Category: Crypto Exchange

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News Crypto Wallets Cryptocurrencies Gemini Trading

Crypto-Friendly Browser Brave Integrates Gemini Wallet Support

Gemini and Brave have partnered to make it easier for users to buy, sell, store and earn crypto when using the Brave browser. Together they are building a user-centric internet with the power of crypto.

The Gemini Trading Widget is now available in Brave’s Nightly version (the browser’s testing and development version of Brave) and will go live in Brave’s general release in coming weeks. This integration will allow Brave users to engage with crypto via the new Gemini Trading Widget in a simple and secure manner.

With the Brave browser’s Gemini Trading Widget, users can easily trade any crypto asset listed on the Gemini exchange without having to leave the browser. The Brave browser blocks ads and trackers and other identifying software used by websites to monitor visitors, thus providing a much faster (3-6x) and more private internet experience.

Brave also rewards users for participating: users can earn Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) by opting in to view privacy-preserving Brave ads and online creators can earn BAT with Brave Rewards through publishing online content.

Controlling Your Online Privacy

Brave has been praised as the browser of choice for those looking for more privacy and better security. An alternative browser such as Google Chrome individually identifies and constantly tracks users as they browse, installing cookies and gathering all sorts of private information, including keeping records of your browsing history. By using Brave, your data remains private and on your device – making it the browser of choice for many crypto enthusiasts.

Meanwhile, Gemini has lately become a leader in the Asia Pacific crypto landscape, as Crypto News Australia reported in July, which can only help consolidate its new partnership with Brave.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News Crypto Wallets Hackers

Hong Kong Crypto Exchange Bilaxy Hacked for $450 Million

Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency trading platform Bilaxy has suffered a serious attack that resulted in the loss of several hundred ERC-20 tokens on its hot wallet. It’s estimated that the exchange lost about US$450 million, though Bilaxy is yet to confirm the total amount of digital assets lost to the attacker. 

Users are advised not to send any funds to their Bilaxy accounts until further notice. 

What Happened to Bilaxy?

In its official telegram channel, the Bilaxy team said they noticed the abnormal transactions from their ERC-20 hot wallet (online wallet) around 18:19 UTC on August 29. Some minutes later, they halted all services for emergency maintenance and also moved some of the tokens from the hot wallet to the cold wallet.

This was confirmed to be a security breach, and about 295 ERC-20 tokens had already been moved from the Bilaxy hot wallet to a single wallet controlled by the hacker. Hoge Finance disclosed that about one billion HOGE was stolen from the exchange, equivalent to US$145,000 at the time of writing. 

In the meantime, Bilaxy says while it’s working with third-party security and audit companies to investigate the attack, all services will remain suspended. “The time it will take to resume the platform depends on the progress of our work, [but] it will take at least two weeks or longer,” the Bilaxy team tweeted on August 30.

Crypto Exchange Attacks Are Rising

The rate of cyber attacks in the crypto space is becoming alarming. Also in August, Poly Network was drained of about US$600 million in digital assets, although the hacker has since returned all the stolen assets. 

Most recently, Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid Global lost nearly US$100 million worth of cryptocurrencies in an attack that involved a hot wallet – basically any cryptocurrency wallet that functions online or requires an internet connection. Although more convenient to use, they are also more prone to attacks than cold wallets.

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Australia Crypto Exchange Crypto News Trading

Report: The Average Australian Crypto Trader Made $10k Profit in Past 12 Months

New research has revealed that three out of four Aussies are turning a profit from their crypto investments, with the average Australian crypto trader making around A$10,000 over the past 12 months.

Aussies Making Bank with Crypto

According to research from international analytics firm YouGov, more than three-quarters of Aussies have made good profits over the last year, averaging out at A$10,662, the equivalent of nearly two months’ average salary in Australia. However, more than one in five Aussie cryptocurrency holders say they made profits worth over A$30,000.

