Author: Ben Carey

Ben Carey is a Brisbane-based writer, with a wide range of experience, from copywriting to game design and film and tv scriptwriting. He's been following, investing, and trading crypto since 2017. He has three lambos (in Gran Turismo), and can often be seen around town wearing a Bitcoin or Ethereum themed Christmas sweater.

Categories
Australia Bitcoin Crypto News

New Trend Sees More Aussie Companies Holding Bitcoin

Widespread crypto adoption may be one step closer to reality in Australia with more companies following a global trend in holding bitcoin on their balance sheets.

According to Swyftx, a popular Queensland-based cryptocurrency exchange, there has been a significant increase in small and medium-sized businesses using its platform to buy crypto.

Swyftx’s customer base has gone parabolic, increasing from 15,000 users a year ago to over 300,000 at present. Around six per cent of these accounts hold more than A$250,000 in assets.

We’ve got accounting firms. We’ve got building and construction companies. We’ve got property development companies. We’re seeing a pretty large uptick in these types of accounts.

Tommy Honan, Swyftx head of strategic partnerships
Public-listed company bitcoin holdings as at June 30, 2021. Source: The Asian Banker

Aussie Companies Follow MicroStrategy and Tesla

Honan believes Australian companies are emulating big multinationals such as Tesla and MicroStrategy, who have large bitcoin balance sheets. In February, Tesla dropped a cool US$1.5 billion into bitcoin, which many believe fuelled the run-up to April’s all-time high. According to CoinGecko, Tesla currently owns 48,000 BTC worth US$1,562,519,291.

Last month, MicroStrategy added another US$500 million worth of bitcoin to its holdings. MicroStrategy currently holds 105,085 BTC worth US$3,420,777,911 and in May announced revenue growth of 10 percent for 2021.

Australian Companies Enter the Race

At present, there is only one Australian company in the top 20 in terms of global public company BTC holdings. DigitalX, an Australian tech and finance company, holds 215 BTC but, if the trend continues, we could see more Australian companies populating this list in years to come.

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Crypto News Scams

YouTuber Logan Paul Slammed for Promoting Shitcoin to 23 Million Followers

Popular YouTuber Logan Paul finds himself at the centre of the latest pump and dump scandal after Dink Doink, a meme coin he has been promoting, crashed 95 percent in two weeks.

Dink Doink was created less than a month ago and is based entirely on a South Park-themed cartoon that stars Paul and a character by the name of Dink Doink.

The Inevitable Crash

Dink Doink plunged from an all time high of $0.00000000027627 per coin on June 28 (just after the tweet above) down to $0.00000000001320 per coin at the time of writing, a drop of about 95 percent.

Dink Doink chart. Source: Poocoin.app

Logic v Profit

Anybody with more than two brain cells could tell that Dink Doink was a blatant scam, but greed is a powerful thing. As with most pump and dumps, high-risk investors see an opportunity to make a lot of money very quickly. The problem is that a lot of people have to get burned in order for them to succeed.

Some in the crypto community slammed Logan Paul online and tried to warn the masses about this scam, to no avail.

Logan Paul: Promoter and Co-Creator of Dink Doink?

According to YouTuber Coffeezilla, who was one of the first to publicly criticise Logan Paul about the scam, Paul is not only responsible for promoting the scam coin to his millions of followers, he also helped create it.

We might as well be honest about how this came about. I was chilling with Logan and we were like, what’s the most stupidest [sic] name we can think of for a coin? Dink Doink … and it just came alive. Logan designed the character on his phone, on Snapchat.

Dink Doink CEO (podcast audio on Coffeezilla’s video)

Not a Scam, Just a Funny Meme Coin

Paul continues to promote Dink Doink, despite the coin’s huge crash in value and the criticism he and the Dink Doink team have received over the alleged scam.

Furthermore, the self-appointed CEO of Dink Doink uploaded a video to Twitter addressing the public about the recent price action. He asserts that Dink Doink is not a scam, but a funny meme coin. He also claims that neither Paul nor the dev team have sold any of their coins.

Crypto Scams Galore!

No wonder some people are so hesitant to invest in crypto. It seems like there is a new scam every week. Just recently, a number of eSports influencers from FaZe Clan, with over 5 million followers, came under fire for a pump and dump scam called Save the Kids. It seems it’s probably a bad idea to take investment advice from YouTube influencers or celebrities – who would have thought?

