The ongoing digitization of financial services and money creates opportunities to build more inclusive and efficient financial services and promote economic development.
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Research
Galloway: Chrome has spread globally and controls 64% of the global browser market
Scott Galloway | May 24, 2022
By far, Google Chrome is the most popular browser in the world
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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World Bank Report: Fintech and the Future of Finance
The World Bank | Michael Geller and Arpita Sarkar | May 18, 2022
The ongoing digitization of financial services and money creates opportunities to build more inclusive and efficient financial services and promote economic development.
This digital transformation presents a paradigm shift that has various policy implications, including:
- Foster beneficial innovation and competition, while managing the risks.
- Broaden monitoring horizons and re-assess regulatory perimeters as embedding of financial services blurs the boundaries of the financial sector.
- Be mindful of evolving policy tradeoffs as fintech adoption deepens.
- Review regulatory, supervisory, and oversight frameworks to ensure they remain fit for purpose and enable the authorities to foster a safe, efficient, and inclusive financial system.
- Anticipate market structure tendencies and proactively shape them to foster competition and contestability in the financial sector.
- Modernize and open up financial infrastructures to enable competition and contestability.
- Ensure public money remains fit for the digital world amid rapid advances in private money solutions.
- Pursue strong cross-border coordination and sharing of information and best practices, given the supra-national nature of fintech.
Countries should embrace these opportunities and implement policies that enable and encourage safe financial innovation and adoption. Technological advances are blurring the boundaries of both financial firms and the financial sector.
See: World Bank’s investment arm injects $10 million into FintechOS to help boost financial inclusion
New infrastructures, providers, products, business models, and market structures are shaping market outcomes in profound ways. As such, it is necessary to ensure that market outcomes remain aligned with core policy objectives as the financial sector continues to transform and policy tradeoffs evolve.
This flagship report explores the implications of fintech and the digital transformation of financial services for market outcomes on one side, and regulation and supervision, on the other, and how these interact.
This overview paper provides a high-level perspective for senior policy makers and is accompanied by a set of notes that focus in detail on selected salient issues for a more technical audience.
Download Links:
- Overview Paper: 108 pages
- Executive Summary: 25 pages
- Global Patterns of Fintech Activity and Enabling Factors: 109 pages
- Fintech Market Participants Survey: 75 pages
- Market Structure and Public Policy: 58 pages
- Regulation and Supervision: 55 pages
- Consumer Protection - Consumer Risks and Regulatory Approaches: 75 pages
- Innovation in Payments: 55 pages
- SME Finance - Expanding Responsible Access: 51 pages
- What Does Digital Money Mean for Emerging Market and Developing Economies: 41 pages
Download the full series of all reports --> here
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Onchain Blockchain Visual Analysis Tool Designed for Web3
Chainanalysis | May 18, 2022
How Storyline reinvents investigations for web3
When Chainalysis invented blockchain analysis tools in 2014, very few people understood what was happening on Bitcoin blockchain. Transaction records were difficult to interpret and it was hard to distinguish between addresses in a private wallet and an address on a custodial exchange. Reactor solved this problem by providing an easy way to visualize relationships between on-chain transactions and real world identity. Our goal with Chainalysis Storyline is to bring this same simplicity to the more complex multi-chain world of DeFi, and make it easy for our users to comprehend the blockchains of the web3 era.
See: Hong Kong’s Web3 ‘Mr. Metaverse’ vs. Mark Zuckerberg
How exactly does DeFi make cryptocurrency transactions more complicated for investigators? The core issue is chain hopping. DeFi protocols have made chain hopping easy, allowing users to switch between several different kinds of cryptocurrency in a single transaction. Cross-chain graphing in Chainalysis Reactor can mitigate much of that complexity, but tracking funds across blockchains to separate destinations can still be time-consuming.
Another issue is that many seemingly simple DeFi transactions actually involve multiple smart contracts, making them appear more complex on the blockchain than they really are. For example, below we see what a typical NFT transaction looks like in a standard blockchain explorer.
Even though at its core, this transaction represents one wallet selling an NFT to another, there are multiple other smart contracts involved, which will therefore be reflected on the blockchain: OpenSea as the NFT marketplace, the NFT collection’s smart contract, both users’ proxy contracts, and a few others. While an investigator following the NFT is likely only interested in the wallets belonging to the buyer and sellers, they would still have to parse the other entities to follow the funds.
