Category: Australia

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News

Bitcoin Mayhem: Lag, Massive Traffic, and Shutdowns —What Will Exchanges Do When Other Giants Embrace BTC?

It looks like Bitcoin’s new All-Time High has outage several exchanges including Kraken and Binance. For its part, Kraken has suspended sign-ups due to immense demand from traders and massive traffic on its platform.

As stated on the Kraken platform, sign-ups are temporarily suspended, and —not surprisingly— other exchanges are struggling to keep up with massive traffic. The new bull run driven by Tesla’s $1.5B investment has injected Fear Of Missing Out —FOMO— among other traders who are now desperate to jump in on the recent action.

Sign-ups are temporarily disabled due to extremely high demand. Our engineers are still working to resolve the issue and we will share any updates as soon as they become available.

Binance also experienced the setbacks that the new BTC ATH brought, like massive traffic, lag, and auto-scaling.

Bitcoin to the Moon?

Much has been said about the future of Bitcoin and what price can it reach in 2021. January was a month full of extreme volatility, reaching $42K, and then dropping and surging more than 15-20% from both sides every week. But as more institutions jump in, JP Morgan’s prediction of $145K for BTC isn’t that far away.

JP Morgan, a top investment bank in the United States, referred to Bitcoin as the “Digital gold for Millenials” that could reach more than $100,000. But Australian analyst Mark Rodda believes that BTC still has a long road to reach $100K.

More Challenges for Exchanges

It has become usual that exchanges struggle to keep up with the fast and heated pace that comes amid a new bull run on major cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin. But now, Bitcoin could reach higher ATH at the end of this year.

Bill Miller, an American investor and fund manager has taunted the crypto-community with a new filing from the Securities and Exchange Commission —SEC—. Accordingly, the hedge fund manager is seeking indirect exposure through Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust.

BTC/USD chart: Tradingview

The demand for Bitcoin could spike an even greater outrage and Foul Plays calls from the crypto-community if exchanges are not prepared to meet the increasing demand.

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Australia DeFi Stablecoins

Aussie Programmer Refinances His Property Loan With DeFi In A Single Day, Following Red Tape From Banks

A software engineer has paid off his mortgage to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and refinanced it through fixed-rate lending protocols, after finally having enough of getting nowhere with traditional banks.

Offsetting Loans

According to the software engineer, he decided to – quite literally – become his own lender after going around in circles with banks.

As a self-employed professional, he believes banks took advantage of this in order to deny him even a credit card for multiple years – especially seeing as the world is currently going through a period of economic turmoil.

In order to do so, the software engineer first paid off his loan in AUD – after which he borrowed USDC from Notional, using liquidity he already owned in order to avoid high fees.

He then added about $1 million in wrapped Bitcoin and Ethereum as collateral for a new 500,000 USDC loan.

Although the borrowing rates requested by Notional are around 6% some of that can be offset – provided you provide liquidity that you can earn money off of.

The newly (and self)made one man banking system stated that everything went much faster than it would have, had he stuck to traditional banks.

“I feel like I’m in full control of my situation. People should be all over this stuff. It felt like it would’ve taken months of applications, finding tax returns and bank statements for the bank to refinance me, but I was able to do it all in one day, under my own agency.”

Although the whole procedure took quite a bit of forethought, it paves the way for more transactions of the sort – AAVE, in particular, have hopped on the mortgage train recently following their marked increase in popularity.

Although this may be a one-off thing, it’s not improbable that in the future we will see plenty more early bird investors buying a new house due to a bitcoin faucet they used a decade ago.

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Australia Cardano Cryptocurrencies Ripple

Should Australians Switch to Cardano? ADA Surpasses XRP and other Altcoins in a Frenzy Bullish Run

Cardano —listed ADA— has outranked Ripple’s XRP as the fourth-highest market cap cryptocurrency, with a surge of more than 80% in just seven days. The token could become an attractive opportunity for Aussies looking to replace XRP.

