Payments Canada Summit: Navigating the Headwinds of Crypto

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A panel of industry players and regulators took on the tricky task of unpacking the frenzied past year of crypto developments, taking on three cataclysmic events, the TerraUSD ad Luna implosion, the Celsius network meltdown, and the FTX debacle. – as starting points to explore where the industry is heading.

Despite the topic, Deloitte’s moderator Soumak Chatterjee insisted that we weren’t going to have an “apocalyptic panel.”

Charlene Cieslik of bitcoin ATM operator Localcoin noted that the recent US bank failures have ended a widely held perception that the digital asset space is particularly unstable.

However, participants had no illusions about the damage the sector’s reputation has suffered in recent months. And, while some in the United States scoffed at regulatory intervention, the panel largely acknowledged the need to cooperate with lawmakers.

Mohamad Al-Bustami of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions went out of his way to point out that his body is not ant-crypto and that he is a “believer” in technology and that engagement with the industry plays a key role in how regulation is shaping up.

Cieslik and Evan Thomas of WealthSimple gave a clear example of how different companies have entered the crypto space – with mixed results.

WealthSimple became the first Canadian company to offer its clients staking while complying with securities laws, devoting significant resources to working with regulators to ensure it would be compliant.

In contrast, Cieslik said his former employer, Coinsquare, lost a four-year head start on WealthSimple by not being as diligent and conducting wash-outs as well as whistleblower retaliation.

Cieslik had strong thoughts on FTX and what its failure says about the larger ecosystem. There were, she notes, a host of accounting firms, venture capitalists and others who claim to have done their due diligence on the company.

“There were no adults in the room. What exactly was your due diligence other than FOMO? »

Thomas, however, was optimistic about the Canadian scene, remembering the country’s FTX moment, the QuadrigaCX scandal.

This fraud has led to a huge regulatory response that now forces the industry to adhere to the same kind of rules and apply the same basic best practices that are required of more traditional financial companies, making the industry safer for users.

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