Power of two: Aussie crypto platforms Collective Shift and Swyftx team up for market research venture

Two leading Australian crypto platforms – the Collective Shift digital-investment analysis outfit and Swyftx, one of the country’s largest exchanges – have teamed up to bolster the latter’s crypto market-research venture.

According to info provided to Stockhead from Collective Shift founder and CEO Ben Simpson, the Swyftx Learn website is the most widely used Aussie education platform for digital assets.

The collaboration aims to “shake up the crypto-research market” by providing all Swyftx crypto exchange users free access to third-party, independent, expert analysis. It’s believed to be the first agreement of its kind in the cryptocurrency sector.

Collective Shift is becoming quite the local crypto-industry success story, growing from tricky startup beginnings a couple of years ago to where it stands today, as Australia’s leading retail crypto research and education platform, with more than 6,000 members globally.

The firm recently closed a $1.5 million seed-investment at a $15 million valuation, with backers that include San Francisco-based RNR Capital (a fund backed by JPMorgan), and the Melbourne-based Smorgon family office.

Regarding the Swyftx parternship, Simpson, said: “There is a real lack of independent, quality education and research in the crypto industry that everyday Australians can understand.

“We’re helping investors navigate crypto confidently through easy-to-understand content and services from our team of global analysts. I’m excited to be able to partner with a leading exchange like Swyftx to provide their users with quality insights so they can invest with the latest strategies and insights directly inside the Swyftx platform.”

Education should help the crypto industry mature

According to Swyftx data, an estimated 4.2m adult Australians owned cryptocurrency in 2022. And around 21% of Aussies who do own, or have owned, digital assets in the past, reported either little understanding of the market (18%) or no understanding at all (3%).

So that’s a good fifth just aping in blindly because they probably heard Dogecoin could make them rich.

Swyftx co-founder and CEO, Alex Harper, said: “The crypto industry needs to mature over the next 12 months and one aspect of that is taking responsibility for educating consumers.

“The dynamics of the market have completely changed since FTX [the Sam Bankman-Fried-run exchange, which imploded amid revelations of spectacular levels of mismanagement and charges of fraud]. Cryptocurrency users are more questioning and they want credible, independent analysis around market fundamentals and risks. Especially in an environment where there is not yet any access to regulated advice.”

The partnership between Swyftx and Collective Shift will focus on providing weekly independent market research, including deep analysis on specific use cases and risks of individual cryptocurrencies.

Harper added: “A significant majority of crypto users in Australia report a strong level of understanding around the market. But the complexity and novelty of blockchain tech means you’re still seeing information asymmetries and confusion in the market, especially among retail users. The best defence against this is education.”

Swyftx is the country’s second largest Australian-run cryptocurrency exchange, with more than 635K customers. According to the info given us, “just over 1.5 million unique users have accessed Swyftx’s Learn platform since its launch in February last year”.

As for Collective Shift, Harper describes it as “the top retail research provider in the country and one of the very best in the world.”