Quantum Technologies on Fiber Will Advance AI, Other Applications … – BroadbandBreakfast.com
Quantum technology is not merely a stepwise improvement on current technologies, but a seismic leap, said Qubitekk’s Duncan Earl.
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WASHINGTON, December 27, 2022 – The new technology of quantum networking, run over fiber infrastructure, can enable advances in technologies, including artificial intelligence and virtual reality, according to an executive at a quantum computing company.
Quantum technologies will likely enable a range of highly advanced technologies, including many related to artificial intelligence, said Qubitekk chief technology officer Duncan Earl at a Fiber Broadband Association web event. He suggested quantum could be used to enhanced language translation tools and enhanced virtual reality.
But those quantum networks will need to operate over fiber, according to FBA President Gary Bolton.
Quantum technology is not merely be a stepwise improvement on current technologies, Earl said, but a seismic leap. Quantum computing is “…billions and billions of times more powerful on certain types of problems, problems that we can’t solve today, even if…the whole world was covered in super computers,” he said.
Quantum deals with tiny particles, and it relies heavily on two concepts, “superposition” and “entanglement.” Superposition is the ability of particles to exist in multiple places at once. Entangled particles are distinct particles that behave as a single particle – even if they are far apart.
Quantum networks, like traditional networks, transmit information between nodes. Instead of sending classical bits, however, quantum networks send quantum bits – or qubits – each of which is comprised of a single photon, Earl said. Unlike the classical binary bit, which is limited to a “1” or a “0”, a qubit has unlimited values.
“The biggest difference is the signal type,” Earl added later in his presentation, comparing traditional fiber and quantum networks. “Instead of sending an optical pulse with billions and billions of photons down the fiber, you’re sending just a single photon and so the detection of that is going to be quite a bit different and the preservation of that information is quite a bit different.”
Quantum computers, operating systems, and networks currently in development are likely to rapidly spread into markets, according to Earl. In November, the City of Chattanooga’s EPB announced a partnership with Qubitekk to launch a quantum network. A long-standing network innovator, Chattanooga in 2010 announced the availability of 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) speeds and in 2015 launched speeds of 10 Gbps.
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Reporter David B. McGarry hails from sunny Los Angeles. He has written extensively on privacy and tech policy. His work has appeared in such publications as RealClearPolicy and The Center Square.
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Some crypto skeptics say that regulating the digital coin is a mistake since it would provide legitimacy to the industry.
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December 20, 2022 – Academics discussed the potential usefulness of crypto-related technologies and how they should be regulated at a web event hosted Tuesday by The Brookings Institution.
The prices of digital assets have fluctuated wildly in the last year, driving calls for the institution of a crypto-specific regulatory framework. The price of Bitcoin, for instance, plummeted from $64,400 in November 2021 to less than $17,000 early Tuesday afternoon. The downfall of prominent Crypto exchange FTX, allegedly due to massive fraud, has provided further rhetorical fodder to would-be regulators.
Some crypto skeptics say that regulating crypto is a mistake, however, since it would provide legitimacy to the industry. “Legitimizing [crypto] is simply going to drain creative resources from productive activities,” argued Stephen Cecchetti, Rosen Family Chair in International Finance at the Brandeis International Business School. “In economic terms, this would be like subsidizing a dead-weight loss.”
Cecchetti argued that a new regulatory regime would push crypto into the traditional financial world. “Imagine where we would be if leveraged financial intermediaries had been holding crypto in November of 2021, before the plunge in value,” Cecchetti. “So if we need any new rules, they’re rules to prohibit exposure of traditional leveraged intermediaries – prohibit banks, dealers, insurers, pension funds – from holding this stuff and from accepting it as collateral.”
Peter Conti-Brown, professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and nonresident fellow at The Brookings Institution, argued that crypto, even without a dedicated regulatory framework, has already been established a significant foothold. Policymakers should clarify how crypto assets fit into existing regulatory structures, Conti-Brown argued. Due to similarities of various types of crypto to elements of traditional finance, he said, the absence of crypto regulation is a “declaration of a prosecutorial non-enforcement of existing laws.”
Regulators should make clear that “if you’re going to act and smell and quack like a bank, you need to charter, and if you’re going to hawk securities, you need to register,” Conti-Brown argued later in the conversation.
While crypto’s biggest proponents argue that it, along with its underlying technology, blockchain, are revolutionary innovations, many don’t agree. At a recent Senate hearing held Wednesday on the FTX collapse, a law professor from the American University Washington College of Law advocated banning crypto outright. One senator advocated instituting a “pause” on crypto at a hearing held two weeks prior.
Cecchetti voice skepticism as well. “I don’t think crypto is the future of anything” he said, adding that it is, in his opinion, “utterly without redeeming social value.”
Conti-Brown said some crypto-related innovations may prove useful. He further argued that the very possibility of blockchain-driven innovations threatens incumbent industry – e.g., traditional financial technology firms – and will likely drive innovation.
“Every major payments player is…following blockchain developments, and thinking about where this might represent both opportunity and challenge,” Conti-Brown said. Crypto solutions may be “inchoate, (but) are not non sequiturs,” he added.
Toomey advocated instituting consumer protections and disclosure requirements in the crypto industry.
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WASHINGTON, December 14, 2022 – As legislators’ animosity toward digital assets builds following the FTX meltdown, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., on Wednesday defended the industry during a Senate Banking Committee hearing.
