How Do Australians Respond To Crypto Payment Restrictions?
Australia's peak blockchain industry body Blockchain Australia criticizes banking limits to make payments to crypto exchanges. Recently Commonwealth Bank (CBA), the largest bank in Australia, made a decision to hold or decline certain payments to crypto exchanges to buy cryptocurrencies.
Not only that, they plan to put a limit of $10,000 Australian dollars ($6,650) per month to make payments to cryptocurrency exchanges. Many people make investments in cryptocurrency, but unfortunately lose their crypto assets becoming victims of scams. Australian Banks are doing it to protect customers against crypto scams and fraud.
Blockchain Australia addresses the issues of scams and fraud in the crypto space, but the way banks act to solve it will open new doors to another type of scam and it will be way harder to detect. Banks should take the initiative to educate their customers about crypto scams and fraud instead of limiting access to make payments.
The way banks impose restrictions may have very costly side effects. People have the right to make their financial decisions and banks are supposed to be there to facilitate that, not impose restrictions to decline or hold payments temporarily
In order to protect customers from being a victim of scams and fraud, Banks can take different initiatives if their intention is to protect investors and support the crypto industry. Blockchain Australia takes the initiative to educate people about scams and fraud, and how to detect them to stay safe. Scammers are bad, crypto is not. They will recognize good actors in the crypto industry and people may not fall into the trap of bad actors.
Blockchain Australia's initiatives are praiseworthy. They take another good initiative to host a Roundtable discussion with major banks, politicians, regulators, and policymakers. It will be held on June 27 during Blockchain Week in Australia.
The world is moving forward, you cannot close your eyes and block access to crypto and think it will bring any solution. I think there is no alternative to talking about ongoing challenges in crypto. Then we can find a better solution to mitigate the risk of scams and fraud.
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