Category: Crypto News

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News

Australians Replacing Gold For Crypto While Interest in Crypto Debit Cards Spikes

Australian investors are now choosing cryptocurrencies instead of gold, according to a new survey. Likewise, Australia has positioned itself as the second country with the most interest in crypto debit cards, surpassing the U.S. and standing behind Nigeria,

According to The Motley Fool —who also invested $5M in Bitcoin despite calling it a “terrible investment”— from 2,000 investors surveyed, at least 12.6% of them are now holding cryptocurrencies in their portfolio, while 12.1% of them are still holding precious metals like gold.

Aussies are Natural Hodlers

According to the survey, at least 51% of the interviewed stated they do not plan to sell their assets anytime soon, and at least 23% of them plan to hold their funds and sell in at least three years at best.

It seems logical that Aussies wouldn’t want to sell anytime soon, as a massive wave of FOMO —fear of missing out— kicked in at the beginning of February, with Australians buying cryptocurrencies more than ever, and just before Elon Musk announced that Tesla was investing $1.5B in Bitcoin.

“Crypto Debit Card” Spikes in Australia

Moreover, according to a report from Crypto Parrot, Australia is the second country with the most interest in Crypto Debit Cards. The term “Crypto Debit Card” in Australia has a total score of 45 Popularity Points in Google.

The interest in cryptos has significantly increased since March 2020, when all markets around the world crashed, and more Aussie investors —and Australians in general— were moving toward digital assets like Bitcoin.

The demand for cryptocurrencies in Australia such, that over 5,000,000 Aussies will own cryptocurrencies this year, and over 45% of Aussies are investing in Bitcoin merely because of the price increased.

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Australia Binance Crypto News

Binance Australia Tops BTC Market in Bitcoin and Ether 24-Hour Volume

Binance Australia Tops BTC Market in Bitcoin and Ether 24-Hour Volume

Binance Australia sees an increase in digital currency trading volume just as the rate of cryptocurrency awareness and adoption is rapidly growing in the country. On Wednesday, the CEO of the exchange, Jeff Yew, tweeted that Binance AU dominates other leading Australian exchanges in the 24 hours trading volume for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

For some people, the development today might come as no surprise, as Binance Australia has been recording massive growth in new users lately.

Binance Records More Trading Volume for BTC and ETH

Yew tweeted the data from CryptoCompare, showing Binance Australia’s BTC/AUD 24 hours trading volume at AU$51.879 million. At the same time, BTC Market saw around AU$50.792 million, followed by Independent Reserve with AU$36.650 million. On the ETH/AUD market, Binance Australia also dominated the 24 hours volume with a total amount of AU$20.532 million. 

BTC Market recorded AU$15.124 million, while Independent Reserve had AU$12.868 million. 

The trading volume on Binance Australia is likely to rise continuously, given the adoption and number of users trading on the platform have been increasing massively, as confirmed by the CEO. Earlier this year, Crypto News Australia reported that the exchange witnessed a more than 400 percent increase in the number of SMSF and corporate users within the last quarter of 2020. 

During the rush in the crypto market in January 2021, Binance AU recorded as much as AU$130 million in 24hr volume across all the AUD pairs listed on its platform.

Crypto Adoption is Rising in Australia

It’s also worth noting that Binance is not the only exchange in Australia, seeing massive growth in its user base. In January also, the Swyftx exchange reported unprecedented growth in the number of users on its platform. The increasing user base of Aussie exchanges is indicative of the growing interest in cryptocurrencies amongst Australians.

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Bitcoin Crypto News

MicroStrategy Buys Additional $1 Billion Worth of Bitcoin

Bitcoin Outperformed Oil, Gold With Over 100% Increase in Q1 2021

Just recently, MicroStrategy was rumored to have bought Bitcoin, as lots of BTC were being moved from Coinbase to an unknown wallet. The company was suspected of making the transactions because it recently raised capital to buy more Bitcoin, and Coinbase has been its go-to exchange for purchases. The report has been confirmed, following an announcement on Wednesday that MicroStrategy purchased over $1 billion worth of Bitcoin.

For the record, this is the single largest purchase it has ever made. Of course, the company remains the largest corporate Bitcoin investor, followed by Elon Musk’s Tesla.

MicroStrategy now Holds Over 90,000 BTC

As reported, MicroStrategy purchase about 19,452 BTC at an average price of US$52,765 per coin. In total, the aggregate cost of the cryptocurrencies was US$1.026 billion, which also covers the expenses and transaction fees. Such a massive purchase shows the level of confidence Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, and the rest of the executives, have in the cryptocurrency as a store of value.

Overall, the company currently holds 90,531 BTC in its balance sheet, all of which were purchased at the aggregate cost of US$2.171 billion. This means that each coin was purchased at the average price of US$23,985. As it stands, the company is obviously not going to sell these cryptocurrencies any time soon. In fact, MicroStrategy plans to hold more Bitcoin as part of its corporate strategy. 

