Crypto News Australia provides you with the most relevant bitcoin, cryptocurrency & blockchain news.
Brisbane-based cryptocurrency platform Coinstash is on a mission to help Australians into a new cryptocurrency era – one where individuals can earn interest, borrow against and directly spend their crypto holdings.
Following their capital raise of A$2.8 million earlier this year and ahead of the rollout of their new exchange platform, Coinstash is giving away $1,000 worth of cryptocurrency as part of their ‘Coinstash Quiz’ monthly promotion.
To enter, simply head to Coinstash.com.au/quiz.
In this guide we will show you how to get your crypto data imported and organised all in one place ready to send to your accountant to help with your tax return.
Firstly, go to Crypto.com Tax webpage and sign up for free.
Once you’ve signed up and logged in, you’ll need to add the crypto exchanges & wallets that you use. In this example, we’ll use Coinjar exchange.
Click Wallets & Exchanges and then Add Wallet/Exchange +.
Select CoinJar, enter a name for your exchange ie CoinJar Personal Account, then select API Sync and confirm.
You’ll be prompted to login into CoinJar to give read only access and then it will redirect you back to crypto.com website.
The data sync could take a couple of minutes to complete. Once it’s done you might see that there are transaction issues that need fixing. To fix these click the Issues tab and then purchase history transactions or uncategorised.
Click Edit to update the details of the transactions to fix any issues.
In the case of missing purchase history errors (in red), this could be that the fee isn’t being picked up. In this case, the BTC was purchased with a fee included in the amount.
In this case, you can just ignore this error. We’ll confirm with Crypto.com but it seems this error is incorrect.
To fix any outstanding issues with the transactions you can filter them by date or issue type.
An important one to do is the Uncategorised transactions. Use the filter to show them, and then click Edit.
Then enter the details for the transaction. In this example, it was a transfer from one exchange to another. If the other exchange is not added, then you’ll need to add it to select it. If you don’t know what the fees were then you’ll need to find the blockchain transaction; you can find the transaction id on your Coinjar history.
Once you’ve fixed up all the outstanding issues you can generate your tax reports by clicking Tax Reports.
This will export your tax reports into CSV format, which you can then send to your accountant to help prepare your tax return.
If you don’t have an accountant, then check out our guide on the Top 10 Crypto Tax Accountants in Australia.
If you need help using the Crypto.com tax software, then check out our troubleshooting section below or use the following links.
Tax software is an extremely hard thing to build as there are so many moving parts, and you may encounter errors when importing from different exchanges and wallets. We will try to update the section below to help diagnose and fix these errors.
When importing custom data (Crypto.com Tax CSV), we encountered this error.
“Invalid amount format in csv report: null”
If you’re using the Crypto.com Tax CSV format, then use the sample template CSV and check the supported values for each column are correct as per the instructions on the Data Import help article.
When connecting CoinJar we encountered this error:
“Sync failed. Please try again”
To fix this simply click the Sync button. After clicking it, wait a minute or so and if it fails, repeat the click and wait again until it works.
In a massive September 9 announcement, the blockchain-based fantasy football project Sorare has officially partnered with Spanish football league La Liga.
The event was streamed live on Twitch where ambassador superstars Samuel Eto’o and Patrick Kluivert were hosts.
They have onboarded all 20 La Liga teams’ player cards onto the platform with notable teams including Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Athletico Madrid. There are now over 200 teams on the platform.
La Liga is one of the best leagues in the world, home to some of the most exciting clubs and footballers on Earth. We are very proud that they have chosen Sorare to enter the world of NFTs. We are looking forward to working together in the years ahead.
CEO Nicolas Julia
This news follows other recent news that users on Sorare grew over 900% since the start of 2021. The growth has been helped by the popularity of Ethereum, which has seen thousands of NFT projects using its blockchain utility framework.
