NFT games are fun but filing taxes afterward is a nightmare.
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Personal Finance
FDATA and Paytechs: Canadian Consumer and Small Business Attitudes Towards Financial Services and Open Banking
FDATA NA and Paytechs of Canada | Steve Boms and Alex Vronces | Apr 4, 2022
April 4, 2022, Toronto and Washington, DC: More than half of Canadians feel stress when interacting with Canada’s financial services sector and believe they would benefit from increased competition and transparency in the financial services market, according to a landmark survey commissioned by FDATA North America and Paytechs of Canada. The findings indicate this is especially true among women, young people, and new Canadians. Among the biggest sources of dissatisfaction are high fees and a lack of choice.
See: New Mastercard Study: Majority of Canadian Consumers Embrace Open Banking
The findings are derived from two surveys conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights. One was of a randomly-selected sample of 2,001 Canadians 18 years of age or older. The other was of a randomly-selected sample of 600 Canadian small business owners. In each, respondents were asked about their experiences with Canada’s financial services sector.
Key Findings:
- About half of Canadians (52%) and small business owners (51%) feel stress when interacting with the financial services sector. Those who operate larger small businesses (10+ employees) are significantly more stressed (72%). Moreover, the majority (54%) of these larger small business owners feel the amount of time they spend dealing with the financial services sector is getting in the way of them actually running and growing their business, twice the overall level among small business owners (26%). Immigrant small business owners are more likely to be stressed by their interactions with the sector.
- Over two-thirds of Canadians believe more competition in the financial services sector would lead to a greater choice in products (70%) and lower financial services fees (67%). Moreover, small business owners are over four times more likely to agree than disagree with the sentiment that Canadian small businesses would benefit from increased competition in the financial services sector (64% vs. 14%).
See: Ipsos Survey: Most Canadians Say (88%) We Need More Competition
- Among specific changes tested, Canadians are most likely to feel they would personally benefit from easier ways to “shop around” to get the best possible rate (75% would benefit), easier ways to transfer money quickly and securely (73%), and tools that help make personalized investment decisions (69%).
- Among specific changes tested, small business owners are most likely to feel they would benefit from easier ways to “shop around” to get the best possible rate (73% would benefit), better ways to transfer funds between different accounts (68%), and alternatives to credit cards with lower interchange fees for merchants (62%).
- There is widespread agreement among the users of Non-Bank FinTech Apps that they are easy to use (91%), have lower fees (82%), and help save money (73%).
Continue to the original release --> here
Download the 29 page PDF survey results --> 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
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Rich Turrin on EUs digital euro vision, U.S. eCash and China’s e-CNY + Shanghai Lockdown
Rich Turrin | Cashless | Apr 1, 2022
The EU's vision for a digital euro takes shape while the US looks at eCash
First, let me congratulate the EU for actually surveying citizens to get an idea of their concerns for the digital euro. The Fed should watch and learn from the European Central Bank (ECB)!
The most shocking thing we learned is that privacy is, amazingly enough, not "top of mind" for most users, many of whom feel that much of their purchasing is already tracked. That was a real shocker for me and apparently for the ECB. Still, it shows the sad state of digital privacy.
Interestingly, free and immediate contactless payment seemed to be a hit, provided it was universal. Users don't want to worry about whether or not it would be accepted. They have had their fill of being told: "Sorry, we accept Visa, not Mastercard." The good news is that universal acceptance is precisely the experience a CBDC national currency can deliver. More on the ECB digital euro user survey
See: Will The ECASH Act be the Answer to Privacy and Virtual Currency in the U.S.?
What makes this so interesting is that in the same week that the EU launched these results, US Senators from the Financial Services Committee published a draft law proposing privacy-protecting eCash!
ECash is tokenized money that does not get transported on a network. It is not a CBDC! ECash is a token on your phone or offline card and can be used as we do cash with no risk of being tracked. I think it's a great idea and may just compliment a CBDC. CBDCs would cover higher value transactions and eCash lower day-to-day expenses. This looks almost exactly like the e-CNY's anonymous payment for low value (RMB 2000 max) transactions.
eCash is designed for privacy. Lack of AML/KYC is its "Achilles heel."
eCash is not without flaws. Suppose you lose your digital wallet; it's gone, just like cash. The biggest issue is that eCash requires no KYC or AML. I don't see this as a flaw, in fact, I love it! Still, I am sure this will cause a battle with regulators who will deem eCash unacceptable. Still, I think it advances the digital dollar discussion. More about the eCash act and PDF of the full act in this post here.
