This is the first post of a new series called: Chained Weekly Digest, where you will find a summary of 5 or more articles, that we’ve found interesting in previous week. For your convenience we’ve read the articles and prepare notes, in addition to naming original source, author and date of publication, if you would want to get more details.

“Monetary Policy in the Digital Age”

Author: Dong He
Source: Central Bank Monetary Policy and Cryptocurrencies
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• Financial crisis and bailouts, were points that may have a significant impact of renewed skepticism about central banks. As a result this led to creation and growth of crypto assets such as Bitcoin;
• Gold era of crypto assets is still yet to come as currently they are too volatile and too risky compared to fiat currencies – ordinary people doesn’t have big trust for cryptocurrencies;
• Crypto assets are a digital representations of value that are aimed to be transferred peer to peer without the need for a trusted 3rd party;
• Advantages of crypto assets are among others long distance transactions are easy without a loss in anonymity compared to cash;
• Crypto assets disadvantages: protection against structural deflation, capacity to function as a lender, ability to promptly respond to temporary shocks to money demand;
• Account-based systems – transfer of claims is recorded in 3rd party (ex. Bank) account;
• Value- / Token-based systems does not require any intermediaries, they are just a transfer of a payment;
• Possibilities of improvement in crypto assets world: better issuance rules, regulations to prevent regulatory arbitrage, unfair competitive, applying measures to prevent money laundering;
• IMF Managing Director Christine Lagard “The best response by central banks is to continue running effective monetary policy, while being open to fresh ideas and new demands, as economies evolve.”

[divider]

“Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak hopes bitcoin will become global currency”

Author: Arjun Kharpal
Source: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak hopes bitcoin will become global currency 
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• “The Woz” wants bitcoin to become single global currency
• Mathematically defined, Limited quantity, being distributed, no human / company running it – as a key components of bitcoin being “pure” cryptocurrency
• Out of over 1000 cryptocurrencies in Existence, Steve Wozniak refers to Bitcoin as the only “pure” digital gold; “All the others tend to give up some of the aspects of bitcoin” – Wozniak said;

[divider]

“Our Blockchain ‘Can Run The Whole Company’”

Author: William Suberg
Source: Our Blockchain can run the whole company says Mastercard Vice Chair
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• Vice Chair of Mastercard Ann Cairns said during Money20/20 conference, that they have built a Blockchain that can run the whole of its network;
• It doesn’t necessarily mean that Mastercard is fully on blockchain now as Ann has said “You just don’t replace existing technology with blockchain because you may not create a better user experience”;
• This may be related to a published patent in April for “fast tracking” blockchain growth;

[divider]

The 10 Largest Companies In the World Are Now Exploring Blockchain

Author: Michael del Castillo
Source: The 10 Largest companies exploring blockchain 
Date of publication: June 2018

Key points:

• Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Berkshire Hathaway, Apple, JPMorgan, Agricultural Bank of China Limited, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and the Bank of China, Ping An Insurance, Microsoft, Alphabet, Walmart, Daimler, Mitsubishi and Russian bank – Sberbank, these companies among others are all exploring the technology;
• Exploring doesn’t mean believing in technology – no big announcements made by the companies in this topic;
• Furthermore according to CoinDesk report, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has filed a patent for using blockchain technology to verify digital certificates, instead of a trusted central authority;

[divider]

DNA Sequencing Blockchain Lets People Sell DNA for Tokens

Author: Kyree Leary
Source: Crazy startup scientists crypto buy genetic data
Date of publication: February 2018

Key points:

• Harvard and MIT geneticist George Church is launching a new startup (Nebula Genomics) that plans to use blockchain technology for genome sequencing;
• Owners don’t have to sell their information. After a person gets their results from Nebula, an app will allow them to “interpret their personal genomic data without sharing it with any third party.”
• Nebula tokens will be the sole currency on the network. Individuals use Nebula tokens to pay Nebula for their personal genome sequencing.
• Nebula Genomics whitepaper can be found here;

Please let us know what do you think about this cycle, have you found it useful?

Thanks,

Krzysiek