Australia’s crypto ecosystem 2020: The spark for a DeFi explosion
The Australian crypto ecosystem has flourished despite the pandemic, with a booming DeFi sector, a five year blockchain roadmap and the embrace of the technology by banks and the finance sector.
For a country of 25 million people,…
The Australian crypto ecosystem has flourished despite the pandemic, with a booming DeFi sector, a five year blockchain roadmap and the embrace of the technology by banks and the finance sector.
For a country of 25 million people, Australia punches well above its weight both economically and in the world of blockchain. Australians have long been enthusiastic adopters of new technology, from cell phones to smart homes, and it’s little surprise they’ve embraced crypto too.
Chainalysis ranked Australia 20th out of 154 countries surveyed this year for its 2020 Global Crypto Adoption index, citing favorable regulation legitimizing the technology as driving "steady growth in adoption."
Australian crypto educator, Alex Saunders from Nuggets News, said the Australian crypto community encompasses everyone from hardcore BTC maxis, to well known Ethereans, and large contingents of BCH and BSV followers.
"There's just a huge percentage of people per-capita compared to most countries that are interested in crypto and blockchain," he explained.
The past year has seen the crypto ecosystem flourish despite the pandemic. The Federal Government released a five-year plan called the National Blockchain Roadmap, banks and the finance sector have warmed to the technology, and local projects were instrumental in driving the mid-year DeFi boom.
Australia's DeFi sector
A raft of Australian DeFi projects came to global prominence in 2020, including Synthetix — which began life as stablecoin project Havven in the country's largest ICO in 2018, before morphing into a decentralized version of BitMEX using synthetic assets.
Synthetix founder Kain Warwick is also known as the “father of modern agriculture” for popularizing the concept of yield farming that sparked the 2020 DeFi boom.
"We've had some really big projects come out of Australia,” explained David Rugendyke, founder of Eth2 staking service Rocket Pool.
“I think Synthetix is probably the most notable one just because they're doing some pretty amazing work. All this stuff is very cutting edge tech."
Based in Brisbane, Queensland, Rocket Pool is a decentralized Eth2 staking service that will enable users without the minimum 32 ETH, or the desire to run their own validator, the ability to stake. Ren is a decentralized way to create tokenized Bitcoin and other coins that can be used in DeFi, while mSTABLE allows users to swap USD stablecoins with zero slippage and earn high yields. Thorchain (RUNE) meanwhile is a forthcoming, cross chain version of Uniswap. Henrik Andersson, the Chief Investment Officer from Melbourne based fund Apollo Capital said:
“Many of these projects are among the top in the world."
Favorable regulations
Rudgendyke said that mostly favorable regulations are one reason local projects are able to thrive as it enables them to, “build in a way which is going to satisfy regulatory requirements but also not stifle what they're trying to do," he said.
"I think we're kind of heading in the right direction by fostering that innovation rather than taking the heavy handed approach like the (U.S.) SEC is."
To take a couple of examples, crypto friendly capital raising platform Stax launched the first IPO in Australia with permission to accept crypto in the form of USDT for its client West Coast Aquaculture Group in October. On completion in November, around 89% of the $5M raised had been contributed in Tether.
And at the start of the year a judge in New South Wales allowed a plaintiff to put up cryptocurrency as a security against costs being awarded against them, with the judge calling crypto a "recognised form of investment" — albeit a highly volatile one.
Not a soft touch
But it’s not all good news — Australian exchanges, including Coinspot and Coinjar, were forced by regulators to delist privacy coins in August, including Monero, Bytecoin and ZCash. Regulators also don't seem keen on ICOs, with many falling foul of current laws that consider them Managed Investment Schemes requiring licensing.
"In Australia, the proceeds are being taxed as income and as a result of this, Australia is not an attractive proposition to undertake one of these ICOs.”
Crypto payments
One area in which Australia lags is in the use of crypto for day-to-day payments. A Reserve Bank of Australia study in March found that while 80% of Australians were aware of cryptocurrencies,less than 1% of consumers have used crypto to make a consumer payment.
Chainalysis noted in its adoption report that people in developing economies in the Asian region make crypto payments far more often:
"India and Vietnam already have higher grassroots-level adoption than Australia, as they rank higher on our index at 11th and 10th respectively."
The adoption of crypto for payments has been a little hamstrung in Australia because the country has one of the most-advanced electronic payments systems in the world. The New Payments Platform, also known as Pay ID, enables Australians to send or receive money instantly 24/7 using only an email address or phone number.
