Category: Cryptocurrencies

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Bitcoin Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Gold Institutions

Institutional Crypto Custodians Raised $3 Billion in 2021

Investments into institutional-focused crypto custody firms have skyrocketed in 2021 – over US$3 billion has been raised this year, a rate three times higher than 2020.

The amount of capital flowing to institutional-focused crypto custody companies is now worth a total of almost US$3.5 billion, 4.8 times the amount raised in 2018.

NYDIG Leads the Chart

In mid-December, bitcoin holding company NYDIG announced the closing of US$1 billion in investment funding, giving the company an estimated value of more than $7 billion.

A day later, Anchorage, a San Francisco-based crypto custody company for institutional investors, announced a US$350 million funding round.

The top companies leading investment rounds so far are:

  • NYDIG: $1 billion raised;
  • Ledger: $380 million raised;
  • Anchorage: $350 million;
  • Fireblock: $310 million; and
  • Copper: $50 million

More Institutions Replace Gold with Bitcoin

Institutions have been heavily hoarding some of the top cryptocurrencies in the market, and institutional interest in the crypto market has surged to the point that 84 percent of institutions are interested in a crypto ETF.

So far, the idea remains the same: institutions want to escape inflation, and gold was the preferred option by most industries. However, with the rise of Bitcoin and other decentralised currencies, more institutions – including investment firms and banks – are replacing gold with bitcoin.

Crypto News Australia has kept track of the latest Bitcoin purchases made by institutional players in the crypto market this year. You can check our list here.

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Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Metaverse NFTs Retail

You Can Own a Sushi Shop on the Gold Coast as an NFT, If You Want

Fancy owning a business where you not only get to keep all the net profits but are not liable for any losses? And you’re not even required to be onsite but have staff and management to take care of day-to-day operations on your behalf?

Sounds too good to be true, but Australian food hospitality brand Sushi Sushi is the first retailer in the world to offer a store for sale via cryptocurrency, with all of the above benefits as part of the deal.

For a cool million AUD in a choice or combination of bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), Cardano (ADA) or Solana (SOL), anyone over 18 can become the new owner of Sushi Sushi’s store on busy Cavill Avenue in Surfers Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast, with a non-fungible token (NFT) to prove it.

Munching into the Metaverse

According to Sushi Sushi CEO and director Scott Meneilly, the brand is “entering the metaverse” with this sale. “You have to innovate or die, and part of this is about stepping outside of your comfort zone and pushing the minds of others,” he says.

We see a massive opportunity in using blockchain, and we felt that selling a franchise store using crypto was a great way to let people know we are serious about playing in this space.

Scott Meneilly, CEO and director, Sushi Sushi

The successful franchisee will not need to physically run the business, Meneilly says, as Sushi Sushi will take care of daily management and operation while the buyer receives all the net profit. The buyer will also not be responsible for any losses.

We believe that this is the future and that people will follow our lead. We want to innovate in this space and create a groundswell of new opportunity. I am a crypto enthusiast and I believe this is a currency that needs to be approached, seriously and respectfully, and we feel the best way to underscore this is with a serious business transaction.

Scott Meneilly, CEO and director, Sushi Sushi

Before becoming CEO of Sushi Sushi, Meneilly was the chief executive of Boost Juice and previously ran Australia’s largest tanning salon business, Body Bronze, between 2002 and 2008.

Check the Fine Print

If you’re thinking of visiting the Sushi Sushi website to register your interest, prospective franchisees should be aware of the following details listed in the fine print:

  • You will be part of a “joint venture” with Sushi Sushi by buying its Cavill Avenue business in crypto to the value of A$1 million.
  • You will receive 100 percent of the net profits from Sushi Sushi Cavill Ave (sales revenue minus total operating costs, being all expenses incurred in operating the store, including a management fee payable to Sushi Sushi) [Crypto News Australia‘s italics].
  • You will receive an exclusive one-of-one NFT of Sushi Sushi Cavill Ave (although said NFT is “currently in development and will be shown directly to the purchaser before being released for public viewing”.

