A5 One tool, and not a silver bullet, is a public registry of beneficial ownership. Shell companies are a tool that's used for sanctions busting, and public registry will a) discourage some from using shell companies, and b) expand the amount of eyes on those remaining. #TRRisk
Thanks @dbcurren! Indeed. Canada lags far behind our peers across the Atlantic with the UK already having a registry and EU members now mandated to establish them #TRRisk
A4: Standard! I sometimes challenge that word. We need to evolve standards more quickly in line with technology and methodology changes. Ease to say, hard to do.
Also, standards can only arise when industries are very mature. It takes a while even for best practices to emerge. And high risk is often high risk because something is emergent and not well understood.
Agreed. Also if third part verification or audit is required the individuals must be sufficiently familiar with the industry or tech. It needs to be an assessment of the material risks to compliance or current deficits - not a box ticking exercise.
@BobSummerwill the ISO only has seven working groups underway in blockchain and digital ledger technology. The first of which is on terminology! #TRRISK
@BobSummerwill A4 - problem is monitoring/regulation can lag innovation and the challenge is to not let that lag get too long. Regulators need to recognize the ramifications of new tech as quickly as they and get ahead of potentially risky innovation whenever they can
@dbcurren Yes. And also industry and regulators need to work more as partners not enemies. Industry to explain the technology and its implications. Regulators to explain what they need to see. Everyone to work together to square those away into something which works.
.@MPelletierCIO totally agree. Working with #CPAs recently I think they are a good asset for this. Ask them for insights they are seeing across their clients.
I struggle with this because Compliance only seems to get noticed when things go wrong as its function is so difficult to quantify. Key risk indicators could help but I believe a culture shift is needed to place additional value on back end employees.
Skipping ahead to Q8 because I think this will be a popular question! Q8: How much control can Canadian regulators assert over initial #cryptocurrency offerings? And what will this mean to the finance industry? http://www.via-cc.at...
A8 as much as humanly possible? there's no reason that ICOs shouldn't be held to the same regulatory standards as other securities, maybe in ways similar to equity IPOs
A8. Enormous influence. Many innovators are actively leaving Canada because of the existing regulatory landscape. It is a crying shame. @ethereum had to flee Canada in 2014, but now we have hundreds of Fortune 500s in @EntEthAlliance building on Ethereum now.
There is a real need for a coordinated industry effort in Canada to lobby for effective (not reactionary) regulation for cryptoassets which balances innovation with consumer protection. And some of us are working to that goal.
See https://www.picatic...., our first gathering of BC blockchain companies to put together a coordinated response to the BCSC to questions which they had asked. That is a great way to do this, and it looks like we might have a BCSC rep there next time as well.
We are not investigating sanctions screening @BlockchainRI, but we are exploring factors for innovation centers all over the world. What are the factors which contribute to innovation economies and economic growth? Sensible regulation top among them. Diversity. Stable government.
A2. If you view regulation and compliance through the lens of being an unfair burden on your business then you just try to minimize your spend. Let things drop and pay fines. But that is just transferring your risk to society. A better lens is "quality". Provable quality.
A1: Silo’d understanding of world by policymakers creating continuous attempts 2 control & regulate inherently complex and diverse reality, managing for all exceptions instead of starting from the assumption that mostly everyone is honest & trustworthy. Mechanistic worldviews.
A8. If a taxable event (capital gains/loss) occurs every time cryptocurrencies are used to buy a coffee, the benefit of the regulation will not equal to the cost of oversight. Sensible regulation will find a way to balance government revenue needs with economic growth.
A8: Cryptocurrencies are better understood and regulated from knowledge of chaos and complexity sciences. E g emerging properties, patterns, “order” in strange attractors, etc. Compliance and regulation need to be updated to reflect the reality of quantum computing too.
