Technology

Block Earner Relieved of Liability to Pay a Penalty

Published

2 years ago

June 5, 2024

Block Earner Relieved of Liability to Pay a Penalty in Significant ASIC Case

SYDNEY, June 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — In a resolution of important proceedings with implications for the crypto/startup ecosystem, Block Earner has been relieved of liability to pay a penalty in a high-profile case brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). This decision not only relieves Block Earner of any financial penalty, but also acknowledges the reputational damage resulting from inaccurate statements made by ASIC in a press-release following the Court’s earlier decision about liability.

While the Court earlier found that Block Earner had contravened financial services law in respect of a previous product offering (no longer offered), the Court was satisfied that Block Earner had acted honestly, and consistently sought to conduct its business lawfully. The Court also found that the company made genuine attempts to comply with the Corporations Act, and that there was no evidence suggesting that Block Earner acted carelessly or imprudently. The Court and ASIC also both agreed that no customers had suffered loss as a result of the conduct in question.

Context, background and liability judgment

In November 2022, ASIC initiated proceedings against Block Earner, alleging that the company required an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) for its Earner and Access products, which offered customers access to yield related to cryptocurrency products. The regulator characterised this as a ‘test case’ to explore the applicability of financial services law to crypto-related products.

Block Earner argued in the proceedings that its products did not constitute financial products having regard to the technical definitions of the Corporations Act. The Earner product, which offered fixed yield, was sunset in November 2022, and all customers were made whole, including any interest owed.

On 9th February 2024, Justice Jackman of the Federal Court of Australia found that Block Earner had contravened the Corporations Act by offering the Earner product without an AFSL and appropriate ASIC registration. However, the Court found that Block Earner did not need an AFSL for the Access product and the claims brought by ASIC regarding the Access product were dismissed. For a more detailed summary of that judgment see: https://www.gtlaw.com.au/knowledge/federal-court-judgment-asic-v-block-earner

Court’s Decision and Reasoning

On 15 May 2024, a further hearing was held to determine whether Block Earner would be required to pay a penalty in respect of the contraventions (and if so the amount of the penalty).

Today, the Court delivered judgment. Justice Jackman was satisfied that Block Earner should be relieved from having to pay a penalty in relation to its contraventions relating to the Earner product. In determining that Block Earner should be relieved from paying a penalty, Justice Jackman acknowledged that he was “satisfied that Block Earner acted honestly”, including because in seeking to consider whether Block Earner was offering or providing financial products that required an AFSL, Block Earner obtained legal advice on that question. The judgment also recognised that Block Earner’s participation in policy discussions and seeking to engage with the government on proposals related to cryptocurrency showed a willingness to engage with government and regulatory bodies on effective ways to regulate crypto-related products and services.

Further, the Court was satisfied that this engagement evidenced that Block Earner has at all times sought to conduct its business in a lawful manner and has not consciously sought to provide cryptocurrency in a way that contravenes the Corporations Act. Further, the Court acknowledge Block Earner’s evidence on each occasion when Block Earner has identified that it does require a licence to provide a product, it has sought and obtained the appropriate authorisations.

The Court also commented on a media release that ASIC made following the liability judgment. His Honour found that the media release, which has now been withdrawn, had a tendency to lead readers into error (albeit that was unintentional on ASIC’s part) because it indirectly suggested Block Earner needed an AFSL for its existing products (which was not the case as Earner had been withdrawn).

Because Block Earner was successful in its argument that it ought to be excused from a penalty, the Court also found that ASIC is required to pay Block Earner’s costs relating to the penalty hearing.

Impact on the Crypto Industry

The conclusion of these proceedings, pending any appeal, marks significant progress for the crypto industry, which has faced regulatory uncertainty and active regulatory enforcement action globally.

Charlie Karaboga, CEO of Block Earner, stated, “From the beginning, it was never our intention to break or circumvent the rules. As a startup, we did everything within our power to comply, including obtaining legal advice and creating a comprehensive risk framework. While we are obviously disappointed about the findings of contravention in relation to the Earner product, we are pleased that the judge recognized our honest efforts and relieved Block Earner from liability for the penalty.”

Challenges and Damages

Despite the favourable ruling today, the proceedings have been burdensome on Block Earner, including incurring over $300,000 in legal fees defending these proceedings, significant reputational harm, and the loss of key partnerships.

