Category: Australia

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Australia Crypto News Kraken

Kraken Targets Australia, UK Market with 26 new Trading Pairs

Kraken Targets Australia, UK Market with 26 new Trading Pairs

One of the largest United States cryptocurrency exchange, Kraken, announced on Thursday, the single-largest expansion of its crypto-to-fiat currency trading pairs primarily for crypto users and traders in Australia and the United Kingdom. 

More like a reason, the exchange mentioned that both countries have “substantial upside potential.” Hence, Kraken intends to expand its presence in both markets through the new cryptocurrency trading pairs for the Australian dollar (AUD) and the British pound (GBP). 

The US exchange added a total of 26 direct trading pairs, 13 pairs each for the AUD and GBP. According to the announcement, there has been an increased trading activity on the exchange from Aussie and UK users. So, Kraken is apparently launching more trading pairs to capture more trades from the markets.

In addition to expanding the number of tradable coins available in AUD and GBP, these pairs make it easy for the users to enter and exit the market.

Aussie Market is Becoming Attractive

The supported coins for the Australian dollar include popularly-traded cryptos like Polkadot (DOT), Chainlink (LINK), DeFi token Aave (AAVE), Cardano (ADA), etc. “The cryptocurrency space isn’t just about Bitcoin, and it isn’t just about the US dollar,” the managing director of Kraken’s Europe operation, Curtis Ting, commented.

Despite the smaller available pairs, Australia became one of the fastest-growing markets in Kraken after the exchange allowed AUD funding last year, likewise the UK.

“By expanding AUD and GBP markets into a far greater number of digital assets, Kraken is doubling down on its commitment to ensuring all clients globally can more seamlessly interact with any number of the cryptocurrencies available on our exchange,” Ting added.

It’s no doubt that the Australian crypto market is growing rapidly. On Wednesday, Crypto News Australia reported that Swyftx, one of the leading Aussie crypto exchanges recorded a massive growth in users over the past year. Also, Binance Australia recorded about 400 percent growth in the number of users since that last quarter of 2020. 

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Australia Blockchain

Blockchain Australia Seeks Regulatory Support to Push up DLT Industry

Blockchain Australia Seeks Regulatory Support to Push up DLT Industry

Blockchain Australian, the industry network of blockchain businesses that promote the adoption of the technology in Australia, has called for regulatory-friendly support from the country’s authority to further promote blockchain developments in the country. The body wrote to the Senate Select Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology, according to the report on Thursday by ZDNet. 

This body of blockchain promoters believes that the technology has great potentials to revitalize certain systems in different sectors. They also preach that mainstream adoption of blockchain technology in government, education, etc., will drive innovation and provide more job opportunities in Australia. However, the path to achieving this wouldn’t be easy without friendly support from the regulators and government.

A Call for Blockchain Support

For that reason, Blockchain Australia wrote to the Senate Select Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology in “its second round of reviewing the potential of fintech and regtech down under,” calling for regulatory support for the Aussie DLT industry. The organization believes that “a little bit of wiggle room from regulators” would propel more growth and application of the nascent technology in the country.

Blockchain Australia wrote:

“Clear regulatory frameworks are drivers of both efficiency and innovation. […] Regulation should aid the establishment of the fairness and openness uniquely enabled by this technology. Certainty afforded via the development of applications by a nimble regulatory regime will be the catalyst for uptake across the industry, creating high-value knowledge economy jobs and growth.”

Blockchain Adoption in Australia

Australia is unarguably one of the countries that are open to blockchain technology. Last year, the government officially published the national blockchain roadmap, outlining their plans on the potential application of the technology in different sectors of the economy. At the time, it was estimated that the country could generate more than US$175 billion by 2025 through blockchain.

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Australia Blockchain Education

Australians Can Now Become Blockchain Consultants Through TAFE Queensland

The demand for skilled and qualified personnel in the Blockchain space grew exponentially in Australia in recent months. Now Blockchain Collective, an educational body for blockchain learning, plans to meet those demands by partnering with TAFE Queensland — one of the largest course and training providers with 50 locations across Australia.

TAFE Queensland will now provide Queensland students, including Brisbane and Gold Coast with an official advanced diploma in Applied Blockchain. The state will become the first in Australia to provide Aussies with training in the blockchain sector.

Featured on Nine News recently, Nathan Burns, Co-founder at Blockchain Collective, together with Richard Barret, TAFE QLD Director of Faculty, both spoke about the necessity of bringing qualified professionals into the innovative blockchain sector, with a potential skills shortage leading into the anticipated blockchain boom in Australia.

