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Stablecoins are a venerable and well-respected part of the history of US banking! Previously, the issuers were called "wildcat banks," and the tokens were pieces of paper. The wildcat banking era, more politely called the "free banking era," ran from 1837 to 1863. Banks at this time were free of federal regulation - they could launch just under state regulation. Under the gold standard in operation at the time, these state banks could issue notes, backed by specie - gold or silver - held in reserve. The quality of these reserves could be a matter of some dispute. The wildcat banks didn't work out so well. The National Bank Act was passed in 1863, establishing the United States National Banking System and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency - and taking away the power of state banks to issue paper notes.

Miners racing on the network to compete for freshly minted bitcoin produced the 630,000th block at 19:23 UTC on May 11, which triggered the programmed halving event, marking another milestone in the currency's 11-year history. The first block in the new 6.25-bitcoin-per-block mining cycle was mined and relayed by China-based Antpool, the fourth-largest mining pool by total computing power.

"NFT.NYC is next week, so here's part four of the first draft of an early history chapter for our planned NFT book."

"This is part three of the first draft of an early history chapter for our planned NFT book."

"The following is part two of a chapter on the early history of NFTs for a book by David Gerard and Amy Castor. Part one is posted on David's blog. We are alternating. We thought we'd only have two parts, but now it looks like we have three. Stay tuned for CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties!"

The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) published minimally redacted letters sent to banks requesting information about their crypto activities and in most cases asking them to pause activities pending feedback. The FDIC was forced by a June 2024 court order filed by Coinbase (through its contractor History Associates), to release the letters after initially turning down the exchange's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. According to Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, "they show a coordinated effort to stop a wide variety of crypto activity". https://www.fdic.gov/foia/history-associates-inc-v-fdic-fdics-redacted-pause-letters-january-3-2025 https://www.ledgerinsights.com/fdic-publishes-crypto-pause-letters-including-usdf-consortium/

The evolution of money has gone through three major transitions and one key historical event: the first transition from commodity money and precious metal to fiduciary money and fiat money issued by the government in the 18th and 19th century; the second transition from the commercial bank note to the central bank's monopoly on currency issuance in the 19th and 20th centuries; the third transition that money has developed to be a monetary policy tool since the 17th century; the event that Bank of England took the place of the traders and business owners at that time to issue banknotes and set up branches to provide payment services to the general public so as to solve the financial crisis at the early 19th century. The four parts of history are very inspiring for our understanding of the digital form of money, for example, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

The biggest threat to Facebook's financial inclusion plans are the government authorities in those developing countries. Furthermore, individuals without access to bank accounts in those countries are typically those with bad credit history or those who fail to comply with AML/CFT/KYC requirements

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) brought an interesting bit of monetary history into the discussion. She suggested that the Libra currency would be a digital version of scrip, a type of private money that corporations once used to pay employees. (Coal miners and loggers, for instance, were paid in scrip they could use to buy goods at the company store.)

Ocasio-Cortez references previous instances of people being paid in corporate-controlled currency, known as "scrip" -- a very dark history there.

The Kiva Protocol, launched on Wednesday by the Sierra Leonean government and Kiva, the Silicon Valley microloan company, is a biometric system that links a person's thumbprint with their identity. It will allow the west African country to create a universal credit bureau for the first time, with its backers hoping it will spur lending by banks reluctant to loan to people without credit histories.

PlusToken's intake of BTC, EOS, and XRP since the beginning of the scam in mid 2018 is still being calculated by our team. Once this data is finalized, we expect that PlusToken will easily emerge as the largest crypto Ponzi scheme in history, surpassing both BitConnect and OneCoin by a handsome margin.

The SDR-a blueprint for libra? The SDR's history and limited success show how difficult it is to design an international currency. Libra will likely face very similar challenges.

"The U.S. private sector has a long history of providing efficient payment solutions to consumers and businesses. The public sector should provide its own capacity only when the evidence of market failure is clear and alternative means to achieve public goals are not feasible," Quarles said in a statement. "In this case, I do not see a strong justification for the Federal Reserve to move into this area and crowd out innovation when viable private-sector alternatives are available."

"Essentially, Walmart's offering looks more or less the same as nineteenth-century scrip, issued to company employees who could spend it only in the company's stores. There is no word yet on whether Walmart employees will be paid in WalCoin, but it is a reminder that history has a habit of repeating itself, just with new people and new technologies."

Graychain released its first report on the collateralized crypto lending industry, estimating that $4.7b has been lent out over the history of the sector, but only $86 million has been earned back in interest. That's a 1.8% return, despite the fact that loans typically cost borrowers 6 to 10% on an annual basis.

The Telegram Open Network, or TON, is Telegram's upcoming Proof-of-Stake network that promises to integrate blockchain payments into its messaging app that serves some 365 million users. If it delivers on promises of high speeds and decentralization, it will be the largest blockchain launch in history.

"If Libra has its heart set on choosing an artificial currency unit as the basis for its global currency, it should have probably just go with the IMF's SDR basket rather than brewing its own strange currency concoction."

"It is a hopeful sign of the beginning maturation of the digital asset markets that various players are staking out their positions and arguing their opinions about market structure. The topic often becomes mired in technical details so for this piece, we have taken a step back to discuss a broader set of market structure points, informed by history and experience, aiming to see the forest in addition to the trees."

David Longworth, former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada on the major macro-level risks arising from current and future digital financial innovation and what the implications are for Canadian regulators. Regulators should enact a number of policies, including requiring the use of Explainable AI (XAI) in lending decisions, taking care not to rush into open banking regulations, extending the coverage of stress tests to include stresses relating to borrowing from non-bank financial intermediaries, and increasing the amount of data on lending and short-term financing from lenders, whether regulated or not.