A few weeks ago, someone wanted to send me some crypto. After spending months studying for a Blockchain exam, I usually avoid such things. But, hey, $20 is $20. So I signed up for a wallet, installed an extension, verified my credentials, saved a seed phrase, and - without too much technical fuss - had some crypto transferred to my account. So far, so good. Compared to a traditional financial institution it had some advantages - there were no KYC checks or ID verification requirements. But…
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Dear the venture capitalists. I am a very charming white man and am prepared to drop out of university if you'll invest in these ideas. In the future, all your clothes are an NFT. "Wow! I love your blouse." "Thanks, here's a smart contract showing where I purchased it from. If you buy one, I get 10% of the sale price back in WoolworthsCoin." Applause Tokens™. A smart monitor under your theatre seat detects how long (and how loud) you applaud for. Remember, the more enthusiastic you are a…
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Wouldn't it be good if digital currencies worked offline? I'm going to talk through a proposed user experience, and then discuss how it would work in practice. Let us imagine a future digital currency ₢. It might be fiat, it might be crypto, doesn't really matter. Alice loads up a smartcard with ₢100 and locks it. Alice gives Bob the smartcard. Bob uses offline verification to see that the smartcard contains ₢100 of unspent currency. Bob unlocks the smartcard and transfers the ₢100 to his ow…
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I was at an event a few months ago, where someone from the Bank of England was talking about understanding the user needs for cryptocurrency. One of the things people do when trying to create a new product or service is to write little user stories to illustrate the problem they're solving. You've probably seen this sort of thing: As a… busy parent, I want… a push alert from my washing machine; so that I… can stay on top of the laundry. As a… citizen, I want… an online passport application p…
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When I was young, I had a piggy bank. A piggy bank is incredibly secure. It's fairly big - so it is hard to lose. It is brightly coloured - so you can find it easily. No one else can see how much money there is in there. The only way to get money out is to smash it - providing visible evidence if someone has robbed you. And smashing makes a noise - deterring would-be thieves. A piggy bank is close to perfect security. If you are seven and your adversary is a younger sibling. Storing your own …
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This is a small proof-of-concept. It relies on PGP - but you could use Keybase, GPG, or any other hard-to-use encryption program. Background Suppose you want to support an artist and give them money. That's easy. Most artists take PayPal, bank transfer, or cash. But how can you prove that you've paid an artist for a specific piece of work? That is, in essence, all an NFT is - the seller signing a statement that the buyer has sent them money related to a thing. Whether that claim can be…
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I recently read this interesting, and distressing, story of a man who was drugged and robbed. A form of crime which has been going on for centuries. But the 21st Century twist is that the thieves forced him to transfer large sums of money via his phone's banking apps. While under the influence, the victim used his usernames, passwords, PINs, and biometrics to send money to the criminal's accounts. Is there a "technological" way to stop this? His banks initially refused to refund the stolen…
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You've heard of the AI Winter, right? The period where funding for AI dried up due to products failing to meet their hype. I think we're now in Springtime For Crypto - named after the musical "Springtime for Hitler" from movie The Producers - where scams abound. You should take a couple of hours to watch The Producers. Either the 1967 classic movie, or the 2005 remake will do. The pivotal moment in the film is when Leo Bloom has this stunning realisation: "Amazing. It's absolutely amazing.…
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David Bowie invented the NFT in 1997. The "Bowie Bond" allowed you to directly invest in an artist's catalogue and receive royalty payments based on their sales. Here's how it worked: You pay money to the artist (Bowie) Artist uses that money to buy the rights to their back catalogue Every time one of the songs from that catalogue is sold, or played on the radio, the artist gets paid Investors receive a share of that payment It's a primitive "smart" contract. Money flows back to the…
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This is a thought experiment inspired by the sort of rambling and speculative conversations my wife and I have been having in lockdown. Most countries in the world place legal limits on alcohol production at home. There are, usually, several good reasons for this: Improperly brewed alcohol can cause severe health problems - including death. Poorly set up stills can - and do - explode. Unlicensed sellers of alcohol generally don't pay tax. I'm sure you can think of a few more reasons to add …
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Messaging app Signal is launching a payment service in the UK. This will allow users to send each other money cryptocurrency. Many people have written about why this is a daft idea. But they've mostly talked about why cryptocoins corrupt everything they touch. I want to talk about why this is a shitty idea from a product perspective. It all comes down to user needs. What pain point are you removing? Uber made taxis mildly less irritating, for example. But the UK already has a fairly mature…
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Another day, another phone scam. Yesterday, I received a call from +442085044434 by someone trying to get me to "invest" in BitCoin and other Cryptocurrencies. I managed to drag the call out for 6 minutes - have a listen: 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. The caller admits the trading and advice isn't regulated. That they don't need permission to make marketing calls. And that Estonia is the home of many Cryptocurrencies(!) I'm not a brilliant scam bater. I didn't manage to get his addr…
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