Category Archives: Enterprise
Bank of Canada to become new regulator of fintech companies doing payments processing
The Globe and Mail | James Bradshaw and Mark Rendell | May 6, 2021
The federal government has introduced a new law to begin regulating technology companies offering payment services, aiming to increase trust in financial technology startups and stoke competition with established banks as digital payments become more popular.
The Retail Payments Activities Act will put the Bank of Canada in charge of regulating payment services providers in Canada that aren’t governed by another regulator, as well as foreign companies facilitating payments for Canadian customers.
It does not apply to domestic or foreign banks, credit unions or insurance companies that are already regulated in other ways. Instead, it is aimed at financial technology startups – often called “fintechs” or “paytechs” – as well as global technology giants such as Google and Apple that have made inroads in digital payments without robust oversight.
See: Wait and see approach for Fintechs as Payments Canada chooses Interac as Canada’s real-time payments provider
The new law comes at a moment when adoption and use of digital payments by consumers and small businesses has accelerated dramatically amid the coronavirus pandemic. The tighter controls on startups are intended to make payments more secure and reliable for consumers. But they are also supposed to spur innovation and competition in payments by paving the way to bring fintechs into the country’s payment systems.
“Payments in this country are dysfunctional. There are high barriers to entry,” said Alexander Vronces, executive director of Paytechs of Canada, which advocates on behalf of payments providers such as Interac, Koho and Transferwise.
“This legislation is a formal recognition of the blurring lines between traditional providers of payments services and newer technology companies getting more and more involved in the space.”
Under the Act, payment providers will have to register with the central bank, submit annual reports and frameworks for risk management and incident response, notify the central bank about incidents or breaches, and follow rules about how they hold clients’ money. The Bank of Canada would keep a registry of payment-services providers and have the power to impose financial penalties or compliance orders on companies that break the rules.
See: Faster payments: a corporate treasury breakthrough
The law is the culmination of more than a decade of deliberations about how to govern the increasing volume of retail payments handled by non-bank tech companies, outside the tightly regulated confines of Canada’s traditional financial sector. It is part of the budget bill tabled last week by the federal Liberals, following promises in each of the past two federal budgets to extend oversight of retail payments.
“I would think of it as an expansion of the trust in the system,” said Anne Butler, chief external relations and legal officer at Payments Canada, which counts banks and credit unions among its members. “Payments is a network business, and as you expand trust in the regulatory oversight of the system, you create the opportunity for it to continue to grow and flourish with innovation.”
The new Act is only a first step toward granting broader access to Canada’s payment systems, Ms. Butler said. Allowing fintech companies direct use of the country’s financial plumbing would require amendments to the Canadian Payments Act to broaden membership in Payments Canada, which runs the country’s clearing and settlement system. Payments Canada is preparing to launch a “real-time rail” system in 2022 that will allow for instant settlement of an array of payments.
The system was designed with fintechs and retail payment providers in mind, Ms. Butler said. But until further changes are made to the Canadian Payments Act, it will only be directly accessible to Payments Canada’s 110 existing members – mainly banks and large credit unions – whereas fintechs have to negotiate access through those incumbents.
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
 |  |  |
GET TICKETS NOW: BREAKING BARRIERS CONFERENCE & EXPO #FFCON21 MAY 11-13 Sign-up for NCFAs weekly newsletter and never miss a beat: Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
A Visual Explanation of Algorithmic Stablecoins
Dragonfly Research | Haseeb Qureshi | Apr 27, 2021
Stablecoin usage has exploded in the last year. And yet, fewer and fewer people seem to understand how these stablecoins actually work.
For some reason, stablecoin creators are obsessed with making these designs seem impenetrably complex. Almost every white paper is mired in equations and newly invented jargon, as though their authors are trying to convince you: trust me, you’re not smart enough to understand this.
I don’t agree. At bottom, all stablecoin design is pretty simple. I’m going to show you a simple visual language to understand how all stablecoins work.
Think of each stablecoin protocol as a bank. They each hold assets and owe liabilities. Each of them captures value somehow and distributes that value to “equity” holders.
Consider a normal full-reserve bank.
On the left side are its real assets — the actual physical dollars it holds in reserve. On the right side are its liabilities—call them “digital dollars”—which are claims on the assets in reserve.
See: A Brilliant Fintech Future – Banking on Stablecoins
In a full-reserve bank, each liability is matched 1:1 with assets in reserve. If someone with a digital dollar asks for the cash back, the holder is given the physical dollar and the corresponding digital liability is destroyed. This is how Tether, USDC, and every other fiat-backed stablecoin works.
