Author: Caitlin Carey

Caitlin is a crypto evangelist with a deep curiosity and passion for learning and writing about everything to do with cryptocurrency. She has a background as a performing artist and songwriter and is a digital media enthusiast, with a bachelor degree in Multimedia.

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Blockchain Crypto News Crypto Wallets Investing

Square Publishes Whitepaper for its Decentralised Bitcoin Exchange

Digital payments giant Square has released a whitepaper through its new TBD division introducing tbDEX, a decentralised crypto exchange that aims to “create ubiquitous and accessible on-ramps and off-ramps that allow the average individual to benefit from crypto innovation”.

The tbDEX protocol will be an easily accessible crypto exchange that aims to bridge users from fiat currencies to Bitcoin and other digital crypto assets.

The vast majority of people receive wages and pay for goods and services in fiat currency. They must pay taxes in fiat currency. So how do we unleash the potential of Bitcoin and decentralised financial infrastructure when most of us still live in a world of fiat? To do so, we need to build bridges between the fiat and cryptocurrency worlds…

Square’s whitepaper

tbDEX Will Not Be Completely Decentralised

While most decentralised exchanges (DEXs) include a governance token, tbDEX will not utilise a trustless model – instead, it will operate as a message protocol designed to facilitate trust relationships without relying on a federation to control access.

The tbDEX also intends to include features that will generally disqualify it from being considered a completely decentralised exchange. For example, to appease regulators, tbDEX will comply with customer identification regulation such as know-your-customer (KYC) checks. 

There is also controversy surrounding the whitepaper’s proposal to include blockchain analytic solutions, which will either be built into the exchange or operate through the use of a third party, in order to track transactions on the platform. To prevent illicit business activities, such a system would allow authorities to cross-reference payment IDs and public wallet addresses with users’ KYC information to reveal personal identities behind transacting parties.

Potential Game Changer

Bringing some regulation to the crypto space does have its benefits, however; these more centralised features would allow for chargebacks on tbDEX, allowing Square to reverse transactions if needed. This is a game changer as it could potentially protect investors from suffering financial loss (which previously has been irreversible) in the event of a rug-pull scam.

Square CEO Jack Dorsey (also CEO of Twitter) has been active in the crypto space over the years, speaking as a guest at crypto conferences around the world and promoting his companies’ products, such as Square’s crypto-friendly mobile payment application, Cash App.

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Crypto News Crypto Wallets Cryptocurrencies Scams

Scam Warning: Another Crypto User Falls Victim to Fake MetaMask Google Ad

Scammers have struck again with a sneaky paid advertisement on Google for a fake MetaMask wallet that allows access to victims’ crypto. The scam has been running for the best part of a year but is still alive and well thanks to Google, with a new domain constantly being promoted via Google Search ads.

Just days ago, one Reddit user posted how his friend lost 38 ETH (US$163,000) to the scam. He also lost some altcoins, bringing the total crypto lost to approximately US$190,000.

MetaMask issued an official warning via Twitter last December about the phishing/ad scam. The domain being promoted by the Google ad reads maskmeta, not metamask.io (which is the official MetaMask domain).

Google’s Fake MetaMask Ad Promotion  

When a user searches Google for MetaMask, a fake ad for the MetaMask wallet comes up as the first listing, which leads the victim to the scammers’ domain, rather than the official MetaMask.io site. MetaMask alerted its community to the scam and recommended the use of direct links to ensure users are directed to the legitimate metamask.io domain.

Here are two rules to keep you safe:

  1. Never click sponsored or paid ad links to get to MetaMask.
Fraudulent MetaMask ad in Google Search

The fake MetaMask phishing page prompts users to install the extension, which gives them an option to either import an existing wallet or create a new one. It looks identical to the real MetaMask.

Fake MetaMask site
Legitimate MetaMask site

The only difference between the original MetaMask site and the fake one is unnoticeable for most users (the writing on the button for getting the fake extension says ‘Install now’, not ‘Download now’).

