Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

India, China, Cryptocurrencies, And What's Up With Banning?



China might have active censorship of the Internet, but it knew better than to ban the Internet. China might have disallowed Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. inside China, but it actively nurtured Chinese versions, most of which are huge in size by now.

Banning cryptocurrencies is not like banning Google, or Facebook, more like banning search engines, or social networks. Cryptocurrency is not a company. It is an entire class of application. The Blockchain is the fundamental technology, just like the Internet. There are many cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin that sit on top of that Blockchain. Take just one Bitcoin. There are many, many companies who all deal with Bitcoin. The Bitcoin is basically a ledger. It is bookkeeping.

There are too many bright minds in China and India to want to skip something that is going to be 100 perhaps 1,000 times more monumental than the Internet. The Blockchain is as inevitable as the Internet. There is no skipping the Blockchain.

But there is a feeling that US-based Bitcoin dealing companies go into all these countries and suck money out of the system. People buy Bitcoins with real money. But the Bitcoins they buy then is no longer in reach of the respective central banks. That the governments of China and India seem to see as a problem. Is that a problem?

What they fail to see is the Bitcoin challenges the global hegemony of the US dollar like China has long dreamt about. Donald Trump's anxieties about trade deficits would go away if the US dollar is no longer the global currency by default. So looks like even the US government ought to be rooting for crypto.

Just like the Internet has been free speech in a concrete form in places that have yet to enshrine free speech through the traditional political route, the cryptocurrencies challenge the global hegemony of the US dollar, as well that of the central banks of the world. Crypto gets rid of both inflation and deflation.

Instead of trying to stop cryptocurrencies, countries like India ought to try to shape them. There are glaring governance issues. There are obvious questions.

If citizens in a country like Venezuela were to move their money from the local currency suffering the plague of hyperinflation onto the crypto realm, does the central bank in Venezuela become toothless? No. It can still print more money.

Being able to easily move money is a boon for the average person in a country like India. That is the most immediate application of the Bitcoin. For the number one remittance country in the world, it is curious India might want to ban crypto. Don't you want the Indian diaspora to be able to send money to India in frictionless ways?

It is true right now is the wild west phase of the crypto. Too many people are using it as a speculative exercise. Many of them will lose money. By the Indian government's count, there are more than 2,000 cryptocurrencies floating right now. This is the dot com mania all over again. If Ethereum were to collapse, whatever that might mean, there is no entity that will reimburse you for the money you might have used to buy those crypto coins. Is the Indian government seeing a crypto crash in the near future? And preparing for it?

The G20 should instead take the initiative to try and create a B100, or Blockchain 100, a G20 like grouping of the top 100 Blockchain companies by market value that would meet annually, and hold transparent debates and discussions to forge the ground rules for cryptocurrencies and the Blockchain in general.

For example, it should not be easy for anyone to simply launch a cryptocurrency. Unless a cryptocurrency meets the basics of the rules laid out by the B100, it would lack B100 certification.

The number one rule ought to be that no matter who you bought the cryptocurrency from, that money does not sit with any one company, but rather sits on top of the Blockchain and thus is indestructible. The company that was your gateway might go out of business, but your money will stay safe. The number two rule ought to be that every person who buys and holds a cryptocurrency must tie it to a valid biometric ID, traceable by the Interpol for law enforcement purposes. You don't want druglords and crime masters to be able to easily move money. That would create havoc.

China, India, and the United States, one of which has already acted, another is about to act, and a third has expressed anxieties at the highest levels, ought to help create the B100.

It necessarily means that the B100 would together create a super-secure database of a digital, globally available, biometric ID for every human being on earth that is collectively owned, created and maintained by the B100, that meets the highest standards of privacy and security, is kept out of reach of governments unless they show up with warrants issued by recognized courts. All ground rules following crypto companies should be able to access that database for transaction purposes.

These concerned governments should not throw out the baby with the bathwater before the baby is even born.


