The last twelve months have been rather challenging for the auto industry.Disruption to global supply chains have meant that local car brands haven’t been able to get enough supply to meet demand – and demand’s been intense. With The Spicy Cough continuing to loom large, Australians have been ditching public transport in droves and buying cars instead, the upshot being that car dealerships are incredibly low on stock and the used car market is going absolutely ballistic.On top of all this, the Australian automotive landscape is undergoing dramatic changes. With iconic Aussie brand Holden all but shut up shop and electric cars becoming more and more common on our roads, it’s clear that we’re at a turning point – a point hammered home by some telling new sales statistics.The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries has just released their VFACTS report for February 2021, which reveals that Chinese brand MG has finally broken through into the list of top 10 auto brands for new car sales in Australia, leapfrogging brands such as Mercedes-Benz, Subaru and Volkswagen to take eighth position overall, a growth of +159.4% over this time last year. This comes off the back of a stellar 2020, which saw the brand record an over +83% growth in sales.“Of course, we’re only two months into what is a bounce-back year from the pandemic-crippled market in 2020, but MG’s rise through the ranks has been recorded on a monthly basis for a couple of years now, making it no overnight sensation,” Carsales Business relates.

Founded in 1924 in Oxford, England, the MG brand has had a checkered history and a number of owners over the last century. While the brand is famous for sporting models like the MGB and the Midget, for most of its existence the MG name has been used to denote sporty versions of cars produced by other British manufacturers, such as the Austin Metro and the Rover 75, rather than a marque in its own right.British mass-market cars have long had a (well-deserved) reputation for being poorly built and unreliable, and while the MG brand is remembered more fondly than most, the negative reputation still lingers. Since 2005, however, the MG brand has been owned by Chinese automaker SAIC: modern MGs have little in common with the British models of old except for the badge, and MG is now positioned as a somewhat sporty, export-oriented, budget car brand.RELATED: Australians Ditching Luxury SUVs For This Pint Sized Japanese AlternativeYet Chinese cars have long had a reputation for being poorly built and unreliable, too – derided as ‘Beijing billycarts’; looked upon with suspicion and even outright hatred among some Australian car buyers (with a degree of racism informing this prejudice, it must be said). But modern MGs are actually remarkably well-made cars, with their continued success proof positive that the Chinese auto industry has made great strides in recent years.It’s a story we’ve seen many times before. Post-WWII, Japanese cars were considered inferior, then they slowly became popular thanks to their low prices and quality construction, and now Japanese brands like Honda and Mitsubishi are some of the world’s largest.In recent years, South Korean car makers like Kia and Hyundai have experienced the same journey; same prejudice – and now South Korean cars are commonplace on Australian roads. Now it’s China’s turn.

Speaking of Korean cars, another February 2021 new car sales success story has been Genesis, Hyundai’s luxury marque, which recorded a whopping +460% growth in sales compared to February 2020 – a real wake-up call for Japanese and European luxury brands.RELATED: Why Luxury Purists Will Be Impressed By The New Genesis SUVOther big winners include Toyota, Australia’s best-selling car brand staying on top with 18,375 sales (+3.9%) and a crushing 21.9% share of the entire market; Bentley, the luxury British marque recording a surprising +42.9% growth in sales; and Škoda, whose healthy +41.8% growth reflects how Australians are starting to warm to the once-overlooked Czech brand.Will MG – and other Chinese brands – continue to rise the ranks in the Australian car world, or will the Japanese and South Korean brands fight back? Only time will tell. For now, at least, we just hope more new cars start arriving in the country soon. The used car market’s just getting silly.

Read Next

• Modern Performance Car ‘Malaka Button’ Leaves Australian Motoring Purists Fuming
• Wild American Off-Road Vehicle Trend More Aussies Should Be Embracing

The post Surprising Car Brand Becomes Unexpected Australian Sales Success appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

Fast cars, fast friendships, Instagram sponsored posts, megayachts – millionaires are known for many things. Patience is not really one of them. Unfortunately (or perhaps, from a less contorted perspective, fortunately) when it comes to love, you can’t buy it.Thus: Luxy.Before we jump into the bubble bath of ‘millionaire’ dating, here’s a little context. Premium dating apps have exploded in recent years. Though Tinder and Bumble still reign supreme, more luxurious offerings have more than found their place in the online dating industry, which Financial Times reports is worth $2.5bn in the US alone.Premium dating apps include Toffee, The Inner Circle and The League, which screen people based on everything from whether or not they were privately schooled, their bank balance, the industry they work in and how many LinkedIn connections they have.RELATED: ‘I Felt Incredibly Naive & Unprepared’: What Really Happens At A Couples Only ResortThere is also, of course, Luxy, which calls itself a “millionaires’ matchmaker” and which – when it launched in 2014 – touted itself as “Tinder, minus the poor people.”In 2018, Raffael Krause, marketing manager of Luxy, told Financial Times that Luxy had “been profitable since its first year of operation and now has more than 2m users.”“Those who apply to be accepted on to the app, which is free at the basic level, must first pass a 24-hour process where they are vetted by existing members,” Financial Times reports. “Luxy’s staff then filter those applicants again ‘to check whether or not the user fits.’ Only 10-15 per cent of those who apply are accepted and the company claims that half of its active members earn more than $500,000.”