At the time of writing, ADA is currently traded at $0.63, surpassing XRP with a trading volume of $11.913.631.193 and price gains over 17.00% in the last 24 hours.

Top ten cryptos with highest market cap on Coinmarketcap

While most altcoins slightly corrected after Bitcoin hit $41K and dropped -6% below that level, Cardano remained strong among other tokens, and increasing its market cap to over $20 billion.

XRP Still On The Lose

On the contrary, XRP, the second-most preferred digital asset by Australians still struggles to maintain itself on a solid price level.

In the last seven days, the asset fell into a downtrend following a crowd pump by the XRP community supporters and Reddit groups, who tried to break resistance levels but crashed massively just after Redditors from the r/WallStreetBets started buying as well.

The Goguen Mary Testnet Could “Outshine” ETH 2.0

Charles Hoskinson, Co-Founder of Cardano and Ethereum, believes that Cardano’s “Goguen Mary” testnet could outperform ETH 2.0 in the future. The Cardano company was working since February 3 on a “Mary” fork for Cardano, and it was successfully deployed this week.

I think Vitalik’s [approach] is a little bit riskier from an engineering and research viewpoint, which is why it’s been so difficult for them to get ETH 2.0 out.

The new features included the support of “native” custom tokens through direct transactions in the Cardano Blockchain —instead of using Smart Contracts like Ethereum or others. Now the Cardano network has transformed into a multi-asset ledger that could also improve the DeFi ecosystem through custom token support.

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Australia Crypto News

RBA Governor Says Cryptos Won’t Break Down the Financial System

RBA Governor Says Cryptos Won't Break Down the Financial System

The governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), Philip Lowe, has addressed the fuss with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, saying they cannot bring down the financial system. However, financial regulators would need to pay closer attention to digital currencies like the Facebook-planned Diem (formerly Libra) stablecoin.

Besides the governor’s statement, one of the RBA executives added that they will still need to combat money laundering and terrorism financing issues with Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

Cryptos are not a risk to financial systems

As reported by the Canberra Times on Friday, the RBA governor Philip Lowe told parliament’s economics committee that digital currencies don’t pose risks to the financial system. “It’s not a financial stability risk,” Lowe said. However, any investor dealing with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin should be wary of the volatility.

Rather than undermining the financial system, the volatility of digital currencies can be “a risk to investors,” Lowe told the committee.

“There’s a lot of fuss over Bitcoin – it’s not a payment instrument, and it’s not really money,” said Michele Bullock, the assistant governor at the Reserve Bank of Australia. “The issue that gets much more airplay recently is stable coins.” Following the case with the Facebook-planned stablecoin, Ms. Bullock added that regulators would need to pay more attention to them.

“With those sorts of ‘coins,’ as they’re so-called at the moment, nothing will happen until the regulators are happy,” Ms. Bullock said.

The Main Concern with Crypto

Although the Australian central bank doesn’t see cryptocurrency as being risky to the financial system, Ms. Bullock did mention that they would still need to address certain concerns with cryptocurrencies. These include privacy, consumer protections, and illicit activities with cryptocurrencies like money laundering.

Owning to the inherent privacy property with digital currencies, criminals are switching to using cryptocurrency to launder ill-gotten profits.

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News Cryptocurrency Law Illegal Scams

Australian Man Pleads Guilty to $90 Million Crypto Hedge Fund Scam

An Australian crypto fund manager has pleaded guilty in a US court for the theft of almost $90 million of investor’s money. 

Stefan He Qin was charged with defrauding clients over a three year period between 2017 and 2021 through two cryptocurrency hedge funds that he founded. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began investigating one of the 24-year old entrepreneur’s businesses, Virgil Capital LLC, in December last year.

It was discovered that Qin had attempted to funnel money from his second fund, VQR Multistrategy, to pay investors of the Virgil Sigma Fund. However, after years of risky investments and frivolous spending, much of the funds were gone, leaving investors empty-handed.

