The Australian-based crypto exchange BTC.com.au has announced it will be closing down by the end of this week, citing crashes in both the stock market and crypto market as the primary cause.
As you have all likely seen and heard in the media this week, there have been multiple market crashes in both the crypto and stock markets, and sadly we have been very hard hit in this volatile climate and it is not possible for us to continue operating.
BTC.com.au statement
BTC.com.au says however it will keep its service alive until Friday, July 22 – giving users just over a month to prepare for its closure.
BTC.com.au Started Small, Had Recently Expanded Heavily
BTC.com.au started out in 2018 offering just a single cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC). In the past year, as the crypto market boomed, the exchange expanded significantly, increasing its employee count five-fold.
According to data from CoinGecko, since its peak last November the overall crypto market cap has plummeted close to 70 percent – falling from over US$2.9 trillion to under US$1 trillion. Many individual cryptocurrencies have seen even bigger declines, dropping 80-90 percent from recent highs.
This degree of volatility can easily decimate heavily crypto-exposed businesses; unfortunately for BTC.com.au, the crypto winter hit immediately following its rapid expansion when it seems to have been particularly vulnerable.
Immutable, the Sydney-based company behind the NFT-focused Ethereum scaling solution Immutable X, has announced the launch of its new US$500 million developer and investment fund:
We're launching the @Immutable Developer & Venture Fund worth $500M to accelerate the adoption of Web3 games & projects.
The so-named Immutable Developer and Venture Fund will help accelerate the growth of Immutable X by providing grants to, and investing in, the most promising projects building on the protocol, with a particular focus on fostering the growth of Web3 game development.
New Fund to Supercharge Adoption
The fund will provide investment and grants in both cash and crypto, with crypto funding in the form of Immutable X’s native token, IMX.
The ventures side involves partnerships with several large VC firms including BITKRAFT, Animoca, AirTree, GameStop and others. The fund will look to invest in the most promising projects building on Immutable X, providing them with the necessary resources to help them scale and launch successfully.
Grants will provide developers with financial support tied to project milestones, as well as technical and educational support to help them realise their project goals. Drawing on its experience in blockchain-based game development, Immutable X will provide guidance to grant recipients to support them to transition to blockchain gaming:
We’re taking the lessons learned from building two of the blockchain’s biggest games – Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians – and hiring the smartest people from Web2 studios like Riot Games to make entering the NFT gaming world simple and rewarding for gaming studios.
James Ferguson, CEO and co-founder, Immutable
Web3 Gaming Presents Huge Opportunity
James’s brother Robbie Ferguson, president and co-founder of Immutable, sees Web3 gaming as an enormous growth area moving forward that Immutable X will be well placed to benefit from with the launch of this fund:
Gaming is bigger than movies and music combined, and is compounding by 10 percent every year. With the knowledge we have from building two of the blockchain’s biggest games in-house, we’re going to be providing the funding, expertise and infrastructure needed to grow this to a trillion-dollar ownable economy over the next decade.
Robbie Ferguson, president and co-founder, Immutable
Immutable X Focuses on Gaming
Founded in Sydney in 2018, Immutable X was designed specifically to bring scalability and affordability to Ethereum’s NFT ecosystem. The protocol is fast – able to process up to 9,000 transactions per second – and has zero gas fees and is carbon neutral.
Immutable X works by leveraging StarkWare’s zero-knowledge proof technology, which allows it to ‘roll-up’ thousands of transactions on its own network separate from Ethereum, and then commit them to the Ethereum blockchain in a single transaction.
Thai metaverse startup Translucia Global Innovation has announced it will partner with Australian software and design studio Two Bulls to launch the Metaverse Research and Development Centre (MRDC) in Melbourne.
The MRDC is expected to have an initial budget of US$100 million and will be one of the largest metaverse research centres in the world, aiming to attract top global talent and innovate in the metaverse space.