Fintech Fridays Podcast: Special guest, Richard Turrin, Author of Innovation Lab Excellence
What makes this so interesting is that the US is investigating a privacy-protecting eCash system, while the ECB is getting actual survey results saying that privacy is not the number one concern. I find the divergence interesting. It makes me wonder if the nation addicted to privacy vampire Facebook is as concerned about privacy as a vocal minority makes them out to be? In the EU, we now know that this is not a primary concern. Sadly, for the US, we have no idea.
The Digital Yuan is used for far more than buying coffee and has potential for reserve currency
I back this statement up with a post earlier in the week that shows how the e-CNY is being used for transactions over US$ 100,000 in trials in China. The PBOC is clearly signaling that e-CNY will be used to carry large sums of money that WeChat and Alipay were never designed to move. Moreover, it proves that the e-CNY can do far more than buy coffee.
Rich Turrin at FFCON20: AI Implementation in China: A Day in the Life in Shanghai
This is a big question but has to be asked. While the yuan certainly has many flaws, is it "good enough?" The US dollar was once considered "risk-free," but it now has real questions surrounding its usability following widespread global sanctions. Can you use it if sanctions hit? This is why as a "risk management exercise," many nations are looking for dollar replacements, and the yuan just might be "good enough." It's not a question of loving the yuan, so much as that there are few alternatives, and most countries import goods from China. So why wouldn't they convert some of these purchases to yuan to reduce dollar dependence?
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Are millions of NFT gamers in for an unpleasant surprise this tax season?
Protocol | Hirsh Chitkara | Nov 6, 2021
NFT games are fun but filing taxes afterward is a nightmare.
In a matter of months, NFT gaming became a multibillion-dollar industry by combining two things people already loved: video games and getting rich from crypto. But it turns out the play-to-earn model also has the incredibly inconvenient side effect of turning even minor actions taken in a video game into taxable events.
See: Licensed Formula 1 Ethereum Game is Shutting Down – What Happens to NFT holders?
Did you sell your cute digital creature on Axie Infinity? That's a taxable event. Did you sell it less than a year after you bought it? (The answer is almost certainly "yes," given the timing of the play-to-earn boom.) Well, then it's a short-term capital gain. If you converted your NFT into a cryptocurrency before cashing out, that counts as two separate investment transactions. Even seemingly trivial in-game item swaps can have tax implications.
Making matters worse, NFT games don't typically keep track of all your transactions for tax documentation purposes. So while there are plenty of services designed to assist with crypto tax filings, it can be difficult to get the raw data that feeds into those products. By contrast, mainstream crypto-trading platforms like Coinbase prepare customer trade data for tax services either in the form of CSVs or direct software integrations.
See: Crypto-tax primer in Canada
Kim also pointed to the added complexity that comes with the "scholarship" model employed within play-to-earn gaming. While the name suggests an altruistic support system, scholarships are all about making money, and if that's your goal then consider a gaming option like slotsfans.com. Thousands of "scholars'' in places like the Philippines and Venezuela play games on behalf of NFT owners ("managers") in exchange for a share of the resultant earnings.
Scholarship managers therefore operate business partnerships within NFT games. That triggers business tax requirements rather than capital gains. It also likely adds overseas tax implications, since many managers live in developed nations and lend to scholars in developing nations. By some estimates, around 40% of players on Axie Infinity are now based in the Philippines.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Why Apple Acquired An ‘Open Banking’ Fintech
Forbes | Ron Shevlin | Mar 27, 2022
The Apple-oids in Cupertino must eat this stuff up. Every time Apple makes an acquisition, the technology world—and increasingly now, the fintechaverse—goes into hyper speculation mode, trying to figure out why the company made the purchase and what it plans to do with the acquired firm.
See: Financial Consumer Agency of Canada publishes BNPL pilot study
What does Credit Kudos do?
via their Website: “Credit Kudos’ intelligent products enable businesses to leverage Open Banking to enhance affordability and risk assessments. Our predictive insights are built by combining transaction and loan outcome data. Our products help lenders streamline underwriting, improve accuracy in decision-making, and support customers after acquisition through our engagement tools.”