Also read: Sorare Crypto Fantasy Football Trading Cards Game Review
The Sorare game is very similar to Fantasy Premier League, or Football Manager, but with some slight differences:
Check out the Sorare website for more information.
Let’s have a laugh at this week’s topical memes.
Tune in next Friday for more meme mayhem!
In this article we take a look at important crypto dates and events happening in September.
The selected events include Hard Forks, Partnerships, Announcements, Rebranding, Exchange Listings, Releases, Token Swaps, Important Airdrops, Conferences and more.
| Date | Event | Notes |
| 1 Sep | New Partner Announcement – Etoro | Our Partners provide the specialist knowledge and tools to help you participate in the crypto space. |
| 1 Sep | Binance Australia – new appointment | Leigh Travers, former chief executive at DigitalX, joins Binance Australia as its new CEO. |
| 1 Sep | Crypto.com Launches Free crypto tax software for Australia | Tax app tailored to meet Australian taxation requirements. |
| Date | Coin | Event | Notes |
| 9 Sep | Terra Luna (LUNA) | Columbus – 5 Launch | Columbus-5 is ready now to launch. Columbus-5 will use Terra Core v0.5.0 33 which integrates. |
| 12 Sep | Cardano (ADA) | Alonzo Hard Fork | Bringing smart contracts to Cardano via a hard fork combinator (HFC) event. |
| 15 Sep | Aelf (ELF) | Mainnet Token Swap | Aelf will start its mainnet swap on a random day between Sep 1 and Sep 15 |
| 20 Sep | Fetch.ai (FET) | MOBX Airdrop | The MOBIX stakedrop is obsolete: the new date is Sep 20, 2021. |
| 25 Sep | Cardano (ADA) | Cardano Summit 2021 | Summit on Sep 25 and 26. |
| 29 Sep | DAO Maker (DAO) | Binance Smart Chain Launch | In Q3 of 2021 DAO maker will launch on Binance Smart Chain. |
| 30 Sep | Dock (DOCK) | Exchange Base Staking | Exchange based staking during Q3 2021. The team is working with Huobi, Binance, KuCoin and Hotbit. |
| 30 Sep | BasketCoin (BSKT) | NFT Cards | Release of NFT cards. |
| 30 Sep | Reef Finance (REEF) | Reef Debit Card | Release of debit card by Sep 30. |
| 30 Sep | MoonToken (MOONTOKEN) | Cross Chain Bridge Launch | ETH, MATIC and BSC Bridge release. |
| 30 Sep | Reef Finance (REEF) | NFT Baskets | NFT Baskets. |
| 30 Sep | Elrond (EGLD) | Zee Bridge | Bridge for PolkaDot, AVA and Elrond during Q3 2021. |
| 30 Sep | Theta Network (THETA) | Edge Computer Use Cases | “Edge Computer new use cases (Machine Learning, AI, other compute-heavy jobs)” during Q3 2021. |
| 30 Sep | Cosmos (ATOM) | Staking Derivatives | Staking derivatives is released, enabling staking and liquidity at the same time. Osmosis will release on the IBC during Q3 2021. |
| 30 Sep | IOST (IOST) | DON Airdrop | Snapshot will be taken; first block created after Sep 30 at 8:00 AM (UTC). |
| 30 Sep | Orion Protocol (ORN) | Margin & Lending Mainnet | Orion Lending Official Launch, and Orion Margin Official Launch, during Q3 2021. |
| 30 Sep | Polkamarkets (POLK) | NFT Gamification | NFT Gamification during Q3 2021. |
| Date | Event | Location | Notes |
| 3 Sep | Adelaide Blockchain Series | In Person | Tracer and Chainlink Labs present “The Future of Finance Series: Introduction”. |
| 9 – 11 Sep | Asia NFT and Defi Conference | Online | The first 3D online conference in NFT and DeFi markets. |
| 14 – 16 Sep | APAC Blockchain 2021 | In Person and Online | Developed in partnership with Blockchain Australia, APAC Blockchain Conference is the annual meeting place for Australia’s blockchain community and other curious minds from across the region. |
| 20 – 22 Sep | Mainnet 2021 | In Person and Online | The summit gathers crypto leaders, operators, builders and investors for three days of future-focused collaboration, networking and programming. |
Let’s have a laugh at this week’s memes.