2. Question everything when asked to enter your seed phrase.

Fake MetaMask phishing page

If you click on the ‘Create Wallet’ button on the right, the fake ad sends you to the real MetaMask.io site as there is no crypto for the attackers to steal. However, if they click on ‘Import a wallet’, you will be asked to enter the key phrase of your existing wallet, which is then sent to the attacker. Never, ever enter your seed phrase into anything unless you are absolutely certain you are using the official MetaMask wallet extension.

MetaMask phishing form stealing wallet phrase

So remember: do not click on any Google ad search suggestions. Stay safe. Google Ad scams are everywhere.

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Blockchain Crypto News Events NFTs

CoinGecko’s Virtual NFT Conference to Host 200+ Speakers from Nov 17-19, 2021

CoinGecko is hosting GeckoCon NFTs Gone Wild, the first NFT conference of its kind. The three-day virtual conference will cover a “kaleidoscope of NFT themes ranging from art, music, collectibles, gaming, sports, monetisation and more”.

GeckoCon welcomes guest speakers specialising in all things NFT who will cover topics in the NFT space and enlighten enthusiasts on the now and future of all things non-fungible.

NFTs Gone Wild: Key Speakers

The three-day conference will bring together the who’s who in the blockchain and NFT space. Key speakers at GeckoCon include musicians such as Linkin Park frontman Mike Shinoda and Akon; Roneil Rumburg, co-founder of blockchain music platform Audius; gaming CEO Michael Wagner from Star Atlas; Axie Infinity co-founder Aleksander Larsen; ChainGuardians co-founder Robbie Cochran; Enjin co-founder Witek Radomski; co-founder of Rarible, Alexei Falin, and even Crypto.com’s global head of NFT, Joe Conyers III, plus many more.

Register now

General tickets are US$49, VIP tickets US$99. Click here to register for GeckoCon now.

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Crypto News Metaverse Tokens

MANA Soars as Barbados Establishes World’s First Embassy in Decentraland Metaverse

The Caribbean island of Barbados is set to become the first sovereign nation to have a digital embassy in the metaverse, signing an agreement with popular blockchain-based virtual reality giant, Decentraland.

Decentraland’s MANA token is up more than 15 percent in the past week and over 280 percent over the past month. The pump has followed the announcement of recent news such as HashKey opening its first virtual headquarters in Decentraland and Facebook’s rebranding to Meta in late October.

Buzz and interest around the metaverse has seen other metaverse-based token prices increase, including Axie Infinitie’s AXS, The Sandbox’s SAND, as well as a pump for Enjin’s virtual gaming crypto token ENJ, which is up over 67 percent in the past month.

How the Embassy Will Work

Barbados will become the first country to legally declare digital real estate sovereign land with the establishment of its metaverse embassy, offering digital land for sale within the metaverse, along with e-visas and avatar teleporting services. The opening of the embassy is scheduled for January 22, 2022.

H.E. Gabriel Abed, Barbados’ ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, says the country has plans to “expand aggressively” to build infrastructure and purchase digital land in a variety of virtual worlds. According to a press release from CoinDesk, the Barbadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade is also signing deals with other metaverse platforms, including Somnium Space and SuperWorld.

This all adds to the overall bullish sentiment of gaming-based crypto tokens and metaverse platforms built on the blockchain.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Gold

$60 Billion Grayscale Total AUM Now Worth More Than World’s Largest Gold Fund

Grayscale is leading the way as the world’s largest digital currency asset manager. The company’s total Assets Under Management (AUM) have reached US$60.8 billion, surpassing $58.3 billion AUM of SDPR Gold Shares, the world’s largest gold exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Grayscale, which operates the world’s largest Bitcoin and Ethereum investment funds, was the first financial institution to bring a digital currency investment product to the public market. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) holds US$43.6 billion AUM, and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust holds US$14.9 billion AUM, according to the firm’s November 10 update.

Grayscale has long been working towards getting a Bitcoin spot ETF approved but continues to be rejected by the Securities Exchange Commission, despite its approval for a Bitcoin futures ETF. Regardless of a Bitcoin spot ETF, Grayscale has managed to flippen gold.

