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Crypto craze drives two new Perth ventures
The West Australian5 Feb 2018Peter Milne
Picture : Ian Munro
Blockboxx founder Martin McGinty wants to launch a blockchain workspace in Perth.
Two Perth start-ups are entering the world of blockchain very differently, ---------------------------
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Blockboxx founder Martin McGinty wants to gather together the existing expertise in Perth to move the technology forward.
Mr McGinty, an IT professional, became involved with blockchain only early last year but, like the technology itself, wants to move fast.
He said there were hundreds of online platforms where the enthusiastic early adopters of blockchain technology and trading exchanged ideas.
“I want to get all that and bring it into a room,” he said.
Mr McGinty said the response to his idea to have a space in the city for traders and technology developers had exceeded his expectations. He hoped to have a space open next month for founding members.
Digital Capital Management was set up by two pairs of brothers from country WA. Chief executive Todd Burgess and his brother Chadd, from Donnybrook, have teamed up with Albany siblings Ben and Adam Ritchie to offer a blockchain fund for wholesale investors.
DCM operations officer Ben Ritchie said they wanted to give investors exposure to the dis- tributed ledger technology of blockchain but recognised it was difficult for individual investors to manage the buying, selling and security of the digital assets.
He said the technology had world-changing potential and bitcoin was just the first iteration.
Their message is that investment in blockchain is not just about cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Investment in platforms, multi-use public blockchains, make up 60 per cent of their fund.
Mr Ritchie likened one such platform, Ethereum, to Apple’s app store. As Apple built a platform that allowed apps to operate, Ethereum supports industry-specific applications called tokens. He said blockcryptocurrency chains were very expensive to set up, so new applications piggy-backed off existing blockchains such as Ethereum.
Mr Ritchie said interest from investors since the fund opened in December was driven by a desire for an investment that was not correlated with other types of assets, concern about geopolitical risk and wanting this new asset class represented in their balanced portfolio.
Chadd Burgess, DCM’s portfolio manager, said he recognised it was a high-risk, high-return investment. “We wouldn't recommend anyone to put a large portion of their portfolio into this space because it’s a developing market, it’s a developing class and . . . there is extreme volatility,” he said.
