Australian govt consults on digital currency taxation legislation
The Australian government is looking for the best way to address the so-called “double taxation” of digital currency which is now prescribed by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law. The push comes amid a sharp growth in the use of this particular type of medium of exchange. The government has published exposure draft legislation and explanatory material for amendments to the GST law. The public consultation on these proposals will run for four weeks, closing on July 26, 2017. The draft legislation would have a retrospective start date of July 1, 2017. In summary, from July 1, 2017, digital currency will be treated just like money for GST purposes. […]
The truth about blockchains
Blockchain is the new ‘hotness’ in the innovation world, but like all new technologies, it is widely misunderstood. A blockchain is a set of difficult mathematical computations, based on cryptography. Participants in the chain provide transactions to it. Some participants perform the maths of encoding those transactions into the chain. This happens at a regular interval. Once encoded into the chain, each transaction is public and permanent. Bitcoin, which is the poster child for the technology, is a blockchain used as a currency. It relies on ‘miners’, or the participants who encode the transactions into the chain. These miners get rewarded with a newly created bitcoin each time they do […]
Bitcoin looks a lot like an early Amazon
by Gordon Scott. You might as well get used to the Bitcoin headlines. They aren’t going away. And that’s because cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin aren’t going away. If history is any guide, this may only be the beginning. Bitcoin may be the most lucrative trading opportunity since internet stocks such as Amazon.com Inc. in the dot-com era. If that notion sounds as scary as it does exciting, it should. While it is true that trading digital currencies holds real risk, there is also a real opportunity for traders right now. Please note that I said traders here, not investors. Even if it were true that investors could multiply their money, they […]
Security important but most consumers prefer convenience
The fact convenience trumps security for most consumers when it comes to online shopping was one of the more alarming revelations to come out of the recent Future of Payments roundtable co-hosted by The Australian Financial Review and Braintree. For founder and CEO of online beauty store Adore Beauty, Kate Morris, the level of concern people have about security at present is nothing compared to what it was when she began in 2000. “People just assume that so long as your website looks legit, that you are all right.” CEO and founder of online personal brand consultants Social Check, David Griffiths, believes consumers are in for a huge wake-up call […]
High schooler becomes millionaire thanks to Bitcoin
The rags-to-riches stories about Bitcoin investors are a consistent theme with the rise in the value of Bitcoin over the past six months. The most recent is Erik Finman, who invested USD$1,000 in Bitcoin in 2011 when it was valued at USD$12. His parents had made an agreement with him that if he were a millionaire by 18, he wouldn’t have to attend college. A child of two Stanford Ph.D. holders, Finman was willing to take the bet. He now holds 403 Bitcoins, which, at their current valuation of USD$2,700, represent USD$1.09 mln. He also manages investments for the rest of his family, who have begun looking into Bitcoin as […]
Bitcoin price stabilises after crypto markets crumble
A frenzied few weeks of rapid Bitcoin speculation, which saw the price rocket to $US3000 a coin, looks to be easing. The entire cryptocurrency market was rallying up until last week, when it was worth around $US106 billion. But a dramatic sell-off on Friday saw the cryptocurrency market shed around $US6 billion in the space of a few hours. The sell-off came as Bitcoin investors look to hedge against the “irrational exuberance” that has gripped the market, prompted in part by a flood of new, speculative capital from optimistic newcomers. But the top 10 cryptocurrencies appear to have stabilised over the weekend. On Sunday afternoon the combined total of Bitcoin, […]
In relief rally, bitcoin jumps more than 20% from June low
Bitcoin quickly bounced back from the lows of June, amid improved sentiment about the future of the digital currency. Bitcoin traded higher Saturday near USD$2,680, up more than 20 percent from a June low of USD$2,185.96 hit Thursday that had erased gains for the month, according to CoinDesk. Worries about overexuberance in digital currencies overall and heated debate among developers about how to upgrade bitcoin’s technology weighed on its price. “A proposal was accepted to merge the two upgrade methods, making them compatible,” Brian Kelly, a CNBC contributor and founder of BKCM, which runs a digital assets strategy, said Friday. “So we have seen a relief rally on this progress.” […]
Bitcoin price crosses USD$3,000 milestone to set new all-time high
The price of bitcoin topped USD$3,000 for the first time in history today, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI). After spending much of the last week seeking direction in the $2,700 to $2,900-range, the average price of bitcoin across major international exchanges edged up over this threshold finally at roughly 17:00 UTC. The new record comes at a time when alternative digital assets are seeing robust inflows, with ethereum’s ether token setting a new all-time high of more than USD$300 today as well. Indeed, analysts spoke to the ongoing broadening of the cryptocurrency market as a tide that is benefitting bitcoin. “The inflows into ‘alts’ are greater than […]
