Half of millennials say cryptocurrency will soon be widely used
Millennials are keen on bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general, according to a recent YouGov survey. 44% of millennials (just under half) say they think it will be “somewhat” or “very” widely accepted in the next 10 years. The survey also found that bitcoin enjoys fairly incredible brand recognition, with 74% of men and 68% of women respondents saying they’d heard of it. Nothing else came close, with only 19% of men and 6% of women saying they’d heard of Ethereum, making it the second most widely-known cryptocurrency. Curiously, 79% of respondents said that they were familiar with at least one type of cryptocurrency, suggesting that there’s a reasonable number of […]
First Growth Funds secures $15m from HCASH
First Growth Funds Limited (ASX:FGF) will assist blockchain group HCash, investing up to $15m in some of the most innovative companies on the ASX. HCash possesses its own unique blockchain tech similar to Bitcoin and Ethereum, possessing a market cap of $150m. Subject to regulatory approval, HCash will invest $15m of HCash digital currency in ASX listed companies Under the terms of the placement there is no dilution or direct investment in FGF, instead the company will act as a broker and receive 6% or up to $900k in fees for facilitating the investments (FGF may also invest its own capital). On 17 July 2018, FGF successfully facilitated the investment […]
Crypto growth nears ‘ceiling’, Ethereum co-founder says
The days of explosive growth in the blockchain industry have likely come and gone now the average person is aware of its existence, according to Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum. “The blockchain space is getting to the point where there’s a ceiling in sight,” Mr Buterin said in a September 8 interview with Bloomberg at the Ethereum Industry Summit conference in Hong Kong. “If you talk to the average educated person at this point, they probably have heard of blockchain at least once. There isn’t an opportunity for yet another 1000-times growth in anything in the space anymore.” Growth in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the blockchain community through its […]
Brutal honesty and collaboration: Life after an equity crowdfund raise
Manrags co-founder Michael Elias has spent the past week preparing to welcome 177 investors on board his business. The Melbourne-based underwear subscription business, which Elias founded with his wife Tina, successfully raised $363,000 two weeks ago through an equity crowdfunding campaign. The raise elevates Manrags into a small cohort of businesses that have successfully closed off this type of fundraising since licences were issued to equity crowdfunding platforms in January. “We hadn’t even run a capital raise to begin with, and just going down the path of a capital raise is quite full on,” Elias says. A new type of investor Now the process is complete, Manrags will be one […]
Australia in driving seat as global blockchain standards take shape
Westpac director Craig Dunn will tell China this week that more engagement from its technology leaders will help the global standards-setting process for blockchain, which Australia is leading, to create guidelines that will reduce the cost of deploying the emerging technology across the global economy. An Austrade trade delegation arrived in China over the weekend ahead of this week’s Wangxiang Global Blockchain Summit in Shanghai. Australia is chairing the International Standards Organisation (ISO) group developing standards for blockchain and distributed ledgers and Mr Dunn is chairing the work. He told The Australian Financial Review ahead of a keynote address at the summit that “if you are going to have an […]
Fintech enters the dictionary
Finally, after decades of usage, the word fintech has made its way into the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The portmanteau of financial technology was one of 840 new entries recently added to the online dictionary. Merriam-Webster defines fintech as “products and companies that employ newly developed digital and online technologies in the banking and financial services industries”. The word is far from new: the dictionary pinpoints its first known use to 1971, while it has been gracing the pages of Finextra since the early 2000s. However, in recent years the term has taken off thanks to a burgeoning fintech scene in places such as Silicon Valley and London and the rise of […]
Raising the bar for SME lending
For those who work in the finance industry, there appears to be no shortage of lenders and loans in the marketplace. However, for those running Australia’s 2.1 million small and medium-sized enterprises, it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees. With the intention of addressing this, in July six fintechs signed the Code of Lending Practice, a document designed to bring transparency and clarity to the online balance sheet lending space. An initiative of the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) and FinTech Australia, key elements include the introduction of a pricing comparison tool allowing customers to compare the cost of unsecured loans from the signatories; […]
A mystery $1 billion Bitcoin Whale is active – What could it mean to prices?
A mystery bitcoin whale wallet holding nearly $1 billion worth of bitcoin is suddenly active after lying dormant for more than four years, according to a recent post on Reddit. Does this mean the whale is intending to dump a huge amount of BTC in the market? If you trade crypto you will hear the term “whale” and as the name suggests it is used to describe huge cryptocurrency holders. Bitcoin wallets holding around $1 billion are usually referred to as whales. With the recent activity many investors are questioning whether a dump is on its way. Some of the transactions are being traced back to a wallet address that […]
