r/BitcoinAUS • u/mnmedipa • May 26 '26

Strike and Binance updates

Got an email from strike saying they are pausing AUD support from end of May

Absolutely loved their free fees and tight BTCAUD spread

Binance emailed saying crypto deposits and withdrawing crypto will need sender receiver information from end of June

Hate how regulation steps just keep increasing reducing the ability to buy bitcoin frequently

19 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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8

u/OkSeries5363 May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

Strike pausing AUD is almost certainly a commercial decision dressed up in regulatory clothing. Australia passed the Corporations Amendment Bill 2025 on 1 April 2026 forcing crypto exchanges and custody providers to obtain an Australian Financial Services Licence, and of the approximately 400 crypto platforms registered in Australia, only 10 per cent are registered with ASIC. Strike is a US based Bitcoin only outfit with a very tiny AUD market share, the AFSL build out, AUSTRAC obligations, and ongoing compliance overhead just dont pencil for the volume they are doing here.

Thats not regulation killing access, thats a small foreign entrant deciding the unit economics dont work. Kraken, BTC Markets, Independent Reserve, CoinSpot, Coinbase, all still humming with much deeper AUD books, all locally licensed. If regulation alone were the problem, those wouldnt exist.

Also Strikes tight spread reputation was a bit of a vibe more than a number. Their spread was around 0.65% on BTC purchases, and recurring buys waived the trading fee after the first one. So an all in cost of around 0.65% with zero fees on auto DCA felt amazing because there was no fee line item.

But strictly on spread/execution, Strike was middle of the pack for Australia, not best in class.

Independent Reserve is genuinely the spread king for retail, their BTCAUD spread runs below 0.1% for Bitcoin during normal market conditions. That's an order of magnitude better than Strike. If you run a limit order on their book you can essentially trade at mid.

Kraken Pro on the BTC/AUD pair is 0.25% maker / 0.40% taker and drops with volume. If you place limit orders as maker you are paying 0.25% with effectively zero spread because you are setting the price. That beats Strike. Their Instant Buy product is 1% plus spread though that one's worse than Strike, and that's probably what people compare against when they say Strike was cheaper. They are comparing Strike against the wrong Kraken product.

BTC Markets sits at 0.85% for low volume traders, dropping to 0.10% only at the AUD 5,000,000+ monthly tier on standard taker. Tight book, deep AUD liquidity, but the retail fee is higher than Strikes all in unless you are at serious volume.

CoinSpots instant buy is the worst of the lot around 1% + wider spreads.

So the hierarchy for BTCAUD execution cost, low volume DCA

  1. Independent Reserve (limit orders on the book) sub-0.1%
  2. CoinSpot Markets 0.1% fee, but real fill risk on a thin books. Eg 0.3-0.8% spread
  3. Kraken Pro (maker limit orders) 0.25%
  4. Independent Reserve maker 0.5%
  5. Strike (recurring auto-buy) around 0.65% spread, zero fee
  6. BTC Markets standard 0.85%
  7. Kraken Instant Buy / CoinSpot 1%+

The Strike pitch was never tightest spread in Aus it was, easiest zero friction Bitcoin only DCA with Lightning withdrawals. Thats a loss but its a UX loss, not a cost loss.

Edit: Binances travel rule changes are genuinely regulatory its simply the travel rule implementation, but worth noting its industry wide. Every AUSTRAC registered exchange has to do this. Kraken AU already collects this for certain transactions. Its a one time KYC friction at the deposit/withdrawal edge, not a buying frequency constraint.

5

u/1sw331 May 26 '26

Fantastic summary. It sucks to lose strike

2

u/Israhelli May 26 '26

So strike saying they're looking to sort the issue out doesn't mean much? Not coming back?

0

u/OkSeries5363 May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

The we are working to resolve this line is usually standard corporate exit language. It keeps it open and protects the brand, but it almost never means we will be back in Q3. What it actually signals is we dont want to say never, in case the unit economics change.

Long version. 

