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IG Group Buys Majority Stake in Australian Crypto Exchange Independent Reserve for $72M

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Online trading platform IG Group has acquired a majority stake in Australian cryptocurrency exchange Independent Reserve for 109.6 million Australian dollars ($72.4 million).

The deal, the company said, aims to strengthen IG’s position in Asia-Pacific’s fast-growing crypto markets and complements its recent crypto rollouts in the U.K. and U.S.

Independent Reserve is one of Australia’s oldest regulated crypto platforms, IG’s managing director for Asia Pacific and the Middle East, Matt Macklin, said. It also supports trading in 34 cryptocurrencies across Australian and Singaporean markets.

IG will initially acquire 70% of the company, with the option to buy the remaining 30% based on future performance. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals and expected to close in early 2026 for a total of 178 million Australian dollars ($117.6 million).

Independent Reserve CEO Adrian Przelozny said the transaction gives the exchange a bigger platform to grow while staying aligned with its goal of secure, regulated trading.

The move fills a regional product gap for IG, giving the firm “immediate access” to Australia and Singapore.

Independent Reserve reported revenue of $23.3 million for the fiscal year ending June 2025, up 88% year-over-year, the announcement adds. The platform also saw a 60% increase in monthly active users, reaching around 11,600, and has $1.12 billion in assets under custody from 129,400 funded accounts.

IG Group said the deal will be accretive to earnings starting in fiscal year 2027. Its shares are down 1.8% in today’s trading session.



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A hologram of a man speaking to camera within a cylindrical, industrial sturcture in Neyyah.
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This Australian puzzler that took seven years to make is basically Myst with endearingly naff FMVs and music composed by a 10-year-old

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While Myst and its sequel Riven are omnipresent games thanks to developer Cyan Worlds constantly remaking them, games directly inspired by Myst are few and far between. The most notable example is Jonathan Blow’s maze-obsessed puzzler The Witness, which distressingly will be a decade old come January.

Now though, veteran publisher MicroProse has just released Neyyah. That may read like onomatopoeia for the noise Minecraft villagers make, but it is in fact a first-person 3D point ‘n’ click puzzler, one that doesn’t so much wear its Myst inspirations on its sleeve as have them tattooed all over its body.

Created over seven years by solo developer Adam Gwynaire, Neyyah transports players to not one but several remote islands dotted with strange plant life and mysterious structures. Like Myst, it’s a first-person point and click adventure that involves reactivating arcane machinery by solving puzzles that interconnect in obscure ways.


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There’s a trailer for the game below. The 3D environments certainly look the part, though I’m less sold on the FMV cutscenes used to tell the story, which have a (somewhat endearing, in all fairness) am-dram quality about them. According to a recent press release, the game’s cast includes Gwynaire’s “ex-wife and stepchildren” alongside several theatrical actors from the home city of Perth, Australia.

Neyyah Launch Trailer – YouTube

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The press releases mentions an intriguing detail regarding Neyyah’s extensive soundtrack, which features more than 80 individual tracks composed for the game. Around a third of which was composed by Gwynaire. The other two-thirds, however, were created by Zaedyn Turner, who was apparently between 10 and 14 years old during the composition process.

Frustratingly, there isn’t an example of Turner’s work online, though there is a track composed by Gwynaire available on YouTube. It certainly captures that wistful Myst vibe, ie something that would fit on that Pure Moods CD your mum had in the car in the mid-1990s.

Neyyah is available now. While it only has a handful of Steam reviews so far, they currently sit at a 96% positive rating. “If you enjoyed Myst and Riven you are unlikely to find a closer love letter [to] those games than this,” writes user SpudGunMcGee, though BoonMike, who enjoyed the game overall, says that Neyyah’s exacting replication of Myst’s structure “remind[s] me of all the quality-of-life improvements those ’90s games don’t have.”

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GameFi Guides

Australian Retirement Funds Have ‘Missed the Rally’ in Crypto This Year

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In brief

  • Crypto balances in the country’s self-managed pension funds doubled in early 2024 before flattening around $3B by June 2025.
  • Listed shares, cash, and property remain the dominant allocations in SMSFs.
  • Such funds are “cautious by design,” Decrypt was told.

