Love in The Time of Web3
Canada’s real competition problem is capacity.
Where, exactly, is your cryptocurrency located? It's complicated
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
Elon Musk reposted this meme > 2 days later ‘Love in The Time of Web3’ sold as an NFT for nearly $20,000
CNBC Make It| Taylor Locke | Oct 22, 2021
Love in The Time of Web3
It's no secret that billionaire Elon Musk loves memes. He frequently reposts them on Twitter, where he has 61 million followers.
Though some dislike his reposting, as he often neglects to give the original meme creators credit, others have profited from Musk's practice, including self-proclaimed "hobby artist" Eva Beylin.
Beylin was thrilled when Musk reposted her meme on Wednesday.
"The ultimate prize of memeology is for the ultimate meme lord to use your meme," Beylin, 28, tells CNBC Make It.
Even though Musk didn't give her any attribution, "I am over the moon," she says, adding that she's a big fan of Musk.
Beylin's meme, which she named "Love in The Time of Web3," depicts a cartoon couple admiring the prices of bitcoin and ether, which are $69,000 and $4,200, respectively, in the meme. While the price of bitcoin hasn't hit $69,000, the numbers are an obvious nod to meme culture.
As the director of The Graph Foundation, which supports blockchain data protocol The Graph, Beylin is passionate about Web3, which is the decentralized iteration of the internet that powers blockchain-based applications like NFTs.
See: Non-Fungible Tokens in the media and entertainment industry
"Love in The Time of Web3" got a lot of attention following Musk's tweet. That night, Beylin listed it as an NFT, or nonfungible token, on marketplace Zora, and two days later, it sold for five wrapped ether, which is about $19,800 at current pricing, to an anonymous buyer.
"It is surreal," Beylin says.
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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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Canada’s Competition Problem: 7 Reasons
Regs to Riches | Vass Bednar | Oct 24, 2021
Canada’s real competition problem is capacity.
Competition policy is an important instrument that can be used to regulate behaviour between businesses and create beneficial outcomes for the economy and society, including: greater economic efficiency and innovation, more product variety for consumers and better prices, the ability for entrepreneurs to start businesses and bring new products to market and overall economic fairness.
It’s hot shit. Yet it remains notably absent from Canada’s technology tool kit.
See: Betakit podcast with Senator Deacon on Open Banking and Competition
As the country’s digital policy agenda has taken shape, it has included many other approaches: a digital sales tax, debating whether technology platforms should pay for news, new privacy and consumer protection legislation, updating the Broadcasting Act, and consulting on a proposed approach to Online Harms.
The OECD has advised that, “competition policy and competition authorities have a very relevant role to play to ensure a robust economic bounce-back and recovery in the long-term.” Competition policy could have been a sleeper hit in the last election because it is a pocketbook issue jackpot and President Biden’s recent Executive Order should have been a wake up call.
The Competition Policy Review Panel’s 2008 report “Compete to Win,” chided the country, proclaiming that we lacked a “competitive mindset.” I would venture that Canada is anti-competitive because we fundamentally lack the capacity to improve our competitiveness. This lack of capacity is the primary barrier to better competition discourse and outcomes, and I believe there are seven key failings that will prevent a basic review of the Competition Act from showing up in a new mandate letter.
For one, our Commissioner of Competition (Matthew Boswell) lacks the intellectual independence to speak freely on matters of competition, as the Bureau is nested under the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED). When compared to his international peers, people may interpret his quieter voice as indicating that we do not have policy challenges or opportunities when it comes to competition in Canada. This may not be the case, and it’s why we should “Free Boswell” - Parliament should move the Competition Bureau out of ISED in order to reduce the perception of political interference and give the Commissioner more voice and autonomy.
See: Opinion: Biden administration takes an overdue first step to foster competition and help consumers
Secondly, alongside our muzzled Commissioner, there is a basic literacy gap that is a barrier to entry into the conversation. Few people truly understand how our legislation works, and there are many misconceptions. This has led to a concentration of competition conversations that are sector-specific, such as in telecommunications. This lack of familiarity with the Act was evident in some of the platform proposals discussed in the recent federal election. Though embarrassing, this problem is solvable through novel learning interventions like a bootcamp or crash course. Lets do it.
It is imperative that more people are invited into conversations about competition. If competition policy remains the sole domain of economists and lawyers, the public conversation will remain limited at best and captured by private players at worst.