As they say in the classics, caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). Just last week, Crypto News Australia reported that Australian auction house Lloyds was auctioning 50 NFTs of classic ’70s Aussie muscle car the Holden Torana A9X. That’s virtually one every week between now and next Christmas.

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Banking Bitcoin Crypto News Cryptocurrencies

Bank of England Says BTC ‘May Be Worthless’, But Pound Down 98% Against BTC in 5 Years

The Bank of England (BOE) is well-known for its hawkish stance towards Bitcoin, so it should come as no surprise that its deputy governor, Sir Jon Cunliffe, has now claimed that Bitcoin “could theoretically or practically drop to zero”.

The facts however, suggest otherwise.

Pound Sterling priced in BTC. Source: TradingView

Danger to the Established Financial System

Cunliffe told the BBC that Bitcoin poses a threat to the stability of the financial system. With 2.3 million digital asset owners in the UK and with cryptocurrencies representing just over 0.1 percent of total household net asset value, he recognised that the risk at present was not terribly significant. He remains, however, concerned due to its volatility.

Their price can vary quite considerably and they could theoretically or practically drop to zero … the point, I think, at which one worries is when it becomes integrated into the financial system, when a big price correction could really affect other markets and affect established financial market players.

Sir Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor, Bank of England

The deputy governor also felt that at present the standards and regulations relating to crypto were “not there yet”:

We really need to roll our sleeves up and get on with it, so that by the time this becomes a much bigger issue, we’ve actually got the regulatory framework to contain the risks.

Sir Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor, Bank of England

Inflation More Dangerous?

On the same day as Cunliffe’s comments, in a blogpost published by the BOE the bank offered an unusual criticism of Bitcoin’s scarcity saying “its scarcity may even, ultimately, render Bitcoin worthless”. The mechanics of how that would play out remain somewhat of a mystery.

It went on to say: “Now, so far, Bitcoin has not performed [as] well as money. Quick recap: money issued by central banks, fiat money, acts as a ‘store of value’ – it preserves the spending power of income and wealth, so that you can be confident that a pound, say, will buy about as much in a year’s time as it would today.”

Ironically, the timing of these comments could not have been less opportune as the UK has just recorded its highest inflation in 10 years.

Worse still is the fact that, relative to Bitcoin, the Pound Sterling is down 60.89 percent over the past year and 98.31 percent over the past five years.

Fiat currency performance in BTC. Source: Priceinbitcoin

Despite being largely antagonistic towards crypto, the BOE is in the process of investigating a digital pound, dubbed “Britcoin”.

Fiat Currencies Inherently Inflationary

While potentially offering some benefits, the “Britcoin” is unlikely to overcome the fundamental problem with fiat currencies – that they are inflationary by nature, with unpredictable monetary policy and controlled by central authorities with a proclivity to increasing its supply, which naturally and ultimately leads to debasement.

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Australia Banking Bitcoin Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Dogecoin Ethereum NFTs

Survey Finds Most Australians Still Have No Idea About Crypto or NFTs

Contrary to findings published last week by the Independent Reserve Cryptocurrency Index (IRCI), a new Saxo Markets survey reveals only one in 10 Australians knows what a cryptocurrency is, with those older than 65 even less certain.

There is also a divide between the sexes, according to the Saxo survey. Around 21 percent of Australian men claim to have a handle on what cryptocurrencies are and how they work, compared to just seven percent of women.

These findings stand in stark contrast to the IRCI survey, which found that:

  • 28.8 percent (or almost three in 10) of Australians either own or have owned crypto (up from 18.4 percent in 2020); and
  • the proportion of women who own crypto has almost doubled in 12 months from 10.1 percent in 2020 to 20 percent.

The Saxo poll found that bitcoin was easily the best-known crypto, albeit with an underwhelming 38 percent of Australians surveyed recognising the name. The next most familiar cryptocurrencies were Ethereum, ringing a bell for 12 per cent of Australians surveyed, and Dogecoin next on 8 per cent.

By comparison, the IRCI survey found that nine in 10 Australians were aware of bitcoin with more than one in five owning it. The next-ranked crypto was Ethereum, at 11 percent (up from 5 percent ownership in 2020), on a relative par with the Saxo survey.