But who would “pay for gas twice though?!”
Tune in next Friday for more meme mayhem!
This is an independent review of Oxen, a platform powered by privacy-focused cryptocurrency $OXEN and backed by Australian not-for-profit Oxen Privacy Tech Foundation.
At a glance, Oxen is a technology stack – a comprehensive ecosystem of privacy-focused applications supported by the $OXEN cryptocurrency.
Our vision is to provide a range of tools and services powered by the $OXEN cryptocurrency, enabling users and developers all over the world to leverage the power of decentralised blockchain networks to achieve unparalleled privacy and security as they work, play, and live their day-to-day lives on the internet.
Oxen.io
Oxen’s mission is also reflected in its tech being open-source on GitHub, “so developers can use what we’ve built as the foundation of a new generation of privacy tools and services”, as stated on the Oxen Build web page. The project covers a range of common use cases with a strong focus on privacy, security and anonymity.
Oxen currently provides:
The Oxen team has implemented a couple of applications to showcase the use of its technology stack: Session and Lokinet. Let’s have a closer look at both.
Session is a messaging system born as a rebranded and more stand-alone version of Loki Messenger (as explained on Loki Network blog). It is currently used “by well over 200,000 people across more than 200 countries”, according to Oxen, and available for both mobile (Android, iOS) and desktop (Mac, Windows, Linux).
Session is best for:
Session features include:
The core principle driving the development of the app is to provide an easy-to-use, secure and privacy-first experience to its users. To deliver on its promises, Session uses a system called onion requests to send messages. It is a decentralised onion routing network (similar to Tor) designed so that no single server ever knows a message’s origin and destination. In layman’s terms, “this makes sure your messaging activities leave no digital trail behind”.
Your data is temporarily stored on multiple service nodes which automatically delete the data once your device picks up the messages.
Noticeably, there is no backup feature currently available – although is reportedly planned as per Session’s FAQ page. Also coming in the future is a subscription service called Session Pro, bringing a set of monetised Session features leveraging $OXEN for the transactions.
Get involved with Session:
Lokinet strives to provide secure, anonymous and censorship-resistant access to the internet. Technically, it is a decentralised onion router that employs Oxen service nodes as relays. This brings together the privacy benefits of onion routers like Tor on one hand with the robust and decentralised nature of blockchain on the other.
Lokinet is best for:
Lokinet features include:
In practical terms, it requires installing an app currently available only for Windows and Linux. Lokinet allows anyone to access the internet as they would do normally, using their browser of choice but in a more anonymous way. Unlike Tor, it supports more protocols, allowing not only the reading of websites but also media streaming and video conferencing. Be aware, however, that applications requiring WebRTC or BitTorrent protocols will not work within Lokinet, as explained on its FAQ page.
Much like using a VPN service, Internet Service Providers may be able to see the connection but cannot know which websites are being accessed through it. The VPN service, however, would know that, as well as having access to other personal information (such as IP addresses), thus requiring its users to trust it. Lokinet’s decentralised approach results in no node in its network having complete information about a given user, thus defending their privacy.
Under the hood, Lokinet uses the Oxen blockchain and more specifically requires service nodes candidates to stake an amount of $OXEN before being able to register as a service node on the network. Aside from rewarding whoever wants to contribute a node to the network, this also mitigates a cybersecurity risk (more specifically, Sybil attack resistance). Future developments include using $OXEN to allow buying specific Lokinet addresses (rather than long, complicated sequences of letters and numbers) and creating a marketplace for exit nodes.
