The Fed will soon release its insights on CBDCs and the crypto market, and will ask the public for input.
Cryptocurrency-based crime hit a new all-time high in 2021, with illicit addresses receiving $14 billion over the course of the year, up from $7.8 billion in 2020. BUT those numbers don’t tell the full story.
PayPal Coin could be the next project that the e-payments giant presents to the world: A stablecoin backed by american…
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
Moxie’s impressions of web3 (from making some distributed apps)
Moxie Marlinspike blog | Jan 7, 2022
Despite considering myself a cryptographer, I have not found myself particularly drawn to “crypto.” I don’t think I’ve ever actually said the words “get off my lawn,” but I’m much more likely to click on Pepperidge Farm Remembers flavored memes about how “crypto” used to mean “cryptography” than I am the latest NFT drop.
Also – cards on the table here – I don’t share the same generational excitement for moving all aspects of life into an instrumented economy.
Even strictly on the technological level, though, I haven’t yet managed to become a believer. So given all of the recent attention into what is now being called web3, I decided to explore some of what has been happening in that space more thoroughly to see what I may be missing.
How I think about 1 and 2
web3 is a somewhat ambiguous term, which makes it difficult to rigorously evaluate what the ambitions for web3 should be, but the general thesis seems to be that web1 was decentralized, web2 centralized everything into platforms, and that web3 will decentralize everything again. web3 should give us the richness of web2, but decentralized.
See: Inside the metaverse economy, jobs and infrastructure projects are becoming real
It’s probably good to have some clarity on why centralized platforms emerged to begin with, and in my mind the explanation is pretty simple:
- People don’t want to run their own servers, and never will. The premise for web1 was that everyone on the internet would be both a publisher and consumer of content as well as a publisher and consumer of infrastructure.We’d all have our own web server with our own web site, our own mail server for our own email, our own finger server for our own status messages, our own chargen server for our own character generation. However – and I don’t think this can be emphasized enough – that is not what people want. People do not want to run their own servers.
- A protocol moves much more slowly than a platform. After 30+ years, email is still unencrypted; meanwhile WhatsApp went from unencrypted to full e2ee in a year. People are still trying to standardize sharing a video reliably over IRC; meanwhile, Slack lets you create custom reaction emoji based on your face.This isn’t a funding issue. If something is truly decentralized, it becomes very difficult to change, and often remains stuck in time. That is a problem for technology, because the rest of the ecosystem is moving very quickly, and if you don’t keep up you will fail. When the technology itself is more conducive to stasis than movement, that’s a problem. A sure recipe for success has been to take a 90’s protocol that was stuck in time, centralize it, and iterate quickly.
But web3 intends to be different, so let’s take a look. In order to get a quick feeling for the space and a better understanding for what the future may hold, I decided to build a couple of dApps and create an NFT.
Making some distributed apps
To get a feeling for the web3 world, I made a dApp called Autonomous Art that lets anyone mint a token for an NFT by making a visual contribution to it. The cost of making a visual contribution increases over time, and the funds a contributor pays to mint are distributed to all previous artists (visualizing this financial structure would resemble something similar to a pyramid shape). At the time of this writing, over $38k USD has gone into creating this collective art piece.
I also made a dApp called First Derivative that allows you to create, discover, and exchange NFT derivatives which track an underlying NFT, similar to financial derivatives which track an underlying asset 😉.
See: If true, the valuation of this popular NFT marketplace would be the very top of the crypto market
Both gave me a feeling for how the space works. To be clear, there is nothing particularly “distributed” about the apps themselves: they’re just normal react websites. The “distributedness” refers to where the state and the logic/permissions for updating the state lives: on the blockchain instead of in a “centralized” database.
One thing that has always felt strange to me about the cryptocurrency world is the lack of attention to the client/server interface. When people talk about blockchains, they talk about distributed trust, leaderless consensus, and all the mechanics of how that works, but often gloss over the reality that clients ultimately can’t participate in those mechanics. All the network diagrams are of servers, the trust model is between servers, everything is about servers. Blockchains are designed to be a network of peers, but not designed such that it’s really possible for your mobile device or your browser to be one of those peers.
