Category Archives: Fintech Opinions

AML laws have failed

UK Law Society Gazette |  Jonathan Goldsmith | May 16, 2022

Johnathan goldsmith

Warren Buffett famously said: ‘Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.’

The withdrawal of nearly all Western support for Russia and Russian money has been one of history’s tide-turning moments, and among those found to be swimming naked have been solicitors. We have been hammered for our servicing of oligarchs whose money was obtained by theft, violence, corruption and other crimes. It is not good enough for us to say that others were at it, too – and that our very own government was knee-deep in the mire. We are solicitors with important values, and should examine ourselves closely in the aftermath.

Having said that, which I believe needs to be said before I turn to others who bear responsibility, I consider that many governments, and intergovernmental organisations like the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD), need to consider their own failings, too.

See:  Opinion: Rising cost of compliance may lead to consolidation

I want to focus here on the elaborate structure which they foisted on us to stop the servicing of corrupt money – the anti-money laundering laws proliferating around the world. These have failed, too. It is not an exaggeration to say that those laws lie in ruins, having failed to stop the penetration of Western economies by corrupt Russian money.

Yet there seems no recognition that the AML regime is fatally flawed. As with all mistakes, its supporters believe that it was just not applied strictly enough, and needs to be reinforced.

To understand the depth of wrongness of the current AML concept, one need only read Catherine Belton’s book, ‘Putin’s People’, which was published in 2020. This documents in some detail the various criminal dealings which led to the rise of the Russian billionaires whose money flooded the West. She conducted dozens of interviews over many years. Even so, there are large gaps because so much took place behind an impenetrable veil of secrecy, and through multiple layers of shell companies in tax havens which lack transparency.

Yet the OECD, the EU, the UK government and others behind the construction of the AML laws expect every solicitor to conduct his or her own investigation as part of customer due diligence and ‘know-your-client’. The investigation is thus privatised and fragmented, having to be done over and over again by each solicitor or law firm as it is consulted.

See:  Snapshot: the regulatory framework for financial services compliance in Canada

Yet the depth of knowledge required – of Russian politics, of the Russian language, of the many varied players, of the multiplying companies and fronts and transactions, of Russian laws, and of historical events – is beyond the resources of a law firm. It is ridiculous to expect law firms to investigate what takes years, many interviews, and much academic knowledge.  It is also a very inefficient way of going about things, because it requires the background to be re-investigated over and over again by separate lawyers and law firms.  And we have just seen the results: huge compliance departments failed to stops serious penetration of our economies, with dire results.

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NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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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Musk Reacts To Snoop Dogg’s Interest to Buy Twitter

Afrotech |

Musk and SnoopElon Musk and the acquisition of social media giant, Twitter, have caught the attention of many high-profile individuals. Whether it’s celebrities denouncing their association with the app because they disagree with him or A-listers trying to gain a piece of the pie, there is no shortage of interest around the estimated multi-billion-dollar deal.

AfroTech previously reported that Meek Mill tweeted his desire to purchase shares of Twitter after the billionaire bought it. Now, LA rap legend Snoop Dogg has entered the chat, and he doesn’t just want to buy a part of it — he wants the entire thing.

In a tweet from May 13, Snoop Dogg wrote, “May have 2 buy Twitter now.”

See:  Snoop Dogg Reveals He’s An NFT Whale

While it’s unclear whether the California rapper was serious or not, he did follow up his original tweet with some detailed plans if he were to go through with purchasing the social media platform. From changing up the board of directors to giving everyone a verified blue checkmark, Snoop’s hypothetical purchase comes with some big shake-ups. He even started the hashtag #WhenSnoopBuysTwitter to chronicle his list of ideas.

With all of this activity coming from Snoop, he gained the attention of Musk. The Tesla CEO responded to Snoop’s original tweet with two fire emojis. Snoop continued by replying,

“You bring the fire I’ll bring the smoke!!”

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NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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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Luna Foundation Guard’s Reserves Down to 313 Bitcoins from 80K post-UST Crash | Vitalik and CZ Take to Twitter

CoinDesk | Sam Kessler, Shaurya Malwa | May 16, 2022

moon over waterThe announcement comes after criticism of the Luna Foundation Guard's "lack of transparency."

The Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), official stewards of Terra’s bitcoin (BTC) reserves, released a statement on Monday documenting how it disbursed millions of dollars' worth of crypto in its failed attempt to maintain the peg of stablecoin terraUSD (UST).

In the statement, LFG notes that it has almost entirely depleted its BTC reserves from around 80,000 bitcoins to 313. The remaining assets, which mostly comprise the crashed UST and LUNA tokens, will apparently be used to compensate investors.

In one of the most calamitous events in crypto memory, the $40 billion Terra ecosystem collapsed last week when the UST stablecoin, which is supposed to be worth $1, dropped to below 20 cents. The LUNA token, which is designed to serve as a sort of shock absorber for UST’s “algorithmic” dollar-pegging mechanism, crashed from $80 to below 2 cents.

See:  Terra is transitioning from a dollar-pegged stablecoin to a bitcoin-backed stablecoin

In a tweet on Monday, LFG said it sold off most of the BTC in its reserves for UST as Terra’s ecosystem was beginning to collapse early last week.

  • May 8:  LFG said it transferred more than 50,000 bitcoins “to trade with a counterparty”, as the UST price was originally starting to slump.  It said the funds were used for “directly executing on-chain swaps and transferring $BTC to a counterparty to enable them to enter trades with the Foundation in large size and on short notice.”
  • On May 12, LFG said another 30,000 BTC from its reserves were sold off by Terraform Labs, the original company behind Terra, “in a last ditch effort to defend the peg.”  That, however, failed to restore UST’s peg to the U.S. dollar as traders continued to sell the token for other stablecoins, leading to an exodus of capital away from UST and thus lower prices.
  • LFG confirmed the remainder of its reserves, which once totaled over $3 billion, have sunk almost completely as a result of the unsuccessful effort to defend UST.  Says these funds will be used “to compensate remaining users of UST, smallest holders first.”

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Decrypt | Sander Lutz | May 15, 2022

Vitalik and CZ took to Twitter this weekend to critique Terra—and the very premise of the UST token itself.

In the aftermath of last week's historic collapse of Terra’s stablecoin, UST, and native token, LUNA, crypto leaders have emerged to offer their perspectives.  UST isn’t backed by cash or assets like other leading stablecoins. Instead, an algorithm ties UST’s value to LUNA via a burning/minting mechanism designed to keep UST at $1. That mechanism collapsed last week, wiping out UST and LUNA, and with them some $40 billion in value.

Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum:

“We need to emphasize that the two,” Buterin said, referring to algorithmic stablecoins and asset-backed stablecoins, “are very different.  [The entire premise of UST] from inception [was] intentionally misleading and inherently flawed.

See:  Yellen Renews Call for Stablecoin Regulation After Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin tumbles

After days of uncharacteristic silence, Do Kwon reemerged on Friday with a new plan to resuscitate LUNA. The idea includes abandoning UST permanently and resetting LUNA to a 1 billion token circulation, with tokens to be distributed to both former holders wiped out by last week’s events, and to current holders.

ChengPeng Zhao, Binance CEO tweet:

  • “forking” LUNA, or splitting the blockchain to create a second version, “won’t work. [It] does not give the new fork any value.  That’s wishful thinking."
  • Zhao elaborated that the fatal flaw of such a strategy is Kwon’s failure to understand that “minting coins (printing money) does not create value, it just dilutes the existing coinholders.”
  • Zhao went further, openly questioning the transparency of Kwon and Terra’s handling of the crisis spurred by UST and LUNA’s collapse.  “Where is all the BTC that was supposed to be used as reserves?” Zhao wanted to know.

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NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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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7 Essential Ingredients of an (Open) Metaverse Framework

a16z | Liz Harkavy, Eddy Lazzarin, Arianna Simpson  | May 10, 2022

open metaverse

There has been a lot of buzz about “the metaverse” since its coinage in the ‘90s, but especially during the pandemic (given the surge in online activity), and even more so after Facebook changed its name to Meta.

