Tag Archive for: blockchain

Ripple is making blockchain waves

| 23-03-2018 | Carlo de Meijer |

Almost a year ago I wrote my blog “Blockchain and the Ripple effect: did it Ripple?”. Now twelve months later we may conclude it did. And even more than that. Ripple is making many waves. A lot happened both in broadening their offerings and in enlarging their network. A growing number of banks and payment providers, increasingly join RippleNet, Ripple’s decentralized global network, to “process cross-border payments efficiently in real time with end-to-end tracking and certainty”. By using the growing set of Ripple solutions they are able to expand payments offerings into new markets that are otherwise too difficult or too expensive to reach. The focus of Ripple therefor has especially moved towards emerging markets.

BROADENING RIPPLE OFFERINGS

Ripple was set up in 2012 to create a streamlined, decentralized global payments system named RippleNet, using technology inspired by the blockchain, to record transactions between banks. RippleNet is an enterprise-grade blockchain platform, that nowadays has over 100-member banks and financial institutions. These partners can use all the Ripple offerings.

Solutions

Ripple makes software products based on blockchain technology and sell them to banks, payment providers and others to be used on RippleNet. These are aimed to make cross border payments truly efficient for these players and their customers. Next to their digital asset XRP, the XRP Ledger, and xCurrent, that helps banks settle transactions, Ripple has added a number of new services/offerings to the platform including xRapid and xVia. This in order to attract more clients to enter RippleNet. Ripple is now taking the next step to help build the Internet of Value (IoV), by establishing an Infrastructure Innovation Initiative.

a. XRP: digital asset

From the outset, XRP, Ripple’s digital asset was expected to be an important part of Ripple’s decentralised payment system. Ripple uses its own XRP cryptocurrency as a payment method to make it easier for banks to move money internationally. Banks and payment providers can use Ripple’s digital asset XRP to further reduce their costs and access new markets. One rationale for using XRP is that unlike Bitcoin, the token has one narrowly defined (payments method!) but clearly useful purpose: to help banks move cash faster and more cheaply, especially across borders. The token could be used as a kind bridge currency between fiat currencies. For example South African rands in Johannesburg could become XRP, which could then be turned into baht in Thailand. That could help banks avoid the time consuming and expense of tying up money in different currencies in accounts at other banks.

b. xCurrent: processing payments

RippleNet is powered by xCurrent, for payment processing. xCurrent is the new name of Ripple’s existing enterprise software solution that enables banks to instantly settle cross-border payments with end-to-end tracking (and bidirectional messaging across RippleNet). It provides real-time messaging, clearing and settlement of financial transactions. The xCurrent messaging platform however does not involve XRP. It includes a Rulebook developed in partnership with the RippleNet Advisory Board to standardise all transactions across the network. That ensures operational consistency and legal clarity for every transaction. The Interledger Protocol (ILP) is the backbone of the solution and makes it possible for instant payments to be sent across a variety of different networks.

Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on LinkedIn

 

Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher

 

Smart contracts – oxymoron or the future for business?

| 16-03-2018 | treasuryXL |

On Tuesday 13th March 2018, RTL Z – a television channel – broadcast a “Cryptoshow” to explain how the Blockchain works and what it could mean for the future. They attempted to make the technology and information as simple as possible to show what uses the Blockchain could have in the world for consumers and businesses. One of the main areas of interest relates to Smart contracts. What are they? What are the advantages and disadvantages? What changes can they bring?

Definition

Wikipedia defines a Smart contract as “a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts allow the performance of credible transactions without third parties. These transactions are trackable and irreversible”.

These contracts facilitate the transfer of goods, services, property, money – in fact anything of value – in a manner that is transparent and direct. It removes the role of an intermediary.

