” he said. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21851/ubs-develop-yet-another-permissioned-blockchain-banks/"quagmire!!!.........!!!" Get ready. Expect hundreds of different "permission tokens" Confused already. They will be a lot more to come. Those who truly believe in DECENTRALIZED Digital Currency must not allow our voice to be drown out. It will be very interesting to see how this will play out. I've been reading through the "No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement" article. Pretty long, haven't gotten through it yet. http://www.clearmatics.com/2015/05/no-bitcoin-is-not-the-future-of-securities-settlement/Much of the article talks about vulnerabilities we already know, 51% attack and changing transaction history, anyone can run a node etc... Newer developments make that much more difficult like KGW. I haven't formulated a conclusive opinion as to whether I think the permissioned blockchains would be a better approach for banks to settle internal transactions. I'm sure they could have a solution where nodes are specifically permitted on the network, but wouldn't the nodes themselves be vulnerable to attack creating a bigger security issue than 51% attack or now be vulnerable to internal corruption? Thinking through this could be beneficial to DNotes one day, but it is a very complicated issue. Think about how long and how many people it took to come up with bitcoin's solution. I don't know what kind of effort they have already put into this solution, but I'm hesitant to conclude anything. Peer to peer transactions, for everyone else and public use, a public free market blockchain is still, in my opinion, the best option. By the way, DNotes is a relatively small network compared to Bitcoin, but when I rebuilt one of my nodes the other day we had about 50 active nodes I connected to and about 10,000 unique IP's that are in the peer list. This is part of the strength of an open peer network.
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Speaking of banks... Here comes another permissioned blockchain, so I have to ask; What happens when there is a quagmire (my favorite govt / bank word) of these blockchains because everyone wants their own? Will they work together or will it create chaos? There could be thousands of tokens around the world which would require conversion, etc. Sounds like fiat, but what do I know. lol UBS to Develop Yet Another ‘Permissioned Blockchain’ for BanksIn April, Bitcoin Magazine reported that UBS was planning to investigate blockchain technology in a new innovation lab based in London. The innovation lab is located in Level39, Europe’s largest technology accelerator space for finance and cyber-securities, and focuses on exploring the role of blockchain technology in financial services. UBS, a Swiss global financial services company with its headquarters in Basel and Zürich, is the biggest Swiss bank and is considered as the world’s largest manager of private wealth assets, with more than 2.2 trillion Swiss francs (CHF) in invested assets. In August, the bank launched a “Future of Finance Challenge” for financial technology entrepreneurs and startups. The Future of Finance Challenge covers a broad range of emerging fintech areas, including blockchain technology and applications, cryptocurrencies, distributed ledgers, security and privacy verification and smart contracts. Now, the blockchain vision and strategy of the giant Swiss bank are becoming clearer. UBS is working on a prototype virtual currency that it hopes will be used by banks and financial institutions as a basis to settle mainstream financial markets transactions, The Wall Street Journal reports. The new virtual currency, dubbed “utility settlement coin,” would be used for post-trade settlements between financial institutions on private financial platforms built on blockchain technology. For example, UBS might have its own blockchain-based platform to issue bonds, and another bank might have a blockchain-based stock-trading platform, but both would use the same utility coin for settlement. The bank doesn’t plan to issue the new digital coin itself but hopes to work with other banks, regulators and financial service providers for an industrywide product. Hyder Jaffrey, the bank’s e-commerce commercial director, said UBS had already reached out to potential partners, but would not comment on specific institutions. The utility settlement coin is a “permissioned blockchain” similar to the Bankchain project recently announced by Bitcoin exchange itBit. Permissioned blockchains, also endorsed by Accenture and Digital Asset Holdings CEO Blythe Masters, are the new trend in Wall Street’s uneasy flirtation with Bitcoin. Basically, permissioned blockchains would offer the advantages of digital currencies powered by public blockchain – fast and cheap transactions permanently recorded in a shared ledger – without the troublesome openness of the Bitcoin network where anyone can be a node on the network anonymously. Using the utility settlement coin or similar systems, financial institutions could settle trades in seconds rather than days, which could lead to reduced risk, lower operational costs, and increased efficiency. To achieve this vision, UBS is partnering with blockchain fintech startup Clearmatics, based in London. The key difference between Clearmatics’ implementation of the blockchain technology and Bitcoin is the fact that only authorized participants can validate transactions. “Unlike cryptocurrency blockchains, validators are authenticated and legally accountable,” states the Clearmatics website. A recent post on the Clearmatics website, titled “No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement,” provides a point-by-point analysis of the original Bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto from the point