Beware of digital pickpockets: How to secure cryptographic keys
The Australian financial market is being increasingly disrupted by Fintech. The number of fintech startups in Australia had increased from less than 100 in 2014 to almost 600 in 2017. Banks are having to respond to digital disruption quickly and sometimes without warning or adequate preparation. The rise of cryptocurrency is already challenging banks with more innovative systems for transaction settlement. Despite its recent decline, overall, cryptocurrency values have skyrocketed over the past few years. With this comes a major financial incentive for cyber criminals to design malicious code and sophisticated hacking tools to harvest cryptocurrency coins. One quick way for attackers to enjoy a huge pay day is by […]
Independent Reserve launches Ripple
Independent Reserve, the Australian digital currency exchange, will commence trading in Ripple (XRP) on 7 July, 2018. All XRP trades will be discounted to 0.1% for the first two weeks. XRP is the third largest digital currency by market cap after Bitcoin and Ether. Developed by Ripple Labs, the protocol and currency were designed with the banking and institutional market in mind, enabling fast, low-cost transfers between fiat currencies as well as other assets including gold and airline miles. Ripple Labs has partnerships with a wide range of institutions around the world including NAB, Westpac and American Express. Its current market cap is around USD $18 billion. One XRP is […]
The cryptic message that has the bitcoin community buzzing
Is the unknown creator of Bitcoin writing a book about it? That could be concluded from a cryptic message posted Friday at a website possibly linked to Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by the person or people who released the original Bitcoin white paper in 2008. The site details the “first excerpt to a literary work consisting of two parts” that promises to be “a short story if you will, with some of the most brought up questions and answers. I wanted the people and the facts to be known.” In true Nakamoto style, it even includes a cryptogram, which purports to reveal names related to the title of the […]
Airwallex in the money with $108m raise
Melbourne-based fintech start-up Airwallex has closed the second-largest fundraising round in Australian start-up history, taking in $US80 million ($108 million) for a Series B round led by Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings, alongside Sequoia Capital China and Melbourne’s Square Peg Capital. The company, which was founded by five Chinese-Australian 30-somethings, has built a system to enable cross-border payments by combining payments and foreign exchange transfers into a single transaction. In 2017 it raised $US19 million ($26 million) from the same investors, but it has now also added two more backers from China’s booming venture capital scene in Hillhouse Capital and Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures, as well as Indonesia’s Central Capital Ventura. […]
What the HODL? Your guide to cryptocurrency slang
Cryptocurrency slang can seem a little bit mystifying to those on the outside, so here’s a useful guide to some of the words you might encounter. Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and countless others have barely left the news cycle in the last year or so. Bitcoin, arguably the most popular cryptocurrency, hit an all-time high in December 2017 as more and more members of the public jumped on the bandwagon. Digital dictionary What many people don’t know is that there is a rich vocabulary in the world of digital currencies. Forums and subreddits are littered with terminology that can often seem bewildering to outsiders. What are ‘whales’ if […]
Where, why and how AI, cryptocurrency and blockchain come together
The future is here, and it’s a doozy. Cryptocurrency, distributed ledger technology and artificial intelligence (AI) have a lot of overlap. Firstly cryptocurrency mining and machine learning cycles are extremely similar, while crypto has already delivered a way to directly use computing cycles as a currency. This helps opens the doors to much quicker development of machine learning systems. There are already signs that the future will feature a global machine learning cloud computer network where machine learning warehouses, similar to bitcoin mining warehouses, crop up to educate future generations of robots on demand. Beyond that, you can also see how AI firms are using cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, and […]
One of the world’s largest crypto-exchanges Huobi Global is coming to Australia
Huobi Global, one of the world’s biggest crypto-exchanges, is preparing to launch in Australia, and Adrian Harrison, chief of the local operation, says the forward-thinking regulatory landscape here puts the country at the forefront of the crypto-movement. Domiciled in Singapore, Huobi provides exchange trading for cryptocurrencies, with 150 coin pairings available. According to Harrison, the exchange is “consistently in the top three in the world, in terms of volumes”. In February, Huobi raised $US300 million ($406.7 million) through the launch of its own Huobi Token, which allows exchange users to benefit from discounts in fees. It launches in Australia on July 5, and will start by listing Australian dollars against […]
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 […]