“Its website showcases photos of a handful of select members and their respective salaries: Irina in France who earns more than $350,000; Jason in Los Angeles who earns above $250,000; and Robert in Seattle who earns more than $750,000.”

Remarks on the website’s homepage show users spruiking the fantastic time they had on the app.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Luxy – Selective Dating (@onluxy)

“The best dating app ever!” One testimonial reads. “Luxy is really awesome, and I love it over other dating apps. I met plenty of pretty girls there and had a bunch of interesting experiences.”“Got 38 likes a day! This app is perfect and full of genuine people. I’d definitely recommend Luxy to all my friends,” wrote another.It even includes a quote from Jimmy Kimmel, who said: “Those of you who are single: there is a new dating app exclusively for rich people – Luxy. While Tinder is for all kind of people, Luxy is exclusively for the top 1%.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Luxy – Selective Dating (@onluxy)

The website claims 60% of Luxy members have a verified annual income of more than £200,000 and 41% are verified millionaires. It also claims there are no Sugar Babies or Sugar Daddies.However, the reviews left about the app in the Google Play app store show another side to the Luxy dating experience – the downside of there not being the massive volume of other apps.Though some users have found love anyway (see: the following video), others are irate.According to the aggrieved users, there are two main problems. One: the app has a tendency to crash. And two: there is not a big enough user base to make the app worthwhile for everyone.Thirdly, there is another common complaint, which is that you can’t properly assess the above until after you’ve paid. Though it should be noted the app does explain this (perhaps not clearly enough) on its homepage. It’s also worth noting that much of the vitriol may be exaggerated due to the disappointed frame of mind of the complaining users.Though one user was impressed with “the [people] I met on [the app]” he complained “there are serious bugs in the code” saying that “it’s the only app on my phone that freezes and crashes multiple times per use.”

“I hope it gets ironed out, but the rest is great.”

The freezing was a common complaint. Another wrote: “Horrible performance. App locks up for 2m every time I try to message someone.”

Another user griped, “I continue to have to delete app and install over and over. I wasn’t provided with much help. This app is just a high price rip off. After you pay for these different statuses and then you pay more for extra gifts and perks. The name and features give you access to people of stature all over the world… but the service doesn’t add up.”“Can’t view anything or message unless you pay 70 a month. Can’t view other profiles to see if it would even be worth paying to message people,” wrote another.

“I have no issues paying for the costly membership, but they won’t even allow you to see if there are members near you. [It] takes your money, then you find out the nearest members are 2,000 miles away. Not [keen] to pay $70 just to see if there are people near me.”

“This app is the worst. Doesn’t work half the time and lies about how many individuals are nearby. Save your money and use another app.”Back to Tinder and Bumble it is, it seems.Rich people aren’t the only ones struggling to find a date right now. As DMARGE reported last year, though online dating saw a boom during 2020, the number of people feeling satisfied by their pandemic pashes hasn’t necessarily risen at the same rate.Unlucky in love indeed.

Read Next

• What It Means When Your Partner Starts Liking Your Instagram Crush’s Photos 
• American Actress’ Risqué Selfie Reveals The Woeful State Of Men’s Pick Up Game

The post Luxy Dating App: The Cold Hard Truth appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

Formula One has always been a particularly stylish sport, but it seems that Ferrari’s keen to up the ante.The legendary Italian constructor has just unveiled a wide-ranging partnership with famous designer fashion label Giorgio Armani, which will now see the entire Scuderia Ferrari team – including 2021 drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. – wearing Giorgio Armani for all their off-track activities.Incorporating sportswear technologies from his Emporio Armani line, the legendary designer has crafted a bold yet functional navy blue collection of clothes for the F1 team, dark blue being a colour traditionally associated with Italian sporting livery.This comes off the back of rival F1 constructor McLaren’s recent collaboration with LA-based luxury streetwear label Rhude, which sent waves throughout both the sport and the fashion world. They’re clearly keen to show that McLaren’s not the only stylish outfit in F1 – but it’s also part of a push by Ferrari to refocus their brand’s image.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Scuderia Ferrari (@scuderiaferrari)