How they work

  • You agree to enter into a transaction
    You draw up an agreement electronically
    The agreement is encrypted and placed on a secured shared ledger accessible to the counterparty
    As this is the Blockchain, the data is backed up at various other locations
    Both parties perform as per the agreement
    Costs are reduced by the absence of intermediaries
    As both parties have agreed to the contract they are faster and less expensive to administer
    Being electronic there is less possibility of errors occurring due to manual input

Advantages

  • Both counterparties receive an identical agreement
    You decide who can access and amend documentation
    Rules that have been agreed upon define how changes can be made
    Any agreed change in one document is automatically made to all relevant documents
    Encryption and the methodology of the Blockchain ensures that transactions cannot be altered after being agreed and the block validated

Disadvantages

  • Are they enforceable by law
    No action written in a contract can be against the law of the land
    Contracts still have to be written – electronically. This entails human involvement that could lead to errors
    Considerable knowledge of computer coding is required
    Lawyers still need to be involved in the formation of the contracts
    Costs – employing these specialists will come at a steep price

What further uses can the Blockchain provide

Digital identity – it will be possible to identify an agreed counterparty and all their static data can be stored
Proof of provenance – especially for ethical businesses, it will be possible to issue certificates proving the source of goods
Communication within the supply chain – discrepancies will show up and can be proactively addressed
Payments – removing financial intermediaries implies quicker payments and reduced costs
Ownership – Smart contracts enforced by law make it possible to register the legal owners of goods and property
Loyalty programmes – with all the details present from all transactions, it is possible to initiate programmes to reward clients/customers

The greatest savings will be seen in processing – both in time and costs. Some reports suggest savings of up to 40% can be established, together with a real-time overview of positions. However, the whole system relies on one major factor – trust. Where we previously met people, negotiated, agreed etc., now we will do more of that online. Furthermore, implementation of a Blockchain strategy will require a company to complete revaluate their current way of working, leading to considerable planning and strategic positioning.

The proposed future looks exciting – it is now up to industry to determine the road on which they wish to travel.

Regulating cryptocurrencies: walking the tightrope

| 01-03-2018 | Carlo de Meijer |

Long-time regulators world-wide took a wait-and-see attitude towards the non-regulated markets for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. But that is changing rapidly. With the growing popularity of the crypto market, the large number of unregulated cryptocurrencies (more than 1300, greater attention is now being paid by Governments and other stakeholders around the world.

Regulators across the world are looking at whether — and how — to regulate cryptocurrencies. As a reaction last week cryptocurrencies tumbled with the Bitcoin falling even below $6,000 after having reached a high of $20,000 on 17 December for fear of more regulation. The cryptomarket value also fell deeply from $674 billion in December to $315 billion. Also the hack of the Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck, where some hundreds of millions of dollars disappeared caused enough unrest. Up till now there is however no univocal direction in how cryptocurrencies are looked at and how to treat them.

Why intervene in the cryptocurrency market?

It is no surprise that governments and regulators are becoming more vocal and putting together tasks forces on how to deal with it. There are compelling reasons why cryptocurrencies should be under more scrutiny by regulators and supervisors. The threat of price volatility, speculative trading and hack attacks all call for stricter regulation. Main goal of regulators is to create long-term stability afforded by common policies and elimination of fraudulent actions and practices.

To protect the consumer

Firstly, there is the need of tighter oversight of crypto exchanges and trading platforms from the viewpoint of investor protection. These markets are however not transparent for private investors. There are clear risks for private investors associated to price volatility, operational and security failures at crypto exchanges, market manipulation and liability gaps. Many experts worry that the trade in Bitcoin futures, crypto funds and other highly speculative financial products will inflate a speculative bubble, while running the risk of losing all their money. In that case there is – unlike at normal currencies such as euro, dollar and yen – no public institution like governments or central banks behind it.

Fear of criminal activities

According to many, aside from the instability of cryptocurrency prices, these cryptocurrencies must have greater regulatory oversight in order to prevent illegal activity and illegitimate use. Aside from the instability of cryptocurrency prices, regulators are worrying about criminals who are increasingly using cryptocurrencies for activities (trading away from official channels) like fraud and manipulation, tax evasion, hacking, money laundering and funding for terrorist activities.

Systemic risk

There is also the systemic risk that is inherent to the crypto-economy. If it continues to grow uncontrolled there is the danger of destabilising the financial system worldwide. The overheating of the cryptocurrency market with speculative money and the wild price fluctuations have raised alarms and calls for tightening of regulations in many countries from the viewpoint of financial system stability. If the price bubble bursts, it can quickly endanger individual institutions and parts of the financial markets. If big losses would occur this could hurt the reputation of the whole market.

