Today, the gaming market is worth over $300B (according to both
Agency Alleges Ooki DAO Offered Derivatives Without a License
As immersive experiences in the metaverse become more sophisticated, so does the threat landscape.
Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Category Archives: Web3, Decentralization, DAOs
Chainanalysis Breaks Down the White House Framework on Crypto
Chainanalysis | Clark Flynt-Barr | Sep 27, 2022
Recently, the White House released the first-ever comprehensive framework for the responsible development of digital assets. This follows President Biden’s March 2022 Executive Order (EO) that outlined a series of policy objectives for the U.S. with respect to digital assets and called for the development of the framework and necessary inter-agency coordination. In total, the framework included a series of reports, legislative proposals, future frameworks, and commitments for future reports. The reports that have been released thus far:
- How To Strengthen International Law Enforcement Cooperation For Detecting, Investigating, And Prosecuting Criminal Activity Related To Digital Assets
- Climate and Energy Implications of Crypto-Assets in the United States
- The Future of Money and Payments
- Action Plan to Address Illicit Financing Risks of Digital Assets
- Crypto-Assets: Implications for Consumers, Investors, and Businesses
- The Role of Law Enforcement in Detecting, Investigating, And Prosecuting Criminal Activity Related to Digital Assets
- Responsible Advancement of U.S. Competitiveness in Digital Assets
Illicit Financing
- Government agencies are increasingly building their capacity to investigate and prosecute crimes involving the illicit use of cryptocurrency
- Public-private partnerships are key to success in this space
- There are still a number of challenges that investigators and prosecutors face
- disparities among legal frameworks for cryptocurrency businesses around the world.
- different record keeping standards and anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) standards for cryptocurrency businesses abroad as a challenge that can impede or stall criminal investigations.
Protecting Consumers
- U.S. government agencies should continue to pursue illicit activity in this space and bring enforcement actions where appropriate,
- agencies should use their existing authorities to issue supervisory guidance and rules, and
- the U.S. should work to ensure consumers have access to trustworthy information about crypto assets.
See: White House Releases Comprehensive Framework for Digital Assets Highlighting 6 Key Priorities
Competitiveness
- The report lays out a framework and proposed actions for fostering U.S. competitiveness in digital assets. There is a real opportunity for the U.S. to lead in this space, and it will be interesting to see how the administration acts on some of the items outlined in the report, including highlighting U.S. digital asset firms’ work in international fora;
- promoting greater workforce development; and
- pushing for the development of a Digital Assets R&D Agenda.
- The United States has built and facilitated the safest and most mature financial system in the world and we have an opportunity to lead here again. The U.S. must embrace blockchain and web3 technology in order to maintain economic dominance and ensure its national security.
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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
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Future of Web3 Gaming: Play-to-Own (Ecosystems)
Arthur0x on Medium | Sep 25, 2022
Today, the gaming market is worth over $300B (according to both Accenture and BitKraft) with an expectation of 12% annual growth rate from 2022 to 2028.
- Overview: Our thesis is that the integration of Web 3 elements into gaming will likely usher in a new era of gaming dubbed “Play-to-Own”. We posit that unlocking the economic activity within games will drastically expand the Total Addressable Market (“TAM”) for the gaming industry as well as supercharge the value creation.
See: FitFi and Web3: Step App launches on ‘move2earn’ protocol
- Potential: In 2021, we caught a glimpse of the potential of Web3 Gaming via Axie Infinity’s rise to fame. Popularizing the Play-to-Earn (P2E) model most of us are familiar with, Axie has grown from 10k DAUs in early 2021 to a peak of 3 million DAUs and brought in $1.3B revenue in 2021 according to Nansen. What’s more surprising is that Axie was still in its infancy
- Interest and ecosystems: Games that integrated NFTs have experienced much greater success in terms of player retention, growth and revenues compared to their Web2 counterparts. We are already beginning to see a myriad of projects launching with innovative Play-and-Earn mechanics embedded within their gameplay. Apart from gaming studios, an entire ecosystem has also quickly spawned around Play-to-Earn like gaming guilds, DAOs, tooling for these guilds, game discovery platforms, custody, trading infrastructure and analytics.