Ripple appropriates 'Pay ID', gets taken to court
Funnily enough, Ripple launched a very similar crypto-based service this year, called ‘PayID’ and promptly got sued by the New Payments Platform in Federal Court for copyright violation. In November, Ripple changed the name to ‘PayString’.
Pay ID has also been cited by the RBA as a key reason the country doesn’t require a central bank digital currency, or CBDC — despite the bank actively researching one. In October, the RBA’s head of payments policy Tony Richards said not to expect a CBDC any time soon:
“Australian households and businesses are well served by a modern, efficient and resilient payments system that has undergone significant innovation in recent years, including the introduction of the New Payments Platform, which is a real-time, 24/7 and data-rich electronic payments system.”
Saunders said it was a short-sighted decision. "It's kind of disappointing to hear the RBA say that they don't see a use case for central bank digital currencies, when every other central bank on the planet is talking about how they're the future and trying to roll them out," he said.
Despite its reticence, the RBA has since partnered with the two of the country’s four major banks (Commonwealth and National), along with Ethereum developer Consensys and the financial services company Perpetual to explore a wholesale central bank digital currency using an Ethereum-based digital ledger.
In another welcome sign banks are looking more favorably at the industry, three of the 'Big Four' banks formed a company in September called Lygon to digitize bank guarantees using blockchain technology. The aim is to cut the processing time from weeks down to a single day — mainly for commercial lease guarantees — using IBM's Hyperledger technology.
Government on board with blockchain
The Government announced $4.95 million in this year's budget in support for "two blockchain pilots directed at reducing business compliance costs".
But probably of more significance was the release of the National Blockchain Roadmap at the start of the year, which was developed by the Federal Government’s Department of Industry and Science in consultation with industry group Blockchain Australia. It sets out 12 key recommendations over the next five years and identified the three most promising use cases for the technology:
Recording credentials and qualifications for the education sector
Supply chain tracking for agriculture and wine exports
Know You Customer identity verification for the finance industry
These three areas are also the focus of Blockchain Australia's proposed $60 million Cooperative Research Centre. The CRC requires a $30 million contribution from industry which would be matched by the government, but so far only a handful of organizations are on board.
APAC Provenance Council
While the three use cases are being addressed by various initiatives, supply chain tracking could offer the most immediate benefits with an estimated $1.7 billion of lower quality food and produce passed off as “Australian” overseas (mostly in China). A new public body called the APAC Provenance Council, was set up mid year by local blockchain businesses in concert with VeChain, Mastercard and Alipay.
The aim is to offer guidance to exporters about supply chain tracking and to offer them trade financing. The organization has an innovative "milestone" based payments system that can provide partial payments when certain conditions are met along the journey — such as when a shipment leaves customs — as verified using blockchain.
ASX DLT is not OK
One thing that certainly didn't happen in 2020, and won't be happening any time soon, is the much hyped transformation of the Australian Securities Exchange's CHESS share registration system — which was expected to be overhauled using DLT technology. Saunders explained:
"The ASX has just pushed back rolling out blockchain for stock trading until 2023, which is the third time they've pushed it back,” explained Saunders.
The ASX blamed the latest delays on surging volumes amid the March market crash requiring it to triple the system's capacity — although part of the reason for the delay is likely the concerns expressed by some key stakeholders.
Big guys expand in Australia
Australia was already well served by crypto exchanges, but the majors have been looking to expand market share here in 2020. Binance, Gemini and Crypto.com all extended fiat services to Australians this year, with Crypto.com recently announcing it had bought an Australian company in order to use its Australian Financial Service License and issue a Visa credit card.
Kraken Australia opened mid-year, after taking over local exchange Bit Trade. The UK based money app Revolut — which is one of the largest brokerage firms in Europe with a million customers — also extended crypto trading services to tens of thousands of Aussies.
The final word
After a year of being confined to quarters during the pandemic — all of the state borders slammed shut and Victorians endured a severe four month lockdown — the crypto community is looking forward to a return to normality in 2021. Saunders said he’d been confined to Tasmania for most of the year and was eager to return to in-person events to see how the landscape had changed:
"Now we're in a bull market I can't wait to actually get out there and amongst the community."
It was Jan. 11, 2024 when software giant Microsoft (MSFT) briefly passed Apple (AAPL) as the most valuable company in the world.
Microsoft's stock closed 0.5% higher, giving it a market valuation of $2.859 trillion.
It rose as much as 2% during the session and the company was briefly worth $2.903 trillion. Apple closed 0.3% lower, giving the company a market capitalization of $2.886 trillion.
"It was inevitable that Microsoft would overtake Apple since Microsoft is growing faster and has more to benefit from the generative AI revolution," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria said at the time, according to Reuters.