The survey was commissioned by Australian crypto exchange Swyftx, which has more than 320,000 customers, and uncovered some interesting statistics about Aussie crypto traders.

Aussie millennials and gen Xers saw especially big returns, with around one in five saying they made more than $20,000 over the last year from cryptocurrency. Aussie mums and dads appear to have been especially successful, as well as men in general and [other] crypto users who report a strong or some understanding of the market.

Tommy Honan, head of strategic partnerships, Swyftx

The survey found that Aussie parents with children under 18 were the most likely to make money from their cryptocurrency trading, with 86 percent reporting an average profit of A$12,428.

In terms of location, crypto users in Brisbane were the most likely to report a profit with 83 per cent, followed by Sydney and Melbourne at 76 per cent and then Perth.

A previous report by Nine News showed that more than a quarter of Aussies are now trading crypto.

Experienced investors have been buying the dip, with some Aussies expecting bitcoin to hit the US$100,000 price mark by the end of the year.

New Users Urged to DYOR

With the increase of crypto adoption, Honan stated that it’s becoming increasingly important to do your own research (DYOR). The survey found that “the group who were least likely to report a profit on their crypto holdings over the last year were people who said they had little or no understanding of the market”.

At the moment, this is a relatively small proportion of crypto users in the country, just 16 per cent [who] report having little or no understanding. But for this group and anyone who wants to grow their confidence, it really is essential to do your research.

Tommy Honan, Swyftx

According to Honan, one of many pro tips is to “research the team behind any digital assets you are thinking of buying, and also look at indicators like the size of a coin’s market and its liquidity”.

That said, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has again cautioned citizens to be wary when investing in unlicensed cryptocurrency companies. New users have lost significant amounts of money to scams, hacks, and using crypto products like options and leverage without proper understanding of how they work and the associated risks.

Not only could crypto investing be risky to newcomers, they also need to be aware of the tax implications. During the past few months, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) has reminded Australian crypto investors that they will be put under the microscope when filing their 2020-21 returns.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News Crypto.com NFTs

Crypto.com Partners with Italian Football Lega Serie A for TV Broadcasting and NFTs

Not content to rest on its lucrative 2021 partnership agreements with the UFC, NHL and Formula One, Crypto.com now has skin in the game with Italy’s Lega Serie A football competition.

In its latest multi-year sports deal, Crypto.com becomes the first Innovation & Technology Partner of Italian football. This means it will be involved in every broadcast moment where technology enhances a match, as the official presenting partner of Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR) and Goal Line Technology.

As part of the deal, Lega Serie A’s VAR Centre in Lissone, Lombardy will be co-branded as the “Crypto.com VAR Centre”. In addition, Crypto.com will present the Lega Serie A Goal of the Month.

Lega Serie A was the first sports league in the world to introduce VAR technology in 2017, and the 2020/2021 season saw a total of 2,372 incidents where VAR technology was required. VAR interventions are included in Lega Serie A’s global broadcasts reaching more than 775 million TV households in more than 150 countries.

With over 10 million users worldwide, Crypto.com is a top-10 finance app in both the App Store and Google Play and its Visa card is the world’s most popular crypto card, available in more than 30 countries.

Football Feels the Crypto.com Love

This year the company also announced global partnerships with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and Formula One racing, and became the first crypto platform to partner with a National Hockey League (NHL) team, the Montreal Canadiens. Now it’s football’s turn to feel the Crypto.com love.

“Since its introduction, VAR has brought greater transparency and reliability to football, features we value deeply at Crypto.com,” says its co-founder and CEO, Kris Marszalek.

We are extremely proud to deepen our partnership with Lega Serie A to enhance the fan experience with technology and innovation at the core.

Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO, Crypto.com

Building on the success of the NFT collection Lega Serie A and Crypto.com created for this year’s Coppa Italia, new NFT collections related to Serie A, Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana will be developed as a result of the new partnership.

