Category: Crypto Exchange

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Australia Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Crypto Exchange Gemini Expanding to Australia After Success in Singapore

Gemini is wasting no time in becoming a leader in the Asia Pacific crypto landscape. Its launch into Asia has been a huge success, having acquired a team of talented professionals with industry-specific expertise.

With its APAC headquarters located in Singapore, the Winklevoss twins-led crypto exchange is now expanding to Australia and looking to set up an office base.

To date, our Singapore office has hired a team of over 30 employees across various departments including legal and compliance, engineering, marketing and communications, business development, trading, risk management, talent acquisition, product management, and customer support. If you’re interested in a career in crypto and want to join a dynamic team, we invite you to explore our careers page here.

Jeremy Ng, head of Gemini Asia Pacific

Finding Personnel Could Prove a Stumbling Block

Searching for top talent in Australia could prove a challenge because of a global crypto recruitment shortage as FinTech competes with the top banks to find the right people to fill these jobs.

Gemini is the 14th-largest crypto exchange by volume. By becoming a leader in the APAC region, it could give Binance a real run for its money. Binance is currently the biggest exchange in the game but Gemini could in time challenge it for Australia’s trading volumes.

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Blockchain Crypto Exchange Crypto News Crypto.com Sports

Crypto.com Partners with UFC for $175 Million in 10-Year Deal

Every UFC fighter who steps into the octagon will wear the logo of leading cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com under a historic new US$175 million sponsorship deal.

In addition to being announced as UFC’s official uniform partner, Crypto.com was also named UFC’s first-ever official cryptocurrency platform partner – a new sponsorship category for the organisation.

UFC President Dana White said the partnership made sense given the popularity of both brands. UFC is the highest-profile martial arts organisation with a global fan base of more than 625 million people.

No company has done more to grow the popularity of combat sports than UFC, and now we’re one of the biggest sports brands on the planet. We can help Crypto.com reach more people around the world through the strength of our brand.

UFC President Dana White

Crypto.com dubs itself “the world’s fastest-growing crypto app” and has more than 10 million users buying and selling more than 100 crypto assets.

Branded uniforms and other sponsored content covered by the deal will be introduced on July 10 when Conor McGregor takes on Dustin Poirier in Las Vegas. 

Crypto.com and UFC Embrace Blockchain to Engage

Crypto.com and UFC are both dipping their toe into blockchain-powered solutions to deliver content to their target audiences.

Crypto.com is collaborating with celebrities in sport and music to deliver exclusive content on an NFT marketplace, soon to be launched, while UFC will soon launch a UFC fan token in partnership with blockchain fintech provider Chiliz, to be made available on the fan engagement and rewards app Socios.

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Australia Crypto Exchange Swyftx

Aussie Crypto Exchange Swyftx Releases New Crypto Swap Feature

One of Australia’s largest exchanges, Swyftx, now allows investors to swap one cryptocurrency for another without having to convert it to fiat first.

Swyftx announced the new ‘Swap’ feature on June 17, reminding its users that while the ability to directly swap cryptos would make their lives easier, fees would still apply and each swap would count as a taxable event.

The Swap feature works with any cryptos actively listed on the platform, enabling users to buy into new assets even when they don’t have fiat currency available in their account.

Swyftx has grown rapidly since its launch in 2017 – it now has over 300,000 users, hosts more than 260 assets, and has a monthly trading volume of A$2 billion.

How Does It Work?

Using the hypothetical scenario of wanting to exchange Bitcoin for some Ethereum, using Swyftx’s new Swap feature a trader can automatically execute a sell order for Bitcoin and a buy order for Ethereum simultaneously. 

Within the app, a trader follows these steps:

  1. Select the asset
  2. Click the Swap tab at the top of the page
  3. Type the $ amount that you want to exchange
  4. Select the asset you wish to swap it for from the dropdown; and
  5. Click Swap to confirm the order.

Focus on Customers Drives Innovation

Swyft’s founder, Alex Harper, has previously described the importance of customer support and product innovation to the popularity of the exchange.

Notable features brought to market in 2021 include a portfolio tracking feature that lets traders see their profit/loss status in real-time, and the ability to pay using credit/debit cards – becoming the first Australian exchange to do so.

