Publicly-listed company SelfWealth (ASX: SWF) has reportedly become the first Australian online share trading platform to offer cryptocurrency investing after announcing a deal with the local crypto exchange BTC Markets. In an interview with Cointelegraph, BTC Markets CEO Caroline Bowler stated that investors will be able to trade five primary crypto assets from Q2 2022, pending approval from Australian financial regulator AUSTRAC. Both SelfWealth and BTC Markets were unable to provide a comment on which crypto assets would be available for purchase until regulators give the green light, but it is reasonably likely that market leaders such as Bitcoin (BTC) …

Australia's consumer and competition (ACCC) watchdog is investigating Facebook’s parent company Meta for a long running series of fraudulent cryptocurrency advertisements of the platform. The news comes just a day after Cointelegraph reported that billionaire businessman Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest was pursuing criminal action against the social media giant for allegedly serving users crypto scam ads and fake articles which used his name and likeness. Numerous other high profile celebrities from Hugh Jackman to Nicole Kidman have been fraudulently employed to draw users into investment scams. The ACCC alleges that Meta allowed the crypto scammers to breach Australian consumer law, defrauding …

Australian billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest is taking Facebook to court over scammy cryptocurrency ads that he alleges used his name to defraud victims. The Fortescue Metals chairman is accusing Facebook of breaching Australia’s money-laundering laws, claiming that it “knowingly profits from this cycle of illegal ads” that it failed to remove. An initial court hearing in the Western Australian Magistrates court is scheduled for Mar. 28, with a committal hearing expected later in 2022. Forrest is bringing forward the charges under Part 10 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code, with the consent of the Attorney-General Michaelia Cash. According to the filings, …

In October 2021, the Senate Committee for Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre released its much-awaited recommendations for how cryptocurrency should be regulated. The 168-page final report boils down to 12 recommendations aimed at striking the right balance between creating legitimacy without stifling innovation. This is a landmark report that demonstrates Australia’s clear efforts to put itself at the forefront of crypto investment globally. The chair of the committee, Senator Andrew Bragg, believes that “Australia can be a leader in digital assets” and is confident that it can particularly “be competitive with Singapore, the UK and the US.” Four …

FTX Trading Limited (FTX) will be the naming rights sponsor for Australian Blockchain Week 2022, which will run from March 21 to 25. Blockchain Australia is the peak industry network in Australia, bringing together industry, academia and government to discuss the opportunities of blockchain technology. I'm incredibly excited to announce @FTX_Official as the Naming Rights Sponsor for Blockchain Week 2022. A huge to @SBF_FTX for your support of the Australian ecosystem pic.twitter.com/B6cUWaTWIE — Steve Vallas (@stevevallas) January 17, 2022 Over 200 speakers across 75 events will present at Australian Blockchain Week, including FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Launched in May 2019, …

In what comes as the first major crypto sports sponsorship deal down under, the Australia Football League (AFL) has secured a partnership with Crypto.com to back its women’s league (AFLW). The deal is worth close to $75 million over the next five years, a steep increase from the AFL’s existing $18.5 million sponsorship contract with Toyota. Crypto.com is a Singapore-based crypto exchange offering digital wallets and crypto-backed debit cards. The partnership will mark Crypto.com’s first time sponsoring an Australian sports team. It will also be its first time sponsoring an elite women’s sports competition worldwide, a milestone that AFL Executive …

Tennis Australia has partnered with Decentraland to host the Australian Open (AO), which will be the first official tennis grand slam in the Metaverse. A virtual recreation of key areas in Melbourne Park, including the Rod Laver Arena and Grand Slam Park, will be open for the duration of the Australian Open tournament, which will run for a fortnight beginning on Jan. 17. The event will include exclusive content for virtual visitors, including behind-the-scenes footage from over 300 cameras around Melbourne Park, including the exclusive player arrivals area and the practice village. As well as broadcasting live footage and AO …

BTC Markets, the largest digital assets exchange in Australia, has announced it will be sponsoring professional tennis player Ajla Tomljanovic for the Australian Open and Sydney Tennis Classic tournaments taking place this month. In a Tuesday announcement, BTC Markets said it would be backing Tomljanovic as part of a partnership inspired in part by “increased investor activity from female investors in the last financial year.” Users from the crypto exchange will have the chance to win tickets to the tournaments and a meeting with the tennis star with a nonfungible token showing proof of attendance. Flash Competition to win 2 …

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has revealed the details of how it took down crypto “pump and dump” Telegram groups back in October. A pump and dump scheme typically involves using social media to coordinate users to buy large amounts of a thinly traded token to artificially inflate its price. They then cash out with massive gains after other investors, who aren’t in on the scheme, FOMO in on a momentum trade. The new documents reveal that ASIC has been taking counsel from finance academic and crypto researcher, Talis Putnins since early Oct. A 38-slide presentation by Putnins …

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) published a report into its two-year research project into wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) that emphasized the benefits of digitizing and autonomizing manual, paper-based banking processes using distributed ledger technology (DLT). The report marks the conclusion of the two-year project named “Project Atom” that was conducted in partnership with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), National Australia Bank (NAB), Perpetual, and ConsenSys, along with additional input from King & Wood Mallesons. Commenting on Project Atom, RBA’s assistant governor (Financial System) Michele Bullock noted that it “demonstrated the potential for a wholesale CBDC and …

The Australian government is seriously consider the rollout of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and has backed numerous forward-looking regulatory crypto-proposals as part of a new “payments and crypto reform plan.” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says the reforms "will firmly place Australia among a handful of lead countries in the world." The reform plan is said to be the biggest shake-up of the Australian payments system since the 1990s, with part of the crypto-related groundwork set by the innovative proposals put forward by an Australian Senate Committee in September. According to the Australian Financial Review, the government is in favor of …

The 2021 Independent Reserve’s Cryptocurrency Index (IRCI) survey of more than 2,000 people found that the percentage of Australians surveyed who own or have owned crypto has reached 28.8%, up from 18.4% in 2020. The results suggest that growth in the sector is being driven by the positive experience of those who own crypto, with 89% of those surveyed saying they have made money or broken even, up from 78% in 2020. Independent Reserve CEO Adrian Przelozny told Cointelegraph that these results didn’t come as a surprise to him, due to an environment in which it has become “very difficult …