100 Days in Australia

We know safety and trust are front and centre for our Australian community right now, and I want to take a moment to highlight what we are doing locally: First, we are leading the industry in regards to fraud and scams prevention, working closely with our payment partner Zepto to address at-risk cohorts, and drive awareness of crypto cybersecurity best practices. This draws from our own in-house expertise as well as from advice published by ASIC. Second, incorporated Coinbase as a local entity (Coinbase Australia Pty Ltd), and obtained registration and enrollment with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) to provide digital currency exchange services. Finally, we published this blogpost to reiterate how Coinbase’s business is secure and compliant in the midst of the industry’s liquidity challenges.

It has been 4 months (or over 100 days) since I was appointed Country Director of Coinbase Australia, and it has been an exhilarating journey: we have launched a new local retail app to over 1M verified users, and turned on new features including Retail Advanced Trading and 24/7 chat support. This is only the beginning, in the next few months, we will activate additional products.

Additionally, we partnered with Sydney-based CryptoTaxCalculator (CTC) to help Aussies file their crypto taxes ahead of the 31 October tax deadline. CryptoTaxCalculator offers free signups, but to generate final reports, Coinbase customers need to purchase a subscription. CTC is offering a 30% discount for Coinbase customers who use the code COINB30 at checkout (the code will be valid until 1 January, 2023).

We have also been working closely with RMIT’s Blockchain Innovation Hub on a number of educational and outreach initiatives with local Web3 communities, following the joint publication with Coinbase Institute of a paper detailing the role of stablecoins. This paper framed  innovation around stablecoins and blockchain into a much broader economic framework which spans Australia’s history as a trading nation and technology innovator. This week, we will be presenting the whitepaper in Canberra with our Coinbase policy team.

Finally, last week I spent time with the Blockchain Australia team, we will be working together to help amplify the messages that players in the digital asset space need proper signposting from regulators in order for the local crypto and Web3 ecosystem to evolve, in order to continue positioning Australia as a leading international hub of digital asset innovation.