Carnegie Opens Crypto Gate for Super Funds and Family Offices

MHC Digital Group partnered with US-licensed Anchorage Digital for regulated crypto custody for Australian institutions.
The deal offers Australian funds regulated access to digital assets, aligning with emerging local prudential standards.
Mark Carnegie urged Australian regulators to adopt clearer crypto laws, citing US progress and local industry’s slow pace.

Mark Carnegie’s MHC Digital Group has partnered with Anchorage Digital, which is the only cryptocurrency firm holding a US federal banking charter, to offer regulated custody of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies to Australian super funds, family offices and even corporates.

Anchorage’s national-trust bank status subjects it to US capital, audit and supervisory standards. Plugging into that infrastructure allows MHC to store client assets under controls broadly aligned with the prudential framework expected to emerge in Australia.

According to a report by the AFR, Carnegie said the tie-up positions MHC ahead of domestic rule-making.

It is a first-class operator and, while the Australian regulators and the financial community tries to pretend that the world’s not changing because of crypto, given what’s happening in America, you know this change is inevitable.

Mark Carnegie, Founder of MHC Digital Group

Related: Block Earner to Pioneer Bitcoin-Backed Home Deposits in Australia

A Wake-Up Call For Australia

Carnegie also predicted the big banks in Australia will “definitely change their perspective” once regulatory clarity hardens, but slammed their sluggish stance, basically suggesting they’re quite late to the party.

He’s referring, of course, to Australia’s four majors, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, which recently joined the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Project Acacia pilot. As Crypto News Australia reported, this wholesale-market trial pipes tokenised money, stablecoins and bank-deposit tokens across public and private blockchains.

He mentioned that recent U.S. actions regarding crypto assets and stablecoins—including the passage of the GENIUS Act, which focuses on stablecoin regulation, and the Clarity Act, which outlines a framework dividing crypto oversight between the SEC and the CFTC—represent a significant step toward clarifying what constitutes a security versus a commodity.

These, Carnegie says, should be a wake-up call to Australia’s “sclerotic” sector.

But, unfortunately, he doesn’t believe the Australian government will actually care to create laws for the local industry to serve demand, even though that demand is growing everyday, especially as Bitcoin and altcoins like Ethereum are reaching new highs every other week.

Bitcoin is currently trading at US$118K (AU$178K), a small change from its ATH of US$122.8K (AU$185.03K) a few weeks ago.