What you need to know about cryptocurrency and tax
The rapid rise of cryptocurrency means many Australians now either invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies or use them as a convenient way to pay for goods and services. But what happens on the tax front when your cryptocurrency portfolio suddenly pays big digital dividends? CoinJar co-founder and CEO Asher Tan explains the key things you need to know. Cryptocurrency use has grown exponentially in the last two years and Australians have embraced cryptocurrencies as a way to spend, send and trade money from anywhere in the world. Today Australia is the world’s 11th biggest market for bitcoin volume. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that governments around the world […]
A long-secret Bitcoin key is about to be revealed
A long-held bitcoin secret is about to be revealed. No, it’s not the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, it’s a private key the cryptocurrency’s creator entrusted to several bitcoin developers that activates the protocol’s so-called “alert system,” once used to flash a text warning to those running the software in case something happened that could impact the security of their funds. If you didn’t know bitcoin had a warning system like this, that’s because it was retired in 2016 due to security concerns and frequent confusion about its use. “The alert system was a frequent source of misunderstanding about the security model and ‘effective governance,’” well-known Bitcoin Core contributor Greg Maxwell wrote […]
How real is the competition to Bitcoin?
Cryptocurrencies continue to take the world by storm, with values increasing and new products entering the market all the time. While Bitcoin is still the world’s biggest digital currency, it faces serious competition from Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Ripple just to name a few. The rise of cryptocurrencies has been called the biggest evolution of the financial system in history, as decentralised exchanges and blockchain technology continue to change how the world views money. While no-one knows exactly what’s in store for the crypto market for the remainder of 2018, the trending markets seen in 2017 seem to be consolidating into trading ranges across time scales. The entire cryptocurrency market […]
The crypto community isn’t happy with a negative report by the ‘bank for central banks’
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has weighed in on the crypto debate, and it was less than positive. The aim of the BIS is to foster global financial stability, and it’s owned by 60 central banks across the world. In that sense, the BIS also describes itself as the bank for central banks. Given that one of the stated aims of crypto is to disrupt the status quo of centrally controlled currencies, it’s perhaps not surprising that the BIS was critical. The report said crypto networks get less efficient the bigger they get. Along with scaling issues, they’re also volatile and subject to stability threats due to forks. […]
Bought Bitcoin? The Tax Office has you in its sights
Unless you are living under a rock, most of us have heard of the term cryptocurrency or, at the very least, Bitcoin. If you haven’t, cryptocurrency is generally used to describe a digital asset in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of additional units and verify transactions on the blockchain. Not that most of us understand what that means. To most people, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were discussed at dinner tables and over drinks across Australia because they were the new black when it came to surging assets. Suddenly, it wasn’t just Dungeons and Dragons players or underworld types who were dealing in cybercurrency, everyone wanted to […]
Bitcoin futures could be hurting bitcoin’s price
A Wall Street analyst known for his bullish stance on bitcoin has flagged the possibility that bitcoin futures contracts could be hurting the cryptocurrency’s price. Bloomberg reports that Tom Lee, the cofounder of the research firm Fundstrat, said in a note last week that bitcoin futures contracts could be behind bitcoin’s recent “gut-wrenching” price declines. Lee said in his report that there was “significant volatility” in bitcoin’s price around the expiration date of CME Group and Cboe futures contracts. Both CME Group and Cboe launched bitcoin futures products in December, when bitcoin was trading close to record highs of about $US20,000. Bitcoin has tumbled since then. Bitcoin was down 0.35% […]
Bitcoin’s collapse is raising suspicions about price manipulation
Bitcoin extended losses, bringing its four-session slide to as much as 20 per cent, as questions mount about whether the world’s biggest cryptocurrency was manipulated during last year’s record price surge. After rallying more than 1,400 per cent in 2017 amid an investor frenzy for digital assets, Bitcoin is down almost 70 per cent to around $US6,325 as of 2:52 a.m. in New York, from its record high of $US19,511 set in December. It traded at a few cents after being launched in 2009. “Things have changed for Bitcoin and the crypto space,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at online trading firm Oanda Corp. in London. “There doesn’t seem […]
Ripple CEO: Bitcoin will eventually stop driving the crypto markets
Coins need start solving real problems, not each other’s problems, to be valued in their own right. If you want to know how your coin’s going, just look at bitcoin prices. When bitcoin goes up, so do all other cryptocurrencies. When bitcoin drops so does everything else. To date the crypto markets have simply tended to swim along as one amorphous blob, with the most distinctive anomalies usually being the result of foul play, accidental failure or deliberate price manipulation. Even as bitcoin’s market dominance waned the effect stayed strong. “There’s a very high correlation between the price of XRP [Ripple] and the price of bitcoin, but ultimately these are […]
