Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
DLA Piper | Don Collie, Ryan J. Black, Saje Gosal | Aug 19, 2022
Which tokens are securities?Two recent decisions of the Ontario Securities Commission’s (the “OSC”) Capital Markets Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) have shown how securities regulators are applying their guidance.
The Tribunal reached a settlement agreement including a comprehensive undertaking with Bybit Fintech Limited (“Bybit”), and filed administrative penalties, a cease trade order and a permanent ban on Mek Global Limited and PhoenixFin Pte Ltd (collectively, “KuCoin”) for failing to begin conversations around registration and regulation with the OSC by their stated deadline.
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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Medium | Lou Kerner | Aug 29, 2022
McKinsey recently published a comprehensive 77 page report titled “Value Creation In the Metaverse — The Real Business of The Virtual World.” Seven McKinsey partners were credited as the writers of the report, which included interviews with 13 senior “metaverse experts”, input from the 60 members of McKinsey Technology Council, and surveys of more than 3,400 consumers.
The ultimate conclusion of the report is that the metaverse is simply too big of an opportunity for execs to ignore, and too impactful on society for regulators to not start taking action. That said, at 77 pages, most people won’t take the time to read it. So below are my 8 highlights:
While the definition is still fluid , McKinsey believes that the metaverse is the next iteration of the internet, where it becomes something we are immersed in, rather than something we just view. Regardless of one’s exact definitions of the metaverse, it has several foundational characteristics:
While others see even a bigger market (e.g. Citicorp sees an $8-$13 trillion metaverse market in 2030), McKinsey estimates a $4-$5 trillion market in 2030 and believes the metaverse represents the biggest growth opportunity in multiple industries including e-commerce ($2-$2.6 trillion), e-learning ($144-$206 billion), and the advertising market ($108-$125 billion).
Brainsy | Brian Price | Aug 2022

Web3 Defined (for Skeptics) including Web2 vs Web3, Blockchain, DAOs, NFTs, Stablecoins, Crowdfunding and more
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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Decrypto | Daniel Roberts | Aug 27, 2022
The SEC chief has gone from rhetoric to enforcement, targeting token projects from the present and past. Crypto companies are shook.When Gary Gensler was sworn in as SEC Chair in April of last year, many in crypto celebrated. The general reasoning: He had taught a course called "Blockchain and Money" at MIT in 2018, so he must be friendly to crypto. They aren't celebrating now. In the eyes of the crypto industry, he began as a wild card, became a figure of concern, and is now a proud villain.
He has already spent the past year making very clear through his rhetoric that he views pretty much all tokens other than Bitcoin as securities. (He has avoided giving his own view on Ethereum.) Now the rhetoric is turning to enforcement. Last month, the SEC fingered nine tokens listened on Coinbase as securities, and reportedly launched an investigative probe into the company. Last week, it sued blockchain platform Dragonchain for its $16.5 million ICO (initial coin offering) back in 2017.
The message is clear: all those token sales from the ICO boom are on notice. Some prominent people in crypto have been careful to curb their criticism. Other crypto advocates have had enough, and are saying so—loudly. Gensler's latest Wall Street Journal op-ed included a call for crypto lenders "to come in and talk to SEC staff." It was roundly mocked by people in crypto who point out Gensler's SEC has had anything but an open-door policy.
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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Guest Post | Aug 26, 2022

