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The Philippine Government's Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has reportedly introduced eGOVchain, a government blockchain aimed at enhancing transparency, security, and efficiency in public transactions. DICT's efforts to streamline government services are encapsulated in its five-pillar strategy under the e-Gov office. These include developing e-government platforms, assisting local and national government agencies, innovating at the grassroots level, building cloud services and aligning government information systems.

"The energy sector is a complex ecosystem in which many actors participate. In the EU, the energy sector is changing significantly as part of the energy transition. One important change is decentralization of energy, for example the bilateral trade of energy between households generating energy by solar panels and consuming energy. A key question is how to design the decentralized governance structure of such an ecosystem. We propose the DECENT (decentralized) ontology, which results from an extensive literature study in the field of decentralized governance in the energy sector, which allows to describe governance in ecosystems in a structured way. Its intended user-base are business developers and ecosystem designers. The DECENT ontology provides the terminology to represent and analyze important governance constructs for these stakeholders. We demonstrate the practical use of the ontology by means of a case study about peer-to-peer energy trading."

The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) published a note that investigates permissionless network governance issues through three related analyses. First, it provides a primer on permissionless blockchain network stakeholders, focusing on developers, nodes, and users. Second, it lays out some similarities and differences in governance patterns between the two largest permissionless blockchain networks, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Finally, the note traces differences in models of change between the two networks, with an emphasis on their histories of hard forks-protocol updates that are not backwards compatible. The note concludes by laying out a variety of important research questions at the nexus of governance and software updates that warrant further investigation.

Popular "buy now, pay later" shopping services like Klarna will fact stricter regulation under proposals announced by the U.K. government Tuesday. The Treasury said buy now, pay later (BNPL) firms would come under the supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which regulates financial services firms and markets in Britain. Such firms will be required to conduct affordability checks before lending to customers, the government said, while people will also be allowed to escalate complaints to the U.K.'s financial ombudsman. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-announces-intention-to-regulate-buy-now-pay-later

Circle, which along with Coinbase issues the USDC stablecoin, is coordinating with the US government and Latin America crypto exchange Airtm to route aid for Venezuelan healthcare workers through the Latin American country's government in exile. The US Treasury and Federal Reserve releases seized funds to the exiled government's account at a US bank. The exiled government then uses those funds to mint USDC. The USDC is then sent to Airtm Once the USDC stablecoins hit Airtm wallets, they go to Venezuela healthcare workers in the form of AirUSD, Airtm's own fiat-backed stablecoin. Recipients can then withdraw at banks, send the funds, or spend them online.

This paper proposes a way to equip governments and central banks with a mechanism to help ensure the continuity and sustainability of their economies, along with both speed and transparency of payments with their National Digital Value Container (NDVC). The report lays out a gatekeeper type structure where the central bank or government manages the issuance of a new national digital currency through a new category of supervised businesses named Money Service Businesses (MSBs). With Digital Value Containers (DVC), digital claims upon value are guaranteed by a central bank, in the form of CBDC, or under the Government, in the form of Fiscal Digital Currency (FDC). A DVC would allow any asset to be issued, irrespective of whether it is launched by the central bank or the government. DVCs can theoretically be used for any fungible asset and represent a complementary national payments infrastructure.

This IMF paper reviews how central banks have been reacting to the challenges posed by fintech to the legal foundations of their governance. It finds that fintech calls for reconsidering the adequacy of the legal formulation of currency issuance and payment systems functions and powers. Fintech may impact the functional autonomy for some key central bank functions. For example, the role claimed by governments in designing CBDC will be an important issue to consider; the legal framework will need to carefully delineate the respective roles and responsibilities between the government and the central bank. The authors suggest that central bank law reform must be sufficiently broad to achieve appropriate levels of "agility" to provide a "future-proof " legal framework. For instance, legislation (and by extension the legal framework to which the central bank is subject) should to the maximum extent possible be technology-neutral.

Despite the mangled headline (only a "central bank" can issue *central bank* digital currency (CBDC)) this Cato survey contains some interesting statistical nuggets. It found that, while only 16% of Americans polled support a digital dollar, 49% haven't even formed an opinion (34% oppose it). A majority opposes a digital dollar that would allow the government to monitor their spending (68%) or control how they spend (74%). On fears that the government could potentially do either of these things, 76% of those polled said that the government should forbid the Fed from issuing a digital dollar. There are interesting differences between CBDC opinions of those who identify as Republicans (right leaning) and Democrats (left leaning) with the former being more wary of CBDC across all of the permutations and combinations of questions.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published a consultation on the future oversight and governance of its Open Banking remedies. More specifically, it seeks to flesh out the funding and governance of a new body that is proposed to succeed the existing Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE). The new body would take over OBIE's functions, other than compliance monitoring, which the CMA will handle.

