On Saturday the Sydney Morning Herald published an article that bitcoin and crypto investors in Australia were having their accounts frozen for crypto activities.
The offenders, the big four banks in Australia: National Australia Bank, ANZ, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and Westpac Banking Corporation.
So what’s going on with bitcoin in Australia?
Recently, complaints about frozen accounts and blocked transactions have crypto enthusiasts concerned in Australia as the rest of the world watches closely.
The news has impacted the major crypto exchanges CoinJar, Coinbase, CoinSpot, and BTC Markets. CoinSpot even suspended AUD deposits through the first week of January as it tries to work things out with the banks.
Popular Australian bitcoin Youtuber Alex Saunder’s of Nugget’s News Austraila spoke about it recently. You can check out his video below.
I’m guessing this has to do with the Australian government’s recent approval of Austrac (the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre) to monitor bitcoin exchanges.
So it looks like the exchanges and crypto traders are in the process of getting compliant. Reminds of my Bittrex situation, which I wrote about here and here, where my funds were frozen over six weeks until the paperwork was sorted out. Not fun!
Any Aussie crypto traders out there? What’s the word on the street?
Well I just signed up for KuCoin exchange today. Very easy to sign up and at this time no ID verification. You can also add 2FA. I like my privacy, so this site seems to work for me so far. I'll probably start avoiding Bittrex if I can as well as coinbase.
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On my list to check out KuCoin, send me a referral link if they do that.
I did check out the coin KCS... interesting but BNB is a better value imo.
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Here is the referral...https://www.kucoin.com/#/?r=1sb3J
BNB is great, I hold them as well, but it is always good to be diversified. KCS is a bit newer, so the volume isn't there yet, but what is nice, is if you hold the KCS coin on the exchange (similar to BNB) you get rewarded with a little bit of each coin that is traded on the site. This means you can gain value if KCS goes up, as well as if any of the coins go up. Once I heard that, I decided that I wanted in. Plus, it is very fast to create an account. I created mine in seconds...no need to wait for verification. I will be using both KuCoin and Binance for my trading. Best of luck to you...and Happy New Year.
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Well that is interesting. COSS does the same thing, not a lot of volume at this point though.
I'll be checking out KuCoin soon, thanks for the link!
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I may have to look into COSS. Always good to diversify. Do you have any COSS?
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Lol, yes. I generally buy first and ask questions later ;-p
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Do we know of any banks or credit unions that want our business?
Do any have a stated policy in support of crypto exchanges?
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This is the big question and I've posed it elsewhere too. Once we figure out who wants our business we need to get the word out.
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I don't know but I'm sure someone is working on it right now.
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I've noticed that PoliPay has been disabled on BTCMarkets (largest Australian exchange) for a few weeks now. My guess is that the government is just regulating crypto for tax purposes.
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That sounds about right... with the big move there's a lot more taxes to collect too.
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bitcoin is most important cryptocurrency...
i love bitcoin
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me too!
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Well it could be that there something really going on with Bitcoin in Austrslia
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That's the concern... is just getting KYC in order or something bigger???
Australia has been pretty bitcoin friendly so I'm hoping it's not something bigger.
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Well the government are good at hiding secrets that's the more reason it's seems worrisome
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Only time will tell...
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It seems the elite are feeling the pinch that is what's happening
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Banks starting to fear the bitcoin... this will be fun to watch!
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Very interesting article.
bitcoin is amazing cryptocurrencry.
I like to mine bitcoin.
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Mining bitcoin a great activity and very rewarding!
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I just followed you cause your posts seems to be informative post you can find similar crypto news on my steemit that might be productive for you too...
@reewy
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Sounds good, cheers!
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This is a great,
I upvoted you as a witness :) good luck!
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Thank you!
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welcome sir.
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bitcoin is always great....thanks for the post....
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Agreed!
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Hey mate. I’m not too worried about the situation. Poli deposits have been suspended by the Aussie exchanges, but with BPay still available, I’m thinking it’s just banks sorting out their compliance stuff 100%.
The banks are in the midst of a royal commission spurned by CBA getting lazy on their anti money laundering compliance. They really don’t want to leave themselves open at all.
Are you in Aus?
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I'm in the US... recently went through the same experience w Bittrex.
I use a bunch of exchanges and keep 90%+ offline... so I'm ready ;-p
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Being outside Aus, do you (or anyone) actually care what Aussie banks are doing? We sort of feel that we’re in a bit of an insignificantly small bubble down here and the overall market shouldn’t really be worried.
Interested to hear your opinion on that.
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Quite the opposite. My view is the Aussie government is on the more progressive side when it comes to bitcoin and cryptos and the Aussie population, at least what I see here on Steemit, is pretty enthusiastic. I'm trying to get a sense if this is just a KYC/paperwork sort of thing (which I suspect it is) or part of some larger bank or govt crackdown, which would be worrisome.
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Thanks, that’s interesting to hear.
I’ve given you a follow and I’ll see you around in 2018!
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Thanks!
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I'm not sure what's going on behind the scenes but BTC is taking ages to confirm receipt of BPAY deposits. I'm really missing the POLi payment option.
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I've learned it's always good to have multiple options.
Cheers!
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I'm mining with:
-Hashflare (cloud mining bitcoin) https://hashflare.io/r/13062913-1 (i prefer it )
-Genesis Mining https://www.genesis-mining.com/a/2140766 (3% promo with this link)
and trading on Binance for altcoin https://www.binance.com/?ref=11789561 ! :p
made a lot this year :3
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I'm on Genesis and Binance too. Cheers!
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Thanks for your info @g-dubs
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Cheers!
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I appreciate your post @g-dubs
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Thanks for the post!
I'm wondering how many people around the world is trading crypto? I feel like most people around me still have no idea what blockchain is.
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Good question, I would say maybe up to 300 million, but we're getting to early adopter stage now.
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This post has received a 1.78 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @g-dubs.
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Thank you @g-dubs for promoting this post together with https://steemit.com/budget/@jerrybanfield/introducing-steem-budget-proposals
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This post has received gratitude of 0.44 % from @appreciator thanks to: @g-dubs.
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This post has received a 2.97 % upvote from @boomerang thanks to: @g-dubs
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You got a 1.39% upvote from @allaz courtesy of @g-dubs!
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0.74% @pushup from @g-dubs
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You got a 3.97% upvote from @mercurybot courtesy of @g-dubs!
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https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@me-tarzan/5wbgpc-hold-long-position-bitcoin-and-steem-trading-system-6#@farhanarojony/re-me-tarzan-5wbgpc-hold-long-position-bitcoin-and-steem-trading-system-6-20171231t082216989z
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You got a 3.06% upvote from @postpromoter courtesy of @g-dubs!
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