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Blockchain Crypto Exchange Crypto News Hackers Japan

Japan’s Liquid Exchange Hacked for Almost $100 Million

Close to US$100 million has been stolen by hackers from Japan’s Liquid Global exchange, which has since suspended deposits and withdrawals while also moving its assets into offline storage.

According to an August 19 tweet, Liquid exchange confirmed that it had been breached and its hot wallet compromised. The exact amount still needs to be verified, but estimates place it upward of US$90 million.


With such a large amount of crypto compromised, the exchange has moved its digital assets into cold storage. According to Eddie Wang, senior researcher at OKLink, hackers made off with BTC, ETH, TRX, XRP and other ERC-20 tokens.

The cold wallet used for segregation management is safe, and no impact on the assets entrusted to us by our customers has been confirmed.

Liquid (via Quoine)

Blockchain analytics company Elliptic says US$45 million in tokens were being converted to Ethereum through decentralised exchanges – blockchain-based platforms that require no intermediaries – such as Uniswap.

Destination Wallets Blacklisted by KuCoin

In the meantime, the wallets that received the stolen tokens have been blacklisted by KuCoin and other exchanges are expected to soon follow suit.

Liquid exchange also announced that “under these circumstances, we will suspend the warehousing and withdrawal of cryptographic assets until the security of all wallets is confirmed”.

How It Was Done

According to a blog post by Liquid, “the MPC wallet [used for warehousing/delivery management of cryptographic assets] held by our Singapore subsidiary Quoine was damaged by hacking. The impact on us is currently being confirmed.”

MPC is an advanced cryptographic technique in which the private key controlling funds is generated collectively by a set of parties, none of which can see the fragments calculated by the others. Liquid Global’s blog post did not explain how this security arrangement was circumvented. However, an investigation is under way.

This breach comes in the same week as a record-breaking DeFi hack against PolyNetwork, which siphoned off around US$600 million from the protocol.

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Australia Crypto Exchange Regulation

Billions of Investor Money at Stake as Australian Crypto Exchanges Worry About Regulation

As the crypto industry continues to boom in Australia, investors and some members of the Senate are pushing for a more regulated environment. With current regulation setting the bar a little low, it could pose possible risks to investors and businesses alike.

On August 6, some of the largest crypto exchanges in Australia including Blockchain Australia, Independent Reserve, Kraken, Swyftx and various asset managers made an appeal to the Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre. They asked for minimum operating standards to be implemented to protect investors, with the ultimate aim of aligning consumer protection and industry growth.

While Australia is in a good position to participate in the global development of digital assets, a team of legal experts has highlighted current gaps in the framework that leave consumers exposed.

The Need For Regulation

Currently, the only cryptocurrency licence that exists in Australia is administered by AUSTRAC and is focused on identifying tax evaders and money laundering. With a lack of rules and entities to enforce them, individuals and businesses in the crypto space are at risk.

According to Adrian Przelozny, founder of crypto exchange Independent Reserve, there are no rules, external audits or IT security standards for the community to follow. “This is ridiculous and needs to change to protect consumers,” he says. “How can we hold A$1 billion worth of client assets without having to prove to an auditor these assets exist?”

There also are no rules that prescribe how assets should be stored. Consumers are just hoping custodians are following a procedure that keeps their assets from being lost, but there’s no regulator that ensures this actually happens.

Adrian Przelozny, founder, Independent Reserve

The Consequences of Regulatory Uncertainty

The lack of regulation in Australia is leading Aussie investors to engage in international crypto trading, which could be unsafe. Regulators and enforcers ensure that investors are protected by regularly verifying that exchanges comply with all required security protocols.

Crypto businesses are scared to move forward and create new products. In the murky regulatory state crypto is in now, if a business spends time and money creating a new financial product, it may be a futile exercise or one that has consequences for new investors, such as last month’s changes to leverage trading by major crypto exchanges to protect new investors.

