Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
"Intelligent Insight"
The FTX Story continues to run with reports of missing funds and deceptions. In Australia, ASIC appears to have been asleep again, as we find that the local instance of FTX – who owes money to some 30,000 investors – used a back door method of get a local license to operate.
So once again the Financial cop was found wanting!
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Here is a downloadable version of the letter Dale Webster (The Regional) and I sent to the member of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport about the economic impact of in-person banking being systematically removed across the country.
More bad news from the fallout from FTX, with derivatives and lending now under questions. Genesis, derivative business has a hole and Gemini is also under pressure. The industry is tied in knots, and the links back to major players means risks are stacked on risks, totally unregulated!
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This is an edited version of a live discussion about the current FTX debacle, the trajectory of Crypto, and the rise of Central Bank Digital Currencies. Is the future one of “harder, faster safer money”?
https://www.youtube.com/c/AdamStokes24
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Join us at 8pm Sydney time for our regular live event this week we will be looking at the latest ructions in Crypto, and what we can learn from it, as well as how Central Bank Digital Currencies are playing into the argument.
If one Bitcoin always worth one Bitcoin, how does the concept of “trust” play into the evolution of digital finance?
As the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange ricochets through the industry, this has not been a good week for Bitcoin and the Crypto community more generally.
And now we are beginning to see arguments emerging suggesting first that Bitcoin is not the same a Crypto, and second, we see Digital asset exchanges rushing to reassure clients that their funds are safe.
For example, Coinbase sent an email to customers explaining “how Coinbase’s business is different and ultimately better protects” customer accounts and assets. Yet the biggest crypto exchange Binance’s chief executive warned last week of the potential for a “cascading” crisis in the crypto sector in the wake of FTX’s failure, which he said could resemble the 2008 global financial crisis.
The total value of Crypto including Bitcoin fell again to around $940 billion US dollars, compared with a peak of over 3 trillion dollars. So Crypto is under the microscope as never before.
https://youtu.be/lOjdw5l_Ngg – DFA Live Tuesday 15th Nov 2022
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More bad news for crypto, as another exchange gets into difficulty, liquidity falls, and prices follow.
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
In my coverage of Fintech, I caught up with the Founder and CEO of Tanggram.com. a wealth management start-up with an emphasis of Gamification.
Conceived in 2016, the venture has had multiple rounds of funding, and most recently went to a crowd sourcing equity funding, so we discussed this method of raising too.
Note: DFA has no commercial relationship with Tanggram
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There was a critical RBA Payment System failure overnight. Think what happens when you put all your trust into a digital system. Perhaps a lesson to learn ahead of any discussion about CBDC?
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As I discussed in a recent post Australia is starting to look at a Central Bank Digital Currency programme, with a focus on retail customers. The design parameters and business case are yet to emerge, and I hope there will be considerable consultation around privacy, free choice and the continued used of cash.
Around the work, work on CBDC’s are progressing. China’s e-CNY, or digital yuan, project is essentially ready to go, with the country going slow to ensure mass adoption is effectively in place before the launch, on which it has placed a lot of prestige.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has been an enthusiastic supporter of a digital euro, calling it “the holy grail” of cross-border payments. “To ensure financial stability in this digital age, it is crucial that we all still have easy access to central bank money, which is the foundation of our currency,” ECB President Christine Lagarde, said in July. “The digital euro can achieve that.” The ECB’s crypto front man Fabio Panetta said in May that a digital euro could launch within four years.
India and Russia are planning CBDC launches sooner than that, with India saying a CBDC could launch as soon as 2023. Almost all the G20 members are working on a CBDC to some degree. Sweden, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Brazil are all fairly advanced, while Africa’s largest country, Nigeria, launched its eNaira CBDC almost a year ago. Both South Africa and Ghana have live pilots up and running.
And more than a few governments have been clear that challenging the dollar’s hegemony is a goal, with the ECB’s Lagarde saying a “digital euro would also help to avoid market dominance.” So you could argue that Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have reached a critical mass, and enough major economies are challenging the greenback’s status as the world’s reserve currency (and all the power that comes with it) to shift the debate to matters of national prestige. Which then takes us to the US, where things are also getting started.
To that end, I want to discuss remarks made by Fed Governor Michelle Bowman where she suggested that she believes the FedNow real-time payments system will make a digital dollar unnecessary. But, perhaps the arguments that the U.S. will need a CBDC to defend the dollar’s place as the world’s reserve currency are winning, for reasons that have nothing to do with an actual need for a digital dollar or real-time payments. The financial superpower can’t afford to be left behind.
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