Multi-CBDC cross-border payments systems inch closer to reality

TheDinarian

News • Business • Investing & Finance

May 31, 2023

Improving cross-border payments is a key priority for the G20. At the 2023 Digital Monetary Institute symposium in London, Tommaso Mancini-Griffol, deputy division chief of monetary and capital markets at the International Monetary Fund, said that Libra, Facebook’s attempt at a global currency, delivered a ‘collective shock’ to the public sector. He highlighted the inadequacies of cross-border payments: high costs, low speed and inadequate transparency.

One of the most promising solutions to these problems is the interconnection of central bank digital currency systems. This is an attractive concept because of the global surge in CBDC development. It is hoped that, as these state digital payments systems emerge, the work of creating a seamless cross-border payments system to bridge the gaps will already have been done.

Project Icebreaker versus Project mBridge

Even within this approach, however, there are different strategies. Two projects with distinct philosophies were showcased at the DMI symposium. Project Icebreaker is a collaboration between the Bank of Israel, Norges Bank and Sveriges Riksbank, in coordination with the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub Nordic Centre, that aims to connect retail CBDC systems. Project mBridge is a multi-CBDC platform developed by the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Bank of Thailand, People’s Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates. It is the largest multi-CBDC project involving cross-border transactions.

Both Project Icebreaker and Project mBridge are multi-CBDC platforms for cross-border payments. Both aim to reduce the costs and increase the speed of cross-border transactions. However, there are key differences in the design and architecture of the models that have implications for interoperability and scalability of the platforms (Figure 1).

Figure 1. A comparison of the two projects

	Project Icebreaker	Project mBridge
Type	Retail	Wholesale
Architecture	Hub and spoke	Common platform
Technology/governance	Various; TBD	Distributed ledger technology (mBridge ledger)
Foreign exchange liquidity provision	Integrated third-party foreign exchange providers	Determined off bridge; TBD
Bridge currencies	Participating currencies, if needed	None
Settlement method	Coordinated settlement in payment versus payment style	Payment versus payment instant settlement

Source: BIS, OMFIF analysis

The first and perhaps most important distinction is that Icebreaker aims to interlink domestic retail CBDCs while mBridge is a platform for wholesale CBDCs – in other words, inter-bank settlement. However, although individuals will not interact directly with mBridge, the improvements to the speed and the reductions to the cost of their cross-border transactions should still improve their experience of transacting with counterparties in participating countries.

The primary difference for retail users of Icebreaker versus mBridge relates to the integration of foreign exchange liquidity provision. Project Icebreaker is a hub-and-spoke system that connects different rCBDC systems of countries (spokes) to a hub, which serves as a marketplace for foreign exchange providers who are willing to provide settlement in more than one currency.

There are minimal technical preconditions for the rCBDC systems that connect to the hub: they must be a real-time or near-real-time payments system, be able to implement and support the use of hashed time locked contracts and have entities that can act as foreign exchange providers within the rCBDC system. Because foreign exchange providers are within the hub in Icebreaker, this ensures both competition and transparency of on-platform foreign exchange transactions.

In contrast, Project mBridge has foreign exchange off platform, which means that end users do not have access to the same degree of choice or market transparency. Making provisions to facilitate foreign exchange dealing on bridge was one of the post-pilot recommendations to improve the project. In 2023 and 2024, the roadmap for mBridge will focus on integrating foreign exchange price discovery and matching into the platform.

Flexibility and scalability

In terms of scalability, the hub-and-spoke model of Icebreaker minimises the number of connections between domestic rCBDC systems, so it can scale up to support many participating systems without increasing the complexity of the design. The hub routes payment messages and does not act on them – its only action is selecting best foreign exchange rates for the payer. Requirements to be part of the system are low, which allows central banks to have autonomy when designing rCBDC systems, but still participate in an interlinked system enabling cross-border payments.