Third, public policy and public administration programs are graduating too many young people who have never been exposed to the basic mechanics of competition policy. This is an oversight that can be similarly corrected. The Competition Act is a core piece of legislation that shapes the business behaviours that facilitate the innovation economy and it should be familiar to policy practitioners.
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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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Digital money is an opportunity for Canada – if we seize it
The Globe and Mail | and | Oct 21, 2021
Robert Fay is the managing director of digital economy at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. David Dodge is a former governor of the Bank of Canada and is senior adviser at Bennett Jones LLP.
Around the world financial systems are digitizing to provide faster, cheaper and more secure and comprehensive services to households and businesses.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies are attracting substantial public attention. They are reflections of the continuing digitalization of the global economy, driven by innovation and competition, that is creating new opportunities worldwide.
The potential benefits are many.
Digital currencies and payments can speed up and lower transaction costs, both domestically and especially across borders, while bolstering security. Financial technology (fintech) is expanding the range of financial services available in the marketplace.
See: Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI): China’s crackdown puts US in pole position and Canada in 4th
Open banking allows consumers and small businesses to securely and efficiently transfer their financial data among financial institutions and accredited third-party service providers. It can stimulate competition, facilitate access, and expand the range of services available to households and businesses.
And central bank digital currencies can spur innovation and boost financial inclusion, ensuring all have access to digital services.
But fully harnessing the benefits of digitalization will require a sound and coherent framework that ensures collaboration between the public and private sectors.
We recently held a workshop to hear the opinions of international and Canadian experts in this domain. As we explain in more detail in a new report, we argue there are three essential steps that Canada must take.
First, Canadian governments and service providers need to work together to deliver what has already been placed on the agenda; namely, a modernized payments system and secure data transfer to facilitate open banking.
Second, Canada requires a thoroughly updated legislative framework for privacy and data management, and the adoption of industry standards for digital identification. Governments, the central bank, and regulators, working with market participants, must adapt existing policy frameworks to accommodate and harness change in a manner that supports a financial system that is efficient, competitive, stable, secure, inclusive, and one that instills trust. It is essential to ensure data security and privacy and enable consumers to have greater control over their financial data in ways that promote sound competition.
See: Bank of Canada to become new regulator of fintech companies doing payments processing
Third, regulatory gaps must be remedied. Existing regulatory frameworks are ill-suited to deal with new and emerging market structures.
Federal leadership here is crucial. Risks must be taken.
To deliver on these three essential steps, the federal government must exert strong leadership in mobilizing the necessary collective effort; making policy and market choices will require a careful balancing of objectives. Win-win solutions must be pursued, but there will be trade-offs at the margins – for example, between efficiency and stability, or between compliance and privacy.
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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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Privacy Implications of an Open Banking System in Canada
McMillan | Darcy Ammerman, Mitch Koczerginski, Robbie Grant, Anthony Pallotta | Oct 12, 2021
Privacy and Open Banking
Since open banking is predicated on the free flow of information, privacy is key to an open banking system. In its February 2019 Review into the Merits of Open Banking, the Committee said “[t]he trust needed to allow the digital economy to flourish, and the social license that organizations will need from Canadians to innovate with their personal data, hinges on having an appropriate legal framework in place that puts at the forefront key privacy issues.” In its January 2020 review of stakeholder submissions, the Committee observed that all stakeholders considered privacy to be a significant risk of open banking. In its own submission to the Committee, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (“OPC”) called for several privacy reforms to support an open banking system.
Many of those reforms are already making progress. Before the election was called, the government had introduced a substantive overhaul to Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”), in the form of Bill C-11, which would have enacted the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (“CPPA”) (we summarized the proposed changes in a previous bulletin). Bill C-11 died on the order paper when the election was called, but since the liberal government has now returned to office, a new privacy law bill is expected to be forthcoming. There is added international pressure for privacy reforms too, as the EU reviews Canada’s adequacy status under the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). Maintaining such status is crucial as it permits data processed in accordance with the GDPR to be subsequently transferred from the EU to Canada without requiring additional data protection safeguards or authorization to transfer the data.
See: Canada’s Library of Parliament Report: A Comparison of Open Banking Recommendations
Meanwhile in Quebec, An Act to modernize legislative provisions as regards the protection of personal information (“Bill 64”) received Royal Assent on September 22, 2021. This Bill amends Quebec’s Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector (“Quebec’s Private Sector Act”) to include a data portability right, increased fines for non-compliance, and enhanced requirements for breach notification, consent, and data protection, among other changes.