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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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Binance CEO’s net worth make him (at least) the world’s 11th richest person currently
Fortune | Grady McGregor | Jan 10, 2022
New estimates claim the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, is the world’s richest crypto billionaire, with a net worth rivaling the sums amassed by tech billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg.
On Monday, Bloomberg calculated that Zhao’s net worth is $96 billion, which would make him the 11th richest person in the world. On the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zhao, known as “CZ” in crypto circles, is now sandwiched between No. 12, Mukesh Ambani, CEO of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, and No. 10, Larry Ellison, cofounder of Oracle, who’s worth an estimated $107 billion.
See:
Binance hires ex-regulators and incorporates in Alberta to charter compliance course in Canada
OSC to Binance Investors ‘Not So Fast’: Binance Canada Receives License to Operate as Money Service Business
Bloomberg says its estimate is based on Zhao’s stake in Binance, reporting that the exchange generated upwards of $20 billion in revenue in 2021 and that Zhao owns 90% of Binance’s shares, according to a review of the firm’s regulatory filings.
Zhao’s net worth may be even higher than $96 billion since Bloomberg did not account for Zhao’s personal holdings of Bitcoin and Binance Coin, the cryptocurrency issued by Binance. Factoring in Zhao’s personal crypto holdings would likely give him a fortune on par with that of Bill Gates, the world’s fourth richest person with a $135 billion net worth, and Zuckerberg, the world’s fifth richest with $124 billion.
Zhao has not publicly commented on the size of his personal crypto holdings, but he told the Associated Press last November that his personal holdings make up the “majority” of his net worth.
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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Alternative forms of capital will be key to develop sustainable economic systems
Fintech Confidential Issue 4 | Éliane Ubalijoro, PhD | Jan 13, 2022
A year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy is looking cautiously at recovery. According to the World Bank, growth will be very uneven given surges of virus variants, patchy vaccination rates, and withdrawal of government support measures, so global GDP in 2021 is still expected to be 3.2% below pre-pandemic projections. To support a more equitable and sustainable recovery, it is imperative that our economic systems recognize how they need to be underpinned by "flourishing communities, strong and resilient social institutions, thriving natural ecosystems and a stable climate” as the Capitals Coalition articulates. As a member of their supervisory board, I truly believe that we must empower organizations to understand that their success and the success of the global economy more broadly is fundamentally dependent on natural, social, and human capital, in addition to produced capital.
We must work to curb greenhouse gas emissions in all the ways we produce goods and services, whether it is how we impact, air quality, energy management, water quality, how we reduce waste streams and maximize circular economies to minimize our ecological footprint. We must ask ourselves how are we valuing the rights of all people and nature, how are balancing our need for privacy and need for security, how are we making sustainable goods and services accessible, affordable and producible by all, not just some. It is time to consider product passports that standardize the ability to assess carbon footprint through a products lifecycle to help customers make buying choices that support planetary health. It is also important to ensure labor practices that favor employee health, safety, inclusion, diversity and equity.
It is time to enable that our businesses, financial institutions and governments include the value of all forms of capital in their decision-making, especially as countries face their commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement and United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
And this is where there is huge potential to leverage digital technologies and increasingly, financial technology (fintech) to support a capitals accounting approach and to develop stronger ESG (environmental, social, governance) metrics in support of more sustainable investments.
For example, AgriLedger’s work in Haiti is very inspiring. This agricultural-focused blockchain systems provider is piloting a project to use blockchain technology for traceability and payment that will allow the farmer to maintain ownership until the sale at final destination, while all the packing and logistics services will be provided by AgriLedger. This mechanism scaled globally would give more power and improved livelihoods to farmers while minimizing waste streams as produce lifecycle management ensures maximum contribution to value chains as well as composting waste to increase soil health. CarbonX, a Canadian fintech-designed environmental software, enables users to calculate the carbon impact of their products and services and to offset this through investments in carbon mitigation projects carefully evaluated not only for their environmental impact but also for their social and economic impacts. Open Climate is a collaborative project led by the Open Earth Foundation, an non-profit organization operating globally and based in the United States. The project explores the potential application of a range of digital technologies to developing a transparent, global, integrated climate accounting system and aims to co-develop a decentralized ‘ledger of ledgers’ to collect and share climate data from around the world, balancing transparency and privacy.