How to try Lokinet:
Get involved with Lokinet:
At the core of Oxen’s offering is its blockchain and cryptocurrency, $OXEN. A Proof-of-Stake crypto built on a consensus mechanism called Pulse, it was previously known as $LOKI before being rebranded to $OXEN – a name change that has been only “cosmetic”, according to the announcement.
Like the rest of the ecosystem, $OXEN unsurprisingly has a strong focus on privacy and is built on CryptoNote, like Monero. In the words of the Oxen team, total anonymity translates to fungibility, meaning “individual $OXEN coins can’t be traced, tracked or refused based on where they’ve been or what they’ve been used for”.
$OXEN tries to differentiate itself from Monero and other privacy cryptos by striving to provide performance in terms of transaction speed. Rather than having to wait almost 30 minutes for a transaction to be fully completed, $OXEN claims its payment system, called Blink, allows instant transactions by using groups of Oxen Service Nodes.
An Oxen Service Node can join the network when it has a total of 15,000 $OXEN (currently worth around $15k AUD) across no more than four contributors. This seems to be a choice made by design in order to strengthen the network and prevent certain kinds of attacks, which would be unlikely and economically counterproductive.
Get involved with $OXEN:
Oxen was announced at the beginning of 2021 as a rebrand from Loki. The announcement is still available on Oxen blog.
Behind Oxen, there is an Australian not-for-profit organisation called Oxen Privacy Tech Foundation (OPTF website). The goal of the organisation is to support the development of free, open-source, secure and privacy-oriented technologies.
Privacy should have no strings attached – it should be provided by default, and it should be free.
Oxen Privacy Tech Foundation
In an age of data mining where users’ behaviours and information are seemingly spied upon by a wide range of entities, it can feel overwhelmingly complex to claim the right to privacy.
Oxen offers a range of tools and promises to deliver a blockchain-based, privacy-focused solution to a range of day-to-day use cases, from payments to messages and overall internet access. Only time will tell, but the increasing adoption of services such as Session looks like an encouraging signal, if not a testament to how much it is needed.
We are proud to announce that Zipmex has secured over $41M USD in Series B funding to continue our rapid growth and product innovation. Through this period, we have provided industry-leading services which seek to transform the way people buy, sell and hold digital assets. To date, we have helped process over US$4 Billion in gross transaction volume since our launch in 2019.
This marks a highly anticipated milestone for Zipmex that has seen multiple companies taking a keen interest and commitment during this investment round. These investors not only provide funding but also strategic partnerships to enable Zipmex to continue to bridge digital assets with real world experiences.
We welcome our new investors with the Bank of Ayudhya’s corporate venture capital arm, Krungsi Finnovate, who has joined as an investor. Plan B Media Public Company Limited and Master Ad Public Company Limited have also announced their commitment to the company in the Series B fundraising.
“This commitment from Krungsri Finnovate is a huge step forward for us. It represents not only the validation of our business model and approach to innovation but also of the potential for digital assets to become a core part of our lifestyle,” said Zipmex CEO, Marcus Lim.
“A marriage of digital assets and traditional banking can provide new innovative use cases for money, which we have demonstrated through ZipWorld. Further use cases of Zlaunch and ZipNFT are just the starting point of our banking-forward, lifestyle-focused product suite”
Spend, save, and earn with products made for digital asset holders.
Aside from being a fast, liquid and secure digital asset platform, Zipmex has focused on expanding the number of ways in which its users can earn, spend and earn rewards, underpinned by their own token – ZMT (Zipmex Token).
The “earn” products include ZipUp — a flexible earnings account with daily payouts of up to 8% APY, and ZipLock – a fixed-term earnings account with yields up to 14% per annum with bonus APY for ZMT holders.
ZipSpend, a digital asset payment solution for businesses looking to accept cryptocurrency as payment, has already facilitated several regional firsts in luxury vehicles, art, and property transactions.
