Category: Australia

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News Payments

Gold Coast Mayor Open to Rates Being Paid in Crypto

In a clear signal to younger ratepayers, former businessman and current mayor of Australia’s City of Gold Coast, Tom Tate, has suggested that in the future the municipality may consider the possibility of rates being paid with cryptocurrency:

The news may be somewhat bittersweet as council prepares to deliver its annual budget, where residents are expecting a rates rise of at least four percent, the highest increase in over a decade.

Speaking to ABC News about his plans, Mayor Tate commented: “It sends a signal that we’re innovative and bring[ing] in the younger generation … [but] I’m not saying we’re doing it, I’m just saying we’re always looking at the next level.”

Welcomed by Industry

Blockchain Australia welcomed the news, with its chair Adam Poulton saying that crypto was “just another form of money” with an exchange rate linked to the Australian dollar. In outlining the mechanics, he added that with a “little bit of software, some applications, you can accept bitcoin as payment”.

Speaking to a possible implementation, Poulton commented:

They can choose to receive that bitcoin and hold it themselves, or they can actually exchange that bitcoin into Australian dollars, referencing that exchange rate, and have those Australian dollars turn up in their bank account.

Adam Poulton, chair, Blockchain Australia

However, he did add that, given the innate volatility of the asset class, “the council would need to look at [its] risk appetite”, adding “the last thing they’d want to do is accept A$2,000 worth of rates, hold it in bitcoin and for the bitcoin price to halve”. In addition, “the other risk is the bitcoin could go up in value and they’ll actually have three or four thousand dollars”.

One possible solution was that council could accept 95 percent of a rates bill in Australian dollars, with the balance in crypto. In this sense, the council could hold the crypto and in the future determine what use cases it may have.

‘Education Needed’

Not everyone was entirely enthusiastic. Associate Professor Vallipuram Muthukkumarasamy from Griffith University’s School of Information and Communication Technology said that despite crypto going mainstream, it remained a “speculative investment”.

Muthukkumarasamy suggested that more research and education would be required in order for crypto to reach the point of “taking over”, as has been envisioned since 2015: “A lot of learning needs to happen and the confidence building needs to happen with that.”

Even though it has “a lot of opportunity”, he added that the practicalities of implementing it were challenging, especially when it comes to large bureaucracies such as government. It would require, in his view, a “paradigm shift”.

Whatever one’s thoughts about Mayor Tate’s plans or intentions, one thing that can’t be disputed is that he appears to be making the types of noises younger Australian ratepayers want to hear.

While controversial to some, his plans are certainly not as radical as the city of Lugano in Switzerland where bitcoin is “de facto legal tender”, or in El Salvador, where Bitcoin bonds are being issued to build an entirely new city.

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Australia Crypto News ETFs

Bear Market Sees Aussie Crypto ETF Volumes Dry Up

Australia’s long-awaited and much-debated exchange-traded products are finally in circulation and investors seem … less than impressed. Since the May 12 launch of three ETFs, trading volumes have only been on the decline.

ETF Drought Sets In

Only two weeks ago it seemed that these Australian ETFs had fizzled out on debut, with none of the three new funds (CBTC, EETH and EBTC) able to crack the A$1 million volume benchmark. In the period since launch, sales have only continued to fall, with the current bear market showing an apparent ETF volume drought.

Market Looks to the Cosmos

However, the Cosmos Purpose Ethereum Access ETF (CPET), heralded as the “world’s first physically settled ether ETF”, has just hit the market with high hopes:

CPET saw 2,073 shares change hands on May 31, its debut day. How successful it will be in Australia is yet to be determined. While some are hailing CPET as the kick crypto ETFs need to increase their volumes, as of June 1, the daily return on the newcomer was -5.88 percent.

Aussie ETFs Slow off the Mark

The initial development of Australian-based Bitcoin ETFs had been delayed by several factors, with the journey to launch being long and fraught. Their creation was hampered by high collateral requirements at the beginning of April, with fund managers claiming these were making it difficult for clearing participants to agree to trade the ETFs.

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Australia Banking Blockchain Regulation Stablecoins

ANZ Bank Pushes Forward With Stablecoin A$DC, But Isn’t That Bullish On Crypto Yet

The Australian and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) wants to extend the usage of its cash-backed stablecoin, A$DC, amid demand for access to it from its institutional customers. It also seeks to target additional use cases through a pilot program with the federal government and extensive engagement with regulators.

