Could we be just a few years 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 be the 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 last few years perfecting and testing the money security system DICE, its first hybrid product that unifies artificial intelligence and the daily life, which they believe could prevent cash crimes, along with solving all security-related complications of cash systems today, including passports and terrorism.
The innovation offers the chance of global change that may solve countless conventional issues 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 merely 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 public benefit and classified as a “Governmental Reformation Venture” (since an effective implementation could only be performed through official ways sufficient reason for the support from governments), the technology happens to be subject to 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 need for 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 benefits to incorporate them into an optimized security. Beginning with the identifiable banknote that connects to an electronic security system to verify the banknote’s validity, an integral feature is also the ability to devaluate banknotes that may have been stolen from a DICE user or which are illegally circulating.
It is the goal of EDAQS that the complete banking and retail sector along with all entities with regular cash circulation will participate in the DICE system.So far, EDAQS has concentrated the majority of its resources on preventing cash crimes and forgery, but also to save cash from vanishing since it is going on in Scandinavian countries. But because of the recent group of external appraisals, the DICE has been estimated at an averaged valuation of $5.6 billion and has plans to skip a scheduled seeding process to immediately raise capital in a Series A financing, after undisclosed leading capital investors and EDAQS lobbyists showed interest to jointly dominate 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 ways to solve almost all problems that governments claim to be the explanation of the planned abolition of cash. DICE protects the citizen, the retailers and even the banks. Also it gives cash a fresh and indisputable reason to live on.
Among a range of new development models there are various advantages of DICE. Firstly, counterfeiting of banknotes is a thing of the past and with the counterfeited value being greater than the production costs, counterfeiters would naturally need to undergo immeasurable efforts. Second, robberies can be less attractive and also with a limited use of DICE, the chance of a worthless robbery will be higher than the ultimate gain. DICE also combats crime and for that reason general cash-related crime will undoubtedly be reduced by almost 25 % 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 make it easier for banks and companies to control 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 completely 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 amount of 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 make sense, 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 along the way. Such data could be used to investigate the financial stability of a country.
If current government trends continue, a cashless economy does seem on the rise. And while you can find certainly positive outcomes that may be obtained by going cashless not 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 regards 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 is an incalculable cost to our 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 faced with 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 may be regulated in ways that could limit or even end its utility.
In his book “The End of Money”, Wired contributing editor David Wolman, explored the twilight of cash and its own replacement with a panoply of more efficient means of exchange. For one thing, Wolman notes, that national identity is strongly tied to having a physical currency. Then there’s the best advantage of cash – its capability 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? Bitcoin Revolution Official for a cashless society is that they are rational, and our attachment to cash is not. A cashless society is also a society where there is no longer any anonymity.
Philosopher and economist Adam Smith observed that people are economic beings in the sense that our essence as humans is due to our capability to make fair trades for our labor or our products. We make these transactions in the presence of the usually benevolent “invisible hand,” as Smith called it in his book “An Inquiry in to 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 greatest – and least expected – threats to freedom we’ve 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 only improves cash circulation, but also the standard of people’s life. The benefits of the DICE system can only be positive.Although it would obviously connect with the economy as a whole and to any place where money plays a significant role, however a whole 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, of course, is that it’s unavoidable that banknotes become digital hybrids. That is definitely a better substitute for a state-controlled digital cash system.
Ambitious as that could be, it is really just the end of the iceberg. Of course, society has experienced times of innovation in monetary technology before. And while cash has been fighting the digital tide for some time 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 is still king and will stay in circulation for generations ahead – 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.