FTX, until recently a highly regarded crypto exchange, suffered an acute liquidity crisis and subsequently filed for bankruptcy in November. The crunch was triggered by reports that the FTX-linked investment firm, Alameda Research, relied heavily on FTX’s in-house token, FTT.
Since the collapse, intense scrutiny has revealed that FTX improperly financed Alameda’s ventures with billions of customers’ investment dollars. Bahaman authorities arrested FTX founder and former-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried on Monday, and he may face extradition to the United States.
Toomey, the committee’s ranking member, rejected proposals to “pause” cryptocurrency trading until a comprehensive regulatory scheme becomes law or eschew regulating of digital assets entirely to prevent their further legitimization. Toomey advocated instituting consumer protections and disclosure requirements that would still allow for healthy innovation in the crypto industry.
“With FTX, the problem is not the instruments that were used (digital assets), the problem was the misuse of customer funds, gross mismanagement, and likely illegal behavior,” Toomey said.
“The 2008 financial crisis involved obvious misuse of products related to mortgages,” Toomey analogized. “Did we decide to ban mortgages? Of course not.”
While several senators decried the losses the FTX collapse inflected on investors, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., raised concerns that cryptocurrency is a favorite tool of terrorists, rogue states, and other nefarious actors. With Roger Marshall, R-Kan., Warren on Wednesday sponsored a bill that would target money laundering in the crypto space.
Jennifer Schulp, director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives and a witness at the hearing, told Broadband Breakfast that Warren ignored the small relative scale of crypto-related money laundering. Illicit activity accounts for only 0.15 percent of crypto transaction volume, Schulp said.
Testifying before the committee, Hilary J. Allen, professor at the American University Washington College of Law, advocated banning crypto outright. In lieu of such a ban, she urged policymakers to bar banks from investing in crypto, which, she said, would protect the traditional financial system from crypto’s volatility. “We have little to lose from limiting the growth of the crypto industry,” Allen argued, labeling blockchain technology “not very good.”
Kevin O’Leary, an investor of Shark Tank fame, later told the committee that preventing banks from holding crypto could cripple American financial institutions. If such a ban were enacted, O’Leary said, “As an investor, I would short every American bank stock because it would make it the most uncompetitive financial services sector in the world.”
The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York filed an indictment, unsealed Tuesday, charging Bankman-Fried with eight counts of fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday filed suits against the FTX founder as well.
FTX’s new CEO, John J. Ray III, appeared before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday for a hearing at which Bankman-Fried was scheduled to testify before his arrest.
“This is really just old-fashioned embezzlement. This is just taking money from customers and using it for your own purpose,” Ray testified. “Sophisticated, perhaps, in the way they were able to sort of hide it from people, frankly, right in front of their eyes.”
CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam called on Congress to institute robust disclosure regimes and barriers against conflicts of interest.
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WASHINGTON, December 1, 2022 – The swift collapse of crypto exchange FTX is fortifying the public resolve of federal legislators and regulators to expand the executive branch’s power in digital asset markets, a Senate committee heard Thursday.
Rostin Behnam, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry committee his agency needs further statutory authority to protect consumers from harms in the digital assets space. The continued solvency of LedgerX, the only FTX affiliate subject to CFTC scrutiny, testifies to the efficacy of regulatory oversight, Behnam argued.
To prevent the recurrence of debacles like the FTX crash, Behnam called on Congress to institute a robust disclosure regime as well as barriers against conflicts of interest. Committee members denounced FTX’s failures and mirrored Behnam’s calls for congressional action.
A bill to further regulate digital asset markets has already been introduced, and continued revelations of FTX’s extensive mismanagement highlight its importance, supporters say.
Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Ranking Member John Boozman, R-Ark., in August sponsored the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act, which, in addition to enacting transparency and conflict-of-interest provisions, would require digital commodity platforms to register with the CFTC, crack down on allegedly abusive trading practices, and set cybersecurity standards.
“To be clear: there currently is no federal market regulation of spot crypto assets that are not securities. These include Bitcoin and Ether, the two most heavily traded crypto assets,” Stabenow said in prepared opening comments. “The Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act does exactly that,” she added.
A spokesperson for Stabenow on Thursday told Broadband Breakfast there is not yet “a firm timeline” for the DCCPA’s passage.
“Millions of Americans have been scammed by this colossal FTX failure,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ, a co-sponsor of the DCCPA. “Their exposure has lost a lot of folks their resources, and for some people, their hopes and dreams and security.”
One senator, Kansas Republican Rodger Marshall, suggested instituting a “pause” on digital asset exchanges until effective regulatory tools are developed.
FTX was once considered a paradigm of crypto done right and founder Sam Bankman-Fried a visionary entrepreneur. Bankman-Fried – often referred to as “S.B.F.” – garnered much media attention and distinguished himself as an advocate of crypto regulation.
In early November, CoinDesk reported that FTX’s sister trading company, Alameda Research, had a balance sheet flush with FTX’s house digital currency, FTT. Shortly thereafter, rival exchange Binance announced it would dump its own FTT holdings, which sparked a massive user run on FTX and a correspondingly dire liquidity crisis.
Binance agreed to acquire the flailing FTX but almost immediately reversed course, saying FTX was beyond saving. FTX filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 11 and Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO.
Further reports revealed that FTX had improperly siphoned billions of dollars in customer investments to Alameda’s risky investments. Such allegations of mismanagement have only amplified public outcry over the meltdown, which has cost FTX users billions of dollars.
FTX’s new chief, John J. Ray III, the executive who guided Enron through bankruptcy, wrote in a recent filing that he has never “seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”
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