Chain Reaction - 3rd April 2023
OKX launch, Binance in the news and more
This week in events, some of us were able to attend a KordaMentha meetup on Tuesday where they went through their findings of the FTX Australia and Digital Surge collapses. A great night full of insights with an awesome panel you can read about here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7046654467345186818/
We also ran an event for Aus DeFi up in Brisbane - it was all online to just get things kickstarted but we’ll do thing IRL soon too.
We also saw the OKX launch on Wednesday 29th with Daniel Ricciardo in the house
Yours truly (aka CaptDeFi, aka Mark) was part of a release of new education materials from our friends at Binance on DeFi where I got to speak about DeFi use cases in the real world and more. Whilst they may be going through a few things over there, it doesn’t change the facts about DeFi and blockchain tech and the rails we’re building to improve how things work in our existing systems. Check out the full video series (along with Liam and Charis) here:
News
In local regulation news we saw that the Australian Senate is considering Digital Asset Licensing Law - more on this from Bits of Blocks here https://www.bitsofblocks.io/post/australian-senate-to-consider-digital-asset-licensing-law
We also saw Paul Hewson from KordaMentha provide commentary here https://www.linkedin.com/posts/hewsonpaul_liberal-senator-andrew-bragg-has-introduced-activity-7046723738632925184-oHVk?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
And we also saw NotCentralised provided some colour and opinion to this too https://medium.com/notcentralised/digital-asset-licensing-law-the-good-and-the-bad-2aa46958bb6b
Binance was in the news this week with lawsuits being the issue. The Chainsaw folks do a great job at breaking it down here https://thechainsaw.com/business/industry/bitcoin-price-cz-binance-cftc/
CZ had a response on the Binance blog here. He basically said that they dispute many of the issues alleged in the complaint and said they have best-in-class technology to ensure compliance, block US users, and cooperate with regulators and law enforcement and aim to work with investigators in this matter. More here
The comments were a bit of fun (but mostly supportive of Binance)
We also saw local coverage of this here too https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/barely-buys-an-ak-47-crypto-cops-pounce-on-world-s-biggest-exchange-20230330-p5cwk1.html
Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Also in the week we got news that SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) was sold, to First Citizens. More news on that announcement here from Bloomberg
And more details in this article
If you’re in Ethereum, the Shapella upgrade should be of interet to you, withdrawals are coming (and that’s a good thing) https://blog.ethereum.org/2023/03/28/shapella-mainnet-announcement
Hong Kong appears to be expanding on being a crypto hub and its getting a lot of interest from firms banned in mainland China and also others keen to flock to APAC. This is similar to what we’re seeing in Dubai with the VARA (virtual assets regulatory authority) https://www.ft.com/content/84454295-0273-45fe-8199-bb520bfc81c4
We also saw Novatti, and its AUDD stablecoin, announced as the 15th project in the RBA CBDC pilot. They’re looking at using the CBDC as proof of reserve (in a similar way to how NotCentralised are but in this use case it will power NFT purchases). More details available here https://dfcrc.com.au/2023/03/23/stablecoin-proof-of-reserve/
An unlikely ally in the fight against the SEC for Coinbase…
https://fortune.com/crypto/2023/03/27/crypto-unlikely-champion-sec-coinbase-insider-trading/
NFT ticketing gets a boos here with this Ticketmaster + NFTs get together https://blockworks.co/news/ticketmaster-goes-live-with-nft-gated-features
Over to the videos and here's the weekly roll up from Bankless
Also, for a TradFi take on Binance, check out the 36:55 mark of The Compound here
https://www.youtube.com/live/CZXa-JdNNU8
That’s it for now folks, have a great week and see you next Monday!
ABOUT AUS DEFI ASSOCIATION
The Australian DeFi Association (Aus DeFi) is a non-profit community organization dedicated to increasing education and awareness of blockchain technology, specifically decentralized finance (DeFi) and web3-based projects. Their goal is to empower the Australian community with the knowledge and tools to participate in the decentralized economy, and to promote the adoption and growth of blockchain technology in Australia. They strive to provide a more grassroots approach to promoting blockchain technology compared to other industry-focused organizations in Australia, and to provide a platform for community members to learn about and engage with this emerging technology.
You can watch our recorded meetups and interviews here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ausdefiassociation3956/videos
Never dull in this industry, is it!? 😅