ASIC tightening regulation on ICOs is a positive move for the industry
ASIC recently announced that it has shut down several Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) for misleading or deceptive statements in their marketing and operation of unlicensed managed investment schemes. This once again casts the spotlight on the unregulated nature of the Cryptocurrency industry and the need for investor protection. Cryptocurrencies and, by association with the larger category of digital assets that they enable and are often confused with, continue to be viewed with suspicion by much of the mainstream public. This is despite, or in some cases as a result of, their explosion into the public consciousness in the last year. The reasons for this are varied. The early association with nefarious activity […]
Australian FinTech partners with Digital Surge, Brisbane’s first Digital Currency Exchange Platform
Australian FinTech is excited to announce its official partnership with Digital Surge, Brisbane’s first digital currency exchange platform.
What is Ethereum and who is Vitalik Buterin?
Beginnings of the Ethereum Universe Launched on 30th July 2015, Ethereum is a cryptocurrency based on the blockchain. Founded by Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin, it is sometimes considered a second version of Bitcoin. Though Bitcoin and Ethereum are both decentralised currencies based blockchain, there are significant differences between the two. What’s the difference? A good way to understand the differences between the two is to recognise that each have their own goals and purpose. While Bitcoin was and still intends to be a digital currency based on the blockchain, Ethereum has sought to create an entire network within itself. In fact, each Ether can be designed to represent a […]
The reasons Bitcoin is still first in the ranks
After a decade, Bitcoin is still ranked number 1 on the list of cryptocurrencies. No other coin has come close to taking its crown and reaching the level of the Bitcoin price. In fact, in 2018, it seems to be cementing its place at the top rather than slipping. We know that Bitcoin is just a protocol and that protocols can easily be copied and forked to create new cryptocurrencies. Many of those new currencies seem to have a technological advantage over Bitcoin. So what is it about Bitcoin that keeps it at the top? Bitcoin is Still Number 1 Despite everything that has happened, Bitcoin has retained over […]
Programmable money will be the trigger for governments to adopt blockchain
The original blockchain use case – bitcoin – involved making payments while circumventing government and banks. So there’s some irony that its latest local use case involves a big government agency and the country’s largest financial institution adapting the original blockchain to control how government payments are spent. But blockchain innovation is full of surprises. Like the internet itself, what was briefly a rebellious technology is fast becoming mainstream. The Australian Financial Review revealed today that Commonwealth Bank and the CSIRO’s Data61 unit have teamed up on a pilot that could see targeted payments made by the National Disability and Insurance Scheme (NDIS). The blockchain will be a private version […]
CBA and Data61 join forces to create ‘smart money’
The Commonwealth Bank and CSIRO’s Data61 have joined forces to create “smart money” using blockchain technology, which has the potential to reduce fraud and revolutionise government programs such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme. In an initial proof-of-concept called Making Money Smart, the organisations have created programmable money by using smart contracts on a private blockchain, allowing conditions to be applied to the way the money is spent. CBA’s head of experimentation and blockchain, Sophie Gilder, told The Australian Financial Review the NDIS was a logical scheme to apply smart money to because of the number of rules, the scale and the lack of transparency and manual reconciliation that takes […]
BitTorrent’s creator wants to build a better Bitcoin
In 2001, a 25-year-old unemployed college dropout named Bram Cohen crafted an elegant protocol for moving data around the internet. Titanic numbers of pirated songs and movies, and countless lawsuits, later, he’s putting the finishing touches on what he hopes will be another world-changing protocol—this time for moving around money. Cohen’s earlier invention was BitTorrent, a specification for peer-to-peer file sharing that delighted millions but angered entertainment moguls, and at one point consumed more than a third of global internet traffic. His latest creation is a digital currency and startup called Chia, aimed at making cryptocurrency acceptable to the financial industry. “I like hard technical problems,” says Cohen, with a […]
Ripple signs up three cross-border payment services
Three companies that provide cross-border payment services plan to use technology developed by startup Ripple that employs cryptocurrency XRP to speed transactions. Ripple, a large holder and promoter of XRP, said its platform for cross border payments, called xRapid, is now commercially available and that it had signed up firms Cuallix, MercuryFX and Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union as clients. XRapid uses XRP, a virtual currency powered by distributed database technology called blockchain, to make international payments faster, according to Ripple. Mercury FX and Cuallix are money transfer companies, while Catalyst is a wholesale cooperative financial institution that provides a range of services to 1,400 credit unions throughout the United […]