Three in Four Australians ‘Unaware’ of NFTs

Perhaps the most surprising Saxo statistic was that 75 per cent of Australians apparently have not even heard of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), though they’ve been by far the hottest blockchain commodity in 2021. Below is a table relating to Saxo’s findings:

As Australian Crypto Owners Push Toward a Million, a CBDC is On the Way

Last week, Australian Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg estimated that more than 800,000 Australians have owned cryptocurrency at least once. Crypto was a “fast-moving area” that the government needed to get ahead of, Frydenberg said, while also declaring both the Commonwealth and Reserve banks were planning to introduce a central cryptocurrency.

The Saxo survey found that 42 per cent of Australians would use a cryptocurrency if it were made legal tender tomorrow, but only one in four agreed that cryptos should be declared legal by the government. If cryptos were in legal circulation, one in three Aussies said they would incorporate them in their savings or retirement plans.

In August, the 2021 Global Blockchain Survey conducted by multinational accounting firm Deloitte revealed that 76 percent of respondents believed crypto would be a strong alternative to, or outright replace, fiat money within the next decade.

According to a May survey by TradingView, cryptocurrencies had by then become Australians’ second-most preferred assets, outranking traditional assets such as bonds and futures. Just a month later, another survey by international crypto exchange Kraken found that 40 percent of millennials preferred investing in digital assets over real estate.

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Crypto News Crypto Wallets Cryptocurrencies Hackers Stablecoins Tokens

Crypto Exchange AscendEX Loses $80 Million in Hot Wallet Exploit

Crypto exchange AscendEX has lost over US$77 million worth of several high-profile cryptocurrencies, including Ether (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB) and various Polygon tokens, in a breach of its hot wallet.

Three Blockchains Affected

On December 11, AscendEX tweeted about the incident, reporting that it had detected a “number of ERC-20, BSC, and Polygon tokens transferred from our hot wallet”. More than US$77 million worth of various tokens across three blockchains was drained by the hacker(s).

$60 Million in ETH Stolen

The amount stolen was known after security firm PeckShield conducted research on the incident. According to the firm’s experts, the estimated losses were: US$60 million on Ethereum, $9.2 million on Binance Chain, and $8.5 million on Polygon. Stolen tokens included several stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), along with DeFi tokens including Compound (COMP), Aave (AAVE), and the popular memecoin Shiba Inu (SHIB).

The event comes shortly after Crypto News Australia reported the US$200 million hack on centralised US crypto exchange BitMart, which suffered one of the biggest security breaches in crypto history on December 4.

Another exchange to have suffered a major security breach is Hong Kong-based platform Bilaxy, which lost US$450 million worth of several ERC-20 tokens in an August incident.

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Blockchain Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Payments Tokens

NEAR Protocol Token Soars 48% in a Week After Listing on MoonPay

When payment solutions company MoonPay announced it was allowing its users to buy NEAR tokens worldwide, the price of NEAR Protocol skyrocketed 28 percent in 24 hours, with trading volume up more than 125 percent in the same period. Since then, the NEAR token has recorded an overall increase of 48 percent in a week.

NEAR is a development platform built on a sharded, proof-of-stake, layer-one blockchain that offers drastically lower transaction fees while maintaining high throughputs. The simple explanation for NEAR’s sudden boost is that MoonPay has a crypto trading app with around five million users.

By announcing its support for NEAR, MoonPay made the pool of potential investors that much deeper, which also explains NEAR’s increased trading volume. NEAR Protocol is further seeking to facilitate a shift to Web 3.0. With a daily transaction rate of 300,000 – just a fraction of its almost limitless capability – developers see a need for NEAR to transition to a more efficient system called Nightshade.

Phase one of the transition is scheduled to begin in early 2022, with phase two set to be implemented by the end of next year.

A String of Recent Announcements

In the first week of December, NEAR Foundation and WOO Network announced the completion of a US$5 million token swap to create a strategic partnership between ecosystems.

