A Solana physical web3 store opened in New York City today; it’s the first crypto store of its kind...in the real world
Buy the Broncos
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
Kirk Simpson, Peter Carrescia and Kirk Simpson Raise CAD$6.5 million abd Launch Qui Identity
Betakit | | Aug 4, 2022
Kirk Simpson is just one month removed from stepping down as CEO of Toronto-based Wave, and about to embark on his next venture. Simpson has teamed up with early Wave investor Peter Carrescia to launch a company focused on decentralized identities, called Qui Identity. Things are moving fast for the pair: Simpson and Carrescia have secured $6.5 million CAD ($5 million USD) from a notable group of Canadian investors for what is essentially an idea.
The duo explained that they are still in the early stages, and yet to build a product, but are focused on accelerating the adoption of decentralized identity. The goal is to work with both consumers and businesses to make it easier and give them more control over how they share their digital information.
See: The Evolving Digital Identity Landscape
The Qui founders were able to raise the money for their idea so quickly because of their deep history and track record in Canadian tech. Simpson led Wave to its $537 million CAD exit to H&R Block in 2019, while Carresscia is known for being an early Wave investor as a founding member of OMERS Ventures alongside John Ruffolo. After a stint as head of Next Canada, Carrescia joined the Wave team in 2016 as senior vice president of strategy and corporate development, before departing to become a venture partner at Toronto-based VC firm Information Venture Partners.
“They have a proven history as entrepreneurs with Wave, and their success is unmatched,” said Satraj Bambra, managing partner at Round13 Digital Asset Fund, which led Qui’s round.
The challenge there was that companies had to run these verified data registries and it was all just within their own company walls, and it was hard to scale globally, especially in the consumer space,” he said. “But now that’s possible because of things like the blockchain. There are lots of smart people thinking about this space, don’t get me wrong, but the go-to-market has not been figured out,” Simpson claimed, citing a lack of control and trust between consumers, businesses, and third parties that share data.
See: Digital Identity Sins
“[The industry has] been very focused on folks that are passionate about Web3, and what I think we can bring is a lot of experience around how to build products that, at Wave, would be onboarding tens of thousands of small businesses every month,” said Simpson. “And to do that you need to make things really simple … That is what we can bring to this space, a bridge between Web2 and Web3 that brings some of this stuff more to the masses.”
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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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8000 Solana Wallets Drained in Latest Attack
TechCrunch | Rita Liao, Carly Page | Aug 3, 2022
An unknown actor drained funds from approximately 8,000 wallets on the Solana network, Solana’s Status Twitter account said. It’s estimated the loss so far is around $8 million.The attack — which has only affected only “hot” wallets or wallets that are always connected to the internet, allowing people to store and send tokens easily — does not appear to be limited to Solana. Justin Barlow, an investor at Solana Ventures, reported that his USDC balance was drained as well. Crypto analyst @0xfoobar confirmed that:
“the attacker is stealing both native tokens (SOL) and SPL tokens (USDC)… affecting wallets that have been inactive for less than 6 months.”
See: First Crypto Store of Its Kind: Solana Opens in New York City
The attack has compromised other wallets including Phantom, Slope and TrustWallet. Initial reports suggested Solflare users were also impacted, but the company tells TechCrunch it has not been affected by this exploit. Wallets drained should be treated as compromised and abandoned, Solana warned as it encouraged users to switch to hardware or “cold” wallets.
The cause of the attack remains unclear, but industry leaders including Emin Gün Sirer, founder of another popular blockchain Avalanche, pointed out that the transactions were properly signed, which means the vulnerability could be a “supply chain attack” that manages to steal users’ private keys. @0xfoobar added that “it’s likely something has caused widespread private key compromise”, and warned that revoking wallet approvals will probably not help.
See: Code is Law Case: A Hamilton teen ‘hacked’ US$16 million in crypto (while he may not be in the wrong)
The Solana attack comes just hours after malicious actors abused a “chaotic” security exploit to steal almost $200 million in digital assets from cross-chain messaging protocol Nomad. The “free-for-all” attack, which saw more than 41 addresses drain $152 million — 80% of the stolen funds — was made possible by a recent update to one of Nomad’s smart contracts that made it easy for users to spoof transactions.
