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‘Penny hasn’t dropped’ for Australia’s next crypto unicorns — Coinbase APAC MD

Coinbase APAC managing director John O’Loghlen says Australian policymakers and TradFi firms simply haven’t woken up to the level of innovation emerging out of the country’s crypto sector.

Australia is primed for its next wave of crypto “unicorns” — startups with a billion-dollar valuation — but not until there is more regulatory clarity around crypto, according to Coinbase’s APAC managing director John O’Loghlen.

“I don’t think the penny’s dropped in Canberra or on the high street in terms of just how much great human capital there is in Australia,” O’Loghlen told Cointelegraph — referring to policymakers and large institutional players.

While O’Logheln acknowledged there while there had been some regulatory advancements — including the Treasury’s October 2023 consultation paper and an informal regulatory meeting with policymakers at the Blockchain APAC Summit in March — he says it’s still lagging behind a huge uptick in retail and institutional demand for crypto.

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Aussie crypto exchanges look to new licensing regime with cautious optimism

Australian crypto exchanges have largely praised the Treasury’s latest proposal to place crypto exchanges under the existing financial services license regime, though some worry it could put the crypto industry into a TradFi-shaped box.

Australian crypto exchanges have praised plans from the Australian Treasury to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges under pre-existing financial services licensing measures.

In an Oct. 16 consultation paper, the Treasury outlined a new suite of proposed regulations, that suggested regulating cryptocurrency exchanges under existing financial services rules as well as introducing a wealth of new guidelines for all Australian firms dealing in digital assets.

Speaking at the Australian Financial Reviews Crypto Summit event on Oct. 16, Australian Treasury Stephen Jones said the new regime was focused on three primary areas: providing a framework for industry growth and innovation, allowing regulatory certainty to crypto service providers, and ensuring that everyday consumers and their assets remain protected.

Caroline Bowler, the CEO of BTC Markets told Cointelegraph she was pleased to have reached a new “key milestone” in the regulatory process and regarded the rules as a positive progression for the wider crypto industry in Australia.

“It’s a great next step for the Australian economy. Digital assets are so clearly the future of financial services. It is imperative the country keeps pace with our international peers, with a robust regulatory framework,” said Bowler.

Similarly, Adrian Przelozny, the CEO of Independent Reserve commended the Federal government on its recommendations to introduce stronger regulation and policy change, telling Cointelegraph that these new proposals could help restore trust in the crypto sector.

“We firmly believe these changes will drive investment, provide certainty to the sector and ultimately, increase consumer protection.”

The general counsel of Swyftx, Adam Percy, also agreed with much of the Treasury’s proposals, saying the primary focus should be ensuring that crypto investors can safely access the benefits of blockchain technology, while still allowing room for innovation.

However, Jonathon Miller, the Managing Director of Kraken Australia, told Cointelegraph he was concerned that the new rules would be stuffing the crypto industry into a TradFi-shaped box.

“Australia is now in the unfortunate situation where our regulation has taken a very long time, so we’re taking the approach of shoehorning crypto into existing financial services regulation,” said Miller.

Related: Rejection of crypto bill exposes Aussies to ‘unregulated market’ — Senator Bragg

Still, Miller admitted that the consultation paper was a step in the right direction, especially for providing much-needed regulatory certainty for crypto companies operating on Australian soil.

“We’re behind our global peers when it comes to implementing a crypto framework, so I appreciate the need to have something in place locally to provide certainty to platforms like ours,” he added.

Liam Hennessy, a partner at Clyde & Co — an international law firm that has been assisting in the consultation process — said that the newest proposal from the Treasury “makes sense” for the Australian crypto industry.

Hennessy explained that the new rules will help the nation catch up to jurisdictions such as the European Union who are further along in their efforts to better regulate crypto.

Additionally, he said the Australian Financial Services (AFS) licensing regime can be quite complicated, meaning that local cryptocurrency exchanges and digital asset service providers will need to begin preparing their applications now.

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Aussie fintech prays for crypto clarity as it launches Bitcoin-backed loans

Block Earner has unveiled a new crypto-backed loan product for the Australian market, amid an ongoing tussle with a federal regulator over its shuttered Earn product.