Melbourne Centre Will Develop Translucia Metaverse Project
Last year, T&B Media Global, the Thai-based parent company of Translucia Global Innovation, announced plans to launch a metaverse project named ‘Translucia’ with several international partners, including Two Bulls.
The new Melbourne-based hub will help develop the Translucia metaverse while also undertaking research on advanced technologies to enhance and support the experience and push the broader metaverse space forward.
Jwanwat Ahriyavraromp, founder and CEO of T&B Media Global, expects big things from the Translucia metaverse, insisting it will be “a world of happiness and smiles where people can live, work, enjoy business, socialising and entertainment in new ways”.
T&B Media Global expects the Translucia metaverse will soft-launch in November of this year during the company’s virtual expo.
Metaverse R&D Centre Hopes to Attract Best Minds
Speaking to the Bangkok Post, Two Bulls CEO James Kane said the new centre would attract the best minds in the industry and create a new kind of metaverse experience for users:
I think the Metaverse R&D Centre will be a great way to attract metaverse visionaries, helping Translucia fulfill its incredible vision and benefiting the world, introducing people to the concepts of the Translucia metaverse with its fresh perspective.
James Kane, CEO, Two Bulls
Austalians are generally yet to embrace the metaverse, with a recent study finding only 44 percent of respondents were familiar with the technology. Despite this relative lack of awareness at home, globally the metaverse presents a huge opportunity – a report released last month suggested it may account for 2.8 percent of global GDP in 10 years, a whopping US$3 trillion.
A world-first Australian blockchain pilot could be the answer to Australia’s lost excise tax revenue issue. The collaboration between the federal government and consulting company Convergence.Tech will mark the first radical tax system overhaul in a century, addressing the hundreds of millions of dollars lost in uncollected excise each year.
Alcohol on the Blockchain
The pilot targets one of Australia’s significantly haemorrhaging industries: alcohol. According to Australian Taxation Office (ATO) estimates, alcohol excise duty should bring in A$6.5 billion annually for the government. However, the ATO estimates that 9 percent of this figure currently cannot be collected – equating to A$582 million in lost revenue.
The Pilot Grants Program has tasked Convergence.Tech with leading exploration into reducing regulatory compliance burdens for businesses via blockchain tech, according to Australia’s new National Blockchain Roadmap.
The resulting pilot Blockchain Excise Program can track excisable goods from production through the supply chain to their eventual sale. The platform will use a private blockchain to allow the industry to provide a real-time ledger of alcohol transactions directly to the regulator.
This type of technology … allows us to focus our efforts, have a differentiated approach and hopefully reduce compliance costs for the legitimate operators.
Anthony Barnard, director, Excise Centre, ATO
According to analysis by KPMG, this tax system overhaul could potentially recover A$45 million in lost excise revenue each year. Anthony Barnard, director of the ATO’s Excise Centre, says that the “prospect of being able to trace goods through the supply chain is very exciting for the ATO”.
A$DC Powers the Pilot
However, a relationship with fiat currency must be established prior to the implementation of any of this technology. Thus Convergence.Tech and the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) have been working together to integrate the platform with A$DC – ANZ’s Australian dollar stablecoin. Doing so will provide digital assets with financial liquidity and enable automatically triggered remittance of the excise duty liability to the regulator as alcohol moves through the supply chain:
How the pilot functions. Source: ANZ Bluenotes
ANZ will also be able to offer wholesalers and distillers digitised inventory via custodian services, alongside remittance and refunds through highly secure digital wallets and immediate transfers.
The pilot is currently trialling this innovation with spirits; however, it could be extended to beer and ultimately real estate, hydrogen, fuel and tobacco, thereby reaping larger benefits for the relevant industries, taxpayers and regulators alike.
Blockchain and the Aussie Government
In July 2021, the Australian government’s Blockchain Grants Program allocated A$5.6 million towards supply chain pilots. The goal was to explore how blockchain could positively influence Aussie supply chains by aiding companies to navigate regulatory hurdles. Everledger, a digital transparency company, received A$3 million, and Convergence.Tech A$2.6 million.