The market for NFTs (non-fungible tokens) is expanding rapidly. Every week, millions of dollars are exchanged for the best NFT projects.
But, to promote your collection, you'll need to be active in the most appropriate channels, engage with the right people, and be resourceful in your marketing efforts.
In this guide, we’ll talk you through some of the key considerations that you should make in promoting your NFT collection.
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have more than three billion monthly active users. That's almost half the world and a demographic you can use to get people interested in your NFT initiatives.
Twitter is the most popular among NFT collectors with CEO Jack Dorsey, a crypto art enthusiast, selling his first tweet as a non-fungible token (NFT) for $2.9 million.
Besides Twitter, professional networking sites, instant messaging apps, and photo-sharing sites are all superb advertising venues. However, the best results will come from a mixture of paid and organic advertising.
Consider hiring an influencer to help spread the word about your NFT promotion. Fees for influencers in the NFT sphere vary widely, depending on factors such as the influencer's popularity and the nature of the promotion you're looking to secure.
Monitoring their reach and effectiveness is crucial when working with social media influencers. Make use of UTM links to track how much of the influencer-sourced traffic converts, as then you’ll be able to gauge the influencer's contribution to your return on investment.
Having a website to showcase your work is a great idea. It also positions you favorably to have search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing send visitors to your website.
One minor hitch exists, though. Ranking highly in search engines takes months of consistently publishing high-quality content and implementing search engine optimization strategies.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a broad concept that encompasses a wide range of techniques, including but not limited to keyword analysis, title and tag refinement, and the enhancement of internal and external links to enhance load times and the user experience.
The cost of SEO seems high. However, if you work with a reputable agency with a successful track record, you can expect your investment to yield a positive return.
Your audience will likely be more receptive to your upcoming NFTs if you promote them on Discord, as most users there are already keen to invest.
To get people excited about your upcoming NFTs, you can even host and participate in Discord events. While promoting your NFTs on public servers is effective, your ultimate goal should be to join a private investment server.
These are invite-only, so you'll need to make some friends on public servers and be active there before you can get in.
Reddit is another great place to share your NFTs with the world. The sheer number of people who frequent Reddit—often called the "front page of the internet"—makes it an ideal platform for advertising your NFT collection.
Investors in NFTs often scour various subreddits searching for promising projects to buy in at the ground level before the price explodes. If you're serious about making it as an NFT creator, you can't afford to leave Reddit out of your marketing mix.
Redditors are generally discerning individuals who will quickly see through any inconsistencies between the claims you make in various subreddits. Think carefully about how you arrived at the NFT collection, what it stands for, and the direction it is likely to take.
That will assist you in painting an accurate mental image of what your NFT collection represents in the minds of your target audience. Also, sincerity is highly valued by the public.
In the wake of the NFT industry boom at the start of 2021, a number of new marketplaces emerged.
If you're looking for a popular platform to trade NFTs, look no further than OpenSea. Posting your first NFT promotion project to OpenSea is cost-free. Even if your NFTs were originally stored in a wallet that isn't compatible with Ethereum, you could bring them over to OpenSea.
Virtual pets and other collectibles are hot commodities in the gaming community, and Axie is the perfect place to sell them. Axie allows users to create new NFTs or incorporate preexisting works of art. The best part is that Axie NFTs can be put to good use in Axie Infinity, which in turn drives their prices up substantially.
Rarible has a $210M annual trading volume, making it a top NFT marketplace. Everything from paintings and photographs to songs and sports memorabilia is cataloged here in digital form. In the same way, you can make multiple copies of OpenSea items and sell them to different customers, you can do the same with Rarible.
If you have a large enough collection of NFTs, SuperRare could turn you into a multi-millionaire. Although you can't guarantee that your NFTs will fetch millions at auction, SuperRare is a market that aims to maximize artists' earnings.
Super rare values quality over quantity and collaborates with musicians to help them produce high-quality NFTs. The platform is also highly customizable, allowing you to narrow your focus to the ideal clientele for your particular line of NFTs.
The NFT market is huge and only shows signs of getting bigger. However, to get your NFT noticed, you need a strategic approach to its promotion.
We recommend being adaptable and ready to try out new platforms and advertising strategies to find the perfect fit with your offering.
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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For Bitvo by Tristram Waye | Aug 25, 2022
Nobody knows how far we are through crypto winter, but like the previous winter, the building continues. There is lots of cash and talent in the space building, developing and experimenting. Down markets also reveal numerous valuable lessons.
More confidence means more risk. Less confidence and a high level of fear mean less risk. The risk pendulum is an ongoing process that benefits traders looking for opportunities.
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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Reuters | Ian McGinley | Aug 23, 2022
Regulation and enforcement in the cryptocurrency space are hot topics, with the debate centered around the complex issue of whether to classify digital assets as securities, commodities, or a separate asset class entirely. In the middle of this debate, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has sent a message — the classification does not matter for its purposes. In recent prosecutions, DOJ has used the wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1343, a law with origins dating back to the 1800s, to bring innovative cases in the cryptocurrency space that do not depend on how a digital asset is classified.
DOJ has used wire fraud to prosecute the first two rug pulls involving NFTs and to prosecute two digital asset insider trading cases. DOJ has not recently used wire fraud in a large-scale market manipulation case, but it is likely to be a next area of focus, given public reports of market manipulation and spoofing (creating orders with the intent to cancel) by crypto whales, who are individuals or entities that own substantial amounts of a particular cryptocurrency.
Going forward, we can expect DOJ to focus on larger disclosure issues, likely at the corporate level. Crypto companies communicate with the public frequently, over various forms of social media. Companies often respond in real time to market events. While communicating quickly and frequently with the public has commercial benefits, it can also lead to inaccuracies. DOJ has already used wire fraud to prosecute alleged misrepresentations made over social media in other contexts (seeU.S. v. Milton, S.D.N.Y. 2021), and it may seek to do so as well in the crypto space.
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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TechCrunch | Andrew Mendez | Aug 23, 2022

Meta, formerly Facebook, has officially rolled out what it’s calling Meta accounts and Meta Horizon Profiles. The global launch will be gradual, but both “accounts” are to be used in place of the personal social media account logins — Facebook and Instagram — once used to log in to the company’s virtual reality (VR) system.
Users, new and old, of Meta’s VR devices, will be required to sign up for a Meta account to log in and access the metaverse. The company is ditching the old way of logging on after complaints around privacy concerns arose regarding using personal social media accounts.
However, the company is still allowing users to use Facebook and Instagram accounts to create a Meta account, the company said. If a person chooses to create their Meta account via their social media accounts they’ll be connected in the Accounts Center, the central hub for connected experiences across Meta.
To even begin the process of creating a Meta account one must have the latest software on the Oculus app and VR headset.
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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Craig Asano
CEO and Executive Director
casano@ncfacanada.org
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