Independent Reserve today launched Australia's newest Bitcoin exchange, opening its doors to customers this morning. The Sydney based company, of which Adam Tepper is CEO, claims they will add a valuable source of liquidity to the growing Bitcoin market across the globe. Adam Tepper also stated that their last mover advantage has enabled the company to spend thousands of hours on R&D while learning from the mistakes made by other exchanges. This will enable IR to provide users with a platform that is "completely robust."
IR do not collect GST when a customer buys or sells bitcoin, but it is charged as part of the brokerage fee. At this point in time, GST collected on top of the brokerage fee is being absorbed by the company. IR charge a flat rate fee of 0.5% on all trades. Customers can also request that all email from IR is PGP signed, one of few exchanges to provide this option.
“The use and ownership of Bitcoins is growing steadily, and those who use them or are interested in using them want a safe, secure place to buy, sell and store them. Our team has a solid background in finance as well as IT, bringing the rigour of a financial services framework to the new Bitcoin industry."
said Mr Tepper. The team consists of the following people:
Adam Tepper1, Adrian Przelozny2, Lasanka Perera3, Michael Locke4, Michael Go5, Allan Ritchie6, Sophie Gerber7 and James Livingston8.
To ensure IR is compliant with Australian regulations, Sophie Gerber has been liaising with ASIC regarding digital currencies. Michael Go believes regulation of Bitcoin in Australia is a welcome development stating
“the fact that regulators and industry watchdogs are taking Bitcoin seriously is an excellent thing. With increased regulation and vigilance comes improvements in the quality and safety of the industry as a whole, which is something we very much welcome. Bitcoin is an important form of payment for millions of people now, with very significant companies like Dell accepting them as payment, prices shown on Bloomberg terminals and Bitcoin ATMs opening every week. It’s really positive to see the ongoing legitimisation of the Bitcoin environment and its operators.”
The company believes what makes it different to other exchanges is that it is audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers and has a strict adherence to KYC and AML compliance protocols. In designing the security of the exchange, IR developed the Airmashal platform which "is a modular and secure system consisting of multiple loosely coupled components which can be secured and scaled individually." The core of Airmarshal involves Airlock, which is an "enterprise grade authentication subsystem which provides authentication, authorisation and logging mechanisms for both our users and the system as a whole." as well as Airgap, a proprietary hot wallet although IR claim the majority of bitcoin is held in cold storage.
With a total of 21.62 bitcoin traded so far, Independent Reserve claims it "is where investors, traders and everyday people come to buy and sell Bitcoin." To state what they aspire to is already factual is not the best start, even if it amounts to nothing more than marketing drivel.
Source – https://independentreserveinthemedia.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/qa.pdf text version https://independentreserveinthemedia.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/media-release-independent-reserve-launch.pdf text version