Category: Australia

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Australia Banking CBDCs Crypto News

Australia Explores Multi-CBDC Platform For International Settlements

The central banks of Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa, in conjunction with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), have released a report outlining the results of a project to create two prototype multi-CBDC platforms.

Project Dunbar, which was launched in September 2021, concluded that multi-CBDCs are technically viable but significant coordination, governance and jurisdictional challenges will need to be overcome before they can be fully implemented in real-world situations. 

What Did Project Dunbar Involve?

Project Dunbar involved the creation of two multi-CBDC platforms shared by multiple central banks to transact with each other using different digital currencies. The use of such systems could potentially reduce reliance on intermediaries and lead to significant reductions in the cost and time taken to complete international transactions between financial institutions.

Diagram illustrating multi-CBDC platform. Source: Project Dunbar report

The prototypes were built using two different technology platforms – one developed primarily by R3 on the Corda platform, the second developed on the Quorum platform.

The report found that financial institutions could successfully use these shared multi-CBDCs to directly transact with each other, stating that:

This initial phase of the project successfully developed working prototypes and demonstrated practicable solutions, achieving its aim of proving that the concept of multi-CBDCs was technically viable.

Project Dunbar report

Technically Viable But Hurdles Ahead

While the report found that shared multi-CBDCs are technically viable, it also identified governance, jurisdictional and trust issues that need to be solved before the tech can become truly viable.

The report identified three key questions that need to be addressed:

  1. Which entities should be allowed to hold the digital currencies and access the shared platform?
  2. How can cross-border payments be simplified while respecting regulatory differences across different jurisdictions?
  3. What kind of governance arrangement would make countries comfortable sharing access to critical infrastructure such as payment systems?

Michele Bullock, assistant governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), echoed these concerns, explaining:

Project Dunbar has provided valuable insights into the opportunities and challenges associated with developing a shared platform for multiple CBDCs to enhance cross-border payments. Allowing entities to directly hold and transact in CBDCs from different jurisdictions could reduce the need for intermediaries in cross-border payments, but it would need to be done in a way that preserves the security and resilience of these payments.

Michele Bullock, assistant governor, RBA

Australia’s involvement in Project Dunbar is another indication of the Reserve Bank’s growing interest in CBDCs, having last year sought to hire cryptocurrency experts to work in its Central Bank Digital Currency research team.

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Australia Crypto News Industries NFTs

Qantas Launches NFTs Despite Environmental Pushback

Australian airline Qantas is one of the newest major ASX-listed companies to include a non-fungible token (NFT) offering. The offering, however, has since seen considerable pushback from the community, citing environmental concerns with NFTs and other issues.

World First for Australian Airline

Qantas’s digital collection of memorabilia is a first for any airline to allow users to buy, sell, and collect NFTs and also enable buyers to earn Qantas Points. Holders might also have something extra to look forward to with Qantas stating, “exciting future benefits for Qantas NFT holders [are] under way”.

Chief customer officer Stephanie Tully said customers have been collecting physical Qantas memorabilia for years and NFTs would be the newest iteration. According to its post, the ‘Flying Kangaroo’ will allow cash transactions as well as crypto when it launches the NFT collection mid-year.

A Qantas NFT collection allows us to engage the next generation of aviation and digital art enthusiasts, leveraging blockchain technology to celebrate our heritage and future.

Stephanie Tully, chief customer officer, Qantas

Qantas Customers Take to Twitter

However, very few commentators on Twitter seemed to be as excited as Qantas about its new offering:

NFTs have become popularised as a way for audiences to have a new way of engaging with their favourite brands. On the other hand, some see them as a money grab scheme implemented by businesses to create a new revenue stream:

NFTs have boomed in the past year – according to Chainalysis, in 2021 a minimum of US$44.2 billion was sent to NFT contracts – though they have also come under fire for facilitating greater carbon emissions and running on unsustainable blockchains.

