Category: Investing

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Australia Crypto News Investing

Aussie Millennials Plan to Retire by 50 Using Crypto and ETFs

Two rich and famous couples exiting a private airplane parked on an airport taxiway.

A significant number of Australian millennials intend to retire at the age of 50 using their investments in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and cryptocurrencies, according to a survey conducted by Pearler in May.

Besides crypto, the survey report confirms a growing interest among Aussie millennials for ETFs. Pearler is an online broker for long-term investors in Australia, and over 90 percent of its trading activities are concentrated on ETFs and listed investment companies (LICs).

Only 35% Are Investing With a Goal in Mind

Pearler polled about 850 Australian investors, most of whom were female – only 49 percent identified as male. Ninety percent of the respondents said they were investing for the long term. However, only 35 percent were investing with the goal of earning passive income from their assets, and attaining “financial independence” that will enable them to retire early. 

Most Millennials Hold ETFs and 5% in Crypto 

ETFs and LICs were the most traded assets on the platform. According to Pearler co-founder Nick Nicolaides, investors aren’t interested in volatility, nor are they trying to go for the hotshots or pick stocks from the ASX 300. 

Nevertheless, cryptocurrency was considered to be the second-most popular asset class for investors. Most Pearler users said they allocated up to five percent of their assets in cryptocurrencies on different platforms, since Pearler doesn’t yet offer any crypto-related product.

It’s evident there is growing interest in crypto assets among millennials. As Crypto News Australia reported last month, almost half of millennial millionaires allocated at least 25 percent of their assets in cryptocurrencies. 

This trend is not new to young Australians, as a Kraken survey last month revealed about 40 percent of millennials prefer crypto over real estate.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Investing Market Analysis

Experts Predict Bitcoin Will Fall to $25,000 When Grayscale BTC Trust Unlocks In Two Weeks

In a newsletter sent out to clients, US bank JPMorgan has predicted that Bitcoin could fall to US$25,000. The situation could be brought on by the expiry of 16,000 GBTC held in a six-month lock-up period by the world’s largest cryptocurrency fund.

How Can the Grayscale Fund Impact the Price of Bitcoin?

On 18 July, the lock-up period for a total of 16,000 Bitcoin (BTC) is set to expire. This could encourage investors who entered six months ago at a lower Bitcoin price and are now sitting on some potential profits to sell their BTC instead of continuing to hold it.

Some analysts, including strategists at JPMorgan, believe that accredited investors will sell at least a portion of their GBTC holdings after the unlocking period, thus weighing further on the ongoing Bitcoin market downtrend. A selloff of 16,000 BTC, worth roughly US$540 million, could create even more pressure on the downside.

While weak flows and price momentum resulting from last month’s selloff have fuelled Bitcoin’s recent declines, potential sales of shares in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust following the expiration of a six-month lock-up period could be an additional headwind.

Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, a Managing Director at JP Morgan

According to JPMorgan, the trust saw record inflows of US$2 billion in December 2020, followed by $1.7 billion in January. Globally, trust funds have billions locked up in Bitcoin.

How Does It Work?

In arbitrage trade, institutional investors (like hedge funds) borrow Bitcoin to purchase GBTC shares. Then, after the lock-up expires, these investors sell GBTC shares to secondary markets (retail investors), typically for a premium. Then they return the borrowed Bitcoin to their lenders and pocket the difference.

Each share represents 0.00094716 BTC, with the share tracking Bitcoin’s market price. It has a minimum holding period of six months and a minimum investment requirement of $50,000.

Rising GBTC premium shows a higher inflow of Bitcoin into the trust, while a decreasing premium indicates a declining BTC inflow and a transition into discounted premiums. If premiums are discounted, the seller would take a financial loss because the above-mentioned difference is gone.

GBTC shares traded at a premium of 40 percent or more to the spot Bitcoin price (current price in the market). So for the big investors it looked like a sure-fire way to profit, especially with such bullish market sentiment. There was little fear of the premium falling sharply.