- Play-to-Earn — Incentivising gameplay with financial value: Utilizing blockchain technology, token incentives for activity and true ownership of gaming assets via NFTs were introduced into games to give rise to the Play-to-Earn business model. P2E players are able to convert their time spent in a game into tokens and NFTs which can then be converted to cash to be used in the real world. Typically in such games, the “Earn” component of the game is heavily emphasized to attract players to play for rewards, hoping that a portion will be converted into paying players.
- Challenges with P2E: The pitfalls of the current P2E model are well recognised, namely the challenges with managing an inflationary economy and attracting value extractors rather than real players. Most leading entrepreneurs in the Web3 gaming space are moving beyond this model to make it more sustainable. We expect rapid experimentation in the coming months and it is our firm belief that the next generation of successful Web 3 games will not require the P2E model to be successful.
See: What Does The Financialization of Games Mean? GameFi
- Play-to-Own — The Future of Web 3 Gaming: Unlike pure P2E, Play-to-Own will focus on fun gameplay, a sustainable economy and foster a strong sense of ownership of in-game assets and IP — rather than a transient earning mentality among gamers. We believe this model will allow games to reap the real benefits of blockchains such as unlocking value from in-game assets, better price discovery and building a strong sense of community ownership.
A blockchain-enabled game developed with the ethos of Web3 — which is incentive alignment and true stakeholder ownership. Players are rewarded for their play and contributions with ownership of the game in the form of tokens or in-game assets.
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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
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CFTC Enforcement Action Against Ooki DAO Outrages One of Its Own Commissioners (and Crypto)
The Defiant | Owen Fernau | Sep 22, 2022
Agency Alleges Ooki DAO Offered Derivatives Without a License
In a case that has roiled the crypto community and triggered a dissent from one its own officials, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) brought an enforcement action yesterday that challenges fundamental tenets of decentralized finance.
On Sept. 22, the regulator alleged in a lawsuit that a DAO called Ooki DAO engaged in activities that only regulated entities called futures commission merchants (FCM) can perform. The DAO illegally offered leveraged and marginal retail commodity transactions in digital assets, which are derivatives, and agreed to pay a $250,000 penalty, the CFTC said. The commission also named the venture’s founders, Tom Bean and Kyle Kistner, in the suit.
See: New U.S. Bill Gives Crypto Oversight to the CFTC
The CFTC’s actions suggest that calling an entity a DAO, or invoking token-based voting as part of an organization’s decision-making process, doesn’t necessarily protect that entity from the legal responsibilities of a traditionally regulated institution.
CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger - broke rank with her five fellow commissioners and said:
The action wasn’t supported by the Commodity Exchange Act, the law that regulates derivatives inssuance, and amounted “regulation by enforcement. I cannot agree with the Commission’s approach of determining liability for DAO token holders based on their participation in governance voting for a number of reasons (said in a statement). While I do not condone individuals or entities blatantly violating the [law] or our rules, we cannot arbitrarily decide who is accountable for those violations based on an unsupported legal theory amounting to regulation by enforcement while federal and state policy is developing.
See:
Gary Gensler, Chairman of the SEC Speech
Sheriff Gensler of ‘Wild West’ Cryptoville Has Drawn His Guns
Gretchen Lowe, the CFTC’s acting director of enforcement, said in a statement:
Margined, leveraged, or financed digital asset trading offered to retail U.S. customers must occur on properly registered and regulated exchanges in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations. These requirements apply equally to entities with more traditional business structures as well as to DAOs.
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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
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Real Estate 3.0: How Affordability and Fintech Are Driving the Ownership Revolution
NfX | Pete Flint | Sep 2022
Affordability issues breeding innovation: Real estate has always been more than just the largest asset class in the world. It is the embodiment of home and work, family and business – the opportunity of generational wealth, writ large. The American dream. One that has become increasingly out of reach to most Americans. Paths to ownership of real estate are expanding. What “ownership” even means is also expanding. Affordability and access to traditional home ownership has only eroded since the housing bubble in 2008, as lending standards tightened and home prices have soared in recent years. And yet, restriction breeds innovation and market changes create opportunity. From the front lines with proptech Founders, we’re seeing early signs of a real estate revolution.