A Path Forward

Block Earner remains committed to fostering innovation and providing clarity to its customers. The company believes that these proceedings will help give further regulatory clarity to other startups, helping them to navigate the regulatory landscape with greater confidence, and continue to innovate for the benefit of Australian consumers, and within the framework of the relevant laws and regulations.

This press release is intended to provide a balanced view of the recent court decision and its implications for the crypto industry, encouraging more publications to highlight the positive impact of the ruling on innovation and regulatory clarity.

For media inquiries, please contact:

marketing@blockearner.com.au

About Block Earner

Block Earner is an Australian-based FinTech powered by blockchain technology. We’re bringing the utility of a new era in digital currencies to the people. Recreating crypto products in an open and transparent way. Disrupting a centuries old system and presenting a new way forward for people and their money.

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SOURCE Block Earner

Technology

RWA.LTD Announces Comprehensive Consumer Goods Token Ecosystem Layout at Hong Kong Web3 Festival, Leading the Launch of the Consumer RWA Alliance

Published

10 minutes ago

April 24, 2026

HONG KONG, April 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — During the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, RWA.LTD, the world’s first platform dedicated to consumer goods RWA (Real World Assets), officially announced the completion of its comprehensive consumer goods token ecosystem layout. At the event, the platform spearheaded the unveiling of the “Consumer RWA Alliance”. Positioned as the “Asian Consumer Goods Asset Trading Center,” RWA.LTD aims to enhance consumption efficiency through AI, reconstruct value distribution via Web3, and connect cross-city and cross-country consumer networks through tokens to accelerate the arrival of the “Smarter Consumer” era.

RWA.LTD stated that consumer goods RWA is not a single product, but a set of new infrastructure developed around consumption scenarios, the circulation of consumer rights, and brand interaction. Since CEO Fu, Rao Tony first proposed the concept of “Consumer Goods RWA” in late 2024, the team simultaneously prepared the RWA.LTD platform and completed Beta testing in September 2025. Following several months of iteration, the platform completed a comprehensive upgrade in mid-March 2026, marking RWA.LTD’s formal transition from the proof-of-concept stage to the ecological development stage.

RWA.LTD Ecosystem

In this public announcement, RWA.LTD systematically disclosed its four major ecological sectors for the first time. First, RWA.LTD | Mall (Winpoint Mall) was officially launched during the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, providing consumers with diverse brand rights driven by RWA Coin; current offerings include the CDAA (Chartered Digital Asset Analyst) Course, Matrix E-commerce Services, and more. Second, RWA.LTD | Exchange was fully launched in mid-March 2026 as a primary issuance and secondary trading market for consumer goods tokens, with plans to list 100 types of consumer goods tokens within the year to provide bidirectional exposure for brands and users. Third, RWA.LTD | Fund plans to collaborate with established VC funds to focus on brand token ecosystem construction and explore new paths for the synergistic development of consumer brands and on-chain capital. Fourth, RWA.LTD | Bot (rwaclaw.ai, rwabot.ai) has completed domain layout and is currently under development; it will provide consumers with real-time AI price comparisons, intelligent recommendations, and automated ordering tools to enhance decision-making efficiency and consumer experience.

RWA.LTD believes that the traditional consumer market has long suffered from information asymmetry, price opacity, and inactive membership systems, while the combination of blockchain and AI provides a new consumption model. By standardizing, digitizing, and placing consumer rights on-chain, consumers are no longer just end-buyers but can become active participants in the consumption network; brands are no longer limited to one-time interactions with consumers but can build stable, sustainable consumer relationships through on-chain tools.

Consumer RWA Alliance

At the Hong Kong Web3 Festival, the Consumer RWA Alliance, spearheaded by RWA.LTD, was inaugurated. The alliance aims to unite consumer brands, channel platforms, technology service providers, ecological partners, and cross-regional resource providers to jointly promote the co-construction of standards, ecological synergy, and scenario implementation for consumer goods RWA. The alliance members attending the unveiling ceremony included Dr. and Professor Lawrence Yu, Founder and Chairman of the Asia Pacific Economic Leaders’ Confederation; Dr. Wang Ping, President of the RWA Ecological International Federation and Chairman of the Asia Pacific M&A Fund; Dou Jun, Secretary General of the Hong Kong RWA Global Industry Alliance and Executive Secretary General of the Blockchain Professional Committee of the China Communications Industry Association (CCIA); Dr. Yu Jianing, Principal of Uweb Business School (Hong Kong) and Rotating Chairman of the Academic Committee of the Hong Kong Certified Digital Asset Analysts Association (HKCDAA); Dr. Jingle, Founder of Hong Kong Meta Strategy; Dr. Qiu Yueying, CEO of Winchain Technology; Tongjian Sun, CEO of INOVAI TECH K.K.; and Wen Hua, Director of the Australia & New Zealand Center of the Hong Kong RWA Global Industry Alliance, with RWA.LTD CEO Fu, Rao Tony serving as the Chairman. The establishment of the alliance marks an important step for consumer RWA moving from platform exploration to industry collaboration, signifying that the RWA narrative is extending from the relatively singular field of financial assets to the consumer industry which is more closely related to real life.