of view of the financial establishment, and a clear outline of the reasons why banks and mainstream financial institutions won’t touch permissionless blockchain networks like Bitcoin. “To serve as a replacement for the legacy technology implementing registered, book-entry assets, a distributed ledger of financial assets will have to ensure a tight correspondence between what the ledger and the law say is the state of who-owns-what,” notes the post. “This is obviously incompatible with a protocol based on anonymous transaction validators; the law will not treat a ledger record as authoritative if everyone knows that the current longest chain contains blocks generated by an anonymous attacker who replaced a bit of history that was chronologically prior. But the bitcoin protocol has no mechanism for dealing with this scenario, no mechanism for bringing ledger state and legal state back into alignment.” According to the company, Clearmatics’ permissioned blockchain infrastructure is not only “thousands of times more efficient” than the Bitcoin network, but also places a governance structure over the validators to ensure resistance to attacks. The Wall Steet Journal article wisely mentions critiques to UBS’ approach and permissioned blockchains in general. In particular, former Bitcoin Foundation director Jon Matonis is persuaded that private, permissioned blockchains might fall short of their objectives. “It could end up being very similar to centralized payments networks we have right now, without the benefit of the network effect of bitcoin,” he said. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21851/ubs-develop-yet-another-permissioned-blockchain-banks/"quagmire!!!.........!!!" Get ready. Expect hundreds of different "permission tokens" Confused already. They will be a lot more to come. Those who truly believe in DECENTRALIZED Digital Currency must not allow our voice to be drown out. It will be very interesting to see how this will play out. I've been reading through the "No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement" article. Pretty long, haven't gotten through it yet. http://www.clearmatics.com/2015/05/no-bitcoin-is-not-the-future-of-securities-settlement/Much of the article talks about vulnerabilities we already know, 51% attack and changing transaction history, anyone can run a node etc... Newer developments make that much more difficult like KGW. I haven't formulated a conclusive opinion as to whether I think the permissioned blockchains would be a better approach for banks to settle internal transactions. I'm sure they could have a solution where nodes are specifically permitted on the network, but wouldn't the nodes themselves be vulnerable to attack creating a bigger security issue than 51% attack or now be vulnerable to internal corruption? Thinking through this could be beneficial to DNotes one day, but it is a very complicated issue. Think about how long and how many people it took to come up with bitcoin's solution. I don't know what kind of effort they have already put into this solution, but I'm hesitant to conclude anything. Peer to peer transactions, for everyone else and public use, a public free market blockchain is still, in my opinion, the best option.
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Speaking of banks... Here comes another permissioned blockchain, so I have to ask; What happens when there is a quagmire (my favorite govt / bank word) of these blockchains because everyone wants their own? Will they work together or will it create chaos? There could be thousands of tokens around the world which would require conversion, etc. Sounds like fiat, but what do I know. lol UBS to Develop Yet Another ‘Permissioned Blockchain’ for BanksIn April, Bitcoin Magazine reported that UBS was planning to investigate blockchain technology in a new innovation lab based in London. The innovation lab is located in Level39, Europe’s largest technology accelerator space for finance and cyber-securities, and focuses on exploring the role of blockchain technology in financial services. UBS, a Swiss global financial services company with its headquarters in Basel and Zürich, is the biggest Swiss bank and is considered as the world’s largest manager of private wealth assets, with more than 2.2 trillion Swiss francs (CHF) in invested assets. In August, the bank launched a “Future of Finance Challenge” for financial technology entrepreneurs and startups. The Future of Finance Challenge covers a broad range of emerging fintech areas, including blockchain technology and applications, cryptocurrencies, distributed ledgers, security and privacy verification and smart contracts. Now, the blockchain vision and strategy of the giant Swiss bank are becoming clearer. UBS is working on a prototype virtual currency that it hopes will be used by banks and financial institutions as a basis to settle mainstream financial markets transactions, The Wall Street Journal reports. The new virtual currency, dubbed “utility settlement coin,” would be used for post-trade settlements between financial institutions on private financial platforms built on blockchain technology. For example, UBS might have its own blockchain-based platform to issue bonds, and another bank might have a blockchain-based stock-trading platform, but both would use the same utility coin for settlement. The bank doesn’t plan to issue the new digital coin itself but hopes to work with other banks, regulators and financial service providers for an industrywide product. Hyder Jaffrey, the bank’s e-commerce commercial director, said UBS had already reached out to potential partners, but would not comment on specific institutions. The utility settlement coin is a “permissioned blockchain” similar to the Bankchain project recently announced by Bitcoin exchange itBit. Permissioned