A$DC was launched by ANZ in March and has so far been used primarily to ease crypto trading for one of its major corporate clients, Victor Smorgon Group. It’s a fully collateralised stablecoin, unlike the recently collapsed Terra-based UST which was an algorithmic stablecoin.

Stablecoin to be Extended to More Institutional Customers

Speaking to the Australian Financial Review, ANZ executive Nigel Dobson said the bank was looking to extend the use of A$DC to a wider number of institutional customers, driven largely by customer demand:

Are we going to extend it [the A$DC]? Yes, absolutely we will. And this will be based on our institutional customers’ demand, as they reveal, increasingly, their own tokenisation strategies.

Nigel Dobson, ANZ executive
ANZ executive Nigel Dobson. Source: financeasia.com

Increasingly, real-world assets, such as real estate and art, are being tokenised and traded on blockchains. Dobson believes this trend will continue and will provide several advantages over the way these assets have traditionally been traded:

“We believe that tokenised assets can be inexorably developed to deliver greater efficiency, speed, transparency, and value for customers over time,” Dobson said.

Pilot to Collect Excise Tax, Plans for Carbon Credits

A$DC is also being used in a pilot program, in cooperation with the federal government, designed to ease the collection of excise tax in the distilling industry. The program uses smart contracts to facilitate the collection of excise – according to KPMG, this single-use case could result in the recovery of at least A$45 million per year in lost tax revenue.

Another application on the horizon is the use of stablecoins to increase liquidity in carbon credit markets, an area in which ANZ sees huge potential for growth:

We think that’s going to have exponential growth over the next 10 years, and the elements of tokenisation that can be applied to that marketplace to make it much more efficient, more global and, frankly, more available to a wider range of consumers but certainly to institutional investors.

Nigel Dobson, ANZ Executive

As part of its push for increased usage of its stablecoin, ANZ has been working closely with several regulators, including the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), the Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC, to develop a framework for the use of stablecoins in the Australian economy. 

Dobson said that so far, the conversations with regulators have been positive, explaining that “it is nice to see APRA, ASIC and AUSTRAC all on the same virtual call together. We’ve got this kind of coalition of the curious going on at the moment, which I think is wonderful, and you know, the integrated interactions have been incredibly constructive.”

ANZ into NFTs, Crypto Not So Much

ANZ seems to be focused more on the potential of tokenised assets and NFTs rather than cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. The bank sees its role primarily as providing a stablecoin that can streamline transactions and simplify the sale and purchase of assets.

“We believe stablecoins form a very important element of the settlement value and the settlement process,” Dobson said.

Initially A$DC will only be offered to institutional customers, but in the longer term, retail customers may well gain access to the coin to simplify crypto trading and the purchase of both metaverse-based digital assets and tokenised real-world assets:

We think that the growth area is not going to be so much in crypto, but in NFTs. NFTs are already in the market around sports memorabilia and [can extend to] anything digitally created. 

Nigel Dobson, ANZ Executive

ANZ Bank has had an interest in developing stablecoins and CBDCs for some time; last September, the bank was one of 15 finalists in the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Global CBDC challenge, which attracted more than 300 submissions from 50 countries.

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Australia Banking Crypto News

Australia’s Big Banks Remain on the Crypto Sideline, For Now

Major banks down under are reportedly vulnerable to losing customers to global ‘super apps’, according to the Australian Financial Review (AFR).

This comes as National Australia Bank (NAB) and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) declare they won’t permit their customers to trade crypto, and the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) admits to facing challenges with its crypto project.

‘Big Four’ Need to Get in the Game

This week’s AFR banking summit has left three of Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banks with some food for thought. Simon Cant, co-founder of venture capital firm Reinventure Group, suggested during the summit that the biggest threat to Aussie banks will be the arrival of ‘super apps’. Customers could potentially find an app for all their financial needs, from everyday banking and taking out loans to getting paid, trading crypto, and investing.

One such example of super-app providers is US-based tech giant Square, which has recently acquired Afterpay and has plans to go global with its Cash App. Dom Pym, co-founder of Up – an Aussie neobank – has also encouraged the big banks to investigate human resources software, social media giants, and gaming apps.

https://dompym.com/

This is where people are using technology, and so they’re going to use finance and banking through that … that’s where the next generation of banking customers are.

