Coinbase expands to Australia
We are excited to announce that Coinbase has expanded its services to Australia. Customers in Australia can now buy bitcoin and ether using their credit and debit cards. We’re focused on creating an open financial system for the world, allowing people to easily buy and sell digital currencies anywhere in the world. Along with this launch in Australia, we are also making the ETH/BTC trading pair available on our professional trading platform GDAX to customers in Australia. To get started, visit the “Trade” page on Coinbase.com or tap on “Buy” or “Sell” options in our iOS or Android apps to add a credit or debit card and buy digital currency. […]
A VC’s perspective on Blockchain opportunities & impacts on Australia
by Victor Jiang, Managing Partner, Sapien Ventures LLP. I was truly honoured to have presented to and judged alongside a distinguished panel (from ANZ, Westpac, UBS, & Northern Trust) and key industry leaders at the inaugural Australian Blockchain Summit 2016 (Melbourne June 28-30th, 2016), and to have a chance to speak about what we felt are the opportunities and impacts of Blockchain on Australia. (The speech was immediately before a pitch/showcase session of 6 excitingly disruptive blockchain startups from USA and Australia, including one dialling in from 3am in their local time!) __________________________________ I’m really excited and honoured to be here, speaking just ahead of some truly exciting startups in the blockchain space. […]
Blockchain: Distributed ledger technology still misunderstood
Blockchain may be the hottest technology trend in town, but business leaders run the risk of falling down a rabbit hole unless they are able to separate fact from fiction, according to Gartner’s research fellow Ray Valdes. While industry buzz around the bitcoin blockchain plus a dozen other competitive technologies has grown to deafening proportions, Mr Valdes warns that a dangerous cocktail of wishful thinking, mythmaking and misunderstanding can confuse the long-term transformative potential of the technology. “The thing about blockchain is that you will find businesses using the term in different ways in the same conversation,” Mr Valdes said. Mr Valdes also warns that the rampant interest in the […]
Telstra Ventures poised to invest in Blockchain
Telstra is looking to invest in blockchain companies that could help the telecommunications giant profit from a boom in mobile banking. Rocky Scopelliti, a Telstra executive responsible for the telco’s relationships with its clients in the banking, finance and insurance industries said the company is doing its research on blockchain developers with a view to finding potential future partners. A blockchain is an online ledger designed to underpin the trading of digital currencies, such as bitcoin, or other types of digital payments or contracts. The nascent technology is widely tipped to have a profound effect on the global banking sector in the future. “It [blockchain] is a significant and active […]
Bitcoin drifts lower after technical milestone
The virtual currency bitcoin made it through a closely watched technical milestone with a 2 per cent decline. The price of the alternative currency, measured in dollars, dipped on Saturday in light trading by about 4 per cent, but then recovered some ground to trade only about 2 per cent lower than it did early in the day, according to bitcoin tracker Coindesk. In recent months, a run-up in the price of bitcoin was attributed in part to the “halving” that arrived Saturday. That effectively cuts by 50 per cent the rate of production of new bitcoins. In theory, that makes existing bitcoins more valuable. The pre-programmed “halving” that took […]
H2 Ventures Fintech Expo 2016
H2 Ventures Fintech Expo 2016 H2 Ventures are hosting its third annual Fintech Expo, an opportunity to hear from some of the most talked about and exciting Fintech companies in Australia. Tuesday 19th of July 2016 Get your tickets here: http://h2vfintechexpo.eventbrite.com.au/ Save Save
Resellers, get yourself a Bitcoin account and get to know blockchains
Don’t know what the hell I’m talking about? Bitcoin should need no introduction. If you haven’t heard of the world’s best-known cryptocurrency then spend some time with our old friend Mr Google and get up to speed. The news here isn’t Bitcoin itself. It’s the backend technology that makes Bitcoin work which has found itself on the PM’s National Innovation and Science Agenda. The blockchain is a new kind of database. Although it was first invented to store financial transactions with Bitcoin, in principle it can store any kind of data. The magic about blockchains is that they are distributed ledgers, just like the internet is a distributed network. Every […]
Fintech is going to be much bigger than you think
If payments can be made anywhere, anytime, across any device, why do you need a currency? Or even a bank? The “fintech” revolution is upon us – but what we’ve seen may only be the start of it. Fintech – a term coined with the listing of peer-to-peer lending platform LendingClub on the New York Stock Exchange in late 2014 – is not only a portmanteau of ‘financial technology,” it describes a whole new industry composed of companies that use technology to make financial services more efficient. It’s big, it’s growing and it’s disruptive. “Fintech is set to change finance as profoundly as the issuance of the first permanent banknotes […]