Project mBridge, however, does not support the use of bridge currencies, which might limit the flexibility of the platform. Since it will only be able to facilitate transactions between currency pairs with liquid trading, this could limit the future scalability of the system. Integrating foreign exchange price discovery might change this. With foreign exchange liquidity provision integrated in the platform, exchanging one currency for another via a bridge currency might be accomplished as a two-part transaction relatively smoothly.

Despite being further ahead in foreign exchange liquidity provision and scalability, Project Icebreaker has so far only focused on core features with limited use cases. Before becoming a minimum viable product, Icebreaker still needs to determine a governance arrangement, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing compliance and monitoring, and legal considerations regarding conflict of regulations between connected rCBDC systems.

Here, the mBridge model has clear advantages. Because of its uniquely designed distributed ledger, it uses a decentralised model to address governance considerations. As explained by Mu Changchun, director-general of the Digital Currency Research Institute at PBoC, for cross-border payments, a trustless, decentralised approach via DLT is appropriate to ensure all participating countries trust the integrity of the network.

So far, Icebreaker and mBridge have varied in architecture, technology and use of bridge currencies in the development of the two multi-CBDC cross-border payments systems Whether the two will converge or take different approaches to governance, foreign exchange liquidity provision and other factors remains to be seen.

Courtesy to @MrManXRP for finding this Link

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👉 What this means for the future of Crypto:

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🤖Can Decentralized AI Stop Big Tech from Owning the Future of Robotics?🤖

The race to build the future of robotics is no longer just about robots. It's about who controls the intelligence behind them.

Over the last three years, a small group of companies has emerged as the backbone of the AI revolution. Microsoft provides cloud infrastructure. NVIDIA supplies the chips. Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and others develop the models. Together, they control much of the compute, data, and software stack powering modern AI.

Now that AI is moving into the physical world, many are asking a bigger question:

Will these same companies end up controlling robotics too?

It's a valid concern.

The latest generation of robots relies on enormous amounts of compute, simulation, training data, and foundation models. Many robotics startups today are built on infrastructure provided by large technology companies. NVIDIA's Omniverse is becoming a key simulation environment for robot training. Microsoft Azure is powering the training of robotics foundation models. Physical AI startups increasingly depend on hyperscale cloud infrastructure to train and deploy intelligent systems. Recent partnerships across the industry show just how central Big Tech has become to robotics development.

But while Big Tech is building the highways, another movement is trying to ensure it doesn't own every destination.

That movement is decentralized AI.

Why Decentralized AI Exists

The idea behind decentralized AI is simple. Instead of a handful of companies owning the models, compute infrastructure, data pipelines, and intelligence networks, these resources are distributed across thousands of participants.

This means anyone can contribute compute, contribute models, validate outputs and can participate.

The most visible example today is the decentralized AI network known as Bittensor (@bittensor). The network has evolved into a large ecosystem of specialized AI markets called subnets, where participants compete to provide useful machine intelligence and are rewarded based on performance. Rather than relying on a single company, intelligence is generated and validated by a distributed network of miners and validators.

Think of it as an attempt to build an open marketplace for AI instead of a world where intelligence is rented from a few centralized providers.

Why This Matters for Robotics

Robotics has a unique problem. Unlike chatbots, robots operate in the physical world. They need to perceive environments, make decisions, move safely and they need to learn continuously.

The challenge is that collecting and training on real-world robotic data is incredibly expensive. That's one reason large companies have such an advantage. They can afford the compute, simulation environments, and data infrastructure needed to train robotics models at scale.

This is where decentralized systems become interesting.

Instead of one company collecting all the data and training all the models, decentralized networks could allow thousands of contributors to participate in building robotic intelligence.

Imagine a future where:

Warehouse robots contribute operational data.
Delivery robots contribute navigation data.
Factory robots contribute manipulation data.
Developers contribute models.
Validators evaluate performance.

The resulting intelligence becomes a shared network rather than a proprietary asset.

That vision is beginning to emerge.

Bittensor's Move Toward Physical AI

While many people associate Bittensor (@bittensor) with language models and AI services, parts of the ecosystem are increasingly exploring embodied intelligence and robotics.