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Bitcoin Mining Crypto Exchange

Gemini Exchange to Offset Bitcoin Carbon Emissions with Gemini Green

The Winklevoss-led Gemini Exchange has launched Gemini Green, a long-term initiative with Climate Vault that aims to remove 350,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions caused by Bitcoin mining.

This initiative is a part of a long-term strategy with Climate Vault, a non-profit founded at the University of Chicago to help decarbonise Bitcoin. As part of the plan, Gemini is buying carbon permits directly from government-regulated cap-and-trade markets to shorten the supply and remove them from circulation to prevent miners from using these permits to emit CO2. 

As Bitcoin emerges as a dominant store of value, it’s imperative that we incorporate sustainability for future generations. We are proud to team up with Climate Vault to offset our exposure to non-renewable mining and contribute to the decarbonising of Bitcoin.

Tyler Winklevoss

The Carbon Equivalent of a Billion Driving Miles

The amount of CO2 that Gemini plans to buy equals roughly a billion miles driven by an ordinary passenger automobile. Speaking about Bitcoin environmental effects, Michael Greenstone, co-founder of Climate Vault, said:

Slowing and ultimately reversing the total amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere is vital to preventing disruptive climate change. Climate Vault is providing a simpler, faster, and more reliable path to net-zero emissions, not just for traditional businesses, but now – thanks to Gemini – for the innovative world of cryptocurrency.

More crypto exchanges are vowing to go carbon neutral following environmental debates, largely initiated by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. After that, two leading crypto exchanges announced they would become carbon neutral, starting with the San Francisco-based FTX, stating that while there are bigger energy consumers, it is committed to reducing Bitcoin’s CO2 emissions.

BitMEX followed suit shortly after, announcing it would begin searching for organisations to partner. The company’s first step would be to donate US$0.0026 for every US$1 of blockchain fees its clients pay.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Investing

Bitcoin Exchange Flows Reversing Again as Investor Confidence Returns

Glassnode on-chain analysis is showing a possible reverse in exchange flows, indicating investors are looking to hold again.

Crypto Supply is Moving Back to Wallets

According to analysis done by Glassnode, there has been a reduction in supply held in exchange wallets. This means there are more cryptos being taken out of exchanges in the past month than being put in to trade with.

The analysis looks at the supply in all major exchange wallets, including Binance, Coinbase and Huobi, among others. The red bars indicate supply leaving exchange wallets, and green bars show supply moving into exchange wallets.

To some, this is an indication that investors are reverting to HODL mode by putting their digital assets back into their wallets. On June 18, the outflow increased to nearly six times the previous measurement.

Glassnode also recently released an article explaining why the bull run is far from over, based on patterns of accumulation and distribution.

Exchanges Have Been Booming

During the past two months, the amount of cryptos held in exchange wallets have been at a one-year-high. This could have been due to high volatility created by the media at large, as well as regulatory scrutiny that has made holders nervous and ready to sell. This is also why web traffic on crypto exchanges has been off the charts.

The crypto market attracts new investors eager to make money out of volatile assets. However, it’s important to remember which factors can affect the price of Bitcoin and, by extension, the rest of the market.

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Blockchain Crypto Exchange DeFi Ethereum

Project DeXe Provides Crypto Traders with DeFi Copy Trading

A new entrant into the crypto copy trading market, DeXe Network offers what it calls the “world’s first” decentralised social trading platform.

Copying the deals of successful traders is an effective way for novices to reduce their effort and risk. While copy trading is not new to the crypto market, where DeXe Network differs is that it operates in the DeFi environment. 

An introduction to DeXe Network from the company’s YouTube channel

Simplified Copy Trading for the DeFi Ecosystem

In development since 2019, DeXe Network currently offers a standard “wallet-to-wallet copy” for decentralised copying of successful traders, where users follow another trader’s activity automatically. The application enables social trading of any Ethereum wallet addresses.

Announcing the release of its wallet-to-wallet copying feature earlier this year, DeXe said:

Trading in DeFi is a jungle that’s often extremely frustrating, with too many manual steps and complexities. The main mission of the DeXe Network is to simplify much of that into an automatic and transparent way for both traders and followers to increase their DeFi earnings.

Making Decentralised Asset Management a Reality

DeXe’s other main product, which is still in testing phase, is what’s known as DeXe Investments. It involves smart contracts that connect users with a trader in a decentralised way. 