Even with all these excellent examples, it is critical that the tools and technology are not developed in a black box. In order to have mechanisms such as stronger ESG metrics that can potentially transform investments and truly increase accountability, it is critical to first build trust. Trust in the metrics and trust in the technologies underlying the development of those metrics. By creating more inclusive, collaborative approaches to probe the assumptions underlying the algorithms used to develop ESG metrics, trust and common standards can be agreed upon.
Another barrier to overcome is the complexity of the systems at play
There is a dichotomy between technological literacy and education to build technological capacity on the one hand, and over-complexification of digital systems on the other hand. More of an effort must be made in order to de-complexify technology to some extent. This will avoid the development of what colleagues have referred to as “technological expertocracy” – or the continued development of a group of elites who have access to and understanding of the incredibly complex systems underlying the digital infrastructure that increasingly dictates our lives and is shaping fintech. A lack of trust in digital technologies or in the experts who develop and control them can create huge barriers to implementation, scaling, enabling policy frameworks and impact in terms of addressing systemic challenges such as climate change.
Related to this, there is a strong need to develop more human-centric technologies – including fintech. Engaging citizens more directly could be a positive way forward here, both to build trust and also to ensure that technologies are addressing biases, reflecting shared values, allowing more equity in access and incentivizing collaboration as opposed to increasing division.
And efforts are being made. For example, our initiative, Sustainability in the Digital Age, convenes leaders in business, government, science, and civil society to explore how to consciously steer the societal transformations unfolding from the development and deployment of new digital technologies, towards equitable and sustainable paths. Similarly, the Global Commons Alliance has been inviting all stakeholders interested in accounting and standard setting that considers ESG, to come together and work at shaping a co-creative space to align everyone. The international Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability (CODES) is an open multi-stakeholder community of change makers and practitioners that seek to collaborate in accelerating a digital planet for sustainability.
So the momentum is here, and collaboration is critical to unleashing the transformative power of digital technologies in an inclusive approach that values not just profit making but also our collective contributions to natural, social and human capital for planetary health.
Authored by:
By Éliane Ubalijoro, PhD (LinkedIn)
Sustainability in the Digital Age, Executive Director
Future Earth, Global Hub Director (Canada)
This article is featured in NCFA's digital magazine, Fintech Confidential (Issue 4). Click to read the latest thought leadership, insights and trends about Fintech in Canada:
Checkout NCFA's digital magazine, Fintech Confidential (Issue 4) --> 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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‘Ready to Go’: Powell Says Fed Report on Crypto and CBDCs will drop in the coming weeks
Decrypt | Scott Chipolina | Jan 11, 2022
The Fed will soon release its insights on CBDCs and the crypto market, and will ask the public for input.
See: Powell says The Federal Reserve is [still] evaluating whether to launch a CBDC
Powell on stablecoins
"We have a tradition in this country where the public's money is held in what is supposed to be a very safe asset," he said, also adding that the regulatory framework for deposits and money market funds "doesn't exist, really, for stablecoins."
See: Industry warns Congress the U.S. risks ‘chilling’ regulations on crypto
"Commercial paper are short-term overnight obligations from companies, and most of the time they're investment grade, most of the time they're very liquid, it's all good," he said, but added that "the market just disappears" during financial crises.
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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Last year, illicit crypto addresses received all-time-high $14 billion but that was only 0.15% of total volume
ChainAnalysis | Jan 6, 2022
Cryptocurrency-based crime hit a new all-time high in 2021, with illicit addresses receiving $14 billion over the course of the year, up from $7.8 billion in 2020. BUT those numbers don’t tell the full story.
Cryptocurrency usage is growing faster than ever before. Across all cryptocurrencies tracked by Chainalysis, total transaction volume grew to $15.8 trillion in 2021, up 567% from 2020’s totals. Given that roaring adoption, it’s no surprise that more cybercriminals are using cryptocurrency. But the fact that the increase was just 79% — nearly an order of magnitude lower than overall adoption — might be the biggest surprise of all.
In fact, with the growth of legitimate cryptocurrency usage far outpacing the growth of criminal usage, illicit activity’s share of cryptocurrency transaction volume has never been lower.
