Rights and Obligations are the 2 most fundamental building blocks of trade and finance. Contracts exist to protect rights and enforce obligations. Trade consists of trading one right or obligation for another. They are also fundamental in understanding how Financial Systems, Blockchains and Smart Contracts work, yet …

There used to be a time not too long ago (in the 60s) when the top UK income tax rate was 97.5%, the top US income tax rate was 94%. Granted these rates were for the 1%’s of that time. I suspect that these rates came as a response to the “Pay their fair share” crowd of that day. In other words these high marginal tax …

If you haven’t read the first article in this series I recommend you go read it first: Ethereum vs Mossack Fonseca: The IBC and it’s blockchain alternatives Trusts are an ancient contract structure going back to Roman days. A trust is used to separate control from the benefits of an asset. Traditionally a trust …

Whatever your opinions about the Panama Papers saga. There are both perfectly legitimate and absolutely illegal ways of using the services of an Offshore Trust company like Mossack Fonseca. Ethereum through it’s Smart Contracts can actually replace many of the legitimate ways of using offshore structures, while at the …

As I discussed in my previous article From Contract to Smart Contract a Smart Contract is not necessarily a contract in it self. If the Smart Contract is designed to be run 100% autonomously you don’t necessarily need what a normal legal contract offers you. But very few things live entirely on the block chain for …

Tomer Kantor just posted another really good article about Bitcoin’s Competitiveness In Kenya. Tomer worked on a great Documentary on Bitcoin in Kenya, where he interviewed me and other people in the Bitcoin scene in Kenya. As part of his article he posted previously unreleased interviews with me and Elizabeth …

Smart Contracts as defined by Nick Szabo always fascinated me. I experimented with early versions of this, but Ethereum has finally come up with what looks like the first practical implementation. This is the first in a series of articles about implementing Smart Contracts on Ethereum in the real world. What are Smart …

Kipochi the startup I helped found 3 years ago is in the [news again](http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate-News/Safaricom-cuts-M-Pesa-link-for-bitcoin-dealer-Kipochi-/-/539550/3014318/-/cu0ho8/-/index.html). While the whole story ended up pretty painful for me I did learn a lot from the experience. It's been a …

Updated 4/21/2016: Updating this as this is also now affecting the Gift Card industry. Added crypto currencies in general. Moved hosted crypto currency wallets like Coinbase and UpHold up to a 3 since the industry has changed a lot since 2012 (No more BitInstant or Coinbase). Removed Liberty Reserve for obvious …

The debate continues. Please read the first part of my response OpenTransact the Payment Standard where everything is out of scope first. Manu wrote a new response which I will respond to in a separate blog post. First let me finish responding to the original Generally this post will again reflect the differences in …