In additional positive news, the federal government included blockchain in its co-called ‘Blueprint for Critical Technologies’ in November 2021. The blueprint is a strategy to both protect and promote essential technology, and the inclusion of blockchain has signposted the government’s position on the matter.
Leading Australian digital payments company Novatti has announced that it will be partnering with Ripple to bring its Australian dollar stablecoin, AUDC, to the XRP ledger.
The company had previously announced a partnership with Stellar in May to bring the stablecoin to the Stellar blockchain.
Novatti’s AUDC stablecoin will be dollar-for-dollar backed by real Australian dollars – which seems a wise decision, given the recent chaos surrounding under-collateralised algorithmic stablecoins.
Development to be Largely Funded by Ripple, Stellar
Announcing the Ripple partnership, Novatti CEO and managing director Peter Cook said that much of the cost of developing the AUDC stablecoin will be borne by Ripple and Stellar:
Ripple and Stellar are largely funding the development work and even some of the marketing work that we do to get our stablecoin service out.
Peter Cook, CEO and managing director, Novatti
Cook said grant funding from the two blockchain networks would underpin the project until it started generating sufficient transaction fees to amass revenue on its own.
“For the next year at least, revenues will be from a number of payments from Ripple and Stellar for their grant programs that ameliorate our tech build costs and some of our marketing costs. As we start to monetise later this year, we’ll start to get transaction fees from the stablecoin service as well.”
Novatti Sees Opportunity in Stablecoins
Cook said the creation of AUDC and partnerships with Stellar and Ripple provide Novatti with the opportunity to expand its traditional payments business into the world of digital assets, potentially broadening its market and the use cases for its platform.
“Stablecoins for us is essentially a major foray into digital assets – we are still a payments company, a traditional payments company, but this now gives us a major entree between cryptocurrency, which goes up and down and is subject to other market forces, and real utilitarian crypto-based assets,” Cook said.
“So we build the stablecoin, it becomes part of our ecosystem or our infrastructure, which is licenses, tech, commercial partnerships, and from there we leverage and monetise it for either our financial services customers or end business type customers,” he added.
We will provide services such as stablecoin-as-a-service and also holding and transacting of funds for things such as cross-border payments, on-ramps/off-ramps for cryptocurrencies, and other services yet to be seen.
Peter Cook, CEO and managing director, Novatti
Both Stellar and Ripple have been active recently in partnering with organisations to develop use cases for their tech. In early June, Stellar announced it had partnered with MoneyGram to facilitate stablecoin remittance payments and last November Ripple joined forces with Pacific island nation Palau to develop an eco-friendly digital currency.
As prices in the real-life property market surge out of control, some Australians are settling for the next best thing – buying virtual properties.
Those who cannot afford to get into the actual property market purchased digital real estate to the tune of A$59 million in April alone, despite a 35.3 percent first-quarter drop in the Everyrealm Metaverse Index, which tracks virtual property across 14 different metaverses.
Many of Australia’s most prestigious addresses and landmarks have gone on the market at rock-bottom prices. Right now, 47 Aussie addresses are listed for sale in one virtual marketplace where people can “buy” property, or rather NFTs based on the real world.
Buy an Icon for Just Four Figures
Iconic Australian properties such as the Melbourne Cricket Ground have sold for as little as A$6078.90. While that sounds ridiculously cheap by the standards of tangible property, owners won’t actually own the real deal.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground, snapped up by a lucky virtual buyer for just $6078.90. Source: austadiums.com
Virtual land deals are becoming an increasingly frequent occurrence with companies such as McDonald’s setting up shop in the metaverse. NFT community the Bored Ape Yacht Club is also set to start selling large quantities of virtual land.
Royalties to be Earned, Money to be Lost
Dr Simone Brott, senior lecturer in architecture at the Queensland University of Technology and author of the book Digital Monuments, says that new platforms selling virtual land are popping up every day. As she notes, “When you buy a virtual piece of real estate, you’re buying an asset just as if you were buying a bricks and mortar building. If that asset appreciates, you can sell it for a profit.”
