This week we started off with a great catch up with Tom over at The Chainsaw and talk about the new web3 innovation centre we’re building with Stone & Chalk https://thechainsaw.com/business/industry/australian-web3-innovation-centre-launch/
We also had a few events on this week including the Blockchain Sydney Bitmas party as well as a screening of COIN, the new Coinbase documentary (both on Wednesday in Sydney).
Across the states we saw Melbourne have one group of teams (Precog Finance, Mo Money, DeFi Global) put up a Xmas party on Tuesday and another on Thursday (NFT Sydney). We also had our Perth Aus DeFi crew do their Xmas party/meetup on Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday, there were the Blockies where Brisbane chapter lead Matt Hooper was up for nomination as Community leader of the year as was Sydney chapter lead Liya Dashkina for Diversity Leader of the year. And the results can be found in our Tweet thread here for all the winners
Congrats to all the award winners including
Vincent Gramoli - Education Leader of the Year
PUML Better Health - Social Enterprise of the Year
Samira Tollo - Gender and Diversity Leader of the Year
Karen Cohen - Community Leader of the Year
Crypto.com - International Organisation of the Year
Entersoft Security - Startup of the Year
BTC Markets - Digital Currency Exchange of the Year
Caroline Bowler - Blockchain Leader of the Year
Zerocap - Corporate Project of the Year and Blockchain Organisation of the Year
and more photos from the night
More photos here at the official site: https://sensorstudios.pixieset.com/theblockies2022/
We also got to see episode 18 of our Getting to know the Community series come out with host Shahirah Gardner chat with Arbela co-founders, Connor Lane and Hannah Pham - check out the episode here
Also, if you weren't able to make it to NFT Fest - you can check out the video from the Community panel I got to be on
News
Biggest piece of news out there is that SBF was arrested on Tuesday. Here’s some tweets with details about this
Additionally, there were issues around Binance with the US Justice Dept looking to fine them for money laundering (and a plea deal being discussed)
There were those defending Binance
Including CZ himself
Proof of Collateral was also an issue it seems -
And as expected, withdrawals surged https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2022/12/13/binance-withdrawals-surge-as-concerns-about-its-reserve-report-spook-traders/?utm_medium=social&utm_term=organic&utm_content=editorial&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=coindesk_main
Mazar, an auditor for various exchanges removed it's proof of reserve audits from its website later in the week https://www.google.com/amp/s/cointelegraph.com/news/binance-proof-of-reserves-removed-from-the-auditor-s-site/amp
Locally, we saw this great piece on getting started from our Melbourne partners Sensand https://sensand.com/web3-crypto-and-where-to-go-for-your-info/
In local news, Imperium Markets were in the news for their new market structure built on blockchain rails https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/imperium-markets-wants-to-settle-money-market-transactions-instantly-20221212-p5c5kj
This follows up from FinClear’s creation of FCX https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/finclear-shows-asx-its-technology-can-create-a-new-settlement-system-20221123-p5c0n3
CASSPrs responses have been released and Steve Vallas (Blockchain APAC) made summary of it here (we're listed there under AusDeFi as well as TradeFlows, the programmable stablecoin being built by NotCentralised) https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7009263208741949440?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7009263208741949440%29
The fallout also came for the ASX with the Federal Government looking to give ASIC new rule making powers to give more competition to Clearing and Settlements (e.g. affecting ASX CHESS model) https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/new-laws-to-target-asx-clearing-monopoly-apple-pay-20221213-p5c603
More AFR news with this piece about the exit of Blockchain Australia’s new CEO - https://www.afr.com/technology/crypto-lobbyist-blockchain-australia-loses-ceo-20221213-p5c5vw
Also, there's thls fine that Binance got for it's breach of email marketing regulation https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/investing/binance-australia-fined-2m-for-sending-millions-of-spam-emails/news-story/a16376616d88075c4b949f8d6880b1c2
ASIC continues its crackdown too, this time with Finder in the crosshairs https://www.startupdaily.net/topic/cryptocurrency/corporate-cop-asic-sues-finder-for-alleged-unlicensed-conduct-over-its-crypto-product-earn/
We also saw Microsoft ban mining on its cloud services https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/12/15/microsoft-bans-crypto-mining-on-its-online-services-without-permission/
Whilst decentralised, web3 still relies on centralised services like AWS and Microsoft. Here's how the nodes work on Ethereum for example https://ethernodes.org/networkType/Hosting
Finally, let's take a look at the biggest moments in crypto according to the crew at Bankless