Why Apple Wants Credit Kudos
BNPL acquisitions have been occurring faster than Ben Affleck finds new girlfriends:
- Block, nee Square, acquired AfterPay for somewhere between $15 million and $29 million (the valuation was at the higher amount when the deal was announced, but Block’s stock price fell by ~50% by the time the deal closed).
See: UK Research: How consumers use savings apps
- PayPal purchased BNPL company Paidy in 2021 for $2.7 billion.
- Zip acquired New York-based Quadpay in 2020 for nearly $300 million, and is now looking to purchase Sezzle.
It would be a real coup for Apple to acquire a BNPL capability for just $150 million.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
What to Know About Borrowing Against Crypto
Guest Post | Mar 25, 2022
The world of crypto is at this point advancing toward being mainstream very quickly. Cryptocurrency is something more and more people are using for transactions and as a payment method. Crypto is also an investment opportunity.
Beyond those applications, crypto borrowing and lending are growing in popularity as well.
Crypto lending is a type of Decentralized Finance or DeFi. With DeFi, investors can lend their crypto to borrowers. The benefit for a lender is that you can get interest payments in exchange, which are known as crypto dividends. There are a number of platforms specializing in lending crypto.
While the benefits of acting as a lender may be apparent—you can earn on your holdings passively, what about the perspective of a borrower?
Below, we delve into some of the things to know about borrowing against crypto and the pros and cons of doing so.
An Overview of Crypto Lending
Crypto lending, as mentioned, lets people who hold crypto have the potential to earn interest on it.
If you’re someone with ten bitcoins as an example, and you want to earn a steady stream of passive income, you can deposit them into a crypto lending platform wallet. Then, every week or month, you receive interest.
Interest rates vary. On the low side, interest rates may be around 3%, and on the high side, as much as 17%.
Borrowers can stake their cryptocurrency as a guarantee that they’ll repay the loan or as security. Then, investors can sell their crypto assets in the event the borrower doesn’t pay off the loan, providing a route to cover losses.
Most platforms will ask a borrower to stake anywhere from 20% to 50% of the loan in crypto.
A third party is required to connect a borrower to a lender. A borrower can be an individual as well as a business requiring funding.
There are a few steps that occur in general in the process.
The borrower finds a platform they want to use. Once they identify the platform, they request a crypto loan.
A borrower stakes their crypto collateral when the loan request is accepted by the platform. Until the borrower can pay back the loan in its entirety, they won’t be able to get back the stakes.
The lender automatically funds the loan through the platform. The lender then receives regular interest payments. Once a borrower pays off the complete loan, they get back their collateral crypto.
Common Features of Crypto Loans
If you get a crypto-backed loan, it’s one requiring collateral, which is the stake. In many ways, a crypto loan has similarities to a car loan or a home loan because you have an asset securing your funds.
Cryptocurrency loan platforms tend to offer interest rates that may be comparatively low—often in the single digits. That’s going to nearly always be less than the interest rates on a credit card or an unsecured personal loan.
Crypto loans aren’t usually as cheap as a car or home loan, however, so you shouldn’t use this option to make a big purchase.
You will almost always face limits on how much you can borrow. A lot of platforms will let you borrow up to 50% of the value of your crypto, but some will go all the way up to 90%. You receive your loan funds as USD or a digital currency.
See: Rise of Regulatory Compliant DeFi Protocols
There’s almost never a credit check when you apply for a loan backed by crypto. If you don’t have perfect credit or you have a limited credit history, this can be one of the biggest pros that you might think about with this personal finance option.
The funding will usually be fast—often with funding coming through the same business day. For someone who needs fast cash, that holds a lot of appeal.
For lenders, the upsides of crypto loans include the fact that you’re probably going to get higher returns than using something like a savings account, and you don’t have to lock in your assets.
What To Keep In Mind Before You Borrow Cryptocurrency
If you’re considering borrowing crypto, you need to choose the right platform, making sure that it’s legitimate and secure. After you find a reliable platform, taking out a crypto loan tends to be a simpler, easier process than getting a traditional loan.
The loan amount is going to depend on how much collateral you can use. The loan-to-value ratio in this context is the amount of the loan compared to the value of the collateral.
Because of the inherent volatility of crypto markets, these loans usually have extremely low LTV ratios.