Australia needs to follow in the footsteps of Singapore, Hong Kong, Europe and the US, all of which have successfully regulated digital financial products. In recent months, Australian crypto companies have been urging regulators to provide some regulatory clarity.

The Aussie Commitment to Crypto

Generally speaking, Australia is quite progressive in its regulatory approach towards cryptocurrencies compared to other countries.

Australia needs to prepare for the future of finance. We believe prioritising digital financial legislation will have a significant longer-term impact across our entire economy.

Caroline Bowler, chief executive, BTC Markets

For now, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has released a report detailing the current regulations around crypto trading. The challenge for investors is that the ASX and ASIC have been reluctant to allow exchange-traded funds linked to bitcoin to be listed, which could lead to investors buying BTC and other crypto elsewhere.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto Wallets Crypto.com Cryptocurrencies

Global Crypto Users Reach 221 Million After Rapid 2021 Influx

According to an on-chain market size report by Crypto.com, the number of people involved in crypto has doubled in the first half of this calendar year, reaching over 220 million users by the end of June.

The data compiled by Crypto.com pulled figures from 24 of the largest crypto platforms.

100 Million to 200 Million in Six Months

User numbers doubled in just six months as crypto fever spilled into the mainstream, with the market green across the board and meme coins at the height of their popularity.

From February to May, cryptomania saw the number of users surge to a record 203 million, up from 106 million.  In comparison, it took nine months for the user base to reach 100 million (from 65 million).

The growth we have seen in the first half of 2021 on our platform and industry-wide is very encouraging, and we will continue investing heavily as we pursue our goal of putting cryptocurrency in every wallet.

Kris Marszalek, Crypto.com CEO

As interest in cryptocurrencies continues to grow, Crypto.com is now expanding into the non-fungible token (NFT) market to meet the demand for collectible digital art.

 

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China Crypto Exchange Huobi Regulation Trading

Huobi and OKEx Exchanges Dissolve China Entities, Moving Overseas

Amid rising regulatory pressure in China, major cryptocurrency exchanges Huobi and OKEx have decided to discontinue their entities based in the PRC. However, this won’t affect the main crypto trading activities of both exchanges.

Huobi, OKEx Dissolves Local Companies in China

In accordance with publicly available information, the stakeholders of Beijing Huobi Tianxia Network Technology Ltd agreed to dissolve the entity on July 22. Founded in 2013, Beijing Huobi is the company that operates the Huobi exchange in China. It is reportedly 70.52 percent-owned by the CEO of Huobi Group, Li Lin.

Beijing Huobi will be dissolved in about 45 days from the aforementioned date, and all the clearing and liquidation processes will be reportedly handled by Huobi Group’s CEO. 

The reason for dissolving Beijing Huobi is assumed to be the regulatory uncertainty and recent crackdown on crypto mining and trading activities in China. However, Huobi said the entity hasn’t conducted any business operations. 

Because this entity has not had any business operations, it is unnecessary and has applied for cancellation.

Huobi exchange

This comes a month after OKEx exchange also dissolved a Chinese subsidiary. Beijing Lekuda Network Technology Co was founded to operate OKEx services in China. However, a decision was made on June 24 to dissolve the company.

Could We See Exchanges Become Decentralised?

Major crypto exchanges have been making several adjustments to their services of late, which suggests that a whole new wave of regulatory security may be under way. Earlier this week, the largest crypto exchange, Binance, announced the reduction of the maximum leverage for Futures trading to 20x, likewise FTX exchange. 

It is likely some crypto platforms may decentralise operations as the industry becomes immersed in stringent regulatory pressure. This month, non-custodial crypto exchange ShapeShift revealed plans to completely decentralise its operations.

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Binance Crypto Exchange Regulation Trading

Crypto Exchanges Are Reducing Leveraged Trading Amid Regulation Pressure

The CEOs of two major crypto exchanges have announced they will be lowering their maximum leverage limit for futures trades. These moves were made amid an impending regulatory storm.