The equity of the bank belongs to shareholders — investors in the bank — and they make money from the fees the bank charges. In Tether’s case, the owners of Tether Ltd. are the shareholders, and their profits come from the Tether minting and redemption fees.
Every liability of a full-reserve bank should maintain a close peg to a dollar, since it’s always redeemable for $1 in reserve. So long as the bank maintains cheap convertibility, arbitrageurs will ensure this effortlessly maintains its peg.
So that’s a vanilla full-reserve bank. It’s an obvious model, but it will help illustrate how crypto banks are different.
Full-reserve Crypto Stablecoins
How would you create a crypto full-reserve bank whose liabilities are stable dollars?
Given crypto just reinvented money, the first thing you’d want to do is swap out the USD assets for crypto assets. But crypto is volatile, so 1:1 backing won’t work if your liabilities are in dollars. If the value of crypto goes down, the bank will be left undercollateralized.
See: Are Stablecoins Better Than Bitcoin?
So just do the obvious thing: put down an extra cushion of crypto to give you a buffer in case the crypto goes down.
This is basically how MakerDAO works.
Dai’s peg is currently stable.
Notice that the assets in reserve are significantly larger than the total liabilities (Dai). This keeps the whole system secure.
(I’m glossing over a bunch of details here. But for the purposes of comparing MakerDAO to other models, this is a good start.)
Now let’s look at Synthetix.
Continue to the view .gif Animations --> 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
| | |
GET TICKETS NOW: BREAKING BARRIERS CONFERENCE & EXPO #FFCON21 MAY 11-13Sign-up for NCFAs weekly newsletter and never miss a beat:Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
NCFA Reveals Speakers and Agenda for Online FFCON21: Fintech and Financing Conference
NCFA Release | May 6, 2021
Conference to explore accelerated Blockchain - Fintech trends and innovations paving the way to mass adoption and scale
TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / May 6, 2020 / The Fintech & Financing Conference and Expo (#FFCON21), Canada's premier Fintech conference organized by The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA), Toronto Finance International (TFI), and partners has announced its agenda and speaker line-up for its seventh annual event taking place online from May 11-13.
Building on the success of previous conferences will bring together an international community of leading voices in fintech, digital banking, payments, tokenization, blockchain, CBDCs, digital identity, AI, capital markets innovation and finance - all in an immersive and interactive platform. The FFCON21 audience is composed of 500 global Fintechs, financial institutions, investors, tech providers, government, and media.
This year's theme is 'Breaking Barriers' - reflecting the growth and emerging challenges that the Canadian Fintech industry must navigate to achieve mass adoption and scale. Through keynotes, lively panel discussions, and workshops the conference will share new ideas and thought-provoking insights into:
- AI and the Future of Innovation in Financial Services
- The Rise of Decentralized Finance and Web 3.0 and its Barriers to Adoption
- The Future of NFTs and What Happens When Your Customers are Augmented Humans, Robots, and Virtual Beings?
- Diversity and Inclusion: Beyond Disclosures
- How Millennials and Gen Z are Changing the Financial Landscape
- Retail Investors, Stakeholder Capitalism and IPO Innovations
- Stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currencies
- Open Finance and Composable Banking
- Inclusive Banking and Affordable Credit
- First Federally Chartered Digital Asset Bank
- Fintech's Opportunity to Breaking Barriers to Net Zero
- Data Rights and How Decentralized Technologies are Shaping our Future
- Blockchain and Renewable Energies
- China vs USA and What it Means for Tech Innovation and Global Fintech Markets
- Strengthening Canada's Innovation Capacity and Global Competitiveness
This year's event features 100+ notable speakers including:
Keynotes
Don Tapscott, Executive Chairman, Blockchain Research Institute
Sophia, Humanoid Robot, Hanson Robotics
David Hanson Ph.D., Founder, Chairman, Chief Creative Officer, Hanson Robotics
Ben Goertzel, CEO, SingularityNET
Cathy Hackl, Futurist + Chief Metavers Officer, Futures Intelligence Group
Hester M. Peirce, Commissioner, Securities Exchange Commission
Hrish Lotlikar, Co-Founder and CEO, SuperWorld
Ethan Pierse, Founding Partner / Director, Borderless Ventures / CryptoAssets Institute
Winston Ma, CFA & Esq., Chairman of Advisory Board, ThreeFold Tech; Author of The Hunt for Unicorns and The Digital War; former Managing Director of CIC
Government
Senator Colin Deacon, Senator, Senate of Canada
Hon. Peter Bethlenfalvy, Minister of Finance and President of the Treasury Board, Government of Ontario
Hon. Doug Schweitzer, Minister of Jobs, Economy and Innovation, Government of Alberta
Judith Robertson, Commissioner Financial Consumer Agency of Canada
Jennifer Reynolds, President & CEO, Toronto Finance International
Innovation
Mark Maybank, Managing Partner, Maverix Private Equity
Jean Desgagne, CEO, Stablecorp Inc.
