Category: Crypto Exchange

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Google, Alibaba Plus 300+ Companies Are Seeking Crypto Licences in Singapore

More than 300 companies have submitted requests for payments and crypto exchange licences in Singapore, including Alibaba and Google. 

Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), said the institute had received 300-plus requests as of June 4 since the institute established the Payment Services Act in 2020.

The MAS is now trying to speed up the application process for firms including Binance Holdings Ltd, Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd, and Alphabet Inc – the company behind Google.

Singapore to Become a FinTech Hub

Singapore is set to become a FinTech hub as the country saw over US$1.1 billion raised in FinTech firms last year. This represents record growth compared to 2014, when investments amounted to only US$20 million.

Firms are now waiting for the MAS to process their submissions. However, it might take time as the number of applications soared above expectations. It is not “something to be taken lightly”, Mohanty commented.

Giving licences to somebody is a premium, it is not something to be taken lightly. We are ensuring that whoever gets an MAS licence will be credible.

Sopnendu Mohanty, MAS

Singapore is one of the few countries embracing crypto and blockchain technology in recent months. Another is El Salvador, which has become the first country to Adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News Crypto Wallets Google

Google Revokes Its 2018 Ban on Crypto-Related Advertising

Google is lifting its advertising ban regarding cryptocurrency exchanges and digital wallets. The new policy outlines the hurdles that need to be cleared to allow advertising for cryptocurrency-related business and services.

New Crypto Ad Rules

An official policy update by Google stated that “(from) August 3, advertisers offering Cryptocurrency Exchanges and Wallets targeting the United States may advertise those products and services”. However, they will need to be certified by Google first, through meeting these specific requirements:

  • To be registered with either a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) as a Money Services Business and with at least one state as a money transmitter; or a federal or state chartered bank entity. 
  • Must comply with relevant legal requirements, including any local legal requirements, whether at a state or federal level.
  • Must ensure their ads and landing pages comply with all Google Ads policies.

There are still some categories in the crypto space that will not be permitted to advertise. These include Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), Decentralised Finance (DeFi) trading protocols, and “Ad destinations that aggregate or compare issuers of cryptocurrencies or related products”. For an exhaustive list of restricted financial products, have a look here.

Since all previous certifications will be revoked after August 3, advertisers will need to create a new application using the application form that Google will publish on July 8. This policy will apply to all accounts globally, and will need to comply with local legislation and the laws of targeted territories.

Why Crypto Ads Were Banned

This policy change comes after a three-year ban on advertising cryptocurrencies where at one stage even “Ethereum” was added as a blacklisted word in the ads filter.

Google caused quite a stir back in 2018 when it banned crypto advertising, following a ban implemented by Facebook. Both companies cited the sudden spike of crypto offers coaxing investors into making speculative investments, and the ban was a precautionary measure to protect their customers.

By the end of June 2018, other social media conglomerates, Snapchat and Twitter, also issued crypto-ad bans. However, some critics have long accused Google of not properly addressing crypto ad scams which have claimed various institutional and retail victims.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News DeFi Markets

Decentralized Exchanges Record Over $161 Billion ATH Volume in May

Decentralized Exchanges Record Over $161 Billion ATH Volume in May

Cryptocurrency trading volume across decentralized exchanges (DEXes) reached an all-time high above US$161 billion in the past month, according to market data shared by CryptoRank. Overall, trading volume in the crypto market grew significantly in May as centralized exchanges also saw a record high in monthly volume. 

DEXes Gain 16% in Monthly Volume

The massive jump in trading volume represents a 16 percent increase on the previous month (US$138.1 billion). The May figure also translates to a 157 percent rise since January 2021. 

To break down the volume, Uniswap was ranked the largest decentralized exchange with nearly US$58 billion in volume, while the Uniswap V3 closed at US$24 billion, according to data from TheBlock. Uniswap is followed by SushiSwap, 0x Protocol, and 13 other exchanges.

At the time of writing, PancakeSwap leads in reported 24-hour volume with US$371 million, followed by Uniswap, SushiSwap, 0x Protocol, Balancer, BakerySwap, and 1inch.  

The total value of digital assets locked in decentralized exchanges was US$21 billion as at June 2. 

Centralized Exchanges Exceed $2 Trillion in May Volume

The crypto market gained more trading volume last month regardless of the drops in major coins. This is evident as centralized exchanges also reported a 37 percent increase in trading volume to more than US$2.2 trillion last month, consecutively closing a trillion-dollar volume for the fourth time. Binance accounts for about 66 percent of the entire volume in May (+US$1.5 trillion).