Brott also notes that, unlike real world property where you can only make a profit once, when you sell a real estate NFT to a second buyer who then sells it to a third, depending on how the deal was set up you might end up earning royalties each time the NFT changes hands.
There are pros and cons to the craze, warns Dr Brott. “It’s seen as a risky investment but also provides early entry and significant market opportunity.” She adds:
The metaverse is simply the next iteration of social media. But unlike Facebook, which is owned by a CEO, the metaverse is owned collectively by those who own the real estate.
Dr Simone Brott, senior lecturer in architecture, Queensland University of Technology
Canstar personal finance writer Nicola Field confirms that some virtual property owners have made big gains. “But, as is often the case with anything crypto-related, it’s a fair bet plenty have also lost money on virtual property.”
Two of Australia’s most popular fintechs have announced an historic merger that will create the country’s first digital and traditional finance powerhouse.
The partnership between digital asset broker Swyftx and share trading and superannuation platform Superhero will establish an A$1.5 billion financial services giant. The combined group will count over 800,000 customers at completion.
Swyftx co-founders Alex Harper (left) and Angus Goldman (second from right) with John Winters (right) and Wayne Baskin of Superhero.
The merged business will become the first in Australia to offer access to both decentralised and traditional finance, supporting trading and investing across cryptocurrencies, equities and superannuation.
The proposed merger represents a significant step for both businesses in terms of their evolution from disruptive tech players into a single, major financial institution that can grow across domestic and international markets.
Alex Harper, co-founder, Swyftx
In July 2021, Superhero released its flagship superannuation offering, Superhero Super, allowing Australians the opportunity to invest their retirement savings in a range of portfolios, including direct ASX-listed shares and ETFs.
We are thrilled to announce this merger and offer our customers the opportunity to invest in traditional and digital assets across a single platform. The Swyftx team has achieved amazing things since launching in 2018 and we can’t wait to join together to offer investors an even better investing experience.
John Winters, co-founder, Superhero
A Closer Look at the Merger
Swyftx grew its investor base by around 1,200 percent last year, and is Australia’s top-rated digital assets exchange – providing access to more than 320 digital currencies and crypto interest-earning features.
Co-founded in 2018 by Alex Harper and Angus Goldman, the business currently has more than 600,000 retail and corporate investors on its platform.
Superhero is an Australian-owned and operated platform that offers its customers access to share in trading and a super fund. On its platform, customers can access more than 2,500 ASX-listed companies and ETFs with A$5 brokerage fees and over 4,500 US stocks and ETFs with US$0 brokerage.
The combinedbusiness will support 800,000 investors across New Zealand and Australia, with offices in Brisbane, Sydney, London and Vancouver. Swyftx expanded its bases to New Zealand in August of 2021. The merger is expected to be completed in early FY23, and on completion, Swyftx says it will offer its customers access to:
one login across both platforms;
one customer support team; and
one platform that tracks and manages cryptocurrencies, equities, and superannuation.
Digital asset investment fund manager 3iQ has announced the launch of a Bitcoin and Ethereum feeder exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Australia, allowing investors to gain exposure to both cryptocurrencies.
Both ETFs launched on the Cboe Australia exchange on June 6. Investors will be able to buy units of both ETFs directly with Australian dollars at the lowest fees available in the country. The total management expense ratio is 1.20 percent.
💥AUSTRALIA: Another spot #Bitcoin ETF just launched today.
The ETFs feed from the firm’s Canadian-based underlying ETFs listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX): the 3iQ CoinShares Bitcoin ETF and iQ CoinShares Ether ETF.
We are delighted to launch the 3iQ CoinShares Bitcoin Feeder ETF and the 3iQ CoinShares Ether Feeder ETF on the Cboe today. Our ETFs give retail and institutional investors regulated access to the digital asset market, providing a safer alternative to a direct investment in cryptocurrencies.