Money flowing into Grayscale Bitcoin Trust as its premium flips negative.
Source: Skew

However, in the second quarter the Bitcoin market has been in a backslide, and in February the GBTC premium flipped to a discount, leaving little motivation for new investors to attempt the once-popular trade. As of early July, GBTC shares traded at a discount of 10.5 percent, according to data provided by Skew. 

Others Have a More Positive Narrative

Some think it is premature to consider the potential consequences of this event. Nevertheless, other analysts believe it will flush sellers from the market in July, possibly creating bullish potential.

In contrast with what JPMorgan is saying, some digital-asset analysts and investors claim it’s possible some of these investors might need to enter the market to buy Bitcoin again to repay cryptocurrency loans they used to finance their original purchases of the GBTC shares. The negative impact of the GBTC selloff may be balanced by the repurchases of Bitcoin in the spot market.

Additionally, those who deposit their Bitcoin holdings need to buy back coins to return to their base portfolio. 

Since the beginning of the year, analysts have been forecasting a Bitcoin price of $146,000 in the long run. This may also cause some investors to hold.

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Australia Crypto News Investing Surveys

Report: 26% of Financial Advisers Will Recommend Crypto This Year

More than one in four financial advisers say they will recommend cryptocurrencies to their clients in the next year, according to just-published results of a survey commissioned in March.

Almost half (49 percent) of advisers said clients had inquired about investing in cryptocurrencies over the past six months.

Results of the 2021 Trends in Investing survey, conducted by the Journal of Financial Planning and the Financial Planning Association (FPA), and supported by Onramp Invest, were released this week.

Client Base Demands Knowledge, Access and Advice from Advisers

The FPA is the principal membership organisation for certified financial planners, professionals, educators and financial services professionals. Onramp Invest is a technology company providing access to crypto assets for registered investment advisers.

Onramp Invest CEO Tyrone Ross commented:

It is clear from these results that we’ve reached an inflection point in the wealth management space. Advisers are now faced with a client base that demands knowledge, access and advice from their adviser[s] on cryptoassets.

Tyrone Ross, Onramp Invest CEO

The survey received 529 responses from financial advisers of various backgrounds and business models. Cryptocurrencies were first added to the survey in 2018 when 1.4 percent of advisers indicated they were either using or recommending them to clients. That figure fell below 1 percent in 2019 and 2020 but jumped to 14 percent in 2021.

Survey results suggest that investors are concerned about the effect of tax reform on their portfolios, with 40 percent of advisers indicating clients had asked them about this topic, up from 27 percent in last year’s survey.

Youth Leads the Way in Crypto Investment

Last month’s CNBC Millionaire survey showed 47 percent of the world’s millennial millionaires have more than 25 percent of their wealth in crypto. The survey sampled 750 investors with at least US$1 million in investible assets, and indicated that more than a third of cashed-up millennials have at least half their wealth in crypto. Australian millennials are no different, as Crypto News Australia recently reported that this cohort is more interested in crypto than real estate.

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Australia Crypto News Gold India Investing

Indians Switch Gold for Crypto – Crypto Investment Skyrockets 19,900% in a Year

In India, where well-to-do citizens own more than 25,000 tonnes of gold, investments in crypto mushroomed from about US$200 million to nearly US$40 billion in the past year, which translates to a massive 19,900% jump.

Entrepreneur Richi Sood, 32, is one of those Indian citizens to have pivoted from gold to crypto. Since December 2020, she’s invested US$13,400 into Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Ethereum.

Richi Sood

Sood’s timing has been fortuitous so far. She cashed out part of her position when Bitcoin broke through US$50,000 in February and then bought back in after the recent tumble.

I’d rather put my money in crypto than gold. Crypto is more transparent than gold or property and returns are more in a short period of time.

Indian entrepreneur, Richi Sood

Younger Cohort Cracks on to Crypto

Sood is just one of a growing cohort of Indians – now totalling more than 15 million – buying and selling digital coins. Much of the interest in India is centred on the 18-35 age group, says Sandeep Goenka, co-founder of India’s first cryptocurrency exchange.

They find it far easier to invest in crypto than gold because the process is very simple. You go online, you can buy crypto, you don’t have to verify it, unlike gold.