Ferrari isn’t just a car maker or an F1 team but a fully-fledged luxury brand – one of the world’s most iconic luxury brands, too. But their exclusive image has been diluted in recent years by selling too much merchandise for too cheap a price. As Ferrari Chief Executive Louis Camilleri told Business of Fashion, Ferrari’s “current offerings are too stretched and are in danger of diluting our very precious brand equity.”Partnering up with Armani is part of a broader push by the Prancing Horse to rationalise their merchandising options and restore some of the glory to their name. As a bonus, it’ll have their F1 team looking stylish as hell, too. Leclerc and Sainz must be pretty happy.RELATED: Finnish Formula One Legend Shares ‘Viking’ Secret Behind Succeeding In LifeFerrari and Armani’s new relationship, much like Italian watch manufacturer Panerai’s partnership with the Prada Linea Rossa America’s Cup team, speaks to a growing trend of patriotic collaborations between Italian luxury brands. Armani himself puts it this way:

“Today, more than ever, we need to find a way to promote Italian excellence in a dialogue between different areas and disciplines. Ferrari is recognised around the world as a symbol of Italy and I am proud of this collaboration. I have come up with an elegant wardrobe for the drivers, which is suitable for their travels in the hope that we can all be on the move again soon and that, all together, we are ready for our country’s recovery.”

This week has also seen Scuderia Ferrari unveiled a new car, which they’ll use for the next few years. The SF21 is very much an iterative design, with the FIA’s strict regulations shaping Ferrari’s updates.“This car is the 67th to be built in Maranello to compete in the Formula 1 World Championship and is an evolution of last year’s SF1000, as dictated by the regulations, which require the use of the same chassis as in 2020, thus limiting the opportunities for change in many areas,” Ferrari relates.

“Therefore, the SF21 was developed in all the permitted areas, from the engine, which is completely new, to the aerodynamics and, at the rear end, which is where the two development tokens allowed in the regulations have been used.”

We’ll see Leclerc, Sainz and the SF21 in action at the 2021 Formula One World Championship, which is set to kick off with the Bahrain Grand Prix on the 28th of March.

Read Next

• ‘Bintang Benetton’: Bali Man’s F1 Car Replica Is The Ultimate Lockdown Success Story
• Australia’s Most Vilified Profession May Actually Be The Country’s Best Dressed

The post Ferrari Becomes World’s Best Dressed Formula One Team Thanks To New Partnership appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

While many travel trends fell of a cliff last year, one flew on in scintillating style: poor passenger behaviour at 40,000ft. These spats appear to be carrying over in 2021, with maskless tourists on a domestic Indonesian flight recently coming under fire on social media for an alleged violation of COVID-19 protocol.As Asia based news and lifestyle outlet Coconuts reports, “The issue of privilege resurfaced on Indonesian Twitter over the weekend, after one user showed a photo of foreigners not wearing masks when boarding a Citilink flight.”The flight took them from Bali capital Denpasar to Labuan Bajo (Komodo Island).The Tweet claimed the airline hostesses did not say anything to the passengers, despite the apparent violation of health and safety protocols.“Once again flying from Bali, once again foreigners are free and allowed to enter the plane without masks, the flight attendants are silent and do not say anything to them,” user Kelli Swazey, who is also a foreign national, and whose Twitter bio describes her as “an anthropologist navigating the Eremocene,” posted on Saturday morning.

“The plane is only half full, passengers are forced to sit together in the back row without social distancing, the seats in front remain empty,” she added.“Allow us to apologize profusely for the inconvenience you experienced, please be willing to be able to send your flight details via DM so that we can immediately forward this to the related unit. thank you,” Citilink Indonesia replied publicly on Twitter.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Avro Anthony Idris (@avroanthonyidris738)

Kelli told Coconuts Citilink only gave her “the standard sorry for bad service reply.”The airline has in the meantime put out a statement that said the flight crew of that particular flight, QG 634 headed to Labuan Bajo from Denpasar, did personally reprimand the passengers without masks.RELATED: Kelly Slater Scoring Filthy Barrels In Bali Sparks Fierce Travel Debate“After they were reprimanded, the passengers who did not use masks put them back on again,” said Resty Kusandarina, a spokeswoman from Citilink, adding that the mask requirement during the flight was also announced in both English and Indonesian and that the airline enforces strict health protocols throughout its entire operation.Perhaps Indonesia might need to take inspiration from the US, which recently cracked down hard on mask averse passengers, after cabin crew were reportedly sick and tired of “playing babysitter for adults.”At the time of writing, the Tweet has 7,073 retweets and 18.9K likes. Many Twitter users have also jumped on the thread to express their concern about mask rule breakers. As Coconuts reports, officials have previously complained, “foreigners make up the majority of mask rule violators in Bali’s Badung regency.”RELATED: ‘Let The Envy Wash Over You’: The Truth About Working Remotely From Bali Right Now“Across the province,” according to Coconuts, “particularly in places popular among foreigners such as Ubud and Canggu, foreigners without masks are a pretty common sight.”