Judge Valerie Caproni found Qin guilty of the charges on 4 February 2021 brought forward by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. US Attorney Audrey Strauss said Qin is now awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of draining “almost all of the assets from the $90 million cryptocurrency fund he owned, stealing investors’ money, spending it on indulgences and speculative personal investments, and lying to investors about the performance of the fund.”

Special Agent Peter C. Fitzhugh who had been investigating the case reiterated the charges, stating that Qin had been using investor’s funds to “live his extravagant lifestyle.”

“Qin orchestrated this reprehensible criminal scheme for many years, making misrepresentations and false promises that coaxed investors into pouring millions of dollars into fraudulent cryptocurrency firms, all the while stealing the hard-earned money of his investors,” he said.

Crypto Scams on the Rise

The case is reminiscent of the recent Mirror Trading International (MTI) scam perpetrated by South African Johann Steynberg. In December last year, Steynberg reportedly fled South Africa after the country’s financial regulator began investigating his company. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) found evidence suggesting that MTI’s broker, Trade 300, was owned and operated by Steynberg.

Despite several warnings issued during 2020, clients continued to invest money into the firm, which promised unrealistic returns of up to 10 percent monthly. The unlicensed firm has now gone into liquidation, with assets worth approximately $863 million unaccounted for.

“There were no proper accounting records and Bitcoin was transferred in and out,” FSCA executive Brandon Topham told Bloomberg. “Thus no definitive answer currently exists as to how much Bitcoin was actually invested but is in the region of 23,000 plus.”

Due to fraudsters taking advantage of the panic and uncertainty brought about by the ongoing pandemic, law enforcement agencies around the world reported a rise in financial scams in 2020. Scams such as these are likely to continue throughout 2021.

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Australia Cryptocurrencies

The Australian Tax Office is set to Target Cryptos For “Money Laundering Schemes” in Australia

During an online conference this week, the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement —known as J5— is shifting its focus on the “illicit” use of cryptocurrencies on crimes such as “money laundering schemes”.

The J5 is a well-known supergroup of international tax institutions from the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, with the Australian Tax Office —ATO—.

This week, the J5 made cryptocurrencies and the fintech space its primary topic. One of the key questions will be how are cryptos and digital assets being used by “criminals” and “tax evaders.”

The IRS Will Send a Secondment to the ATO

Jim Lee, Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation —IRS— chief, announced the U.S.-based federal agency will send next week a senior member from his office to the ATO, as a strategy to target cryptocurrencies, fight “tax criminals” and “money laundering schemes” in Australia.

IRS chief Jim Lee during an online J5 conference this Thursday. Source: Accounting Today

Many people out there feel that just because they’re dealing with cyber in the blockchain crypto area, they’re anonymous. But it’s a mistake to assume cryptocurrencies are untraceable by authorities.

Stated IRS-CI chief Jim Lee during the conference

But, ironically enough, several banks in Australia were recently the main protagonist on money laundering schemes. Two weeks ago, 16 banks —seven of them Australian and the rest Southeast-Asian— were behind major schemes together with South American drug cartels, for laundering more than $500M in international transactions.

The Australian Border Force decided to withhold the names of those banks due to “Security”, and “legal procedures”. At the time of writing, there has not been any more news about the topic.

Simon York, director of U.K.-based HM Revenue and Custom stated that Australia and other countries could expect a greater presence from the ATO, and a deeper study for Cryptocurrencies and their use.

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Australia Binance Crypto News

CEO of Binance Australia Warns Users Against Fake Emails

Scammers Target Binance Users in Australia with Fake Emails

The interest and growth of the cryptocurrency market are unavoidably attracting the attention of cyber-criminals, which is unsafe for the nascent industry. The CEO of Binance Australia, Jeff Yew, took to his Twitter handle on Thursday to warn cryptocurrency users about an email phishing scam circulating in the whole of Australia.