El Salvador's citizens will not be forced to use the government-issued Chivo ("Cool") Bitcoin wallet when the country's Bitcoin (BTC) law takes effect on September 7. The Chivo wallet will not incur fees or commissions for transfers, and unlike traditional crypto exchanges, it will not take a cut for converting BTC to USD and vice versa, plus, unlike credit cards, there will be no commissions charged to merchants or users. Also, the $30 government BTC handout announced on June 25 would not be convertible into USD, to emphasize the government's intention to encourage the use of Bitcoin and the Chivo wallet. But any money held in USD or BTC in the Chivo wallet will be able to be withdrawn into USD cash at any time once the government has completed its roll-out of 200 new physical Bitcoin ATM branches.

The UK government announced moves that will see regulated stablecoins recognized as a valid form of payment as part of wider plans to make Britain a global hub for crypto-asset technology and investment. Measures include legislating for a 'financial market infrastructure sandbox' to help firms innovate, an Financial Conduct Authority-led 'CryptoSprint', working with the Royal Mint on a non-fungible token (NFT), and the establishment of a Crypto-asset Engagement Group to work more closely with industry. The UK government will also explore ways of enhancing the competitiveness of the UK tax system to encourage further development of the crypto-asset market in the UK, including reviewing how DeFi loans are treated for tax purposes.

The Government of Canada's Fall Economic Statement includes a promise to implement an open banking banking framework in 2024. The statement also indicated that the government intends to amend the Canadian Payments Act to expand membership eligibility for Payments Canada to firms other than big banks. The framework legislation, to be introduced in Budget 2024, will prescribe a phased-in approach to scope and oversight of the technical standard, with the goal of adopting legislation and fully implementing the necessary governance framework by 2025.

Satoshi Capital Advisors CEO Josiah Hernandez and I have written a paper that explores the application of national and sub-national government bond issuances and corresponding trade and asset lifecycle activity on blockchain-based market infrastructures. It considers existing and pending projects, how governments can carry out future projects, the various use cases corresponding to such projects, the broader market opportunity for government debt issued into blockchain-based market infrastructures, the hurdles to overcome with regards to implementing such projects, and the next steps with regards to further exploration.

The global exchange website Currency.com has announced that it will be offering a tokenized form of Belarussian government bonds. Users can now use fiat money, bitcoin and ether to invest in and trade Belarussian government bonds.

The government of Catalonia has announced it will develop a DLT-based identity platform aimed to give citizens control of their own data when interacting with online services. The Catalan government will act as the validator for the network, but it will not collect users' personal data.

DTCC has issued a white paper "Governing DLT Networks, Distributed Ledger Technology Governance for Private Permissioned Networks."

The transfer of MKR token control from it to the Maker governance community is now complete. The MKR token contract is now 100% in control of MKR holders. With MKR holders now in full control of that contract, decentralized governance is the only avenue for changing MKR token authorizations.

"Even though this particular crisis could not have been foreseen, there are steps that the Maker team could have taken to prepare for these unknown unknowns. This situation, while still actively developing, highlights that those teams who design DeFi networks cannot treat economic and governance design as "optional future TBDs." They must proactively consider all possible (covarying) risks, assuming that users will behave in their own best interests, and make it a priority to implement governance systems that are robust to these sorts of crises."

"The Global Consortium for Digital Currency Governance will aim to increase access to the financial system through innovative policy solutions that are inclusive and inter-operable Opportunities for financial inclusion will be only unlocked if the space is regulated properly and includes public-private cooperation across developed and high-growth markets."

The GSMA has published its annual State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money. It revealed a dramatic acceleration in mobile transactions during the COVID-19 pandemic as lockdown restrictions limited access to cash and financial institutions. The report found that the number of registered accounts grew by 13% globally in 2020 to more than 1.2 billion. The fastest growth was in markets where governments provided significant pandemic relief to their citizens. To minimise the economic toll of COVID-19, many national governments distributed monetary support to individuals and businesses, and the value of government-to-person payments quadrupled during the pandemic.