Distributed ledger technology and the resulting crypto-assets have the potential to transform the financial and payments industry by leveraging features of flexibility, transparency, and rapid scalability. The constant evolution and increasing adoption of this innovation, despite cyclical turbulence, is here to stay, requiring greater stability and control in order to scale to levels unexpected just a few years ago. The opportunity in the payments industry is to bring innovation particularly in cross-border, micro- and conditional payments, to which current offerings struggle to respond due to rules, technologies, and business models that need to be evolved. To allow this innovation to fulfil its full potential, it is crucial to address the challenge related to the current high levels of risk and uncertainty and to define a clear and shared regulatory framework between national and cross-border regulators. A key role will be played by intermediaries, in particular qualified and reliable service providers, capable of meeting the needs and protecting all parties involved, private and public. They have the opportunity to be key players in the change, driving responsible, sustainable, and inclusive adoption of the innovation that DLT and crypto-assets are bringing. Nexi is at the forefront in supporting a secure and easy transition to a better society, aiming at distributed inclusion and safeguarding both the interests of all private and public stakeholders and regulatory clarity.

Mass migration to the US ended in 1931 but American and Irish consuls continued to engage with the process of transatlantic departure and arrival and it involved diplomacy. This chapter examines the trends in emigration and immigration against the context of the unfolding depression and increasingly restrictive legislation and its impact on the respective societies. It suggests that both governments shared the same intention to close their borders to certain categories of immigrants. The pattern of migration work, therefore, changed and focused mainly on the needs of the settled immigrant in Ireland and the US. The consequences of social mobility and ethnic assimilation are investigated through the financial and legal aspects of consular work. Regardless of economic conditions, the movement of peoples and monies across the Atlantic continued to give substance to the different phase of transatlantic migrant ties in the 1930s