
The Fed’s plan to speed up payments despite banks’ resistance - shamir
https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/12/the-feds-plan-to-speed-up-payments-despite-banks-resistance/
======
tatersolid
What possible advantage does a “blockchain” have for a payments system
controlled by a single entity?

The Federal Reserve doesn’t need to dupe dumb investors with buzzwords.

~~~
shamir
The Federal Reserve isn't a single entity. Its composed of 12 different member
Federal Reserve Banks. And The banks that are part of the Federal Reserve
system own stock in the member Feds and have significant representation on it.
Also blockchains are great if you care about transparency, immutability, and
accessibility.

~~~
tatersolid
A public Merkle tree like the certificate transparency logs can serve the same
purpose a million times more efficiently than a PoW blockchain.

~~~
shamir
True. But its not programmable, in the way that Ethereum is for example. And
that would be a nice feature to have in a payments system. PoW would never
make sense for the Fed anyway - more likely PoS with some combination of
Member Feds and participating FIs doing the staking and validating would make
more sense.