“Many restaurants, cafés, and clubs have also gotten flak for failing to maintain health protocols, with the leniency appearing to have been disproportionately granted for non-Indonesians.”

In other news, Bali has begun designating COVID-19 ‘green zones’ (PerthNow) and has also begun going back to ‘old ways of living’ after realising its economy is addicted to tourism (ABC).

Read Next

• I Tried Bali’s Instagram-Famous Floating Breakfast & It Was A Total Disaster
• Filmmaker Captures Rare Moment In Balinese History Most Australians Will Never Experience

The post Tourists Slammed For 'Entitled' Behaviour On Flight Leaving Bali appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

Justin Bieber‘s bizarre footwear chronicles continue…The 27-year-old music superstar is usually a pretty well-dressed dude, but footwear seems to be his kryptonite, as he consistently opts for rather weird options. The man famously has a fetish for rubber (shoes, we mean), like Crocs or these designer gumboots – and he’s a devotee of Kanye West’s most radical sneaker designs, like these alien-looking slides.Now it seems he’s back on the Yeezy tip once again, spotted in Los Angeles earlier this week with a pair of Yeezy 450 ‘Cloud White’ sneakers. Kanye’s partnership with Adidas has produced some seriously avant-garde sneakers over the years, but these 450s might just be the weirdest Yeezys yet: futuristic and organic-looking, they hark back to some of the early 00’s craziest aesthetics.Bieber leans into that 00s vibe with his outfit, too – rocking some baggy, paint-splattered trousers and a baseball jersey-inspired short-sleeve shirt over a long-sleeve shirt. Radical, dude.

Bieber might be a fan but not everyone’s keen on Kanye’s latest footwear design. Commenters on well-known sneaker speculator Yeezy Mafia’s recent Instagram posts reveal that sneakerheads “can’t tell if these are dope or ugly as hell”, with one commenter dubbing the 450s the “Divorce Yeezys” (referencing West’s speculated divorce from wife Kim Kardashian).“Should’ve saved these for the grand opening at The Gap… Them clothing store generics,” one fan brutally quipped. Last year, Kanye signed a 10-year, million-dollar deal with the giant American clothing label to produce “modern, elevated basics for men, women and kids at accessible price points,” The New York Times reports. Ironically, West used to work at The Gap as a retail assistant in his teens, notably rapping about having stolen from the store’s supply in order to make some extra money on his 2004 track Spaceship.While there’s plenty of trash talk circulating on the Internet about the 450s, the ‘Cloud Whites’ still sold out in minutes when they dropped on the 6th. The release also didn’t come without controversy, either: fans complained that the anti-botting software Adidas/Yeezy employed prevented far too many genuine customers from checking out.RELATED: Nike Vice President’s Son Sprung Stockpiling Enough Rare Sneakers To Fund Rogue StateLast week, Bieber announced that his sixth studio album Justice was almost done, and due to be released on March 19th. He’s already released four singles from the album: Holy and Lonely last year; Anyone on New Year’s Day this year; and Hold On only last week, alongside a slick music video that sees Bieber engage in a thrilling motorcycle escape from police. You can watch the clip here.

Read Next

• ‘Abused’ $900 Sneakers The Next Normal For Australian Luxury Consumers
• I Wore Every F*ckboi’s Favourite Footwear For A Week & It Changed My Life

The post Justin Bieber Spotted Wearing The Weirdest Yeezy Sneakers Yet appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

Professional footballers all need to be incredibly fit to be able to play at the top of their game. Strikers need to be fast and agile, midfielders need to have serious stamina and defenders need to have brute strength to prevent other players from passing.No player seems to know that better than Sergio Ramos. The Real Madrid and Spanish National Team centre back may be known for his dastardly moves on the field, but nobody can deny his ability both on the ball and his willingness to win it back (as well as, naturally, his defensive genius).Not only does he have a brilliant defensive mindset, but Ramos also commits serious time to the gym to keep his body in the shape of its life. He recently sustained a knee injury, but has remained dedicated as ever to get his body back up to its full fitness potential.Ever the source of workout inspiration, Ramos – who only just returned to full team training with Real Madrid this week – recently posted a video to his Instagram account that showed off one of his latest calf workouts. While it’s often said we should ‘never skip leg day,’ many gym goers take that to mean the quads, hamstrings and glutes. The calves are often overlooked, but having strong calves is especially vital to soccer players, as it’s a key muscle in helping to propel them forward.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sergio Ramos (@sergioramos)

