Category Archives: Voices

August 17, 2022   Blockchain, Crypto, Digital Assets, Tokens, CBDCs, Stablecoins, Metaverse, NFTs, Digital Identity, Privacy, KYC, AML/ATF, Enterprise, Scaleup, FinTech and Alternative Finance, Fintech International, Fintech Services, Innovation and Resources, Leadership, Competition, Human Capital, Health, Voices, Web3, Decentralization, DAOs   No comments

Censorship: Vitalik Votes to Burn Staked Ethereum of Validators that Would Comply with Sanctions

CryptoSlate | Samuel Wan | Aug 16, 2022

SanctionsEthereum's Beacon Chain Validators Discuss Censorship Resistance

In a recent Twitter poll on Ethereum censorship, Vitalik Buterin revealed that he voted to punish validators complying with censorship requests by burning their staked tokens.The poll was held by software engineer Eric Wall, who asked the Ethereum community if they would burn the staked tokens of validators who comply with censorship requests or “tolerate the censorship” and do nothing.

The majority of voters  — 62%, including Buterin — opted for the former. Meanwhile, 9% voted to tolerate censorship, and 29% clicked show results. As of press time, several hours remain until the poll closes.

See: 

Canadian cryptocurrency exchanges ordered to cease dealings with convoy-linked accounts

Want Institutional Adoption? You Have to Sacrifice Tornado Cash, says Kevin O’Leary

Wall’s poll was a response to a tweet from Lefteris Karapetsas, the founder of Rotkiap, a privacy-focused portfolio tracker, who asked five significant Proof-of-Stake validators if they would comply with censorship requests or respond to the request by closing their staking service.

Continue to the full article --> here

NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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

NCFA Financial Innovation MapNCFA Innovation Opportunity BriefsNCFA Fintech Insights
NCFA Fintech WhispererNCFA Fintech Fridays PodcastNCFA Weekly Newsletter

 

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August 15, 2022   FinTech and Alternative Finance, Fintech International, Innovation and Resources, Leadership, Competition, Human Capital, Health, Voices   No comments

McKinsey’s Annual Summer Book List 2022

McKinsey & Co | Aug 15, 2022

McKinsey Summer Book List 2022

McKinsey’s annual book list from leaders, authors, and editors is back—with something for everyone

Book suggestion contributors

Top Recommended

Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything Is All of Us
  • Jon Alexander, Canbury Press, March 2022
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
  • Bill Gates, Penguin Random House, August 2022
Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy
  • Henry Kissinger, Penguin Random House, July 2022
Liberalism and Its Discontents
  • Francis Fukuyama, Macmillan, May 2022
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know
  • Adam Grant, Penguin Random House, February 2021

View the full book list --> here

NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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

NCFA Financial Innovation MapNCFA Innovation Opportunity BriefsNCFA Fintech Insights
NCFA Fintech WhispererNCFA Fintech Fridays PodcastNCFA Weekly Newsletter

 

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August 15, 2022   Blockchain, Crypto, Digital Assets Regulations, Blockchain, Crypto, Digital Assets, Tokens, CBDCs, Stablecoins, Metaverse, NFTs, FinTech and Alternative Finance, Fintech International, Fintech Services, Fundraising, Investing, Trading, Legal Issues, Regulation, Consultation, Regtech, Compliance, Governance, Stories, Voices, Web3, Decentralization, DAOs   No comments

Want Institutional Adoption? You Have to Sacrifice Tornado Cash, says Kevin O’Leary

Cointelegraph | Brayden Lindrea  | Aug 14, 2022

Eye of a Tornado

Mr. Wonderful thinks that crypto needs more regulation and less “crypto cowboys” like Tornado Cash creator Alexey Pertsev, who he suggested was a necessary sacrifice to create stability for institutional inflows.

Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank host and venture capitalist:

  • Ethereum-based crypto mixer Tornado Cash are a part of a “crypto cowboy” culture that shouldn’t have a place in the industry.  Instead, crypto needs a “rules-based environment” in order to attract real institutional capital into the digital-asset industry, and much of that regulation needs to stamp out protocols like Tornado Cash, which enables users to conduct anonymous transactions and therefore potentially engage in criminal activity.

“At the end of the day, it’s okay to arrest that guy. Why? He’s messing with the primal forces of regulation [...] If we have to sacrifice him, that’s okay, because we want to have some stability in that institutional capital.”

