Rojin Nair, Advisor
June 1st, 2021
At Incyub8 Inc, Rojin is focusing on nurturing and guiding various national and international start-[...]
Category Archives: Fintech International
Solana DeFi Is Starting Over — OpenBook
Decrypt | Stacy Elliott | Dec 7, 2022
Solana devs look to rebuild as they unwind DeFi on the network from Sam Bankman-Fried’s Serum, replace it with OpenBook, and plot a course for the future.
- Serum, founded in August 2020 by a consortium that included the Solana Foundation and Bankman-Fried’s FTX and trading desk Alameda Research, was a core decentralized exchange platform and liquidity provider for the burgeoning Solana DeFi ecosystem. Its order book was crucial for DeFi on Solana, integrated into virtually all of the biggest DeFi projects on the network, like Jupiter and Raydium. But its private keys were housed within FTX—which is exactly as bad as that sounds.
See: Crypto.com Halts Solana USDC and USDT Withdrawls and Deposits | $800 Million SOL Tokens Set to be Unstaked
- Following an apparent hack on FTX on November 11, the same day that the company filed for bankruptcy, DeFi projects on Solana rushed to cut ties with Serum out of fear that the private key that could be used to update the program had likewise been compromised. This effectively flipped the “off” switch on Solana DeFi.
- OpenBook: Since then, Solana developers, investors, and other stakeholders have been scrambling to turn it back on, pushing ahead with a fork of Serum—essentially a copy of the code, free of any ties to Bankman-Fried or FTX.
- Now, the community behind OpenBook, the successor to Serum, has to wrestle with some thorny tokenomics questions after reaching $2.7 million total value locked since it was added to DeFi Llama last week.
- Grants being offered to qualifying projects to rebuild: “The foundation is very keen on funding grants, at least for the foreseeable future, for OpenBook development so that we can maintain this core piece of liquidity infrastructure for DeFi, however that well is not infinite,” Ben Sparango, head of business development at Solana Labs, said during the call.
- “Each one of these grants will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. So it’s not going to be free money forever.”
See: Grayscale Won’t Share Proof of Reserves | Bitvo Escapes FTX | (Some) DeFi Platforms Benefit from CEX Exodus
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko:
The community's evolution of Serum to OpenBook has been great to watch. The community mobilized quickly and in the open to redeploy Serum so it continues on a new, secure path, with decisions made by and for the community members,” he said. “Open Book is a great demonstration of decentralization in action.
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
 |  |  |
Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada  |
Gmail Creator Says AI Could Replace Google’s Search Engine Results Page Within 2 Years
IFLScience | James Felton | Dec 6, 2022
Image: Pexels/Kindel Media
The creator of Gmail has made a prediction: the new chatbot ChatGPT will completely disrupt Google's business within a year or two, eliminating the search engine result page in the process.
- ChatGPT: By now, you have probably come across a number of creations from ChatGPT: an artificial intelligence (AI) based chatbot that can do everything from rewrite "Baby Got Back" in the style of Canterbury Tales to simulating its own chatbot within a chatbot.
- The chatbot, made open to the public last week, is surprisingly good. Even if it hasn't yet convinced anyone that it's sentient – unlike Google's AI .
- The bot has a number of uses, including writing useable code and looking for errors in code created by amateur humans.
- The chatbot uses something called "reinforcement learning from human feedback" to achieve the impressive natural language processing it does. "As the model receives more and more feedback, it uses this information to adjust its internal parameters and improve its performance. This iterative process continues until the model reaches a satisfactory level of performance on the task," the bot continued.
- Disrupt Google? As well as providing more detailed results than Google, and explaining answers in a more natural way (as seen above), the problem for Google is ChatGPT could eliminate the need for its moneymaker: the search results page.
See: Newfoundland’s AI Unicorn Helps Predict AIs Near-term Business Opportunity
Buchheit wrote on Twitter:
The way I imagine this happening is that the URL/Search bar of the browser gets replaced with AI that autocompletes my thought/question as I type it while also providing the best answer (which may be a link to a website or product).
Google may be only a year or two away from total disruption. AI will eliminate the Search Engine Result Page, which is where they make most of their money.
Even if they catch up on AI, they can't fully deploy it without destroying the most valuable part of their business! https://t.co/jtq25LXdkj
— Paul Buchheit (@paultoo) December 1, 2022
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
| | |
Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
How to Invest in Cryptocurrency Index Funds
Dec 8, 2022
Image: Pexels/Anna Nekrashevich
Cryptocurrency index funds are an excellent way to invest in crypto. Index funds are excellent investments because of their accessibility, simplicity, and return rates. Cryptocurrency index funds offer the benefits of traditional investment vehicles like mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.
But there is a problem with cryptocurrency: it's very risky to invest in an individual coin because of the volatile price fluctuations and lack of regulation. You can make investments in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana.
Investors can avoid the hassle and expense of buying a large number of individual stocks by purchasing an index fund.