To train his, Ramos takes the conventional barbell back squat (performed here on a smith machine, which provides extra stability), but switches it up, standing on a plate weight to provide some elevation. He moves his heel off the edge, and lowers himself down on one leg. Performing the squat this way predominantly targets the calf muscle, and the pause at the bottom of the two is equally important.How so? When you pause, you take the kinetic energy out of the equation. Instead of dropping down and powering upwards right away, which uses a touch of momentum from the downward motion, you instead have to utilise just the target muscle to get you back to your starting position.This not only helps improve your strength, but also the power the muscle is capable of delivering. Handy, when you’re sprinting down the pitch to prevent the other team from scoring.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sergio Ramos (@sergioramos)

While Ramos devotes several hours to training all the muscles in his body, including his core, the majority of ‘fit-spiration’ he posts to his page relates to his legs, with the results clearly visible in his epic body transformation.While we wouldn’t advocate imitating Ramos’ mean streak on the field, we most certainly recommend you try his leg workouts.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sergio Ramos (@sergioramos)

Ramos was part of the team that won the Champions League three years in a row (from 2016 to 2018) and will be looking to add another accolade to this belt this year. Madrid’s next Champions League game (leg two of round sixteen) comes against Atalanta on the 17th of March.As they say in the city of ham, wine and football: Hala Madrid.

Watch Sergio Ramos destroy his biggest workouts below.

Read Next

• Sergio Ramos Shows The Secret To Off Season Strength With Insane ‘Mr. T’ Workout
• Sergio Ramos’ Gruelling Rehabilitation Workout Will Have Your Legs Shaking

The post Sergio Ramos’ Champion Spec Workout Could Level Up Your Legs appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

Along with Tarocash suits, gilet vests, road bikes, electric scooters and takeaway Piccolos, cryptocurrency has been one of the most harshly mocked phenomenons of the last five years.Whether it stems from jealousy, tall poppy syndrome, suspicion of new things, disdain for Reddit, the social awkwardness of Elon Musk or legitimate concerns about the industry’s unregulated nature the fact remains – ‘crypto’ is still low key shameful to bring up at most social events.When prices are low people think you’re lame for caring or getting involved. When it’s going well people quote Warren Buffet and dismiss it all as a volatile pyramid scheme.Or so it was the first (and second) time The Bit boomed. This last cycle, however, it felt like half of Australia’s young professionals were scrambling to jump on the pyramid at its peak, furtively asking their accountants and IT mates: “What’s the go?”As Tim Brunette, co-founder of Crypto Tax Calculator, an Australian startup that has leapt up in the crypto-adjacent space, recently told DMARGE, ‘crypto’ is gaining greater cultural purchase and becoming less fringe.

“I was in the surf the other day and there were Grommies talking about trading on Uniswap.”

FOMO is a powerful beast.This renewed interest in cryptocurrency has come after an influx of new retail investors entered the (traditional) stock market in 2020. As the likes of Bloomberg and the Australian Financial Review have covered extensively, the free time afforded by lockdowns, combined with many white-collar workers being paid the same wage as they were before (and if not, receiving support cheques) while stocks took a dive saw a boom in mobile trading apps like Robinhood (in the US) and CommSec (in Australia).That sports betting and the pokies were temporarily out of action may have helped too. In any case, the habit seems to have stuck with many. Various stocks on traditional financial markets, such as Tesla, have hit all-time highs in the last 12 months, even as the so-called ‘real economy’ has faltered.RELATED: ‘Fluttering’: The Seductive Stock Market Trend Young Australian Investors Need To Be Wary Of Cryptocurrencies too have enjoyed a moment in the sun. After Bitcoin’s various spikes and falls over the last five years, it enjoyed an all-time high in February 2021.Whether or not cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have the real value some traditional investors demand of an investment (let alone the potential to replace fiat currency), they certainly now command Australia’s attention. Even bus shelter advertisements are spruiking them…

However, before newbie Australian crypto investors get in on The Bit (and other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum), there is a warning they need to hear.You could find yourself in hot water with the ATO (or bleeding more cash than you thought) if you don’t get your head around how to pay tax on your cryptocurrency investments.One mistake, in particular, is catching a lot of people out, brothers and co-founders of Crypto Tax Calculator, Shane and Tim Brunette recently told DMARGE. That mistake? Assuming you don’t have to pay tax until you cash out (or assuming you don’t have to pay tax unless you cash out for a greater amount than you put in).Shane told DMARGE, “Generally there is not a lot of awareness in the market around paying taxes on cryptocurrency.”“The general theme is that you only pay taxes – maybe – if you cash out for a positive amount than you put in.”

