Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao sounded the alarm on a massive data leak of one billion Chinese residents that went up for sale on the dark web.
But Jack, what happened to Web4?
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Digital Identity, Privacy, KYC, AML/ATF
Understanding The New V2P and P2V Metaverse Commerce Models
Forbes | | Jul 5, 2022
Physical and Virtual
Look at any Target or Walmart store on a Saturday and watch as customers perfectly dominate the essence of physical-to-physical commerce. In fact, just the experience of being in a physical location leads most customers to make purchases far beyond their shopping lists. That’s the reason why brands spend millions of dollars on physical retail locations because they feel confident they can elevate and capitalize on the on-site shopping experience and the “serendipity” that happens in the store. Whether it’s waiting in a queue to enter the Louis Vuitton Maison Vendôme store in Paris or going down an in-store slide during a Showfields shopping adventure in New York, the world of physical retail has become more experiential and glitzy. It is one of the drivers of BIG retail.
See: CB Insights: Metaverse stack and companies making it a reality
But when we start to think about a brand’s physical footprint in virtual economies, we seem to falter. Does this footprint have a “toe hold” in the virtual world? I say a resounding yes! As I continue to advise and work with brands in this new space, it is evident from my perspective that new commerce models are evolving, but they have not been done at scale. Even while the Metaverse is in a nascent state, these models will have a significant impact on customers' choices and purchasing decisions. My advice to you is to buckle up, because we’re about to head into the future of commerce!
The dawn of the internet introduced new marketplaces for exchanges starting with social media apps and eCommerce. In the dawn of the metaverse and the coming era of web3, commerce will evolve and with this evolution, new models will emerge.
Is the market ready for the Metaverse?
A recent survey conducted by Zipline (one of the world’s largest delivery drone companies) suggests that 85% of Gen-Z respondents, 75% of millennials and 69% of Gen-Xers responded that they would be interested in hybrid shopping experiences, which include using mixed reality in retail stores and for online shopping.
Zipline cofounder and CEO Melissa Wong:
The key is to engage consumers with entertaining and accessible digital content that lowers the barriers to entry and meets Metaverse users where they already exist. This might be in a popular game or in a physical store where people mingle in the flesh.
Making it a reality
Current shopping models are Physical-to-Physical, Digital-to-Physical, and Virtual-to-Virtual. But what about going the next step and making the sale from Virtual-to-Physical and Physical-to-Virtual? When your customers are in the Metaverse, it’s virtual first. However, what happens when they want to purchase something physical in-game or in-world? Or when they are at a physical location, whether a store or a music festival and something they acquire at the location can unlock something else for them in the virtual world?
See: Metaverse Continuum: Digital experiences and interconnected future
In the Metaverse, there is an emerging business model focused on providing new products to digital twins of the customer, which would be the person’s unique avatar. This is called Direct-to-Avatar (D2A), a term that Ryan Gill, CEO of Crucible, and I first explored back in July 2020 in a highly cited article. D2A bypasses traditional marketing by focusing on in-game personas to sell virtual goods, physical items, or real-world experiences. D2A may sound counterintuitive, but it is becoming a fast-growing market segment with an increased sense of connection to purchase digital goods that may or may not come with real-world counterparts. D2A can be leveraged by brands to sell V2V, P2V, and V2P.
With D2A becoming a new model for D2C, this in itself signals a new frontier for B2B and B2C paradigms which will be impacted not only by gaming but also by AR and voice.
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
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Binance CEO Raises Red Flag on Massive Chinese Data Leak
BeINCrypto | David Thomas and Kyle Baird | Jul 4, 2022
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao sounded the alarm on a massive data leak of one billion Chinese residents that went up for sale on the dark web.
- Twenty-three terabytes of data containing names, addresses, birthplaces, national IDs, phone numbers, and criminal case information was reportedly stolen from a police station database in Shanghai, China. The hacker offered the information on a dark web forum for ten bitcoins.
- CZ took to Twitter on July 3 to announce that Binance threat intelligence had discovered resident records for sale on the dark web, without mentioning the country. He attributed the data breach to a bug in a government agency’s software using an “Elasticsearch” algorithm. CZ explained that the compromised data had implications for Binance users since the data in question could be used to take over accounts. CZ added that Binance uses internal and outsourced threat detection.
- Elasticsearch is used to quickly search through massive data sets and return answers in milliseconds (and could include corporate or government entity, data from social media posts to emails to company spreadsheets).
- While this makes for easy access to a wealth of enterprise information, it becomes equally a tantalizing prospect for cyber bandits.