Diversifying your cryptocurrency assets is difficult to do in regular brokerage accounts, let alone retirement plans. This causes some friction if you're new to the crypto world. Because to be an expert in trading, you have to learn how to indentify like a pro trader.
Therefore, the reason investing in indexes makes it easy to buy into crypto is because they make it easy to buy indexes. If you're unsure about how crypto index funds work, don't worry! We'll cover everything we need to know about how to invest in Cryptocurrency Index Funds. So let’s get started!
What are Cryptocurrency Index funds?
Cryptocurrency index funds are a new investment vehicle that has been making waves in the industry. These funds are a great way to introduce the concept of index investing. An index fund is a type of mutual fund that buys securities based on the value of an underlying asset.
The idea behind an index fund is to track the performance of a given market by holding a basket of securities that represents it. Typically, an index fund will hold all the securities listed in a particular market.
How to invest in cryptocurrency index funds?
Currently, there are few possibilities for investing in bitcoin through money market accounts or retirement pensions. The Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund is one of the only funds that meet these criteria. Anyone who owns a trading account can purchase it because it is openly traded. There are several ways to invest in cryptocurrency index funds:
- CRYPTO20 is a cryptocurrency that tracks the top 20 cryptocurrencies in terms of market size.
- The DeFi Pulse Index was created to monitor the performance of the most significant tokens in the DeFi sector.
- The NFT Index is a tracking tool for digital assets used in the non-fungible token (NFT) market.
After that, they visit a larger exchange with more varied offerings. For the index fund, they exchanged a larger cryptocurrency that they had purchased previously. Experienced traders are usually the ones who perform hard operations successfully.
Purchasing cryptocurrency ETFs and mutual funds
Investors can now buy exchange-traded funds and mutual funds that invest in cryptocurrencies. In 2022, these funds are not a diverse index-style investment opportunity because they concentrate almost entirely on Bitcoin.
Many investors think that hedge funds will play an increasingly important role in the economy as more of them receive regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Directly purchasing cryptocurrencies on an exchange
By purchasing coins from a reputable cryptocurrency exchange, you can take advantage of both direct ownership and easy access to many different types of tokens.
Current exchanges offer the greatest potential for diversification. They let you invest in a large number of tokens and build your own cryptocurrency portfolio that resembles an index fund.
Top cryptocurrency exchanges entail:
- Crypto.com
- Gemini
- Binance.US
- Coinbase Pro
Exchanges serve as a middleman for buying, selling, and swapping cryptocurrencies. They can also hold your coins for you or move them to a wallet of your choice. While there may be fees for purchasing and selling on exchanges, the management or custodial services have no associated costs.
Purchasing stocks with exposure to cryptocurrencies
Do you favor direct investment in publicly traded companies? With this approach, you can benefit from stricter regulation without exposing your portfolio directly to the volatile digital coin market.
See: Should You Be Hedging Your Crypto Trading?
Investors could invest in Bitcoin miners, cryptocurrency exchanges (like Coinbase), or other companies involved with cryptocurrencies. There are also a few cryptocurrency-focused ETFs, such as BITQ and BLOK.
Conclusion
Currently, the best way to invest in cryptocurrency index funds is by using a cryptocurrency ETF or mutual fund or creating your own diversified portfolio. Margex trading platform provides access to a cutting-edge trading infrastructure around the world for digital assets trading and investing. Its goal is to offer a fair, safe, and user-friendly platform using the best financial technologies available worldwide. If you want to trade your digital asset , it will help you to reach your goal.
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
| | |
Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
Plaid Lays Off 260 Employees (20% of Staff)
TechCrunch | Mary Ann Azevedo | Dec 7, 2022
Plaid, a Fintech decacorn, is laying off 260 employees, or about 20% of its workforce, the company announced today
- In April of 2021, Plaid raised a $425 million Series D led by Altimeter Capital, which valued the company at around $13.4 billion. This was after its deal to be acquired by Visa for $5.3 billion fell through due to regulatory concerns.
- Hired ahead of revenue growth: In a letter to employees that was posted on Plaid’s website, CEO and co-founder Zach Perret said the company saw a rapid increase in usage by its existing customers, a large number of new customers and “substantial revenue acceleration” during COVID. As such, the company “hired aggressively” to meet customer demand and invest in new products. However, macroeconomic shifts resulted in Plaid customers experiencing “slower-than-expected growth,” causing the company to backpedal.
See: Plaid Officially Opens it’s Canadian Office and Announces RBC Data Sharing Agreement
- What they get:
- Severance: All impacted employees will get 16 weeks of base pay in severance. Those who have been with Plaid for more than one year will get additional weeks. Plaid will also be paying the cash equivalent of six months of healthcare premiums for medical, dental and vision insurance coverage for employees and their dependents.
- The company is also accelerating equity grants for employees who worked at the company for more than one year to the February 15, 2023 vesting date. It is also waiving the one-year cliff for workers with equity who haven’t yet reached their one-year vesting cliff.
- Additionally, it says it will provide six months of career support and coaching services as well as six months of continued mental health coverage for all departing employees.