Indian government panel wants cryptocurrency holders jailed, but can’t deny its tech has merits
The Growth of Cryptocurrency in India: Its Challenges & Potential Impacts on Legislation
INDIA MAY BAN BITCOIN AND CRYPTOCURRENCIES EXCEPT ‘DIGITAL RUPEE’
Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency faces more backlash
Facebook won't launch Calibra or cryptocurrency Libra in India
Move to ban cryptocurrency has Indian blockchain firms worried
Understanding India's Cryptocurrency Crackdown
India's central bank bans financial firms from dealing with cryptocurrency
What is Laxmicoin, possibly the first legal Indian cryptocurrency?
Proposed Indian Ban on Crypto is Even Harsher than China’s
A history of the development of cryptocurrency in India
Has RBI’s Ban On Bitcoin Killed The Future of Cryptocurrency In India?
No Blanket Ban on Cryptocurrencies in India, Government Says
Warning: India is Heading Towards Clueless Bitcoin Regulation, Here’s Why The only concrete steps the world’s sixth largest economy took all these years were: raid cryptocurrency startups, portray bitcoin as a scam via half-baked media coverages, and – to top all – ban its banking sector from offering services to cryptocurrency industry. When the Western economy had moved forward with bitcoin, India started walking backward....... the multifaceted nature of cryptocurrencies. The technology converges multiple disciplines – of securities, currency, and commodities – making it difficult for regulators to assess its exact use case from a user’s point of view. Before the banking ban, RBI and SEBI passed the burden of regulating cryptos to each other, never realizing how they would define the asset class. It is one of the reasons why one cannot help but be skeptical about their intentions to deliver a robust legal framework in four weeks. ...... With any luck, RBI would have realized by now that its banking ban is not working. On the contrary, it has moved the bitcoin market underground. ...... both the regulators would first define how they would separate utility tokens like bitcoin from security tokens like a company-backed equity coin...... In the worst case scenario, SEBI and RBI would call an outright bitcoin ban after taking inspirations from their neighbor China. Practically, that does not change anything for Indian crypto users, which are already trading bitcoin via peer-to-peer methods. However, for an economy that boasts of being the world’s largest IT hub, India will lose a lot that it would gain by shunning an emerging sector.
India's First Cryptocurrency ATM Launched In Bengaluru
India signals ban on cryptocurrencies, embraces blockchain
CRYPTOCURRENCY STILL DOES NOT HAVE A BLANKET BAN IN INDIA BUT A DRAFT IS BEING WORKED UPON
An Indian government panel wants ‘Digital Rupee’ to replace all private cryptocurrencies The report admitted that the distributed-ledger technology behind digital currencies can have positive effects if deployed in financial services, but their most popular application, cryptocurrencies, have “risks associated with them”. ..... India must consider introducing an official virtual currency, or the “Digital Rupee”, to replace private cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin....... As opposed to traditional ledgers, which store records of financial transactions in a centralised database, distributed-ledger technology uses local electronic ledgers that synchronise and share the data. The elimination of central record keeping makes financial transactions operationally more efficient and secure. ....... “The distributed-ledger technology-based systems can be used by banks and other financial firms for processes such as loan-issuance tracking, collateral management, fraud detection and claims management in insurance, and reconciliation systems in the securities market”....... Private cryptocurrencies “have no intrinsic value and cannot replace fiat currencies”, it added, recommending measures that could potentially destroy the crypto-ecosystem....... The Garg panel recommends penalty and imprisonment for those who directly or indirectly “mine, generate, hold, sell, deal in, transfer, dispose of or issues cryptocurrency”....... private cryptocurrencies have not been recognised as legal tender in any jurisdiction....... Ajeet Khuranna, CEO of crypto-bourse Zebpay, which was compelled to shift out of India last October, said India will miss out on the benefits of distributed-ledger technology.


30-30-30-10: A More Thoughtful And Egalitarian Formula For Equity Distribution In Tech Startups For The Age Of Abundance
The Blockchain: Fundamental Like The Internet
The Blockchain Rumble
The Character Called The Tech Entrepreneur

Inequality And Climate Change Are Existential: A Blueprint For Survival
Towards A World Government
AOC 2028



















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Monday, July 15, 2019

Africa Is The Next China, And The Blockchain Is How

There is the dour debate (is it even a debate?) around immigration in DC, all the racist rhetoric flying around like bullets in a war zone, and then there is the excitement around the Blockchain. Africa is the next China, and the Blockchain is how.

There is going to be some bad news, some pain. When you make it easy for people to move around money, plenty of scammers are going to jump in. The Blockchain companies do have to try and do the very best job they can in terms of product architecture, policing (at their sites), and educating the general public. The scamming has to be minimized as much as possible. But it will not go down to zero despite the best efforts.

I have been reading up on one particular company these past few days, watching videos on YouTube, particularly of its Founder CEO who, I learned, after 11 failed startups lost his apartment and ended up homeless, but came back to found Paxful, which has seen much success over the past few years.

And today this tweet showed up in my stream. Paxful is celebrating its birthday. Happy birthday, Paxful. 



