Could we be just one or two years away from solving all security-related complications of cash systems today? Daryl de Jori, Head of New Technologies at EDAQS, a German-Austrian technology company, says that could very well function as case.
De Jori, a business analyst and finance critic by background and renowned Hamburg based economy scientist, Reimund Homann,along with a small team of scientists, technicians, and developers, have spent the previous few years perfecting and testing the cash security system DICE, its first hybrid product that unifies artificial intelligence and the daily life, which they believe could prevent cash crimes, besides solving all security-related complications of cash systems today, including passports and terrorism.
The innovation offers the chance for global change that will solve countless conventional problems with one single system and would allow central and national banks to supervise and analyze all cash circulation without interfering with the privacy of the citizen. It not only produces anti-counterfeit bills but offers the first time in the history of cash an insurmountable protection. Categorized as a semi-governmental project for the general public benefit and classified as a “Governmental Reformation Venture” (since an effective implementation could only be performed through official ways and with the support from governments), the technology is currently at the mercy of negotiations with governments and national banks for a worldwide implementation of the system.
The development of the DICE (acronym: Dynamic Intelligent Currency Encryption) emerged from the unquestionable dependence on a financial system that protects money while upholding the best degree of security and privacy. Contingent identifiable banknotes, preferably with a custom-frequency and secure RFID or machine readable codes like Datamatrix, the DICE integrates reliable and innovative technologies that combine their advantages to incorporate them into an optimized security. Beginning with the identifiable banknote that connects to a digital security system to verify the banknote’s validity, a key feature is also the ability to devaluate banknotes that may have already been stolen from a DICE user or which are illegally circulating.
It’s the goal of EDAQS that the complete banking and retail sector and all entities with regular cash circulation will participate in the DICE system.Up to now, EDAQS has concentrated the majority of its resources on preventing cash crimes and forgery, but also to save lots of cash from vanishing as it is going on in Scandinavian countries. But thanks to the recent group of external appraisals, the DICE has been estimated at an averaged valuation of $5.6 billion and contains plans to skip a scheduled seeding process to immediately raise capital in a string A financing, after undisclosed leading capital investors and EDAQS lobbyists showed interest to jointly take over the global implementation of the innovative and futuristic banknote system. As part of the planned spin-off, the new company will create two strong market leaders with distinct brands, partners, operating characteristics and industry dynamics.
DICE combines several technologies and intelligent techniques to solve almost all problems that governments claim to be the reason for the planned abolition of cash. DICE protects the citizen, the retailers and even the banks. And it gives cash a fresh and indisputable reason to live on.
Among a variety of new development models there are plenty of advantages of DICE. Firstly, counterfeiting of banknotes will be a thing of the past sufficient reason for the counterfeited value being higher than the production costs, counterfeiters would naturally have to undergo immeasurable efforts. Second, robberies will become less attractive and also with a limited usage of DICE, the chance of a worthless robbery will be higher than the ultimate gain. DICE also combats crime and as a result general cash-related crime will undoubtedly be reduced by almost a quarter on the basis of the official crime statistics for Germany released by the authorities (5.96 million offenses in 2013). The incidental registration of the banknotes would also ensure it is easier for banks and companies to manage cash because the complications of handling illicit money bring about higher tax revenues.
As well as mapping out the prevention of cash crimes and forgery, EDAQS hopes to fight drug cartels and terror financing on a totally different level. The remote deactivation of banknotes opens up new effective tools in the fight the financing of terrorism. From drug cartels to Mafia organizations, the ever-present possibility of the money being devalued later and the potential of determining the final retailer scanned position makes cash uninteresting and risky. With a profound change for legal tenders along with other securities where its use would seem sensible, DICE provides passive protection mechanisms that have a preventive effect on the users’ security without impairing their privacy and gathers valuable geographical data of cash circulation in the process. Such data could possibly be used to analyze the financial stability of a country.
If current government trends continue, a cashless economy does seem on the rise. And while there are certainly positive outcomes that could be obtained by going cashless not absolutely all is rosy however. The darker aspect of a cashless society, is one which few are debating or discussing, but is in fact the most pivotal with regard to social engineering and transforming communities and societies. There are understandably concerns about privacy, especially when payments are made through social networks and above all there’s an incalculable cost to your humanity. We’d lose our freedom to make decisions. You can easily imagine a totalitarian regime using these tools to great harm. In the digital age, cash is directly confronted by technological progress with crypto-currencies like Bitcoin and contact-less payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Wallet or QuickPay. However such technologies could be subject to monitoring and can be regulated in ways which could limit and even end its utility.
In bitcoin “The End of Money”, Wired contributing editor David Wolman, explored the twilight of cash and its own replacement with a panoply of better means of exchange. For one thing, Wolman notes, that national identity is strongly tied to having a physical currency. Then there’s the ultimate good thing about cash – its ability to enable off-the-books transactions. In a culture as paranoid about surveillance as our very own, imagine the outcry if we were to go to means of exchange that were always traceable? The problem with all of the arguments for a cashless society is that they’re rational, and our attachment to cash is not. A cashless society is also a society where there is absolutely no longer any anonymity.
Philosopher and economist Adam Smith observed that we are economic beings in the sense our essence as humans stems from our capability to make fair trades for our labor or our products. We make these transactions in the current presence of the usually benevolent “invisible hand,” as Smith called it in his book “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” The invisible hand optimizes our total production, and, by and large, fosters our freedom. A “visible hand” monitoring each and every transaction we make could be one of the biggest – and least expected – threats to freedom we have ever encountered in human history.
In light of the dystopian outcomes in the evolution in the creation of a cashless society, DICE is billed at breaking the mold in terms of the protection of cash, because it not merely improves cash circulation, but additionally the standard of people’s life. The advantages of the DICE system can only be positive.While it would obviously apply to the economy all together and to anyplace where money plays a significant role, however a lot would also change for private individuals. The technology is so far without any competition and in the long run, the best point of arrival, needless to say, is that it is unavoidable that banknotes become digital hybrids. That is definitely a better substitute for a state-controlled digital cash system.
Ambitious as that may be, it is really just the tip of the iceberg. Needless to say, society has been through times of innovation in monetary technology before. And while cash has been fighting the digital tide for quite a while now with the necessity to get beyond cash having been recognized in a number of countries, there’s no escaping the fact that we will always have a dependence on cash. Cash continues to be king and will stay in circulation for generations to come – for consumers and businesses. Hence, it’s never too late for businesses to protect themselves by safeguarding cash as a target. Additionally, de Jori thinks that DICE may also revolutionize the planet of finance through an effective long-term protection strategy that maintains confidence in global currencies.