This chapter delves into the intricate relationship between digital assets, specifically non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the regulatory landscape of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing of terrorism (CFT). With the rapid emergence of NFTs, new challenges and opportunities have arisen, necessitating an exploration of evolving regulatory frameworks and enforcement measures to combat AML and CFT risks associated with digital assets. This chapter focuses on the unique characteristics of NFTs, AML, and CFT risks within the NFT market, global regulatory developments, compliance challenges, technological solutions, enforcement actions, collaborative efforts, and future trends. By analyzing these aspects, this chapter aims to provide insights for policy-makers, regulators, scholars, and industry participants in effectively addressing financial crime risks in the digital asset landscape.

In an era where two-fifths of the global population is engaged in gaming, this industry’s technological and economic evolution is of paramount importance, promising continued growth. Beyond mere entertainment, gaming has become a primary medium for social interaction, enriched by technologies like virtual, augmented, and extended reality. Gaming has increasingly become intertwined with the financial market as game developers shift their focus from gameplay enjoyment to monetization of in-game assets and some players prioritize the potential for livelihood in gaming. This transformation has been accelerated by the integration of blockchain, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which provide users with more control over their in-game assets and enable external trading of such assets in the secondary market. This chapter delves into this integration, examines its impact on the gaming industry, and provides a high-level overview of key related legal and ethical issues that warrant further exploration.

As blockchains in general and NFTs in particular reshape operation logistics, data creation, and data management, these technologies bring forth many legal and ethical dilemmas. This handbook offers a comprehensive exploration of the impact of these technologies in different industries and sectors, including finance, anti-money laundering, taxation, campaign-finance, and more. The book specifically provides insights and potential solutions for cutting-edge issues related to intellectual property rights, data privacy and strategy, information management, and ethical blockchain use, simultaneously presenting insights, case studies, and recommendations to help anyone seeking to shape effective, balanced regulation to foster innovation while safeguarding the interests of all stakeholders. This handbook sets out an invaluable roadmap for navigating the dynamic and evolving landscape of these new technologies.

In this chapter, we look at the global development of “people-scoring” and its implications. Unlike traditional credit scoring, which is used to evaluate individuals’ financial trustworthiness, social scoring seeks to comprehensively rank individuals based on social, reputational, and behavioral attributes. The implications of widespread social scoring are far-reaching and troubling. Bias and error, discrimination, manipulation, privacy violations, excessive market power, and social segregation are only some of the concerns we have discussed and elaborated on in previous works.1 In this chapter, we describe the global shift from financial scores to social credit, and show how, notwithstanding constitutional, statutory, and regulatory safeguards, the United States and other Western democracies are not as far from social credit as we seem to believe.