See:  Analysis: Into the Eye of a Tornado | Sanctions Compliance Best Practices for Crypto Businesses

Gnosis co-founder Stefan George:

  • he protocol brings “much-needed privacy” to Ethereum and that writing open-source software should be recognized as “an expression of free speech.”

Patrick Collins, Chainlink Lead Developer Advocate:

  • the decision to remove Tornado Cash’s GitHub account is “much worse than sanctioning a website,” as code is speech and, by doing so, the U.S. Treasury is violating the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Continue to the full article --> here

Protocol | Aug 15, 2022

Spinning Crypto Perspectives

Dutch authorities say there may be more arrests. The Netherlands’ Financial Advanced Cyber Team, part of the country’s Fiscal Information and Investigation Service, began investigating Tornado Cash in June.

See:  How do intellectual property rights apply to AI?

  • The arrested man’s name is Alexey Pertsev, his wife confirmed to the Block. He was apprehended last Wednesday in Amsterdam’s city center, two days after the United States issued sanctions against Tornado Cash. Pertsev is not a founder of Tornado Cash. The founders are Roman Semenov and Roman Storm. Neither has been arrested, and neither responded to Protocol’s requests for comment.
  • According to Dutch authorities, Pertsev is “suspected of involvement in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering,” — not personally disobeying sanctions or making other illegal money transfers with his own funds.

Liability for contributing code is a complex question. Much depends on the specifics of a country’s law.

  • In the United States, for example, posting code on GitHub is legal in most cases so long as it’s not a violation of intellectual property law. That’s because code is viewed as speech protected by the First Amendment.
  • Jeffrey Blockinger, general counsel at Quadrata, says most developers don’t need to be concerned about an arrest. “While privacy concerns are legitimate, this arrest is reportedly focused on evidence of actual criminal activity,” he told Protocol. Quadrata, which provides an identity layer for blockchains, says it can help block people subject to sanctions and other bad actors from completing transactions.

Continue to the full article --> here

NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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

NCFA Financial Innovation MapNCFA Innovation Opportunity BriefsNCFA Fintech Insights
NCFA Fintech WhispererNCFA Fintech Fridays PodcastNCFA Weekly Newsletter

 

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August 12, 2022   Blockchain, Crypto, Digital Assets Regulations, Blockchain, Crypto, Digital Assets, Tokens, CBDCs, Stablecoins, Metaverse, NFTs, FinTech and Alternative Finance, Fintech International, Innovation and Resources, Leadership, Competition, Human Capital, Health, Legal Issues, Regulation, Consultation, Voices   No comments

The OCC is Facing Calls to Pull Guidance That Allows Banks to Do Some Crypto Business

Protocol | Brian Deffenbaugh | Aug 11, 2022

Financial Banks and cryptoA group of progressive senators including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are calling on a federal banking regulator to pull Trump-era guidance that gives banks limited clearance to engage in crypto-related business.

In a Wednesday letter addressed to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the senators pushed forward an ongoing debate over the role banks should play in the crypto ecosystem. Banking industry groups say the regulated institutions can bring stability to the volatile sector. But the lawmakers fear crypto could introduce systemic risk to the broader banking system without strict guardrails.

See:  BIS Limits Banks to Hold 1% of Reserves in Bitcoin –> “Banks Won’t HOLDL”

The OCC's current guidance was published in late 2020 and early 2021. It gives federally chartered banks clearance to provide crypto custody service, hold cash reserves backing stablecoins and use blockchain technology and stablecoins to verify bank-to-bank payments.

Inaction vs. limitation

A banking industry trade group recently argued that limiting banks’ participation in crypto is counterproductive to protecting consumers. A Monday letter from the American Bankers Association to the Treasury Department noted banks are facing restrictions that mostly keep them out of digital assets, while there is still little regulation for non-banks involved in crypto.

Brooke Ybarra, senior VP of innovation and strategy, American Bankers Assocation:

The combination of these two approaches — inaction on the one hand to bring into the regulatory perimeter non-bank crypto companies, and limitation on the other of banks’ ability to engage responsibly in the digital asset market — creates an environment that makes it nearly impossible for responsible financial innovation to occur in this space.

