Opinion

June 23, 2018 @ 3:43 pm By Cali Haan  |  

At a party this Spring on the 30th floor of an apartment that overlooks Lake Ontario, an accountant said something fascinating. A majority of the recent growth in the North American economy, she claimed, had occurred mainly at the level of stock speculation. The reason… Read More

June 22, 2018 @ 6:03 am By JD Alois  |  

The current definition of an accredited investor is an anomaly based on ease of enforcement and policy inertia. The statute dictates that accredited status is based on annual income or the size of an individual’s (or couples) bank account – yet everyone understands that wealth… Read More

June 22, 2018 @ 2:44 am By JD Alois  |  

In a sweeping speech that was broadly positive, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney set the tone for what will be his final year leading the central bank. Carney said that an “effective financial system must be resilient, fair and dynamic” to deal with tectonic… Read More

June 19, 2018 @ 10:26 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Bitcoin and crypto’s unofficial chief philosopher has released a video of a talk he gave on ‘globalized decentralization’ at the PanamaChain conference in Panama City May 6th. Andreas Antonopoulos is the author of two important books on Bitcoin: The Internet of Money (for lay audiences)… Read More

June 18, 2018 @ 12:24 pm By JD Alois  |  

The European Crowdfunding Network (ECN) is the leading independent advocate for Fintech innovation, including crowdfunding, in Europe. The ECN has earned a reputation of engaging with a broad group of industry participants, thought leaders and public officials to help guide the evolution of new forms… Read More

June 18, 2018 @ 9:25 am By Cali Haan  |  

Walmart has successfully obtained a patent on a compelling system for storing medical records on blockchain that can be accessed in emergency situations, CCN reports. But is a blockchain really required? The proposed system would allow first responders on the scene of an emergency to… Read More

June 17, 2018 @ 8:25 am By Cali Haan  |  

  Fresh on the heels of news that the partly Bitcoin-sustained founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been receiving visits from far-right activists comes a story that the “crypto space,” that haven for problem children, has yet another strange bedfellow. Political strategist and alt-right leader… Read More

June 16, 2018 @ 1:14 pm By JD Alois  |  

UK Finance’s most recent report indicates that the number of new loans to UK SMEs increased slightly in the first quarter of 2018. There were 73,971 new loan approvals to SMEs across the UK in Q1 versus 72,272 in Q1 of 2017. A report by UK… Read More

June 15, 2018 @ 3:20 pm By Ritam Gandhi  |  

Across the UK, there were 589,000 new businesses launched in 2017 – that’s more than 1,600 every day, or 67 each hour. It’s a remarkable statistic that illustrates how there is an insatiable appetite among large portions of the British public to move away from… Read More

June 12, 2018 @ 8:50 am By JD Alois  |  

  Just as North America is drawing a line in the sand, drawing a hard line that defines just about all initial coin offerings as securities, France appears to be heading in a different direction. Organized by the Autorités Des Marchés Financiers (AMF), France launched a consultation… Read More

June 9, 2018 @ 1:58 pm By JD Alois  |  

While Goldman Sachs’  (NYSE:GS) most prominent foray into Fintech started with online lending, Marcus is poised to become so much more in the digital banking arena. As previously reported, Marcus zoomed into online lending fueled by consumer deposits due to an acquisition from several years… Read More

June 7, 2018 @ 10:12 am By Cali Haan  |  

Cryptocurrency used to fundraise for business ventures are regulated securities, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are not, and relevant laws will reman, the same, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairperson, Jay Clayton, said yesterday on CNBC. The point made by Clayton draws a hard line for any… Read More

June 6, 2018 @ 10:07 pm By JD Alois  |  

The number of Reg CF crowdfunding platforms in the US continues to slowly grow with several recent additions. Last time we reviewed the number of FINRA approved investment platforms in March, there were 38 regulated sites. So what has changed? First, to update on what… Read More

June 6, 2018 @ 4:21 pm By JD Alois  |  

It has been widely reported today that mutual fund giant Fidelity is hiring a “DevOps System Engineer to help engineer, create and deploy a Digital Asset exchange.” The fact that Fidelity is going crypto is just further validation of the digital asset revolution that is… Read More

June 5, 2018 @ 10:31 pm By Cali Haan  |  

According to China News Weekly, Xiao Wei, Chief Blockchain Scientist at Baidu, China’s Internet search giant, announced this weekend at a conference that Baidu has developed a high-performance “super chain” blockchain and will soon be, “completing a blockchain transformation of its own business.” The news follows… Read More

June 1, 2018 @ 8:52 am By JD Alois  |  

Israel and the United Kingdom have signed a new “landmark” agreement designed to strengthen entrepreneurial and innovation ties between the two countries. Israel is a country with more startups per capita than anyplace else outside Silicon Valley. A unique culture and acceptance of risk taking… Read More

June 1, 2018 @ 8:26 am By Clayton Moore  |  

When Overstock (NASDAQ:OSTK) became the first major retailer to accept Bitcoin for payment in 2014, the move raised eyebrows. Four years later, cryptocurrencies still struggle with being seen as “fake” money, exacerbated by boom and bust headlines and regulatory uncertainty. The fastest path to legitimacy?… Read More

May 31, 2018 @ 9:08 am By Erin Hobey  |  

Last week Robo.cash surpassed a €4M investment milestone and briefly commented on new studies conducted by its analytical center.  Today the Latvian P2P lending platform Robo.cash tweeted a detailed infographic and Founder and CEO Sergey Sedov explained the findings on TechBullion: the younger generation of investors who consider P2P lending… Read More

May 30, 2018 @ 11:00 pm By Samuel Guzik  |  

  If the Wall Street Journal is any indicator, so called Regulation A+ offerings, which sprung to life in June 2015, courtesy of Title IV of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (the JOBS Act) and SEC rulemaking,  are (or should be) all… Read More

May 29, 2018 @ 7:24 am By Cali Haan  |  

At a recent cryptocurrency conference in Toronto, Dmitry Buterin, father of Ethereum inventor Vitalik Buterin and himself a technologist and programmer, floated the idea of an AI judge making better decisions than a human judge hungry for lunch. Judges, said Buterin, are known for issuing… Read More