This is transparently false. Bragg is not pushing cryptographic regulation to protect consumers! It is doing so to advance the cryptographic industry as its layerless parliamentary pattern.
In November, Bragg gave a speech to the company Finder, a provider of cryptocurrency-linked deposit accounts with a guaranteed return of 4%, and said: “Almost everyone I’ve talked to in this industry understood that regulation would bring credibility. and validity to this sector that many had rejected as fanciful and illegitimate during their 12 years of life ”.
The credibility and validity of cryptographic hawkers is Bragg’s motivation, so they can pick up on the life savings of more unsuspecting consumers.
Bragg told The Australian this month that he had raised more than $ 300,000 before the election through “many dinners and lunches.” Crypto bros were well represented at these events, the entries for which are below the political donation outreach threshold.
In September 2019, the Senate formed a select financial technology committee to conduct an investigation. Bragg was named its president. There were six terms of reference, none of which even mentioned cryptocurrency or digital assets. In March 2021, the committee changed its name and adopted nine new terms of reference. Still, only one of them even mentioned crypto.
However, when all was said and done, Bragg called the committee’s final report “the cryptographic report.” This report, of course, recommends the cryptographic regulation that Bragg is pushing. To protect consumers! For the regulatory catch, the buying sector now, pays later has nothing on these cryptographic cowboys.
In particular, Bragg has fallen in love with Finder co-founder Fred Schebesta, which resembles a macabre creation by Jim Henson. The two even have a podcast together.
In his November speech to Finder, Bragg noted that “Finder has played a vital role in this process through raw, simple, digestible data: statistics that were easily understood.” Finder clearly knows its audience! Give the man simple numbers with a large source and he will digest this data as if it were his own mucus.
“The data [Finder] as long as 17 per cent of Australians own cryptocurrency and 13 per cent said they planned it in the next 12 months, it was one of the most important information we received, “Bragg continued.” I quoted these figures in countless occasions since then, in speeches, opinion pieces and in the final report. “
That same month, Reserve Bank Chief of Payments Tony Richards broke these figures, calling them “unlikely” and “extremely surprising” and noting that “they may be symptomatic of the sheer amount of hype and misinformation. in this area “.
However, in March this year, Bragg still claimed that “almost 20 per cent of Australians own cryptocurrencies” and on Monday, he claimed that “25 per cent of the population has access to digital assets”.
In April, Roy Morgan discovered that around 5 per cent of Australians own cryptocurrency.
Last year, Fred Schebesta predicted that the price of Bitcoin would reach $ 100,000 in a week. In January, he said it would reach $ 100,000 later this year. It is now $ 30,666. Would Fred be allowed to make these statements under the Bragg regulatory regime?
Bragg’s shit here is not about restricting cryptocurrency operators under the strict licensing regime that applies to other financial products, but about making Australia a global cryptocurrency hub, as if Australia should aspire to be the nearby Malta or Cyprus, a Switzerland for bicycles. As for the manifestos, it is even more useless than their last.