“But actually, when you trade a cryptocurrency for another cryptocurrency, that triggers a capital gain – and you’re expected to keep all your records in your local currency.”

“This means if you’re trading on an overseas exchange, which is actually pretty common, you’ve got to try to work out what the Australian dollar was at the point of sale, and you don’t have any reference prices there. Things like that are catching a lot of users off guard.”

“It’s like stocks – if you traded Apple for Tesla stocks directly you’d be triggering a capital gain and that’s no different to crypto.”

“When you’re trading a very bullish market at the moment where bitcoin is up around $50,000 dollars, a common strategy when the price crashes is for people to hold onto their losses hoping that it will rebound in a couple of years.”“In that case you’ve already realised gains by trading at the top of the market. If you hold on through to the next financial year you’ll have a realised gain you’ll have to pay and that gain can be significantly more than your current portfolio balance. So you can actually end up losing more than you put in just because of the taxes.”

“That happens quite a bit.”

This is why cryptocurrency tax, Shane explains, “is kind of a lagging market.”“We’re still picking up a lot of customers who were trading in 2017/2018.”The brothers founded the company a year ago, doubling down on a software tool Shane came up with in mid-2018.“In mid-2018 I first had the idea – we were trading back in the 2017 market.”“Back then there were a couple of products on the market, but they were aimed at Bitcoin Protocol, which is much simpler. Now you’ve got more complicated products and this idea of decentralised finance… well back then it was more like just [the] Ethereum network. There was no tool for dealing with more complex transactions.”“The existing software didn’t really handle any of this and the solution at the time was to have someone manually manage it for you.”

“For the mid four figure quotes we were getting… I naively thought as a software engineer I’d be able to just write a script that would just solve this problem pretty quickly. It ended up taking me a few months. Then I released it on Reddit for free.”

“It sat there for a couple of years and was a free tool for quite some time. Then a year ago I doubled down and Tim joined.”“Since then – since the rewrite – we’ve been getting a lot of traction because of those complex transactions that people are engaging in now.”

“Tax scenarios that people have got themselves in end up being really complex and can only really be solved with appropriate software tools.”

How do the pair know they are getting the programming right? Well, first of all, they told DMARGE, they trade crypto themselves (and have since the very beginning, with the initial program being designed to circumvent their personal need for an accountant), so they are constantly testing and refining the software.Also, they told us, “we do work with a lot of accountants,” and “a lot of accountants use our calculator.”Beyond that, “We’ve had 1000s of users using the platform. So we get a lot of feedback from them.”The pair have seen huge growth since October 2020, telling DMARGE – if it continues – they are on track to hit one million Australian dollars in revenue this year.“New users who only recently have started trading are starting to realise there will probably be tax implications to those activities,” Shane told DMARGE.“Those kind of new customers have been coming in since October… but more so in the last couple of months and that’s also reflected in the price increases – the crypto space itself was lagging behind the share market.”Shane and Tim attribute the rapid growth of the platform to both the growth of the market of late (both fiat and crypto), the Aussie tax season, and the October rewrite (which turned their calculator product into a subscription model).

“We started rewriting February last year.”

“We took the lessons from the prior two years. Cryptocurrency is a very new domain and cryptocurrency taxes is an even newer domain. You’ve got some very unique requirements, which isn’t traditional to normal accounting. For example, the decimal places of cryptocurrency coins can be to 18 decimal places… so how do you handle that?”“Then with fees, you know, [there is the whole] trying to match that back to the two decimal places that you have in fiat currencies. There are a lot of technical challenges.”“The release of the product timed pretty well, because it unknowingly coincided with the ATO cracking down on cryptocurrency taxes. They were reportedly sending out a lot of emails around. I think the number was around 300,000. So that was driving a lot of demand to our site as well.”

“As you can imagine, if you’ve got a letter like that, you’re going to be looking for a solution.”

“Now it’s becoming more known in the market that you do need to pay taxes on crypto, whereas before, I think, there were a lot of people trying to naively pretend that they didn’t have to pay taxes until they got told that they had to,” Shane told DMARGE.Tim added: “A lot of people think, ‘Oh, no, you don’t need to pay tax until you cash out. This is something I’m going to kick down the line.'”The increasing number of people seeking cryptocurrency tax calculator services like the Brunette brothers’ may also be down to the growing trend of “de gens” – a phenomenon whereby internet-savvy (but not necessarily financially savvy) hoodlums (think, everyone from Silicon Valley tech bros to teenage Cronulla surfers) play in the wild west of decentralised finance.For those who aren’t in the know, it’s kind of like ‘Wall Street Bets‘ but for crypto.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Wall Street Memes | WSB Merch (@wallstmemes)

Coindesk describes decentralised finance and its glorified games of chicken as “a crossover between massive multiplayer online (MMO) games, like World of Warcraft, and crypto pump-and-dump schemes.”In other words: “minimally viable monetary experiments,” as one experiment even dubbed itself.“These new projects are about leveraging Ethereum’s tech for unintended uses,” Coindesk reports. “They’re about making crypto fun again.”