One example is Kinitro, a subnet focused on incentivizing the training and evaluation of embodied AI systems. The goal is to create competitive environments where developers build robotic intelligence and are rewarded based on performance.

The broader Bittensor ecosystem has also expanded into compute marketplaces, distributed inference systems, bandwidth infrastructure, and AI coordination layers that could eventually support robotics workloads. Several subnets now focus on decentralized compute, confidential inference, data transfer, and model training, critical components for future robotic systems.

In other words, the pieces are starting to appear.

Not a decentralized robot network yet.

But the infrastructure that could support one.

Beyond Bittensor: The Rise of Physical AI Networks

Bittensor isn't alone.

Across the industry, researchers and builders are experimenting with decentralized approaches to physical AI.

New research published in 2026 introduced the concept of DAO-enabled decentralized physical AI, or DePAI. The idea combines robotics, decentralized infrastructure, AI models, governance systems, and human oversight into a single framework. Instead of centralized control, robots and physical infrastructure could be coordinated through transparent rules and distributed ownership models.

At the same time, developers are exploring decentralized operating systems for robots that allow machines to communicate directly with each other and with distributed compute resources. These architectures are designed to make robotic systems more resilient and less dependent on a single cloud provider.

The goal is not simply decentralization for its own sake.

The goal is resilience.

If one server fails, the system continues.

If one company disappears, the network survives.

If one participant leaves, innovation continues.

But Here's the Reality

Decentralized AI faces the same challenge every decentralized technology faces.

Big Tech has resources. A lot of resources.

Training advanced robotics models requires enormous compute budgets, sophisticated simulation environments, access to specialized hardware, and vast amounts of real-world data.

That's why many robotics startups still partner with major cloud providers and AI companies. It's often the fastest path to deployment.

And there are legitimate concerns about whether decentralized networks can maintain quality, reliability, and security at the scale required for industrial robotics. Even researchers studying decentralized AI systems have highlighted risks around concentration, incentives, governance, and network security.

The challenge isn't just decentralizing intelligence.

It's decentralizing intelligence while maintaining performance.

That's much harder.

The Most Likely Outcome

The future probably won't be fully centralized. And it probably won't be fully decentralized either. Instead, we're likely heading toward a hybrid model.

Large technology companies will continue providing chips, cloud infrastructure, simulation platforms, and foundational research.

At the same time, decentralized AI networks will emerge as alternative coordination layers where intelligence, data, and economic value can be shared more openly.

The companies building robots may use NVIDIA hardware.

Train on Azure.

Run foundation models from OpenAI.

But they may also participate in decentralized data networks, decentralized compute markets, and decentralized intelligence protocols.

The future of robotics could end up looking less like a monopoly and more like an ecosystem.

The Bigger Question

The real question isn't whether decentralized AI can eliminate Big Tech.

It can't.

At least not anytime soon.

The real question is whether decentralized AI can prevent a future where a handful of companies control every robot, every model, every dataset, and every decision made by the machines operating around us.

As robots become workers, assistants, delivery drivers, factory operators, and even economic agents, that question becomes increasingly important.

Because the battle for the future of robotics is no longer about hardware.

It's about who owns the intelligence.

And that battle is just getting started.

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Dinarian888@dinarian888

August 09, 2026

Navigating the world of blockchain 🧭

Navigating the world of blockchain can feel like learning a completely foreign language. Between technical jargon and fast-moving Web3 terminology, getting started can be overwhelming.

Whether you are exploring digital assets, building on-chain, or simply trying to understand decentralized technology, here is your foundational glossary of essential blockchain terms every beginner should know.