Users can essentially invest their capital with specific traders who then manage those assets on their behalf. The user receives a synthetic token from the trader as collateral – and as the trader increases the value of their traded funds, the value of the user’s token also increases. DeXe Investments is in its final testing stages before being opened to the public. 

DeXe believes it can fill a market gap for decentralised capital management:

The necessity of such a secure and decentralised money management tool is undeniable. DeXe provides an opportunity for any user to invest safely in a decentralised environment, controlling risks and finances using just his/her wallet.

DeXe Network operates on DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation) principles and is designed to ensure users maintain control of all financial transactions in their personal wallets, with no third-party interference.

While DeFi social trading may be expanding, digital exchanges such as Binance continue to break records for trading volume. Many traders are also making profits through DeFi bot arbitrage trading, according to research on the Ethereum blockchain.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News Korea Regulation

South Korea Exchanges Stop Trading of Certain Cryptos Amid Regulation Pressure

In order to operate in South Korea, exchanges now need an ISMS certificate issued by the Korea Internet and Security Agency (KISA). After receiving this certificate, 11 out of 20 crypto exchanges have either delisted certain coins, or issued warnings about them.

Although it’s been easier for high-volume crypto exchanges to find banks willing to vouch for them, smaller exchanges have been struggling to get their papers in order. The deadline for compliance is early September, by which time all crypto exchanges operating in South Korea must obtain the certificate or cease operations.

Dodgy Exchanges On Notice

According to The Korea Times, banks are now required to treat crypto exchanges as high-risk clients and will be required to deny service to crypto exchanges deemed dodgy. In addition, fines worth a total of US$89,519 have been issued to cryptocurrency exchange employees who trade on the platform they are employed by, in a bid to reduce unfair advantages.

Among the platforms delisting tokens are Upbit, Coinbit and Huobi.

Upbit has delisted tokens such as Paycoin, Maro, Observer, Solve.Care and Quiztok:

Upbit will always do its best for your safe transactions.

Coinbit Suspends Eight, Warns 28 More

Meanwhile, Coinbit has suspended the trade of eight other cryptocurrencies and set in place a warning for 28 more that will appear if a potential customer wants to trade those cryptocurrencies.

Huobi Token Delisted, but for How Long?

A curious case of delisting is Huobi. Despite being one of the first companies to get the necessary paperwork done, Huobi has halted the trade of its proprietary Huobi Token. There is no information on whether this is a temporary delisting or not.

The delisting of coins deemed risky by exchanges in South Korea seems to be part of a bigger trend in the APAC region, with Thailand also banning “meme coins” and some NFTs, and China subjecting cryptocurrencies to the usual scrutiny.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News Fan Tokens NFTs Regulation Tokens

Thailand Bans Meme Coins, Fan Tokens and NFTs

New regulations for Thai crypto exchanges have been introduced that ban specific digital assets, including meme coins, fan coins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and tokens issued by exchanges.

According to a release from the Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), new rules have been implemented that will prohibit crypto exchanges in Thailand to offer digital assets that have any of the following characteristics:

  • 1)  Meme token: having no clear objective or substance or underlying, and whose price [is] running on social media trends
  • 2)  Fan token: tokenised by the fame of influencers, such as the Juventus Fan Token (JUV)
  • 3)  Non-fungible token (NFT): a digital creation to declare ownership or grant of right in an object or specific right. It is unique and not interchangeable with digital tokens of the same category and type at the equal amount
  • 4)  Digital tokens which are utilised in a blockchain transaction and issued by digital asset exchanges or related persons

DOGE no exception

There has been no specific mention as to which coins will and won’t be allowed. Meme coins like Dogecoin (DOGE) are likely to be among those prohibited by the ban.

The final item on the list refers to tokens issued by exchanges. This is designed to make it hard for crypto dealers to create tokens they use to trade among themselves, or that their customers can use to make payments for exchanges’ services.

Thai Exchanges “Tokens Must Comply Or Be Delisted”

Additionally, the SEC has called for crypto exchanges to set requirements that token issuers need to meet with their whitepaper and relevant rules; if they can’t comply, the token will be delisted.

The SEC stated that exchanges need to comply with the guidelines prescribed in order to “enhance protection of digital asset traders’ interest”.

The exchanges are required to comply and revise their listing rules in accordance with the Notification within 30 days from the effective date thereof.

Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission press release

Individual Thai investors remain free to use any of the tokens prohibited by the SEC if they wish to, providing they can find someone, or some exchange, willing to handle their trades.

Last year we saw Australian exchanges be forced to delist privacy coins to prevent users performing anonymous transactions.

Crypto: Restrict or Prohibit?

Although Bitcoin is over 10 years old, many countries still do not have declared systems that either restrict, regulate or ban cryptocurrency. Several are still analysing ways to regulate these digital assets. Overall, Bitcoin and crypto in general remain in a legal grey area for much of the world.

This move from the Thailand SEC aims at regulation with the vision of protecting the money of Thai citizens. India had previously indicated it wanted to ban Bitcoin, but has since stated that India would rather regulate it. This is a positive move, considering the millions of dollars India has received in crypto for COVID-19 relief.

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Bitcoin Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Web Traffic on Crypto Exchanges Hits New All-Time Highs

The crypto space has been turbulent during the past few months but according to new evidence, crypto exchange web traffic hit an all-time high in May.

According to data compiled by The Block, web traffic to cryptocurrency exchanges reached a record high of visits, with exchanges recording a total of 638.23 million visits in May. This represents a 20.4 percent increase compared to April and a 33 percent increase from March.

The most visited crypto exchange during May was Binance, with 39.4 percent of the traffic, followed by Coinbase with 19.9 percent. 

Binance Is Growing Fastest in 2021

Coinbase, one of the major US crypto exchanges, does not deal exclusively in crypto whereas Binance is a crypto-only exchange. Among the crypto-exclusive exchanges, Binance has by far the biggest market share with 72 percent in this category.

Binance looks to be dominating almost all research metrics relating to crypto exchange usage.

Cryptos Piquing Aussie Interest

At the same time, the number of Australians embracing crypto is clear when looking at who uses exchanges and related technology. Earlier this year, Binance Australia saw record growth in Q1 2021 and Swyft also saw record growth due to crypto’s massive increase in popularity and mainstream media coverage in Australia.

There has also been an increase in crypto-related searches on Google for Bitcoin (BTC) and NFTs, and an all-time high number of searches for Ethereum (ETH) in the past four months. Additionally, the volume of Aussies looking at cryptocurrencies on TradingView is up 132 percent since July 2020.

Looking at the information, it’s clear there is keen interest in cryptocurrencies and that people are more active on exchanges than ever. Whether it’s buying or selling, there’s lots going on.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Kraken Might Revaluate Its Launching Plans After Coinbase’s Poor IPO Performance

Kraken is re-evaluating its methods about going public after Coinbase’s poor results following its direct launch.

Kraken Rethinks Going Public

Coinbase debuted on the Nasdaq in April with a valuation of US$103 billion, calling the attention of many in the crypto industry and Wall Street as the first crypto exchange to be traded in the public market.

But seeing Coinbase’s results, Jesse Powell (pictured above), CEO of Kraken, is revaluating its plans to go public. Speaking to Fortune on June 11, Powell said a direct listing might have certain benefits, like no intermediaries – which makes it a cheaper process – but it might have a “dampening effect” in the long run.

An IPO is looking a little more attractive in light of the [Coinbase] direct listing’s performance. I would say we’re looking at it more seriously now, having the benefit of seeing how the direct public offering played out for Coinbase.

Jesse Powell, Kraken CEO

The Pros and Cons of an ICO

Coinbase went public earlier this year at $381 per COIN after a massive increase in users and revenue for 2020.

While a company that goes public with a direct listing doesn’t depend on intermediaries, an Initial Public Offering (IPO) does, and this has raised concerns in the crypto community. An IPO usually involves a Wall Street bank and, according to Powell, Wall Street still doesn’t understand crypto.

I think it’s the same thing that the Street missed about Amazon 20 years ago and what they are missing about Tesla now. I think they are just so tied up with the legacy way of doing things.

Wall Street in particular, and this is financial services, and I think there are a lot of players that have a lot to lose from the success of this space. I think you might be seeing people facing this cognitive dissonance of becoming increasingly aware of the impending doom of the legacy financial system.

Jesse Powell

However, Powell added that a direct listing aligns better with the nature of the decentralised crypto world, but that this also presents some problems:

Not having lock-ups, having billions of dollars of insiders be able to dump their shares, you know, on day one […] I think it has a dampening effect on the market.