Earlier this month, we announced Zipmex Card, a new Visa-backed payment card to be launched later this year. This will give Zipmex users the freedom to spend their digital assets at any of the more than 70 million merchants in Visa’s global payments network.
On top of these core offerings, ZipWorld will enable users to redeem exclusive lifestyle products and access one-of-a-kind experiences and rewards using the Zipmex Token. Zlaunch will give users early access to new investment tokens exclusively on the Zipmex Exchange.
“As digital assets have become increasingly popular, so has the demand for earn and spend products. ZipSpend and the Zipmex Card aim to revolutionise payments across the region by offering users greater flexibility, while ZipUp, ZipLock, ZipWorld, and ZLaunch provide unprecedented earning opportunities,” added Mr. Lim. “It is also important to note that any product we release will have to be approved by the relevant regulatory bodies first.”
We would like to thank the almost 1 million registered users who have joined us so far. This funding injection will allow us to continue to build out the Zipmex Ecosystem to bring more value, experiences, and innovative products to our Zipmex community.
Swyftx, a digital assets exchange founded by high school friends Alex Harper (27) and Angus Goldman (26), enters the Kiwi market after achieving revenue growth of more than 6,000% in the last financial year. It is now the second-largest Australian cryptocurrency exchange.
Swyftx was founded in a Brisbane share-house by Harper and Goldman in 2018. The two had met at a national computer science program.
In the last financial year, Swyftx’s customer base grew by 1,659% – adding up to 8,000 users a day to its platform in 2021. The company currently employs more than 120 staff – up from 11 team members at the start of the 20/21 financial year.
The Brisbane-based business has around 350,000 customers across Australia and becomes the largest digital assets provider by range of coins offered of any crypto exchange registered to operate in New Zealand.
“It’s still early days for crypto but we’re confident it will reshape how finance works in the ANZ region,” said Swyftx co-Founder and CEO, Alex Harper.
“The Australian market has developed extremely quickly this year and we see similar growth potential in New Zealand. Looking forward, the potential applications and use cases for blockchain technology and digital assets are almost limitless in both countries.”
Swyftx has expanded significantly over the past year following rapid growth in the global cryptocurrency market. The total market capitalisation of all digital assets grew from around US$380 billion in August last year to a peak of over US$2 trillion this month.
“For a year and a half, Angus and I spent many long hours building the business from a small room in our Brisbane share-house. We’re now the second-biggest, and most trusted, digital asset exchange in Australia,” said Harper.
“Swyftx has been completely bootstrapped. We’ve focused on security, customer service, low fees, and diverse digital asset investment options. We’re confident the model will appeal to Kiwi crypto users.”
Harper said around 800,000 Kiwis were forecast to use cryptocurrency, with the total market for digital assets in New Zealand estimated to be around $200m this year.
Swyftx officially launched its New Zealand platform on August 31, 2021. Its entry into the market increases the number of digital assets available through NZ-registered crypto exchanges to more than 280.
The additional cryptocurrencies are estimated to have a total market cap in excess of US$25 billion.
“The Australian and New Zealand markets share important similarities, including a generally sophisticated understanding of cryptocurrencies among users, so this is a move we’ve wanted to make for a long time,” said Harper.
“We’ve already got high demand from New Zealanders using our Australian platform. We’re also seeing significantly more institutional investors turning to crypto as a defence against inflationary pressures and low rates. It’s a trend we expect to see replicated in New Zealand.”
Harper said New Zealand crypto trading platforms tend to work differently from those in other markets.
“Existing NZ exchanges work by simply booking a trade with them. What this means is that you send them the money for a cryptocurrency and they send you the coin. It is basically just a pass through of funds.
“Our exchange allows local crypto users to hold an account in NZ dollars on the platform and make deposits easily through bank transfer – giving users the ability to trade in and out of different coins more easily.”
