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Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

Blockchain and the scalability challenge: solving the blockchain trilemma

Today, one of the major challenges associated with blockchain is scalability. The ever-increasing demand for blockchain applications has resulted in significant scalability challenges, resulting in transaction latency, making the system slower and less efficient, thereby hindering their widespread adoption and utility. As blockchain adoption con...

Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF application: a rocky way towards approval

BlackRock, the world largest asset manager, last June has applied at the SEC for a spot Bitcoin ETF for its American clients. According to Blackrock there is still large interest of their clients to have Bitcoin in their portfolio. In the past years BlackRock has continuously pushed the boundaries of ETF offerings, reaffirming its position as a lea...

/crypto Blockchain Observations

Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

Blockchain and Web3.0: A great Marriage

An interesting occurrence that is getting growing attention is the gradual shift towards the third phase in the internet’s development journey, named Web3.0. Web3.0 is the next evolution of the internet, which is focused on decentralization, openness, and trust. Blockchain may thereby play a dominant role. In this blog I will go into more detail w...

/crypto Blockchain Observations

Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

Swift blockchain interoperability experimentation

Early June SWIFT, the largest interbank messaging system in the world, announced it would conduct experiments in collaboration with a number of financial institutions to test for blockchain interoperability. Blockchain interoperability has emerged as a hot topic within the crypto space. Institutional investors are increasingly considering investme...

/crypto Blockchain Observations

Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

The digital euro project: we are not there yet!

Two years ago I wrote a blog about the plans of the European Central Bank (ECB) to introduce a digital euro. In that year the ECB decided to set up the Digital Euro project and started with the technical investigation phase, focussing initially on fundamental questions such as the technological functioning of the digital euro. Now we are two y

/crypto Blockchain Observations

Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

The EU Regulatory Sandbox for Blockchain: a win-win situation

On 15 February the European Commission announced the launch of the pan-European Blockchain Regulatory Sandbox for innovative use cases involving Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT). The sandbox that was initially planned to become operational in 2021/22, now started on 14 April 2023. The sandbox comes amid reignited interest in blockchain techn...

Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

The Ethereum 2.0 Journey: From Beacon to Eternity

Last year September Ethereum blockchain entered a new phase in its Ethereum 2.0 journey. After launched the Beacon Chain in December 2020, a parallel blockchain which acts as consensus engine that runs on proof of stake, The Merge was concluded in September 2022 whereby the Beacon Chain and the Mainnet, the normal Ethereum blockchain, merged into ...

/devops /crypto Blockchain Observations

Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

Sarafu: crypto currency for rural communities

Recently I read a very interesting and stimulating article in a Dutch newspaper. It was about the Community Currency named Sarafu that is used in Kenya’s rural communities thereby trying to solve the issue of proper circulation of finances. The Sarafu Network, is a so-called Community Inclusion Currency or CIC, yet only a few outside the country ...

/inclusion /crypto Blockchain Observations

Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

Crisis in the crypto markets: Will it survive? Yes!

The collapse of crypto exchange FTX early November 2022 plunged the crypto markets into a crisis. This event sparked a wave of crypto-bankruptcies, failed investments and rapid collapses. The current situation is a mixture of concern and uncertainty with the future of the crypto markets. This has triggered regulators worldwide to come with stricte...

Carlo R.W. De Meijer

Carlo R.W. De Meijer Owner and Economist at MIFSA

Main trends in blockchain and crypto in 2023

Turning back from our almost one month stay during November in South Africa, our beloved travel country, I was heavily chocked by the events on the crypto markets. During our stay I had promised my wife not to follow the news in these areas. But looking at internet I read the various articles and blogs on the FTX crypto exchange collapse and the ne...

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