Phishing is basically a kind of cyber-attack where a scammer or hacker impersonates a reputable company or business, in this case, Binance, to deceive and steal sensitive information from the customers, which eventually leads to losses. In most cases, phishing attacks involve emails.

Meanwhile, Binance users in Australia have been advised to verify their anti-phishing code before taking action from any Binance-related email, especially if it is strange.

Beware of Fake Emails

According to the CEO of Binance Australia, scammers are using fake emails to lure users into logging in to their account using a supposedly malicious link. “Do NOT open that email or click on any links within it. Always look for & verify your anti-phishing code,” Yew wrote, while also differentiating the fake email from the genuine Binance emails using images.

Binance users must always look out for the anti-phishing code to confirm the genuineness of any email claiming to be from the exchange. The code adds an extra layer of security for Binance users and should be enabled by users in Australia especially, amid the wake of this phishing scam.

Ledger Phishing Attack

Recently, Ledger wallet users had to face a similar phishing scam following a security breach that led to the exposure of customers’ data. This information was publicly released, allowing malicious actors to run several attacks on the users, including life-threatening messages. As Crypto News Australia reported on December 10, a Ledger wallet user lost about US$50,000 to the phishing scam, amid the data exposed.

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Australia Blockchain

WePower, MoJo Partner to Debut Blockchain-based Renewable Energy Trading for Australians

WePower, MoJo Partner to Debut Blockchain-based Renewable Energy Trading for Australians

The Energy industry is one sector where blockchain technology plays a significant role, especially in energy trading. 

WePower has reportedly partnered with an Australian solar-focused electricity company, Mojo Power, to enable retail electricity users in Australia to purchase renewable energy. WePower is a blockchain-based green energy financing and trading platform. Under the agreement, WePower will deliver its retail power purchase agreements (Retail PPAs) to Mojo’s upcoming energy trading marketplace, according to the announcement on Wednesday.

Mojo Power plans a Blockchain-based energy trading platform

Mojo is looking to establish a marketplace where corporate customers and other businesses in Australia can source and purchase renewable energy, as a standard retail energy contract, according to the report. The planned marketplace will run on the Ethereum blockchain, essentially allowing energy production companies, including Robinvale Solar Farm in Victoria (VIC), to find buyers for their energy produced easily. 

“The initial wholesale PPA between Robinvale’s owners and Mojo is tokenized by WePower and stored on the Ethereum blockchain so that it can be structured into smaller retail PPAs and made available to these customers,” Kaspar Kaarlep, the chief technology officer at WePower, explained. He added that the tokenization of the transaction on blockchain forms a “direct contractual link between the generating project and the end customer’s energy purchase.” 

The development today will basically make it easier for Australian consumers to access energy while also allowing renewable energy producers to locate buyers. As reported, Mojo Power has also sealed a contract with the Riverina Solar Farm in New South Wales and other solar-focused energy-producing companies around Australia. These energy producers will be included in the upcoming Mojo marketplace “with multiple other agreements currently in the pipeline.”

Blockchain in Australia’s Energy Sector

Notably, Australia has many energy-focused companies building on a blockchain, and today’s news isn’t the first instance involving the technology. About five months ago, Crypto News Australia reported that TYMLEZ would partner with Tyalgum Energy, a private company in New South Wales, to decentralize green energy trading on a blockchain.

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Australia Bitcoin

Australians That Bought the Dip on BTC Are More Than Happy —Now FOMO is Kicking in Amid Aussies Who Didn’t

Bitcoin has gained strong ground in the $36K area as MicroStrategy bought an additional $10M worth in BTC —and exchanges were receiving an outstanding amount of Tether, approximately, 552 million USDT. Tether is the most common pair in any exchange —BTC/USDT—, and retailers use it to trade the BTC market.