Next

The senators’ letter calls on the OCC to take up a new process with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Federal Reserve to clarify how the banks they oversee can engage with crypto. The letter also includes a series of questions about how many OCC-regulated banks are engaging in crypto activities.

See:  How the Big Five Banks Control Canada’s Payment Systems

The OCC, FDIC and Federal Reserve released a joint statement late last year promising further clarity would come for banks on crypto in 2022 — but guidance since then has been limited. The FDIC recently put out a statement warning banks they must monitor how the crypto firms they partner with advertise the availability of deposit insurance. That concern, plus Warren and Sanders’ attention, could be a signal of additional action coming.

Continue to the full article --> here

NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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

NCFA Financial Innovation MapNCFA Innovation Opportunity BriefsNCFA Fintech Insights
NCFA Fintech WhispererNCFA Fintech Fridays PodcastNCFA Weekly Newsletter

 

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August 5, 2022   Entrepreneurs, Start-ups, Small Businesses, Equity Crowdfunding, Alternative Funding, FinTech and Alternative Finance, Fintech International, Fundraising, Investing, Trading, Innovation and Resources, Leadership, Competition, Human Capital, Health, Legal Issues, Regulation, Consultation, Online Funding / Investing Campaigns, Online Funding / Investing Portals, Venture Funding and Building, Voices   No comments

Regulatory Committee: SEC Small Business Advisory Votes to Improve Secondary Trading of Reg A+ Securities

Crowdfund Insider | JD Alois | Aug 2, 2022

Funding and Raising capital for small businessesThe Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee (SBCFAC) met today to discuss liquidity for certain exempt securities in the form of secondary trading. More specifically, the Committee addressed securities issued under Reg CF (Regulation Crowdfunding) and Regulation A (Reg A+).

In opening remarks, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler stated:

“I look forward as well to the Committee’s discussion on secondary market liquidity for investors in Regulation A and Regulation Crowdfunding companies, and for smaller public companies. I would be interested to learn about the Committee’s thinking on these matters as it relates to promoting investor protection and facilitating capital formation.”

Ryan Feit, CEO and co-founder of SeedInvest:

  • Highlighted multiple successful offerings listed on SeedInvest that generated significant returns to investors, said there were two major outstanding hurdles to the market.
    • First diversification. Given the high rate of failure for younger firms, Feit advocated for the ability to create funds of early-stage firms under the exemptions.
    • Second liquidity - Waiting five to ten years to get a return, even when the firm is performing well, ultimately leads to less capital for these businesses. The lack of liquidity is a “huge issue,” and regulatory changes could create a “vibrant secondary market.” He also shared that greater clarity on digital securities would be helpful as distributed ledger technology could drive efficient trading in a number of ways.

Joan Adler, partner at Ellenoff, Grossman and Schole:

  • In the early days of the JOBS Act, great focus was on primary issuance. Now there is interest in secondary transactions, yet individual investors are challenged to sell shares, and issuers must manage a fragmented regulatory environment as secondary trading does not benefit from state pre-emption – meaning you must deal with the peculiarities of all 50 states and territories. A herculean task.

See:  Private markets propelled by ‘push and pull’ have grown exponentially

Andrea Seidt, the Ohio Securities Commissioner and representative of NASAA:

  • She understands the need for capital formation, but she “strongly opposes” a statement in support of secondary trading.
  • Pre-emption will lead to harsher outcomes.  She also said Feit’s examples of successful offerings that generated returns for investors was “cherry picking” and demanded more data on the success and failure rate of crowdfunded securities.

Outcome

In the end, the Committee voted on a recommendation to request the Commission allow pre-emption for securities issued under Tier 2 of Reg A+, an exemption that enables issuers to raise up to $75 million and must be qualified by the SEC. The Committee described it as a “pilot program” to support secondary trading that will provide for a harmonized environment to address the issue – one that the Committee has been discussing for years.

Continue to the full article --> here

NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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

NCFA Financial Innovation MapNCFA Innovation Opportunity BriefsNCFA Fintech Insights
NCFA Fintech WhispererNCFA Fintech Fridays PodcastNCFA Weekly Newsletter

 

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August 3, 2022   Enterprise, Scaleup, Entrepreneurs, Start-ups, Small Businesses, ESG, Financial Inclusion, Sustainable Finance, FinTech and Alternative Finance, Fintech Interviews and Podcasts, Innovation and Resources, Leadership, Competition, Human Capital, Health, Voices   No comments

A conversation with Catherine McKenna former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change: Fighting greenwashing

MaRS | Jul 21, 2022

Net Zero

Photo illustration by Monica Guan

Net-zero commitments are a critical first step in the fight against climate change. But to stave off the worst effects of a warming planet, we actually have to ensure governments and business leaders live up to those promises.