In many ways, the metaverse is just another name for evolving the internet: to be more social, immersive, and far more economically sophisticated than what exists today. There are, broadly speaking, two competing visions for how to bring this about:

  1. One is decentralized, generous with property rights and new frontiers, interoperable, open, and owned by the communities that build and maintain it.
  2. The other vision is centralized, closed, subject to the whims of corporations; and often extracts painful economic rents from its creators, contributors, and inhabitants.

An open metaverse is decentralized, allows users to control identity, enforces property rights, aligns incentives, and ensures value accrues to users (not platforms).

See:  CB Insights: Metaverse stack and companies making it a reality

An open metaverse is also transparent, permissionless, interoperable, and composable (others can freely build within and across metaverses), among other criteria.

Achieving a “true” metaverse — one that’s open versus closed — requires seven essential ingredients intrinsic to this sought-after state. We argue that these are necessary to meet the minimum requirement to be called a metaverse. Our goal is to clear the fog of misinformation about what is and isn’t a true metaverse for builders and would-be participants, and to provide a framework for evaluating early metaverse attempts.

  1. Decentralization
  2. Property Rights
  3. Self-sovereign identity
  4. Composability
  5. Openness/open source
  6. Community ownership
  7. Social immersion

We believe — as is evident in this framework — that a metaverse cannot exist without the fundamental foundations of web3 tech.

See:  Blockchain-based replacement for traditional crowdfunding: DAOs

Openness and decentralization are the pillars upon which the whole edifice rests. Property rights rely on decentralization — they must endure despite the influence of powerful adversaries. Community ownership prevents unilateral control of the system. The approach also bolsters open standards, which are helpful for decentralizing and composability, a closely related property downstream of interoperability.

The development of an ideal multi-dimensional virtual world will come about gradually. Many problems remain to be solved.

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NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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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Bitcoin Mining Council Protest ‘Misleading’ Letter Sent to EPA

Blockworks | David Canellis  | May 5, 2022

bitcoin mining rigs

Letters sent to the EPA have deepened battle lines between crypto critics and proponents over Bitcoin’s environmental impact

Bitcoin industry advocates responded this week to a letter submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., and signed by a total of 23 Democratic members of Congress.

The extensive rebuttal sent by the Bitcoin Mining Council, a group representing bitcoin miners, is co-signed by nearly 50 industry figures, including Castle Island Ventures’ Nic Carter — who contributed much of the essay — as well as Block’s Jack Dorsey and Galaxy Digital’s Mike Novogratz.

See: Bitcoin mining is worse for the environment since China banned it

“If you have 23 members of Congress signed onto this thing, it could get messy.”

Carter claimed the original Huffman letter held several inaccuracies:

  • For one, he noted Huffman highlighted the EPA’s denial of a Greenidge application to keep open its coal ash ponds — large dirt ditches used to of harmful coal byproducts that are not biodegradable. But Greenidge is now a gas-only operation that mines bitcoin. The firm uses those ponds to continue mitigating waste associated with its past life as a coal plant. So celebrating the EPA’s move against Greenidge’s coal ash ponds isn’t at all relevant to crypto mining, Carter said.
  • Another sticking point was Huffman’s claim that “a single Bitcoin transaction could power the average US household for a month.” This calculation relies on taking average transaction counts and simply dividing it by the estimated energy usage of the network. The Bitcoin Mining Council’s response labeled the per-transaction energy cost analysis as a “deeply flawed way to reason about Bitcoin, since projecting future energy growth is not a function of transaction count, but instead of value of Bitcoin issuance (which is a function of price and supply growth), together with the fees users are willing to pay to transact.”

See:  A Carbon-Negative Blockchain Making Money Beautiful

  • He noted that some vertically-integrated crypto mining operations — those that control the data center and its energy source — are already sanctioned by the EPA and some state regulators. Just 2% of Bitcoin’s hashrate comes from such mining operations, according to the council’s response to the EPA.

“It’s a myth to say that the EPA is not aware of these things. They’re very much aware of them, and in some cases they’re supported,” Carter added. However, he did note that noise pollution caused by bitcoin miners is unnecessary, and that he’d actively discourage industry participants from setting up in residential areas.

