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)

Transcript

1. The Australian Bitcoin Experience Regulatory Lessons and Opportunities For Asian Countries Presented By Alan Tsen CoinDoctrine Consulting Bangkok Bitcoin Expo Presented 22 November 2014
2. What I’ll Be Talking About Why Bitcoin Matters The Australian Bitcoin Experience Regulatory Lessons 1 2 3 4 CoinDoctrine Consulting Opportunities For Asia
3. WHY BITCOIN MATTERS CoinDoctrine Consulting
4. • As a currency, it’s creating a way to move 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
5. ~$5b Market Cap ~100K Online Merchants Accepting 100 Currency Rank Some Numbers CoinDoctrine Consulting Sources Coinmetrics, Coinbase and Bitpay
6. Marc Andreessen WHAT’S BEEN SAID ABOUT BITCOIN Partner, A16Z Bill 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
7. THE AUSTRALIAN BITCOIN EXPERIENCE CoinDoctrine Consulting
8. AUSTRALIA - CoinDoctrine Consulting A COUNTRY MORE KNOWN FOR ITS LIFESTYLE
9. A LOVE OF TECHNOLOGY 5 Smartphone Penetration 65% CoinDoctrine Consulting Australia is a country of early adopters Source: Our Mobile Planet, 2014
10. INTERNET CONNECTIVITY Households With Internet Access 83% G CoinDoctrine Consulting A connected country Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, AusStats 2012-2013
11. “WELL” BANKED $ Have Access To Basic Banking Services 83% 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
12. CoinDoctrine Consulting AN INCREASING INTEREST IN BITCOIN
13. A GROWING CoinDoctrine Consulting • A number of bitcoin companies 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
14. REGULATORY CoinDoctrine Consulting • The Australian Taxation Office has released 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?
15. CLARITY HAS CoinDoctrine Consulting • One of the first bitcoin 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
16. REGULATORY LESSONS CoinDoctrine Consulting
17. REGULATION CoinDoctrine Consulting • Although, most in the bitcoin community 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
18. 1 Regulatory clarity is of paramount importance. 2 3 Consumer adoption/ interest and building a community helps. Banking relationships are hard to maintain. THREE KEY LESSONS FROM THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE CoinDoctrine Consulting
19. OPPORTUNITIES FOR ASIA CoinDoctrine Consulting
20. THE ASIAN BITCOIN HUB IS STILL UP FOR GRABS • 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
21. WHAT DOES AN ASIAN BITCOIN HUB LOOK LIKE? • A 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
22. @alantsen THANKS FOR LISTENING! CoinDoctrine Consulting