Paxful Turns Four!


30-30-30-10: A More Thoughtful And Egalitarian Formula For Equity Distribution In Tech Startups For The Age Of Abundance
The Blockchain: Fundamental Like The Internet
The Blockchain Rumble
The Character Called The Tech Entrepreneur



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Thursday, July 09, 2015

Space Based Solar Power













I myself am still pretty big on Sahara though. Space might be 10 times more efficient, but it might be 20 times more expensive, at least now. But I will go to space for clean, why not? Space based solar power also has potential for colonizations of the moon and Mars and beyond. It would make large scale 3D printing possible. Ocean covered moons of planets like Jupiter could give water if energy is plentiful. Water and solar and you are that close to growing food.

Space-based solar power
a higher collection rate and a longer collection period due to the lack of a diffusing atmosphere and night time in space
Space-based solar power: the energy of the future?
In space there's no atmosphere, it's never cloudy, and in geosynchronous orbits it's never night: a perfect place for a solar power station to harvest uninterrupted power 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. ..... the concept is scientifically sound. ..... there was nothing wrong with the physics but the real question is the economics ...... With costs as high as $40,000 per kilogram for some space launches, the final price-tag for the first space-based solar power station could be as high as $20 billion. ........ the wars in the Middle East gave new impetus to the space-based solar power as scientific researchers with the military wrestled with the problems of delivering energy to troops in hostile areas. ........ Multiple, and potentially hidden, receivers could tap space-based solar power and relieve the military of the expensive and often dangerous task of supplying troops with generator diesel by either road or air ...... Two proven ways of getting the power to Earth exist in the form of either laser beams or microwaves. ...... laser transmitting satellites would have difficulty beaming power through clouds and rain. ...... The microwave option would have the advantage of uninterrupted transmission through rain, hail or any other atmospheric conditions and could provide gigawatts of power........ as early as 1964, scientists were able to power a helicopter using microwaves. Dr Jaffe said with a large receiving area the energy from the microwaves was so dissipated that it would present no danger to life. ......... as many as 100 launches into space would be required to construct the space stations with costs running into tens of billions. ...... space-based solar energy is like most novel ideas. "It's hard to tell if it's nuts until you've actually tried."
Space-Based Solar Power
Microwave transmitting satellites orbit Earth in geostationary orbit (GEO), about 35,000 km above Earth’s surface. Designs for microwave transmitting satellites are massive, with solar reflectors spanning up to 3 km and weighing over 80,000 metric tons. They would be capable of generating multiple gigawatts of power, enough to power a major U.S. city. ...... The long wavelength of the microwave requires a long antenna, and allows power to be beamed through the Earth’s atmosphere, rain or shine, at safe, low intensity levels hardly stronger than the midday sun. Birds and planes wouldn’t notice much of anything flying across their paths. ........ The estimated cost of launching, assembling and operating a microwave-equipped GEO satellite is in the tens of billions of dollars. It would likely require as many as 40 launches for all necessary materials to reach space. On Earth, the rectenna used for collecting the microwave beam would be anywhere between 3 and 10 km in diameter, a huge area of land, and a challenge to purchase and develop.
What If Giant Space-Based Solar Panels Could Beam Unlimited Power To The Earth?
This idea may sound like science fiction, and at one time it was. ...... Asimov's 1941 story envisions a world where the Earth is powered by a beam of light that draws its energy directly from the sun..... Take New York City, for example, which requires 20 gigawatts of power. ...... The sandwich modules would be about 10 feet long on a side and about 80,000 would be needed. The array of sandwich modules would be about the length of nine football fields, or more than 1/2 a mile long. This is about nine times bigger than the International Space Station...... Back on Earth, the energy-containing radio frequencies from the space-based solar panels would be received by a special antenna known as a "rectenna," which could be as big as six miles in diameter............ the same beam would be able to provide power to Seattle and redirected to provide power to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil...... they could build receivers at remote operating bases and locations where it is logistically difficult and incredible costly to deliver diesel fuel....... the incredible heat of the sun in space
China considering space-based solar power station
Some believe a space-based solar collector could be launched as early as 2020 ..... a satellite that weighs more than 10,000 lbs., dwarfing anything previously placed into orbit, including the International Space Station ...... others place the launch date further out, as far away 2050. ...... "China will build a space station in around 2020, which will open an opportunity to develop space solar power technology" ...... China should begin with an experimental space-based solar power station by 2030, and build a commercially viable space power station by 2050. ....... "An economically viable space power station would be really huge, with the total area of the solar panels reaching five to six square kilometers" ....... Six square kilometers is nearly twice the size of New York's Central Park. ....... The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has proposed its own solar collector to be launched within the next 25 years. ...... "When space solar energy becomes our main energy, people will no longer worry about smog or the greenhouse effect" 
Space solar is a very real option, but it will not happen in time to tackle Climate Change. For that we need to rely on Earth Solar. Let's just use satellites for internet communication.