Corporate Investors are Taking Over

“The company now holds over 90,000 bitcoins, reaffirming our belief that bitcoin, as the world’s most widely-adopted cryptocurrency, can serve as a dependable store of value,” Saylor noted in the report. “We will continue to pursue our strategy of acquiring bitcoin with excess cash, and we may, from time to time, subject to market conditions, issue debt or equity securities in capital raising transactions with the objective of using the proceeds to purchase additional bitcoin.” 

Early Wednesday, Jack Dorsey’s Square Inc. also announced they bought an additional US$170 million worth of Bitcoin. We can only expect more Bitcoin purchases from companies at this point.

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Crypto News Tether

Tether Mint Another 1 Billion Dollars in USDT

The latest injection sees its market cap grow by another 1 Billion USD.

The marketcap of Tether has been increasing dramatically this year going from $4 Billion USD in Janruary to $34 Billion USD currently – all in the space of just two months.

Tether (USDT) Marketcap – Source

This news also follows some related news we covered, where a Bitcoin Whale Moves AU$1 Billion of BTC into Storage.

Following the Mint

Some suspicions are that the newly minted USDT is going tom FTX – an offshore crypto derivatives exchange.

Concerns

Some users are voicing their opinions on Twitter. Some suggestions that the new USDT will be used to buy the recent dip – although to our knowledge there has been no proof of this, yet.

Other users are concerned that if the stock market gets tokenised, then the minted cryptos could be used to buy stocks.

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Crypto News Ethereum

Ethereum Flash Crashed to $700 on Kraken Exchange

Crypto exchange Kraken experienced some extreme selling on Ethereum, causing the price to “flash crash” drop from $1700 to $700 for a few minutes.

Kraken CEO stated in an interview that they’re looking into what happened. Stating that “Ether Flash Crash Down to Trading, Not System Glitch” and suggested “someone might have decided to dump their life savings.”.

This highlights the importance of education for new traders, especially those that are new to margin trading. Jesse also stated that “there will be no refunds, we generally don’t do that. It’s the traders own fault if they make bad trades”. That being said, even after the recent dip in Ethereum, it’s still up around 26% in price for the month.

Around the same time, we also saw Binance temporarily suspending ETH withdrawals.

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Bitcoin Crypto News

Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey Donates 1 BTC to Non-profit to Support Developers

Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey Donates 1 BTC to Non-profit to Support Developers

Again, the tech billionaire and CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, has demonstrated his strong support for the development of Bitcoin (BTC). On Tuesday, he donated Bitcoin to Brink, a non-profit organization focused on funding BTC developers. This is coming a few days after Dorsey teamed with Shawn Corey Carter (a.k.a Jay Z), to launch a new endowment trust aimed at funding the cryptocurrency developers in different countries in Africa, including India.

Brink Receives Over $45K Donation From Twitter CEO

The non-profit organization announced the development on Twitter, saying that Dorsey donated 1 BTC in support of their BTC developers funding efforts. “Honored to have received a 1 BTC donation to our developer funding efforts from none other than @jack!,” Brink precisely wrote. The organization actually holds a 503(c)(3) non-profit status from the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This means they don’t have to pay tax on the cryptocurrency received.

At the time of writing, one Bitcoin was worth US$47,149. This fund will be committed to further strengthen the development of Bitcoin, as Brinks pledged on its website:

“Brink exists to strengthen the Bitcoin protocol and network through fundamental research and development, and to support the Bitcoin developer community through funding, education, and mentoring.”

Dorsey: A Big-time Bitcoin Supporter

Unarguably, the CEO of Twitter is one of biggest individuals quietly supporting the development of Bitcoin around the world. Following his partnership with the American rapper, he precisely raised about 500 BTC to fund Bitcoin developers in Indian and Africa countries. These coins would be worth over $23.5 million in today’s price.

It might also interest you to know that Jack Dorsey recently set-up his own Bitcoin node, and so, he’s now among the active persons who are helping to keep the crypto network more secure, as Crypto News Australia reported.

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Crypto News

Ivan Releases New Pumpamentals Fundamentals Crypto Song

Ivan on Tech is quite popular in the crypto YouTube community for his insights, especially from a technical point of views.

He does also have a sense of humour when it comes to crypto, and his latest creation is a collage song which he jokes “is fundamentally pampamental”.

What does Pumpamentals mean?

It’s essentially slang for getting the pump on a cryptocurrency as described by Urban Dictionary. The pump is when the price of the crypto goes up fast, often referred to as “mooning” or “going to the moon”.

Urban Dictionary definition of pumpamentals

Online Blockchain Education

Along with his YouTube channel, Ivan also runs online blockchain courses which teach beginners how blockchain works and how to become a blockchain developer. We recently also reported in the news that TAFE Queensland offering blockchain courses here in Australia.

