Bitcoin Daily: Australian Regulator Warns Investors Of Crypto Scams; MobileCoin To Expand Crypto Chatbot Payment System, Other Products

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has issued a warning on the trading of cryptocurrencies, according to a press release.

The organization said in the release that investing in futures, options, or other such ventures, might be risky if done through unlicensed entities. By contrast, dealing with a licensed entity gives one liability protections.

An entity has to be licensed with ASIC to provide financial services, but ASIC has gotten several reports of people trading crypto-based financial products on unlicensed platforms, according to the release. That has sometimes led to “significant losses” due to excessive leverages, platform outages and unfair liquidations.

So, ASIC said in the release it recommends checking whether the entity one is dealing with has an Australian financial services (AFSL) license or Australian market license (AML). Entities not licensed by ASIC can also register with an external dispute resolution scheme to let people make complaints.

ASIC also noted in the release that there have been some unlicensed platforms overseas removing references and links, putting more warnings and disclosures on relevant pages and introducing restrictions based on locations, to prevent Australians from getting unlicensed finance products.

In other news, MobileCoin, which works as a digital payments ecosystem, has closed a Series B round and come away with $66 million, according to a press release.

The company plans to use the money to continue building its technology, which includes MOBot, the first cryptocurrency chatbot payment system, and its Merchant Services buildout, the release stated. It is also working on a stablecoin, which will keep pace with the value of the U.S. dollar.

The company also plans to keep working on its Signal deployment and make it more convenient for mobile messaging and communications devices to add cryptocurrency payments, according to the release.

Participants in the round included Alameda Research, Berggruen Holdings, BlockTower Capital, Coinbase Ventures, General Catalyst, Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures and Vy Capital, the release stated.