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NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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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Sequoi’s Shaun Maguire on decentralization and crypto venture conviction

TechCrunch | Lucas Matney | May 1, 2022

Shaun MacquireIn a conversation on TechCrunch’s new web3 podcast Chain Reaction, Sequoia crypto partner Shaun Maguire talked about the firm’s commitment to the sector, regulatory challenges and what plenty of crypto investors still don’t understand.

Earlier this year, Sequoia announced a $500 to $600 million sub-fund dedicated exclusively to buying up cryptocurrencies. The firm has made a number of equity investments in crypto startups over the years including Fireblocks and FTX, but while Andreessen Horowitz was early to commit to a dedicated crypto fund in 2018, Sequoia has continued made its equity investments through its general funds.

See:  Crypto dating show leverages Crowdfund to raise $6 million (including from Paris Hilton) to build ‘Netflix of Web3’

While the crypto industry continues to mint new unicorn startups, the rapid cooling of public market tech stocks has threatened to stall growth in the emerging category, which has still proven awfully susceptible to macro conditions. In our conversation, Maguire emphasized his belief that plenty of other funds dipping their toes into crypto “are going to pull back” when the market grows less frothy, but he believes that Sequoia has already committed to a lengthy relationship with the sector — “we have permanent intentions.”

The crypto category has dealt with plenty of skeptics, some in the venture capital community, who believe that the sector’s benefits are being oversold and that the web3 promise of decentralization is just smoke and mirrors.

Maguire says:

Decentralization is not a silver bullet that just solves all problems and is better for everything. You know for the vast majority of compute, you want it to be centralized. For a lot of decision making, centralization can be better for certain types of decisions.  More important than decentralization for its own sake, is the ability of users to 'be able to leave with their identity and data'

See:  A Normie’s Guide to Becoming a Crypto Person (and down the rabbit hole)

...an effort which should protect consumers from platform overreach. While decentralization allows for a certain type of consumer protections, Maguire still contends that the rulebook of traditional investor protections shouldn’t be thrown out.

I think people sometimes forget that a lot of the consumer protections put in place by US law were won out of hard-fought lessons over like a century. And there’s a lot of wisdom in there.

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NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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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Musk’s Twitter acquisition: Reactions and what you need to know

NME | Elizabeth Aubrey | Apr 26, 2022

Elon musk buys twitterJack Dorsey posts Radiohead song in opening response to Elon Musk buying social network

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has commented on Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media platform – by sharing a Radiohead song Kid A’ track, ‘Everything In Its Right Place.’  The Tesla founder and entrepreneur successfully acquired the social media platform yesterday (April 25) for approximately $44billion (£34.5b).

He then added:

I love Twitter. Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness. Twitter as a company has always been my sole issue and my biggest regret. It has been owned by Wall Street and the ad model. Taking it back from Wall Street is the correct first step,” he continued.

See: 

Elon Musk becomes Twitter’s largest shareholder at 9.2%. What tweet’s next?

Twitter’s board adopts ‘poison pill’ as Elon Musk vows $0 salary for board

In principle, I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company. Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.  Elon’s goal of creating a platform that is “maximally trusted and broadly inclusive” is the right one. This is also Paraga’s goal, and why I chose him. Thank you both for getting the company out of an impossible situation. This is the right path…I believe it with all my heart.

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Independent UK | | Apr 26, 2022

Marvel star Simu Liu divides fans after criticizing Musk’s Buyout of Twitter

Reacting to the news that the Tesla titan had bought Twitter on Monday, Liu tweeted:

“Was there nothing better to do with 44 billion dollars?”

The Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings actor’s tweet drew mixed reactions from his followers.

In agreement with Liu, YouTuber Matt Mcmuscles commented under his post:

“Solving world hunger several times over would have been nice”, referencing Musk’s tweet on 1 November 2021 about selling Tesla stock to “solve world hunger”.

See:  With SpaceX’s first astronaut launch, a new era of human spaceflight has dawned

Others replying to Liu suggested that Musk’s money would be better spent on “building homes for the homeless” and addressing “pressing global problems like hunger and climate chaos” on Liu’s post from Monday.

At the same time, a separate group of Twitter users criticised the actor for questioning how Musk chooses to spend his fortune.

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NCFA Jan 2018 resizeThe 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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