Data Portability
In its June 2019 report on open banking, the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce recommended modernizing PIPEDA to align it with global privacy standards. It wrote that these changes “must include a consumer data portability right.”
In the context of open banking, data portability means a consumer’s right to direct that their personal financial information be shared with another organization. While this sounds simple in theory, it presents challenges for the organization sharing the data (typically the financial institution). First, personal information owned by the consumer is often grouped together with information owned by the sharing organization. For example, financial institutions may create “derived data” by processing consumer information together with proprietary algorithms and analysis. The Final Report takes the position that the financial institution should generally be able to exclude derived data from an open banking system. However, if such data is normally available to the consumer, the financial institution should have an obligation to justify an exclusion.
See:
Betakit podcast with Senator Deacon on Open Banking and Competition
Reflections on Canada’s open banking report
The second and related challenge is that sharing organizations may store and process data in a variety of formats, but for data portability to be meaningful, the personal information must be shared in a usable technological form. The difference between a string of loose data, and a properly organized spreadsheet is significant to the utility of such information for a third party app developer. Financial institutions can look to Quebec’s Bill 64 as an example of how the concept of data portability could play out in practice. When it comes into force, Bill 64 will amend Quebec’s Private Sector Act to provide consumers with a right to request their computerized personal information in a “structured, commonly used technological format” unless doing so raises serious practical difficulties.
The introduction of a data portability right may require financial institutions to overhaul their data processing systems to ensure consumer data can be shared in a commonly used form, while separating out data that is unnecessary or proprietary to the financial institution. Depending on the sharing organization’s data processing systems, data portability may require significant lead time to implement. The challenges outlined above are likely why the technological format amendment to Quebec’s Private Sector Act does not come into force until September 22, 2024 (a full year after the majority of the amendments).
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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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IMF Seminar (On-demand): Digital Money Revolution
IMF Annual Meetings (2021 Washington DC)| Oct 18, 2021
Overview of IMF Seminar 'Digital Money Revolution'
Digital finance innovations—central bank digital currencies, private eMoney, stable coins, or cryptoassets—may bring changes in the way we lead our lives. This seminar reviews the implications of this transformation for the international monetary system.
See: The Impact of Fintech on Central Bank Governance
Moderator:
- Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, London.
Speakers:
- Kristalina Georgieva is the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
- Benoît Cœuré was appointed Head of the BIS Innovation Hub in 2020.
- Eswar Prasad is the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy and Professor of Economics at Cornell University.
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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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Foreign property tax implications associated with owning cryptocurrencies
Financial Post | | Oct 14, 2021
Where, exactly, is your cryptocurrency located? It's complicated
If you hold foreign property whose total cost exceeds $100,000 at any point in a tax year, you’re required to file Form T1135. The form covers the obvious things, such as your Swiss bank account or Cayman offshore investment portfolio, but it’s also required for foreign stocks, such as Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. or Google owner Alphabet Inc., that are held in a Canadian, non-registered brokerage account.
The penalty for filing late is $25 per day to a maximum of $2,500, plus arrears interest. There have been at least 20 reported cases in which taxpayers have been assessed a late-filing penalty since the 1998 introduction of Form T1135.
Is cryptocurrency considered foreign property?
Those questions were discussed in a recent article by William Musani and Ashvin Singh of Felesky Flynn LLP, a boutique tax law firm with offices in Alberta and Saskatchewan. They analyzed whether cryptocurrency falls under the technical definition of “specified foreign property” in the Income Tax Act, which includes “intangible property situated, deposited, or held outside Canada that is not used or held exclusively in the course of carrying on an active business of the taxpayer.”
Back in 2015, the CRA stated that “digital currency would be funds or intangible property and would be specified foreign property of a person or partnership to the extent that it is situated, deposited or held outside of Canada.”
See: Proposed Amendments to the GST/HST Treatment of Cryptocurrencies
But where, exactly, is your cryptocurrency located?
In practice, an entitlement to your cryptocurrency exists in the form of a digital ledger on the related blockchain. But because it’s stored on a blockchain, it can simultaneously exist in several geographic locations.
These digital ledgers are considered both “distributed” and “decentralized” databases. The database that records the entitlements of a cryptocurrency holder is stored and updated in many locations at once — that is, distributed — which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to manipulate its records. The ledgers are also decentralized, since no single distributed database is the sole source of the true ownership of the particular cryptocurrency.