Last month, Ardana – Cardano’s growing stablecoin hub – also announced a strategic partnership with Near Protocol. It will allow for asset transfer between the two protocols in which Ardana will provide the bridging infrastructure:

Last week, altcoin MDT jumped more than 90 percent in a single day by breaking a rising wedge pattern with strong buying volume on multiple exchanges. Similarly, a week earlier IDEX surged more than 85 percent in 24 hours after listing on Huobi Exchange.

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Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Ransomware Regulation

CIA Head Confirms Rumours: We Are Working on Crypto Projects

Conspiracy theorists were vindicated yesterday when Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William Burns admitted at the Wall Street Journal‘s CEO Summit that the CIA was indeed involved in various crypto projects.

Details Are Murky, Obviously

One of the oldest conspiracies out there, at least in the crypto space, is that the CIA is responsible for creating Bitcoin. For the most part, that view is widely discredited and in the end is irrelevant, as Spencer Schiff pointed out.

While the CIA didn’t invent Bitcoin, it has however confirmed that it is involved in the crypto industry across various projects, although details of what that specifically entailed were absent from the discussion.

Burns, who was only recently appointed, responded to a question about whether the intelligence agency was equipped to handle ransomware attacks and the like, particularly those emanating from abroad (such as the Colonial Pipeline attack earlier this year).

Speaking about his predecessor, Burns noted that:

He [likely to be David Cohen, but unclear] had set in motion a number of different projects focused on cryptocurrency and trying to look at second- and third-order consequences as well, and helping with our colleagues in other parts of the US government to provide solid intelligence on what we’re seeing.

William Burns, CIA director

CIA Focused on Ransomware Attacks

Details as to what Burns and the CIA were doing remain opaque. One plausible theory is that they are establishing networks in order to understand them with a view to targeting and disrupting others. Another theory is that they are looking to undermine crypto networks’ credibility to quash a growing sentiment that the US dollar’s hegemony is drawing to a close.

One clue, however, was something Burns said, suggesting that criminal activities, specifically ransomware attacks, were one of the main focuses:

One of the ways of getting at ransomware attacks and deterring them is to be able to get at the financial networks that so many of those criminal networks use, and that gets right at the issue of digital currencies as well.

William Burns, CIA director

Of course, Twitter has been rife with speculation, ranging from genuine concern to satire. One user even joked that perhaps the CIA was behind NFT sensation the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

One thing’s for sure – when it comes to the CIA, things will never quite be what they seem.

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Australia Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Surveys

Adoption Rate Grows as +28% of Australians Now Own Crypto, Latest Report Shows

Almost three in 10 Australians now own (or have owned) crypto, according to the 2021 Independent Reserve Cryptocurrency Index (IRCI), released this week.

Conducted nationally, the third annual IRCI survey revealed the following key points:

  • Exactly 28.8 percent of Australians now own or have owned crypto (up from 18.4 percent in 2020).
  • The proportion of women who own crypto has almost doubled from 10.1 percent in 2020 to 20 percent.
  • Up from 78 percent in 2020, 89 percent of Aussie crypto owners report having made money or broken even.
  • Bitcoin remains the most popular cryptocurrency with 89.1 percent of Australians aware of it and 21.1 percent owning it.

2021 a ‘Bumper Year’ for the Australian Crypto Industry

By its own reckoning, the IRCI survey provides a benchmark for the awareness, trust and confidence everyday Australians place in digital currencies. In the words of Independent Reserve CEO Adrian Przelozny, “This has been a bumper year for the crypto industry, with new products like ETFs hitting the market and providing more alternative investment opportunities for Australians, but the sector still desperately needs regulation to catch up and provide greater security for both investors and cryptocurrency businesses”.

“Our IRCI results this year support this, with 28.6 percent of Australians who don’t currently own crypto telling us they would invest if there were better consumer protections in place. Another 26.6 percent said they’d buy crypto if industry regulation was improved.

Although Australian regulators and government agencies may have taken a while to get their heads around cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, Australians themselves have sped ahead and we’re really seeing that in past year, as an asset class, crypto has gone from the fringe to the mainstream.

Adrian Przelozny, CEO, Independent Reserve

Bitcoin Still King Down Under

Unsurprisingly, the IRCI survey found that Bitcoin remains the best-known and most popular cryptocurrency, with almost nine in 10 Australians saying they’ve heard of it and more than one in five owning it. The next ranked crypto is Ethereum, at 11 percent (up from 5 percent ownership in 2020).

