Far Eastern Air Transport Corp (FAT, 遠東航空) has voluntarily stopped accepting Airline and Life Networking Tokens (ALLN) — a cryptocurrency — for ticket purchases, due to concerns that doing so could disrupt the market order and lead to a race to the bottom, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said on Friday.
FAT told the Central News Agency that it has stopped using the system, but made no public statement.
The ALLN system, developed by FAT’s parent company, Huafu Enterprise Holdings Ltd (樺福集團), offered passengers discounted tickets as low as 55 percent of the original price, the carrier said.
The system, which was introduced in August last year, has the potential to generate tickets below the regulated minimum price for domestic flight tickets, the CAA said.
It could also create a vicious cycle with airlines pushed into a race to the bottom for cheap tickets on domestic routes, the CAA said.
The ALLN system, which has ambitions to become a leading blockchain-based system for real-world consumption, has another problem, the CAA said.
As a result of its marketing mechanism, FAT could inadvertently report inaccurate financial information, because fluctuations on the virtual currency market mean values stated in ALLN tokens could differ markedly when those tokens are converted into “real” money.
The CAA and Financial Supervisory Commission last year asked FAT to provide detailed information on transaction processes and accounting methods, but the company failed to do so.
FAT, which had about 2,000 tickets purchased using ALLN tokens last year, said that although it is suspending the use of the system, the currency can still be used to purchase tour packages from URTraveller (遠行旅遊), a local travel agency and Huafu subsidiary.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last