Betty DeVita, CBO, Finconectra
Christin Friedrich, Chair European Crowdfunding Network, CEO Innovestment
Andrew Graham, Co-founder & CEO, Borrowell
Brittany Kaiser, Independent Chairperson of the Board, Gryphon Digital Mining
Hamzah Nassif, Partner, Real Ventures
Krista Kim, Digital Artist, Global Ambassador of SuperWorld
Lawrence Lewis, Founder, OneFeather
David Unsworth, Co-Founder and General Partner, Information Venture Partners
Timothy[1] Li, CEO at Wikipro Inc, CEO at Alchemy
Chris Goodman, Advisory Services, Credit Union Digital Transformation, CuDigital.ca
David Lucatch, Co-Founder, Director and President, Liquid Avatar Technologies
Jeff Lynn, Seedrs, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder
David Nault, Luge Capital, Co-Founder & General Partner
Tom Baumann, CEO and Co-Founder, ClimateCHECK
Georgia Quinn, General Counsel, Anchorage
Kris Read, Co-founder and CTO, Neo Financial
Som Seif, CEO, Purpose Financial / Purpose Investments
David Taylor, President and CEO, Versabank
View the Full list of Speakers here
FFCON, for the first time ever, is holding an NFT Charity Auction featuring donations from artists and organisations including Liquid Avatar, Pierre Bourque, Blockchain Intelligence Group, SuperWorld and Nathan McCrorey.
Net proceeds from the auction will go to CanadaHelps COVID-19 Healthcare & Hospital Fund which supports more than 110 hospital foundations across Canada who are supporting urgent needs in response to COVID-19.
The event will also feature the 2nd annual 2021 Fintech Draft, designed to identify and feature emerging and high growth fintech start-ups and scaleups. Inspired by sports league drafts,
Congratulations to the six Fintech Draft pitching finalists listed below who will battle in FFCON21's pitching competition for prizes and exposure:
Agryo - A global risk intelligence provider that enables financial institutions to assess and manage financial risks in the crop field level for underwriting agriculture insurance, loans, and trade finance globally; as well as meet sustainability goals.
Copia Wealth Studios - A financial intelligence platform that uses modern design and machine learning to bring all investments (including Alternatives and Illiquid assets) into one elegant view.
ForwardAI - A simple, single, and lender-first API that delivers the most robust accounting & financial data suite for small business lending.
Nava - A software as a service (SaaS) company that offers an ecosystem of socially responsible fintech products for credit unions, helping them compete with big banks.
Orchid B - The premium platform of choice for back office functions including business registration, banking, cards, foreign exchange, insurance, accounting, and payroll -- enabling the self-employed and small businesses to transact efficiently and cost effectively.
Phaze - Phaze makes digital money instantly immediately spendable in 80+ countries but also makes digital money go further, providing neobanks, wallets and fintech companies with a discount off the total value of any transaction.
The agenda can be accessed on the programme page.
Registration for FFCON21 DIGITAL is still open. Register for your tickets at https://fintechandfunding.com/tickets/
About the NCFA
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA) 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 and cryptocurrency, Regtech, and Insurtech sectors. To learn more about NCFA visit www.ncfacanada.org
About Toronto Finance International
Toronto Finance International (TFI) is a public-private partnership between Canada's three levels of government, the financial services sector and academia. TFI's mission is to lead collective action that drives the competitiveness and growth of Toronto's financial sector and establishes its prominence as a leading international financial centre. For more information, please visit: www.tfi.ca
About FFCON
FFCON (Fintech and Financing Conference) is an annual conference hosted by Canada's National Crowdfunding and Fintech Association (NCFA). Now in its seventh year, FFCON21 brings together professionals and innovators in fintech, AI, blockchain, cryptocurrency, and alternative finance.
