#IntlRoundup: Reserve Bank Official Doubts Australia Will See a Cryptocurrency Boom

The global nature of digital currencies makes following international news beneficial for investors and interested market participants. However, due to how fast news travels through the landscape, it can be easy to miss the occasional story now and again.

As part of a regular weekly roundup, Coinsquare News compiled the week’s significant international news headlines. This week, we look at a major U.S. VC firm vowing to further its digital currency investments, Malta’s parliament being bullish on blockchain technology, and more.

South Korea’s FSC bolsters its involvement in the space

This week, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) said it will increase its oversight on bank accounts that are used to conduct digital currency transactions.

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According to local media, the country’s FSC is implementing new guidelines that aim to prevent local digital currency exchanges from laundering money, and will come into force on July 10th for at least one year.

The effort will involve wider monitoring of transactions conducted between local and foreign digital currency exchanges, and arrives as part of South Korea’s latest effort to crack down on illicit monetary activity.

Australian Reserve Bank official doubts local crypto success

According to a report from News.com.au, a senior official from the country’s reserve bank made statements doubting the success of cryptocurrencies within Australia.

Dr. Tony Richards, head of payments policy at the Reserve Bank of Australia, said that digital currencies like Bitcoin were unlikely to be used on a mass scale in Australia due to the level of stability offered by the Australian dollar.

“When a country doesn’t have a credible currency, then people might look for other ones,” he said. “Whether those are cryptocurrencies or something like the US dollar is another issue, but we in Australia have a perfectly credible currency called the Australian dollar; we’ve had low and stable inflation for at least 25 years; and the likelihood that we’d have significant adoption of an alternative currency seems to be pretty low.”

Maltese Parliament approves blockchain technology bills

On Tuesday, Maltese Parliament approved three bills surrounding blockchain and adjacent technology, following a reportedly unanimous decision within parliament.

As a result of one of the three bills, the country is slated to launch the ‘Malta Digital Innovation Authority,’ which will enlist former Housing Authority CEO Stephen McCarthy to further develop the country’s blockchain scene.

The news gained traction on Twitter, when junior minister Silvio Schembri announced that the country was honoured to have driven these three bills in what he called a world-first achievement.

The move follows the small European nation’s new mission to become a hub for blockchain innovation. Previously, it welcomed Binance, a popular digital currency exchange, to relocate to Malta in search of digital currency-friendly regulation.

Andreessen Horowitz to invest heavily in cryptocurrency

Andreessen Horowitz, a private American venture capital firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, made headlines this week with news that it is setting out to further its investments in the cryptocurrency space.  

According to CNBC, Andreessen Horowitz raised $300 million USD (nearly $400 million CAD) for its first-ever cryptocurrency-dedicated investment fund.

“We’ve experienced ups and downs in the cryptocurrency market, and expect there will be many more,” said Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, in a statement to CNBC. “There’s potential in the technology, and some of the downturns can be the best investments.”

The firm reportedly has a long-term outlook on the industry, and will continue to invest unaffected by the at-times unpredictable state of the market. Over the next few years, the firm looks to invest in currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum – as well as relative newcomers to the space – in a series of decade-long investments.

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