It’s a big opportunity for us and it also allows a lot more people to see and get involved in the blockchain space.

Nathan Burns, Co-founder at Blockchain Collective on Nine News

The Blockchain Courses

Students can become Blockchain Consultants through accredited courses consisting of up to 10 modules, exploring complex areas like preparing organisations to operate on the network and avoid cyber-crimes, and applying and anaylising blockchain frameworks for businesses.

The courses will focus heavily on tech application and strategy rather than blockchain coding. Students will receive all the essential skills to implement blockchain business models and frameworks.

The Jobs of the Future

The courses will be essential for Australians seeking to explore blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And as the general awareness of digital assets arises, so does the growing interest to get involved in this exciting new space.

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Australia Crypto News

Australian Micro-investing Platform, Raiz Plans to Allocate Investments to Bitcoin

Australian Micro-investing Platform, Raiz Plans to Allocate Investments to Bitcoin

A micro-investing platform based in Australia, Raiz Invest, has launched its seventh investment portfolio, that will allow the customers to gain exposure to Bitcoin, which skyrocketed in price since December. Basically, the investment platform will allocate a small portion of its clients’ funds on the new portfolio to the cryptocurrency. Raiz mentioned that the customers had highly requested the new offering, despite that investment in digital currencies are deemed to be risky.

Raiz will Allocate 5% of Sapphire Funds to Bitcoin

The new investment portfolio dubbed “Sapphire” has been under development for the past 18 months, according to the company. Investors that choose Sapphire will have five percent of their capital allocated to Bitcoin, while the remaining funds will be distributed to other investible instruments like large-cap stocks, including the Australian corporate debt and money markets. Raiz will allocate the funds to these investment options through exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

In accordance to George Lucas, the CEO of Raiz, the suggested minimum investment timeframe for the crypto investment is over five years.

“Although this latest portfolio offering from Raiz is very high risk, feedback from many customers has clearly shown that they have an appetite for an investment strategy that has an exposure to cryptocurrencies, and the Sapphire portfolio has been designed with this in mind,” Lucas said. “The investment objective of the Sapphire portfolio is to provide exposure to Bitcoin in a managed, risk-adjusted way.”

More Financial Advisers will Allocate to Bitcoin

Investments in cryptocurrency are becoming attractive to investors, and many financial advisors are looking to start allocating to crypto-assets. This is evident following a recent oversee (United States) survey, which showed that nearly 50 percent of financial advisors allocated to Bitcoin last year – out of almost 1,000 advisors surveyed. Some of the respondents don’t recommend allocating to the cryptocurrency. However, a good number of them said they would do so this year.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News

HashCash to Help Aussie Enterprise Settle Cross-border Payments on Blockchain

HashCash to Help Aussie Enterprise Settle Cross-border Payments on Blockchain

A blockchain consultant company, HashCash, has reportedly partnered with an Australian enterprise to assist them in settling cross-border transactions in real-time.

The information from Yahoo Finance didn’t specify the Australian company. However, the enterprise will reportedly leverage the HashCash blockchain network as part of the partnership, to process such transactions.

Blockchain, which is the technology behind cryptocurrencies, has been proven useful in settlement of cross-border payments. This can be seen as another important use case for blockchain in play.

Cross-border Payments on Blockchain

Per the report, the ultimate objective for the partnership is to enable the Australian enterprise to transfer funds to other enterprises or individuals globally and also in a seamless manner. Additionally, HashCash did mention that customers from the Australian enterprise will receive its native digital currency – known as HCX – for making transactions to other parties across the border.

This will enable the company to meet its customer’s needs and requirements in real-time.

“HashCash’s HC NET helps empower the enterprise by bringing all of their important operations on a single distribution platform through this partnership. Other than that, our products and services help create a competitive edge over others for customers all around Australia,” said Raj Chowdhury, the CEO of HashCash Consultants.

Australia Gaming Sector Embraces Blockchain

HashCash is one of the leading blockchain development companies with an office in Australia.

Lately, the blockchain company partnered with an undisclosed game development company in Australia to debut a white-label digital currency exchange, as well as a tokenization platform targeted at the gaming sector.

The development was viewed as an innovative step for the gaming sector, as it will allow game developers to monetize their services by creating blockchain-based micropayment channels for streamers, viewers, as well as content producers.