Fred Pye, chairman and CEO, 3iQ
Australia Officially Has 3 BTC ETFs
While the US Securities and Exchange Commission is rejecting crypto ETF applications left and right, Australia officially has three Bitcoin ETFs:
The news comes after Crypto News Australiareported a month ago that the first Australian BTC and ETH ETFs, also listed on Cboe Australia, had gone live.
However, the launch of the ETFs didn’t go as expected as on their first day of trade, none of the funds was able to reach A$1 million in trading volume.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch site has found that Aussies lost over A$205 million to investment scams between January and May of 2022.
This represents a 314 percent increase compared to the first four months of 2021, with more than A$80 million of this year’s losses (between January 1 and May 1) from crypto scams alone.
The ACCC warns of a significant increase in investment scams.
ACCC On Edge Over Losses
With more than half of the year still ahead, these daunting figures have the ACCC on edge. Its deputy chair, Delia Rickard, has noted that consumers who lack familiarity with crypto and its intricacies are most likely to accidentally engage with scam tactics.
We are seeing more money lost to investment scams and so are urging all Australians not to trust investment opportunities that seem too good to be true.
Delia Rickard, deputy chair, ACCC
While the number of investment scams has increased compared to the same period last year, the true amount of funds lost to investment scams could be far higher, the ACCC believes. This is because only about 13 percent of people report their losses. In 2022, the number of reports is down despite losses increasing, suggesting investors are sustaining higher individual losses on average and are reticent to disclose them.
The ACCC also believes that crypto scams are likely to have increased due to a heightened awareness of crypto introducing many naive investors to the game.
Louder Calls for Regulation
In August 2021, the ACCC began issuing warnings regarding scammers swindling Aussies via fake crypto platforms. These “creative” ploys had seen unscrupulous operators impersonating crypto exchanges and targeting victims via chat channels such as Telegram.
The new federal Labor government is being urged by consumer advocates to protect Aussies from these crypto scams. CHOICE, Australia’s largest consumer advocacy group, is calling for increased regulation of the industry – with the addition of a “single definition for crypto assets”.
Australian move-to-earn fitness application STEPN has reported multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks in the wake of a major anti-cheating upgrade on its platform:
1/2 We have been under multiple DDOS attacks in the past hours. Securing the servers and recovery may take anywhere from 1 to 12 hours. We recommend you take some rest during the maintenance or otherwise the work-outs may not be recorded properly.
— STEPN | Public Beta Phase IV (@Stepnofficial) June 5, 2022
As mentioned in the above tweet, STEPN was expecting to secure and recover the servers in anywhere up to 12 hours but had not posted an update for 20 hours at the time of writing.
“Our engineers are working hard to fix the problems. We will announce here once recovery is complete. Thank you so much for everyone’s patience,” STEPN further tweeted.
The DDoS attacks occurred after the platform introduced “STEPN’s Model for Anti-Cheating” (SMAC) on June 3. The security-based system aims to eliminate fake users from the platform as well as prevent fraudulent motion data on the STEPN app.
Token Numbers Inflated by Bots and GPS Fudges
Launched last December, STEPN is an NFT game that allows users to earn tokens (either GST, the utility Green Satoshi Token, or GMT, STEPN’s governance token, aka the Green Metaverse Token) by exercising outdoors while wearing NFT sneakers. Apparently some players had been using bots and GPS fudging to inflate the number of tokens generated by using the application, hence STEPN’s SMAC system.
In the past 24 hours, both tokens recorded declines. GMT suffered a 6 percent slide with a 20.56 percent drop in trading volume, although increased distribution appeared to be under way at time of writing:
Source: CoinMarketCap
Just last week, GMT plunged almost 40 percent in 24 hours following news that mainland Chinese users would be barred from the service from July 15 this year. In April, STEPN reported that GMT’s value had increased five-fold over the previous month after securing a sneaker deal with Japanese brand Asics.
Meanwhile, the GST-SOL token recorded a 19.18 percent loss, though at time of writing volume was up 11.53 percent, consistent with a bear market correction.