The article’s authors argue that in relation to the location of your cryptocurrency holdings:
The geographic location of your private key is “arguably the most relevant factor in determining where such cryptocurrency is situated, deposited, or held for the purposes of the act.”
See: Miami mayor says the city is moving toward paying public employees in bitcoin
But the answer to this may depend on whether you are using a “hot” or “cold” digital wallet. Hot wallets are digital wallets connected to the internet, which is how nearly all cryptocurrency exchanges or online providers store your cryptocurrency.
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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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The Real Story of Access to Capital
SEC | Martha Miller | Oct 13, 2021
If you’re taking in news by simply scanning the headlines—particularly those about capital raising activity—you’ve likely missed the story for some splashy titles. Today I’d like to delve into the story and facts behind the headlines about how entrepreneurs are raising capital from investors, deconstructing some of the big numbers we see in large print.
“Entrepreneurs Should Quit Their Day Jobs; Paychecks are Irrelevant”
Many assume that unless an entrepreneur is focused on their startup 100%, they’re not truly dedicated. The reality for most entrepreneurs is that sticking with their day job before their side hustle has been de-risked is not only a smart financial decision, but often a necessary one. Our Office regularly hears from minority and women entrepreneurs who talk about building their companies while maintaining a stable income stream to support their families, pay off student debt, and avoid taking on too much dilutive capital too early. Their decision is a smart one. Entrepreneurs who keep their day jobs while building their businesses are 1/3 less likely to fail than those who quit and go all in from the beginning. Wharton Professor and author Adam Grant attributes this phenomenon to building a balanced risk portfolio, with the stability of the full-time job affording entrepreneurs the freedom to be more creative in their side hustle.
See: Culture and Diversity Leadership: Tale of Two Doors
“Who Needs Diversity? The Market Will Intuit Solutions for All”
It is also easy to buy into the narrative that if there is an unmet need among customers, the “market” will recognize that gap and deliver a solution. The reality is that problem-solvers only set out to solve the problems that they personally understand. Put another way: I can appreciate the challenges that you face, but I cannot fully understand or know them—much less solve them—unless I live them.
This is often the story with underrepresented entrepreneurs who see a need that majority entrepreneurs and investors have not experienced. For fans of Guy Raz’s How I Built This, you may be familiar with the story of Tristan Walker’s company Bevel. As a black man, Tristan battled embarrassing razor bumps from shaving. After surveying the market, he discovered that many men of color with coarse or curly hair shared the same struggle, which could be solved with a single-blade razor system. He began pitching a direct-to-consumer solution to investors, only to be repeatedly dismissed with “if this were really a problem, the incumbent players would have addressed it.” After a disheartening number of rejections, he finally secured funding, ultimately building a wildly successful brand that subsequently sold to Proctor & Gamble, making Tristan the first black CEO of a P&G subsidiary. His story demonstrates the importance of people who live the problem developing the solution.
While many sophisticated investors recognize the perils of pattern-matching, it is critical that we empower diverse investment decision-makers who can support solutions to problems that they too face.
“If You’re Not First, You’re Last”
See: Why Older Entrepreneurs Have the Edge
If I were to poll the audience on who has the best competitive advantage: first movers into a new product category, or follow-on market entrants, most of you would probably assume the early bird gets the worm, corners the market, and dominates. The headlines you see likely have skewed this perception. However, when measuring across hundreds of product categories, a classic study found that first movers are 6x more likely to fail—a 47% failure rate—than second movers—an only 8% failure rate.
For those scratching your heads and wondering “yes, but I bet the first movers who do survive capture greater market share,” wrong again. Even for the first movers who survive, they capture on average only 10% of the market share for their category. The second movers capture 28%, almost 3x as much.
We need first movers, and plenty of second movers, to drive innovation forward.
To build successful companies, startups need savvy investors who bring industry experience, customer connections, and strategic guidance for the companies to scale and thrive. However, the accessibility of professional angels and venture capitalists are outside of many entrepreneurs’ personal and geographic networks, which can dramatically impact survival versus failure prospects.
Read: Penrose Report: Power to the People: Stronger Consumer Choice and Competition
Investing in the startup ecosystem likewise demands a big picture mindset.
Competition among startups breeds success. That competition among companies pushing each other to develop a better solution is the cornerstone of our capital markets.
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Checkout the SEC's Capital Raising options tool --> 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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