Regulators are stepping in

The advent and subsequent boom of cryptocurrencies on a global scale as well as the heavy fluctuations have left many governments scrambling to find ways to deal with this new phenomenon. Regulators and other official authorities worldwide are stepping in to define how they would oversee this cryptocurrency environment (what had been to date a legally “murky” environment). Governments around the world are now looking at how to regulate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

What could they actually do: the options

There are various options to deal with cryptocurrencies, ranging from a complete ban to the other extreme of creating an own state digital currency. The options are just warn and further do nothing, complete ban, categorise as financial asset, regulate the exchanges or create a state owned crypto currency.

Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on LinkedIn

 

Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher

 

 

IBM-Maersk Blockchain Platform: Breakthrough for Supply Chain?

| 09-02-2018 | Carlo de Meijer |

There are various signals that a number of corporates are moving their blockchain projects towards production. We recently have seen the announcement of the IBM – Maersk project, to create a blockchain based corporate. If accepted in a sufficient way by the various players in the shipping industry supply chain that could mean a real breakthrough for blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies. “The big thing that is missing from this industry to digitize and unleash the potential of the technology is really to create a form of utility that brings standards across the entire ecosystem,” Maersk’s Chief Commercial Officer Vincent Clerc.

Present challenges in the shipping industry

This announcement is an answer to the growing demand across the shipping industry for efficiency gains and opportunities coming from streamlining and standardising information flows using digital solutions.

The world’s shipping ecosystems with more than $4 trillion of goods shipped every year have grown in complexity. One major challenge with supply chain management in the shipping industry today involves record keeping. A lot of record keeping is still based on inefficient outdated systems. Along with paper legal documents, much of the international shipping industry’s information has been transmitted via very old technologies.

Presently, many shipping supply chains are still confronted with enormous bulk of paperwork and bureaucracy involving many intermediaries in cross-border trade. Especially the traditional cross-border shipping processes usually involve manually transporting and verifying paper documents for each shipment. Just as an example: “a shipment of refrigerated goods for instance from East Africa to Europe can go through nearly 30 people and organizations and involve more than 200 different communications”.

This means that today, a vast amount of resources are wasted due to inefficient and error-prone manual processes. This could lead to lost documentation or delays in delivering. goods. These costs of the required trade documentation to process and administer many of these goods are estimated to reach one fifth of the total costs of moving a container. By the way, the cost of global trade is estimated at $1.8 trillion annually.

Why blockchain?

The attributes of blockchain technology are said to be ideally suited to large networks of disparate partners like the shipping industry. This technology opens up an entirely new set of possibilities and an innovative opportunity to engage the entire global shipping ecosystem.

Blockchain technology addresses the many supply chain challenges as it establishes an immutable record shared of all the transactions among network participants that is updated in real time, enabling permissioned parties in a private blockchain environment access to trusted data in real time.

Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on Finextra

 

Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher

 

 

  

Blockchain and payments: further on the Gartner Hype cycle?

| 24-01-2018 | Carlo de Meijer |

Payments is increasingly seen as an area that is ripe for disruption, having the potential to enhance payment processing. To overcome the current structural weaknesses in the payments area including low speed, high expenses, financial institutions are increasingly adopting the idea of blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT). This in order to offer (near) instant cross-border payments at lower costs, higher security and more reliability. Up till recently most of these trials have been non-interoperable stand-alone solutions. But that may change!

Last month Blockchain bank consortium R3CEV and 22 of its partners announced that they were collaborating on the development of a cross border payments platform built using distributed ledger technology. This may be the first time a shared infrastructure has been developed that addresses the full payment workforce.

The question is: where are we now in the Gartner cycle, and will this R3 initiative be the breakthrough for a more massive adoption of this technology in the payments area?

Central banks: still see hurdles

Also central banks are actively investigating and in some cases even experimenting with blockchain including those of the United States, Canada, China, U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, and Sweden. Central banks’ interest in blockchain represents further recognition of the technology’s potential to transform many aspects of financial systems worldwide, including international payments. They are generally positive about the technology’s potential for applications such as international payment solutions.