Dom Pym, co-founder, Up

Traditional financial institutions delaying or denying progress in the crypto sector could be shooting themselves in the foot. NAB’s spokesperson has stated the company is taking a “wait and see” approach to the retail use of crypto, instead focusing on underlying blockchain technology. CBA also seems to be monitoring the market with its CEO, Matt Comyn, stating that “crypto, clearly, is a polarising topic”, despite believing that the industry will be a continuing source of innovation over the coming decade:

CBA’s Crypto Trial Still on Hold

The Commonwealth Bank has been working on bringing crypto to its customers for several months now. In late 2021, CBA began developing methods for customers to earn interest on crypto. To do so the bank entered a partnership with Gemini, a crypto custodian and exchange.

However, last month CBA halted its trading pilot due to impending regulation and market turmoil. There has been no mention of when the pilot might restart, with the trading of those trialling it at the time put on hold.

Categories
Australia Cryptocurrency Law Scams

Australian Labor Government Urged to Protect Aussies from Crypto Scams

Consumer advocates have begun urging the new Australian Labor government to protect citizens from crypto scams. This accompanies the release of a national survey conducted by CHOICE on Australians’ attitude towards crypto:

CHOICE vs Crypto Scams

Consumer advocates are calling for industry reform in the crypto and blockchain sector as the Labor Party embarks on its first term of government. Despite only one in 10 Aussies having reportedly purchased crypto in the past 12 months, a concerning cohort of those were caught up in investment scams. On top of this, the recent flattening of the market has seen billions of consumer dollars lost.

The combination of crime and market volatility has prompted CHOICE, Australia’s leading consumer advocacy group, to petition the incoming government for change:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickveyret/overlay/photo/

CHOICE is hearing from many Australians about financial loss and other harm caused by purchasing crypto assets that were not what they appeared to be.

Patrick Veyret, spokesman for CHOICE

CHOICE is calling for more stringent regulation and is composing a submission to the federal treasury. The submission will request several changes, including a “single definition for crypto assets” for regulatory purposes, as well as the requirement for crypto exchanges to install appropriate measures to “prevent fraudulent payments and to reimburse consumers” should fraudulent payments occur.

Consumer Watchdog Nips Crypto

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been cracking down on crypto scammers over the past year. In March 2022, the ACCC sued Meta, Facebook’s parent company, over its failure to prevent the circulation of scam crypto ads. The misleading ads took the form of several local Aussie celebrities appearing to endorse crypto investments and were in adjudged to be in breach of Australian consumer law.

An uptick in the number of crypto investment scams was reported by the consumer watchdog in April this year as crypto superseded bank transfers in terms of investment scams. As a result, losses to crypto scams had increased by 90 percent in the space of three months.

Categories
Australia Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Dogecoin

Aussie Dogecoin Creator: ‘I Wish It Was the End of Crypto’

Australian-born Dogecoin co-creator Jackson Palmer has renewed his trenchant criticism of the cryptocurrency industry in an interview to promote his new podcast.

“Increasingly people are doing nothing but making money off doing nothing, it’s kind of f..ked us all up,” Palmer told Cameron Wilsson of Australian online publication Crikey this week. “I wish it was the end of crypto, but it’s not.”

Investors ‘Yet to Learn Their Lesson’

Spruiking his new podcast, Griftonomics – its very title an oblique reference to Palmer’s stance on digital assets – the former crypto evangelist said he thought the industry would have imploded by now and that “people would learn their lesson”.

But increasingly, in the past six months, I’ve seen a continued perseverance. You see these big people with big money getting involved and that means it’s not slowing down.

Jackson Palmer, Dogecoin co-creator, former crypto YouTuber, now podcaster

Send in the Clowns

Palmer wrote off ICOs, DAOs and NFTs as “scams” and denigrated Initial Game Offerings (IGOs) as the industry’s “latest swindle”. Yet he also played down the idea of an imminent crypto winter, saying: “I still see heaps of money being funnelled in by crypto promoters. They’re waiting for a fresh batch of fools to come in. This happens in cycles.”

Publicist Deserves a Raise

Whoever is acting as Palmer’s publicist is clearly not being paid enough, as the newly minted podcaster also popped up on ABC-TV’s Four Corners current affairs show this week, joining a chorus of critics on an episode focusing on cryptocurrency.