🏛️ 1. Core Architecture: The Base Layer

Blockchain: A distributed, immutable digital ledger that records transactions across a peer-to-peer network of computers. Once data is written to a block and added to the chain, it cannot be altered without altering all subsequent blocks.
Block: A collection of verified transactions grouped together. Once filled, the block is cryptographically linked to the previous one, forming a chronological "chain."
Node: An individual computer connected to a blockchain network that helps validate transactions, store ledger data, and maintain network consensus.
Consensus Mechanism: The set of rules and algorithms that network nodes use to agree on the validity of transactions.
- Proof of Work (PoW): Requires miners to solve complex mathematical puzzles using computational power (e.g., Bitcoin).
- Proof of Stake (PoS): Requires validators to lock up ("stake") native tokens as collateral to participate in block validation (e.g., Ethereum).

🔑 2. Ownership & Security: Wallets and Keys

Public Key (Address): An alphanumeric string that acts like your bank account number or email address. It is safe to share publicly so others can send you digital assets.
Private Key: A secret cryptographic passphrase or key that grants full access and control over your wallet assets. Never share your private key or seed phrase with anyone.
Seed Phrase (Recovery Phrase): A sequence of 12 to 24 random words generated when you set up a wallet. It acts as the master backup key to restore your wallet and access your funds on any device.
Hot Wallet vs. Cold Wallet:
- Hot Wallet: A software-based crypto wallet connected to the internet (e.g., browser extensions, mobile apps), making it convenient for frequent transactions but higher risk.
- Cold Wallet: An offline hardware device (e.g., Ledger, Coldcard) designed to isolate private keys from internet-connected threats.

⚙️ 3. Execution & Functionality: Smart Contracts and Apps

Smart Contract: Self-executing code stored on a blockchain that automatically enforces agreement terms once predetermined conditions are met—eliminating the need for intermediaries.
dApp (Decentralized Application): Applications built on top of a blockchain network that run via smart contracts rather than centralized cloud servers.
Gas Fees: Network transaction fees paid to validators or miners to cover the computational energy required to process actions on a blockchain.
Layer 1 vs. Layer 2:
- Layer 1 (L1): The underlying primary blockchain network (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana) that handles base security and finality.
- Layer 2 (L2): Secondary frameworks or companion networks built on top of an L1 to increase transaction speeds and lower gas fees (e.g., Arbitrum, Optimism, Base).

💰 4. Financial & Market Concepts

Tokenomics: The economic design, supply dynamics, utility, and distribution model of a cryptocurrency or token project.
DeFi (Decentralized Finance): Financial services—such as lending, borrowing, trading, and earning interest—built on smart contracts without traditional banks or financial intermediaries.
Liquidity: The ease with which an asset can be bought or sold in a market without significantly impacting its price.
DYOR (Do Your Own Research): A foundational golden rule in the Web3 space reminding users to independently verify technical code, whitepapers, and team backgrounds before making any capital commitments.

💡 Quick Cheat Sheet

"Not your keys, not your coins."

If you do not hold the private keys or seed phrase to your digital wallet, you do not truly own the assets inside it—a centralized entity or exchange does. Always prioritize security first as you explore the space.

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Dinarian888@dinarian888

July 18, 2026

AI Is Coming for Your Job Title

Artificial intelligence may or may not take your job, but it has already broken into the human resources department and vandalized the org chart.

The evidence is all over LinkedIn, where perfectly serviceable occupations now arrive wearing titles such as “forward-deployed and agentic AI architect.” That person may be building sophisticated software. They may also be helping a chatbot remember what happened three prompts ago. Either way, somebody approved the business cards.

The expanding AI lexicon offers a useful counterpoint to the darker debate about technology and employment. Most discussion centers on how many jobs AI will eliminate. Hiring data presents a more complicated picture that includes a weak overall labor market containing a small but rapidly growing neighborhood of AI-related work.

Indeed Hiring Lab found that the number of postings on Indeed mentioning AI surged 134% from its February 2020 level by the end of 2025, even as total postings stood only 6% above that benchmark. AI appeared in a record 4.2% of Indeed postings in December.

AI, in other words, is not merely changing work. It is adding syllables to it.