blockchains, also endorsed by Accenture and Digital Asset Holdings CEO Blythe Masters, are the new trend in Wall Street’s uneasy flirtation with Bitcoin. Basically, permissioned blockchains would offer the advantages of digital currencies powered by public blockchain – fast and cheap transactions permanently recorded in a shared ledger – without the troublesome openness of the Bitcoin network where anyone can be a node on the network anonymously. Using the utility settlement coin or similar systems, financial institutions could settle trades in seconds rather than days, which could lead to reduced risk, lower operational costs, and increased efficiency. To achieve this vision, UBS is partnering with blockchain fintech startup Clearmatics, based in London. The key difference between Clearmatics’ implementation of the blockchain technology and Bitcoin is the fact that only authorized participants can validate transactions. “Unlike cryptocurrency blockchains, validators are authenticated and legally accountable,” states the Clearmatics website. A recent post on the Clearmatics website, titled “No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement,” provides a point-by-point analysis of the original Bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto from the point of view of the financial establishment, and a clear outline of the reasons why banks and mainstream financial institutions won’t touch permissionless blockchain networks like Bitcoin. “To serve as a replacement for the legacy technology implementing registered, book-entry assets, a distributed ledger of financial assets will have to ensure a tight correspondence between what the ledger and the law say is the state of who-owns-what,” notes the post. “This is obviously incompatible with a protocol based on anonymous transaction validators; the law will not treat a ledger record as authoritative if everyone knows that the current longest chain contains blocks generated by an anonymous attacker who replaced a bit of history that was chronologically prior. But the bitcoin protocol has no mechanism for dealing with this scenario, no mechanism for bringing ledger state and legal state back into alignment.” According to the company, Clearmatics’ permissioned blockchain infrastructure is not only “thousands of times more efficient” than the Bitcoin network, but also places a governance structure over the validators to ensure resistance to attacks. The Wall Steet Journal article wisely mentions critiques to UBS’ approach and permissioned blockchains in general. In particular, former Bitcoin Foundation director Jon Matonis is persuaded that private, permissioned blockchains might fall short of their objectives. “It could end up being very similar to centralized payments networks we have right now, without the benefit of the network effect of bitcoin,” he said. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21851/ubs-develop-yet-another-permissioned-blockchain-banks/"quagmire!!!.........!!!" Get ready. Expect hundreds of different "permission tokens" Confused already. They will be a lot more to come. Those who truly believe in DECENTRALIZED Digital Currency must not allow our voice to be drown out. It will be very interesting to see how this will play out. I've been reading through the "No, Bitcoin is not the future of securities settlement" article. Pretty long, haven't gotten through it yet. http://www.clearmatics.com/2015/05/no-bitcoin-is-not-the-future-of-securities-settlement/
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Sorry guys, and girls! I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Major projects at work and the paramedic unit I run with just won a very prestigious award: "Public Information Office, August 18 Calvert Advanced Life Support has received notification the department has been selected as the NAEMT’s Volunteer Department of The Year 2015. The award, which is sponsored by Zoll, will be presented at the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians General Membership Meeting and Awards Presentation on Wednesday, Sept. 16, in Las Vegas, Nevada during EMSworld Expo." As Chairman of the Board of Directors of that organization, I have been very busy helping prepare for this. We are sending a select group to Vegas to accept the award and attend the conference. My wife (a past Chief of CALS) will be attending and we intend to extend our stay on the west coast to California to visit family and drive the Pacific Coast Highway, something I've always wanted to do. So, I'll be reading but not posting much till we return later in the month. As for the subject at hand, I think we all realize that commercial interests such as banks, will exploit crypto every way they can now that they realize it's not going away, this is to be expected. They will also fail in the long run because they have no soul, no real belief in the greater good crypto can do for the worlds less fortunate populations. Its a sad fact of life that for good to exist, there must also be evil. I personally believe good can triumph as long as people believe it can. DNotes stands for good. I think all of us here are fighting for a greater cause than personal wealth and that my friends, is why we will prosper and come out on top. DNotes best course of action is continuing to do exactly what we are doing now, educating. We must stay the course and continue to bring the message to those who can benefit most and thats not the bankers, it's the ordinary people, the simple folks, the disadvantaged, the isolated and all those who believe the current system is top heavy and imperfect. So, carry on, keep the torches lit and rally the troupes as needed, we will prevail in the long game. ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif) Congrats RJF! Missed having you on the forum, but understand completely.
