Month: February 2021

Authorized Representative

It is to certify that Andy Ho of Carbon World Limited is our authorized representative to negotiate the exclusive right to use our double offline payment technology for Digital Currency in Hong Kong, Macau, and China.


Carbon World Limited is a Hong Kong-registered company with an operating address in Room 915, Fo Tan Industrial Centre, Fo Tan, NT, HK.

14-01-21 Bitcoin in Race for Adoption Before CBDC in E-commerce: Australia’s Macquarie

With a runway of a year or more before the Federal Reserve and other major central banks can launch digital currencies, bitcoin and other private cryptocurrencies could gain a foothold in electronic commerce.

Central banks like the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank risk losing the digital-currency race if private cryptocurrencies like bitcoin become too entrenched in electronic commerce, according to a new research note from the Australian investment bank Macquarie.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-race-for-adoption-central-bank-digital-currencies

16-11-20 There is currently no strong public policy case to introduce a CBDC for retail use.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has announced a partnership with Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Perpetual and ConsenSys Software to explore the use of a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) using distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The project is currently limited to the wholesale market, reflecting the RBA’s conclusion in a recent bulletin on the Design Considerations, Rationales and Implications of a Retail CBDC that there is currently no strong public policy case to introduce a CBDC for retail use.

26-09-20 Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed the Bank has no plans to issue a retail CBDC just yet.

Today at the UWA Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference, the Head of Payments Policy at the Reserve Bank of Australia, Tony Richards, confirmed the Bank has no plans to issue a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) just yet. Instead, the Bank will continue with research into decentralized ledger technology (DLT) and its uses. 

https://www.ledgerinsights.com/reserve-bank-australia-cbdc-central-bank-digital-currency/

Dutch central bank licenses first digital currency startup

https://coingeek.com/dutch-central-bank-licenses-first-digital-currency-startup-since-crackdown/

The regulator issued a license to AMDAX, allowing the company to process digital currency transactions.

Known as De Nederlandsche Bank, the regulator adopted the European Union’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5) in April 2020

AMDAX co-founder Valentino Cremona believes that the registration is a big step forward, not just for his company but the industry as a whole. It will lead to the adoption and acceptance of digital currencies, he said.

Retail Central Bank Digital Currency: online and offline usability

https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2020/sep/retail-central-bank-digital-currency-design-considerations-rationales-and-implications.html

Reserve Bank of Australia 17th Sept. 2020

Decisions regarding in-person, online and offline usability

If a retail CBDC was being designed as a replacement for physical cash then, at a minimum, it would need to facilitate in-person payments – for example between two individuals or from an individual to a merchant in the retail environment. But, being an electronic system, it would presumably be possible to design it so that the CBDC could also be used to make remote (or online) payments. In this way it would function in much the same way as cards currently do.

As a form of electronic payment system, CBDC might be constrained by the availability of electricity and telecommunications systems, in contrast to physical cash which is ‘always on’ for exchange purposes. However, as noted above, it may be possible to design a CBDC system in such a way that it could be used (at least temporarily) in an ‘offline’ mode, which would be useful in remote locations and offer resilience benefits when power and telecommunications networks were down. For example, it might be possible for CBDC stored on a mobile device or some other small, battery-powered user-access device to be securely transferred to another device via wireless technologies even in the absence of power and telecommunications. However, there would still be a periodic need for power and network connectivity to reload or redeem CBDC balances against commercial bank deposits (and to recharge any batteries). As noted above, an offline mode might be easier to implement with a token-based system than an account-based system.

The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021 signal India’s first clear intent to launch the ‘digital rupee’.

https://theprint.in/opinion/govt-can-ban-bitcoin-but-for-digital-rupee-to-succeed-india-has-to-do-a-lot/608542/

theprint.in 22 Feb. 2021

Offline vs online capabilities

Ease of use will be crucial to the wide-spread adoption of India’s CBDC. For this, it would be necessary that the ‘digital rupee’ has offline functionality. Several countries are exploring the possibility of enabling offline digital currency transactions. The primary medium being explored for offline transactions are smartphones, smart cards, and wearable devices. However, for a country like India, options such as feature phones or other low-cost technologies accessible to a common man should also be considered.

The last mile

To reach the last mile, it is important to consider the devices that people can use for digital rupee transactions. Anything that is ‘digital’ needs to be stored on a digital medium (e.g. laptop, PC, USB drive, phone, etc.). Although smartphones currently show considerable promise for offline transactions, the reality is that, as of December 2019, smartphone penetration stood at less than 40 per cent in India. Smart sim card-based feature phones, smart cards, wearable devices, and other low-cost technologies should be explored as alternatives or even supplemental options.

VISA explores the offline exchange of digital cash in Central Bank Digital Currency

VISA explores the offline exchange of digital cash and how it could benefit consumers and economies, everywhere

https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/blog/bdp/2020/12/17/central-bank-digital-1608165518834.html

Tackling design hurdles in Offline Transaction


As central banks consider frameworks for reaping the benefits of CBDC, some common design challenges have emerged. For example, how might digital currencies be exchanged in person, when neither the buyer nor the seller has a connection to the internet? Today the only reliable, real-time medium of exchange in an offline context is physical cash. For CBDC to have utility as an alternative to physical cash, it must be useable for face-to-face transactions occurring offline.

About iBonus Limited

Our solution with award-winning and patent-pending QR-BLE-QR communication supports 99% of smartphones (IOS and Android), and with a transaction time of less than 1 second on average. Learn more