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Bitcoin Crime Crypto News Scams

Tinder Date Goes Bad in Attempted Crypto Grab

A US man was drugged by a woman he met on Tinder who then attempted to steal his crypto.

The man, who was a client of Casa, a company that offers heightened Bitcoin security, reported the attempted robbery to the Casa team, who performed a postmortem on the incident.

Over the weekend, a CasaHODL client survived a ‘wrench attack’ – he was drugged and persuaded to give up access to phone, accounts, and passwords. With the client’s permission, we are sharing the story to help others learn to protect themselves.

Tweet from Nick Neuman, CEO & co-founder of CasaHODL

Beware the Tinder Trap

A blog post written by Casa’s Jameson Lopp details the strange and concerning attack. According to the victim, the woman claimed to be a crypto trader on her bio, which intrigued him and helped him establish common ground with her. After chatting online, they met up at a coffee shop. He thought she looked different from her photos, but not enough to raise any red flags.

Later, they went back to his place for a drink and while he was in the bathroom it is suspected the woman laced his drink with scopolamine, also known as ‘Devil’s Breath’, or a benzodiazepine. Both drugs cause loss of inhibition and memory. He woke up the next day, noticing that his phone was missing and that attempts had been made to withdraw crypto from several of his accounts.

Thankfully, the man was not harmed in any way and the perpetrator only managed to steal a small amount of his crypto, largely thanks to Casa’s multisig technology. The scammer managed to get a small amount of bitcoin out of one of his exchange accounts. He was able to block some of the other requested purchases and withdrawals by contacting those custodians to inform them of the compromise.

The attacker managed to get a small amount of bitcoin out of one of our client’s exchange accounts. He was able to block some of the other requested purchases and withdrawals by contacting those custodians to inform them of the compromise. Since the attacker only had one of the client’s five keys to his Casa multisig, those funds could not be spent.

Jameson Lopp, Casa co-founder

A Rise in Crypto Scams

Although this incident is bizarre, it is sadly not unprecedented. As the price of Bitcoin continues to rise, so too do the scams, particularly romance scams. According to Australian government website Scam Watch, there were 277 reports of romance scams in June alone, resulting in losses of A$5,857,472. Many of these incidents do not make the news though there have been some high-profile cases; Australian schoolteacher Melanie Kilgour was involved in a romance scam in 2020 that cost her an estimated $50,000 worth of bitcoin.

Protecting Against Romance Scams

Crypto News Australia has put together an excellent guide on how to avoid Bitcoin scams, including a section on romance scams, which we strongly recommend you check out. Additionally, at the end of his postmortem, Lopp provides a list of useful strategies to help protect yourself and minimise the risk of becoming a victim of a romance scam.

Categories
Australia Bitcoin Crypto News

Aussie Tech Company Asta the Latest to Pay Employees in Bitcoin

Asta Solutions, a Melbourne-based technology consultancy, has become the latest company in Australia to offer employees the opportunity to be paid in bitcoin.

The company announced its innovative decision last week on LinkedIn and Twitter and joins several other Australian companies such as Finder, Living Room of Satoshi and BTC Markets that are providing employees with the option to be paid in bitcoin.

A number of Australian companies are now also accepting bitcoin as payment. These are great indicators of an increase in bitcoin adoption in the country.

Global Push in Companies Adopting BTC

There has been a recent worldwide uptrend of companies offering to pay employees in bitcoin as well as accepting it as payment for goods and services. Multibillion-dollar company MicroStrategy announced three months ago that it would be paying its board of directors in bitcoin:

Also in April, English professional football club Southampton FC allowed its players the option to be paid in bitcoin. Mecum, a large auction house for collector cars, started accepting crypto as payment in May. Mecum will also accept other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, Dogecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. And just last month, Australian auction house Lloyds announced it would accept major cryptocurrencies as payment for collector or sports cars.

Categories
Accommodation Australia Crypto News Gaming

Atari ‘Hotels of the Future’ Could Hit Australia Soon with Crypto Token Video Game Arcades

Atari has announced that it wants to bring its ambitious Atari Hotels to Australia and New Zealand, as well as perform a strategy shift towards making premium games again.

Atari, the first big name in the video game industry, was vanquished by Nintendo and Sega in the console wars of the 1980s. Atari became less relevant in the console market but kept making games. It also pursued other business ventures in later decades, including casinos, TV shows and blockchain technology.

