Autor Cointelegraph By Jesse Coghlan

Aussie consumer group calls for better crypto regs due to ‘lagging laws’

Aussie consumer group calls for better crypto regs due to ‘lagging laws’

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 31, 2022 |

Australian consumer advocacy group CHOICE has called on the federal government to provide better protection for crypto investors while submitting a proposed regulatory framework for cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country.The regulatory framework was submitted in response to the federal Treasury’s consultation paper for “crypto asset secondary service providers” (CASSPs) defined as firms providing custodial crypto wallets and exchange services. CHOICE commented: “As it stands, enforceable protections in the unregulated cryptocurrency market are somewhere between negligible and non-existent.”Outlining four main areas in its framework, the group called for a single definition of crypto for better regulation, a license for exchanges in line with current financial licensing, and for them to be bound by consumer protection laws to prohibit things like misleading advertising.Finally, CHOICE said crypto exchanges need to enact measures for preventing fraudulent payments and reimburse customers when they occur.The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the chief financial services regulator in the country has previously warned that cryptocurrency is not recognized as a financial product. Commenting on the current regulations CHOICE’s senior policy adviser Patrick Veyret said:“The crypto market is booming, but our laws are lagging behind, more and more Australians are purchasing crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum without adequate consumer protections.”Veyret added that there are instances where “people have lost all of their savings with no ability to get their money back” citing the recent fall of TerraUSD (UST) as a “clear example of the extreme volatility in this unregulated market.”According to an ongoing survey conducted by CHOICE, only around one in ten Australians purchased crypto such as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) in the past year, and 71% who signaled an interest in the crypto market didn’t purchase due to concerns of price volatility and scams.CHOICE reported that a separate survey of 1,034 Australians conducted in March and April revealed over half of respondents didn’t know if trading crypto came with consumer protections like those which apply to the stock market. Around the same amount of people (50%) believed such consumer protections for crypto trading should be enacted.Related: Australia’s plan to create a crypto competitive edge in 12 stepsAs reported by Cointelegraph in August 2021, the first six months of that year saw investment scams in Australia cost investors more than $50 million with crypto scams netting bad actors over $25 million, more than half of the reported losses.A more recent report in March by CHOICE found the main competition regulator the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) confirmed nearly 10,500 reports of cryptocurrency scams in 2021, with losses of around $92.6 million for the year.The government is taking action on crypto despite the current lack of regulations, in March the ACCC took Meta to court for publishing scam celebrity crypto ads, and the ACCC has stated it wants to support the crypto industry but notes challenges with regulating such innovative technologies.The country’s new leading party, the Labor Party, has faced criticism in the past for its lack of a cryptocurrency policy and Veyret called on the new government to make regulating crypto a top priority:“The new federal government needs to rein in the unregulated crypto industry as one of its financial services reform priorities, Australians expect the same level of consumer protection and regulatory oversight for crypto assets as they do with other financial products.”

Čítaj viac
Nifty News: ‘Blue-chips’ halve in value, free-to-mint Goblintown NFT volume surges

Nifty News: ‘Blue-chips’ halve in value, free-to-mint Goblintown NFT volume surges

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 30, 2022 |

“Blue-chip” nonfungible token (NFT) collections have seen their floor prices and market capitalization slide over the past 30 days, with some of the most well-recognized projects halving in value for these key metrics.Data collected on key Ethereum NFT projects by DappRadar shows the floor prices of established collections such as CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) and Moonbirds are at most down around 55% over 30 days.The MAYC is the worst off of the four, with the floor price diving 55% to 16.7 Ether (ETH), or $31,300 at the time of writing. The more popular BAYC has fallen over 47% to 86.7 ETH, or $163,000, and CryptoPunks by almost 49% to 45 ETH, $85,000.The only collection to gain in the month was Moonbirds, up 22% with a 19.6 ETH floor price, roughly $37,000 at the time of writing.While the floor price for Moonbirds may be up, its market cap has fallen 55% to $368 million. The others have also tumbled, with the biggest losses being the MAYC, down over 71% to under $610 million, while BAYC and CryptoPunks were down 62% and 51%, respectively.Despite the falling metrics, the collections still continue to dominate the top NFT sales over the past 30 days, with the most expensive being a BAYC NFT sold for 410 ETH on May 5, worth about $1.2 million at the time.Free-to-mint collection tops chartsA free-to-mint NFT collection called Goblintown launched on May 22, now commands a nearly $50 million market cap and is in the top 30 NFT collections.Despite the website stating that the NFTs have “No roadmap. No Discord. No utility,” Goblintown is in second place for volume over the last seven days at nearly $23 million, according to DappRadar, beating out collections such as Otherdeeds and the Bored Ape Yacht Club.The collection features 9,999 goblins, which debuted without any real marketing, fanfare or the usual hype-building for an NFT project. The team behind Goblintown is not known and often post seemingly nonsensical and crude tweets from the official Twitter account.ₐₐₐᵤᵤᵤᵤgggg ₙᵤₘbᵤᵣ ₒₙₑ pic.twitter.com/eLGl6ASJXI— goblintown.wtf (@goblintownwtf) May 22, 2022Despite all of these factors, the floor price of the collection was 2.7 ETH, or around $5,000, on NFT marketplace OpenSea at the time of writing. The most expensive NFT sold from the collection has fetched a price of 69.4 ETH, or about $130,000.Imagine working on a NFT project for months, setting up collabs with the biggest projects/alpha groups, getting 200K followers engagement farming WL spot giveaways, then after mint everyone bricks the floor under mint pricegoblintown: free mint, no collabs, no WL, no discord pic.twitter.com/bMiJoWufyg— ashrobin (@ashrobinqt) May 22, 2022