Australian fintech firm Block Earner is charging ahead with plans to launch a crypto-backed loans product, despite staring down an upcoming court date with the financial regulator for allegedly offering financial products without a license. 

The new crypto loan product allows Australian crypto investors to use crypto as collateral to borrow cash. Coinbase once offered a similar service to its U.S. customers but shuttered it in May this year.

The initial rollout from Block Earner is expected at the end of September and will initially only allow loans using Bitcoin as collateral.

Block Earner co-founder Charlie Karaboga told Cointelegraph that the new loan products have been designed in a “very conservative way” in a bid to fit neatly into an existing licensing model.

Karaboga’s firm was burned in November last year, after it was sued by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for allegedly offering crypto-linked fixed-yield earning products without an Australian Financial Services (AFS) license.

At the time, Karaboga lashed out against the regulator for its lack of clarity, claiming that his firm had spent considerable time and resources building out products he believed were compliant with ASIC’s existing guidelines.

“Our position remains the same. There is no clear regulation in Australia.”

“Like any company in the fintech ecosystem, before we launched the product we got legal opinions. We think that there was no sufficient regulation, or sufficient licenses for us to apply,” Karaboga added.

However, Charlie said that the regulatory moves against Block Earner and competitor crypto company Finder were largely reactive, and likely due to the FTX crash in November.

“We were impacted, unfortunately, most likely probably because we were more visible with our product compared to others, because they were using as an ancillary product, whereas we were using a core product.”

Despite being unaffected by the fallout of FTX, in the wake of ASIC’s legal action, Karaboga said he closed the company’s “earn” products and paid back all users.

The company appears to have learnt its lesson. James Coombes, head of business at Block Earner said the new launch won’t see the same fate as their Earn product, as it already fits within the rules of an Australian credit license.

“There is a core difference,” said Coombes. “The Earn product — there was no clear guidance on whether or not a license was required, and that’s why we hold a conflicting view. Whereas this one, the clear guidance is that a license is required to provide consumer credit. So we went and got the license.”

Hopes for clarity

Looking forward, Karaboga said that faster regulatory progression in jurisdictions such as Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom will pressure the Australian government to catch up, or risk losing market share of crypto enterprises.

“I’m expecting within 12 to 18 months, we’ll see some more clarity.”

Karaboga explained that because Australia is one of the wealthiest countries by way of per-capita GDP and because Australians were “early starters” in the crypto industry, its citizens had become prime targets for scammers.

Ultimately, Karaboga asserted that domestic regulators are firmly pro-crypto and want to “push that innovation” moving forward.

This is a view that was shared by Binance Australia General Manager Ben Rose who recently told Cointelegraph he was confident Aussie regulators would side with crypto in the long-term.

As recently as Sept. 6, crypto giant Coinbase listed Australia as one of its primary locations for expansion outside of the U.S.

Block Earner’s Federal Court hearing is scheduled for November this year, with a decision to be handed down by January 2024.

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Binance Australia GM ‘really confident’ regulators will side with crypto

Ben Rose is hopeful that Binance Australia’s banking woes will be relieved by positive regulation in the future.

Binance Australia General Manager Ben Rose says he’s “really confident” that Australian regulators will eventually make the right choices when it comes to laws that govern digital assets in the country. 

“There are lots of very smart people in the government working really hard on [crypto] policy, so I'm really confident that we’ll get there in the end,” said Rose, speaking to Cointelegraph at the Intersekt Fintech conference in Melbourne, Australia on Aug. 31.

Roses’ comments stand against a backdrop of recent hostility towards crypto — some of which has impacted his exchange, Binance Australia — including a reported search by regulators in July and several banking blocks from the traditional finance sector.

On May 18, Binance Australia was suddenly cut off from Australia’s banking system after payments firm Cuscal “offboarded” the exchange citing a “high risk” of scams and fraud.

Since then, the exchange has been forced to end its support for all Australian Dollar (AUD) trading pairs, and has halted all AUD-denominated deposits and withdrawals on the exchange.

Immediately following the move, a number of major banking institutions including Westpac and National Australia Bank (NAB) banned clients from transferring funds to “high-risk exchanges” including Binance.

Speaking directly to the sentiment towards his exchange, Rose said that Binance is “really focused” on restoring its banking ties and returning fiat ramp services to its one million Australian customers.