Artist’s impression of a future Atari Hotel

In 2020, Atari announced it would also be entering the premium accommodation business, with plans to build a number of Atari Hotels across the US, the first of which was slated for Phoenix, Arizona.

Atari hopes its hotels will become an entertainment and gaming mecca, where people will come from all over the world to immerse themselves in an “all-in-one luxurious and entertaining experience”.

Atari hotels will […] immerse visitors into the video game universe and the Atari brand. The hotels will feature Atari gaming playgrounds, several function rooms, co-working areas, fine restaurants and bars, a bakery, a movie theatre [and] gym.

Atari Press Release

In March this year, Atari announced it was planning on bringing its ambitious hotels to other parts of the world, including Australia and New Zealand.

Atari Token (ATRI) Powered Arcades

Atari Token Poster. Source: Atari

The Atari Hotels will also accept its own Atari Token (ATRI) for use on the premises. The exact details of what the token will be used for are unclear, but Atari said it would include “loyalty programs and exclusive VIP experiences”. It makes sense that they might also function as digital arcade tokens that allow you to play your favourite games in the Atari “gaming playgrounds”.

Artari Video Games Arcade. Source: Flickr

Atari won’t be the first hotel group in the US to accept cryptocurrencies on the premises. Kessler Collection Hotels recently announced it too would be accepting payment in crypto.

Atari Wants To Make “Premium Games” Again

In an exciting turn for retro and modern gamers alike, Atari also announced earlier this year, its intention to abandon its free-to-play and mobile game strategy to focus once again on creating premium games for PC and its own Atari VCS console (released to Indigogo backers last year and to the public in June).

Atari said that “the first titles are currently in development and the first releases are planned for the financial year 2021/22”. Historically, Artari’s most popular video games have been Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and Asteroids.

Categories
Australia Crypto News NFTs Sports

Australia Going Crazy Over Sport NFT Trading Cards

Interest in Australian sports trading cards has surged and several businesses are hoping to cash in by offering famous sporting moments as NFTs.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have been taking the crypto world by storm over the past 12 months, and it’s a trend that most exchanges are exploiting. Binance recently ran the ‘100 Creators’ campaign, which featured Australian artists, sports stars and musicians contributing work sold as NFTs. Crypto.com also recently launched its own NFT marketplace, featuring contributions from music and sports celebrities.

Lebron James’s slam dunk NFT sold for US$200,000
MomentPrice
LeBron James “Cosmic” Dunk$208,000
Zion Williamson “Holo MMXX” Block$100,000
LeBron James “From the Top” Block$100,000
LeBron James “Throwdowns” Dunk$100,000
LeBron James “Holo MMXX” Dunk$99,999
Steph Curry “Deck the Hoops” Handles$85,000
Giannis Antetokounmpo “Holo MMXX” Dunk$85,000
LeBron James “From the Top” Dunk$80,000
LeBron James “From the Top” Block$78,000
LeBron James “From the Top” Dunk$71,455
The 10 Biggest NBA Top Shot Sales to Date – Data from Cryptoslam.

Booming Market in Sport NFTs

The sports industry is the latest to join the NFT party. The NBA, English Premier League, Major League Baseball and the UFC are among some of the big associations to have taken up the NFT craze. Grand Slam tennis champion Andy Murray has also made his entry into the NFT world, auctioning off a number of his memorable Wimbledon moments, one of which sold for US$177,777 when he won Wimbledon in 2013.

Collectibles Craze In Australia

Australian companies such as Four Points Collectables and Sport Moments are aiming to bring the sports NFT market to Australia for sports such as NRL, AFL and Basketball.

We’re creating a platform specifically built for Australian sporting codes that creates NFTs and brings a new layer of engagement to Australian sporting fans.

Jacob Osborne, Sport Moments CEO
NRL Trading Cards by fourpointcollectables.com

Collectibles in general are experiencing a resurgence. David Miller, the man behind AFL Footy Cards, says the entire 2021 collection had sold out in June. Miller believes NFTs are “where the future will be”. He will be working with Sport Moments to offer AFL fans a new way to engage with their favourite sport.

Popular NRL players such as Ryan Papenhuyzen and Sandor Earl are getting involved in the trading cards action, as they collect and share them on their social media accounts.