On the other hand central banks also note technical obstacles such as scalability and other concerns such as privacy, security and legal issues. They generally emphasize that the technology is still at an early stage and may be years away from widespread use for such applications.

In a recent published research paper, the Deutsche Bundesbank offers up some encouragement for DLT acceptance. They are highlighting the technology’s ability to eliminate reconciliation processes, boost transparency and protect against cyber-attacks. The Bundesbank however dampened the blockchain enthusiasm, dismissing distributed ledger technology’s prospects in retail payments, at least in the Eurozone, which already boasts fast transfers and systems that require a minimum of reconciliation and can process millions of transactions with ease every day.

The authors concede that “it is still unclear whether DLT also has the edge over today’s technology in terms of security, efficiency, costs and speed”.

Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on Finextra

 

Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher

 

Bitcoin – hype or reality?

| 08-01-2018 | Lionel Pavey |

Having spent my  working life in international finance, I have patiently listened to all the news about the Bitcoin over the last few years. During 2017 whilst the Bitcoin was on a spectacular price rise, my interest was awakened in this new phenomenon – is this the future? I attended seminars, read articles, learnt the difference between the Bitcoin and the Blockchain, searched and investigated via the web, and tried to form an opinion. These are my findings:

Here is a technology that has recently been created – started in 2009 – that has caused a huge debate and led to passionate arguments on its merits or demerits. Those in the know understand its concept – the rest are baffled by its very existence. At essence it is a digital currency – there are no coins or notes in existence. It is decentralized – there are no governments controlling it. If you own it, your identity is anonymous to others – transactions take place via encryption keys. The supply is limited – protocol dictates that a maximum of 21 million Bitcoins can be produced. At the end of 2017 there were 16,774,500 coins in circulation – roughly 80% of the maximum allowed. So, the supply is clearly limited, but they have no real intrinsic value – they do not represent a claim on an asset.

My main area of interest has been on the price – the rise in 2017 of more than 1,400% is astounding. I decided to collate some information and have a chart showing Bitcoins price of the last 2 years.

Such a stellar performance should mean that the trade volume has increased dramatically.

Well……. here is another chart

The daily volume in September 2017 when the price was about $4,000 was the same as the start of February 2016 when the price was about $400. I had to create this chart as all the data I could find related to the $ value of turnover – which was phenomenal – and not the actual number of Bitcoins traded. Normally, when an asset sees a huge increase in price, this goes together with a corresponding increase in turnover. Clearly this has not happened with Bitcoin – why?

There appears to be a “strategy” of buying Bitcoin to hoard them. There does not appear to be a sizeable free float of Bitcoin. If there is more demand than supply, then obviously the price will increase dramatically. Bitcoin is touted as an alternative currency, yet the advocates do not seem to want to spread it around with everybody else. It is a currency that is not used to settle transactions – this makes it difficult to consider Bitcoin becoming a recognized mechanism for payments. One of the criteria of money is that it is a “medium of exchange” – yet again Bitcoin, which appears to be hoarded, does not meet the criteria.

How can a cryptocurrency replace a conventional fiat currency if it is not freely tradeable? Furthermore, if you hold Bitcoin and want to take your profit, then this will be realized in a fiat currency. As Bitcoin is generally quoted and traded in $, this means receiving your profit in an antiquated currency that your cryptocurrency wishes to replace – ironic?

The underlying technology – Blockchain – is here to stay. As to whether Bitcoin is here to stay – if people hoard Bitcoin, it will exist. What the value of Bitcoin should be – whatever someone is prepared to pay for it. Will it replace fiat currency – maybe one day, but not in its present Bitcoin form.

Lionel Pavey

 

Lionel Pavey

Cash Management and Treasury Specialist

 

Bitcoin mania: what is it not?

| 20-12-2017 | Carlo de Meijer |

During our stay in South Africa I was reading an article in Die Burger (newspaper for Afrikaners) where a spokesman of Cape town-based PWC gave his ideas on the recent rise of Bitcoin and the future of Blokketting (Afrikaans for Blockchain). This inspired me to write this blog. Since I started writing about blockchain I categorically refused to use the term Bitcoin. But this time it is different. As Bitcoin nears the end of a record-breaking year, it seems an appropriate time to dive into this – by many traditional players said – over-hyped thing. Others describe this fascination for Bitcoins as a “speculative mania”. The broader public has discovered this phenomenon. I will not say it is (already) the end of the rise in Bitcoins or other crypto currencies. But let me be clear: Bitcoin is a lot not!