Nike scoops ENS domainRTFKT, pronounced “artifact,” the Web3 arm of sportswear and sneaker giant Nike, has added an Ethereum Name Service (ENS) domain to the company’s repertoire, purchasing “dotswoosh.eth” for 19.72 ETH, about $37,000 at the time of writing.Related: NFT 2.0: The next generation of NFTs will be streamlined and trustworthyWhile it’s unclear what use Nike will put the domain to, the company has been investing in Web3 through the creation of multiple sneaker-based NFT collections with RTFKT, and has defended its claim to the space, taking a reseller of Nike NFT sneakers to court.The purchase of this latest ENS domain brings the total owned ENS domains by the company to ten.More Nifty NewsThe popular move-to-earn NFT game STEPN has banned users in China from its app to adhere to Chinese regulations. Mainland Chinese users make up 5% of the platform’s overall user base and STEPN’s founder has said the move will not have a significant impact on the firm’s finances.The community for a Solana-based NFT game has dished out payback to a scammer after the developer of the game raised royalties to 98% on a batch of NFTs stolen in a Discord hack phishing scam. Community members bought back the NFTs to return them to their original owners while the hacker made a measly 2% on each sale.

Čítaj viac
Swinburne Uni brings Web3 firms to class

Swinburne Uni brings Web3 firms to class

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 27, 2022 |

Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology has partnered with two financial technology firms which will provide its students exposure to the financial technology and cryptocurrency business world.The partnership is between Swinburne and small business loan provider Judo Bank along with Banxa, a payment service provider with a fiat to crypto platform whose clients include Binance, KuCoin, and Trezor amongst others.Students of the university’s Master of Financial Technology (FinTech) course will be “exposed to real life examples and cases across the spectrum of financial services,” Dr. Dimitrios Salampasis Swinburne’s Director of the Master of FinTech told Cointelegraph.Dr. Salampasis said Judo Bank is “one of the most innovative FinTech unicorns, one of the very few unicorns in Australia” while Banxa is a “massively interesting organization” who are “very serious in the job that they do in the blockchain and the crypto space”.“This space is very new. I mean, when I put together the course a couple of years ago, we didn’t really know what that meant. Other universities around the globe have different FinTech offerings, but I believe, particularly for the FinTech space, you need some proper working experience.”“Maybe they want to show our students some simulations of their processes, do some sort of presentation on their products and services or have a debate,” he said, “maybe even give our students a real project to work on.”The partnership sees Banxa and Judo Bank co-creating content, hosting lectures and providing case studies. Students will have access to each of the companies networks as part of the partnership, which Dr. Salampasis says will allow the industry to “tap into future talent”.“The whole vision behind this degree is to bring industry in to ensure relevance on the things we teach, to be able to bring these real life insights for leadership in the classroom. We can ensure the students get exposed to whatever the latest developments are in the space, because the general FinTech space is moving so quickly.”Dr. Salampasis was 2021’s Blockchain Educator of the Year Awardee from the country’s main industry body Blockchain Australia.Related: Needed: A massive education project to fight hacks and scamsCointelegraph reported last week that Dr. Salampasis had been one of the few people Finder spoke to for its regular predictions survey who warned about the inherent risks in the Terra ecosystem which subsequently collapsed.He said the event had caused terrible publicity for the space, but he was hopeful with more education such situations could be avoided in future. “In general, blockchain and crypto have received a lot of negative attention and publicity. Part of our role as a university is to ‘de-risk’ the space, to provide real information, real awareness, and educate our students to become the next leaders in the space, to work with people who actually know what they’re doing.”

Čítaj viac
Billionaire Bill Miller calls Bitcoin 'insurance' against financial catastrophe