Further information about the conference series can be found at www.fintechandfunding.com
Connect with us
Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook
FFCON21 Contacts
Craig Asano
Founder and CEO, NCFA
casano@ncfacanada.org
(416) 618-0254
Partnership Inquiries
Lauren Linton
Advisor, NCFA
lauren@ncfacanada.org
(416) 569-4349
Media Contact
The Top Floor Public Relations
Michele McDermott-Fox
David Lewis
pr@thetopflooragency.com
GET TICKETS NOW
Wealthsimple Raises Money at $4 Billion Value; Drake Buys In
Bloomberg | Kevin Orland | May 3, 2021
Power Corp. of Canada’s Wealthsimple online brokerage raised C$750 million ($610 million) in a funding round that valued it about $4 billion, more than triple what it was worth in October.
The round was led by existing investors Meritech Capital Partners and Greylock Partners, the Toronto-based company said Monday. Also participating are Canadian celebrities including rapper Drake, actors Ryan Reynolds and Michael J. Fox and basketball player Kelly Olynyk.
Wealthsimple, which has more than 2 million users, is benefiting from surging valuations for tech companies and an increase in online trading that has fueled rivals like Robinhood Markets Inc. Wealthsimple offers commission-free stock trading as well as automated investing, cryptocurrency trading and tax services.
See: Wealthsimple CEO Michael Katchen on his not-so-simple mission: to help people — especially youth — build the foundations of financial freedom
The financing announcement confirmed a Bloomberg report on April 30 that the company was in talks to raise money at a valuation of at least C$4.3 billion. Wealthsimple raised C$114 million at a C$1.5 billion post-money valuation in October, giving it unicorn status.
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
| | |
GET TICKETS NOW: BREAKING BARRIERS CONFERENCE & EXPO #FFCON21 MAY 11-13Sign-up for NCFAs weekly newsletter and never miss a beat:Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
Series of Essays: Regulation in the Era of Fintech
The Regulatory Review | April 26, 2021
Technological innovation is changing the financial sector. Cryptocurrency markets have surged to all-time highs, culminating in the historic initial public offering of Coinbase, the first major cryptocurrency company to go public on a U.S. stock exchange. Retail investors have used Reddit and various commission-free trading platforms to spark unprecedented market volatility in “meme stocks,” such as GameStop. And at the same time, the Internal Revenue Service has struggled to distribute stimulus checks to millions of Americans, highlighting the need for better technological and regulatory solutions to facilitate faster payments in the United States.
New financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to make the financial system faster, better informed, and more global. Once a budding sector of finance, fintech is now a constant presence in every corner of the industry. Fintech products have opened the door to many new opportunities for consumers, investors, and businesses. But with these opportunities, come new challenges. Regulators and policymakers face key choices as they adapt to meet the needs of this constantly changing landscape while keeping investors and consumers safe.
See: SEC Commissioner Peirce speak at FFCON21 May 11-13 - Register Here
The Regulatory Review has invited policymakers, scholars, and practitioners from across the financial sector to discuss the pressing issues fintech poses for the industry and to offer their insights about how fintech will continue to impact financial institutions, markets, and regulators in the future.
More Data, More Problems
April 26, 2021 | Rick A. Fleming and Alexandra M. Ledbetter, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Investors in capital markets have access to more information than ever before, but it is challenging for even sophisticated market participants to sort through all of the data. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should adopt data standardization practices for corporate reporting to make accessing reported information easier and less costly for the investing public.
Did Reddit Break the U.S. Securities Markets?
April 27, 2021 | Marlon Paz, Mayer Brown LLP
Recent market volatility in GameStop and other “meme stocks” has put a national spotlight on the evolving role of technology in regulating U.S. capital markets. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should improve the antiquated plumbing of the U.S. securities trading infrastructure to speed up the clearing and settling process.
DeFi Is the Next Frontier for Fintech Regulation
April 28, 2021 | Kevin Werbach, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Decentralized finance promises significant benefits, including democratized access to financial products, improved market efficiency, easier access to liquidity, enhanced financial privacy, and faster innovation. DeFi, however, also poses serious and multifaceted risks.
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
| | |
GET TICKETS NOW: BREAKING BARRIERS CONFERENCE & EXPO #FFCON21 MAY 11-13Sign-up for NCFAs weekly newsletter and never miss a beat:Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
This Slackbot wants to fix fintech’s workplace harassment problem
Sifted | Ryan Weeks | Apr 28, 2021
There have been hundreds of cases of harassment in the fintech sector. Today, InChorus launched a slack bot to track and collate data on microaggressions.