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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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Post-Merge, PoW Die-Hards Plan to Fork Their Own Ethereum Chains
The Defiant | Samuel Haig | Aug 3, 2022
The biggest upgrade in the history of Ethereum is rapidly approaching. The Merge will convert Ethereum into a Proof-of-Stake-based blockchain from a Proof-of-Work one. The shift will make the No. 1 blockchain for smart contracts and dApps faster and more affordable. Jazzed investors have sent Ether soaring 52% in the last 30 days.
But not everyone is happy. 'Maintain the Original'
- Some die-hard miners are facing the obsolescence of billions of dollars worth of mining hardware and a fall in revenue. And they are threatening to maintain the original, Proof-of-Work version of the Ethereum network to protect their investment.
- Colin Wu, a Chinese cryptocurrency journalist, recently estimated The Merge will displace $5B worth of GPU and ASIC-based mining hardware.
- On July 31, Wu reported that Chandler Guo, a Chinese miner and former advisor to Binance, predicted roughly half a dozen PoW forks will emerge after Ethereum moves to PoS.
See: Vitalik’s Announces Next 4 Phases of Ethereum’s Development Which is Only 40% Done
- In response, Llama Salami pondered whether an “NFT black market” could emerge on a PoW fork of Ethereum. But many onlookers are skeptical that post-merge PoW Ethereum forks will survive for long.
Perspectives
- Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, dismissed the threat of PoW forks. Drake said he expects there will be little economic activity on the PoW chain because there’s a very strong social buy-in for moving to PoS.
- Marc Zeller, head of developers relations at Aave, said stETH would be worthless on any PoW forks. In a post onTwitter he said stETH won’t be redeemable for Ether, creating a “$1.4B hole” in the books of a PoW fork of Aave.
- Bob Summerwill, the executive director of ETCCooperative, an organization providing grants and funding to the Ethereum Classic ecosystem, also told The Defiant that PoW Ethereum forks will ultimately fail due to the network effects of DeFi and stablecoins.
See: Blockchain-based replacement for traditional crowdfunding: DAOs
“All the dApp websites will stop working because they will reference ETH, not the fork,” he said. “Even if it’s possible for somebody to bring up clone websites, servers, etc, that needs doing for every dApp, and then somebody needs to maintain all those forks, too. Some likely not even possible, because you would need admin keys to be able to operate them, and those belong to the existing operators.” - Bob Summerwill
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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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Are DAO governance attacks avoidable?
a16z Crypto | Pranav Garimidi, Scott Duke Kominers and Tim Roughgarden | Jul 28, 2022
Many web3 projects embrace permissionless voting using a fungible and tradable native token. Permissionless voting can offer many benefits, from lowering barriers to entry to increasing competition. Token holders can use their tokens to vote on a range of issues—from simple parameter adjustments to the overhaul of the governance process itself.
But permissionless voting is vulnerable to governance attacks, in which an attacker acquires voting power through legitimate means (e.g., buying tokens on the open market) but uses that voting power to manipulate the protocol for the attacker’s own benefit.
Governance attacks in practice
- In one prominent example, Steemit, a startup building a decentralized social network on their blockchain, Steem, had an on-chain governance system controlled by 20 witnesses. While Steemit and Steem were gaining traction, Justin Sun had developed plans to merge Steem into Tron, a blockchain protocol he had founded in 2018. To acquire the voting power to do so, Sun bought tokens equivalent to 30 percent of the total supplyand eventually victorious and effectively had free reign over the network.
See: Arca Report: DAOs – Institutional Guide to Decentralized Governance
- In another instance, Beanstalk, a stablecoin protocol, found itself susceptible to governance attack via flashloan. An attacker took out a loan to acquire enough of Beanstalk’s governance token to instantly pass a malicious proposal that allowed them to seize $182 million of Beanstalk’s reserves within the span of a single block, which meant it was over before anyone had time to react.
- Governance attacks can also be conducted surreptitiously over a long period of time. An attacker might create numerous anonymous accounts and slowly accumulate governance tokens, while behaving just like any other holder to avoid suspicion.
Assessing and addressing vulnerability
For a protocol to be considered secure against governance attacks, an attacker’s profit should be negative. To reduce the incentives to exploit the protocol, the equation implies three clear choices: decrease the value of attacks, increase the cost of acquiring voting power, and increase the cost of executing attacks.