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Australia Coinjar Crypto News

Aussie Exchange, CoinJar Debuts Recurring Buys for Dollar Cost Averaging

Aussie Exchange, CoinJar Debuts Recurring Buys for Dollar Cost Averaging

Investing in cryptocurrencies has become easier and more convenient than it was over the past years. One of the leading Australian exchanges, CoinJar, has launched a “recurring buy” function on its platform, which will allow Australian crypto investors to purchase their favorite digital currencies through the “dollar cost averaging” or DCA approach. This is an ideal investment strategy for buying cryptocurrencies, especially when the market is ranging or trending in a bearish condition.

CoinJar now Supports DCA Strategy

The recurring buy is a DCA investment approach that allows investors to purchase a particular amount of a cryptocurrency more than once within an extended period of time. The dollar-cost averaging strategy is currently supported on CoinJar Bundles Recurring Buys, according to the announcement on Monday. Users can choose to set up recurring buys on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis through the CoinJar iOS or Android app.

The service is currently available for the exchange’s Australian users only. CoinJar noted that the service would be rolled out for the customers in the United Kingdom (UK) soon.

DCA explained

Dollar-cost averaging is a popular strategy used by many players in the cryptocurrency market. Using this strategy, an investor would divide the total amount of money he/she wants to invest in either Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), or other cryptocurrencies. Rather than once, the divided funds will be periodically invested in the chosen cryptocurrency to reduce the impact of the asset volatility on entire purchases made.

Basically, this strategy helps investors to avoid buying cryptocurrencies at the top. However, this investment strategy may not be ideal when the market enters an uptrend. The price of the cryptocurrency will continue to go higher during uptrends; hence, using DCA will only fetch you the cryptos at a higher rate – except you decide to wait until the market calms.

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Australia Institutions

“Bitcoin Is Money Laundering” While Australian and International Financial Institutions Are Accused Of Money Laundering

Since their creation, cryptocurrencies have put an alarm on financial institutions, such as banks, calling them mere schemes that promote money laundering and shady activities. But, Ironically enough, a new report has revealed that at least 16 international financial institution —nine of them are Australian— are behind major money laundering schemes with drugs cartels from South America.

Australian banks were participants in a money-laundering scheme together with South American drug cartels. Accordingly, Australian banks washed more than US$500M dollars.

According to the Australian Border Force —ABF— the cartels moved the drugs with “sophisticated” methods through several countries, primarily in North America, in a joint scheme with banks. These methods alarmed the officers due to the several contradictions on the invoices on behalf of importers and exporters.

But According to Institutions, Bitcoin Still Accounts for Money Laundering

According to the ABF, from 2014 to 2017, at least $100M in drugs were channeled through nine Australian banks and transferred to other institutions in the Middle East and South-east Asia.

The ABF decided to withhold the name of the banks together with the drug cartels over “security”, and “legal” procedures. The case was left to the Border Related Financial Crimes Unit, together with Australia’s financial intelligence regulator, AUSTRAC.

Meanwhile, the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, bashes and reduces cryptocurrencies to mere schemes that advocate money laundering and “Shady businesses”.

Likewise, during the confirmation hearing to the post of Treasury Secretary this Tuesday, the former Chair of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen stated that cryptocurrencies are a major concern due to terrorist financing and money laundering.

But in 2020, the criminal activity regarding the use of cryptocurrencies only accounted for 0.34% in the market, according to data from Chainalysis.

Source: Chainalysis 2021 Crypto Crime Report

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News DeFi Ethereum

Australian Analyst Positive About 2021 as Ethereum (ETH) Hits New All Time High

Australian Analyst Matt Harcourt of Apollo Capital, the country’s leading crypto-asset investment firm, recently spoke to DMARGE about crypto trends in 2021. While the discussion focused largely on Bitcoin (BTC), it’s Ethereum (ETH) that’s making headlines today after securing a new all-time high (ATH) above its previous record of AUD$1,850 (US$1,420).

Ethereum was one of the best-performing assets of 2020, gaining over 800% in value throughout the year. After starting the year at the extremely low price of AUD$166, ETH has steadily climbed to its new ATH, only suffering a brief dip during the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak.

In mid-2020, a thriving decentralized finance (DeFi) market emerged that was largely developed on Ethereum’s ERC20 protocol. Although DeFi had a somewhat bumpy start with several projects collapsing or exit-scamming, it nevertheless helped to boost Ethereum’s price and should continue to do so into 2021. 24-hour volume on the Ethereum network has also seen extreme growth this year, peaking at $140 billion on January 4.