Another poll conducted by Coinspot earlier in 2021 contained a bold prediction from some Australians that bitcoin would pass the A$100,000 mark by the end of this year.

Millennials and Gen Z Lead the Crypto Charge

Unsurprisingly, the 24-34-year-old age group was the most trusting of crypto, with 27.6 percent saying they bought in expressly to get rich. Doubters were most likely to be found in the 65+ age group.

Comparison site Finder reported in its September survey that Australians had amassed over A$7 billion in crypto with 31 percent of the Gen Z population leading the investment charge, a figure that had effectively doubled since January 2021.

If you’re looking to open an account with Independent Reserve, who also announced a sponsorship deal with the Sydney Swans AFL team this week, you can follow some simple steps here and could be buying crypto within minutes.

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Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Payments

Croatia’s Top Food Retailer ‘Konzum’ Introduces Crypto Payments

Konzum, the largest food retailer in Croatia, has partnered with local fintech Electrocoin, integrating its PayCek system to introduce cryptocurrency payments. 

The news was first reported by Reuters, noting that the retailer is popular among tourists visiting Croatia. They will now be able to pay for goods and services with up to nine different cryptos by simply scanning a QR code from their preferred wallet.

Cryptocurrency owners can buy and pay for groceries, hygiene and household items and other products from the rich offer of our online store with more than 12,000 products.

Kozum statement (translated)

Konzum board member Uroš Kalinić described the partnership with Electrocoin as another investment in emerging technologies. “We are proud to be leaders in another area that is rapidly developing and dictating the future,” he said.

Crypto Payments Going Global

Paying with cryptocurrrencies may not be a feature that every business allows or even likes, but with the fast-paced adoption of cryptos by large institutions, including El Salvador, several other entities have begun to accept crypto as a form of payment.

There are now numerous businesses accepting bitcoin, ether, or other forms of crypto. Six months ago in Australia, auction house Lloyds started accepting major crypto assets as payment for collectors’ or sports cars, calling the attention of crypto traders who also happen to be car enthusiasts.

Even charities in Australia and worldwide, such as Blockchain Philanthropy Foundation and Backpack Bed, are accepting crypto as a means of donation.

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Crime Crypto News Cryptocurrencies

Crypto Lender Celsius CFO Arrested on Charges of Money Laundering

Yaron Shalem, the chief financial officer of crypto lending firm Celsius, was arrested last week along with seven others in connection with the Moshe Hogeg case. The firm confirmed the arrest on Twitter, saying it had been “made aware” of a police investigation led by Israeli forces, but didn’t disclose the name of the employee involved.

That employee is Celsius’ CFO, Yaron Shalem, included along with 17 others in an appendix to a letterhead document of the Israel Police’s National Fraud Investigation Unit.

Massive Money Laundering Scheme Foiled

Moshe Hogeg is a crypto entrepreneur behind the blockchain smartphone startup Sirin Labs. On November 18, he was arrested for money laundering, wire fraud, historical sexual assault, cryptocurrency-related scams and other charges. An undercover investigation led by Israeli Police found that Hogeg had laundered hundreds of millions of shekels through cryptocurrency.

Eight suspects were arrested on suspicion of committing fraudulent offences in the field of cryptocurrencies, amounting to hundreds of millions of shekels, following an undercover investigation conducted in recent months at the National Fraud Investigation Unit … and the Diamond Unit of the Tax Authority. According to the suspicion, [the suspects] acted systematically to commit investor fraud in a number of ventures in the field.

Israeli Police, Twitter

It’s clear that Celsius is referring to Shalem, whether or not it wants to admit it. What isn’t clear is what charges he’s facing, or the identities of the other people arrested with him.

Celsius has been under the scope of several US regulators for selling “unregistered securities”. Shalem’s suspension comes shortly after the firm revealed its Series B funding round had been incremented to US$750 million, giving the company a $3.25 billion valuation in October.

A similar case arose in Australia when a Sydney man was arrested earlier this year for running a multimillion-dollar crime syndicate.