BitDigest April 6 · Issue #630

• Cryptocurrencies recover driven by bitcoin’s weekend break back above $7,000. Total market capitalization for digital currencies back at $200 billion level.
• The Bank of Korea announced it has begun work on a CBDC and expects completion of pilot by December 2021
• Japan will begin enforcing new crypto asset regulations on May 1st

In our existing work from home environment, we have all discovered new technologies to help us adapt to this changing work lifestyle. However, I have found coronavirus has unintentionally marked the end of one of the great business innovations of the past twenty years, and has identified a major need in the acceptance of work from home technology, the latter which is being addressed through public-private key encryption like digital currencies.

I think we are experiencing the real end of the facsimile machine. Although developed at the beginning of the 20th century, over 100 years ago, the first modern fax machine was commercialized in the 1960s and by the late 80s and early 90s became a standard technology in every office and many homes. Faxes are still being used in the leverage loan market, but outside of this I think the home business professional has finally decided to part ways with the aging technology.

Spring cleaning this year has reached a new level. Not only did my family and I go through our closets, but we went through every cabinet and drawer, and spent hours cleaning and discarding no longer needed items in the garage. Nearby my home is a municipal dump where I seem to be taking a lot of trash. It has an area for paper and plastic / glass recycling, plus a large shipping container where people can put used furniture, and a second one where electronics can be disposed. Without doubt, the largest item being discarded in the electronics container are fax machines. There are larger office machines as well as the smaller telephone units many of us had at home. I think people have finally realized that they no longer use them and used this period of excessive cleaning to finally throw them out. While many of us have not sent or received a fax for several years, I think our home cleanings has symbolically brought the formal end to one of the great technical advancement of the 20th century: the fax machine.

If you still have your home office fax, and are not involved in credit markets, I’d recommend you try using PDFs and other technology that allow you read, edit, sign and send documents without the need to print them. These technologies lead me to my second topic which requires greater acceptance of a proven technology that benefits from blockchain encryption.

eSignatures are uniquely identifiable, electronic signatures designed to provide a secure and accurate identification method for the signatory to provide a seamless transaction. They are legally accepted under the US’s Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN) and the EU Directive for Electronic Signatures. Both acts defined electronically signed contracts and documents as legally binding on the same terms as paper-based contracts.

Unfortunately, while working at home, I have discovered that while the law profession has begun to accept eSignatures as a formally recognized method to approve the contents of a document, the financial community has not.  Many of the leading global banks will not accept an eSignature for authorization and instructions, even if the signature itself is time stamped, and using public-private key encryption. In asymmetric encryption, the private key is used by the signer to electronically sign the document and the public key is openly available and used by those who need to validate the signer’s electronic signature. A public, decentralized blockchain adds an additional layer of security by enabling anyone in the network to have the same “source of truth” about the credentials and validity of the signature. This insures more secure management by providing unified, interoperable, and tamper-proof infrastructure with key benefits to all users and enterprises

While I understand the decision to forgo acceptance of eSignatures is to protect the account holder, I think financial firms need to recognize that the same technology that they are considering to manage digital assets, help reduce their internal cost structure and provide improved settlement is also being used to verify personal identity.

Bitcoin History

Belated Happy Birthday Satoshi!

Yesterday, April 5th is believed to have been Satoshi Nakamoto’s 45th birthday. The anonymous creator of bitcoin listed April 5, 1975 as his birthday on his P2P Foundation Profile.

While this date was originally considered to possibly be a clue to his real identity and Satoshi’s actual birthdate, it was later determined that April 5th (1933) is the date that US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed executive orders 6102 prohibiting the hoarding of gold by US citizens, and 1975 is the year that gold ownership was re-legalized for Americans. Maybe Satoshi’s birthdate had a hidden meaning.

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