“The future crypto offers is more dystopian than utopian,” Palmer was quoted as saying, as past tweets of his were offered as supporting evidence, including this old chestnut: “Despite claims of decentralisation, the cryptocurrency industry is controlled by a powerful cartel of wealthy figures.”

Palmer’s bitter Twitter tirade against his former crypto project began soon after he walked away from Dogecoin in 2015, reaching a vitriolic peak in his personal crypto winter last year:

Perhaps Palmer was right to abandon his memecoin when he did. Just weeks ago, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev was mercilessly mocked for asserting that Dogecoin could become the native currency of the internet. This after the brokerage’s Q3 2021 crypto revenue had declined by 78 percent, largely due to Dogecoin.

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Australia Crypto News Education

Australia’s Swinburne Uni Set to Officially Educate Students on Cryptocurrency

Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology will be uniting Web3 and education by partnering with two Australian fintech firms that will help students attain valuable exposure to the cryptocurrency and fintech business worlds.

Swinburne University of Technology Gallery: Images, Photos, and Videos https://collegedunia.com/australia/college/608-swinburne-university-of-technology-melbourne/gallery
Swinburne University to offer a fintech Masters course.

Vital ‘Hands-On’ Experience

Swinburne University will partner with Banxa, a payment service provider that features a fiat-to-crypto platform, and Judo Bank, a fintech loan provider. With Banxa invested in its work within the crypto and blockchain space, and Judo Bank being one of Australia’s very few fintech unicorns, students are guaranteed to get vital hands-on experience as part of their Master of Financial Technology (fintech) degree.

The course director is Dr Dimitrios Salampasis, a 2021 Blockchain Educator of the Year awardee who professes a strong belief in the initiative, stating that students will be “exposed to real-life examples and cases across the spectrum of financial services”.

https://fintech.global/globalregtechsummit/speaker/dr-dimitrios-salampasis/

The whole vision behind this degree is to bring industry in to ensure relevance on the things we teach and to be able to bring these real-life insights for leadership in the classroom. We can ensure that the students get exposed to whatever the latest developments are in the space, because the general fintech space is moving so quickly.

Dimitrios Salampasis, director, Swinburne Master of Fintech

The partnership with Swinburne will allow both fintech firms to host lectures, co-create content, and provide relevant case studies. Students will also receive access to each company’s networks for their learning.

Another Melbourne University Focusing on Crypto

Swinburne isn’t the first Aussie uni to focus on cryptocurrency. Last October, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University called on the federal government to reform the rules around crypto capital gains tax.

RMIT has also launched a ‘green cryptocurrency’ lab. Co-founded with the CloudTech Group, the lab’s focus is on reducing the carbon footprint of crypto.

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Australia Crypto News NFTs

Australia Ranks #2 for Interest in NFTs, Based on Google Searches

With exchange sites such as OpenSea registering record numbers of NFT listings and sales, the world has been quick to realise the potential of this new class of digital assets and the many functions they serve.

According to the NFT Club‘s recent survey, “A World of NFT Adoption”, the country ranking second-highest in terms of interest in NFTs is Australia.

Source: NFT Club

Taiwan Tops the List

Australia is second only to Taiwan, which has an average of 9,629 searches per 100,000 people and a population of 23.8 million people. Australia notches 8,198 Google searches per 100,00 people, with a total population of 26 million. According to the NFT Club website:

This interest in NFTs and willingness to accept them as a new part of the digital ecosystem is a testament to Australians’ adaptability and openness to new ideas.

NFT Club website

Canada, Iceland and New Zealand follow Taiwan and Australia in terms of NFT interest.

Australia Goes Big on NFTs

Recently, an Australian investor in the NFT space managed to turn US$300 into a whopping US$5 million. Steve Morlando acquired a particularly rare Bored Ape from the popular NFT series Bored Ape Yacht Club for a mere US$300, and it’s now worth about US$5 million. Although Morlando stands to realise a massive profit should he sell, he has no interest in doing so.

The Australia Zoo has also joined the NFT space by collaborating with Meadow Labs to create a unique Australia-themed NFT collection built atop the carbon-neutral Algorand blockchain. The collection celebrates the 20th anniversary of the zoo’s Wildlife Warriors project, and all proceeds go to the zoo and its associated conservation efforts.

