- Australia introduced a new Digital Assets Bill to regulate crypto exchanges and custody providers similarly to traditional financial firms.
- The framework establishes new categories (like Digital Asset Platforms) that will generally require an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL).
- The government forecasts the new regulation will boost annual productivity by A$24 billion, while imposing strict custody rules.
Australia has put forward its first full set of rules for crypto exchanges and custody providers, aiming to bring them under the same style of oversight as traditional financial firms.
The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025, introduced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Financial Services Minister Daniel Mulino, creates new obligations for businesses that hold digital assets for customers.
The bill passed its first reading in Parliament on Wednesday, with a second reading moved the same day. It builds on ASIC’s October update to Info Sheet 225, which signalled that many tokens and stablecoins are likely to be treated as financial products under existing law.
Read more: XRP and Solana ETFs Surge as Investors Pour In
New Categories Under the Corporations Act
At the core of the proposal are two new categories under the Corporations Act:
- Digital asset platforms: services that hold clients’ crypto and let them transfer, buy, sell or stake it.
- Tokenised custody platforms: services that hold real-world assets such as property, bonds or commodities, and issue a single token that can be redeemed back into the original asset.
Firms in these categories will generally need an Australian Financial Services Licence, must act “efficiently, honestly and fairly,” and follow Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) standards on custody, settlement, trade execution, client instructions and liquidity.
Smaller operators are carved out from full licensing if they remain under AU$5,000 per customer and AU$10 million in total volume. The government says this is meant to let low-risk, early-stage projects test ideas without being forced into full authorisation immediately.
The government argues the framework could unlock about AU$24 billion in annual productivity gains and warns of multimillion-dollar penalties for platforms that fail to protect client assets.
The news comes as crypto adoption in Australia soars, and the APAC region has also emerged as one of the fastest-growing for crypto-related transactions. Interestingly, around 30% of Australians got into crypto by purchasing memecoins.
Related: Japan Moves to Boost Crypto Safety With New Liability-Reserve Rules for Exchanges
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