Blockchains does not require append-only. There are pruning techniques like Automatic Transaction Rebroadcasting coming out on high-throughput blockchains like Saito:
These techniques will eventually get ported over to Bitcoin or whatever survives long-enough to need it. We'll get 20, 50 and 100-year rebroadcasting chains. Fees will be higher if the data needs to be stored longer. Spectrum of uses from investment to cash with different degrees of value-persistence.
Historically, there has been a number of ideas proposed. Many different variants of subchains and sidechains, different types of payment channels, ecash systems and so on.
The idea that someone discovered these in 2017 seems oblivious to what actually happened. Support for payment channels with nLockTime was likely influential for implementing transactions with smart contracts in the first place. It was there from the first Satoshi release, and payment channels was described already in 2013. It probably wasn't first on the list of things to fix as long as transactions were heavily subsidized by inflation.
Yes for your individual contributions. For the good companies, they will match 50% putting you up to 29,250. If they are good, they will also allow you to do the mega backdoor roth [0] which allows you to contribute the remainder of the max 57,000 (so 27,750) in after tax dollars and immediately move it into a roth account where it grows tax free.
An example of a cap: the 50% match is capped at 6% of your salary so if your salary if $150,000 then they will only match that 50% on the first $9,000 of eligible contributions, so $4,500.
I actually think this is a terrible system as it punishes most the people who need it (ie lower level employees) but here we are.
For completeness, there is also vesting, which I mentioned. This means you get the match but if you leave within a certain period (eg 2 years) they will claim back your match.
401K limits are separated into 2 limits, the second being a bit more obscure.
There is the employee limit of ~19,500 which is reviewed by the IRS every year, and there is the employer limit which is an additional number where the total of both is reviewed by IRS every year. It is currently ~$56,000 or so
Many employers only barely flirt with this number, offering a few thousands here and there in various schemes.
Any software engineer doing a little contracting can pump $30,000 into their own self directed 401k acting as their own employer. You can have multiple 401ks as long as the total limit doesn't exceed that super max.
To be fair, the max you can put into a solo 401k on the employer side is limited to 20% of your net annual profit (business income minus half of self-employment tax). So in order to put in $30,000, you need to have net income of around $160k, which is doable, but more than a little contracting.
For most people here, the mega backdoor Roth is probably more doable, assuming your employer offers the option.
I work at a bank that has a vendor that uses client credentials in order to html scrape their account pages. Most banks refuse to generate consumable methodologies for other financial services to use their data, so they go about it the hackiest way possible.
The bank has many reasons to specifically not provide that functionality. And if your value proposition as a company is to farm people's financial data for your own purposes, all I can say is tread carefully.
It won't take much in terms of negative outcomes generated by increased attack surface to make bank/financial regulations even more strict.
This practice is a clear violation of just about every bank I've seen's security policy. Normal practice would be to negotlate a data sharing of some sort, but that happening would be dependent on your company's ability to generate increased visibility for, or traffic to the bank.
I don't either. It is, however, crazy to expect a bank to tolerate you granting a third, unknown party access to their data systems by sharing your personal credentials with the third party.
Your business with the bank entitles you, and only you; barring certain exceptions at their discretion, access to that data.
They do this to minimize risk and culpability in the face of a large number of adversaries that could extract value from possession of data on your personal habits.
It isn't sexy, but that is just the way it works. I've banged my head against the financial industry looking for ways to improve it, but at the end of the day, a lot of the rules and restrictions they put in place actually do make a frustratingly good deal of sense.
Think about this.
Suppose you and 1000000 other people hand login credentials for financial service X to company Y.
Company Y is basically a shell company wrapping a money laundering operation. Your combined set of login credentials becomes an ideal way to wash money into the financial system until everyone else in the financial network catches on. Then that company disappears, and sets up under a different name.
This stuff happens; and even if only some people don't notice, that's all it takes.
Contemporarily, lightning is a thing that covers most of the gripes that I've seen above your comment.