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Australia Crypto News Scams

Qoin Kicked Out Of Blockchain Australia as Alex Saunders Calls it a Big Scam

A recent Notice of Member Disciplinary Resolution from Blockchain Australia states that Qoin’s membership with them is now terminated.

NOTICE OF MEMBER DISCIPLINARY RESOLUTION 

For those that don’t know, Qoin is a cryptocurrency founded in the Gold Coast, Queensland which was targeting retail merchants across Australia – offering free Qoin to new members.

Is Qoin a Scam?

Alex Saunders of Nuggets News recently called Qoin “A massive scam” and urged people to “get their money out before it collapses”. Crypto News also had reports that some Qoin members were able to cash out and sell their Qoins for Aussie dollars. Others instead apparently hit error messages and were unable to cash out.

Interestingly, searching LinkedIn for Qoin members reveals titles such as “Qoin Agent”, “Qoin Accredited Agent”, “Qoin Ambassador” or “Qoin Master Agent”. This seems to suggest elements of multi-level marketing, where adoption could be driven by a tiered rewards system for front-line sales agents.

No Response

A few months ago, Crypto News reached out to founding members of Qoin and Bartercard, asking them to address concerns over the project. Disappointingly, no response has been received yet – neither via email, phone nor LinkedIn. An appropriate conclusion is left for the readers to draw.

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Bitcoin Crypto News

Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index Clicks 94: Is Bitcoin due for Correction?

Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index Clicks 94: Is Bitcoin due for Correction?

So, since the past week, the largest digital currency, Bitcoin (BTC), made an impressive record in price, topping its previous all-time highs by over US$58,000. Notably, a massive amount of capital began flowing into the cryptocurrency following Tesla’s Bitcoin announcement. At the moment, however, BTC is shading points, and the fear and greed index suggests that the market may be due for a correction. 

Bitcoin F&G Clicked 94

During press time, Bitcoin was trading at US$52,223 on Coinmarketcap, which represented about an eight percent decline on a 24-hour count. Just before today, the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency was above US$1 trillion. However, the market cap sits at US$972 billion following the drop in the crypto’s market value. Bitcoin has shaded more than US$2,000 since Monday, and many people think the market is set for a correction. 

Such sentiments align with the Bitcoin fear and greed index from Alternative.me. The Bitcoin market is currently in an extremely greed state, as the index clicked 94 during the time of writing. Whenever the investors or markets get too greedy with an asset, the index suggests there could be an imminent correction. This somewhat backs the current retracement with leading cryptocurrency.

Is Bitcoin set for Correction?

As of February 21, the index scored the BTC market at 91, which is a less greedy state compared to the 94 on Monday. Overall, the Bitcoin market is just in a greedy state, as the index score last week and the last month indicated that investors have been greedy. So, we might be seeing a major correction in Bitcoin, although it remains unknown if the time is now. 

The CIO at Altana Digital Currency Fund, Alistair Milne, tweeted that we might see a correction of at least $48,000. He doesn’t think BTC will drop below that level.

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Australia Binance Crypto News

Binance Enable Australians to Buy Polkadot, Cardano, and PancakeSwap with AUD

Binance Australia to List Polkadot, Cardano, and PancakeSwap

Amid the growing interest in digital currencies, Binance Australia, one of the largest Aussie cryptocurrency exchanges, has announced that it will list three more cryptocurrencies on its trading platform. The digital currencies mentioned in the tweet on Monday include Polkadot (DOT), Cardano (ADA), and PancakeSwap token (CAKE), which is based on the Binance Smart Chain.

Binance Australia could be listing these cryptocurrencies due to the increase in demand. Notably, these cryptos posted a moderate increase in the market value last week.

Buy Cardano on Binance Australia From Tuesday

Per the announcement on Twitter, the Polkadot, Cardano, and PancakeSwap cryptocurrency will be listed on the exchange on February 23. So, starting Tuesday at precisely 10:00 AM Sydney time, Australians on the platform will be able to buy and sell the cryptocurrencies right from the exchange using their AUD balance. 

Binance Australia allows Australian dollar deposits via PayID/OSKO today.

At the time of writing, the Polkadot crypto was traded at AU$44.65, while Cardano and PancakeSwap token traded at AU$$1.25 and AU$18.95, respectively, as per the Crypto News Australia coin price tracker. Concerning the BSC-based PancakeSwap token, it’s either Australians are so much interested in the cryptocurrency, or the Aussie exchanges are optimistic about it.

Swyftx Also Listed PancakeSwap

Binance Australia’s announcement for PancakeSwap comes about three days after Swyftx, another popular exchange in Australia, announced it was also listing CAKE on its platform. Swyftx listed the CAKE token alongside DODO, the native cryptocurrency of DODO decentralized exchange (DEX).

DODO is ranked among the 100th largest digital currencies. The DeFi token has a market capitalization of $531,954,155 from a circulating supply of 97,556,928 DODO. At press time, the cryptocurrency was trading at $5.61.