Industry insiders pointed out that the establishment of the Consumer RWA Alliance holds industry significance beyond platform business. On one hand, it helps break the market’s inherent impression of RWA as being “over-financialized” and encourages the outside world to re-recognize the application value of RWA as digital infrastructure in real consumption scenarios. On the other hand, it provides a new organizational framework for the Asian consumer market, making cross-regional brand cooperation, mutual recognition of consumer rights, and on-chain circulation mechanisms more operational. RWA.LTD stated that it hopes to promote the formation of a more diverse, open, and sustainable RWA world through the alliance mechanism, making RWA not just a synonym for asset securitization, but also a key driver for consumer innovation and industrial upgrading.

Regarding compliance issues of market concern, RWA.LTD provided a brief explanation in this announcement. Consumer goods tokens do not fall within the definition of “virtual assets” under Section 53ZRA of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (AMLO), as they are neither payment tokens nor governance tokens. Even if there is overlap in certain characteristics, the relevant tokens can ultimately be defined as “Limited Purpose Digital Tokens” under Section 53ZR of the AMLO, which are explicitly excluded from the scope of “virtual asset” in the AMLO. Based on this, RWA.LTD does not fall within the regulatory scope of the Virtual Asset Trading Platform (VATP) licensing regime. Meanwhile, the U.S. SEC’s previous No-Action Letter to the Fuse project, along with the definition of “Digital Tools” in the regulatory interpretation published on March 17, 2026, further supports the stance that consumer goods tokens are non-securities, non-commodities, and are not regulated under the virtual asset framework. RWA.LTD emphasized that the company consistently adheres to advancing product design and business development within a compliance framework and will continue to monitor regulatory dynamics in different jurisdictions.

The RWA.LTD team possesses a rich international background and overseas market experience, having long followed the development trends of the Web3 and RWA markets in Europe and the United States. The team observed early on that the Asian RWA market has long been concentrated on financial narratives with relatively monotonous scenarios, and platforms that truly integrate deeply with mass consumption and high-frequency lifestyle scenarios remain scarce. Consequently, the team began preparing the consumer goods RWA platform as early as 2024, hoping to take the lead in completing infrastructure, model verification, and resource integration before an industry consensus was formed.

RWA.LTD CEO Fu, Rao Tony pointed out that consumer goods RWA is currently one of the directions most likely to land and scale quickly. Compared to financial RWA, consumer goods RWA has a stronger efficient foundation in terms of compliance structure, user understanding, scenario adaptation, and promotion paths. Its core value lies in using blockchain technology to release liquidity that the consumer industry has long lacked, allowing consumer rights—which were originally fragmented, dormant, non-tradable, or difficult to circulate across regions—to achieve more efficient allocation and redistribution. Through this mechanism, the relationship between brands, platforms, and consumers will be redefined.

Fu, Rao Tony further stated that as the digitalization of the Asian consumer market continues to improve, the combination of consumer RWA and the real consumer industry is expected to release trillion-dollar economic potential in the future. For Hong Kong, this is not just an emerging Web3 track, but could become an important hub connecting international consumer networks with digital asset innovation. Hong Kong possesses unique advantages as an international financial center, an international trade center, and a highland for institutional innovation. If it can take the lead in forming scale synergy in the field of consumer RWA, it has the opportunity to occupy a leading position in the global wave of consumer asset digitalization.

In the future, RWA.LTD will continue to advance its layout around consumer goods RWA infrastructure construction, ecological cooperation expansion, alliance network improvement, and AI consumer tool research and development, exploring new on-chain paradigms for the consumer industry with more brands, institutions, and partners. As the Mall, Exchange, Fund, and Bot sectors gradually mature, RWA.LTD hopes to drive consumer RWA from concept to large-scale application, providing a more efficient, intelligent, and participatory new value network for the Asian and global consumer markets.