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Found this article pretty interesting comparing digital currency to gold and real estate as reliable / fall back investments. Of course DNotes would be a great option for this type of investment. Chinese Capital Controls May Create Next Bitcoin BoomOver the past year, investment money has been flowing out of China’s markets at a record pace, creating great instability in not just China, but globally. The largely state-controlled economy has seen new measures to stem the tide, and massive capital controls may be on the horizon, creating a great opportunity for Bitcoin to peak as it did in 2013, according to ZeroHedge. Chinese capital controls Money has been leaving China’s economy for a long time, and the recent currency devaluation is only a symptom of that, not the cause. Investing in real estate is always a staple of any wise investor’s portfolio, and the Chinese have done so. CNN reports that over the last 12 months, more than US$30 billion has left China for U.S. real estate, accounting for almost 25% of all foreign investment in that sector. The Chinese are starting to "think money in the bank is not safe -- it won't gain any value if the renminbi is still devaluing," said David Ji of Knight Frank, an international real estate agency. "So people will look to real estate as a more solid investment channel.” The Chinese government has grown their gold reserves, but it is less attractive to the individual investor, as it leaves quite a trail coming and going for those looking to diversify and avoid the local currency’s trouble and monitoring. Moving large sums of money out of the country, without government oversight, via “underground banks” has become very popular, but more and more dangerous, as The State cracks down. ZeroHedge exposes the latest in this situation: “Chinese officials have intensified a crackdown on what are known in China as underground banks, which Chinese nationals often use to shift money in and out of the country despite tight capital controls. Meng Qingfeng, vice minister of public security, said late in August that those money-transfer agents remained ‘rampant’ despite repeated crackdowns on them, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Mr. Meng also urged police around the country to better coordinate with the central bank in the campaign, which will run through the end of November.” Gold, real estate, and bitcoin are an investor’s best friend [...] http://cointelegraph.com/news/115222/chinese-capital-controls-may-create-next-bitcoin-boom
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Here comes centralized Digital Currency, I mentioned earlier. This may not be a good thing for the consumers, many bank employees and many of us who are committed to decentralized financial services as an alternative to government/bank controlled currency. Unfortunately, we don't even have an industry association to speak with a united voice. That is just my opinion. What is yours? itBit Hires Former NYDFS General Counsel Daniel Alter, Pushes Ahead with Bankchain Projectby GIULIO PRISCO on SEPTEMBER 3, 2015 0 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21845/itbit-hires-former-nydfs-general-counsel-daniel-alter-pushes-ahead-bankchain-project/In April, Bitcoin Magazine reported that Bitcoin exchange itBit had filed for a banking license in New York. Later in May, itBit was granted a trust charter by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYFDS) under New York State banking law, the first such charter granted to a digital currency company by the NYDFS. ItBit also announced the successful completion of a $25 million Series A funding round. On September 2, itBit announced the appointments of Daniel “Danny” Alter as the company’s new general counsel and chief compliance officer, and Kim Petry as chief financial officer. Petry was previously CFO of global operations and technology at Broadridge Financial Services and, before that, served as CFO and vice president of global commercial/corporate card payment at American Express. Alter joined itBit after stepping down in February from his most recent post as general counsel of the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), where he served as principal counsel and strategic adviser to the New York state superintendent of financial services. The former New York State Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky left the NYDFS after releasing the controversial Bitlicense regulations for digital currency businesses operating in New York. Lawsky’s move to a consulting business was strongly criticized by the libertarian Cato Institute. “Because of the contacts he made as a regulator, [Lawsky] can hire himself out to Bitcoin companies wanting to signal to other regulators that they have the approval of the regulatory establishment,” noted Cato Senior Fellow Jim Harper. It seems likely that Alter’s move to itBit might be criticized in the same grounds. “The New York State Public Officers law requires that I have a two-year recusal before I can appear before the New York Department of Financial Services on behalf of the company,” said Alter in a pre-emptive statement reported by Reuters. “And it will certainly apply to itBit. I will not step near or have any communications with the New York Department of Financial Services. Those will be handled by outside counsel or qualified compliance people within the company.” “Between Danny’s deep expertise in financial services and virtual currency regulation and Kim’s demonstrated track record as a successful CFO of global financial organizations, I’m confident that itBit will continue to grow and develop innovative blockchain-based solutions to address the financial industry’s greatest