Sandeep Goenka, co-founder of ZebPay

India Mirrors Australian Crypto Trend

The crypto landscape in India mirrors the trend in Australia, where a survey earlier this year indicated investors were favouring cryptocurrencies over gold and expressing a high level of interest in crypto debit cards. As in India, younger people are also demonstrating the most enthusiasm for crypto, even favouring digital assets over real estate.

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Cryptocurrencies Investing

Coinstash: What Are the Benefits of Recurring Crypto Investments?

In the early days of crypto trading in Australia, it seemed like a lot of investors were treating cryptocurrency more like a property investment – you saved up, made a single bulk purchase and then held on to that investment while you waited for it to increase in value. But over time, savvy crypto traders in Australia started to realise the potential of actively trading in cryptocurrency. This approach is closer to a stock market investment, where you actively buy and sell shares to increase the value of your portfolio. And while this approach can be far more profitable, it does take more time, more effort, and it can be quite stressful.

Fortunately, there is now a third option for crypto traders in Australia: recurring investments. The recurring investments method allows a crypto trader to make routine purchases in incremental amounts, which gradually increases and diversifies the traders’ portfolio. But where did the concept of recurring buys come from? Is it based on a reliable process? And what are the benefits of recurring buys for Bitcoin traders in Australia?

What are Recurring Cryptocurrency Investments?

Recurring buys started as a method for increasing investments in more traditional assets such as shares in the stock market. Stockbrokers found that clients could gradually build up an impressive investment portfolio by making small but regular investments, which over time deliver a result known as compounding returns[1]. Compounding returns produce a snowball effect – they start off minimal but continue to grow exponentially.  

Recurring cryptocurrency investments follow the same principle. Bitcoin traders in Australia select an amount to be invested and a frequency for how often they want to make an investment purchase. Their crypto broker will then automatically make recurring purchases on the crypto traders’ behalf. This strategy is based on a process called Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA), which means you opt to buy a set amount at regular intervals. DCA helps to protect investors from price fluctuations in cryptocurrency value because you’re not investing all your money at a particular point in time. For example, you may set up a $15 recurring buy to take place every week. In the first week, the price may be steady, in the second week, it has gone up, and in the third week, it has dropped. But because you’re only investing small amounts, the price fluctuations are less important than if you had chosen to invest $10,000 during the second week when prices were high.

When you set up a recurring buy through a crypto trading platform, it becomes as routine and manageable as paying a bill via direct debit. But instead of incrementally paying down debt, you’re incrementally building up wealth.

What are the Benefits of Recurring Cryptocurrency Buys?

Many cryptocurrency traders now consider recurring crypto buys to be a solid long-term goal with measurable benefits. This is because recurring cryptocurrency investments help to:

  • Remove emotion from the equation: Emotion can be a dangerous thing when it comes to crypto trading in Australia. Emotions can lead to investors making knee-jerk decisions, opting to buy or sell as a panicked reaction rather than as a measured response in consultation with a predetermined crypto trading plan. A recurring buy also reduces the stress that some people experience when a particular cryptocurrency experiences routine price fluctuation. You have the reassurance that your investments are spread out across both peaks and troughs, so you’re less likely to find yourself investing significant amounts at top market value.
  • Steadily grow your cryptocurrency investment: Property prices in Australia have seen a rapid increase over the past few decades, with the national average house price now just under $900,000. With so much emphasis on saving a 20% house deposit, many people may feel restricted in how much they can invest in cryptocurrency. But with a recurring buy, you’re not committing all of your savings – for many, the cost of a recurring buy may be less than what they spend on coffee each week. But those small, routine investments will result in a steady increase to your cryptocurrency portfolio. This allows you to grow your cryptocurrency investments without having to compromise on other asset purchases. 
  • Diversify your cryptocurrency investments: Diversification is frequently advocated by experienced crypto traders in Australia as a wise way to minimise risk and build wealth. A recurring buy can also help you to diversify your crypto wallet by investing in multiple cryptocurrency tokens. So, rather than having all of your investment in Dogecoin or Ripple, you can have growing investments in Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Dogecoin or whichever cryptocurrencies you’d like.