All That No Longer Glisters

Grayscale’s leadership towards investing in Bitcoin has paid off. The company dedicated a marketing campaign, #dropgold, aimed at attracting traditional investors away from gold towards the new gold of the future: the world’s largest digital asset, Bitcoin. “Go Digital, Go Grayscale”, says the dropgold website. “It’s not that gold is bad. It’s just that bitcoin is better.”

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Blockchain Crypto Art Crypto News Ethereum NFTs

Beeple’s Programmable Artwork Sells for $29 Million

The American digital artist known as Beeple is making headlines again with his latest installation artwork, Human One, paired with an NFT, selling at auction house Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale for almost US$29 million.

Human One, by Michael Winkelmann, aka Beeple.

Human One is a 3D mobile sculpture of a person in a spacesuit moving through different landscapes. In what is the first physical piece of art from Beeple (aka Michael Winkelmann), the life-sized astronaut-like figure is contained inside a translucent box, which the artist describes as “the first portrait of a human born in the metaverse”. 

The accompanying digital piece is the NFT containing the deed of ownership, minted on the Ethereum blockchain.

Beeple Holds Dual Record

Beeple now holds the record for both the most expensive and the second-most expensive non-fungible token (NFT) artworks ever sold.

In March, Beeple sold his ‘Everydays: The first 5000 days’ digital art collection for a mammoth US$60.25 million, setting a new NFT benchmark.

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Australia Banking Crypto News Regulation

AUSTRAC Issues Debanking Statement: ‘Australian Banks At Risk’

Australia’s anti-money laundering regulator AUSTRAC has issued a statement warning banks against closing accounts. The context is, just because a business deals in bitcoin doesn’t mean it should automatically be debanked.

In the statement, released on October 29, AUSTRAC said Australian banks needed better systems to deal with assessing risk rather than simply debanking customers. â€śBusinesses vulnerable to exploitation should not automatically have their accounts closed simply to avoid managing risk,” the financial watchdog stated.

Although the decision to close an account may remain a necessary risk control, AUSTRAC considers that with appropriate systems and processes in place, banks should be able to manage high-risk customers, including those operating remittance services, digital currency exchanges, not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) and financial technology (FinTech) businesses.

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) statement

AUSTRAC expects banks to assess risk on a case-by-case basis, rather than just close accounts based on suspicion or caution. “AUSTRAC expects banks and all regulated businesses to adopt a case-by-case approach to managing AML/CTF (anti-money laundering/counter-terrorism financing) risks. This expectation extends to the importance of continuing to assess the particular risks relating to their business customers.”

In AUSTRAC’s view, the effect of debanking of legitimate and lawful financial services businesses can only increase the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing, and will negatively impact Australia’s economy as a result. Account closures have also created problems for regulators as they no longer have easy access to the debanked’s financial transactions.

In its statement, AUSTRAC addressed the issue of sector-wide debanking and aimed its message at discouraging the indiscriminate and widespread closure of accounts across entire financial services. This comes after many crypto businesses and individuals have been targeted and debanked without notice, under the guise that they posed a risk to the bank’s obligation to comply with AML and CTF laws. The large-scale account closures have damaged Australian-based Bitcoin exchanges and crypto traders’ businesses.

Australian Banks Highly Risk-Averse

Banks’ fear of being fined, coupled with the lack of transparency and clarity around these laws, has caused them to err on the side of caution, which has resulted in the wide-scale debanking of many businesses and individuals just because they deal in cryptocurrency and remittance services.

Yet banks have real reason to be cautious in Australia, because the consequences are harsh. If a bank is found not to be complying with AUSTRAC’s AML and CTF regulations, heavy fines apply, and they can cop a lot of bad press as well – as did Westpac in 2013, where the media were quick to print headlines relating to the bank’s involvement in one of the world’s biggest money-laundering schemes.

In recent years, the Commonwealth was fined A$700 million and Westpac fined A$1.3 billion for AML and CTF breaches. In June, National Australia Bank revealed it had been warned by AUSTRAC of “potential serious and ongoing non-compliance” with Know Your Customer (KYC) identification procedures, and last month the ANZ settled a debanking case brought by Canberra bitcoin trader Allan Flynn.