pain points,” said itBit co-founder and CEO Chad Cascarilla. “Danny and Kim possess a deep understanding of how to grow and run a successful business within the regulatory framework of the financial services industry, and their expertise will be invaluable as we work toward the launch of our new permissioned distributed ledger product – Bankchain.” Bankchain, a new high profile project still held under wraps by itBit, will be a closed, “permissioned blockchain” owned and operated by banks and financial institutions – in other words, a private blockchain without bitcoin and anonymous miners. According to itBit claims, Bankchain will automate, accelerate and simplify post-trade processes across the financial services industry, saving institutions time and money. Bankchain is “the first consensus-based ledger system exclusively for financial institutions,” states the still very basic Bankchain website. “Bankchain is a new clearing and settlement network that leverages blockchain technology to reimagine how financial institutions execute post-trade. The decentralized network is powered by itBit but fully governed by the member participants that join the platform.” “[Bankchain] is a proprietary itBit protocol, not blockchain based, but is derived off of blockchain,” itBit head of global operations Steve Wager told Coindesk in August. “We will also not be using bitcoin as the native token; it will be an itBit proprietary token.” Reddit users strongly criticized the “Sinister Bankchain Project,” but it appears that the trend toward private, permissioned blockchains is here to stay, with strong support expressed, among others, by Accenture and Digital Asset Holdings CEO Blythe Masters. The itBit / Bank team-up is 100% profit motivated. None of the savings generated by implementing Bankchain will be passed on to the consumer in the form of reduced fees or lower interest charged. It really doesn't sound like anything the consumer will be involved in at all, except perhaps a settlement of payments between banks on the customer's exhorbitant interest-loaded credit card balance. I think we need to separate ourselves, in the public's eye, from what the banks are doing. They are merely using the technology for their own profit. We, on the other hand, are creating a global currency that everyone worldwide can use, invest in, profit in, conduct business with, and bring stability to the finances of people living with government corruption and runaway inflation. People from every country, even the ones that appear stable can benefit from a truly decentralized global digital currency. As far as the banks settling payments from cross border remittances, what are the chances of banks in third world countries trusting these American(?) banks enough to use bankchain tokens? Or will these poor countries even be invited to the party? Apologies if this is difficult to read etc, it's one of my 'long posts' where I think of things and get confused about the order I should discuss them, then 'chop and change' sentences around which can make the message harder to follow. These views and 'on the fly' thoughts are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of DNotes. To begin I'm not sure I like the idea when regulators and officials take jobs from companies who had been lobbying them. To use a politically neutral example, who remembers Darleen Druyun, former weapons buyer for the US Air force? Well in 2005 she was jailed for (only) 9 months after pleading guilty to giving Boeing special treatment in a 23.5 billion dollar government contract - of course, after the deal was inked, Druyun was hired by Boeing as a vice-president with an annual salary of 250k. Druyun allowed Boeing to negotiate for an extra 6 billion dollars more than the contract should have been. This kind of hiring of 'career' government officials into highly paid corporate executive roles has been routine for decades. I don't know if Mr Lawsky made the regulations incredibly expensive and difficult to comply with, to the detriment of itBit's competition before he left the NYDFS, but considering that to the best of my knowledge, itBit is still the only exchange to have a banking licence... it kinda stinks of corruption. This could be a big misunderstanding though, and those two regulators may have just joined itBit fair and square, or these two regulators made itBit a 'sure thing' - we may never know. The next question would be that in the event that there was unfair favouritism affird to itBit, is it sensible (risky) to go into business with them should foul-play be uncovered in the future, or do these appointments provide some level of immunity? It will take more time watching how this all plays out. In regards to the 'bankchain' thing, I've been waiting for something like this to come along for a while. We all expected banks to try to take the technology for their own to improve their settlement payments from overnight to near-instant. I can see lots of problems with itBit's idea - but I presume many customers may prefer joining banks that are members of the 'bankchain' system for faster payments, which could encourage even more banks to join. I don't have any issue with itBit being profit motivated, but re-my point about the regulators passing ridiculously difficult regulations in NY that have turned away nearly all of itBit's competitors... it doesn't sound like they're playing fair game. Again, this may not be the case at all - pending further research and developments. Of course, ItBit and the banks are still at a disadvantage - they haven't fixed the money, they still use fiat. I could go on and on with various graphs and points (may I point people in the direction of IMZ's crypto kindergarten blog posts on cryptomoms.com forums), but