The Federal Court of Australia has imposed an $8 million fine on Bit Trade, the operator of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken in the country, for offering an unapproved margin lending product to local customers. The penalty follows allegations by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) that the firm violated financial regulations by failing to...Read More
Grant Colthup, the former CEO of ACCE Australia, is facing a single fraud charge following an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). Colthup, who appeared in the Magistrates Court at Ipswich, Queensland, was charged with embezzling $1.47 million (2.2 million Australian dollars) from a customer. $1.5M Bitcoin Payment Goes Missing From May...Read More
Monochrome Asset Management is preparing to launch Australia’s first spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) on the Cboe exchange following the asset’s approval in the U.S. market. The Monochrome Ethereum ETF (IETH), which will begin trading on Monday, October 14, offers Australian investors a new way to access the cryptocurrency. Details Of The New Offering “Monochrome...Read More
The Australian Federal Police-led Criminal Assets Confiscation Taskforce (CACT) has successfully seized $9.3 million in cryptocurrency as part of a broader criminal investigation targeting the mastermind behind Ghost. For the uninitiated, Ghost is an encrypted communication platform used for criminal activities. According to the official AFP press release, a 32-year-old man from Narwee was arrested...Read More
On Sept. 30, Chainlink Labs announced that it was officially partnering with ANZ, a leading Australian bank with over $750 billion (more than a trillion AUD) in assets under management. The partnership is part of the Singaporean central bank’s (Monetary Authority of Singapore) Project Guardian. Chainlink will help enable the secure cross-chain exchange of tokenized...Read More
Australians reportedly lost at least AUD 180 million (approximately $122 million) to cryptocurrency investment frauds over the past year. Victims under 50 now make up around 60% of scam reports, overtaking older Australians, who are typically considered more vulnerable to such projects. Crypto-Based Investment Scams in Australia The data, gathered by the Australian Cyber Security...Read More
In a concerning trend, TRM Labs found that illicit activity at crypto ATMs is significantly higher than in the broader crypto industry. This has prompted law enforcement and regulators across the world to leverage blockchain intelligence to investigate fraud and financial crime involving these machines. Increasing Illicit Activity at Crypto ATMs According to the latest...Read More
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced today that it has dismantled over 600 cryptocurrency scams in the past 12 months. This announcement comes as ASIC marks the first anniversary of its investment scam disruption initiative, revealing that more than 7,300 phishing and fraudulent websites have been taken down over the past year. Australians...Read More
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has uncovered that over 2,000 cryptocurrency wallets owned by locals were compromised by offshore scammers, putting millions of dollars in digital assets at risk. This discovery emerged from Operation Spincaster, a global initiative against crypto fraud spearheaded by Chainalysis and locally managed by the AFP-led Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre...Read More
DigitalX Limited, a digital asset fund manager, announced today the successful approval and upcoming launch of its spot Bitcoin ETF on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). The new spot Bitcoin ETF, under the ticker “BTXX,” will start trading on Friday, July 12, 2024, at 10:00 AM AEST. DigitalX Teams Up with K2 Asset Management and...Read More
American investment management firm VanEck is set to launch the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Australia’s securities trading platform this week. According to an official announcement from the asset management company, the spot Bitcoin ETF will go live on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on Thursday, June 20. VanEck Unveils Australian Bitcoin ETF...Read More
Australian investment management firm Monochrome Asset Management will launch a first-of-its-kind spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the country on Tuesday, May 4, 2024. According to an announcement, the Monochrome Bitcoin ETF (IBTC) will be the first fund to hold BTC directly in Australia. Appropriate measures have been put in place to list the ETF...Read More
Spot Bitcoin ETFs have caused a major stir in the cryptocurrency industry, unlike anything seen before. Following the US and Hong Kong, Australia is now gearing up for a series of launches of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds. The ASX has received applications from at least two organizations, and there’s another one in the pipeline Australia Braces...Read More
Following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approval of the first eleven spot Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) in the United States last month, Australian retail interest in Bitcoin has experienced a surge. The development has grabbed Australian investors’ attention, with 34% acknowledging awareness of the news. This has increased confidence in Bitcoin, with 25%...Read More
A doctored clip of Australian mining magnate and businessman Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest on Facebook represents the newest addition to a series of deepfakes hijacking images of figures in deceptive advertisements, eroding trust in the media. Cybersecurity firm Cybertrace flagged the video Forrest, which appears to be promoting a fake crypto trading platform. Deepfake Deception The...Read More
