Crypto Updates

Jordan Michaelides, Coinjar’s head of institutional investment, recently shared his frustrations with Business Insider regarding the speeds at which Australia’s regulatory institutions are reacting to innovation within the crypto sector. Michaelides claims that the exchange facilitated $1.4 billion AUD in trade volume during the first half of 201. That amount represents about 1.07 billion USD.
ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, responded by expressing skepticism towards Coinjar’s reported numbers. ASIC’s spokesperson stated: “Tracking the actual industry is even newer than the sector itself, […] aspects of the volume of transactions can be quite opaque, and you could imagine some of the claims by participants might warrant certain skepticism.”
AUSTRAC, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre apparently shares ASIC’s opinion. A spokesperson stated: “AUSTRAC does not monitor or collect information that allows us to quantify total transaction volumes by a reporting entity or industry.”
In other news, in the U.S city of Chicago, a $15 million USD Series B funding round was announced by Cx. Bain Capital Ventures led the round and brought the company’s total funding to $25 million.
Edward Woodford, Seed CX’s co-founder and CEO, stated: “As a licensed exchange for both spot and derivatives trading, we deliver the operational risk safeguards, strong institutional technology, operational support, and regulatory compliance that institutions demand. What is particularly exciting is that our unique offering brings large institutional traders, who have so far sat on the sidelines, into the crypto space for the first time.”
The Managing Director at Bain Capital Ventures, Salil Deshpande, stated: “Institutions are seeking regulated, secure, and reliable crypto venues with diverse products that allow them to earn strong returns. Today, trading venues are retail focused, limited to spot trading, often unregulated, and in foreign jurisdictions. The lack of institutional exchanges is the single largest barrier to crypto asset class growth. Seed Cx is serving this unmet need of institutions and has assembled an outstanding team of executives to support this vision.”
Yet in other news we’ve been following, Paysend has just launched “Global Account.” It is a product meant to compete with rival Revolut. Users of the app will be able to spend and transfer money via mobile app and debit card. The app supports EUR, GBP, USD, RUB and KZT. It also provides access to the cryptocurrency markets on Bitstamp.
Alex Murashko, Paysend’s head of product, said: “We are quite different from both a technical infrastructure and consumer offering viewpoint. We own and control our own processing and this gives tremendous ability and flexibility to deliver a wide variety of services whilst controlling the entire consumer journey.”
He added that, “We believe in simplifying the consumer experience so that instead of feeling like they are bombarded with a long list of features they have available a focused group of benefits.”