The former CEO of PIMCO sees three trends that suggest a transformation in the global economy is under way.
CEOs from two of the biggest crypto firms in the world are giving a nod of approval to Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin’s idea for how exchanges can maintain transparency for their customers.
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Voices
Dec 20: Brookings Online Debate: Should Crypto be Regulated by the Federal Government?
Brookings | Dec 7, 2022
Tuesday, December 20, 2022, 9:00 - 10:00 a.m. EST
Online: https://www.brookings.edu/
Debate moderator: Kelly Evans, Anchor, CNBC's "The Exchange"
YES, crypto should be regulated
- Peter Conti-Brown, Class of 1965 Associate Professor of Financial Regulation, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Nonresident Fellow, Economic Studies, Brookings
See: Hester Peirce Reaffirms That the SEC’s Current Approach to Crypto Is ‘Not a Good Way of Regulating’
NO, crypto should not be regulated
- Stephen G. Cecchetti, Rosen Family Chair in International Finance, Brandeis International Business School
Register for this virtual debate on Dec 20 --> Now
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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CFTC Commissioner: Average Retail Investor Protection Should Be Different Than Millionaires
Decrypt | Alys Key | Dec 1, 2022
Image: Pixabay/geralt
The CFTC chief has proposed that the average crypto investor should get different protection from professional and high-net-worth individuals.
- She added that she was not seeking to cut off the average investor’s access to the markets altogether but would seek public input on what kinds of extra protections should be afforded to these users. Initial ideas include easy-to-understand disclosures and limitations on leverage.
See: CSA releases 2022-2025 Business Plan focused on investor protection
- She was critical of the shift towards giving users direct access to the markets via trading apps, saying that a broker traditionally adds an extra layer of protection for the customer. I caution against market structures that remove a broker’s duties to retail customers without a full assessment of what will be lost,” she said.
- Romero also called for her agency to invoke “heightened supervision” of crypto exchanges, adding she had been calling for such a move internally for months.
Continue to the full article --> 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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NYT DealBook Summit: Sam Bankman-Fried Interviewed About the Collapse of FTX
New York Times | Dec 1, 2022
Image: NYT DealBook Summit
Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder of the cryptocurrency firm FTX, gave his first live interview since his company filed for bankruptcy. Andrew Ross-Sorkin of The New York Times asked Bankman-Fried to address allegations of fraud and mismanagement and whether the people and organizations who are owed money will get any of it back.
Watch the full interview from the DealBook Summit event.
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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Audio Interviews (post-bankruptcy) with Sam Bankman-Fried on FTX Collapse
Coindesk | Sam Kessler, Nelson Wang | Nov 29, 2022
Image: youtube
Among the more unprecedented elements of the FTX saga has been the fact that Bankman-Fried, who was raised by two lawyers, can’t seem to keep his mouth shut despite mounting legal threats.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire blew up in spectacular fashion at the beginning of this month, and questions continue to swirl around the motives and mechanics that caused crypto exchange FTX and its sister company, Alameda Research, to collapse.
See: CB Insights: FTX ‘Bagholders’ — Investments and M&A Portfolio Map
After cryptic tweet threads and a viral DM exchange with a Vox reporter in which he said “f**k regulators” and admitted that his philanthropic identity was largely manufactured for PR reasons, Bankman-Fried’s actual voice is being heard for the first time post-FTX collapse with newly released audio from Tiffany Fong – a crypto investor-turned-whistleblower who initially gained attention for leaking audio that showed Celsius Network, the now-bankrupt crypto lending platform, planned to use a cynical “crypto-based solution” to repay users of its Earn Lending platform.
First audio interviews with SBF post-bankruptcy
First interview with Tiffany Fong
In this phone call interview, Sam Bankman-Fried or SBF, former CEO and founder of FTX, chats with me about filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the alleged backdoor, the use of FTT as collateral, ties to the Democratic Party, laundering Ukraine money, the solvency / insolvency of FTX US, lawyers, and the jurisdictional battle ahead as well as his next steps forward.
See: CFTC Says Bitcoin is the Only Commodity | ECB Criticizes Digital Asset Sector for Facilitating Illegal Activity
Second interview with Tiffany Fong
SBF Talks FTX user funds on Alameda, $8 billion hole illiquidity, CZ, the run on the bank. Sam Bankman-Fried shows remorse
Continue to the full article --> 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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Big 6 Banks’ say ‘Hole in Financial System’ | Role in Freeland’s Convoy Plan
Canada Today | | Nov 25, 2022
Image: Pexels/Mohamed Almari
When Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland called the chief executive officers of Canada’s Big Six banks on Sunday in February before their government invoked the Emergencies Act, the CEOs stressed that the resources at their disposal were to support that to choke off the money pouring in from the convoy protests were limited.
- Accounts of at least three calls Ms Freeland made with bank CEOs over an eight-day period are contained in summaries dubbed “readouts” and in Ms Freeland’s handwritten notes from the meetings, which took place Thursday at the Investigating the Use of the Emergency Law.