Bitcoin rate explodes

Since April this year the Bitcoin (but also crypto currencies like Ether and Bitcoin Cash) is showing a continuous rising trend and in the past few months it even exploded to unexpected levels. In one month time the rate of the Bitcoin almost doubled. In the meantime the Bitcoin rate increased further to reach almost 20.000 dollar, before falling back to 16.000 dollar. But now it is back at  19.000 dollar. At the beginning of this year the Bitcoin rate was not even 1000 dollar. The total market capitalisation of Bitcoin is now exceeding that of a company like Boeing and that of New Zeeland’s GDP.

Bitcoins traded on futures market

The recent firm rate rise of the Bitcoin has much to do with the launch of Bitcoin future contracts. Before that Bitcoins could only be sold or bought via internet platforms. Last week the trade of future contracts in Bitcoin started on the Chicago Options Exchange ( CBOE). These futures enable speculators (without having Bitcoins) to buy or sell Bitcoins by betting  via the leverage instrument on future increases of the Bitcoin or an eventual decrease thereby hedging against fluctuations. In total 500 contracts were traded on the first trading session. The rate of Bitcoins increased nearly 2.000 dollar to 18.700 dollar. On the American market place Coinbase the Bitcoin even reached 20.000 dollar, after having raised 40% in the two previous days. This indicates that investors do not (yet) expect a crash short term.

In the meantime also the Chicago CME, the world’s largest exchange,  started trading Bitcoin futures and the Nasdaq is also in the race to enable the trade in these future contracts. Many professional investors however did not yet enter this market because the difference between bid and offer rates is still much too large. This indicates there is too less liquidity in this market. There is also insufficient clarity of the required margins, trade limits, stress tests and clearing.

What is Bitcoin not?

Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on Finextra

 

Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher

 

 

R3CEV Corda Platform: the blockchain app store

| 04-12-2017 | Carlo de Meijer |

App Store In May this year, fintech start-up R3 raised $107 million from a consortium of the world’s top banks. The New York-based blockchain company that works in collaboration with more than 90 banks and other financial organizations world-wide, plans to use the money to invest in further developing the Corda platform (see my blog: Corda: distributed ledger ….. not blockchain! April 6, 2016) as well as “encouraging entrepreneurs to start building on the platform though training videos and hackathons”.  

Fundraising

R3 gained momentum when it achieved this record distributed ledger technology funding in its last funding round. This figure that was raised by 40 institutions from more than 15 countries across the world (including names like Barclays, SBI, UBS, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC, ING, and Wells Fargo), is known as the largest single investment in a blockchain company to date. This is also seen as a signal that R3, with their Corda Platform, is moving in a right direction, according to many in the banking industry. This notwithstanding some of the early members left.

“R3 will use the funding to: [A]ccelerate technology development and expand strategic partnerships for product deployment. The company’s efforts will be focused on Corda, R3’s DLT platform for regulated financial institutions, and its infrastructure network, which will support a vast range of partner-built financial applications that interoperate seamlessly with each other, existing systems and networks.” R3’s press release

New members

Notwithstanding a number of early partners left the R3 consortium including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Santander, it still attracts new members showing their viability in the blockchain arena. Like the Bahrain based Bank ABC (Arab Banking Corporation), Abu Dhabi Global Market and the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (IFTA). The latter will be involved in the various trade finance projects. Recently also the Banco de la Republico Colombia, the Colombian central bank, joined the R3 consortium. The partnership with various central banks is part of R3’s plan to diversify its consortium membership by the addition of financial regulators and government agencies.

Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on LinkedIn

 

Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher

 

 

Accenture and blockchain: the accent on security issues

| 13-11-2017 | Carlo de Meijer |

My last blog was about IBM, triggered by a Juniper Research putting the company as the number one in the blockchain technology competition. One of the comments on this blog was that it looked like an IBM press release. But that is far beyond what is meant. I just looked at what the tech company was doing in the blockchain arena and why it could be adopted as the main blockchain model when blockchain adoption could become mainstream. In a previous blog I already talked about Microsoft’s CoCo platform, the number two in the Juniper Research asking myself if that could become a game changer (see my Blog: Microsoft CoCo Framework: blockchain game changer, August 29, 2017). Today I will go into some more detail in the blockchain activities of Accenture, number three according to the Juniper survey.

Accenture: where do they stand?

Looking at the various blockchain alliances or consortiums, of the top three in the Juniper Research, Accenture is the most broadly focused one. Being a member of both the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance and the Hyperledger Project as well as entered into alliance with Ripple and Digital Asset. Early this year Accenture also joined the Chamber of Digital Commerce (CDC), the world’s leading blockchain trade association. The CDC, aimed to “help educate, promote and accelerate the adoption of blockchain-enabled technologies” , is also the founder of the Smart Contracts Alliance, the Blockchain Alliance, the Global Blockchain Forum amongst others.

Compared to IBM (Hyperledger Project and Digital Asset) and Microsoft (Ethereum Enterprise Alliance and Ripple) that are more outspoken in their vision, the overall goal of Accenture is to leverage DLT innovations of all sorts to make the technology viable for enterprise IT use.

“Accenture strives to be at the forefront of blockchain innovation and its practical, real world application. We provide our clients with a complete view of the blockchain-based technology landscape and its potential business implications. Our global team of experts works with each client to help build smart strategies around effective use-cases, investment and implementation.”Accenture website

“Accenture is committed to supporting these efforts by leveraging our expertise across the company – from regulation to innovation – to make blockchain a reality for our clients.” David Treat, managing director of Accenture’s financial services industry blockchain

Accenture: focus on security issues

Accenture is especially focusing on security issues. These will be critical to the widespread adoption of blockchain technology. In February this year Accenture launched its new blockchain security hardware solution and recently the company has secured a patent related to its work on Editable Blockchain technology as of late September 2017.

Blockchain Hardware solution

Last February Accenture launched its new blockchain security hardware solution. In partnership with Thales e-Security and its hardware security modules (HSMs), Accenture has developed a Hyperledger Fabric-based patent-pending solution…..

Read the full article of our expert Carlo de Meijer on LinkedIn

 

Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher

 

IBM: International Blockchain Model of the future?

| 16-10-2017 | Carlo de Meijer |

According to a recent Juniper Research study “Blockchain Enterprise Survey”, IBM is seen as the number one provider of blockchain to business, well ahead of its competitors. These results are based on a survey of 400 business users from organisations actively considering, or in the process of deploying blockchain technology. Of the surveyed 43% ranked IBM first, followed by Microsoft (20%) and Accenture.

IBM is better positioned than competitors as far as its blockchain credentials are concerned. The study noted that IBM’s high-profile research development efforts and use of Hyperledger “helped push it to the number one spot”. IBM has been making considerable steps forward not only by research. Also with the development of a great number of projects aimed at broadening the scope of distributed ledger technology to include industries other than the financial services, including asset tracking, logistics, healthcare and the music industry.

Though this blog will especially focus on IBM, I will start showing the main differences between its main rival, Microsoft and that of IBM in their blockchain approach.

IBM versus Microsoft: different approaches

IBM and Microsoft are now intensively working to become the dominant commercial blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform. They are positioning themselves in the middle of a “frenzy” of blockchain projects and partnerships.

While Microsoft has been adding blockchain modules to its cloud platform Azure already since 2015, IBM launched the first commercial application of blockchain named IBM Blockchain just in March this year. Both systems seem similar on the surface: modular, operate in the cloud, based on open-source code, with massive ecosystems. Both are decentralized ledgers that can be used to manage and validate almost any type of transactions.

Different visions

But on closer inspection it is clear they have different visions for blockchain technology. Both are They thereby are taking decidedly different paths. These two big tech corporates are …

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Carlo de Meijer

Economist and researcher