- Designers can limit the value of attacks by limiting the scope of what governance can do.
- Early in its life, a project might have more expansive governance as it finds its footing. As the project matures and decentralizes control, it may make sense to introduce some degree of friction in governance – at minimum, requiring large quorums for the most significant decisions.
- A project can also take steps to make it harder to acquire the voting power needed for an attack. The more liquid the token, the easier it is to require that voting power – so almost paradoxically, projects might want to reduce liquidity for the sake of protecting governance.
See: Research: Ownership of Top 10 Web3 DAOs is Surprisingly Concentrated
- Some projects have time locks so that a coin can’t be used to vote for some period of time after it has been exchanged.
- Some projects use veto powers that allow a vote to be delayed for some period of time to alert inactive voters about a potentially dangerous proposal.
Projects must strike a balance to allow a certain level of openness to community changes (which may be unpopular at times), while not allowing malicious proposals slip through the cracks.
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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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First Crypto Store of Its Kind: Solana Opens in New York City
Crypto Briefing | Tom Carreras | Jul 28, 2022
A Solana physical web3 store opened in New York City today; it’s the first crypto store of its kind...in the real world
Solana Spaces announced today the grand opening of its first store, situated at 20 Hudson Yards in New York City. The store, a collaborative effort from the Solana Foundation and several ecosystem partners, will be open from 10:00 to 20:00 from Monday to Saturday and from 11:00 to 19:00 on Sunday.
Catering to blockchain beginners, the store claims to be “the world’s first retail [and] educational space dedicated to Web3.” Visitors will have access to tutorials, programming services and Solana-based on-chain experiences; they will also have the opportunity to receive “unique rewards” for participating in physical store activities.
See: Osom partners with Solana to launch OV1, a blockchain-focused smartphone
With a market capitalization north of $14.5 billion and more than $2.6 billion of value locked across its protocols, Solana is one of crypto’s most prominent blockchains. It distinguishes itself from other smart contract-enabled blockchains like Ethereum by its high throughput capacity and very low fees, though the blockchain has been criticized for halting on many occasions.
A seed phrase booth will allow customers to generate their own Solana Phantom wallets. Multiple NFTs and cryptocurrencies including USDC are unlockable for visitors that go through the offered educational courses on Solana projects.
The store will also feature interactive art installations, a display of Solana’s upcoming Saga phone, crypto “lifestyle” products such as hoodies and t-shirts, and several of the ecosystem’s NFT collections. The store also offers a 50% discount on purchases up to $200 if using the Solana Pay app, and plans to rotate the experiences available to visitors.
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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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Aftermath Islands Secures USD $25 Million Commitment from LDA Capital
Aftermath Islands Metaverse Limited | Jul 26, 2022
Utility Token purchase program provides opportunities to accelerate Metaverse growth
Barbados, British Virgin Islands, July 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aftermath Islands Metaverse Limited together with Aftermath Islands Tokens Limited (“Aftermath Islands” or the “Company”) have secured a USD $25 million commitment with global investment group LDA Capital Limited, to accelerate Aftermath Islands’ product roadmap, adoption of the Aftermath Islands Metaverse and scaling the ecosystem while supporting the growth of NFTs, digital identity, multi-chain initiatives, play to earn programs, virtualization and blended reality, and other decentralized initiatives.
LDA Capital is proud to participate in the advancements brought by Aftermath Islands to the virtual worlds and games which will transform how players interact and transact with in-game collectible NFT’s. More importantly, the Company is an industry leader when referring to Digital Identity verification, enabling a whole new world of in-game interactions. Ultimately, Aftermath Islands is transforming science-fiction into history, and we are proud to be co-authors of this story.
See: Liquid Avatar Releases Update to It’s Feature Rich Self-Sovereign Identity Mobile App
According to Verified Market Research, the Metaverse Market size was valued at USD 27.21 Billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 824.53 Billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 39.1% from 2022 to 2030.
LDA’s commitment will support the long-term growth of the Aftermath Islands Metaverse. Aftermath Islands’ Metaverse showcases the use of digital identity to support safety, privacy and security and has adopted using high resolution graphics and pixel streaming to give users a fast, no-download, photo-realistic gaming experience on any device.