- At that moment, banks needed court orders to freeze funds, CEOs said, which are slow to grant. To give banks the ability to freeze funds faster, the government needed to sanction protesters under the same financial crime laws it applies to terrorists, three [bank] CEOs said. They also called on the government to close loopholes in systems to monitor transactions by bringing a wider range of payment providers under stricter regulations.
- Ms Freeland’s first assignment was an attempt to involve the banks in ending the convoy protests and get the bankers’ help in assessing the severity of the damage to Canada’s economy. Subsequent calls focused on working out the complex mechanisms to stop the flow of money to the protesters.
- What the CEOs weren’t told on the first call on February 13 was that the government was preparing to use the emergency law to expand banks’ powers to freeze accounts.
See: NCFA Response to FINTRAC’s ‘Knee Jerk’ Regulations Requiring Donation Crowdfunding Platforms to Register and Comply with AML/ATF Legislation
- Bank CEOs:
- TD’s Mr. Masrani stressed that “Canada’s reputation is at risk,” and was echoed minutes later by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce CEO Victor Dodig
- BMO’s Mr White reportedly called the blockades “a national crisis”, urged Ms Freeland to “act immediately” and quoted a US investor who told him: “I will not invest another red cent in your banana republic in Canada”
- Banks urge government: Prior to the Feb. 13 conference call, TD TD-T, CIBC CM-T and Bank of Nova Scotia BNS-T had privately encouraged the government to bring non-bank payment providers “more clearly” under existing anti-money laundering laws.
- That day, Mr Masrani told Ms Freeland the “big hole” in the system was those payment providers, including crowdfunding platforms, and CIBC’s Mr Dodig was also pushing for measures that would cover “the entire financial system,” according to an ad. Another CEO added, “Let’s be clear, they will all eventually move to crypto.”
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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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Top Economist says Headed for a ‘Profound Economic and Financial Shift’
Fortune | Alena Botros | Nov 23, 2022
The former CEO of PIMCO sees three trends that suggest a transformation in the global economy is under way.
- There’s a tendency to see economic challenges as “temporary and quickly reversible,” El-Erian wrote in a commentary for Foreign Affairs. He referenced economic theory that a recession occurs when a business cycle reaches its natural endpoint and before the next cycle really takes flight, but he said this time won’t be one more turn of the “economic wheel,” as he sees the world experiencing major changes that “will outlast the current business cycle.”
- 3 Major Shifts:
- 1. The first shift was driven by the effects of the pandemic, beginning with the entire system coming to a halt and stimulus from the government, or what El-Erian called “enormous handouts,” causing “demand surges well ahead of supply.”
- 2. It’s tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that resulted in sanctions and geopolitical tensions, along with a widespread labor shortage brought forward by the pandemic. These disruptions in supply chains gave way to “nearshoring,” a more permanent shift of companies moving their production closer to home, rather than a reconstruction of the 2019-era supply chain. This essentially reflects a change in the “nature of globalization.”
- 3. “Making matters worse, these changes in the global economic landscape come at the same time that central banks are fundamentally altering their approach,” El-Erian said. As he has been for months now, El-Erian criticized the Federal Reserve in particular for being too slow to recognize inflation entrenching itself into the economy, and then for its steep rate hikes to make up for lost time.
How Canada’s economy is being impacted by the war in Ukraine
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The world isn’t just teetering on the brink of another recession,” he continued. “It is in the midst of a profound economic and financial shift. The fragility of the financial system also complicates the job of central banks,” he said. “Instead of facing their normal dilemma—how to reduce inflation without harming economic growth and employment—the Fed now faces a trilemma: how to reduce inflation, protect growth and jobs, and ensure financial stability.
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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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Having Safe CEX: CZ and Brian Armstrong Support Vitalik’s Idea for Transparency
Daily Hodl | | Nov 21, 2022
CEOs from two of the biggest crypto firms in the world are giving a nod of approval to Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin’s idea for how exchanges can maintain transparency for their customers.
- Buterin suggested a system where users can verify their personal balances through a Merkle Tree, protected with the privacy of a zk-SNARK (zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge).
- Merkle Trees help encode blockchain data more efficiently and securely and can assist in quickly verifying information without revealing an entire data set. KZGs are a type of polynomial commitment scheme that allow verifiers to confirm claimed evaluations.
- Responding to Buterin’s proposal, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong thanked the Ethereum co-founder and said on-chain accounting will be important for the industry moving forward.
- Meanwhile, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says he is working on Buterin’s new ideas.
See: Grayscale Won’t Share Proof of Reserves | Bitvo Escapes FTX | (Some) DeFi Platforms Benefit from CEX Exodus
Vitalik Buterin:
“In the longer-term future, my hope is that we move closer and closer to all exchanges being non-custodial, at least on the crypto side. Wallet recovery would exist, and there may need to be highly centralized recovery options for new users dealing with small amounts, as well as institutions that require such arrangements for legal reasons, but this can be done at the wallet layer rather than within the exchange itself.
Continue to the full article --> 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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