Australia Financial News

Iconic former English Premier League footballer, David Beckham, has become a global brand ambassador for the DigitalBits blockchain, launching his own range of NFTs in the process.

ANZ minted 30 million of A$DC using an ANZ built Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible smart contract deployed through the Fireblocks platform. The coins were transferred between the parties and later redeemed back into Fiat currency.ANZ banking services lead Nigel Dobson says: “An ANZ issued Australian dollar stablecoin is a first and important step in enabling our customers to find a safe and secure gateway to the digital economy.

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

Meta, formerly Facebook, has filed eight trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, relating to blockchain technology and its proposed metaverse. The applications and their fields of interest are as follows, organized by serial number:

Ashleigh Barty, the top-ranked Australian tennis player, announced on Wednesday that she would retire from the sport at the age of 25.

One of the world’s oldest living cultures is meeting the world’s newest emerging tech as Indigenous Australians begin to take part in the Metaverse.

Animoca Brands co-founder and chairman Yat Siu stated that his firm will continue to “shepherd companies into Web3” to speed up the evolution of the internet into an open Metaverse.

The nonfungible token art industry has developed into a “beautiful cycle” thanks to the connection artists have with their fans according to artist Danielle Weber who spoke at the Australia Blockchain Week conference. 

Private equity and venture capital managers are betting big on the global gambling market.

FIFA, an international governing body for many major soccer tournaments, has announced that cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com will be an official sponsor of its next World Cup in Qatar.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS)'s central bank digital currency (CBDC) project, known as Project Dunbar, has created more questions than answers, the international body said today. However, establishing a global network of connected CBDC platforms still remains a goal for the bank.

The project was organised along three workstreams: one focusing on high-level functional requirements and design, and two concurrent technical streams that developed prototypes on the Corda and Partior blockchain platforms.Andrew McCormack, head of the BIS Innovation Hub Centre in Singapore, says: "A common platform is the most efficient model for payments connectivity but is also the most challenging to achieve. Project Dunbar demonstrated that key concerns of trust and shared control can be addressed through governance mechanisms enforced by robust technological means, laying the foundation for the development of future global and regional platforms."Michele Bullock, assistant governor, Reserve Bank of Australia, adds: "Allowing entities to directly hold and transact in CBDCs from different jurisdictions could reduce the need for intermediaries in cross-border payments, but it would need to be done in a way that preserves the security and resilience of these payments.

Bank of International Settlement (BIS) Innovation Hub has completed an experimental central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform pilot for international settlement with the central banks of Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa.

Naomi Osaka, once one of the highest-ranked tennis players in the world, has become the latest figure in sports and entertainment to endorse crypto exchange FTX.

Disclaimer: The text below is a press release that was not written by Cryptonews.com. 

Last week got off to an antsy start as the clause that many interpreted as a direct route to ban proof-of-work-(PoW)-based cryptocurrencies made a sudden comeback to the draft of the European Union’s key directive on digital assets. Many in the crypto policy space got immediate flashbacks to other instances of harmful last-minute additions to must-pass legislation days and hours before the vote. It all ended well, though, as the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs voted against the draft that contained the hostile language. Over in the United States, monetary policy kept growing more political, as evidenced by Sarah Bloom Raskin, President Joe Biden’s pick for the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for supervision, being forced to withdraw her nomination due to a Senate gridlock. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took time off urgent matters of national defense to sign a bill granting digital assets legal status into law. Other big narratives of the week included crypto platforms’ expansion into the Gulf region, a slew of crypto-related statements and actions by members of the U.S. Congress and some favorable policy developments in Australia.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried gave the opening keynote at this year's Blockchain Week, with the events of day one held at the headquarters of the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). 

Australian Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg opened the Australia Blockchain Week conference with a bombshell legislative proposal that he hopes will lay the groundwork for a new Digital Asset ecosystem down under.

Facebook owner Meta Platforms on Friday, alleging the social media giant failed to prevent scammers using its platform to promote fake ads featuring well-known people. The advertisements, which endorsed investment in cryptocurrency or money-making schemes, could have misled Facebook users into believing they were promoted by famous Australians, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said. The lawsuit filed in the Federal Court also alleges Facebook «aided and abetted or was knowingly concerned in false or misleading conduct and representations by the advertisers,» the ACCC said in a statement.

Two recently filed lawsuits could potentially impact the crypto industry, with the suing parties taking aim at Facebook owner Meta and major crypto exchange Coinbase for their alleged unwillingness to take more decisive steps to combat crypto-related scam advertisements and engaging in unlicensed securities sales, respectively.

Australia’s competition watchdog sued Meta Friday, alleging scam advertisement of cryptocurrency investments by asking local celebrities to promote them on its social media platform.