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Friday, May 15, 2015

Cutting Edge Urban Design












Water Parkitecture: A Look at the New Cutting Edge in Urban Design
Urban Planning Ideas for 2030, When Billions Will Live in Megacities
by 2025, the world will have 37 megacities, defined as urban areas with more than 10 million people. New York City and Newark are expected to have more than 23 million inhabitants; Tokyo, more than 38 million people. All told, well over half of the world’s population will be living in these super settlements. ..... two-thirds of that population will be poor .... New York, Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, Lagos, Hong Kong, and Istanbul ...... “Many of these proposals are based on the idea that top-down planning has been failing people in many aspects.” ...... 85 percent of Hong Kong is surrounded by water, yet the city’s population is expected swell by 50 percent. ....... building eight new islands, each dedicated to an economic or social activity unique to Hong Kong, like fishing. ....... a new kind of utopia, where the TOKI clusters get retrofitted with micro-farms, solar panels, and shared car services. Called R-Urban, the services would be open-source and connected through a series of apps. It builds a sharing economy layer on top of the TOKI clusters, which reinforces, rather than destroys, the sense of community that drew inhabitants there in the first place. ........ Governments might want to eradicate favela housing, because they can’t control it, but that improvisational style of living exists in part because of the skills and community values that already live in a city. That’s an opportunity, not an obstacle.
Sweden's Cutting-Edge, 17-Story Greenhouse
After 12 years of planning, Swedish design firm Plantagon has finally begun construction on its first vertical greenhouse. The 17-story structure will grow food year-round for the city of Linköping (pop. 104,000) in the hopes that its model will prove more cost-effective than shipping food in from the countryside. ....... Central to its design is a "transportation helix" that transports potted vegetables on a rotating conveyor belt for better exposure to sunlight. ....... "As urban sprawl and lack of land will demand solutions for how to grow industrial volumes in the middle of the city, solutions on this problem have to focus on high yield per ground area used, lack of water, energy, and air to house carbon dioxide."

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Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Ecommerce In India

Experts see India’s e-commerce market at an inflection point. A recent Morgan Stanley report titled “The Next India” said Indian e-commerce would expand to $100 billion in revenue by 2020, from $2.9 billion in 2013, making it the world’s fastest-growing market...... Ant Financial, an Alibaba affiliate that invested $575 million in January for a 25 percent stake. .... Paytm has 20 million active wallet users (compared with 190 million for Ant Financial’s service Alipay, China’s largest) and aims to quintuple this by 2016. Some experts predict that mobile wallet users will overtake credit card users in India. ..... For investors in Indian e-commerce, China’s growth provides evidence that the scale is real and achievable ...... As in China, India’s smaller cities and towns lack retail infrastructure. In 5,000 cities and towns, tapping an app is the new equivalent of a visit to the mall, and it could unleash pent-up demand for the latest fashion or the newest device. ..... India resembles China of seven to 10 years ago in its broadband Internet growth, creation of digital-native marketplaces and rapid user adoption. Even ideas like online grocers, which have just started to gain a foothold in places like Silicon Valley could do well in India. ..... “So investors who won in China are playing in India. Those who missed in China, too, are playing in India. This is the land of opportunity”















The Next India
India’s new government has the strongest mandate in 30 years to deliver reforms ..... The government’s reform agenda must rein in corruption and streamline the regulatory and bureaucratic complexities of doing business so that foreign and domestic investors can feel more confident. If successful, growth in labor, capital and technology in tandem can power productivity and industrial output in ways that are simply not possible in Reform Club peers such as Japan, South Korea and China. For example, new capital can fund technologically advanced factories that can hire relatively inexpensive labor, assuring a market advantage in terms productivity, cost base and quality of product. ....... Over the next 10 years, India will contribute an additional 124 million people to the global labor pool, accounting for nearly 25% of the increase in the world’s working-age population. Economic growth that creates better-paying jobs can transform this youth demographic into a rising middle class, which will also be better educated, more aware of information technology and better able to take advantage of globalization trends.

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