Australian self-managed retirement funds held A$3.02 billion (US$1.9 billion) in cryptocurrencies at the end of June, but fresh data suggest they largely sat out this year’s digital-asset rally.

These vehicles, known as self-managed superannuation funds, are private pension accounts that allow Australians to manage their own retirement savings instead of entrusting them to large industry or retail funds.

Together, these funds account for about a quarter of the country’s $4.3 trillion (US$2.8 trillion) superannuation pool, according to data released by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority last week.

Such a scale makes SMSFs a crucial component of household wealth for Australians.



However, the current crypto footprint through these funds remains small next to over A$1 trillion managed in Australia’s pension system, according to the country’s tax office report released Wednesday.

Within SMSFs, listed shares remain the largest holding at $296 billion (US$193.1 billion), followed by cash and deposits at $171billion (US$111.6 billion), property at $105 billion (US$68.5 billion), and unlisted trusts at $133 billion (US$86.7 billion).

Crypto in SMSFs surged from $1.7 billion (US$1.1 billion) in March 2024 to $3.1 billion (US$2 billion) by June that year, then held steady at the current figure of roughly $3 billion (US$1.9 billion).

Despite the increase, crypto makes up less than 0.3% of SMSF assets pegged to be over $1 trillion (US$652.5 billion), and an even smaller fraction of Australia’s $4.3 trillion (US$2.8 trillion) pension system.

The limited share reflects how SMSFs are “cautious by design,” Jeremy Kinstlinger, co-founder of Sydney-based liquidity and execution services provider Argamon Markets, told Decrypt.

“Until crypto feels mainstream and well regulated, it’ll remain a small part of retirement portfolios,” Kinstlinger said.

Asked about the slowdown, Kinstlinger said SMSFs followed crypto’s all-time highs early last year but have pared down since then.

“In early 2024, crypto surged to all-time highs and SMSFs followed the trend,” Kinstlinger explained. “But after that peak, most stepped back and haven’t re-entered, which meant they missed the rally into the second half of the year.”

The restrained take-up in SMSFs contrasts with the wider regional momentum, as Asia-Pacific crypto volumes reached $2.36 trillion (US$1.5 trillion) in the year to June, up 69% after growing 27% the previous year, according to a 2025 crypto adoption report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

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Retired Australian Cop Loses $1.2M In A Crypto Scam In Thailand
Crypto Trends

Retired Australian Cop Loses $1.2M in a Crypto Scam in Thailand

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A retired Australian police officer with a 30-year career, lost nearly 40 million Thai baht (approximately $1.2 million) after falling victim to a cryptocurrency scam in Thailand. 

The scammer is a person named Alex, and he is a German national based in Phuket. After targeting Michael, Alex built a relationship with Reinecke over social media. Over the course of a year, Alex introduced him to various crypto investment opportunities during in-person meetings and eventually persuaded him to transfer his life savings. 

According to reports, Alex presented Reinecke with dashboards and charts that supposedly demonstrated the potential for 5%-10% monthly returns. However, after receiving the payment, Alex said that the website had crashed. Reinecke pressed Alex, who then revealed that he had misplaced his phone. Alex promptly ceased all communication with Michael. 

After realizing that he was probably scammed, Reinecke filed a formal report to the Mueang Udon Thani Police Station, supported by his Thai wife, Areerat Noonyat, and his lawyer, Kritsada Lohitdee, better known as Lawyer Nobi. Reinecke and his wife had saved all this money to purchase a home and establish a cafe. 

Online crypto scams on the rise 

The number of online crypto scams is on the rise globally. Last week, a scammer posed as a senior UK police officer and stole Bitcoin (BTC) worth approximately $2.8 million in Wales. Also, scammers have been targeting celebrities’ social media accounts for pump-and-dump scams. 

Last month, CertiK, a blockchain security firm noted that crypto investors lost more than $2.47 billion to hacks & scams in H1 2025, surpassing all of 2024. Ethereum was the most affected chain, with $1.5B lost across 164 incidents.

Also Read: Telegram CEO Durov Calls French Case ‘Absurd’ a Year After Arrest



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