Other considerations include:
- You could be subject to what’s called a margin call. If you borrow against a big portion of your holdings and the price goes down, which often happens because of crypto’s volatility, you might need to deposit more collateral in the form of more crypto. Another option in this situation would be that the lending platform would sell some of your holdings, reducing the LTV ratio. You have to be very careful about how much leverage you can use as a result.
- If you use crypto to secure a loan, it’s locked in until you pay it off in full. If you faced an emergency where you needed to liquidate your holdings, you wouldn’t be able to. Also, if there’s a big drop in crypto prices, you can’t sell to limit the losses.
- The repayment terms can vary widely between one another, so be aware that many of these loans are very short-term.
Finally, you can’t use any coin to get a loan. Some platforms will only accept a limited number of options, while other platforms might accept dozens.
Getting a crypto-backed loan is a growing possibility for consumers, but also one with risks and considerations to keep in mind before jumping in. As with anything in personal finance, weigh the pros and cons before doing anything. Along with researching the loans in general, make sure you choose the best platform for your needs.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
Can You Make A Cash Advance Online?
Guest Post | Mar 24, 2022
Do you ever wonder what it is like to get quick cash/ advance online? Do you have questions regarding the system of giving cash advances online? If you want to know more about how this online system operates, then continue on reading to find out all there is to know.
Workings of cash online
It does not matter whether you are someone who has to pay for medical bills, recently suffered from illness, or needs to pay pending payments; there are simple and quick ways that you could easily get funds from online. Now you might be wondering how reliable they are and on what basis do these online websites/corporations lend money to borrowers.
See: Solution to Consumer-Centric Payments Innovation in America
The reason why they are so popular is that these cash advances charge high fees just for you to borrow them. Although you can get a hold of money quickly, you do have to pay it back in a week or two, and if you fail to do so, you might get late fees charged.
Difference of cash advance and other loans
Many people have their doubts regarding the workings of cash advance online as they believe it or be a scam or fraud when this is not the case at all. One of the differences between cash advances and other forms of loans is the fixed rate that is applied. The rate in cash advance is much higher than the traditional loan system.
On average, you could get a loan of around 500 dollars which is paid back in a day or two, whilst in another loan system, the loan itself is high and can be paid back in years rather than days.
Getting cash advance with bad credit
When you are getting a cash advance online, you do not have to go through the traditional process of giving credit/ bank information or any personal finance data, but rather have to provide them with the eligibility of your employment and pay stubs. Now what this essentially means is that you could still get cash online even if you have overall bad credit. If for some reason, you are looking to get a cash advance online that comes with a lower interest fee, you could get it if you have an excellent credit score. If you want to know more, click on the cash advance app.
Pros of cash advance
When it comes to talking about the advantages, there are countless such as being extremely easy to qualify for. Unlike other loan methods, in cash advance, you do not have to go through multiple steps and gather documents, etc.
Although there will be some background checks made, the overall process is relatively quicker and more efficient.
Another benefit of cash advances online is that you could use them to solve your urgent problems such as pending taxes/ payments/ bills/ and much more.
Thirdly, the overall process of applying for a cash advance is easy, meaning that all you have to do is visit the webpage and apply online. After you are done, you just have to wait for a few hours before getting a reply back.
Conclusion
So now you know how cash advance online operates and what are the core elements to it. In recent times the use of cash advance online has become quite popular due to its efficiency and high reliability.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
World’s First Decentralized Bank in The Metaverse
BeInCrypto | Nicole Buckler |Mar 21, 2022
JP Morgan and HSBC
have launched sites in the Metaverse. But they are traditional banks that come with all of the traditional bank problems.
And yet. There is a decentralized bank that has now entered the metaverse. This crypto-based model will take on these Goliaths, with “simple, dependable digital banking procedures.”
Meta Bank DeFi has announced it has entered the fray. The photorealistic metaverse crypto project says it is the world’s first decentralized 360 solution bank in the metaverse.
See:
Metaverse’s first major bank, JP Morgan, predicts US $1 trillion
Liquid Avatar Technologies Inc. Launches First-Ever Payment Card and Loyalty Program for the Metaverse
“The mission is to implement decentralized banking and to help users truly grasp the concepts of virtualization, by introducing them to the metaverse and putting the power in the hands of those who can determine their own terms financially.”
Meta Bank Defi says that its new crypto-based platform eliminates the middlemen from the equation.
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
| | |
|---|---|---|
| | |