“They’re about making money.”

To better understand the attitude of those involved in such schemes, the comments of Amentum Capital co-founder Steven McKie are illuminating.McKie told Coindesk, “The longer it takes you to do due diligence in this cycle, the lower your alpha.”

“If you are clued in to play the game, play it. If not, sit out to the next one.”

As we said – an extremely risky game of chicken…“McKie was an early liquidity provider for Based.Money, another DeFi MMO game (as he likened it to),” Coindesk reports. The project’s anonymous ‘Ghouls’ founding team welcomed its users warmly via Tor, allegedly, with the following message:

“WE ARE LIVE. GET THE F*CK IN YOU DEGENERATES.”

Speaking of “de gens”… Tim told DMARGE, these days “you don’t need to even have a cryptocurrency or verify your identity [to invest in this ‘meme space’]. With an exchange, you don’t need to be over 18. I was in the surf the other day and there were grommies talking about trading on Uniswap.”

“They’re talking about their mad gains and stuff. And I’m like these kids are 14 and have no idea…”

“The space is ‘meming’ at the moment, a lot of our competitors can’t really handle that and we’re trying to expand that offering as much as possible, by being able to support the various protocols.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by r/Wallstreetbets (@wallstreetbets)

“Anyone can apply a protocol on to the Ethereum network, for example. And then anyone else can interact with that protocol. So it’s about understanding a smart contract, and being able to categorise certain transactions, which interact with that protocol, appropriately within our platform.”“The way that we handle that is that all you have to do is add your Ethereum wallet, for example. Whereas for a lot of other competitors, the ability to be able to correctly categorise or build a product that is able to handle this complexity is limited.”As for the future, Shane told DMARGE, “We’re really hoping to have a breakout in overseas markets too. We’ve been getting some good traction in Canada at the moment.”“We want to make our favourite products easier to use for people who are experimenting with these decentralised financial products. I think there’s a lot that needs to be done still.”Tim added: “The people who are using these products… there are almost no options for them. Like they’re completely in the dark when it comes to tax implications. There’s so much going on. So much new stuff.”“We really want to cover 90% of these use cases for these decentralised products for those customers, so they can actually feel like they’re not getting screwed over when it comes to tax time. I think that’s the biggest thing.”Another big focus, Shane told DMARGE, is growing the accounting side. “A lot of accountants are actually using our product, inputting client data, and things like that. So we want to try to offer some better tools for accountants and bookkeepers and their clients as well, because a lot of these things are too complex for a division for them to completely do themselves.”To summarize, Tim said, “As software engineers, we’re building the software product and we want to make that product the best it can be. We want to make our customers the happiest. So we do a lot of work where we take customer requests, and we will put out that feature often within the week from the time they request it. It could even only be a few days – depending on the complexity.”

“Servicing the customers is equal or up there with working on the product and improving it. It’s hand in hand.”

At the time of writing one Bitcoin is worth AU $71,075.70, and one Ether is trading at AU $2363.17.

Read Next

• A Guide To Dealing With Tax On Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Profits
• Wall Street Pros Sheepishly Admit To Following Twitter’s ‘Day Trade Army’ For Stock Tips 

The post 'Costly' Tax Mistake Catching Australian Cryptocurrency Investors Unaware appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

There might be a healthy amount of Australian representation in the NBA, but no Aussie basketball player shines quite as bright as Ben Simmons.The young Melbourne native has been wowing basketball fans since the age of 15, the year he nabbed an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship and represented Australia at the 2012 FIBA Under-17 World Championships. Since then, he’s played for Louisiana State University in the NCAA, the Australian national team and most notably the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA, where he’s been for almost five years now.The only thing more impressive than his skill with a basketball might be his bank balance. NBA players are some of the most well-compensated athletes in world sports, and Simmons is no exception: his contract extension with the Sixers is reported to be worth a cool $170 million. The 24-year-old also has multi-million-dollar contracts with brands like Nike and Beats by Dre, so safe to say he’s pretty flush.When you’re that much of a ‘baller’ (literally), you can afford to make grand gestures and give lavish gifts – and that’s exactly what Simmons has just done, gifting his half-brother Sean Tribe a brand-new Audi SQ8 SUV worth over $165,000 for his birthday earlier this week.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ben Simmons (@bensimmons)