The two tech titans have jostled for top spot over the years and Microsoft was ahead at last check, with a market cap of $3.085 trillion, compared with Apple's value of $2.684 trillion.
Analysts noted that Apple had been dealing with weakening demand, including for the iPhone, the company’s main source of revenue.
Demand in China, a major market, has slumped as the country's economy makes a slow recovery from the pandemic and competition from Huawei.
Sales in China of Apple's iPhone fell by 24% in the first six weeks of 2024 compared with a year earlier, according to research firm Counterpoint, as the company contended with stiff competition from a resurgent Huawei "while getting squeezed in the middle on aggressive pricing from the likes of OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi," said senior Analyst Mengmeng Zhang.
“Although the iPhone 15 is a great device, it has no significant upgrades from the previous version, so consumers feel fine holding on to the older-generation iPhones for now," he said.
A man scrolling through Netflix on an Apple iPad Pro. Photo by Phil Barker/Future Publishing via Getty Images.
Counterpoint said that the first six weeks of 2023 saw abnormally high numbers with significant unit sales being deferred from December 2022 due to production issues.
Apple is planning to open its eighth store in Shanghai – and its 47th across China – on March 21.
The company also plans to expand its research centre in Shanghai to support all of its product lines and open a new lab in southern tech hub Shenzhen later this year, according to the South China Morning Post.
Meanwhile, over in Europe, Apple announced changes to comply with the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which went into effect last week, Reuters reported on March 12.
Beginning this spring, software developers operating in Europe will be able to distribute apps to EU customers directly from their own websites instead of through the App Store.
"To reflect the DMA’s changes, users in the EU can install apps from alternative app marketplaces in iOS 17.4 and later," Apple said on its website, referring to the software platform that runs iPhones and iPads.
"Users will be able to download an alternative marketplace app from the marketplace developer’s website," the company said.
Apple has also said it will appeal a $2 billion EU antitrust fine for thwarting competition from Spotify (SPOT) and other music streaming rivals via restrictions on the App Store.
The company's shares have suffered amid all this upheaval, but some analysts still see good things in Apple's future.
Bank of America Securities confirmed its positive stance on Apple, maintaining a buy rating with a steady price target of $225, according to Investing.com.
The firm's analysis highlighted Apple's pricing strategy evolution since the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007, with initial prices set at $499 for the 4GB model and $599 for the 8GB model.
BofA said that Apple has consistently launched new iPhone models, including the Pro/Pro Max versions, to target the premium market.
Analyst says Apple selloff 'overdone'
Concurrently, prices for previous models are typically reduced by about $100 with each new release.
This strategy, coupled with installment plans from Apple and carriers, has contributed to the iPhone's installed base reaching a record 1.2 billion in 2023, the firm said.
Apple has effectively shifted its sales mix toward higher-value units despite experiencing slower unit sales, BofA said.
This trend is expected to persist and could help mitigate potential unit sales weaknesses, particularly in China.
BofA also noted Apple's dominance in the high-end market, maintaining a market share of over 90% in the $1,000 and above price band for the past three years.
The firm also cited the anticipation of a multi-year iPhone cycle propelled by next-generation AI technology, robust services growth, and the potential for margin expansion.
On Monday, Evercore ISI analysts said they believed that the sell-off in the iPhone maker’s shares may be “overdone.”
The firm said that investors' growing preference for AI-focused stocks like Nvidia (NVDA) has led to a reallocation of funds away from Apple.
In addition, Evercore said concerns over weakening demand in China, where Apple may be losing market share in the smartphone segment, have affected investor sentiment.
And then ongoing regulatory issues continue to have an impact on investor confidence in the world's second-biggest company.
“We think the sell-off is rather overdone, while we suspect there is strong valuation support at current levels to down 10%, there are three distinct drivers that could unlock upside on the stock from here – a) Cap allocation, b) AI inferencing, and c) Risk-off/defensive shift," the firm said in a research note.
Major typhoid fever surveillance study in sub-Saharan Africa indicates need for the introduction of typhoid conjugate vaccines in endemic countries
There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high…
There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.
Credit: IVI
There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.
The findings from this 4-year study, the Severe Typhoid in Africa (SETA) program, offers new typhoid fever burden estimates from six countries: Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria, with four countries recording more than 100 cases for every 100,000 person-years of observation, which is considered a high burden. The highest incidence of typhoid was found in DRC with 315 cases per 100,000 people while children between 2-14 years of age were shown to be at highest risk across all 25 study sites.
