The Future of Bretton Woods

The acting Managing Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and therefore the man in charge of money, David Lipton, gave a recent speech in which he touched on digital currencies and noted that while he saw benefits (ease of use, lower costs and global reach) there are also a wide range of risks to be considered. He listed "the potential emergence of new monopolies, with implications for how personal data is monetized; the impact on weaker currencies and the expansion of dollarization; the opportunities for illicit activities; threats to financial stability” and went to specifically mention "the challenges of corporates issuing and thus earning large sums of money — previously the realm of central banks".

This is a reference to seigniorage

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Websec Canada: Launching replay attacks against the Wells Fargo Wallet service

xxx This white paper is a shortened version of the actual research. Unfortunately, the exploitation bug is not fixed yet. The company was notified and informed about the issue. However, the bug is not fixable (at the moment). From Websec Canada: Launching replay attacks against the Wells Fargo Wallet service . xxx

There is no excuse for not taking cards

So we went to the pub. For lunch. Seven of us. Say £20 per head. £100+ quid. Say £50 quid gross for the pub. Colleague goes to order food and drinks and pay at the bar. Apologetic barmaid comes over to explain that their “card machine” is down, so she can only accept cash. Under normal circumstances I would have simply walked out, feeling it wholly inappropriate to reward such a poorly managed establishment and, as a functioning actor in a capitalist economy, done my duty to depress their lunchtime takings. Here’s what we wanted to say: This is absurd. This is 2016 not 1916. Your card machine is down? Well, so what! Are you seriously telling me that mein host has no mobile phone number capable of registering for PingIt or PayM? That none of the staff or the pub itself have a PayPal account that I can send the money to? That neither the owners nor managers not contingency planners thought to tuck an iZettle behind the bar to use when the clunky and expensive GPRS terminal fails for o...

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