What is AUSTRAC and How Does It Work? 

The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) is the Australian government’s anti-money laundering regulator. It literally follows the money in order to protect Australians from criminal activity. How it does this is explained in the below video:

 

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Crypto News Crypto Wallets Solana Tokens

BAT Token Surges 30%+ After Solana Partnership Announced for DApp Support

Breakpoint 2021 was the first conference organised by the Solana Foundation, held in Lisbon, Portugal, from November 7-10. Featuring an all-star guest speaker lineup of coders, co-founders and CEOs in the business, the event brought together industry leaders, builders and innovators from around the globe.

Brendan Eich, CEO and co-founder of Brave, announced on stage with Solana CEO and founder Anatoly Yakovenko that Brave will be partnering with Solana to integrate it into the browser and make it the default for DApp support.

Solana Default For Brave Browsers

Together, the companies will bring best-in-class crypto wallet features for the Solana blockchain into Brave’s Web3 desktop and mobile browsers, to be rolled out in the first half of 2022. 

We’re gonna make it so any dApp that is Solana enabled … we will make it use Solana by default. So dApp builders who built for Solana as well as other chains, in Brave it’s going to use Solana and that’s going to just help, I think, bring dApps over to Solana.

Brendan Eich, CEO, Brave

After the presentation and news of Brave announcing its Solana partnership, the price of Brave’s Basic Attention Token (BAT) pumped up from US$1.00 to reach US$1.36 on November 9.

Source: CoinGecko

The news was tweeted by both companies announcing the new coming features:

Watch the full presentation at Breakpoint 2021 on YouTube below.

In September, Crypto News Australia reported Brave’s in-browser crypto swaps with 20 percent BAT rebates. Click to read and learn more about the best browser for crypto enthusiasts. Also, Brave has built its own in-app Decentralised Exchange Aggregator (DEX), which enables users to swap tokens using the Brave browser.

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Coinbase Crypto Exchange Crypto News Crypto.com Tokens

CRO Token Rallies 30% Amid Coinbase Listing

Crypto.com’s CRO token is now available on the Coinbase.com exchange and the value of the asset has increased as a result, hitting a new all-time high of almost US$0.40. On November 4, after listing on Coinbase, it pumped to US$0.39 within two days after months of tracking sideways under US$0.20.

CRO is ranked the 28th-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalisation of almost US$9 billion. Boasting more than 10 million global users, Crypto.com is among the world’s five biggest centralised exchanges and has been growing fast.

Crypto.com’s new advertising campaign includes celebrity partnerships with Matt Damon’s Water.org, and team sponsorships for UFC, Formula 1 and French football powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain, which aims to establish the brand in front of a wider mainstream audience and bring crypto to the masses.

Aggressive Marketing Campaign

This classy high-budget commercial (see below), featuring A-list actor Damon, is an example of the strong video marketing the brand is using as part of its promotional campaign to aggressively grow Crypto.com’s presence and establish the exchange as a top player in the cryptocurrency marketplace.

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Crypto News Gaming Tokens

Axie Infinity’s SLP Token Surges 74% Amid Launch of Ronin DEX

Katana, the decentralised exchange (DEX) for Ronin – Axie Infinity’s sidechain for Ethereum that allows users to easily swap various assets within the Axie Infinity ecosystem – is now live and $SLP has enjoyed a price pump as a result.

Ronin Facilitates Token Exchanges on the Sidechain

The launch of the Ronin DEX will make it easier for Axie Infinity players to swap tokens directly on the sidechain itself, without players having to bridge tokens to Ethereum, thus reducing transaction fees.

Axie gamers can now quickly and easily swap between AXS, SLP, USDC and WETH on Ronin’s DEX Katana.

The Axie Infinity SLP token has pumped 74 percent since Katana’s launch, reaching almost US$0.13 per token, according to CoinGecko.

Axie Infinity has been leading the P2E (Play-to-Earn) blockchain gaming sector. As Crypto News Australia reported last month, ASX, Axie’s native token, surged over 80 percent in just 30 days.