See: Vancouver Proptech Startup addy Launches Canada’s First Crowdfunded Real Estate Investing App
Real Estate 1.0: The Information Revolution: The first phase of tech adoption in the home-buying process was Real Estate 1.0, an information revolution enabled by the internet. The problem was the lack of information about one of the most important financial decisions a person can make: buying or selling a home.
Real Estate 2.0: The Transaction Revolution: Streamlining the user transaction experience is at the core of Real Estate 2.0. We continue to look for ways to make it easier to transact in this space by reducing friction, cost, and uncertainty within the buying and selling processes. In the last few years we have seen several innovative transaction models take root.
Real Estate 3.0: The Ownership Revolution
In Real Estate 3.0, the very concept of ownership is what’s at play. Ownership structures and mental models are both changing. When you can digitize, take out cost, and break apart the ownership model, we see things change quite meaningfully.
- What if, instead of paying rent forever, those rent payments earned you fractional pieces of your house (or your business’s property)?
- Divvy is one example of this. It is a service designed for people who, to use the company’s own words, are “not ready for a mortgage.” Divvy offers them an alternative pathway to ownership: you pick out your home, Divvy buys it, you put down 1 to 2 percent of the selling price (much cheaper than your traditional down payment), which goes directly into a fund for your future down payment. Then, you rent from them at market rate for about three years. But 25% of that rent is put toward a down payment nest egg, rather than into the landlord’s coffers.
See: How Proptech is changing the real estate industry
- What if you could own slices of other people’s homes as an asset, and sell them as easily as you would a share of GOOG on the Nasdaq?
- The idea that home ownership can be both fractional and/or a widely available asset class is an interesting development that increases access for more consumers to participate in the larger real estate market.
- Pacaso is an example of a company embracing the fractional ownership idea. Pacaso buys luxury vacation homes, converts them into LLCs, and allows people to buy an equity stake in those homes through that LLC. In return, they get to stay in the home for as much time as that stake allows. For example, you might own 1/8th of a house, and get to stay there for a few months at a time. It’s a model that supports a nomadic lifestyle, or opens the door to second-home ownership – both of which are not the norm, but which onboard a number of new users into the market nonetheless.
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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
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Digital Identity Protection is Critical for Metaverse Innovation
MIT Tech Review | Sep 12, 2022
As immersive experiences in the metaverse become more sophisticated, so does the threat landscape.
Current state: If today’s metaverse were a shopping mall, you could visit any number of department stores, each with its own rich selection of products and experiences.
- You could pop into virtual platforms like Roblox to buy a new outfit for your avatar or stop by Decentraland to gauge the latest valuation of digital real estate.
- You couldn’t, however, take your Roblox avatar into Decentraland or to a VR movie on another brand’s platform. The hallways, elevators, kiosks, and reference maps—the infrastructure that makes it possible to carry your shopping bags from store to store—are still being built.
See: Liquid Avatar Releases Update to It’s Feature Rich Self-Sovereign Identity Mobile App
- Another unfinished element of the metaverse is its security: the guards, the CCTV cameras, the shoplifting alarms. Common cybersecurity protocols—the technologies equivalent to the “https” of today’s internet—are still a work in progress in the metaverse. So too are the governance standards that will protect your privacy, property—and perhaps most importantly—identity.
Threats and opportunities: Even in today’s 2D version of the internet, digital identity is a complicated affair.
- Phishing has become so sophisticated that an email from your bank, a call from your auto insurer, or even a text message from your mother may not be what it seems. The immersive nature of the metaverse, however, may set the stage for even more elaborate forms of identity theft or mimicry.
- Identity protection will be a critical part of successful business operations in the metaverse—and it’s an especially important consideration for those getting in on the ground floor.
- David Truog, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, points out that the metaverse will be the next iteration of the internet—and like the early web, it will go through some growing pains.
- In the metaverse, the role of cybersecurity in establishing similar interactions will be “an order of magnitude or two” more important, says Truog. As such, first movers in the space are in a unique position to anticipate security gaps and build in safeguards from the get-go.