There are an estimated 12.5 to 16.3 million cases of typhoid every year with 140,000 deaths. However, with generic symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and abdominal pain, and the need for blood culture sampling to make a definitive diagnosis, it is difficult for governments to capture the true burden of typhoid in their countries.
“Our goal through SETA was to address these gaps in typhoid disease burden data,” said lead author Dr. Florian Marks, Deputy Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI). “Our estimates indicate that introduction of TCV in endemic settings would go to lengths in protecting communities, especially school-aged children, against this potentially deadly—but preventable—disease.”
In addition to disease incidence, this study also showed that the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Salmonella Typhi, the bacteria that causes typhoid fever, has led to more reliance beyond the traditional first line of antibiotic treatment. If left untreated, severe cases of the disease can lead to intestinal perforation and even death. This suggests that prevention through vaccination may play a critical role in not only protecting against typhoid fever but reducing the spread of drug-resistant strains of the bacteria.
There are two TCVs prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and available through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. In February 2024, IVI and SK bioscience announced that a third TCV, SKYTyphoid™, also achieved WHO PQ, paving the way for public procurement and increasing the global supply.
Alongside the SETA disease burden study, IVI has been working with colleagues in three African countries to show the real-world impact of TCV vaccination. These studies include a cluster-randomized trial in Agogo, Ghana and two effectiveness studies following mass vaccination in Kisantu, DRC and Imerintsiatosika, Madagascar.
Dr. Birkneh Tilahun Tadesse, Associate Director General at IVI and Head of the Real-World Evidence Department, explains, “Through these vaccine effectiveness studies, we aim to show the full public health value of TCV in settings that are directly impacted by a high burden of typhoid fever.” He adds, “Our final objective of course is to eliminate typhoid or to at least reduce the burden to low incidence levels, and that’s what we are attempting in Fiji with an island-wide vaccination campaign.”
As more countries in typhoid endemic countries, namely in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, consider TCV in national immunization programs, these data will help inform evidence-based policy decisions around typhoid prevention and control.
###
About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)
The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.
IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that is recently pre-qualified by WHO.
IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden, a Country Office in Austria, and Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.
Incidence of typhoid fever in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria (the Severe Typhoid in Africa programme): a population-based study
We’ve added 60% to national debt since 2018. Germany - a country with major economic woes - added ‘just’ 32%.
Maybe it will never matter. Maybe MMT is real. Maybe we just cancel or inflate it out. Maybe career real estate borrowers or career politicians aren’t the answer.
I have no idea. Only time will tell. But it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.
He is right: it will be fascinating, and the latest budget deficit data simply confirmed that the day of reckoning will come very soon, certainly sooner than the two years that One River's Eric Peters predicted this weekend for the coming "US debt sustainability crisis."
According to the US Treasury, in February, the US collected $271 billion in various tax receipts, and spent $567 billion, more than double what it collected.
The two charts below show the divergence in US tax receipts which have flatlined (on a trailing 6M basis) since the covid pandemic in 2020 (with occasional stimmy-driven surges)...
... and spending which is about 50% higher compared to where it was in 2020.
The end result is that in February, the budget deficit rose to $296.3 billion, up 12.9% from a year prior, and the second highest February deficit on record.
And the punchline: on a cumulative basis, the budget deficit in fiscal 2024 which began on October 1, 2023 is now $828 billion, the second largest cumulative deficit through February on record, surpassed only by the peak covid year of 2021.
But wait there's more: because in a world where the US is spending more than twice what it is collecting, the endgame is clear: debt collapse, and while it won't be tomorrow, or the week after, it is coming... and it's also why the US is now selling $1 trillion in debt every 100 days just to keep operating (and absorbing all those millions of illegal immigrants who will keep voting democrat to preserve the socialist system of the US, so beloved by the Soros clan).
... having already surpassed total US defense spending and soon to surpass total health spending and, finally all social security spending, the largest spending category of all, which means that US debt will now rise exponentially higher until the inevitable moment when the US dollar loses its reserve status and it all comes crashing down.
We conclude with another observation by CNBC's Brian Sullivan, who quotes an email by a DC strategist...
.. which lays out the proposed Biden budget as follows:
The budget deficit will growth another $16 TRILLION over next 10 years. Thats *with* the proposed massive tax hikes.
Without them the deficit will grow $19 trillion.
That's why you will hear the "deficit is being reduced by $3 trillion" over the decade.
No family budget or business could exist with this kind of math.
Of course, in the long run, neither can the US... and since neither party will ever cut the spending which everyone by now is so addicted to, the best anyone can do is start planning for the endgame.
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