Set Up a Recurring Buy with a Trusted Australian Crypto Broker

If you want to set up a recurring buy for cryptocurrency, then it’s important to choose a trusted crypto platform with industry experience. Coinstash is a registered Australian crypto trading platform with SSO encryption and no hidden fees. Our user-friendly platform and dedicated customer service team make it easy for crypto traders (whether experienced or novice) to set up recurring buys. With a Coinstash recurring buy, you choose the amount and you choose the frequency – we’ll take care of the rest for you.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100615/investing-100-month-stocks-30-years.asp

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Bitcoin Cryptocurrencies Investing

Top 10 Bitcoin Penny Stocks

As more and more different cryptocurrencies continue to emerge, the volatile nature of these new coins and tokens resembles many similarities to penny stocks.

Just like Jordan Belfort in the film The Wolf of Wall Street capitalized on the high risk, high reward traits that are associated with penny stocks, Bitcoin and other smaller cryptos represent similar lucrative opportunities for investors and traders.

With companies like Tesla, Paypal and Square joining the crypto world, let’s take a look at some smaller Bitcoin penny stocks currently on the blockchain.

Lets take a look at our Top 10 “Bitcoin Penny Stocks”.

1. BitTorrent (BTT)

Known as the leading torrent software site, BitTorrent launched their BitTorrent Token on the blockchain in 2019 and it has risen by a huge 37.5% in the last 24 hours. 

Price: $0.006835 AUD (March 2021)

2. Dent (DENT)

Launched in December 2019, Dent is an open source project under the umbrella of Linux Foundation that enables users to buy and sell mobile bandwidth. The Ethereum-based cryptocurrency has been a big hit with investors recently and has gone up by 4.56% in the last 24 hours.

Price: $0.02 AUD (March 2021)

3. Revain (REV)

Revain is an unbiased review platform built on blockchain technology that aims to prevent fake reviews and unfair feedback from causing problems to businesses. The token based currency is down 0.31% in the last 24 hours.

Price: $0.02 AUD (March 2021)

4. Pundi X (NPXS)

Born in 2017, the Pundi X project is an open source payment ecosystem that aims to ease crypto payments via Ethereum-based point-of-sale terminals. ‘Pundians’ have seen rapid growth over the last couple of years and the price of NPXS has gone up 2.2% in the past 24 hours.

Price: $0.01 AUD (March 2021)

5. Holo (HOT)

Holochain is a distributed computing network, rather than a decentralised one, that claims to have infinite scalability and therefore the potential to perform faster than blockchain technology. The ERC -20-based token is certainly HOT at the moment after rising 29.96% in the past 24 hours.

Price: $0.02 AUD (March 2021)

6. Siacoin (SC)

Sia was founded by developers David Vorick and Luke Champine back in 2013 when the then computer science students decided to develop a decentralized cloud storage platform similar to Dropbox. Currently down 2.75% in the past 24 hours.

Price: $0.03 AUD (March 2021)

7. Nervos Network (CKB)

Nervos Network is a layered crypto-economy made up of a collection of protocols that solve the biggest challenges facing the blockchain. The price of CKB has soared in the last 24 hours, rising by 27.54%.

Price: $0.05 AUD (March 2021)

8. Dogecoin (DOGE)

You may recognise the Dogecoin logo from the famous internet meme that went viral in 2013. Despite being introduced as a joke currency in December that year, the coin was a big hit and reached a market capitalisation of US$60 million within weeks. Dogecoin has gone down 0.7% in the past 24 hours.

Price: $0.07 AUD (March 2021)

9. IOST (IOST)

IOST is a decentralised blockchain network that aims to build an online structure that meets the security and scalability needs of a decentralised economy. Launched in January 2018, IOST rose by 2.55% in the last 24 hours.

Price: $0.07 AUD (March 2021)

10. TRON (TRX)

TRON’s mission is to build a free, global, digital content entertainment system with distributed storage technology. The Ethereum-based coin was founded in 2017 and has gone up by 4.06% in the last 24 hours.