Tribe’s heartfelt reaction – lost for words, tears streaming down his face – is lovely, quite frankly. My brother and I don’t even give each other birthday presents, let alone luxury German automobiles…RELATED: Car Unboxing ‘Therapy’ Is The Perfect Cure For Your 2021 BluesSimmons clearly put some thought into the car, mentioning in the video how it’s perfect for Tribe’s young family. He also got him something with a bit of pep: the SQ8 swaps out the Q8’s 3.0L turbo V6 for a 4.0L twin-turbo V8, which makes a healthy 373kW (The even hotter RSQ8 makes 440kW… But that might wake the baby.)He also optioned the SQ8 with Audi’s ‘Black Optic Package’, which replaces the SQ8’s standard chrome trims and badging with murdered-out, gloss black numbers, and includes a set of rather handsome rims unique to the package. A thoughtful present indeed.

Simmons is known for being a bit of a car lover. You can see in the video he’s also got a Bentley Flying Spur in the garage, but he also owns a Dodge Challenger SRT, an “Essendon FC inspired” Ferrari 488 Pista, a Lamborghini Urus and a bespoke Rolls-Royce Cullinan among other exotic vehicles.You’ll next be able to catch Simmons during the Sixers’ upcoming game against the Chicago Bulls on Friday later this week (Australian time, of course).

Read Next

• Kendall Jenner’s ‘Perfect’ Pickup Truck Shows Celebrity Cars Are Changing For The Better
• Machine Gun Kelly & Megan Fox Have Better Taste In Cars Than You Think

The post Australian NBA Star Ben Simmons Buys Brother Incredible ‘Baller Spec’ Audi SUV appeared first on DMARGE Australia.

Getting your hands on a fine timepiece is easier said than done.Not only are high-end watches by definition quite expensive – both at retail and especially on the aftermarket – but the endless cavalcade of waitlists, stock shortages and limited editions that characterise the luxury watch shopping experience make the entire experience quite inaccessible.In recent years, crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have seen a proliferation of independent watch ‘microbrands’ that market themselves as an alternative to this system; as ‘disruptors’ of the watch industry, infuriating purists in the process.While many of these microbrands offer a genuinely interesting, unique, innovative product, the vast majority of them are simple knock-offs of previously-existing designs with inferior materials and questionable customer service. They purport to be affordable and to “cut out the middleman” – sure, they might be affordable compared to a Richard Mille, but in reality, they’re even more of a rip-off than the traditional players they say they’re an alternative to.In short, investing in microbrands is a sucker’s game – but enough people get suckered in that they remain profitable enterprises. Unsurprisingly, real watch aficionados despise these microbrands, with one watch fan in particular absolutely skewering their dodgy business practices and cliched marketing pitches in one of the smartest stunts we’ve seen in years.Enter Benjamin Arthur, founder of UK-based watch review site Ben’s Watch Club, and his satirical watch brand: Spaghetti Scameti.In character as ‘Charles Ponzi’, Arthur jokes that “it all started when I dropped out of college at the age of 6 to pursue my dream of becoming a multi-billionaire CEO big bucks boss. I had the revelation that the major watch brands weren’t extorting the customer for every penny they were worth.”“So, I took up the mantle and decided to ‘change the world’… By using just about every dodgy sales tactic in the book, we’ve taken customer exploitation to the next level.”

“By ‘cutting out the middlemen’ (lol that’s secretly us) and using the cheapest materials we can lay our mitts on, we can make way more profit. Therefore, all of our watches are proudly ‘handcrafted’ in Shenzhen (which we call ‘Italy’ or ‘Switzerland’ in our advertising, fingers crossed nobody notices).”

“We’re gonna pretend like it’s to ‘change the world’ or ‘shake up the watch industry’, when in reality I’m just here to make a quick buck. How much money is too much, you say? Well, I don’t believe in placing limits on your ambitions,” he jokes.RELATED: The Rock Owns Up To ‘Watch Crime’ In Classiest Way PossibleArthur’s elaborate gag is hilarious, but it also quite cleverly sums up all the problems with these microbrands. More often than not, they’re ‘get rich quick’ schemes plotted by people with no real love for horology; all style, no substance. They prey on people’s goodwill and lack of knowledge about watches.To see them get exposed in such a clever way truly warms our hearts.

Read Next

• Chris Hemsworth Angers The Gods With Controversial Watch Choice
• The Radical Solution To Fix Rolex’s Biggest Problem

The post Watch Expert's Genius Response To Infuriating Industry Trend appeared first on DMARGE Australia.