Australia is really betting on Bitcoin. Bitcoin Examiner had already told you about the creation of the local chapter of the Bitcoin Foundation and even about the first event Beers4Bitcoins, which is set to happen in Sydney this weekend, but the major news today is the recent launching of the Sydney-based trading platform BTC Markets.
The exchange, created by Martin Bajalan, started operating about two weeks ago and supports Bitcoin and Litecoin transactions. Bajalan is a local cryptocurrency entrepreneur and a member of the team that is working to form the Australian foundation. According to the site Coindesk, the platform allows users to perform trades in real time, without charging fees for fund transfers. Instead, BTC Markets profits from the trade commissions that start at 1 percent.
Martin Bajalan, who has the goal to conduct a million trades per month by the end of 2014, told Coindesk that the “challenge will be how quickly we can provide adequate liquidity with new financial products to attract traders, and also overcome the regulation issues over the next few months”.
Currently, Australia has several regulators supervising different financial markets. And although Bajalan knows that financial services businesses in the country need an Australian Financial Services License from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, he says his platform doesn’t need one. “We have had confirmation from our lawyers that as long as we perform real-time settlements, there is no need for a license”, he adds.
Although the regulatory landscape in Australia looks relatively stable, Bajalan still made everything he could to be compliant with the current KYC (Know your customer) requirements by working with Edentiti Pty, a company that provides identity verification and verifies the users of the exchange. The founder of BTC Markets believes that Australia is currently “in a better situation to adapt Bitcoin compared to the United States. This is mainly due to the US having many states and different laws”.
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