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
| | |
Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
According to a Group of Economists, Unregulated Wash Trading is Impacting Tax Revenue
Quartz | Nate DiCamillo | Dec 6, 2022
Image: Unsplash/Wance Paleri
Crypto traders don’t have to move their funds offshore to evade US taxes, as long as the US government allows wash trading of the nascent asset class.
- Tax loss harvesting: A group of economists from Cornell University, the University of North Carolina, and Tel Aviv University have discovered that every time the US increases crypto tax scrutiny, trading activity rises at US-based exchanges. That’s because traders are selling crypto, recording losses on their taxes, and buying it back to avoid incurring any actual losses. The economists released their findings this week in a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
- It is illegal for stock traders to engage in wash trading, which occurs when they buy and sell an equity within a 30-day period before or after the sale.
- This rule doesn’t exist for crypto in part because of the scattered regulatory approach the US has taken towards it, the economists argue.
See: Crypto Pragmatist: Checkout these free crypto (trading) tools
- Regulatory confusion: The IRS, for instance, treats crypto as property, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commision, which regulates derivatives markets, treats it as a commodity. Meanwhile, the SEC wants to apply securities regulation to large parts of crypto. The Financial Accounting Standards Board has said that accountants should no longer treat crypto as an intangible asset and should instead adopt fair-value accounting for it.
- As a result, the US is losing a significant amount of tax revenue. The researchers assumed a tax rate of 30% and paired that with falling bitcoin prices, and then estimated that the US Treasury likely lost somewhere between $10 billion and $16.2 billion.
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
| | |
Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
Fund Tokenization: Fractional Issuance, Streamlined Redemption, and Servicing Benefits
Quant | Rebecca Hackworth | Nov 28, 2022
Alternative fund managers are starting to recognise the benefits of tokenised funds - a new dawn for alternatives
- For fund managers, the potential to tap into an even wider cohort of investors is a significant opportunity.
- A recent study of 100 European fund managers by Madrid-based tokenisation platform, Token City, found that 52% are looking at tokenisation and 73% plan to invest in the next three years.
- “Regarding adoption, more than 85% of fund managers think if they don’t consider tokenisation, they risk being left behind,” says Yael Oaknin, Founder and CEO of Token City.
- “Tokenisation could improve several areas within asset management such as issuance, exchange and servicing. Potential benefits include improved access to, and personalisation of, investment solutions,” she adds.
- It gives managers the option to provide fractional ownership of their funds in an evergreen structure and offers accredited investors the chance to invest more easily. Evergreen funds have no termination date. They allow managers to re-invest capital in companies with the most attractive growth prospects, while avoiding missing the additional upside when they IPO.
- Simpler redemption: additional benefit is that the underlying smart contracts controlling economic ownership ensure that exit liquidity on the secondary market is more orderly, transparent and streamlined.
See: Singapore Announces Project Guardian to the Value Created in Leveraging Asset Tokenization
- In private credit, Linx Capital Investments tokenised a portfolio of senior-secured loans on Token City with Oaknin stating: “credit managers like Linx are using our system as a substitute for securitisation — tokenising credit rights as opposed to selling bonds. We are also speaking to fund managers and SMEs operating in the real estate and renewable energy space.
- Another private credit manager to leap forward is Singapore-based SeaTown. Last November, it onboarded the SeaTown Private Credit Feeder Fund onto the private market exchange, ADDX. In doing so, it reduced the investment minimum for accredited investors from $5m to $20k, opening the fund to a new set of investors.
- Hamilton Lane, the US-based private markets investment manager, jumped quickly on tokenised fund solutions. In May 2022, it announced it was offering fractional access to its Global Private Assets Fund on ADDX to tap into a broader set of Asian investors.
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
| | |
Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
Final Legal Submission Concluded After 2 Years: Ripple vs SEC
CryptoPotato | Chayanika Deka | Dec 5, 2022
Image: CryptoPotato
The long-running legal spat between Ripple and the SEC and Ripple is drawing close after two years.
- Stuart Alderoty, General Counsel of Ripple, confirmed the company’s “final submission,” urging the court to grant judgment in its favor and said that Ripple is proud of the defense it has mounted on behalf of the entire digital asset industry.
- According to the court document, the San Francisco-based blockchain company asserted that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has failed to prove the existence of any investment contracts governing the defendants’ offers and sales of XRP between the period 2013 and 2020.
- Ripple also said that both its founders are entitled to summary judgment on their decision to sell on foreign exchanges and added that the SEC could not provide any material fact to the contrary.
See: Legal experts say “This Is It” moment for XRP in Ripple lawsuit,
Brad Garlinghouse CEO XRP took to Twitter to congratulate the team:
“I said it on day 1, we will aggressively fight to get clear rules for the entire industry in the U.S. Congrats to all of Team Ripple for getting us to this point. Ripple stood strong and withstood the SEC’s onslaught. I look forward to being on the right side of justice.”
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
| | |
Support NCFA by Following us on Twitter!Follow @NCFACanada |