See:
7 Essential Ingredients of an (Open) Metaverse Framework
Metaverse Continuum: Digital experiences and interconnected future
Jeff Schilling, global chief information security officer, Teleperformance:
The threat of social engineering will potentially be even more effective in a 3D world, where deepfakes will be prevalent and an imposter is even more capable of tricking victims. No matter the medium— telephone or metaverse—the best way to resist social engineering is by having a foolproof way to validate who is on the other end of the conversation.
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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
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Disney+ Releases 8mins First AR-enabled Short Film
TechCrunch | Lauren Forristal | Sep 8, 2022
Image: Disney+
Today is Disney+ Day, and, as part of its perks, the company is offering Disney+ subscribers a new AR experience in conjunction with the short film “Remembering,” starring and produced by “Captain Marvel” Brie Larson and directed and written by filmmaker Elijah Allan-Blitz.
- The eight-minute-long movie features a companion augmented reality app that allows users to scan their TV with an iOS device to watch an extension of the movie on the small screen.
- To engage with the AR experience, Disney+ viewers will scan a QR code on their TV screen that allows them to download the “Remembering: The AR Experience” app, designed by technology studio Magnopus and Walt Disney StudioLab, on their iPhones or iPads. Users can also visit disney.com/remembering or search the App Store to find the new app
See: Bracing For Change In The Era Of The Augmented Workforce
- Viewers are meant to keep the app open while they watch the film. The AR app listens to audio cues by leveraging Apple’s ShazamKit technology. When it recognizes a key piece of audio around three minutes in, the device will chime, alerting users to hold up their phone and point it at their TV. A 10-second countdown then begins ahead of the AR experience.
- When users point their iPhone or iPad at the TV, they’ll see a waterfall flowing down to the floor as well as dolphins, butterflies, trees, foliage, glowing flowers and other wondrous digital elements. The movie continues to play during the experience.
Filmmaker Elijah Allan-Blitz:
The AR experience moves away from a typical passive experience of streaming and allows viewers to engage with it in a deeper way. That makes it something that you’re going to remember on a deeper level than just something you watch. It’s actually something you did.
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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
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White House Releases Comprehensive Framework for Digital Assets Highlighting 6 Key Priorities
The White House | Sep 16, 2022
Image: Unsplash/Tabrez Syed
Digital assets market is growing and so are risks
The digital assets market has grown significantly in recent years. Millions of people globally, including 16% of adult Americans, have purchased digital assets—which reached a market capitalization of $3 trillion globally last November. Digital assets present potential opportunities to reinforce U.S. leadership in the global financial system and remain at the technological frontier. But they also pose real risks as evidenced by recent events in crypto markets. The May crash of a so-called stablecoin and the subsequent wave of insolvencies wiped out over $600 billion of investor and consumer funds.
- President Biden’s March 9 Executive Order (EO) on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets outlined the first whole-of-government approach to addressing the risks and harnessing the potential benefits of digital assets and their underlying technology.
See: Responsible Development of Digital Assets (Crypto): Decoding Biden’s Executive Order
- 6 key priorities: Over the past six months, agencies across the government have worked together to develop frameworks and policy recommendations that advance the six key priorities identified in the EO: consumer and investor protection; promoting financial stability; countering illicit finance; U.S. leadership in the global financial system and economic competitiveness; financial inclusion; and responsible innovation.
- 9 reports submitted: The nine reports submitted to the President to date, consistent with the EO’s deadlines, reflect the input and expertise of diverse stakeholders across government, industry, academia, and civil society.
- Together, they articulate a clear framework for responsible digital asset development and pave the way for further action at home and abroad.
- The reports call on agencies to promote innovation by kickstarting private-sector research and development and helping cutting-edge U.S. firms find footholds in global markets.
- At the same time, they call for measures to mitigate the downside risks, like increased enforcement of existing laws and the creation of commonsense efficiency standards for cryptocurrency mining.
- Recognizing the potential benefits and risks of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), the reports encourage the Federal Reserve to continue its ongoing CBDC research, experimentation, and evaluation and call for the creation of a Treasury-led interagency working group to support the Federal Reserve’s efforts.
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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
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