The Digital Pound Consultation Will Drop Thursday, U.K. Official Says

CoinDeskPolicyPublicado a 2024-01-23Actualizado a 2024-01-24

Resumen

There's a number of issues around privacy, financial inclusion, whether there's limits, monetary policy and interest, James Bowler, Permanent Secretary of the Treasury said.

The digital pound consultation is set to drop on Thursday, said James Bowler, permanent secretary of the government's finance arm, the Treasury, in a meeting on Wednesday.

"The government is proceeding I think with caution," said Bowler, who holds the most senior rank for his civil service department. "There's a number of issues around privacy, financial inclusion, whether there's limits, monetary policy and interest and the consultation is out on that and you'll hear more about it tomorrow."

The digital pound consultation opened in February and closed in June last year. At the time, the Bank of England and Treasury said that a digital pound was likely needed.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Since the consultation landed it has received over 50,000 responses. Privacy was one chief concern respondents highlighted.

The Treasury Select Committee, a cross party group tasked with examining the Treasury's policy decisions, also asked for the government to lower its proposed limit for individual holdings, and for the digital pound to be able to bear interest last month.

"This is about being a modern economy that recognizes how our citizens want to do business but it throws up a number of challenges that you'd want to overcome before you decided to proceed and we are still in that phase of looking at those challenges," Bowler said.

Edited by Nikhilesh De.



Lecturas Relacionadas

China's AI Fronts: From Yan'an to Midway

This article analyzes the competitive landscape of China's AI industry through a dual-front war analogy: the "Eastern Front" of business model competition and the "Western Front" of global strategic positioning. **The Eastern Front: The Scramble for Supply Lines and Monetization** The "Eastern Front" examines the contrasting strategies of three Chinese tech giants—Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance—in the face of AI's high marginal costs. Tencent integrates AI as a catalyst within its existing ecosystems (advertising, gaming, cloud) for monetization, prioritizing high-value scenarios over user growth. Alibaba bets on a full-stack, self-developed approach from chips to applications, aiming to control costs and ecosystem, though this requires immense patience and resources. ByteDance, with Doubao as its flagship, pursues a traditional traffic-driven, "super app" strategy but faces severe monetization challenges as its massive user base incurs unsustainable operational costs. The central challenge for all is building a reliable "supply line" (sustainable funding/profit) and achieving efficient monetization, moving beyond being mere "token factories." **The Western Front: "Preserving Land" vs. "Preserving People"** The "Western Front" frames a global strategic divergence. The U.S. model ("preserving land") focuses on closed-source, high-premium models (e.g., Anthropic) targeting lucrative enterprise markets. China's strategy ("preserving people") leverages open-source models (e.g., Alibaba's Qwen, DeepSeek) and extremely low pricing to attract global developers and capture long-tail markets, akin to a "surround the cities from the countryside" approach. The goal is to make Chinese models the default infrastructure, locking in future ecosystem value. However, the critical test is whether this open-source ecosystem can achieve a commercial闭环, converting developer adoption into tangible revenue (e.g., via cloud services), and bridging the monetization gap with Western models that charge for value, not just tokens. **Conclusion: The Long March from Factory to Brand** The article concludes that China's AI industry possesses technology, users, and scenarios but must integrate them to create and capture value. Its ultimate success depends on navigating both fronts: companies must establish sustainable monetization on the Eastern Front, while the industry's Western strategy must evolve from simply "preserving people" (developer adoption) to truly "preserving both people and land" — transforming open-source ecosystem dominance into commercial success and premium brand value. This journey from being a "token factory" to a "value highland" will require strategic patience and the ability to outlast competitors in a prolonged contest.

marsbitHace 29 min(s)

China's AI Fronts: From Yan'an to Midway

marsbitHace 29 min(s)

A History of Technological Evolution Powered by Electricity: Aluminum, Bitcoin, and AI