the reality is that fiat is created as debt, which means new money must come into creation to pay for the interest owing on that debt, which is completely unsustainable. World governments are in massive debt crises, and they have all failed to create the next 'economic' bubble that would give a false sense that the 'real' economy isn't in decline. But why has recovery been unattainable on this occasion? https://www.quandl.com/data/FRED/DFF-Effective-Federal-Funds-RateTake a look at the effective federal funds rate in the link above. The interest rate tends to be lifted by the fed in times of economic boom, and severely lowered in times when the government want to promulgate economic activity, which leads to 'bubbles' (stock bubble, dotcom bubble, housing bubble etc). The chart clearly shows drops in the interest rate in ~1988, ~2001 and ~2007 in line with the decline of each bubble. These low interest rates make borrowing really cheap, and encourage ridiculous investment activities that no sane person would make if interest rates were dictated by the free-market. Currently, the Fed has an effective 0.14 % interest rate, and it has been near zero since ~2010. The fact that interest rates are still low, is the obvious tell that there has been no 'real' economic recovery. What is worse, is that there is now nothing in the way of 'government tools' to improve this situation - QE has already convoluted the real decline in the US economy, and dropping interest rates any lower would make them go negative. I hardly think anybody would be interested in running a restaurant where they paid customers to come and eat, and I think it would work the same with your bank deposits if you were earning negative interest - It would mean the destruction of the banking system. I could go into this much further, and bring about many other points, but this should suffice for the moment. Basically, crypto currencies have more long-term stable potential than fiat currencies do. Crypto is going to become a more attractive alternative, and quickly. But DNotes doesn't only have the advantage of sound money - It is a good point to highlight that DNotes is creating a global digital currency that is useful everywhere and holds an equal value worldwide, so there is no requirment no transfer between currencies (i.e. Euro to USD) like with itBit's system - (presuming foreign banks co-operate, or foreign exchange is possible as a service of the banks through the bankchain). ItBits 'bankchain' simply can not compete on the near-zero transfer cost possible with DNotes and our ecosystem. Not within the same country, and certainly not internationally. If ItBit does try to compete, the banks will not be pleased to forego all of their processing fee's (income) and leave the bankchain. If they don't try to compete on processing fees, then DNotes holds a competitive advantage and consumers would get more value using DNotes for transfer. ItBit's strategy could like like any number of things, but one could be that they work to get adopted by the banking system, and quickly, then proclaim victory and hope everybody else gives up - including crypto industries. They would come up with some slogan to entice banks like "Bitcoin brought instant payment transfers, banking uses 'real' money. ItBit brings you both". ItBit may simultaneously remain one of the only exchanges where crypto-USD transfers are permitted by the US Gov through banking licences, especially if the NY regulations are adopted in other states (which looks likely). ItBit could continue to accommodate the 'niche' crypto market and make extra profits as a monopoly / oligopoly player to supplement their 'bankchain' income - which would be a great way to hedge their bets in the short term. Normally I try to avoid speculating this far ahead because there are too many assumptions made along the way. Changing one assumption, would then change the 'next step'. The above is but one potential path we could see. Chase, I have no idea if banks in developing nations would be invited to the party. I imagine it would be the US banks that wouldn't want to deal with those in developing nations. Assuming any banks even wanted to use ItBit's platform, I doubt the US government would allow the banking system to shift from predominantly being traded in USD, to being traded in "ItBit tokens"... I think DNotes and digital currencies in general are safer from government trying to shut down their ecosystems. It would be much more likely that if this 'bankchain' thing is successful, the US government would buy the rights to it, then force all banks to trade using their own 'issued' tokens by the "BankFederalReserveChain". That way the US government would be able to spy much more easily on every banking transaction, and all but make physical cash illegal... Of course, at that juncture, who knows how many everyday people would have decided they would prefer to use decentralized crypto's like DNotes? Anyway, hopefully it sparks an interesting conversation. Thanks TeeGee, I will comment on a small portion of it. I suspect there will be many more niche chains and tokens to come, targeting banks/companies/data/contracts/nations and a plethora of other things. Some will become corrupt, centralized, convoluted, or just fail to gain adoption and some will be successful. However, I believe there will always be a need for a global digital currency for all of these things to pair, and essentially allow them to work in a global/national marketplace. I also believe there is a need for a trusted, positive driving force behind the global digital currency, trying to move things in the right direction without the possibility of direct control. Hence DNotes.
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