About RWA.LTD

RWA.LTD is positioned as the Asian consumer goods asset trading center, committed to enhancing consumption efficiency with AI, reconstructing consumer value distribution with Web3, and establishing cross-city and cross-country consumer alliance networks via tokens. The company focuses on the consumer goods RWA track, continuously promoting the digitalization of consumer rights, the circulation of consumer assets, and the synergy of the consumer ecosystem to explore the future consumption model of “Smarter Consumer”.

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SOURCE RWA.LTD

Technology

Fox ESS Ranks No. 1 Globally in Residential Energy Storage

Published

1 hour ago

April 24, 2026

WENZHOU, China, April 23, 2026 /CNW/ — Fox ESS, a global leader in renewable energy solutions, has been ranked No. 1 among residential energy storage providers worldwide for 2025, based on MWh shipments in S&P Global Energy’s Residential Energy Storage Market Tracker.

The report also places Fox ESS at No. 1 in Germany and the UK, highlighting the company’s momentum in key markets and expanding distribution footprint.

Compared with 2024, Fox ESS’s global market share rose 50% in 2025, reinforcing its position in a rapidly growing residential storage sector. The company has continued to scale internationally, with global headcount doubling from the end of 2024. As of April 2026, Fox ESS employs more than 5,000 people worldwide, and has added local support through new offices, including in Sydney, Australia.

“We’re thrilled for this remarkable achievement. It reflects our commitment to innovation and product quality, and to making clean, reliable energy practical for households around the world,” said Michael Zhu, CEO of Fox ESS. “We will continue pushing the boundaries to deliver solutions that help homes and businesses move toward energy independence.”

Notably, Fox ESS has launched the Champion’s Choice campaign globally, combining the endorsement of sports champions with recognition from prestigious organizations. With the first stop in Australia, the company signed Ian Thorpe, a five-time Olympic champion last December. The campaign underscores Fox ESS’s ambition to deliver better value for customers and partners.

Fox ESS is committed to building long-term trust with customers and partners. The company delivers reliable, high-quality energy storage systems engineered for consistent performance, supported by rigorous quality-control processes designed to help ensure every product meets the highest standards.

Fox ESS develops solutions that serve both installers and end users. With ongoing investment in R&D, the company stays ahead of evolving market needs, helping installers work more efficiently while enabling homeowners to move toward energy transition and reduce electricity costs.

With a team of more than 400 experts in R&D, Fox ESS continues to refine its product design for easier transportation, installation, and everyday use. The AI-powered FoxCloud app also makes energy management more intuitive, enabling users to monitor and control home energy consumption, manage smart devices, and track detailed generation and usage data in a single streamlined platform, delivering greater peace of mind.

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SOURCE Fox ESS

Technology

Deepvein Mining Tech Wins NY Product Design Gold for Exploration Robotics

Published

1 hour ago

April 24, 2026

SHANGHAI, April 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Deepvein Mining Tech, a developer of robotic systems for mining operations, has received Gold at the 2026 NY Product Design Awards for its Intelligent Geological Mapping and Geochemical Sampling Quadrupedal Robots, a robotics series developed for mineral exploration in remote and high-risk field environments.

The NY Product Design Awards, organized by the International Awards Associate (IAA), recognize achievements in product design and industrial innovation worldwide.

Mining exploration has become increasingly costly and technically challenging as easily accessible deposits are depleted, particularly in remote and geologically complex regions where fieldwork can be slow, labor-intensive and operationally demanding.

Deepvein’s award-winning robotics series was developed to address those constraints through a combination of quadrupedal robotic hardware and integrated software systems. The solution supports route planning, equipment coordination, sample logging and geological data management, helping standardize field operations and reduce manual workloads.

Designed for geological mapping and geochemical sampling, the robotic units can autonomously perform targeted collection tasks while reducing repeated manual fieldwork. A single operating cycle can gather approximately 30 to 50 samples.

According to deployment data from company-operated mining assets in Africa, exploration data collection cycles were reduced from around 12 months to one week, while overall workflow costs fell by approximately 40%.

Beyond efficiency gains, the use of robotic systems in steep, high-temperature or hard-to-access areas can help reduce personnel exposure to hazardous conditions. Improved targeting and digital workflow management can also limit unnecessary surface disturbance during early-stage exploration.

Deepvein is developing a broader portfolio of mining robotics covering the industry lifecycle, with future applications expected in transport support, inspection, maintenance and site rehabilitation, alongside continued iteration of its exploration-stage systems.

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SOURCE Deepvein Mining Tech