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News DeFi Regulation

Thailand’s SEC Seeks to Regulate Decentralised Finance Projects

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has flagged that decentralised finance (DeFi) needs to be regulated and future projects may require a licence to operate in the country.

The Bangkok Post reports that soon after Tuktuk Finance, a DeFi farming platform, had its coin and farming service debut on Bitkub Chain, the price quickly shot up to several hundred US dollars and then plummeted to US$1 in just a few minutes.

$TUK Stats [tuktuk finance]

Regulation Required For Safety of Investors

After this incident the SEC made its first official announcement regarding cryptocurrency, which stated that regulation is needed in order to safeguard potential investors. The SEC stated it would specifically look into DeFi protocols that issue coins.

The issuance of digital tokens must be authorised and overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the issuer is required to disclose information and offer the coins through the token portals licensed under the Digital Asset Decree …

SEC 

Dome Charoenyost, founder of security token service Tokenine, added that “we could see SEC-regulated DeFi platforms in the future”, which would be a major bonus for investors looking to use Thai DeFi platforms. These platforms would need to be vetted for the safety of consumers. Projects will also need to be compliant, which will reduce the risk for investors of buying into a fraudulent token, or one whose price can be easily dumped.

However, regulations such as these can be difficult to enforce since the majority of DeFi platforms operate outside Thailand, and if the creator of a DeFi protocol wants to remain anonymous it’s quite possible.

Numbers of Thai Crypto Users On The Rise

Data compiled by Thailand’s SEC and published by Bloomberg indicates combined volume across licensed Thai crypto exchanges increased from US$574.5 million in November 2020 to US$3.96 billion in February 2021, a jump of almost 600%.

Due to this boom, new know your customer (KYC) regulations will be implemented by September 2021 to block access by foreign investors to Thai exchanges. This will also reduce the number of accounts attached to those exchanges.

Banks have embraced DeFi in Thailand, with the Siam Commercial Bank announcing a US$50 million investment fund in February, and Kbank experimenting with DeFi services as part of its business expansion plan.

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Australia Crypto Exchange Crypto News Cryptocurrency Tax Monero Trading

Australian Project Enables Bitcoin And Monero Direct Swaps

COMIT Network, an Australian-based decentralised exchange (DEX), now allows atomic swaps between Monero and Bitcoin.

This means users can directly swap Monero (XMR) for Bitcoin (BTC) without intermediaries. This is currently only available on wallets that support the new functionality. Modern crypto wallets such as Samourai Wallet proved earlier this month that atomic swaps using XMR is working.

“The decentralized Monero exchange technology is here, so now it’s a race for wallets to provide the best user experience. With such high user demand for easy and private peer-to-peer exchanges, it’s only a matter of time before wallets widely implement them.”

Justin Ehrenhofer, an organiser of Monero Space.

The Monero community is working with the Australian COMIT project to build a PoC (Proof of Concept) DEX for the BTC-XMR direct swaps.

Traders Are Using Monero To Avoid Taxes

Monero is best known for its private and fungible characteristics, like hiding the sender, receiver and amount details for all transactions. This allows crypto traders to use XMR to avoid crypto taxes.

This is made possible as XMR uses a special advanced cryptography to facilitate anonymous transactions on decentralised exchanges. This makes it very difficult to prove who actually owns a Monero token.

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) warned crypto traders to report their cryptocurrency holdings in this years tax returns, which could directly affect up to 600,000 aussies.

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Coinjar Crypto Exchange Crypto News Press Release

CoinJar Exchange launches 0% fees on all “taker” trades

CoinJar is pleased to announce that they’re now offering zero-fee taker trades through their CoinJar Exchange platform – becoming one of the first cryptocurrency exchanges in the world to offer zero fees for crypto-fiat trading.

“From the moment CoinJar was founded in 2013, our mission has been clear: to make crypto as simple and accessible as possible,” says CoinJar CEO Asher Tan. “Trading with 0% fees is simply the next step in this journey.”

Drawing on the runaway success of zero-fee trading companies like RobinHood and 212 Trading, CoinJar Exchange offers 0% fees on all taker trades – an order to buy or sell an asset at the current market price – including crypto–fiat pairs like BTC/AUD and ETH/GBP.

Traders who create maker orders – orders to buy or sell below or above the current price – will still only pay fees as low as 0.04%.

“While other fee-free trading platforms make their users pay by offering wide spreads or high deposit or withdrawal fees, CoinJar is still offering the same fair prices, lightning fast execution and free deposits and withdrawals we always have,” says Tan.

