Coin

A coin is a piece of hard material used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government.

Coins are usually metal or alloy, or sometimes made of synthetic materials. They are usually disc shaped. Coins made of valuable metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in everyday transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation (i.e. excluding bullion coins) is worth less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the face value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain, for example due to inflation. If the difference becomes significant, the issuing authority may decide to withdraw these coins from circulation, or the public may decide to melt the coins down or hoard them (see Gresham's law).

Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of silver or gold (and, rarely, other metals, such as platinum or palladium), intended for collectors or investors in precious metals. Examples of modern gold collector/investor coins include the British sovereign minted by the United Kingdom, the American Gold Eagle minted by the United States, the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf minted by Canada, and the Krugerrand, minted by South Africa. While the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal (purely symbolic) face values; the Krugerrand does not.

37coins

37coins was a bitcoin wallet provider headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company launched on December 31, 2013, and announced its closing August 12, 2015. The company created bitcoin technologies for emerging markets such as the Philippines and Singapore, where access to smartphone and desktop PC apps is limited.

Users of 37coins could send and receive bitcoins to their bitcoin wallets, called SMSwallets. The SMSwallets were controlled by SMS/text commands sent from simple feature phones, such as a Nokia 100. Using the system, bitcoins could be sent and received from any bitcoin wallets.

SMSgateway

The company developed an SMS gateway system, called SMSgateway. It was an android application that ran on Android phones and connect a country's local SMS network to the internet. By relaying messages between the SMSwallets and the 37coins server, gateway operators earned a small commission from each transaction that passed through their gateway. There were gateways in over 18 countries.

Combined Online Information System

The Combined Online Information System (COINS) is a database containing HM Treasury's detailed analysis of departmental spending under thousands of category headings. The database contains around 24 million lines of data. The database has codes for more than 1,700 public bodies in the United Kingdom including central government departments, local authorities, NHS trusts and public corporations. COINS is used by the Office for National Statistics for statistical purposes.

The Treasury describes the database as "a web based multi-dimensional database used by HM Treasury to collect financial information". Data from the COINS database is used to prepare the National Accounts.

Structure and technical details

The Combined Online Information System or COINS database is one of the biggest datasets in government. COINS uses a database called Camelot. The system is supplied by Descisys.

History

COINS replaced three separate systems previously used by the British Government, Public Expenditure System (PES), Government Online Data System (GOLD) and General Expenditure Monitoring System (GEMS).