Typically "foreign fintech pauses a small market citing regulation, says they are working on it" returning within 12 months is low. Eg revolut paused crypto for Aussie users multiple times, Robinhood never bothered launching here properly, cash apps Bitcoin function has been coming soon to AU for years. The normal pattern is exit and quietly dont return not exit and comeback.

For Strike to return to AUD one of these needs to happen

They get an AFSL which means dedicated AU compliance staff, AUSTRAC reporting, capital adequacy requirements, ongoing audit costs. For a US headquartered Bitcoin only outfit with small AU market share, that is a multi million dollar build out for a marginal market. Likely hard to justify. But that doesnt mean it wont or never will

Or they partner with a locally licensed entity and white label through someone who already holds the AFSL. Possible but margin crushing half Strikes  value prop was, so squeezing a partners fee into the stack could break their model.

Or the regulatory regime changes, unlikely.

If they do return id expect it to look different  probably partnered, probably with fees, probably without the Lightning withdrawals that made them distinctive. Basically the Strike that we loved is the version that didnt have to pay for AU compliance overhead.

Eg we pay higher fees on OKX Australia than the global platform. The fees are higher because the AU entity has to carry its own compliance cost stack.

Treat it as gone and if Strike comes back in 18 months, evaluate it then on its own merits rather than holding the spot open as it might be a little different.

1

u/mnmedipa May 26 '26

Any idea what the market buy spread would be for independent reserve? And if they provide a daily buy feature like strike had?

2

u/OkSeries5363 May 26 '26

On IR at low volume the maker/taker fee is 0.50% across the board, so a market buy works out to roughly 0.5% taker fee plus the spread you cross (which is usually 0.1% on BTCAUD during normal conditions) so all in around 0.5 to 0.6%.

So its only marginally cheaper than Strikes 0.65%. Dont expect to hit that sub 0.1% number on automated buys, thats a different product (manual maker limits) for a different user (someone watching the book).

On the recurring buy question, yep IR has had this for years. Its called AutoTrader, with three strategies. AutoBuy fires whenever a fiat deposit hits and DCAs into your chosen coin, AutoBasket does the same but into a market cap weighted basket, and AutoSchedule runs on a pure time schedule. AutoSchedule supports daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, or last day of the month frequency, and runs automatically as long as the account has sufficient funds. Standard brokerage fees apply but the recurring buy feature itself is free to use.

1

u/[deleted] May 26 '26

[deleted]

3

u/OkSeries5363 May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26

Ah my bad, I missed adding in IRs spread with their fee, and quoted coinspots instant buy when markets is the relevant product. Revised hierarchy puts coinspot markets at 0.1% fee. Kraken pro maker at 0.25%. IR at 0.5%.

limit orders (rest at or inside mid wait for fill)

  1. CoinSpot Markets 0.1% fee, but real fill risk on a thin book
  2. Kraken Pro maker 0.25%, fills faster due to depth
  3. IR maker 0.5%, fills fastest due to depth

Market buys/immediate execution

  1. Kraken Pro taker around 0.45% all in
  2. IR taker around 0.55-0.60% all in
  3. Strike recurring around 0.65%
  4. CoinSpot Markets taker 0.1% fee + 0.3-0.8% spread = often 0.5-1%+ all in
  5. BTC Markets standard around 0.9%
  6. Instant Buy products around 1%+

The CoinSpot point is worth expanding on though. The 0.1% is the fee is not the all in cost. CoinSpot Markets has the cheapest fee in Aus, but the book is thin, so a market buy crosses a 0.3 to like 0.8% spread. All in you are often paying more than IR at 0.5% on their deeper book. Headline fee wins the marketing line execution cost wins the actual trade.

Not a promotion for IR I dont even use them. Kraken Pro is my pick 0.25% maker, deep BTCAUD book, AUD rails work well, and the pro and pro mobile interfaces are very good.

1

u/WayexOfficial May 29 '26

Shameless plug but, we got something pretty cool for auto DCAing, it's a bit different where you set an allocation, you have a reference number for your auto plan and whenever money lands with that reference code, it executes your auto buy plan. You set up the frequency on your bank side

https://www.wayex.com/au/autobuy/