In February, Salesforce employees protested the company’s plan to implement the novel technology. And according to recent statements from WWF and Uber, Bitcoin and NFTs are both still too power-hungry and neither organisation will accept them until they’re greener.

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Australia Cryptocurrency Law Queensland

QLD Construction Company Moves into Liquidation After Buying $3 Million of Qoin

Liquidator FTI Consulting has announced that a significant purchase of troubled token Qoin is behind Queensland construction company Privium’s collapse, leaving hundreds of homes across the state unfinished and their prospective occupants fuming:

According to this week’s FTI report, Privium took an A$3 million gamble on cryptocurrency Qoin, transferring another half a million dollars to a Christian charity.

FTI stated that Qoin sales were limited to a few hundred dollars each day, describing the token as an “extremely illiquid” asset. When commenting on the company’s collapse, Privium CEO and founder Rob Harder proved a master of understatement when it came to placating disgruntled clients:

I understand that this is not the news you wanted to hear and that this will create real difficulties.

Rob Harder, Privium chief executive and founder

Both Harder and his wife are members of Hillsong Church in Brisbane’s southern suburban Mt Gravatt. While sources claim Privium had no connections with the church, the FTI’s investigation is ongoing.

Qoin Has Form

This isn’t the first controversy Qoin has been embroiled in. In February 2021, Blockchain Australia terminated Qoin’s membership via a notice of member disciplinary resolution, with locals at the time calling the token a scam.

In November, Salerno – an Australian crypto dispute specialist law firm – began preparations for a class action suit against Qoin for A$100 million. The firm was investigating Qoin’s potential breaches of Australian consumer law and the Corporations Act on counts of fraud and pyramid-like selling of financial products.

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Australia Banking Crypto News Stablecoins

ANZ Becomes First Bank to Mint Aussie Dollar Stablecoin A$DC

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) has concluded a historic transaction in which its newly created stablecoin pegged to the Aussie dollar has been used in a real world transaction:

A First for Australia

According to a press release, ANZ minted 30 million of A$DC using an ANZ-built Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible smart contract deployed through the Fireblocks platform. These coins were then transferred between the parties and later redeemed back into fiat.

ANZ worked closely with leading providers in the digital asset domain including Fireblocks, Chainalysis and OpenZeppelin to create an in-house purpose-built stablecoin smart contract.

The historic transaction was concluded between one of Australia’s best-known investment companies, the Victor Smorgon Group (VMG), and a digital asset fund manger, Zerocap. VMG wanted to invest A$30 million into Zerocap’s digital asset fund and turned to ANZ to streamline the process and reduce costs.

By using ANZ’s stablecoin, VMG managed to avoid the costly conversion of Aussie dollars into US dollars, before then buying USDC, which Zerocap uses to access cryptocurrency markets. Instead, using ANZ’s stablecoin (A$DC), it was able to buy digital assets directly, avoiding a host of friction costs in the process. In addition, the transaction took just over 10 minutes, compared to several days had the legacy financial system been used.

ANZ services lead Nigel Dobson commented that “an ANZ-issued Australian dollar stablecoin is a first and important step in enabling our customers to find a safe and secure gateway to the digital economy”.

We’re excited to continue to trial our capability and explore how this use case can be applied in other industries and customers in the future.

Nigel Dobson, ANZ services lead

Recognising the role that stablecoins play in creating efficiencies, Dobson commented further on the transaction:

Stablecoins are a new way for customers to transact and in this case was an efficient and direct way for Victor Smorgon Group to access Zerocap’s digital asset exchange and move funds across a decentralised network.

Nigel Dobson, ANZ

Zerocap co-founder and CEO Ryan McCall remarked on how his company had taken a different approach by focusing on serving institutional clients:

Most of the crypto industry has been focused on directly servicing the retail market, whereas we’ve invested from the outset in establishing the product, technology, compliance and team to properly service private and institutional clients.

