The Australian Bitcoin Experience: Regulatory Lessons And Opportunities For Asian Countries
A presentation on the Australian bitcoin experience to date and what Asian countries can learn from it. Presented at the Bangkok Bitcoin Expo 2014 (22/11/2014)
value from anywhere to anywhere else in the world almost instantaneously and at virtually no cost. • As a technology, it’s creating a whole new class of assets, contracting, identity verification and automated value transmission opportunities. • The opportunities are only really just beginning! A DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY CoinDoctrine Consulting
Gates Gates Foundation “ “ Source: Interview, Dream Force Conference,17/10/2014 CoinDoctrine Consulting Bitcoin is better than currency in that you don’t have to be physically in the same place and, of course, for large transactions, currency can get pretty inconvenient. Bitcoin is truly radical, Cryptocurrency, more broadly, is a truly radical, truly revolutionary, fundamental breakthrough in computer science, completely different way to do transaction processing, potentially a replacement for a very large amount of the status quo… Source: Interview, SIBOS Conference,15/10/2014
CoinDoctrine Consulting … but we pay for it - average cost for access to basic banking $AUD796 p/a …Interestingly Australians are Source: Measuring Financial Exclusion in Australia, June 2013
have come online over the last 24 months - both exchanges and resellers. • One of the bigger bitcoin resellers reported that in 12 months to July 2014 they did around $AUD50m in transactions and had about 30,000 customers. • Melbourne based bitcoin arbitrage fund - Bitcoins Reserve has reported a total return of 704.9% since it’s opening in June 2013. INDUSTRY
guidance on the income tax and goods and services tax treatment of bitcoin. • Overall, there is a fair amount of clarity in relation to how bitcoin is treated at law. • Obviously, there is still room for further clarification and the law could better reflect the actual use of bitcoin (e.g. GST). CLARITY?
companies (by way of backdoor listing) to trade on a major stock exchange was in Australia. • The world’s first bitcoin company IPO will (hopefully) be done in Australia - The Bitcoin Group. • The CEO of the Bitcoin Group has publicly said that having legal clarity has helped to facilitate the listing. • Numerous bitcoin companies have been able to start. HELPED LEGAL
would prefer that bitcoin be unregulated, the reality is that regulation plays a critical role in drawing capital in. • Legal clarity helps build more companies in the bitcoin space. • Allows people to deal with bitcoin more ‘freely’ and builds confidence in it (i.e. credibility because of regulation). MATTERS
adoption/ interest and building a community helps. Banking relationships are hard to maintain. THREE KEY LESSONS FROM THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE CoinDoctrine Consulting
The Asian bitcoin hub is up for grabs and could prove to be the next BIG opportunity in the financial sector. • Many Asian countries are well suited to being the hub for bitcoin - think remittance, mining, ‘banking’ for the unbanked. • Many countries in Asia are already finance hubs (e.g. Hong Kong and Singapore) bitcoin could build on this. CoinDoctrine Consulting
relatively clear regulatory framework. • Investor funds flowing in to fund bitcoin based companies. • Consumer interest - and use of bitcoin in a transactional way! • A strong community of bitcoin companies and enthusiasts. CoinDoctrine Consulting
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