How a retail broker's failed crypto push nearly upended the online trading market
ASX-listed broker Selfwealth came within a whisker of defying ASIC to launch crypto trading alongside equities. But bad luck and timing brought the plan undone.
It was late 2021 when crypto momentum really began building inside Selfwealth. The ASX-listed retail trading platform had done well out of the pandemic-fuelled trading boom, attracting almost 120,000 users by the end of a year characterised by mania around 'meme' stocks like GameStop and AMC, and other heavily traded names like Tesla.
But being tied up in equities meant the platform and its peers like Stake and Superhero were missing out on a lot of the action —and they knew it.
On the other side of the retail trading fence, irresistibly close and potentially far more profitable, was another booming market: cryptocurrency.
Crypto was a whole different ball game and Selfwealth put together a plan to get a piece of it. Over the next few months, it came within a whisker of launching a crypto offering before last ditch events brought the whole project crashing down.