Ryan McCall, Zerocap co-founder and CEO

He concluded on a bullish note, saying: “Digital assets are going mainstream; we’re thrilled to be at the forefront of driving adoption and bringing that vision to life.”

ANZ Making Bold Moves

One of the oft-repeated phrases in crypto is how Ernest Hemingway spoke of going bankrupt: “gradually, then suddenly”.

ANZ’s “gradually” moment was late last year, when it indicated that there was a “weight of money behind crypto that you can’t ignore“. No doubt this was in response to rival Commonwealth Bank’s move to become the first local bank to offer crypto trading services to its clients.

Arguably, ANZ’s “suddenly” moment came earlier this week at the Australian Blockchain Week 2022 when it announced its entrance into the world of DeFi (decentralised finance).

Coupled with its move creating its own stablecoin, it seems reasonable to conclude that ANZ has determined that in order to remain relevant in the rapidly evolving financial industry, embracing crypto is no longer optional, it’s a prerequisite.

Categories
Australia Banking Crypto News DeFi Hedera

ANZ Bank Exploring Hedera DeFi Services For Its 8.5 Million Customers

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), one of Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banks, is tapping into the growing demand for decentralised finance (DeFi) via the Hedera Hashgraph testnet.

Speaking as a member of an Australian Blockchain Week panel on DeFi, ANZ’s portfolio lead Nigel Dobson said his bank was exploring how best to offer DeFi services to its 8.5 million customers.

According to Dobson, ANZ was taking a “blockchain agnostic” approach and had already experimented with minting, transacting and burning tokens on the Hedera Hashgraph testnet.

All Part of ANZ’s Sustainability Plan

With Bitcoin and Ethereum often criticised for their high carbon emissions, Hedera Hashgraph’s lower-carbon imprint fits with ANZ’s stated goals to be a more ecologically responsible bank:

With Hashgraph able to run Solidity smart contracts, existing smart contracts and applications on Ethereum could be ported over to Hashgraph to the advantage of a potential DeFi ecosystem.

ANZ’s Targets to 2025

On the subject of sustainability, ANZ has already set targets to:

  • fund and facilitate at least A$50 billion by 2025 towards sustainable solutions for its customers;
  • engage with 100 of its largest emitting business customers to encourage them to strengthen their carbon transition plans and enhance their efforts to protect biodiversity by the end of 2024;
  • develop an enhanced climate risk management framework that strengthens ANZ’s governance and is responsive to climate change, by the end of 2022; and
  • achieve ANZ’s 2021-2025 suite of environmental footprint targets.

Set the Course for DeFi

Last November, Dobson described competitor CommBank’s pacesetting move into the Australian crypto space as “bold”, suggesting it was just the start of a major shift in the financial system and something traditional finance would need to embrace or adapt to.

“We are moving to a more decentralised system that can generate new outcomes and business models that can’t be ignored,” Dobson said at the time. “The power of decentralised networks transcends all companies – you just need to choose whether to be part of it or ignore it … I think we have a much stronger bias to participate than ignore.”

Categories
Australia Crypto Exchange Crypto News DeFi Regulation

Crypto Exchange FTX Officially Launches in Australia

FTX, one of the world’s fastest-growing crypto exchanges, is rapidly expanding its presence globally, having now established a local service in Australia as announced by crypto-billionaire founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried:

As per a company press release, FTX Australia will offer a full range of services, including an exchange, over-the-counter (OTC) products, and even derivatives.

The announcement coincides with recent moves by the Australian government to establish a “world-leading” regulatory ecosystem for digital assets.

Senator Proposes New Crypto Legislation

During the Australian Blockchain Week conference, NSW Senator Andrew Bragg proposed legislation that seeks to lay the groundwork for a proper regulatory framework in the country. Bragg laid out four principles that the mooted Digital Service Act needs to follow:

  • technological neutrality;
  • broad, flexible principles, ie, not a prescribed code;
  • regulation by a minister, not bureaucratic agencies; and
  • the need for cooperation within government.