The fact that InChorus, a reporting platform for workplace harassment, chose fintech as its ground zero is a sobering sign for the sector.
More sobering still is the fact that, this time last year, more than 500 incidents of harassment were reported through InChorus’ system by fintech employees in the UK. Of those, 85% related to gender and 10% involved “unwanted physical contact”.
See: Why workplace learning matters more than ever
Unsurprisingly, more than 85 companies in the sector have since signed up to the FinTech For All Charter, which aims to tackle these issues with the support of the Financial Conduct Authority, Innovate Finance, Level39 and others.
The next phase in that initiative begins today, with the rollout of a new Slackbot which will track and collate data on microaggressions relating to harassment and diversity issues within the fintech sector.
“We really believe in the ongoing collection of data around this problem in order to ultimately drive accountability,” said Rosie Turner, cofounder and co-CEO of InChorus.
The plan is to aggregate the data to provide freely available insights on the sector as a whole. A handful of companies — including Funding Options and Concirrus — have signed up to use the tool at launch and will be analysing their own data for benchmarking against sector-wide stats.
Turner told Sifted that all 85+ signatories of the FinTech For All Charter will be invited to incorporate the technology shortly after today’s launch.
See: Culture and Diversity Leadership: Tale of Two Doors
Curve, the digital bank, recently signed up to the charter. The firm’s cofounder and CEO Shachar Bialick told Sifted that the tool could “only be a good thing, as no one should have to come to work and suffer harassment in any shape or form, ever”.
“Despite having 33% women at Curve across all workforce (and 14% across engineering), the lack of gender parity across the industry remains a painful issue, something which Curve itself is trying to address by actively attracting more women to its employee base, particularly in engineering,” Bialick added.
The number of incidents (more than 50) involving unwanted physical contact reported during InChorus’s first data collection effort early last year is particularly painful — and over half of these were not isolated incidents. Surprisingly, the data did not suggest that the majority of people who had experienced this were more junior than the perpetrators.
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
| | |
GET TICKETS NOW: BREAKING BARRIERS CONFERENCE & EXPO #FFCON21 MAY 11-13Sign-up for NCFAs weekly newsletter and never miss a beat:Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
DeFi Users Explode as ETH Makes New Highs
The Defiant | Dan Kahan | Apr 29, 2021
ETH is breaking new all-time highs of just under $2,800 on Thursday, and the breathtaking rally from $200 a year ago is coming with a boom in users.
MetaMask said it has surpassed the 5M monthly active users milestone, while a popular Dune Analytics dashboard shows DeFi users just recently climbed above 2M for the first time.
MetaMask Boom
MetaMask’s active user base has grown 400% during the past six months, according to the April 27 blog post.
The DeFi wallet had reached 1M cumulative monthly active users across its browser extension and mobile app for the first time in October 2020. Now in April, MetaMask is reporting over 5M active users over the past month.
FFCON21 May 11-13: Join us for VIP Masterclasses on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Workshops
MetaMask attributed the influx of users to a combination of factors including the NFT craze and increased interest in DeFi from people in what the company calls “the Global South.”
“India and Indonesia are both in the top 5 countries in terms of MetaMask mobile adoption, while Vietnam and Nigeria are in the top 10,” the post says. “Many people in these countries do not trust their governments, and thus eagerly look towards alternatives.”
MetaMask also noted a significant uptick in usage of their in-wallet token swap function, MetaMask Swaps, reporting over $2B in accumulated transaction volume over a six-month period.
The Larger DeFi Boom
MetaMask’s growth is reflective of the larger explosive growth in overall DeFi users during the past few months.
Based on “DeFi Users Over Time” data compiled by 1confirmation’s Richard Chen using Dune Analytics, which tracks unique addresses interacting with major DeFi dapps, there were 586k Defi users at the beginning of October 2020. The DeFi user base has since grown about 240% to over 2M users.
To be sure, a single user can have multiple unique addresses, so the Dune Analytics numbers are somewhat inflated.
Source: Dune Analytics
Still, these analytics only reflect users interacting with 26 major DeFi apps like Uniswap, Compound, and 1Inch, which doesn’t encompass all DeFi dapps.
As indicated by MetaMask’s 5M monthly active users, there are potentially a large number of people who limit their Web3 activity to holding and swapping within their wallets using features like MetaMask Swap.
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
| | |
GET TICKETS NOW: BREAKING BARRIERS CONFERENCE & EXPO #FFCON21 MAY 11-13Sign-up for NCFAs weekly newsletter and never miss a beat:Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