In this episode, we chat with Catherine McKenna, head of the UN Task Force against greenwashing, about regulations and accountability when it comes to net-zero targets, as well as how incentives might help.

We need to quickly scale climate solutions; which means tackling bureaucratic hurdles. Nothing is off limits.

Featured in this episode:

See:  The Steps to Designing a more sustainable and digital economy

 There’s so many innovative opportunities, but we need folks to really think differently. And this is where, making sure for cities in towns, that climate is an across-the-board theme. That you have a climate lens on everything you’re doing, that you are thinking every time you invest a dollar — you’re saying to yourself, is this going to reduce emissions? Is this going to adapt more to the impacts of climate change?

NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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

NCFA Financial Innovation MapNCFA Innovation Opportunity BriefsNCFA Fintech Insights
NCFA Fintech WhispererNCFA Fintech Fridays PodcastNCFA Weekly Newsletter

 

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August 2, 2022   Blockchain, Crypto, Digital Assets, Tokens, CBDCs, Stablecoins, Metaverse, NFTs, Enterprise, Scaleup, FinTech and Alternative Finance, Fintech International, Fintech Opinions, Fundraising, Investing, Trading, Innovation and Resources, Leadership, Competition, Human Capital, Health, Stories, Voices   No comments

Vitalik: Ethereum creator dumps cold water on Zuckerberg and Michael Saylor

Fortune | Christiaan Hetzner  | Aug 1, 2022

Vitalik dumps cold water on Zuckerberg and Saylor

Vitalik Buterin says it's too early to judge what metaverse users will actually want.

  • Many investors have suspected Mark Zuckerberg’s dream of the metaverse is doomed to fail, prompting Meta stock to more than halve over the past six months.  Now they have a prominent critic to support them.
  • Vitalik Buterin, creator of the Ethereum blockchain that ranks second only to Bitcoin in total market cap, said the Facebook founder and his company Meta are jumping the gun with investments running in the billions of dollars to create products that ultimately may never find a market.
  • And Buterin has good reason to want it to succeed rather than fail. That’s because the two crypto coins that bear his signature, ETC and then later ETH, are expected to facilitate all sorts of trade in the mixed-reality metaverse and its decentralized financial system known as Web3.

“It’s far too early to know what people actually want,” he posted on Saturday. “So anything Facebook creates now will misfire.

“I don’t think any of the existing corporate attempts to intentionally create the metaverse are going anywhere”

See:  Vitalik’s Announces Next 4 Phases of Ethereum’s Development Which is Only 40% Done

Zuck's response:

“It will be a high-end device focused on professional users and work, with high-resolution color mixed reality,” Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. “I think people are going to be pretty blown away by this.”

Zuckerberg cannot dismiss the criticism leveled by Buterin lightly, since the latter characterizes himself as a believer in the metaverse.

Continue to the full article --> here

Forkast | Danny Park | Aug 1, 2022

Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin has taken a shot at MicroStrategy chief executive officer Michael Saylor, calling him a “total clown” after the latter called the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency “inherently unethical.”

  • “Why do maximalists keep picking heroes that turn out to be total clowns?” Buterin wrote on Twitter on Sunday as a reply to a video clip of Saylor saying that securities laws are based on the 10 commandments in the Bible and hence not antiquated.

See:  Vitalik Proposes Web3 Credentials of the Future: ‘Soulbound Tokens’

  • Saylor has previously classified Ethereum as a security, citing its background of being issued through an initial coin offering (ICO), hard forks, having a management team and more.
  • Earlier this month at the Blockchain Economy Istanbul conference, the MicroStrategy CEO also questioned Ethereum’s ethics — “’Ethically sound’ means I need to know that nobody could change [the protocol], which includes Vitalik,” Saylor said.

Continue to the full article --> here

NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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

NCFA Financial Innovation MapNCFA Innovation Opportunity BriefsNCFA Fintech Insights
NCFA Fintech WhispererNCFA Fintech Fridays PodcastNCFA Weekly Newsletter

 

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