Bitcoin

Aug
08

Bipartisan push for the Reserve Bank to back Australian bitcoin

Labor and Coalition senators have crossed the political divide to call on the Reserve Bank to embrace bitcoins as an official form of currency or risk the future competitiveness of Australia’s $145 billion a year financial services industry. The push from Labor senator Sam Dastyari and Liberal senator Jane Hume comes after the digital currency soared to an all time high of $4070 per bitcoin on Monday, up from less than 10¢ per coin in 2010. Senator Dastyari said when he first raised bitcoin in the Senate, one of his colleagues came to him and said: ‘I don’t get what the issue is, don’t they just melt all the coin […]

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Aug
07

Bitcoin surpasses milestone price of USD$3000 across global exchanges

Bitcoin has finally surpassed the US$3000 per BTC average across global exchanges. In fact, it didn’t stop there and touched an all-time high of $3230 during the start of August 5. The decentralized cryptocurrency now commands a hefty $51.9 billion market cap while trading platforms are currently seeing intense exchange volumes at $1.6 billion USD/BTC trades over the past 24-hours. On August 5 bitcoin surpassed the $3000 USD per BTC threshold on the trading platform Bitstamp. Smashing the $3000 vantage point was not enough for bitcoin as BTC prices touched an all-time high of $3230. At press time one BTC is roughly $3150 as traders take some profits from the […]

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Aug
03

Bitcoin cash is essentially printing money

The creation of a second bitcoin asset this week did almost nothing to dilute the price of the original unit, with the value of the new asset instead rocketing skyward, generating almost $US7.5 billion ($9.5 billion) out of thin air. This week, a group of bitcoin activists and developers created a second version of bitcoin, within a few hours, the value of the new unit – bitcoin cash – leapt to over $US600. The original bitcoin price however, remained fairly steady, still trading at about $US2700 a coin, despite an almost 1:1 duplication of itself. “Everyone who has bitcoin now has bitcoin cash and because the market reckons this is […]

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Aug
03

Bitcoin cash is already the 3rd largest cryptocurrency

Bitcoin cash has already secured its place as a top cryptocurrency, just a day after it entered the marketplace. According to Coinmarketcap.com, the cryptocurrency is trading at about $US490 per coin and its marketcap now stands above $US8 billion. As such, it is the third largest cryptocurrency by marketcap, surpassing big name coins such as Ripple ($US6.7 billion) and Litecoin ($US2.2 billion). Bitcoin cash came to fruition Tuesday after it split from the original network that powers its crypto-cousin, bitcoin. To recap, the split was preceded by a years-long war between power brokers in the bitcoin space over the rules that guide the digital currency’s network. Supporters of the newly […]

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Aug
01

Sydney at the centre of booming Australian Fintech industry

Sydney is home to over half of Australia’s Fintech companies and is helping to drive unprecedented growth in the industry, according to a new report by the Committee for Sydney and KPMG.   The report, Scaling the Fintech Opportunity: For Sydney and Australia, finds that the number of Fintech start-ups in Australia has increased from less than 100 in 2014 to 579 companies today, with around 60% of all Fintech companies basing themselves in Sydney. It will be launched at a special event at 7pm this evening by NSW Minister for Trade and Industry, the Hon. Niall Blair.   Fintech is by-and-large driven by local companies, with 512 Australian and […]

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Jul
28

Government must leave encryption alone, or it will endanger blockchain

If we could give Malcolm Turnbull one piece of economic advice right now – one piece of advice about how to protect the economy against a challenging and uncertain future – it would be this: don’t mess with encryption. Earlier this month the government announced that it was going to “impose an obligation” on device manufacturers and service providers to provide law enforcement authorities access to encrypted information on the presentation of a warrant. At the moment it’s unclear what exactly this means. Attorney-General George Brandis and Malcolm Turnbull have repeatedly denied they want a legislated “backdoor” into encrypted devices, but the loose way they’ve used that language suggests some sort […]

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Jul
26

Blockchain upgrade helps avert split in Bitcoin

A software revamp will help address transaction limitations in the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin has managed to avoid being split into two separate currencies after its community reached an agreement to significantly upgrade the capabilities of its underlying blockchain network. A compromise was reached between the developers behind Bitcoin and the mining community, which had become divided over how to improve the technology, with some fearing that the currency could be split into two different blockchain networks. Miners of the cryptocurrency issued overwhelming support for a software upgrade known as the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 91 last Friday, which is the first in a series of steps attempting to address the processing […]

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This Australian Bitcoin exchange startup just raised $815,000 to expand globally and add Ethereum to its platform

An Australian Bitcoin trading startup has secured $815,000 in a series A round it says was oversubscribed by double the original target amount. Melbourne-based Bitcoin.com.au that allows everyday Australians to buy and sell Bitcoins — including the ability to have cash handed over at more than 1,200 physical locations including Commonwealth Bank and Westpac branches, and selected newsagents. Business Insider understands the startup was seeking $500,000 for the round, but ended up having more than $1 million offered to it for overseas expansion and diversification into different types of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin.com.au was formed in 2015 and charges a 5% fee on the spot rate to generate revenue. Sydney’s Alium Capital […]

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