The Titles Employers Actually Want

The undisputed champion is AI engineer, which ranked No. 1 on LinkedIn’s 2026 Jobs on the Rise list. The ranking, based on growth during the previous three years, also highlighted AI consultants and strategists, AI and machine-learning researchers and data annotators.

The title is popular partly because it is wonderfully accommodating. An AI engineer might build applications around large language models, connect corporate data to an AI system, improve model performance or spend Thursday afternoon persuading a customer service bot not to offer refunds for products the company doesn’t sell.

Indeed’s data showed the terminology spreading beyond Silicon Valley. Nearly 45% of data and analytics postings contained an AI-related term at the end of 2025, along with roughly 15% of marketing postings and 9% of human resources listings. A more recent Indeed analysis reported by Business Insider found that the number of frequently advertised job titles explicitly referencing AI rose from 264 in 2022 to 822 in the first quarter of 2026. Nearly two-thirds were outside traditional technology fields.

That produces titles such as AI marketing manager, AI learning specialist, responsible AI counsel and AI transformation lead. These are not always new occupations. Frequently, they are familiar jobs that have discovered a highly effective résumé keyword.

LinkedIn data cited by the World Economic Forum estimated that AI investment has supported 1.3 million positions, including AI engineers, data annotators and forward-deployed engineers, plus more than 600,000 AI-enabled data center jobs. The server racks, unlike the chatbots, still need electricians.

The Jobs With the Science-Fiction Salaries

At the upper end, AI has created a compensation market that resembles professional sports, except the competitors wear hoodies and discuss inference latency.

A Syracuse University review put chief AI officer compensation between $200,000 and more than $500,000, while specialized roles can exceed $400,000 after bonuses and equity. Frontier research engineers, AI infrastructure specialists and engineers who can train or deploy advanced models command some of the largest packages.

Then there is the forward-deployed engineer, an old Palantir title that the AI boom has placed on a rocket sled. These engineers embed with customers, translating an executive’s desire to “do something with AI” into software that works. The Next Web reported that Indeed postings for the role were about 19 times higher in January than a year earlier.

A CTO guide from the blog Signal Through the Noise placed forward-deployed engineer compensation between $238,000 and $700,000, research-engineering packages as high as $1.4 million and chief AI officer compensation above $1 million in some cases. It also made a less flattering observation: Many lavishly differentiated titles describe the same three basic functions. People build AI products, train models or keep the infrastructure from catching fire.

The Department of Unnecessary Titles

AI has created some genuinely new work. Evals engineers design tests to determine whether models perform reliably. AI red teamers try to make systems fail before customers do. Model behavior engineers study why an AI system responds as it does. AI governance leaders manage risks involving data, bias, security and regulation.

Other titles seem to have escaped from a brainstorming retreat.

There is the Claude Evangelist, whose mission apparently combines product education with the traditional duties of an apostle. There are vibe coders, who build software by describing what they want and accepting AI-generated code with varying degrees of supervision. “Vibe engineer” is the more respectable version, roughly equivalent to putting on a blazer before asking the machine to fix the login page.

“Context engineer” is a real discipline involving the data, instructions, memory and tools supplied to AI models. “Prompt engineer,” once advertised as a possible six-figure profession for gifted chatbot whisperers, is increasingly treated as one skill inside a broader AI role.

The CTO guide also identified “builder,” “AI-native developer,” “RAG engineer,” “agentic AI engineer” and “principal agentic GenAI forward-deployed context architect,” the last of which appears to require both technical proficiency and exceptional lung capacity.

Has AI created entirely new jobs? Absolutely. Some occupations, including AI safety, evaluation and model governance, exist because modern generative systems introduced new technical and business problems. However, many job titles are old jobs with fresh vocabulary, higher salary bands and a sudden aversion to the words “software developer.”

That may be the safest prediction about AI and employment. The machines will automate some tasks, generate others and force companies to rethink the division of labor. Before any of that is settled, however, corporate America will form a steering committee, appoint a chief agentic transformation evangelist and schedule a meeting to determine what that person does.

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