The journey from the Rockdale aluminum smelter in Texas to space-based data centers illustrates a core economic principle: whoever controls the cheapest electricity dictates the use of computing power. The evolution is clear. Old industrial sites with pre-existing, high-capacity power grids are being repurposed. In Rockdale, a former Alcoa plant now houses vast Bitcoin mining rigs, which are increasingly being replaced by AMD chips for AI training. The logic is purely financial: while smelting aluminum yields $0.17–0.27 per kWh and Bitcoin mining $0.05–0.11, AI inference on H100 GPUs generates $1.27–3.67 per kWh. Recent deals confirm the rush for power infrastructure. Riot Platforms leases space to AMD; TeraWulf bought an old Kentucky aluminum plant for its grid; NYDIG secured a New York site for its cheap hydropower to mine Bitcoin. As AI giants like Anthropic, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon aggressively expand, they now directly compete with crypto miners for the same industrial power resources, often outbidding them. This has led to a decline in Bitcoin's global hash rate and a wave of miner conversions to AI data centers. This "digital resource curse" extends globally. Gulf nations, long offering subsidized power to attract heavy industry like aluminum, are now pivoting to become AI and cloud computing hubs—exporting computational power instead of physical commodities. Similarly, Bhutan halted its sovereign Bitcoin mining to sell hydropower directly to India for a steadier return. The frontier is space. Projects like Starcloud plan orbital solar-powered data centers, leveraging constant sunlight and natural cooling, with Bitcoin mining as a secondary use for surplus power. Even consumer brands are transforming; Allbirds shifted from footwear to AI infrastructure, causing its stock to surge. Meanwhile, crypto projects like Bittensor, Render, and Akash propose a decentralized alternative, creating markets to aggregate distributed, idle computing resources from individual hardware. The underlying infrastructure—the power grid—remains constant. As profit margins shift, the facilities built upon it will continue to evolve, from aluminum to Bitcoin to AI and beyond, always chasing the highest yield per kilowatt-hour, whether in Texas, Abu Dhabi, or low Earth orbit.

marsbitHace 38 min(s)

A History of Technological Evolution Powered by Electricity: Aluminum, Bitcoin, and AI

marsbitHace 38 min(s)

Conquering is easy, governing is hard: Polymarket must bow to regulations to plant its flag globally

Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market platform, faces significant regulatory hurdles in its global expansion. Its "permissionless" model, which bypasses traditional identity and financial controls, has led to widespread crackdowns. India recently blocked the site, categorizing it as illegal online gambling under new 2025 laws. Brazil also banned it and similar platforms, though it simultaneously authorized a regulated, investor-only version on its national exchange. Across Europe, countries like France, Portugal, and the Netherlands are enforcing bans based on existing gambling and financial regulations. To enter key markets, Polymarket is adopting a pragmatic, compliant approach. In the U.S., it paid a $1.12 million fine, acquired a CFTC-licensed exchange, and now operates a regulated, KYC-mandatory platform for American users. It also secured a major investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which will distribute its prediction data to institutional investors. In Japan, where gambling laws are strict, Polymarket has begun a long-term lobbying effort, aiming for legalization by 2030 through building institutional partnerships and community presence. Despite these challenges, the prediction market industry is booming, with global volume projected to surge from $51 billion to potentially $1 trillion by 2030. Polymarket's core dilemma remains: adapting its decentralized, anonymous model to fit within sovereign regulatory frameworks focused on licensing, consumer protection, and anti-money laundering rules. Its survival in each market depends on navigating this complex political and legal landscape.

marsbitHace 41 min(s)

Conquering is easy, governing is hard: Polymarket must bow to regulations to plant its flag globally

marsbitHace 41 min(s)

It's Easier to Conquer than to Govern: Polymarket Must Bend to Every Rule to Plant Its Flag Globally

Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market platform, is facing significant regulatory hurdles as it expands globally, illustrating the tension between permissionless, crypto-native platforms and national legal frameworks. The platform, which allows users to bet on event outcomes, was recently blocked in India under new online gambling laws and faces similar outright bans in Brazil and Ukraine, the latter citing moral objections to wagering on active war events. In Europe, countries like France, the Netherlands, and the UK are restricting access by enforcing existing gambling and financial derivatives regulations, forcing Polymarket to geo-block users or operate in view-only modes. To navigate this complex landscape, Polymarket is adopting a market-by-market, compliant strategy. In the U.S., it paid a $1.4 million CFTC fine, acquired a licensed exchange (QCEX) for $112 million, and now operates a regulated U.S. entity with strict KYC, abandoning anonymity. It also secured a major investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), which will distribute its prediction data to institutional investors. In Japan, a high-potential market, it has begun a long-term lobbying effort aiming for legalization by 2030, acknowledging the country's strict anti-gambling laws and slow regulatory processes. The article concludes that while the global prediction market is growing rapidly—projected to reach $2.4 trillion by 2030—Polymarket's core challenge is transforming its decentralized model to fit sovereign regulatory systems built on licensing, consumer protection, and anti-money laundering rules. Its survival depends on proving its legitimacy in each jurisdiction.

链捕手Hace 46 min(s)

It's Easier to Conquer than to Govern: Polymarket Must Bend to Every Rule to Plant Its Flag Globally

链捕手Hace 46 min(s)

Trading

Spot
Futuros
活动图片