Together with the recently launched CoinJar Instant Buy, which allows customers to buy crypto using a credit or debit card with only a 2% fee, Tan says it shows CoinJar’s dedication to improving the crypto experience for the everyday user.

“As believers in the long-term future and importance of cryptocurrency, we think it’s vital to try and remove the barriers to its use and adoption. By offering fee-free trading, we’re hoping to make it easier than ever for people to join the crypto community.”

About CoinJar Exchange

CoinJar Exchange is an advanced trading platform designed for CoinJar users who want greater control over buying and selling cryptocurrency. This includes the ability to set order prices, as well as a Trading API to manage your accounts, orders and trades.

If you want to learn more about CoinJar Exchange, you can read our dedicated Knowledge Base article, explore the CoinJar Exchange Support articles or take your first steps towards using CoinJar Exchange.

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Crypto Exchange Crypto News Interviews

Coinstash Interview – Expanding Crypto Services In Australia

28 May 2021 – We interviewed Coinstash’s co-founder Ting Wang about the company’s plans and his opinions on the crypto market.

Coinstash.com.au is an Australian based cryptocurrency exchange where you can buy and sell Bitcoin and 21 other cryptocurrencies. Following a substantial capital raise of A$2.8 million, the company has big plans for the future – looking to revolutionise the way we use crypto in Australia.

Coinstash Interview

Q: It has been a bit over a month since your capital raise with Birchal. Can you please give us a brief update on how the team has progressed since then? What are the team’s plans to continue to grow the business?

A: We’ve been working on growing the business by engaging legal professionals, mapping out operating models, and hiring new developers – planning to double from 6 people to 12 people.

Australia doesn’t need another crypto trading platform. Coinstash is trying to make crypto easier to spend and revolutionalise personal and business crypto financial services products.

Coinstash Co-Founder Ting Wang

We have plans to introduce new financial products such as spending, earning interest and borrowing against your cryptos. To achieve this, we are working with legal professionals to obtain all the accreditations we require. This space has a high barrier to entry and we’re making sure 100% that we tick all the boxes, so due to regulations it might take some time to get these products out to market.

Q: What’s your current market outlook? In particular, who do you think is benefiting from the sudden fall in price, and what opportunities are there for those interested in entering the space?

A: My perspective is that Bitcoin is still up heaps since the start of the year. The recent FUD is caused by regulatory pressure in countries such as Turkey, India, and of course China. As Binance, OKEx and Huobi traders are mostly from China this has caused a shockwave effect on liquidations, causing the market to dip. China cracking down on mining operations also affected the price – this might be bad for BTC in the short term but should be good in the long run as the network becomes more distributed.

It’s too early to say that the bull market is over, although you need to tread carefully in the current market.

Coinstash Co-Founder Ting Wang

I’m not a financial advisor, but my personal approach is instead of timing the market, invest a recurring amount into major coins, then just hold it, and if it drops, stay calm and don’t panic. In the past, this strategy has well-served many people I know. Coinstash has plans to introduce recurring buys and top coin bundles soon to help you participate.

Q: With tax season around the corner, any tips on what Australians should prepare for?

A: Firstly, you should get a good accountant, one that knows about crypto. Then the simple thing you can do is keep your records, which can save you a lot of headaches down the track. Record the date, transaction amount, buy or sell, the fees, and crypto used. Also, take a note of all the exchanges and wallets you’ve been using. I’ve found this to be helpful if you’re using many different ones. Coinstash offers a free download of all transaction history for the year so you can send it directly to your accountant.

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Australia Crypto Exchange Crypto News Swyftx

Swyftx Founder Alex Harper Interview – Australian Entrepreneur Story

Alex Harper, co-founder and CEO of the Australian crypto exchange Swyftx, shares his story in an interview by local podcast Sam Squared.

Alex was recently featured amongst the Brightest Aussies Under 30 and in the podcast explains his entrepreneurial journey so far, how Swyftx started and what the future holds for himself and the company.

Australian Entrepreneur Alex Harper’s Story

Alex co-founded Swyftx with his friend Angus Goldman back in 2019 using their profits from the previous years of a crypto bull market. Since then the company has remained fully self-funded, which is an achievement in itself.

Alex explained that the company name comes from the bird “swift” plus “x” as a reference to exchange and trading.

As of May 2021, Swyftx is transacting $2 Billion AUD per month in customer trading volume on their platform. This places them in the top handful of exchanges operating in Australia, in terms of volume.