Chainalysis Storyline solves these complexities with a new, web3-native blockchain analysis tool that provides a holistic view of the movements of all funds an address has transacted with across blockchains, but still allows investigators to concentrate on the transactions and funds that matter most to them.
See: Last year, illicit crypto addresses received all-time-high $14 billion but that was only 0.15% of total volume
With Storyline, a user constructs a new story by starting with a transaction hash. The easy-to-use interface allows you to focus on the transactions, assets and related wallets that are of most interest. With a few clicks you’ve built a timeline of the most important interactions that clearly illustrate the movement of tokens.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Underground bitcoin mining operations in China lead to resurgence
Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance | May 17, 2022
New mining map data, spanning the period from September 2021 to January 2022, included shows that the US has remained at the forefront of Bitcoin mining and extended its leading position (37.84%) amidst the global hashrate recovery. Following a sudden uptick in covert mining operations after the June 2021 government-mandated ban on Bitcoin mining, China has re-emerged as a major mining hub (21.11%). Kazakhstan (13.22%), Canada (6.48%), and Russia (4.66%) have been relegated to more distant places.
See:
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Bitcoin Mining Council Protest ‘Misleading’ Letter Sent to EPA
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Bitcoin mining is worse for the environment since China banned it
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Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI): China’s crackdown puts US in pole position and Canada in 4th
When we released the last update of the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI), mining map in October 2021 (covering data up to the end of August 2021), the Bitcoin network was grappling with the consequences of the Chinese ban on domestic mining activities. The government crackdown immediately resulted in a harsh decline of the total hashrate – the network’s aggregate computing power – which bottomed at 57.47 Exahashes per second (EH/s) on 27 June 2021.
A new global bitcoin mining landscape
- Kazakhstan emerged as a popular destination for miners leaving China and quickly turned into a major Bitcoin mining centre, hosting about 18.10% of the network’s total hashrate in August 2021.
- China: Recent research has suggested that the Chinese decision to ban Bitcoin mining has worsened (rather than improved) Bitcoin’s environmental footprint.
- Russia on the other hand not only experienced a substantial drop in relative hashrate share from 11.23% in August 2021 to 4.66% in January 2022. One deterring reason could be perceived political risk given the vocal opposition of the Russian central bank to Bitcoin mining, going as far as lobbying for outlawing this activity.
- Canada experienced only a moderate increase in its hashrate from 11.54 EH/s in August 2021 to 12.15 EH/s in January 2022, which resulted in a loss in market share from 9.55% to 6.48% as total network hashrate was growing significantly faster.
- Iran has seen a severe drop in reported hashrate from 3.75 EH/s (3.11%) to 0.23 EH/s (0.12%) in January 2022, making it join the long tail of other countries with sub-1% shares.
Continue to the full article --> here
View visual mining map --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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a16z Releases 2022 State of Crypto Report: 5 Key Takeaways
a16z crypto | Daren Matsuoka, Eddy Lazzarin, Chris Dixon, and Robert Hackett | May 17, 2022
This report is the first of what will be an annual overview of trends in the crypto industry, shared through the a16z crypto vantage point of both tracking data and across the countless entrepreneurs and builders we meet. It’s for anyone who seeks to understand the evolution of the internet, and where we are on the journey towards a decentralized, community-owned-and-operated alternative to the centralized tech platforms of web2 – especially as it touches creators and other builders.
5 Key Takeaways
1. We’re in the middle of the fourth ‘price-innovation’ cycle
Although crypto can be volatile and its cycles seem chaotic, there is an underlying logic at work, as Chris and Eddy first pointed out in 2020. (See slides 9 through 12 in the deck.) Whereas prices are often a lagging indicator of performance in some industries, in crypto they are a leading indicator. Prices are a hook. The numbers drive interest, which drives ideas and activity, which in turn drives innovation. We call this feedback loop “the price-innovation cycle”, and it has been the engine that has propelled the industry through multiple distinct waves since Bitcoin’s inception in 2009.
See: Crypto Payments Report 2022: How digital currencies are revolutionizing commerce, corporates and culture
Analysts at Andreessen Horowitz wrote in a blog post Tuesday announcing the firm’s inaugural “State of Crypto” research report:
Price are a Hook. The numbers drive interest, which drives ideas and activity, which in turn drives innovation.
2. web3 is much, much better for creators than web2
The take-rates of web2 giants are extortionate; web3 platforms offer fairer economic terms. (See slide 39 in the deck.) Compare Meta’s nearly 100% take-rates across Facebook and Instagram to NFT marketplace OpenSea’s 2.5%. As U.S. Congressman Ritchie Torres noted in a recent op-ed:
“You know something is profoundly wrong with our economy when Big Tech has a higher take rate than the mafia.