Bragg stated that the government should adopt these four principles if it wants to refine its approach to the crypto ecosystem, including certain components of the decentralised finance (DeFi) sector, such as DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations). 

This will show Australia is open for business and things are clear and clean.

Senator Andrew Bragg

Bragg’s proposal came a day after a consultation paper was issued by the government, asking the industry to provide feedback by the end of the month. 

Bankman-Fried said he was largely incentivised by the efforts of the local blockchain community to help establish a clearer regulatory ecosystem for digital assets:

We are encouraged by the important work being undertaken to establish a new digital asset licensing regime.

Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX founder and CEO

Earlier this month, FTX partnered with the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation to develop a platform for crypto donations to the besieged country’s war defence.

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Australia Crypto News DAO Regulation

Pro-Crypto Senator Bragg Says DAOs Threaten Australia’s Tax Base

Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) needed to be “recognised and regulated as a matter of urgency”, according to Australian Liberal Senator for NSW, Andrew Bragg.

Speaking at the Australia Blockchain Week conference this week, Bragg said DAOs posed an “existential threat to the tax base” since they are recognised as partnerships and as such are not liable to pay company tax.

Australia Cannot Rely on Company Tax to Raise Revenue

According to Bragg, Australia’s “reliance on company tax is unsustainable” given that it accounted for only 17.1 percent of total federal government revenue in 2020-21.

“DAOs are self-regulating and transparent, with an in-built system for governance,” Bragg said, adding that legal recognition of DAOs also guarantees a set of “minimum standards” that should be legislated. These would give consumers the ability to distinguish between retail and wholesale organisations.

Bragg called for the Australian Treasury to address those issues while also “leaving the field open for DAOs to continue to live up to their name”.

In 10 or 20 years’ time we may well be talking about the inverse situation – applying the rules for cryptocurrency to traditional finance.

Andrew Bragg, NSW Senator

By the end of this year, the Australian government is expected to receive a report on digital asset taxation and undertake a token mapping exercise. It will also examine the potential of DAOs and how they can be incorporated into existing legal and financial frameworks.

Bragg Also Pushes for Policy on NFTs and Blockchain

Earlier this month, Bragg said the country also needed to hear from artists on the best way forward for digital asset regulation. Addressing Sydney’s inaugural 3D art NFT exhibition, Satellite, Bragg said policy specifically relating to NFTs needed to be implemented to stave off a potential “brain drain” on Australia’s arts economy.

Bragg has also urged the Australian blockchain industry to “pick up the pace” or risk falling behind other developed nations, adding that Australia was likely to miss an opportunity to become a world leader in cryptocurrency if the government was not given more power to prioritise digital asset reform.

Categories
Australia Crypto Exchange Cryptocurrency Law Regulation

Australian ‘2022 Digital Services Act’ Published for Crypto Custody Providers

The Australian Treasury has released a consultation paper outlining its proposed regulatory approach to crypto markets with a view to potentially introducing a Digital Services Act in the next 12 months. 

Industry has been given until May 27 to provide feedback on the proposals.

This follows appearances by NSW Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg and Jane Hume, the federal Minister for the Digital Economy, at Blockchain Week where they spoke about the need for a Digital Services Act to allow Australians to safely invest in crypto and to encourage investment and innovation in the burgeoning sector.

Government Focused on Secondary Service Providers

The proposed approach focuses on the regulation of what the government calls crypto asset secondary service providers (CASSPrs), which includes exchanges, brokers, assets managers, custodians and DeFi services such as decentralised exchanges.

According to the consultation paper, the digital services legislation would effectively seek to impose two types of regulation on CASSPrs: 

  • regulation of, and the introduction of a licensing system for CASSPrs; and
  • regulations relating to custodians and the secure handling of private keys.

Purpose of the Act

The overarching purpose of the proposed regulation is to provide more protections for investors and thereby increase public confidence and drive innovation in crypto. 