Price: $0.09 AUD (March 2021)

Like all cryptocurrencies, these Bitcoin penny stocks are extremely volatile, and susceptible to immense market fluctuation at the drop of a hat, or a tweet for that matter. But the above coins and tokens are some of the cryptocurrencies that are currently offering the most potential in the fast-paced world of digital assets.

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Australia Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Investing

Approximately 3.3 Million Aussies Own Crypto, According to Research

A recent survey shows an estimated 3.3 million Australians own crypto and 40% of Aussies are still likely to buy in 2021.

According to a survey conducted by Savvy, one of Australia’s largest online financial brokers, 40% of Australians range from “likely” to “extremely likely” to buy cryptocurrency in 2021.

Savvy Survey

With 17% of respondents saying they currently own crypto, 35% stated that they would like to own some cryptocurrency in the future.

Savvy Survey

The biggest barrier, according to 79.8% of Australians, it that they feel there should be more safeguards in place and that crypto should be more regulated to protect the consumer.

Younger Generations More Interested in Crypto

Close to a third of Australian crypto owners are Gen Z and 24% are Millennials. Younger generations show much more interest in digital assets and believe they have value. In comparison to traditional assets, 40% of Australian Millennials and 31% of Gen Zs would prefer to invest in crypto rather than property.

This month’s Millionaire Survey conducted by CNBC showed that nearly half of millennial millionaires put at least 25% of their wealth into crypto.

Female respondents expressed a higher interest in learning about the technology compared to men. However, more men than women claimed exceptional or average understanding of cryptocurrencies. Altogether, 71% of Australians either understand or are interested in learning more about cryptocurrency.

How Much are Aussies Investing in Crypto?

Savvy found 15% of Aussies had invested up to $5,000 in cryptocurrency, 2.5% had thrown in $5,000 to $10,000, and the 1% in the upper echelons had invested between $10,000 and $20,000.

This could mean more than 500,000 Australians have sunk at least $5,000 to $10,000 into cryptocurrency. With such heavy investing going on down under, the Australian Tax Office is bound to make sure Aussies are paying taxes.

Cryptocurrency may very well be the currency of the future. It’s time for the wider finance sector to embrace it rather than treat it as a fad, or they’ll be left behind.

Bill Tsouvalas, Savvy Managing Director
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Crime Crypto News Hackers Investing Scams

Founders of South African Crypto Investment Company Vanish with $3.6 Billion Worth of Bitcoin

Ameer and Raees Cajee, the brothers behind Cape Town-based crypto investment platform Africrypt, have disappeared under suspicious circumstances, together with 69,000 Bitcoins belonging to their clients.

Africrypt Investor Presentation 2020: Moneyweb

The Promise of Exceptional Returns and Where Things Started Going Wrong

The company was founded in 2013 and over the years had managed to secure a lot of support from investors, including some prominent local celebrities. Ostensibly, it was a well-run business that continued to grow on the back of “sophisticated algorithmic trading” that promised returns of 10% per day.

Things took a strange turn in April when investors were sent an email alleging a hack. The email noted that the platform would be shut down and investors’ accounts, wallets and nodes frozen. Most surprisingly, investors were requested not to contact law enforcement authorities as this would “slow the recovery process”.

Investors Appoint Investigators as Suspicion Grows

Shortly thereafter investors hired specialist legal practice Hanekom Attorneys who established that the company had moved 69,000 Bitcoins from their clients’ wallets through a crypto tumbler, making them virtually untraceable. Investigators also found that Africrypt employees had lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack.

We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored investors not to take legal action.

Derek Hanekom, Hanekom Attorneys

Hanekom indicated it was unlikely that all funds came from South Africans, saying it looked more like an international money laundering operation. The South African Police has been assigned to the case and has contacted exchanges to ensure the funds aren’t liquidated. It is alleged that the Cajee brothers have since decamped to the UK, but that remains unclear.

Investors Cautioned: Do Your Own Research

The crypto space remains a very new market that is highly volatile and experimental, and investors are advised to always DYOR (do your own research).