Ryan Papenhuyzen Sharing NRL Trading Cards on Instagram

The Dark Side of NFTs

Everyone wants a slice of the NFT pie at the moment. The ability to prove ownership is a game changer and no doubt we’re only just scratching the surface of possible applications. However, despite all of the hype about NFTs, they have also received a lot of criticism, primarily around their environmental impact.

NFTs have also been criticised for perpetuating art theft rather than preventing it, which is ironic because the latter was one of the primary arguments promoted by early campaigners of NFT art.

The Future of NFTs is Uncertain

No one knows what the future holds for NFTs. They may prove to be a pivotal part of the next digital revolution or they may prove to be just another fad that fizzles out after a couple of years.

For more on how to buy, sell and transfer NFTs, check this recent story run by Crypto News Australia.

Categories
Crypto News Dogecoin

Elon Tried to Pump Doge and Failed, But Floki Inu Coin Soared

Elon Musk’s latest attempt to stay relevant in the crypto space and pump Dogecoin has been met with mediocre success. However, other Doge-inspired meme coins have jumped in value.

Crypto’s greatest ever troll has continued his quest to pump Dogecoin and all of the other copycat meme coins. On 1 July at 8:43 am UTC time, Musk posted a Godfather-themed meme along with the words, “Release the Doge!”

Seconds after, Dogecoin jumped from US$0.24 to $0.261, an 8.75% increase. A sharp sell-off followed but then at 9:24 Musk tweeted again, posting a message consisting of slightly altered lyrics from the viral 2017 children’s song Baby Shark.

After this second tweet, Dogecoin rose about 5 percent back up to $0.260. This could hardly be considered a successful attempt to pump the price of Dogecoin.

Dogecoin chart in relation to Musk tweets

Some in the crypto community suggested Musk’s tweets were beginning to lose their impact on the crypto market.

Bump in Baby Dogecoins

Although Dogecoin didn’t pump in response to Musk’s tweets, most of the other Doge-inspired meme coins, sometimes referred to as “Baby Dogecoins”, did. These included Shiba Inu, Baby Doge, which is up over 500 percent since its inception just over three weeks ago, and the brand-new Floki Inu. Musk tweeted about naming his new dog “Floki” on 25 June. In response, Shiba Inu jumped 25%, but Floki Inu went on a moon mission with an insane 3,500% surge in a matter of minutes.

Although Floki Inu did not repeat its lunar launch, it did soar from $0.00000269 to a high of 0.00001280, a 375% rise, between 1 July and 2 July, largely due to Musk’s tweet.

Floki Inu chart around the time of Musk tweet

Musk Walks and Talks the Doge

Musk has been spruiking Dogecoin for months now, which many consider is the primary reason for its meteoric rise. Musk even went on Saturday Night Live to shill the coin. Since then though, Dogecoin has been steadily falling in price, despite Musk’s best efforts. Some analysts and traders consider this a blatant “top signal” for the whole market.

Categories
Crypto News Regulation

Robinhood Crypto Trading App Fined $70 Million for Misleading Customers

Robinhood Financial has agreed to pay a record US$70 million to resolve a range of allegations, such as misleading customers, allowing ineligible traders to use high-risk strategies, and poorly supervising technology that failed, locking millions of customers out of trading.

The $70 million settlement with FINRA (Wall Street’s self-regulator) includes a $57 million fine and about $12.6 million in payments to customers who were negatively impacted by the US company’s actions.

This is not the first time that Robinhood has had a run-in with a regulatory body. In 2019, FINRA fined the company US$1.25 million for failing to guarantee customers the best price on their trades. And in 2020, Robinhood was fined another $65 million by the SEC for misleading customers about the true costs of trading using its commission-free facility.

High-Risk Strategies

Robinhood was accused of exposing customers to several high-risk trading strategies, such as options and margin trading. Options, which allow traders to buy or sell shares at set prices in the future, can vastly amplify gains or losses. The company allegedly used bots to approve traders for options accounts without a human presence in the middle to properly determine whether they were actually eligible or not.

Robinhood was also charged with failing to disclose to more than 800,000 customers who were approved for options accounts that their trading could involve the use of margin lending, which exposes traders to losses significantly larger than the money invested. Tragically, a 20-year-old customer killed himself last year after he thought he’d lost more than US$700,000 using the app to trade options with margin lending activated. Subsequently, the family took Robinhood to court and settled the matter.

