Big News: Crypto regulated in Australia

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on January 23 that Australian Financial Minister Stephen Jones stated there was a “strong rationale” for regulating crypto currency assets as financial products.

According to Jones, other crypto assets, besides Bitcoin (BTC), are primarily utilized as a store of value for investment or speculation. He stated:

“[There is a] good argument that they[other crypto assets] should be treated like a financial product.”

According to the minister, the FTX collapse demonstrated the need for crypto regulation. The Australian government, he continued, is focused on regulating cryptocurrency assets that behave like financial instruments.

A “totally different regulatory regime for something that is, for all intents and purposes, a financial product” was not necessary, Jones continued.

According to the Australian minister, the government will soon make public the cryptocurrency assets it intends to control through an initiative called “token mapping.”

Lobby groups disagree with a broad classification

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Commonwealth Bank are at odds with the cryptocurrency advocacy group Blockchain Australia about the classification of all cryptocurrencies as financial products.

According to the lobby group, it was categorizing all crypto assets broadly as financial goods will hinder sector investment and growth. The association also warned that this might result in job losses in the sector.

The Australian Bitcoin Industry Body (ABIB), another lobbying group, asserted that it would be challenging to regulate the industry’s various sub-sectors if all enterprises dealing with cryptocurrencies were lumped into a single category.

The Australian government has recently stepped up efforts to regulate the crypto industry following FTX’s collapse. The government promised to establish a framework to guide the licensing and regulation of crypto service providers