Categories
Australia Crypto News Metaverse

Australians Lag Developing Nations in Metaverse Awareness, Report

Compared to developing nations, a recent report by Ipsos has found that only 44 percent of Australians are familiar with the metaverse.

In a global survey on the state of new technologies around the world, Ipsos found that people across the planet have different levels of excitement around technology, however almost all agree that it has and will continue to profoundly impact their lives.

Less than half the Australian cohort surveyed (44 percent) expressed familiarity with the metaverse, while only 36 percent expressed positive feelings about engaging with the metaverse in their daily lives.

Zooming out, roughly 50 percent of adults across 29 countries said they were familiar with the metaverse and had positive things to say about engaging with it:

Ipsos
Percentage positive feelings engaging with “extended reality” in daily life. Source: Ipsos

Key Australian Findings

Some of the more interesting findings in relation to Australians surveyed include:

  • 80 percent said they were familiar with virtual reality (VR), compared to 51 percent of those familiar with augmented reality (AR);
  • males tended to be much more positive toward extended reality relative to females (42 percent vs 29 percent); and
  • over the next decade, participants surveyed saw the metaverse applications as having the biggest impact to include virtual learning (65 percent), digital health resources (61 percent), and digital entertainment in virtual reality (60 percent):
Metaverse applications in next decade. Source: Ipsos

Developing Nations Ahead of Australia

Unsurprisingly, there were vast differences in both metaverse familiarity and excitement, depending on demographics, nationality and socio-economic factors.

Interestingly, excitement about extended reality is significantly higher in emerging countries than it is in most high-income countries. In addition, levels of familiarity with VR, AR and the metaverse show a similar pattern. Ipsos’ Australian director, David Elliott, noted that:

The findings from this latest global survey show that Australia is well behind a lot of countries around the globe in terms of our familiarity with extended reality and our feelings towards it.

David Elliott, director, Ipsos Australia

Elliott added: “What we know from other research is that as familiarity improves, so too does the potential for trust and positivity. As we hear more about these technologies and learn more about them, it is likely we will become more positive about them and their potential to hopefully have a real impact on our lives.”

Despite Australians lagging behind in crypto awareness, according to one recent report, one forward-thinking indigenous community has embraced the metaverse in a big way and established its own cultural embassy and digital currency.

Categories
Australia Crypto News Gaming Immutable X

Aussie Tech Unicorn ‘Immutable X’ Launches $40 Million Fund for Blockchain Games

Australia-based Immutable X has joined forces with gaming company Kongregate to establish a US$40 million fund giving grants to developers who make blockchain games.

Chipping in Towards Blockchain Gaming Development

Immutable X is well-known in the blockchain gaming space and has also developed an ETH-based scaling solution to enable faster in-game transactions. This week, the company announced a US$40 million fund comprising an IMX token pool that will be awarded as grants to blockchain game integrations on Kongregate’s web-based gaming platform.

Developers are said to benefit from Kongregate’s end-to-end integration solution, which is designed to ensure that each game is a “fun and engaging experience for players”. Markus Lipp, Kongregate’s CEO, added:

We want our players to be owners in their personal gaming journeys. Blockchain technology allows us to give them a deeper experience in ways not possible with traditional games, from enabling players to help to shape what comes next in the storylines they love to being able to maintain their unique character across titles.

Markus Lipp, CEO, Kongregate

According to Lipp, the partnership with Immutable X would ensure that “our players have the best NFT experience possible with technology that brings true innovation to gameplay, while also ensuring it’s green and scalable”.

Robbie Ferguson, co-founder and president of Immutable X, saw the partnership as an opportunity “to help power the next generation of blockchain games”, adding:

With today’s launch of our blockchain developer fund, we’re excited to deepen our relationship with Kongregate as we work together to attract the best and brightest developers to build new titles on Kongregate’s relaunched Web3 platform.

Robbie Ferguson, co-founder and president, Immutable X

One Success After the Next

Immutable X is regularly making headlines these days, seemingly enjoying one success after another. After raising US$200 million earlier this year, strategic partnerships appear to be one of the key elements driving the company’s growth.

Last year, the company partnered with an e-sports platform to enable “gasless” NFTs. More recently, in February Immutable X teamed up with GameStop in a US$100 NFT platform deal.