Binance Australia has today announced the appointment of Leigh Travers, former DigitalX CEO and Director, who joins the organisation as Chief Executive Officer.
Mr Travers has spent the last seven years playing a pivotal role in building products and growing networks for DigitalX Limited (ASX:DCC), the world’s first publicly listed blockchain technology company. Prior to joining DigitalX Limited, he served on the Board of Australia’s blockchain industry body, Blockchain Australia.
Mr Travers states part of his excitement in leading the Binance Australia team stems from a shared passion for facilitating the adoption of blockchain and digital assets in Australia.
“I’ve long been an advocate of the benefits that blockchain technology has to offer society, and it’s a mission of mine to grow the industry over the coming years,” said Mr Travers.
“My key interests are shared with Binance Australia in championing the adoption of blockchain and the pathway for blockchain businesses in Australia. The opportunity to work with users nationally is incredibly exciting.
“Since Binance Australia launched last year, it has been one of the fastest growing FinTech companies in Australia, and for good reason. Since the launch, Binance Australia has continued to innovate and become a leader in the digital asset industry nationally. I have set some high expectations and am looking forward to the opportunity,” said Mr Travers.
When asked what is first on the agenda for his appointment at Binance Australia, he points towards a strong focus on growing the brand and the company’s working relationships with regulators.
I have immense belief in the quality of service Binance Australia provides customers, and I want to ensure that every Australian looking to invest in crypto considers our offering.
Leigh Travers, New Binance Australia CEO
“From an industry perspective, I know it’s imperative that we continue to develop our relationships with regulatory bodies while reinforcing our company commitment to compliance and best practice.
“As the market leader in the digital asset space, we have a responsibility to be involved in helping to shape the growth of our industry and this means prioritising engagement and conversations with policy makers and regulators. It is essential to advocate for a graduated, fit-for-purpose regulatory framework so that Australia can be a global leader in innovation and create jobs for the future economy.
“I also believe this goes hand in hand with a commitment to growing Australia’s understanding of digital assets, how they work, and how to safely engage with them. The team has been doing incredible work in leading education masterclasses every month, and I can’t wait to take this to the next level.” said Mr Travers.
Sam Teoh, Chief Operating Officer at Binance Australia, says the team is excited to welcome Mr Travers’ talent to the company.
“We’ve observed the work Leigh has done at DigitalX for a while now and we’re excited to work with him not just on Binance Australia’s continued growth, but widespread adoption of blockchain businesses and cryptocurrency in Australia at large,” said Mr Teoh.
Leigh is an experienced executive who has spent the past seven years building products and growing networks in the digital asset industry. Leigh has been a Director and CEO of DigitalX Limited (ASX:DCC), the world’s first publicly listed blockchain technology company and served on the Board of Australia’s blockchain industry body, Blockchain Australia for five years. Leigh has spent his whole career in public markets predominantly working with growth companies and investors.
During Mr Travers’ time as CEO of DigitalX, he oversaw significant growth in the company’s assets from $100,000 in late 2016 to over $50 million in 2021. Mr Travers leaves DigitalX in August in a strong position having recently reported a profit for 2021 for shareholders and significant capital growth for investors in their digital asset funds.
In his professional career Mr Travers was also involved in a number of fintech related initiatives including:
Mr Travers received a degree in Commerce and Communications (majoring in Psychology) from UWA. Mr Travers has continued his education and received a fintech certification at MIT while living in Boston in 2016 as well as a Blockchain Strategy certification from RMIT. More recently, Mr Travers completed the AICD Company Directors Course.
He has also provided technical, marketing and investor services to crypto startups which led to the creation of multiple unicorn status crypto projects.
Binance Australia is a digital currency exchange platform that enables Australian customers to easily buy and trade cryptocurrencies with Australian dollars (AUD). Binance Australia offers users deep liquidity and convenient deposit and withdrawal methods while leveraging cutting-edge technology from Binance.com’s advanced trading platform.