NFTs are the start of what is next for the creator economy, Dixon said. NFT (non-fungible tokens) creators earned on average $174,000 per creator in 2021. Music platform Spotify, which hosts 11 million artists, earned on average $636 per artist in 2021, the research report noted.
3. Crypto is having a real-world impact
Creator payouts are just one example of crypto’s benefits; there are many others. Consider the financial system. The status quo has failed many people: More than 1.7 billion people don’t have bank accounts, per the World Bank.
See: Giving block reports, Crypto philanthropy jumped nearly 16x in 2021
Demand for decentralized finance or DeFi, and digital dollars, has increased dramatically in the past few years, even after accounting for the recent downturn, as the accompanying slides show. (See slides 26, 28, and 33.) For underserved and unbanked populations – 1 billion of whom have mobile phones – crypto offers a shot at financial inclusion. Projects like Goldfinch are expanding access to capital that would otherwise be unavailable in emerging markets.
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Download the 56 page PDF report --> here
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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67% of top 1000 US Websites Violate EU’s General Data Protection Law (GDPR)
PYMNTS | Mar 31, 2022
The European Union has passed several laws aimed at providing digital identity protection, among them the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect in 2018.
Among the biggest violators of these protocols? American websites. According to one study, 67% of the top 1,000 websites in the United States were in violation of the GDPR.
The violations at work here vary, with 43% of websites not offering users the ability to opt out of selling data, 55% failing to notify users of cookies when they visit the site for the first time, and 32% of sites containing ad trackers.
See: How Verifiable Digital Identity Will Protect Your Post-Pandemic Privacy
The study pointed out that while GDPR exclusively concerns Europe, websites originating in the U.S. still sell goods and services to EU customers. Fines for violations of the GDPR range from $80,000 to $120,000.
To help smaller app developers make sure they’re complying with the GDPR — and thus avoiding penalties they may not be able to afford — Google has launched a new platform called Checks that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to scan code bases and evaluate them for privacy and other areas in which they may fall short of GDPR’s standards. In addition, the platform performs scans for compliance in the U.S. and Brazil, ensuring a significant portion of the world’s app developers are avoiding regulatory penalties.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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7 Essential Ingredients of an (Open) Metaverse Framework
a16z | Liz Harkavy, Eddy Lazzarin, Arianna Simpson | May 10, 2022
There has been a lot of buzz about “the metaverse” since its coinage in the ‘90s, but especially during the pandemic (given the surge in online activity), and even more so after Facebook changed its name to Meta.
In many ways, the metaverse is just another name for evolving the internet: to be more social, immersive, and far more economically sophisticated than what exists today. There are, broadly speaking, two competing visions for how to bring this about:
- One is decentralized, generous with property rights and new frontiers, interoperable, open, and owned by the communities that build and maintain it.
- The other vision is centralized, closed, subject to the whims of corporations; and often extracts painful economic rents from its creators, contributors, and inhabitants.
An open metaverse is decentralized, allows users to control identity, enforces property rights, aligns incentives, and ensures value accrues to users (not platforms).
See: CB Insights: Metaverse stack and companies making it a reality
An open metaverse is also transparent, permissionless, interoperable, and composable (others can freely build within and across metaverses), among other criteria.
Achieving a “true” metaverse — one that’s open versus closed — requires seven essential ingredients intrinsic to this sought-after state. We argue that these are necessary to meet the minimum requirement to be called a metaverse. Our goal is to clear the fog of misinformation about what is and isn’t a true metaverse for builders and would-be participants, and to provide a framework for evaluating early metaverse attempts.
- Decentralization
- Property Rights
- Self-sovereign identity
- Composability
- Openness/open source
- Community ownership
- Social immersion
We believe — as is evident in this framework — that a metaverse cannot exist without the fundamental foundations of web3 tech.
See: Blockchain-based replacement for traditional crowdfunding: DAOs
Openness and decentralization are the pillars upon which the whole edifice rests. Property rights rely on decentralization — they must endure despite the influence of powerful adversaries. Community ownership prevents unilateral control of the system. The approach also bolsters open standards, which are helpful for decentralizing and composability, a closely related property downstream of interoperability.
The development of an ideal multi-dimensional virtual world will come about gradually. Many problems remain to be solved.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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