Australia Financial News

Crypto legislation in Australia may be delayed until 2024 or later, as the government is looking forward to taking its time in order to get a complete picture of the industry.

Crypto legislation in Australia could be dragged out past 2024 and beyond, with the government seemingly wanting to take its time in order to get a full picture of the industry, internal documents from the government have revealed. 

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulation through “enforcement,” as opposed to “doing the work,” is not a “healthy way” to regulate an industry, and may result in the U.S being a less attractive place for crypto innovation, suggests Ripple’s CEO.

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The projects will operate in a ring-fenced environment and involve a digital currency that is a real claim on the Reserve Bank. First announced in August, the RBA says the project received a "large number" of use case submissions from a range of industry participants. Selected pilot projects involve offline payments with ANZ, nature-based asset trading in a combined proposal from ANZ and Commonwealth Bank, interoperable CBDC for Web3 Commerce with Mastercard and Cuscal, and a corporate bond settlement use case submitted by the Australian Bond Exchange, among others. Of Australia's Big Four banks, ANZ is involved in four projects, while Commonwealth Bank takes two of the spots. Westpac and NAB are notable by their absence.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has announced several projects that will develop use cases for the eAUD, the central bank digital currency (CBDC) of Australia, during its testing phase.

Bitcoin (BTC), the world's largest cryptocurrency, has recovered some of its losses and gained modest traction around the $23,500 level as the crypto market regains impetus following continuous progress in the industry. Currently, Bitcoin and Ethereum are trading at $23,516.89 and $1,649.09, respectively.

Australia's central bank is set to launch a "live pilot" of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) "in the coming months," according to a joint statement from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and Digital Finance CRC (DFCRC), an Australian financial research institute.

Crypto industry layoffs appear to have slowed down significantly over the past month with an estimated 570 crypto employees dismissed in February, down from an estimated 2,850 in January.

The music streaming giant Spotify is increasing its focus on Web3 by conducting trials of token-enabled playlists in a number of important locations.

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Online music streaming giant Spotify is testing a new playlist function made specifically for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) holders.

Binance Australia Derivatives sent an abrupt message to a select group of users on Feb. 23, saying it would be immediately closing their accounts due to a false classification of some users as “wholesale clients.” 

Australian residents have been identified as one the primary targets of a sophisticated network of cryptocurrency call-center scammers — which are suspected to be run by Israel-based crime bosses. 

Binance – the largest crypto exchange in the world by trading volume – announced that it closed derivate positions of some users, earlier today. The users affected by this move are solely based in Australia, and the Australian regulation influenced the action. In a notice put on Twitter, the crypto exchange stated that some users were incorrectly classified as “wholesale investors”.

Binance Australia Derivatives users reported abrupt notifications sent by the digital asset platform on Feb. 23,  saying it is starting to close certain derivatives positions and accounts. 

However, the UK was far from alone in seeing a drop off and remains the centre of European fintech investment, with firms attracting more funding than their counterparts in the rest of Emea combined.Karim Haji, UK and Emea head of financial services, KPMG, says: "Despite the drop in both value and volume, it was a strong year for the UK fintech industry. The UK is a major global player, with investment in UK fintech only behind that of the US and Australia."Total global fintech investment fell to $164.1 billion across 6006 deals in 2022, after reaching a record $238.9 billion across 7321 deals the previous year.Payments remains the strongest area of fintech investment globally, with $53.1 billion in investment compared to US$57.1 billion in 2021; Regtech was the only sector to buck the downward trend, with investment in the space rising from US$11.8 billion in 2021 to a record $18.6 billion.In contrast, investment in crypto and blockchain fell from $30 billion in 2021 to $23.1 billion in 2022.

Music streaming platform Spotify expands its Web3 efforts by testing token-enabled playlists in several key markets. 

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A small monetary bounty and an aptitude for coding were all it took to fork the Ordinals protocol to the world’s second-ever cryptocurrency network, Litecoin (LTC) earlier this week, its creator told Cointelegraph.

Link Group, the firm that acted acted as the authorised corporate director for Neil Woodford's collapsed fund empire, is in talks to sell its fund solutions business, as a potential settlement with the Financial Conduct Authority over its conduct nears.