The widespread use of cryptocurrency as an alternative method of payment has led to a growing digital ecosystem over the years. Governments are behind the curve, continuing to wrestle with how to develop effective public policy measures to regulate its...
In an interview, PayPal’s chief executive, Dan Schulman, recently discussed the prospects for blockchain – the encrypted, decentralised online ledger system that underpins Bitcoin and myriad other cutting-edge projects. While talking about blockchain’s potential for improving how people make payments around the world, Schulman...
Many cryptocurrencies have been launched in the past few years, often to great fanfare and celebration, only to fade and fail as the public and investors shun them. According to Coinopsy, which tracks such failures, there are some 1,085 dead coins...
Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency has suffered a few setbacks recently. As well as facing pressure from global regulators, seven of its 28 founding members have left the project – including high profile firms PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, eBay and Stripe. It leaves 21 companies...
Blockchain is touted as the next step in the digital revolution, a technology that will change every industry from music to waste. When it comes to money, it goes well beyond bitcoin. Academics have claimed it will “do to the financial system what the internet...
Since 2013, Australia’s policy response to climate change has been the Emissions Reduction Fund, which awards government contracts to projects that reduce carbon emissions by planting trees, flaring landfill gas, improving energy efficiency, and other methods. It is supported by...
The internet is unique in that it has no central control, administration or authority. It has given everyone access to it as a platform to express their views and exchange ideas with others instantaneously. But in recent years, internet...
The 21st-century revolutionaries who have dominated cryptocurrencies are having to move over. Mainstream financial institutions are adopting these assets and the blockchain technology that enables them, in what is perhaps the most profound development since the birth of cryptocurrencies through the...
Millions of cryptocurrency investors have been scammed out of massive sums of real money. In 2018, losses from cryptocurrency-related crimes amounted to US$1.7 billion. The criminals use both old-fashioned and new-technology tactics to swindle their marks in schemes based on digital...
There’s a good chance the device on which you are reading this contains cobalt. It’s an essential metal for batteries in phones and laptops. There’s also a chance the cobalt was mined by slaves.
Almost two-thirds of the cobalt mined around...