“We're having some really good conversations and while we haven't got any specific outcomes right now — I'm really focused on making the changes we need to make."

Despite the challenges, Rose is convinced that Australian regulators would arrive at the right decision when it came to crypto regulation in the long run.

“Australia's got a really important decision to make and we're waiting to see what the Treasury's consultation around the licensing frameworks looks like. We're really positive that's going to make a big difference,” Rose explained.

“I've just come out of a round table with the Treasury and ASIC and I can tell you that there's really good engagement between the industry and regulators,” he added.

“I'm confident that we'll get there. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.”

Related: Australian exchange enlists PayPal as banks ‘close ranks’ against crypto

Similarly, Christian Westerlind Wigstrom from Australian payments provider Monoova told Cointelegraph that the number of discussions between major crypto exchanges and policymakers in recent months had been “breathtaking.”

“Banks are justifiably terrified by the extent of scams, and no one [in crypto] is thinking this is something we don't need to worry about,” said Wigstrom.

Wigstrom said that instead of just continuing with blanket blocks of funds to crypto exchanges, regulators and banking players should be engaged in more nuanced conversations with crypto industry leaders

“Scammers were here before crypto and they're going to be here after crypto. I'm hoping that we can work on this together and actually have a proactive discussion,” he added.

Crypto-specific legislation for Australian crypto firms is on track to be delivered sometime in 2024, Australian Treasury assistant secretary Trevor Power told Cointelegraph on June 26.

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31% of young Aussies hold crypto despite being ‘risk averse’ — ASX survey

While young Australians are more interested in crypto, it’s the 25- to 49-year-olds who own the most.

Despite seeing themselves as more “risk averse” than their older counterparts, nearly a third of all young Australian investors hold or have traded cryptocurrencies over the last year, a new study has found.

In an Australian investor study from the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), 46% of “next generation investors” — the report’s terminology for investors aged 18 to 24 — described themselves as preferring “stable returns” — yet 31% of them invested substantially in crypto.

Attitude towards investment risk by age group. Source: ASX

“The apparent financial conservatism of younger investors is at odds with their level of investment in cryptocurrency,” the report wrote.

Researchers said the reason that younger people invested in crypto boiled down to a desire to do things differently from their parents combined with the observation that “many of the 1.2 million new investors who've taken up investing since 2020 are tech-savvy and connected to social media.”

According to ASX’s study, which was undertaken by financial research firm Investment Trends, the median holding of cryptocurrency for “next generation” investors stands at $2,700, representing a 6% weight in their total portfolio, double that of the 3% crypto allocation for all other investor age groups.

However, while young investors owned the most crypto relative to their portfolios, it was the “wealth accumulators” — investors aged 25 to 49 — who owned the most cryptocurrency overall, accounting for 69% of the total investment in digital assets. Investors aged 50+ accounted for just 19% of overall crypto ownership.

Overall crypto investment snapshot for Australian investors. Source: ASX

This report marked the first time that cryptocurrency had been included as an asset class in the ASX’s Australian Investor Study. As such, the report approached the subject with a degree of caution, saying it’s still up for debate whether cryptocurrencies can become “fully accepted in mainstream investing.”

Still, the study admitted that despite its volatility, cryptocurrency remains a popular choice among investors, revealing that 29% of all “intending investors” — people who don’t currently invest in any capacity — are considering some type of crypto investment within the next 12 months.

Related: Australia's crypto laws risk being outpaced by emerging markets: Think tank

Notably, centralized crypto exchanges were singled out as a potential “handbrake” for the growth of crypto investment in the future.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent spate of legal action against exchange giants Coinbase and Binance in the United States stands as a clear example of challenges facing centralized exchanges.

Australia's crypto exchanges have also faced challenges in recent months. In May, Binance Australia announced it is suspending all Australian dollar-denominated services in June after its local payments provider was ordered to halt support for the exchange. On the same day, Australia’s second-largest bank, Westpac, banned customers from transacting with the exchange.

The following month, Commonwealth Bank — Australia's largest bank — said it may decline certain payments to crypto exchanges, citing a "high risk" of scams. 

The research for the ASX’s report was conducted in November 2022, with its findings based on an in-depth online survey of 5,519 Australian adults.