Service Disruptions

In March 2020, just as pandemic panic started wreaking havoc on the stockmarket, Robinhood’s trading platform experienced a series of technological disruptions, including one outage that locked users out of trading for more than 24 hours. Being blocked from trading during one of the worst crashes in recent history resulted in catastrophic losses for many traders.

Rocket Ship or Sinking Ship?

Robinhood, which had fewer than 500,000 users in 2015, has now surged to more than 31 million users. At the start of the year, during the Gamestop short squeeze, Robinhood was a popular choice because it provided easy access to the stockmarket for everyday people, which many regarded as revolutionary or game-changing. However, with its third large fine in as many years, you can’t help but wonder how many cannonballs can this ship take before it starts to take on water?

Categories
Australia Bitcoin Crime Crypto News Monero

Aussie Couple Charged for Operating DarkMarket Platform Accepting Bitcoin and Monero Payments

German prosecutors have charged the Australian couple allegedly behind DarkMarket, one of the world’s largest illegal marketplaces operating on the darknet.

DarkMarket was shut down on 11 January and the suspected operator of the marketplace, a 34-year-old Australian man, was arrested near the Germany-Denmark border soon after. It is alleged that his 32-year-old wife was responsible for the design of the website and mediation of customer disputes. The couple, who are living in Australia and cannot be named for legal reasons, have now been officially charged by German prosecutors.

German news breaks of DarkMarket seizure. Source: Europol

What Was DarkMarket?

DarkMarket was a virtual marketplace that sold all manner of illegal items. It operated on the darknet and users paid with crypto such as Bitcoin and Monero.

Illegal drugs of all kinds, counterfeit money, stolen or forged credit cards, malware and many other illegal goods were traded on ‘DarkMarket’.

Koblenz Prosecutor General’s Office

DarkMarket was a huge marketplace with almost 500,000 users and more than 2,400 sellers. Over 320,000 transactions were made during its operation: more than 4,650 Bitcoin and 12,800 Monero were traded (at the current rate, this represents more than €140 million, or A$220 million worth).

Humble Origins … in a Hackathon

DarkMarket’s origins are quite fascinating. In 2014, DarkMarket was one of the winners of the Bitcoin Expo hackathon in Toronto, Canada. The project was described as a decentralised marketplace that could not be shut down. The official Ethererum Twitter account even put up a post congratulating the team:

Crypto Crackdown Goes Global

Of late, there appears there to be an increased global crackdown on those using crypto for nefarious purposes.

At the start of the month, Chinese police arrested 1,100 people for crypto-related money laundering charges. And in April, a Swedish-Russian citizen was arrested for operating a darknet Bitcoin website, Bitcoin Fog, and was accused of laundering over US$366 million.

Categories
Bitcoin Crypto News

RIP: Bitcoin Billionaire Mircea Popescu Dies at 41

Mircea Popescu, Bitcoin billionaire and controversial Bitcoin blogger, has drowned at Playa Hermosa, a popular beach in the Central American country of Costa Rica.

Popescu claimed that he owned 1 million Bitcoin, but that number is heavily disputed. More realistic estimates put the number closer to 30,000, worth just over $US1 billion at the current price, or around $US1.9 billion at its all-time high in April. Some sources believe Popescu’s was one of the top 20 largest Bitcoin holdings in the world.

A young Mircea Popescu. Source: CoinFlex

Investor Anthony Pompliano, one of Bitcoin’s most prominent advocates, noted that Popescu’s death might have a positive effect on everyone else’s Bitcoin holdings due to scarcity. Several people in the crypto community criticised him for being heartless and Pompliano deleted the tweet after six minutes.

A Polarising Figure

Popescu, 41, was a deeply polarising figure. Some in the crypto community worshipped him as a god, describing him as “the greatest man who ever lived”. Others said he was “thoroughly unlikable” and “not a nice man”, but conceded he was also a Bitcoin visionary.

I like Bitcoin because I like freedom. Simple as that.

Mircea Popescu

There were also those who detested Popescu because of his deeply problematic behaviour and dangerous views, which he would publish regularly on his personal blog.

Another Bitcoin Celebrity Dead

Popescu is not the only Bitcoin celebrity to have died this month. John McAfee was found dead in a Spanish prison just hours after his extradition to the US had been approved.