Harcourt believes there is room for more growth going into 2021, citing a ‘broken’ financial system that will help boost interest in cryptocurrencies.

“…there is a ‘broken’ (I use that word loosely) financial system that will inevitably be replaced by the more open, fair and efficient system that is Bitcoin and blockchain technology (Ethereum, Decentralised Finance),” he told Australian news outlet DMARGE.

However, he noted that now may not be the best time to buy as prices are very high. “A good time to enter the market may come in 1, 2 or 3 months as I think Bitcoin will end 2021 at a higher price,” he said. It looks like he might be right, as other market indicators are suggesting a possible retrace from the current overbought level.

The supply of Bitcoin on exchanges is currently at the highest its been in nine months, suggesting traders are getting ready to sell. With Bitcoin already up by a massive 25 percent just in 2021 alone, buying power must surely start dissipating soon. Even the institutional interest that drove Bitcoin to new highs through late 2020 is beginning to wane, and retail investors appear to be diversifying into altcoins.

Over the past 24 hours, smaller-cap cryptocurrencies like AAVE, ATOM, and MIOTA have all enjoyed gains of between 7 to 12 percent. In the same period, Bitcoin has seen barely any change at all, suggesting that this record-breaking month-long rally that saw it double in price may finally be exhausted.

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Australia Crypto Exchange Crypto News Swyftx

Australian Based Startup Swyftx Has Record Breaking Growth in 2020

Since launching in 2017, Australian based Crypto Exchange Swyftx has seen unprecedented growth due to their innovative approach to business and fantastic user support.

The Swyftx platform currently supports over 60,000 users and has introduced heavy infrastructure optimisations to support expected growth in 2021.

We have seen an incredible amount of new users to the Swyftx platform in 2020 and judging by the early indications, we expect 2021 to be even bigger.

Chris Vanek – Swyftx Chief Marketing Officer

Excellent User Support

We believe one of the main reasons Swyftx has been so successful, is that they provide excellent user support (Trustpilot).

During the busy period in January 2021 we saw over 2,500 support requests in a single day!

Chris Vanek – Swyftx Chief Marketing Officer

It is quite impressive how they can maintain high support standards even under pressure as they scale up with thousands of support requests per day.

Swyftx is Innovating How Australians Buy & Sell Cryptocurrencies

With over 230 coins and tokens currently supported on the Swyftx platform (and more being added frequently), there is certainly no lack of buying options.

They are also constantly introducing new features for their platform to enhance the user experience. For example: Instant Deposits and Withdrawals, Crypto Bundles, Telegram Support Group, Low Market Volume Warnings, Dashboard Customisation and User Interface improvements.

Swyftx also have security very high on their list, and encourage all users to use cold wallets to store their crypto.

Be sure to check out our Review of Swyftx Exchange for more information and how to get started with them.

Categories
Australia Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrency Trader Sues ANZ and Westpac Following Denial Of Banking Services

A cryptocurrency trader will be suing Westpac and ANZ in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, claiming the closure of his accounts with little to no prior warning have cost him a substantial amount.

The plaintiff – who goes by the name of Allan Flynn – ran a crypto exchange business registered with AUSTRAC, and claimed to have up to 450 customers for whom he would purchase and manage Bitcoin.

Multiple Accounts Closed

According to Mr. Flynn, up to 20 of his accounts have been closed by Aussie banks such as Bendigo, CBA, and NAB.

According to him, he knows of at least one other trader who has had his accounts closed over 60 times.

Thinking that the reason for other closed accounts may have been the fact that he was dealing in cryptocurrency without mentioning it, he opened new accounts with Westpac and ANZ clearly stating that they were to be used expressly for cryptocurrency trading.

However, the 2 new accounts were also promptly shut down.

So far, an ANZ spokesman stated that they would be defending themselves in court. Although ANZ does not bar its customers from purchasing Bitcoin, it is possible that they do not take kindly to businesses who operate in this sector.

Mr. Flynn visited a Westpac branch to try to get answers, and was told the account was closed because of an investigation into cryptocurrency fraud.

“How am I supposed to run a lawful business if I can’t get a bank account?”

One bank also removed Mr. Flynn as a signatory to a term deposit account held in his brother’s name which held  an inheritance from his parents.

The court hearings should take place sometime in March and will surely be a matter of interest for crypto traders around Australia.