C1 Fund – established by a team of former Coinbase legal professionals and investors – has engaged in discussions with numerous local venture firms, explicitly proposing the purchase of private holdings from investors at a discounted rate ranging between 50% and 80% of their most recent valuation. The development comes as the crypto sector has...Read More
Australian cryptocurrency exchange CoinSpot may have fallen victim to an exploit resulting in the loss of approximately $2 million worth of Ethereum (ETH). Blockchain investigator ZachXBT shed light on the incident through his Telegram channel, raising concerns about the security of the exchange’s hot wallets. ZachXBT Unveils $2 Million CoinSpot Exploit On Nov. 8, ZachXBT...Read More
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has uncovered a money laundering syndicate, named the Long River syndicate, which is alleged to have utilized the Changjiang Currency Exchange as a front for laundering around $229 million in illicit funds over the past three years. As part of Operation Avarus-Nightwolf, a series of targeted raids were executed, confiscating...Read More
South Australian police have arrested an individual charged with drug trafficking and money laundering involving crypto on the dark web. The police seized cash, illicit drugs, electronic devices, and cryptocurrency worth $1.5 million belonging to the accused individual. Drug Trafficker Supposedly Received Payment in Crypto An investigation carried out by the South Australian police, which...Read More
Ripple Labs, the fintech company behind the popular payments protocol, has expanded its liquidity hub to new regions as the platform continues to meet the crypto demands of customers. In a blog post, Ripple’s head of liquidity products, Brad Chase, revealed that the company has opened up the liquidity hub for customers in Brazil and...Read More
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has sentenced Melbourne-based cryptocurrency lending firm Helio for falsely claiming it held an Australian credit license (ACL) in August 2019. According to an official release from the ASIC, Helio was sentenced to a non-conviction bond and entered into a recognizance of A$15,000 ($9,600) for 12 months on the...Read More
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) filed a lawsuit against the trading platform eToro, alleging that its contract for difference (CFD) product could harm investors. That type of monetary tool is a leveraged derivative contract that enables customers to speculate on the prices of equities, commodities, stock market indices, and digital assets. The platform...Read More
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced the cancellation of the AFS license of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX’s Australian entity, effective from July 14. The Australian arm had once boasted 30,000 retail clients and serviced 132 domestic companies. FTX Australia will be able to provide limited financial services while winding up its client interactions...Read More
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), the largest bank in Australia, announced a temporary decline in “certain” payments to cryptocurrency exchanges as part of newly introduced measures to battle scams in the country. According to an official release, the CBA will decline or hold crypto payments for 24 hours or more. As part of the scam...Read More
On Tuesday, the prices of bitcoin and other crypto assets were seen trading at a discount on the Australian arm of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, compared to rival local platforms. As of 1:10 pm, bitcoin (BTC) was trading at A$34,863 ($22,670) on Binance Australia, about A$7,516 ($4,913) lower than the...Read More
Australian big four bank Westpac has banned its customers from transacting with Binance, as part of a suite of scam protection measures. The development comes amidst mounting pressure on the crypto giant’s operations in the country. In a statement, Westpac revealed that it was blocking a number of cryptocurrency exchanges as part of a trial....Read More
A research conducted by Melbourne’s RMIT University estimated that Australian criminals who have employed cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, in their schemes had received harsher sentences than those who used fiat. The study outlined the role of digital assets on the Dark Web, claiming they are among the main payment methods supported there. Less Mercy to...Read More
Binance has announced closing the Binance Australia Derivatives business citing the recent engagement with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). The agency, on the other hand, maintained that the cancellation does not affect the requirement for Binance to continue as a member of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority until the end of April 8,...Read More
Jatinder Singh, the 37-year-old partner of Thevamanogari Manivel, a Melbourne woman who mistakenly received $10.5 million instead of a $100 refund from digital asset exchange Crypto.com, has been granted bail by the Victorian County Court. Although Senior Constable Conor Healy argued that roughly $7 million had been recovered and Singh could flee with the outstanding...Read More
The Australian Treasury will most likely delay enforcing new cryptocurrency rules for the middle of 2024 or even 2025. The local government was expected to impose rules by the end of 2022. Some expected the authorities would rush to do so this year, especially after the multiple collapses and investor losses that undermined the sector...Read More