The recent surge had several Australians more than happy, as many Aussies remained positive at first about investing in cryptocurrencies this month, despite the warning from traditional institutions and the uncertainty of the new Biden Administration on digital assets.

But according to research from crypto-writer Andrew Munro, this has sparked the famous FOMO—Fear Of Missing Out amid Aussies.

Aussies Jumping in on BTC as FOMO kicks in

Now that Bitcoin has surged back to trading volumes above $36,000, it has propelled FOMO amid Aussies. Now more Australians are seeking to invest in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other altcoins.

Although other cryptos —like Ethereum— have gained a fair amount of independence, even outperforming BTC in the last week.

According to Munro, Aussies are set to invest not only in BTC but in altcoins that showed high-performance in the last weeks, and around 13% of Australians are set to invest in cryptocurrencies in 2021, and more than 6% are holding DeFi-related tokens.

Several years ago, Bitcoin was the only cryptocurrency the average Australian knew about. Now others like Ethereum are gaining popularity thanks to trends like DeFi and the hunt for yield in a low-interest-rate environment.

Stated Andrew Munro for News.com.au

BTC Reaches $37K

Bitcoin experienced extreme volatility this month since it reached its highest record price —$42,000—, swinging from levels as low as $28K, and struggling to reach resistance levels between $32K and $34K. These constant drops wiped out more than $100M trading positions almost instantly.

Likewise, Ethereum reached a new $1600 all-time high, with trading levels up to $1645. The recent surge came following Tether’s CTO statements about 2B Tether will be sent from the Tron Blockchain to Ethereum.

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Australia Bitcoin Blockchain New South Wales

Australian Ranch Awarded Blockchain-based Soil Carbon Credits from Microsoft

microsoft

Major tech giant Microsoft recently announced ambitious plans to cut down on its carbon footprint and implement 100 percent renewable energy at its data centers by 2025.  Furthermore, the company plans to incentivize its suppliers to reduce their carbon footprint by rewarding certain sustainability projects like reforestation, soil sequestration, and bioenergy with carbon capture storage (BECC).

Soil sequestration is the process of increasing the amount of carbon dioxide stored in soil, thereby reducing the amount present within the atmosphere. To do so, cattle ranchers implement special grazing practices with the hope of achieving between a 4 and 6 percent concentration of soil organic carbon in their land.

The environmental regeneration project, Regen Network, built on the Cosmos (ATOM) blockchain, was designed to reward farmers that increase the carbon concentration in their soil. It does so by verifying a farm’s soil sequestration and issuing it tokens, known as CarbonPlus Grasslands credits, funded by corporations that wish to reduce their carbon footprint. Microsoft has partnered with the Regen Network to purchase 43,338 metric tons worth of carbon credits for the Wilmot Cattle Co, an Australian-based ranch owner. The initiative was originally launched by natural capital firm Impact AG and has now been bought by Microsoft.

In addition to reducing its carbon footprint and supporting companies that do the same, Microsoft also hopes to eliminate an equal amount of carbon that it’s been responsible for producing since the company began in 1975. The corporation has set a date of 2050 to achieve this goal, using a combination of negative emission technologies (NET) like BECCs, direct air capture (DAC), and other methods.

Tech Giants Call for Climate Change Action

Microsoft is not the only tech giant calling for more aggressive climate change action.

Elon Musk, CEO of fellow tech giant Tesla, famously announced a $100 million prize to whoever could provide the best carbon capture technology. The often controversial businessman has been a long time supporter of climate change action, environmental causes, and blockchain technology. 

Last week, Musk finally made clear his support for Bitcoin when he changed his Twitter profile to the hashtag #Bitcoin. He followed up the change with the tweet “In retrospect, it was inevitable,” appearing to confirm the widespread belief that he would one day buy Bitcoin. Immediately following the news the digital asset enjoyed a brief 20 percent rise in price, touching the $38,000 level. However, it quickly corrected back down to current levels, indicating strong bearish sentiment within crypto markets.