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A$DC rocks the Aussie dollar as ANZ bank mints first AUD stablecoin

“Most of the industry utilizes non-bank and often unregulated USD stablecoins. Now with this Big 4 bank-issued AUD stablecoin, the use case is a lot more compelling,” said ZeroCap CEO Ryan McCall.

Big 4 bank ANZ has become the first Australian bank to mint an Australia dollar (AUD) pegged stablecoin named “A$DC.”

But rival bank NAB also has its own stablecoin project which is expected to launch by the end of the year.

ANZ is working with local regulators such as AUSTRAC and APRA to get the project signed off in a compliant manner, and has already run a test transaction on the Ethereum blockchain with its institutional partner Victor Smorgon Group, the family office tied to the billionaire Smorgon family.

According to a March 24 report from the Australian Financial Review (AFR), the stablecoin will initially be rolled out for institutional clients seeking a cost-effective on-ramp for crypto investments, however it is likely to be opened up to the retail trading market in the near future as well.

The pilot transaction saw Victor Smorgon send $22 million (A$30 million) worth of A$DC to Zerocap, an Australian digital asset fund manager that has partnered with ANZ to provide key infrastructure and advisory services.

Fireblocks, a global digital asset custodian, provided the infrastructure, while OpenZepplin audited the smart contracts. Chainalysis has signed on to assist with compliance and regulatory obligations.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, Zerocap CEO Ryan McCall emphasized that the ANZ’s move is not only a “huge step” in crypto going mainstream for Australia, but also globally, as it provides a legitimate example of a stablecoin being backed by a fully regulated, compliant and traditional financial institution:

“Until A$DC we’ve not had a bank-backed Aussie dollar stablecoin, and most of the industry utilizes non-bank and often unregulated USD stablecoins. Now with this Big 4 bank-issued AUD stablecoin, the use case is a lot more compelling.”

In relation to the A$DC pilot test, McCall noted the ANZ’s institutional division “were enthusiastic and fully committed to this project, the ecosystem generally, and delivering an end-to-end solution and service.” He declined to speculate on what could come next from the major bank.

While the transaction was conducted on Ethereum, he said ANZ will likely take its time to weigh up its options, with the distributed ledger technology (DLT) based Hedera also being looked at.

“The transition to ETH2 and beyond will be important. It's not a sure thing for Ethereum though as Hedera and others are in the mix here, including from an ANZ perspective,” he said.

McCall said it was “inevitable” the Big 4 banks will look to become major direct on-ramps/off-ramps to crypto in the near future.

Nigel Dobson, ANZ’s banking services portfolio lead, said that a digital Aussie dollar provided by a bank will accelerate the local digital asset economy.

“Our customers want to buy digital assets and seeing a digital Australian dollar minted by a large ADI [authorized deposit-taking institution] like ANZ will make them confident they can transact with us, and use the coin domestically. This means they don’t have to flip in and out of US dollar coins, taking exchange risk in an elongated process.”

Related: SBF opens Aussie Blockchain Week as gov’t says we’re ‘open for business’

ANZ is not the only local bank working towards launching a stablecoin of late, after NAB executive of innovation and partnerships Howard Silby emphasized during the Australian Blockchain Week event that “banks are starting to have a mainstream blockchain moment.”

Silby stated that NAB is working on a stablecoin to settle transactions on its distributed ledger technology (DLT) based- carbon credit platform “Carbonplace,” which is slated to launch at the tail of 2022.

“The stablecoin component to make sure that both parts of the transaction can all be on-chain is super important and that's another exciting development working on at the moment,” he said, adding that:

“We've done trades, but we've had to settle partly in fiat. So the big breakthrough will be later this year when we have a stablecoin and we can actually do the whole thing on-chain.”

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Australian Senator Says Cryptocurrency Is Not a Fad — Government Won’t Stand in the Way

Australian Senator Says Cryptocurrency Is Not a Fad — Government Won’t Stand in the WayAustralian Senator and Minister of Financial Services Jane Hume said that “cryptocurrency is not a fad. It is an asset class that will grow in importance.” She emphasized that the government won’t stand in the way of crypto investing. “We have to let people make their own decisions,” she said. Australian Government Won’s Stand in […]

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