The USD $25 Million commitment provides for access to non-equity dilutive growth funds through the purchase of Aftermath Islands Utility Tokens based on the achievement of certain milestones, which Aftermath Islands expects to begin, but cannot guarantee to achieve towards the end of 2022. LDA also has an option to purchase equity in Aftermath Islands Metaverse Limited.
Warren Baker, Managing Partner, LDA Capital:
LDA Capital is proud to participate in the advancements brought by Aftermath Islands to the virtual worlds and games which will transform how players interact and transact with in-game collectible NFT’s. More importantly, the Company is an industry leader when referring to Digital Identity verification, enabling a whole new world of in-game interactions. Ultimately, Aftermath Islands is transforming science-fiction into history, and we are proud to be co-authors of this story.
Read: Understanding The New V2P and P2V Metaverse Commerce Models
David Lucatch, Managing Director of Aftermath Islands:
LDA’s commitment will support the long-term growth of the Aftermath Islands Metaverse. Aftermath Islands’ Metaverse showcases the use of digital identity to support safety, privacy and security and has adopted using high resolution graphics and pixel streaming to give users a fast, no-download, photo-realistic gaming experience on any device.
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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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Could DAOs Be the Future of Sports?
Coindesk | Jeff Wilser | Jul 25, 2022
Buy the Broncos
“Fans are clamoring for the ability to not just be a fan, but to also have a voice,” said Sean O’Brien, co-founder of the DAO called BuytheBroncos that recently tried to, well, buy the Denver Broncos. We knew the Broncos would be going up for sale given that longtime owner Pat Bowlen had passed away in 2019, and the team had since been run by a trust. We were pretty sure it would be in 2022."
So O’Brien did his homework. He knew the NFL and the Securities and Exchange Commission would be reluctant to acknowledge some goofy-sounding Web3 entity, so along with longtime friend James Wigginton, he spent months developing the legal foundation. As O’Brien describes it, the NFL officially acknowledges five different types of ownership structures: independently wealthy individuals, an association, a partnership, a corporation or the fifth category of an “other entity.”
See: Research: Ownership of Top 10 Web3 DAOs is Surprisingly Concentrated
They think the DAO can slide into the “other” category, because the DAO is a co-op. “This is a solid legal framework, Wigginton said. “Cooperatives have worked for hundreds of years.” Farmers use co-ops. REI is a co-op. When you pay your $30 membership to REI, you are technically a part-owner and you receive year-end dividends when you buy tents and skis and sleeping bags. “This could potentially revolutionize fan ownership,” Wigginton said, “because a cooperative – unlike a corporation – allows the users of the product to own the product.”
The DAO could even empower NFL players. “We haven’t made it public yet, but we have close to a dozen current Broncos who have said they’re onboard with us,” O’Brien said, along with “a few dozen” former NFL players. The pitch: If current NFL players are allowed to own a sliver of their team, this will both give them agency and boost their loyalty.
Buying a golf course
The average course costs $3.1 million, according to Links magazine, which puts it easily in the striking distance of crypto budgets, even in a bear market.
We’re rethinking the concept of what a golf community can be
Enter LinksDAO, a group of 5,300 golf enthusiasts who are trying to buy a golf course. “We’re rethinking the concept of what a golf community can be,” said Jim Daily, the DAO’s founder (along with Mike Dudas), who views the DAO as a way to make the exclusive world of golf “more fun and inclusive and egalitarian.”
See: Sounds like a DAO, Looks like a DAO: Introducing the Modern Digital Organization
LinksDAO has $9 million in the treasury, according to Daily, which was raised through a non-fungible token (NFT) drop that sold out in less than 48 hours. So unlike the more quixotic quest of buying an NFL team, a DAO-infused golf course feels likely to happen. (Daily clarifies that they will not use the DAO’s treasury to purchase the course, but instead do an “equity raise with more traditional capital,” and that in a technical sense, the DAO members will not actually own the course.)
Daily, who now spends much of his time “humping around the country looking at golf courses,” said the DAO is an easy way for golfers to nerd out over golf. It’s a way to find your tribe. (A tribe that might now include … Bill Murray?) “If you’re a golfer, you play the game for life,” Daily said, “and there are so many different areas where you can really lean in with other people.”
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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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