See:
Leaky Forms: Thousands of Popular Websites See What You Type—Before You Hit Submit
Crypto.com $34 million stolen in user account hack | Data Breach Lessons
Cybersecurity experts concerned with the size and sensitivity of data
- News of the hack sent jitters throughout the Chinese security industry, triggering speculation on how it could have happened. Shanghai police have not made public any official statement.
- Cybersecurity professionals that have weighed in are concerned due to the hack’s size and the sensitivity of the exposed information, including criminal activity details.
- According to the Wall Street Journal, some reporters downloaded the list and called phone numbers to check the validity of the information. Five parties verified criminal information only the police could access, while four confirmed their identity before hanging up.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Unconstitutional financial surveillance? Advocacy group Coin Center is suing the US government
The Verge | | Jun 21, 2022
Image: Alex Castro, The Verge
Last week, Coin Center filed a legal challenge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, naming as defendants Janet Yellen as a representative of the Treasury Department, IRS commissioner Charles Rettig, and US attorney general Merrick Garland on behalf of the government as a whole.
A blog post from the advocacy group says that the legal complaint aims to overturn “unconstitutional financial surveillance.” If Coin Center’s challenge is successful, it could have implications far beyond cryptocurrency due to how the reporting law was passed in the first place.
See: NCFA Response to FINTRAC’s ‘Knee Jerk’ Regulations Requiring Donation Crowdfunding Platforms to Register and Comply with AML/ATF Legislation
The authors, Coin Center executive director Jerry Brito and research director Peter Van Valkenburgh, write:
Our suit leads with two major claims: (1) forcing ordinary people to collect highly intrusive information about other ordinary people, and report it to the government without a warrant, is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment; and (2) demanding that politically active organizations create and report lists of their donors’ names and identifying information to the government is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
When the new requirement was made law through the infrastructure bill, it wasn’t written as a new statute: rather, it was an amendment to an existing part of the US tax code — Section 6050I — that has been on the books for almost 40 years.
The 6050I rule states that any person who receives more than $10,000 in cash as part of a business transaction must provide details of the sender to the IRS through a particular form. This cash reporting requirement, which became law in 1984, came on the heels of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970: one of the first major laws to address money laundering in the United States. Together, the new reporting laws passed in the ’70s and ’80s helped law enforcement agencies to detect and deter money laundering by creating requirements to file documentation that made it easier to track cash transfers and imposing penalties if such documents weren’t filed.
See: Privacy laws might prove to be a blessing in disguise for crypto
The law has been in effect ever since, without any significant change until now. In the infrastructure bill, a critical change of eight words was made to 6050I, expanding the definition of cash to include “any digital asset” and thereby extending the tax code’s reporting requirements to cryptocurrency. And because of this construction, a successful challenge on behalf of cryptocurrency users could mean overturning the statute completely.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Insurance Industry Sitting on Treasure Trove of Big Data, As Regulators Wrestle Data Privacy
InsuranceNewsNet | June 14, 2022
Major insurance carriers sit on a treasure trove of big data, with endless possibilities to sharpen actuarial risk projections and target financial products more narrowly to millions of consumers.
But there are big risks, too. Regulators are trying to protect privacy and ward off hidden discrimination, all while allowing insurers to match financial products with those who need them for retirement. It is a needle in need of serious threading.
The expanding efforts toward data privacy regulation are seeing major developments on three main fronts:
- Legislators in five states passed data privacy laws, and nearly two dozen states are working on similar efforts. California sprinted out of the gate first with the “gold standard” in data privacy protections, as one law firm put it, but other states are taking a more business-friendly approach. Especially where financial services is concerned.
Here is why InsurTech is heating up as an investment category
Modernizing Privacy Law in Canada – Striking the Right Balance
- The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) created an entirely new committee, the H Committee, to study data, technology and cybersecurity issues. It is the first letter committee created by the NAIC since 2004.
- A bipartisan group of House and Senate members released a draft proposal earlier this month for a national data privacy bill, called the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, which aims to establish a framework for better protecting consumer data privacy and security.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Will Top of Digital Wallets Threaten Traditional Credit Card Markets?
Financial Brand | Bryan Yurcan | Jun 27, 2022
Digital wallets are an increasingly competitive space for card issuers. In fact, without 'top-of-wallet' status cardholder activity can plummet. Not only is competition growing among card issuers to be “top of wallet” at the point of sale with these digital wallets, but because of the way consumers tend to use them — keeping fewer digital cards in their mobile wallet than they keep plastic cards in their physical wallets — the balance of power in the card business is shifting.