Billionaire Bill Miller calls Bitcoin 'insurance' against financial catastrophe

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 27, 2022 |

Bill Miller the billionaire founder and Chief Investment Officer of investment firm Miller Value Partners, has said he considers Bitcoin (BTC) an “insurance policy against financial catastrophe.”Appearing on an episode of the “Richer, Wiser, Happier” podcast on May 24 Miller backed the cryptocurrency as a means for those caught in conflict to still access financial products. He used the collapse of financial infrastructure in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal in August 2021 as an example.“When the US pulled out of Afghanistan, Western Union stopped sending remittances there or taking them from Afghanistan, but if you had Bitcoin, you were fine. Your Bitcoin is there. You can send it to anybody in the world if you have a phone.”Miller said examples of how the crypto can function as insurance don’t “have to be all or nothing” and noted how Bitcoin performed during the early stages of the pandemic and the Federal Reserve’s reaction to it.“When the Fed stepped in and started gunning the money supply and bailing out, in essence, the mortgage rates […] Bitcoin functioned fine. There was no run on Bitcoin. The system functioned without the Fed and without any interference. Everybody got their Bitcoin, the price adjusted, and then when the Bitcoiners realized, ‘Wait, we’re going to have inflation down the road,’ Bitcoin went through the roof.”“It’s an insurance policy, the way I look at it,” he added.Miller also rebuked Warren Buffett’s recent criticism of Bitcoin where the billionaire investor famously remarked that “it doesn’t produce anything” and he “wouldn’t take” all the Bitcoin in the world for even $25.”He’s said that Bitcoin is a non-productive asset and therefore he can’t value it. Fair enough. If the only thing that you think you can value are productive assets, then no one’s making you buy it, right? So ignore it.”He later followed up his comment, adding “the objective of investing is not to own productive assets, the objective is to make money”.Related: Scott Minerd says Bitcoin price will drop to $8K, but technical analysis says otherwiseMiller is famous for managing a portfolio which for 15 consecutive years between 1991 and 2005 consistently beat the returns of the S&P 500 index. He’s also known for his advocacy of Bitcoin and put half of his net worth into the asset in January.When asked if he still held that position Miller confirmed that about “40% to 50%” of his money was in Amazon stock and his Bitcoin holdings were “about the same as Amazon”, adding that 80% of his net worth is split between the two assets.Miller also discussed the Luna-based tattoo on the arm of Mike Novogratz, the founder of crypto asset management firm Galaxy Digital after the collapse of the Terra ecosystem:“Somebody had sent me a picture of Mike Novogratz where he got a Luna tattoo on his arm months ago of the wolf howling at the moon, and it’s big. It’s like, whoops, maybe you should have got a Bitcoin on your arm, it’d be a little more enduring than that one.”Novogratz has said that the tattoo will be a “constant reminder that venture investing requires humility” as Galaxy Digital posted a $300 million loss on its Luna investments.“I felt bad for him when I saw some story of him going from something like $10 billion to $2 billion,” Miller said, “I’m like, yeah, that’s really tragic”.

Čítaj viac
World Bank won’t support Central African Republic’s Sango crypto hub

World Bank won’t support Central African Republic’s Sango crypto hub

Uverejnil používateľ | máj 26, 2022 |

The World Bank has signalled its concerns over the Central African Republic (CAR) adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as a legal currency and says it won’t support the newly announced “Sango” crypto hub.At the end of April CAR president Faustin-Archange Touadéra established a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency in the country and adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender. On May 24 he announced a plan to launch the country’s first crypto hub called “Sango”.Sango is described as the country’s first “Crypto Initiative” — a legal hub for crypto related businesses encompassing economic policies including no corporate or income tax and thecreation of a virtual and physical “Crypto Island.”An official document outlining the Sango project states that the country “received approval for a $35 million development fund from The World Bank for the digitization of the public sector.”However a spokesperson for the institution told Bloomberg via email the recently approved grant “is unrelated to any cryptocurrency initiative.” and that “the World Bank is not supporting ‘Sango – The First Crypto Initiative Project’.” The $35 million grant from the World Bank announced May 5 was meant for updating and digitizing the existing public financial management system such as improving digital bank payments.In the statement The World Bank added “it will be physically impossible” for the institution to fund the Sango project and expressed disapproval of the CAR’s adoption of Bitcoin:“We have concerns regarding transparency as well as the potential implications for financial inclusion, the financial sector and public finance at large, in addition to environmental shortcomings.” CAR’s Bitcoin adoption has also caught the ire of the governor of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) Abbas Mahamat Tolli who wrote a scathing letter to CAR Finance Minister Hervé Ndoba shortly after news of the adoption. In the letter Tolli wrote the new law “suggests that its main objective is to establish a Central African currency beyond the control of the BEAC that could compete with or displace the legal currency” which he believes would “jeopardize monetary stability”.The World Bank echoed the sentiment saying:“It is important that the relevant regional institutions, such as the central bank and the banking authorities, are fully consulted and remain in the driver’s seat.”Related: ‘We don’t like our money’: The story of the CFA and Bitcoin in AfricaThere is a growing dislike of the CFA franc — the official fiat currency of the CAR pegged to the euro in the country. Meanwhile crypto adoption rates have skyrocketed in Africa according to a March report from crypto exchange KuCoin showing crypto transactions increased by over 2,500% in 2021.It’s unclear what the adoption rate of crypto is within CAR specifically. The country only has an internet penetration rate of just over 7% of the total population according to data from DataReportal dated January 2022 meaning only around 350,000 individuals are even online.

Čítaj viac

Získaj BONUS 8 € v Bitcoinoch

nakup bitcoin z karty

Registrácia Binance

Burza Binance

Aktuálne kurzy