The contents of this newsletter are point-in-time statements. Please note the date of publication.

Quarterly Update

4 April 2023

We hereby update the community for the March quarter.

The highlight of the quarter was an approach from a venture capital investment group recognizing the vast potential to participate in the growth of the Qoin project.  In March the VC instructed a leading professional advisory firm to advise it on key areas of the Qoin project including licensing, regulatory and structuring arrangements.

Important tech milestones were reached during the quarter when the public Qoin Block Explorer as well as the upgraded Qoin Wallet Applications were tested internally and by community leaders. Subject to Google and Apple app store approvals it is anticipated that these great products will be released to the community during April.

Qoin Digital Network broadcasted their 90^th episode in March and continues to attract hundreds of viewers to the QDN YouTube channel.

During the first quarter of 2023, the community transacted 7,021,166 Qoin across 15,540 transactions between wallets resulting in an average transaction size of Q451. This data excludes internal related transactions. A total of 2,454,109 Qoin has been wrapped to the end of March 2023.

This quarter was dominated with industry news of crypto friendly bank collapses around the world, including Silvergate Bank, Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, as well as Swiss giant Credit Suisse. Australian banks followed to debank crypto exchanges including BTX.

Regulators have commenced enforcement actions or investigations into the worlds’ largest crypto exchanges including Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.

Notwithstanding the turmoil in the banking industry and aggressive USA and Australian regulatory litigation the crypto market index is up over 40% from its January lows. Many other governments, including the European Union, United Kingdom and Australia are considering implementing new regulatory and licensing frameworks for crypto assets and services this year. It is anticipated that this may stabilize the industry further towards the end of this year.

In an unexpected development over the past fortnight in the USA, Coinbase Inc, the largest listed crypto organization in the world, published this must-read announcement titled “We asked the SEC for reasonable crypto rules for Americans. We got legal threats instead”. Read it here: https://www.coinbase.com//blog/we-asked-the-sec-for-reasonable-crypto-rules-for-americans-we-got-legal

BPS Financial Pty Ltd “BPS” has filed their defense against ASIC who must file their response by 6 April 2023. Central to this matter is a dispute regarding appropriate licensing arrangements. As announced previously, BPS’ position is that it is appropriately licensed for its non -cash payments facility. BPS consulted with ASIC in 2019 prior to launching the Qoin Digital Wallet.

BPS is eagerly awaiting the Australian government proposed crypto asset licensing framework to be announced by the end of June this year as stated in the Token Mapping Consultation paper dated 3 February 2023. This proposed licensing framework may bring some form of clarity to the industry prior to the trial date scheduled for 16 October 2023.

The applicants for the representative proceedings have now deposited into the court their $750,000 security for costs. As the ASIC and representative proceedings have overlapping matters and, in the interest of judicial efficiencies, the court has appointed Judge Downes to case manage both proceedings. The first case management hearing is scheduled for 20 April. The BPS legal team is ready to finally defend this matter to its conclusion in the interest of community members.

Salerno Law, who commenced the representative proceedings back in 2021, had an associate crypto exchange by the name of Trigon Trading. Both Salerno Law and Trigon Trading were headed by Matteo Salerno. Per media reports [Courier Mail] Trigon Trading has been placed in administration owing Australian creditors $80 million.

Although these two matters have caused the Qoin project, and by extension our +50,000 vested community members, considerable harm and damage, we will not be deterred in our daily efforts to continue building the Qoin trading ecosystem of merchants and consumers on blockchain technology.

We thank our loyal community for your continued support and patience over the quarter to help build the Qoin utility and ecosystem.

Your Qoin Team