See: Bitcoin wallet Nunchuk scolds Ontario court over order to freeze crypto assets
Spurred on by habits created during the pandemic, consumers globally, and in the U.S. particularly, sharply increased their usage of digital wallets in the last 12 months, according to a survey from Marqeta. The payments company surveyed more than 4,000 consumers in early 2022 — 2,000 from the U.S., 1,000 from Australia, and 1,000 from the U.K. — on their usage of digital wallets, which the survey described as “a virtual wallet that stores payments information on a mobile device.”
75% of those who were surveyed globally said they have used a digital wallet within the past year. While the U.S. is slightly behind the global average, where 71% reported using a digital wallet within the last 12 months, the rate of adoption is still up from the previous year (64% in 2020).
Convenience Is a Big Plus
Ease of use is another big factor in the increased adoption of mobile wallets. Even those that may consider themselves technophobes find them simple and convenient to use. Cards certainly are not difficult to use, so the convenience bar is high. Yet, payments made with mobile wallets, when used in conjunction with facial recognition, can be very fast.
See: PayPal Finally Allows Users to Transfer Crypto to Other Wallets and Exchanges
In fact, a majority of consumers are so comfortable with using mobile wallets that they say they would be confident only taking their phone with them out shopping and leaving their physical wallet at home. 81% of people surveyed globally said they could make mobile wallet purchases everywhere they wanted to. In the U.S., more than three quarters (78%) of respondents agreed with this, up from 62% in a different Marqeta survey of U.S. consumers in 2020.
Moving Toward An ‘Everything is Currency’ Mindset
Perhaps the biggest differentiator in the quest to be top of wallet will be issuers that enable consumers to use any store of value they own to pay for purchases. This can include loyalty points and crypto holdings. The consumer, says Mitchell, is increasingly thinking of the concept that “everything is currency” and wants a digital wallet experience that enables this.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Liquid Avatar Releases Update to It’s Feature Rich Self-Sovereign Identity Mobile App
Liquid Avatar Technologies | Release | Jun 21, 2022
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / June 21, 2022 / Liquid Avatar Technologies Inc. (CSE:LQID)(OTCQB:LQAVF)(FRA:4T51), a global blockchain and FinTech solutions company focused on digital identity, integrated avatars, and the Metaverse, is proud to announce that it has launched its updated feature-rich Self Sovereign Identity App, Liquid Avatar, allowing individuals and applicable entities to manage and control the use of their own age and other personal identifiable information, where appropriate, identity, affiliations and other information and personalized data digitally in a safe and secure platform based on open standards.
See: How to protect your digital identity?
The Liquid Avatar Mobile App is part of Liquid Avatar Technologies' verifiable credentials ecosystem ("LAVCE"), which includes technology to support, Holders of credentials (individuals and entities), Issuers of credentials (governments, educational & financial institutions, workplaces, gaming platforms and Metaverses), and Verifiers of credentials (payment processors, commercial businesses, venue operators and online merchants and websites). The Liquid Avatar Mobile App is available on the Apple AppStore and Google Play.
New Features:
- Encrypted Messaging
- Machine Readable Governance
- LQID Card - available in the US shortly, with wait list currently available
- Smart Age
- Bank grade reusable identity credentials for over 200 countries
- Phone & email Verifiable Credentials
- Secondary authentication via SMS, PIN and Voice Recognition
- Integration to the Liquid Avatar Marketplace
See: 7 Essential Ingredients of an (Open) Metaverse Framework
Updated Features:
- New interface providing a better customer experience
- Updated Avatar Lockers - including your purchased avatars
- Verifiable Credentials - available for the Metaverse, restaurant reservations, KYC validation and gaming
Coming Soon:
- Sharing avatars
- Liquid Shopz
- Enhanced language translation
RJ Reiser, Chief Information Officer:
We are excited for this release that clearly puts Liquid Avatar at the forefront of the WEB3 transformation. Based on Self Sovereign Identity principles, individuals and entities can create a reusable identity Verifiable Credential that can be used with the LAVCE platform to prove who they are without sharing private data. This is the foundation to provide safe and secure online services that begin to realize the benefits of Web3.
View the original release --> 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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Jack Dorsey’s is Building an Extra Decentralized ‘Web5’ on Bitcoin with Digital Identity Layer
Decrypt | Kate Irwin | June 10, 2022
But Jack, what happened to Web4?
Jack Dorsey thinks Web3 is a joke, so he’s making Web5 instead. Dorsey’s TBD, a subsidiary company within Block (previously known as Square), announced today that it is building “Web5: An extra decentralized web platform.”
See: Jack Dorsey resigns as CEO of Twitter
“On the web today, identity and personal data have become the property of third parties. Web5 brings decentralized identity and data storage to your applications. It lets devs focus on creating delightful user experiences, while returning ownership of data and identity to individuals,” TBD’s website reads.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