Some recent scams we have seen:

Despite the discernible scams occurring, crypto remains an exciting prospect for the African continent with projects like Cardano developing blockchain solutions for decentralised identity and financial systems.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Investing

Mexican Billionaire Ricardo Salinas Puts US$1.5 Billion into Bitcoin

Ricardo B. Salinas is among the swarm of cyber hornets as one of the top high-profile advocates for Bitcoin, with laser eyes and #Bitcoin in his Twitter profile. Putting his money where his mouth is, he has invested 10% of his personal wealth into Bitcoin.

Worth an estimated US$15.2 billion, Salinas is the third-richest man in Mexico and among the top 200 richest people in the world. As founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, a group of companies with interests in telecommunications, media, financial services and retail stores, he says the best thing to put your money into is Bitcoin.

#Bitcoin @RicardoBSalinas on Twitter

Last November, Salinas tweeted a video showing piles of paper money thrown into a bank’s bin because it is so worthless, due to hyperinflation affecting most countries south of the US border.

Translation: “To start with the #Bitcoin I share a video taken in a Latin country where banks throw money away (paper money is worth nothing) that is why it is always good to diversify our investment portfolio. This is inflationary expropriation!”

Mexican Peso Blows Out 1000% in 40 Years

Talking about inflation, Salinas stated that when he first started working in 1981, a US dollar was worth 20 pesos. Now, 40 years later, a dollar equates to 20,000 pesos. Bitcoin’s finite supply makes it a very attractive asset to invest in because it is deflationary.

Along with other billionaires such as the Winklevoss twins and Michael Saylor, Salinas is pushing the Gold 2.0 crusade. He believes that every investor should have a part of their portfolio in Bitcoin, likening its value to a modern form of gold.

Bitcoin a ‘Store of Value’ for Billionaire Investors

Billionaires looking for ways to protect their wealth against growing inflation are favouring Bitcoin as a store of value because they understand the many advantages it offers. Even well-respected old-school American institutional investors such as Warren Buffett can’t ignore Bitcoin any longer. Hedge fund manager Marc Lasry, for another, says he regrets not buying more Bitcoin.

Australian billionaire Alex Waislitz, touted as “Australia’s Warren Buffett”, has made tremendous profits of over 400% by investing in cryptocurrency companies.

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Crypto News Investing Trading

$1 Billion Valuation for Institutional Crypto Trading Company Amber Group

Amber Group
Amber Group https://twitter.com/ambergroup_io/status/1347683343299563522

Amber Group – a crypto startup focusing on institutional investors and their involvement in cryptocurrencies – has just raised US$1 billion in funding.

$100 Million Added to Amber Group’s Valuation

The investment round was led by Tiger Global – the hedge fund with the biggest Return On Investment (ROI) for its clients in 2020 – and the China Renaissance bank. Arena Holdings and DCM Ventures also took part in the fundraising round and together contributed $100 million to Amber Group’s valuation.

This contribution, worth a 10th of Amber’s total value, is roughly equal to its total capital one year ago, when it was valued at around $100 million. At the time, the group had just finished raising $28 million worth of capital.

The vast majority – between 70% and 80% – of the profit generated by Amber Holdings comes from the net interest margin, which is a measure of lending profitability.

Amber Strategy Seems to be Working Well

To put it briefly, once a customer deposits a sum with Amber Holdings, they are offered an interest rate on their liquidity. Amber then pools the liquidity from multiple customers and lends it out to even more customers at different rates – and, judging by the response from institutional investors, the strategy seems to be working pretty well.

A further 15% of Amber Group’s profits comes from transaction fees. According to CEO Michael Wu, the funding will mostly be put to use hiring new staff and investing in state-of-the-art security measures.

Wu added that although up until now Amber had been focusing mostly on institutional investors, crypto investment solutions for the average Joe were in the works – and the necessary regulatory practices were being looked into.

We don’t advocate heavy speculation or high use of leverage, rather we want our customers to be more long term, focus on risk management and get stable and attractive yield[s] … I think regulation is always a challenge for this industry because it’s a very global industry. It’s always about staying ahead, or at least staying aware of the different regulation. We always take a very conservative approach to that.

Michael Wu, Amber Group CEO

Although Bitcoin has gone through quite a rough patch since May, support from institutional investors hasn’t slowed down – contrasting a similar situation in 2017.