New legislation could net Afterpay, but nothing can spoil the party
As Afterpay’s share price rose 37.8 per cent over the past few three trading days on positive US expansion figures, the Treasury Department on Friday quietly released draft legislation that could bring the Australian operations of the soaring no-interest lender under the regulation of ASIC. Strangely though, the only group that appears to have noticed is the Consumer Action Centre. It put out a press release on Friday applauding the new legislation, which it said would target “unregulated short-term credit like buy-now pay-later”, the sector in which Afterpay is the most successful provider. The legislation, which will now go through a period of open consultation, proposes to formally institute a […]
How Aussie women are breaking ground in the blockchain sector
For a long time the tech sector has been dominated by white men. Manels (male only panels) were commonplace at conferences, more male-led startups received venture capital funding and there were a lot more visible male success stories. But when it comes to blockchain, an emerging group of female entrepreneurs are leading the way, not just in Australia, but globally. While cryptocurrency may still have a skew towards males, if you think about a successful Australian blockchain startup, the chances are it has a female co-founder. Last month Queenslander Leanne Kemp’s blockchain startup Everledger, was named by the World Economic Forum as one of the 61 most promising technology pioneers […]
How to stop your assets going to the grave with you
Have you made plans to protect or pass on your digital assets – financial and personal – after you die? If not, you’re in good company. Most Australians don’t know they are at risk of losing all their online chattels if they are killed or incapacitated. That’s because they could take their secret passwords to the grave, have their assets locked away in perpetuity by social media networks or exhumed by digital grave robbers and sold on to the dark web, an online “netherworld” for trading illegal and stolen goods from identification to drugs and guns. An estate planning report last year by Charles Sturt University and The University of […]
What crash? Institutional investors have been buying up bitcoin all year
Every price drop is accompanied by a new wave of interest from the big money. Anyone who’s been following cryptocurrency is probably well aware of the pronounced slump that hit the markets as the December-January bubble burst, and the exuberance faded. This was perhaps an entirely expected outcome. By some estimates, maybe half of everyone who’s touched cryptocurrency to date jumped in during the December-January highs and was badly burned by the inevitable readjustment. So, most people didn’t have a very pleasant start to their crypto journey, and then those who didn’t get out were forced to buckle up for a six month bleed. Institutional investors have remained entirely unphased […]
Explainer: What is Ripple?
Not just a poor man’s Bitcoin, the currency exchange network Ripple is the dark horse of fintech. Ripple is far more than simply a “poor man’s Bitcoin”. Despite the host of cryptocurrency copycats on the market right now, Ripple isn’t simply copying the status quo. This currency exchange and remittance network actually has a lot more complexity to it than first meets the eye. To help you wrap your head around Ripple, we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide to fintech’s most exciting cryptocurrency. Read on to find out everything you need to know about the enigmatic currency exchange service. What is Ripple? Ripple, the successor to Ripplepay, was released in 2012 as […]
Fintech Zip has hit cash flow break-even, its shares slip
Australian fintech Zip — the owner of the zipPay, zipMoney and Pocketbook brands — has hit cash flow break even right on target. In a business update, digital retail finance and payments player says revenue for the fourth quarter was $13.2 million, up 136% on the same three months last year. And Zip hit positive underlying cash from operating activities, after bad debt write-offs, of $700,000. However, Zip’s share price fell up to 3% in early trade. At the close, the shares were down 1% to $1.00. ZipMoney operates a “buy now, pay later, no interest” service and uses artificial intelligence and big data technologies to drive a credit and […]
Price prediction trend for Bitcoin in 2018, 2020 and 2025
If you ever tried to understand the workings of the cryptocurrency domain, you would surely understand that these currencies are highly volatile with chances of going way up or down in prices. However, there have been many successful predictions when it comes to the rise in Bitcoin trend. The current growth pattern for Bitcoin has been known to be steady between March as well as May in 2018. The prediction of price for Bitcoin is determined with elements such as supply-demand patterns, human psychology, and price charts. Let’s understand the turn Bitcoin is supposed to take for the years 2018, 2020, as well as 2025. Utility for Bitcoin Bitcoin is […]
What is the Blockchain? The Plain English version
By Bill Hess, Founder of Pixel Privacy. The word blockchain is on everyone’s lips right now. Although you might not really understand what “blockchain” means, chances are you’ve heard people talk about it (a lot). Some people believe it will change our world for the better, and it will replace the banks that we currently know – or similar extravagant things. Although the blockchain came to the general public’s attention when the crypto market absolutely exploded, the majority of the people still don’t understand how it works, what it’s used for or what all the fuss is about. In this guide, I’ll answer all of your questions in regards […]