See: NASAA: Crypto scams are the leading threat to investors in 2022
Transactions involving illicit addresses represented just 0.15% of cryptocurrency transaction volume in 2021 despite the raw value of illicit transaction volume reaching its highest level ever.
However, we also have to balance the positives of the growth of legal cryptocurrency usage with the understanding that $14 billion worth of illicit activity represents a significant problem. Criminal abuse of cryptocurrency creates huge impediments for continued adoption, heightens the likelihood of restrictions being imposed by governments, and worst of all victimizes innocent people around the world.
DeFi’s rise leads to new opportunities in crypto crime
In 2020, just under $162 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from DeFi platforms, which was 31% of the year’s total amount stolen. That alone represented a 335% increase over the total stolen from DeFi platforms in 2019. In 2021, that figure rose another 1,330%.
See: Blockchain Vulnerabilities, Forensics And Legal Challenges
We’ve also seen significant growth in the usage of DeFi protocols for laundering illicit funds, a practice we saw scattered examples of in 2020 and that became more prevalent in 2021. Check out the graph below, which looks at the growth in illicit funds received by different types of services in 2021 compared to 2020.
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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New North Star III: Case for a Canada Advanced Project Research Agency
PPT | Robert Asselin | Dec 22, 2021
Canada’s prosperity has relied too heavily on the here and now of deficit spending, booming real estate and debt-financed household consumption. We must instead redirect investment to the wealth and well-being of the future, particularly our ability to invent and innovate, generate world-leading technologies and firms and ultimately capture global markets. The invention and adoption of new products, services and processes must be the foundation of rising productivity and long-term prosperity.See: Canada’s Competition Problem: 7 Reasons
The purpose of this paper is to set out an institutional and policy blueprint for the future CARPA. We draw on a combination of primary research (including comparative analysis of peer jurisdictions) and our own policy experience to put forward the design, governance, operational and programmatic elements that we believe are crucial building blocks for CARPA.
Download the 41 page PDF report --> here
Related Links:
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[Report] A New North Star I: Canadian Competitiveness in an Intangibles Economy
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[Report] A New North Star II: How to Build Canada’s Competitiveness Amidst the Rise of an Intangibles Economy and Greater Geopolitical Complexity
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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PayPal is Exploring the Launch of its own Stablecoin
CryptoPotato | | Jan 8, 2022
PayPal Coin could be the next project that the e-payments giant presents to the world: A stablecoin backed by american…
If the market crash got you nervous and you thought the crypto industry was dead, you might want to change your mind. PayPal, the global e-payments giant, is working on developing its own cryptocurrency.
See: PayPal Will Let Customers Withdraw Crypto, Exec Says
PayPal is exploring the development of a stablecoin, possibly pegged to the U.S. dollar, although there is no information on a roadmap for the project. Speaking to Bloomberg News, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, senior vice president of crypto and digital currencies at PayPal, revealed that the endeavor was just an exploratory, yet very serious, even though there were no concrete plans for a practical implementation yet. He assured, however, that if approved, the currency would meet all necessary regulatory standards:
“We are exploring a stablecoin; if and when we seek to move forward, we will of course, work closely with relevant regulators.”
PayPal Coin: Why a Stablecoin Makes Sense For PayPal
The development of a stablecoin offers certain advantages for PayPal. For example, it avoids the regulatory pressures that exist around the more volatile and decentralized cryptocurrencies, it provides peace of mind to customers that the amount they hold in their wallets will have the same value over time. It is also better suited to PayPal’s business model, which is essentially a licensed money transmitter.
See:
As regulators scrutinize stablecoins Circle pushes financial inclusion
Biden’s report on Stablecoins Misses the Mark
PayPal Coin, the (not so) creative codename of the cryptocurrency, was discovered earlier this year by Steve Moser, a software developer who in November 2021 also revealed that the code of the PayPal App had references to possible compatibility with the NEO cryptocurrency.
NEO is a smart contract blockchain developed primarily in China and was known as the Chinese Ethereum. It enjoyed a lot of popularity during the boom of 2017-2018, mainly because it was promoted as one of the first Ethereum killers. However, it failed to capture the public’s attention in subsequent years. It is currently ranked 69th in the TOP 100 cryptocurrencies with the largest market capitalization.
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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