2020-04-08
- Vipin Bharathan
- kellycooper.2ds
Date
Attendees
Goals
- Continue updates on eThaler
- Updates on all other projects
Discussion items
| Time | Item | Who | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 min | Anti-Trust and code of conduct | VB | |
| 20 min | Updates on all projects | Rest of the project leaders | |
| 30 min | Updates on eThaler | slides |
Recordings
Minutes
Linux policies
eThaler - Communication - several bugs in the program that generated the specifications. Vipin will fix today or tomorrow. For each behavior, there were a couple of items that are only for interfacing with GRPC functions. Nothing to do with creating the interface for regular interaction. We have interfaces blocked out - Vipin will publish on GitHub. Access to Mani's private GitHub - will work there until ready to release to public GitHub. Incoming phone calls about eThaler - responded to many people about it. Vipin contention, as always, is that we should pick something you can contribute on and work on it. There's a lot of noise with Covid, distracting many people, rightfully so. In the meantime, we need to concentrate on other subjects. These subjects are related in the sense that CBDC is seen as a way to distribute money properly. As we have seen with the confusion in the distribution in government aid, as in SBA case and PPA (Paycheck Protection Act). All of these things are going to be better with a good underlying infrastructure.
Webinar - 3-4 polls - interesting. Looks at why there should be a CDBC, why it should be implemented. Public-Private Partnership? Core Ledger. APIs. Payment Operators. Commercial Banks. People will interact - a model proposed previously. They haven't said exactly whether accounts held by retail owners would filter back to the central bank - they want to keep it anonymous. They haven't discussed how exactly people who did not have accounts would be able to participate. The unbanked.
The good survey goes over many of the problems and features of their proposed solutions - can provide feedback as CM SIG, or feedback as members of Hyperledger, or as individuals. If we give substantive feedback, they will at least look at it. Vipin and Mani attended the webinar. Existing banks must interact with this new CDBC system - can't be a public blockchain. Vipin - Y not public - they plan to not use an existing solution. You can take Ethereum and make it private - not going to do.
True CDBC should be fungible. Everything - commercial bank money, payment for retail, existing account - cash can be used for RTGS if you transfer it into your account.
Emphasize payment rail as one of the most important parts of the system - important point - without payment rail, CDBC will become useless.
Mani - Central bank of France, asking for CDBC proposals - they will choose 10 systems in July. Whoever proposes must be a resident of a European Union. US Companies - no luck. Corda has done before. Bank of France - looking for DVP PVP other currency exchanges. Three different use cases. As long as you have a system that can support one of these, they'll be fine. eThaler - because of the way we use URC 11 55 standards, we could mint USD and EUR and demonstrate transferrable between those two. That will qualify for the test.
Karen - may be interesting in the SIG to offer feedback. Mani - As Hyperledger, we can draft a set of articles. We have done experimentation. Here is what we observed.
Vipin - Pausable and compliant pieces, interesting.
Vipin - will present on CDBC next meeting. Vipin's ideas on Medium. Ideas are echoed elsewhere.
Karen - was there any explanation on why build their own blockchain. Y, don't want to favor one or two existing commercial products.
Mani - current bank deposits - want to be freely transferable between existing and digital tokens.
Vipin - isn't anything like cash in that Mani - DLT/Centralized - direct 1-1 interface to existing systems including their own RTGS system. They moved away from blockchain a couple of years ago.
CBDC, an excellent paper by the Bank of England, but in the nature of a study. They are talking about getting feedback from people. Main aspects of that plan: Creation of infrastructure, how it will work. Payment is an important part of this infrastructure. Three-tier - core ledger - vacillating between DLT or Centralized Database. They can't make up their minds, asking for review and feedback. Central Ledger - not going to use existing blockchain, will develop bespoke blockchain for that. They haven't made clear what exactly they will do.
South Korea, a pilot project.
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Vipin Should CDBC have interest paid? How do you issue it? Data accounts with the fed, create runs on commercial banks into CDBC in times of distress?
First presentation - Jim Mason said we already have a digital currency, why do we need another one? If you do not look carefully at how money is being generated in the economy, you can't answer that question. Most of the money is in M2 and is generated by commercial banks. When they loan people money. That's what Mani was talking about - bank deposits - entry in a ledger in the bank - not backed by anything. ie $100,000 - the difference between that and CDBC is that $100,000 if withdrawn from the bank or taken out as credit, ie Boeing withdrew 13m - every company has drawn down their loan from the banks. But, the banks are then going to be in trouble. Because it doesn't stretch all the way back to the Central Bank. CDBC is ultimately backed by the Central Bank.
Other questions are - how can we take part? Everyone wants to be part, why don't you work on this or that, don't hear back. Say look at GitHub and we can try to answer you, no concrete responses.
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Ron - matrix of regulation, and regulations have evolved with everything going on in the world. Will at least start a framework in 1-2 weeks. I will start a draft over the weekend.
Mani mentioned PVP - foreign exchange transaction. I pay you in US dollars, you are in India and will be paid in Rupees. How does a payment gets made? Interaction between CDBC and the US. Or a CDBC and ? or through the Fed - have foreign currencies in reserve.
Ron - PVP remittances leveraging CDBC or not?
Vipin - DVP Delivery vs payment - delivery of assets which are not foreign money. Let's say I'm buying Euro Bonds - I pay in dollars to get bonds. Has to happen in an atomic way. Both of the sides go through or none of them go through. Has to be something sure? Mani - from the Central Bank's perspective.
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David - Is the primary purpose to get them to leverage this technology - is it about building support to get the US to use digital currency?
Vipin - trying to explore the space in a different way. Starting with a standardized representation of a token from open standards. Using that, moving to implementation in Besu - private blockchain. Using 1155 token standard. Using subsequently to do possibly DVP. That's the aim.
Mani - The purpose is not only as a CDBC - as banks have lots of assets and liabilities, can use the same infrastructure to issue their own tokens. Technology would be the same. This is the first implementation using pure standards. Compared to existing stable coins - all private implementation of their own methodology, own blockchains, a lot of them are public in nature where you are not guaranteed any kind of KYC or AML - those issues aren't tackled. As a regulated environment, how would you construct, deploy, and transact? CDBC or Commercial tokens. Using standards such as TTF, Enterprise Ethereum and ERC token standards = first of its kind.
David - from the tech and still a lot of work to convince people to stop building tokens and currencies.
Vipin - digital dollar project which is already started, last week they announced 22 new members of an advisory board. But, they are all legal experts, business experts, there are some technologists there but more engaged in how do you convince people that this is necessary. More of transforming the minds of legislators and the general public to show how having something like this would make a difference in a time like this. Not that it's going to solve today's problem. We see short-sightedness holds us back, invest in infrastructure and frameworks so we can be ready for the next pandemic.
Integration with the payment framework is important.
Mani - working our way through the implementation of eThaler token. Set up a private GitHub to collaborate before put onto public Hyperledger GitHub. ERC 11 55 token new standards within open Zeppelin. Taking from what they implemented, tested out, found a bug and are fixing to make it work for our implementation. Once we test, go back to open Zeppelin to offer our fix as well.
Next meeting - survey of CDBC, including ones there at Bank of England. South Korea - CORDA - announcement online. https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-koreas-central-bank-launches-digital-currency-pilot-program