Alex shared some of the lessons he has learnt so far in the industry, one of which is aligning life passions with work life. He always enjoys building this project and sees it as a challenge to deliver something in the crypto space offering value to people.

Swyftx’s Key to Success is its Focus on User Support

It’s no surprise that Swyftx has 5 star user support Trust Pilot as they have focused the business on providing excellent customer support.

The support team is growing rapidly at over 70 employees based in Milton, Brisbane, with more overseas support staff, adding an employee every 1-2 days. Such a growth rate is astonishing considering they only had 5 employees back in early 2020.

Alex also mentioned that the support team is working extremely hard and often long hours so they try to nurture a good company culture, hiring someone to manage that aspect.

Swyftx Listens to its Customers Introducing New Features

Swyftx Platform Tracking Feature

Alex mentions that Swyftx has the nickname “Australia’s most progressive cryptocurrency exchange” because they implement new features suggested by their customers, keeping them satisfied by improving the offered services. Some of these features include:

  • Showing total portfolio growth from day 1
  • Demo mode
  • Recurring buys
  • Bundles
  • Portfolio tracking
  • Adding more coins

What the Future holds for Swyftx

With almost 300,000 users, Swyftx has seen record growth in the first quarter of this year, becoming one of the leading crypto exchanges in the country.

They now are implementing plans to expand the exchange into more countries including New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, India.

They also have plans to integrate all major asset classes into the platform so customers could access “everything in one place” to work on building their financial freedom.

Get Started with Swyftx

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Bitcoin Crypto Exchange Crypto News

Major Crypto Exchanges Suffer System Outages Amid Massive User Activity

Out of service computer
Out of service computer https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-out-service-sign-graphic-concept-image76832992

A number of major cryptocurrency exchanges reported technical issues and system outage on Wednesday, following a massive increase in users activity. Top crypto trading platforms like Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini were all affected today.

Crypto Exchanges Report Technical Issues

The publicly traded US exchange Coinbase reported an “intermittent downtime” on its status webpage on Wednesday.

Gemini had to undergo emergency maintenance, citing issues of stale market data. According to Gemini’s status webpage however, “a fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results”.

Kraken suffered connectivity issues. The users also complained that their crypto wallet balances weren’t updating after completing transactions. The exchange also confirmed issues with funding via Debit / Credit Cards, all of which are being solved and monitored.

Binance had reported issues with withdrawals on Ethereum-based digital currencies. At some point, the exchange had to pause the service.

Crypto Market Faces Extreme Correction

The system outages and technical issues with these exchanges aren’t surprising, given that many crypto investors and traders have been scrambling to close their positions due to the bearish state of the market. Major cryptos like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin and Litecoin, all dropped by more than 15 percent in price.

At the time of writing, the entire crypto market capitalization was $1.77 trillion USD, with a 16 percent decrease over the past 24 hours.

Global Crypto Capitalization Charts. [CoinMarketCap]
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Binance Crypto Exchange Crypto News Cryptocurrency Law Cryptocurrency Tax

Binance Crypto Exchange Under DOJ Investigation To Target Money Laundering And Tax Evasion

Operation “Hidden Treasure” was initiated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday in an effort to uncover the unreported crypto income of U.S. citizens and other illegal activities taking place on the platforms.

The IRS has recently started investigating various crypto platforms to try to discover illicit activities, ramping up its crypto-related auditing and guidance for individuals that own and trade cryptocurrency.

Chainalysis, a blockchain forensics firm whose clients include U.S. federal agencies, concluded last year that among transactions that it examined, more funds tied to criminal activity flowed through Binance than any other crypto exchange. The firm tracked Bitcoin worth $2.8 billion USD that moved on to trading platforms in 2019. Chainalysis determined that roughly 27%, or $756 million, has been hidden on Binance. The exchange has assured regulators that they have done as much as possible to stay within the current regulatory framework.

As recently reported by Bloomberg, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is also probing Binance (not registered with CTFC) to find out if it allowed U.S. residents to trade derivatives. The CFTC previously filed a civil lawsuit to halt the U.S. commodity derivatives business of BitMEX, which is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges. Exchanges are now, more than ever, under regulatory scrutiny.

The repercussion on Bitcoin price

Bitcoin (BTC) losses accelerated Thursday after Bloomberg reported the Binance investigation.

Many of the top cryptocurrencies dropped in price, down double digits. Bitcoin fell 10% after the news, continuing the negative run it experienced after Tesla announced it would stop accepting Bitcoin as payment for their vehicles.