Australia’s SelfWealth to unlock crypto trading

Australian share trading platform, SelfWealth, will allow its users to invest in cryptocurrency directly. From the second quarter of the year, five primary crypto assets will be available to the 325,000 users on the platform.

SelfWealth is ASX-listed (ASX:SWF), and according to the company, 30 per cent of its users were already invested in crypto. Another 38 per cent were keen to.

There are still questions to be answered. For one thing, we still don’t know which five assets can be traded. We’re assuming Bitcoin and Ethereum, as those are the leading names, but the other three are a mystery for now. In addition, the platform still needs regulatory approval from AUSTRAC before it can turn the service on (though this is unlikely to be a hurdle).

This trading service will be offered in collaboration with the local crypto exchange, BTC Markets. In a report, BTC Markets CEO, Caroline Bowler, said that the expectation is that crypto will eventually support 10-15 per cent of the total financial services industry in Australia.

This underlines the optimism that business continues to have in crypto, even as the markets themselves continue to go through a period of volatility.

For her part, Bowler is not personally concerned about the volatility at all. “I’ve been through a crypto winter before and I don’t think that’s what we’re in now… what we’re seeing now is more of a reasonable response to market conditions than a fully-fledged crypto-winter.”