Both FTX and Binance have lowered their maximum leverage limits for futures trading to 20 times leverage. The announcements follow the duly expected release of a new regulatory framework to be implemented by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by July 28.

Binance previously had a maximum leverage and margin on Bitcoin (BTC) against Tether (USDT) contracts to 125 times leverage. At that level, a 100 USDT collateral deposit on Binance Futures will allow users to hold 12,500 USDT in BTC.

Binance’s new rule states that new users with registered futures accounts of less than 30 days will not be allowed to open positions with leverage exceeding 20 times. However, leverage limits for new users will gradually increase after one month from registration.

The harsh reality of leveraged trading is that the majority of people who trade in those markets lose out, especially in volatile markets like cryptocurrencies. So not only do you lose your initial investment, but also any additional collateral you may have posted to keep the position open. For many who are new to the crypto market, leveraged trades could put a big hole in the bank.

Binance also recently stopped support for its stock tokens following a slap on the wrist from the Hong Kong SEC. Exchanges are likely worried about the regulatory screws tightening. Huobi has since also suspended the service to Chinese users.

Is Leverage to Blame for Market Volatility?

A July 23 New York Times article also criticised high-leverage trading in crypto as risky. The article implied impending regulatory moves against high-leverage margin trading, citing Timothy Massad, a former US SEC chairman.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao acknowledged that “volatility is amplified by the leverage”, according to the NYT article. But FTX CEO Sam Bankman counters by saying: “Nearly every crypto derivatives exchange allows it, and nearly every one will say the same thing: It’s a tiny fraction of volume and positions […] It’s also not what chiefly contributes to volatility.”

This is business as usual for crypto – a market that is known to be highly volatile and exposed to high levels of product leverage on these exchanges. [It’s] a perfect recipe for liquidations that can cut both ways depending on sharp spot movements to the up or downside.

Ryan Todd, research analyst, The Block

Binance De-Risking Operations Ahead of Regulatory Clampdown?

Binance has implemented various changes and has stayed abreast with regulatory requirements as they come up. With regulation becoming clearer, exchanges are trying to not get caught off guard while providing infrastructure for their clients.

Binance Australia is assisting its customers in one such way by partnering with Australian startup Koinly to assist its Aussie customers with crypto tax reporting.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Coinbase Set to Face Class Action Lawsuit for Securities Fraud

Coinbase, one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, is staring down the barrel of a class action lawsuit in relation to its NASDAQ listing.

Several US legal firms have announced that they have filed class action lawsuits against Coinbase Global Inc and certain Coinbase directors, such as Brian Armstrong (CEO), and officers for securities fraud in relation to Coinbase’s public listing in April.

What’s the Case Against Coinbase?

Coinbase went public on April 14 with a direct listing on NASDAQ, making available 114,850,769 shares, which began trading at $381 per share. The lawsuit alleges that at the time of the offering, Coinbase failed to disclose that it “required a sizeable cash injection” and its “platform was susceptible to service-level disruptions, which were increasingly likely to occur as the company scaled its services to a larger user base”. The lawsuit argues Coinbase’s share price declined dramatically when those factors became known to the market.

Coinbase Global share price on the NASDAQ. Source: TradingView

A Flip of the Coin

Coinbase is a juggernaut in the crypto world, with around 56 million verified users, 8,000 institutions, and 134,000 ecosystem partners in more than 100 countries. In April, a week before Coinbase’s public lisiting, its valuation hit US$1.8 billion with a surge in new users.

It remains to be seen what kind of impact this lawsuit will have on Coinbase’s operations and its global reputation. It could end with a routine settlement and Coinbase continuing with business as usual. There’s also a possibility it could drag on and greatly tarnish the exchange’s reputation.

Perhaps Brian Armstrong will become the latest billionaire to launch himself into space and just wait until the whole thing blows over.