This focus was reaffirmed by Minister Hume during her March 21 Blockchain Week address, describing the proposed regulation as providing an “Australian-made badge of approval for CASSPrs”. She added:

The Morrison government wants to make sure that consumers can trust the exchanges that they use to buy crypto.

Jane Hume, Minister for the Digital Economy

Specifically, the proposed regulations will seek to mitigate the risk of investors losing their assets due to exchange insolvency or lack of liquidity and security risks such as hacking.

Government on Front Foot

These newly proposed regulations are part of a broader crypto focus by the federal government which includes a crypto taxation review and a token mapping exercise, both of which are due to be completed by the end of 2022.

This follows the release of a 12-point crypto regulation plan last October and recent calls from NSW Senator Bragg for Australia’s crypto industry to pick up its pace or risk missing opportunities.

Categories
Australia Banking Cryptocurrencies Investing

Commonwealth Bank Says It Intends to Heavily Invest in More Crypto-Related Services

A digital assets specialist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has confirmed the bank’s intentions to invest more into crypto facilities following the CBA’s highly successful launch of its in-app crypto trading service in November last year.

https://www.commbank.com.au/guidance/newsroom/Fitch-Ratings-affirms-CBA-rating-revises-outlook-201805.html
CommBank is looking to offer more crypto-related services.

Representatives from Visa, JPMorgan, Macquarie Bank and the CBA addressed this week’s Blockchain Australia Blockchain Week conference with reports of heightened consumer desire for cryptocurrency-related services. CBA’s Sophie Gilder in particular had some interesting updates to share on behalf of her bank:

According to Gilder, head of blockchain and digital assets at CommBank, her department is looking to offer additional products for both institutional and retail crypto investors. CBA’s goal is to offer enough crypto-related services to cater to the full spectrum of client needs and it is looking at ways to “double its blockchain size” in the coming months.

Aussie Banks Adapting to Crypto

In November, CBA became Australia’s first bank to support crypto purchases with its CommBank mobile app. Partnering with blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis and crypto exchange Gemini, CBA sought to provide customers with exchange and custody services, allowing users to buy, sell and hold digital assets.

Following the precedent set by CBA, ANZ acknowledged that “there is a weight of money you simply can’t ignore” in stating its belief that crypto was “here to stay” in Australia.

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Australia Binance Australia Crypto Exchange Giveaways Trading

Win a Brand New Tesla Model 3 Car with Binance Australia

Australian crypto exchange Binance Australia is giving away a brand new Tesla Model 3 Performance valued at A$84,900 to one lucky user from March 23 – April 20.

You can enter the giveaway via the Binance website. Please note that you must be an Australian resident to be eligible for the giveaway.

How to Enter:

To be eligible for the giveaway, new Binance users can:

  1. Sign up and complete KYC
  2. Trade at least A$50 on any crypto pairs
  3. Click “Enter Now” on the entry page

To be eligible for the giveaway, existing Binance users can:

  1. Click “Enter Now” on the entry page
  2. Use your referral link to sign up a friend
  3. You get 1 entry for every friend that signs up

For full entry guidelines, please see the official giveaway terms page.

About Tesla Model 3 Performance

Tesla Model 3 – tesla.com
  • The Tesla model 3 performance has the quickest acceleration from 0-100 km/h in as little as 3.3 seconds.
  • It has a dual motor providing unparalleled traction and control, in all weather conditions.
  • It’s fully electric so you never need to visit a petrol station again, and can charge it from home – with a range of up to 602km.
  • It has an autopilot designed to assist you with the most burdensome parts of driving.
  • Designed with your smartphone in mind, you can use it as a key and access all driver controls from a central 15-inch touchscreen.

Risk warning: Cryptocurrency trading is subject to high market risk. Please make your trades cautiously. You are advised that Binance is not responsible for your trading losses.

Binance and Binance Australia reserves the right in its sole discretion to amend or change or cancel this announcement at any time and for any reasons without prior notice.