Australian Finance Minister says crypto could be regulated as financial product News ▸ Australia ▸ Regulation
Australian Finance Minister says crypto could be regulated as financial product
Crypto lobby groups in the country have argued against the broad classification of all crypto assets as financial products.
1 min read
Updated: Jan. 23, 2023 at 12:36 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
Australian Financial Minister Stephen Jones said there was a “good argument” to regulate crypto assets as financial products, The Sydney Morning Heral reported on Jan. 23.
Except for Bitcoin (BTC), other crypto assets are mainly used as a store of value for investment or speculation, according to Jones. He said:
“[There is a] good argument that they[other crypto assets] should be treated like a financial product.”
The minister noted that the FTX collapse showed the need for crypto regulation. He continued that the Australian government is focused on regulating crypto assets that act like financial products.
Jones added that there was no need to set up a “completely separate regulatory regime for something that is, for all intents and purposes, a financial product.”
The Australian minister said that the government would soon reveal crypto assets it plans to regulate through its “token mapping” exercise.
Lobby groups disagree with broad classification
Meanwhile, Australia’s crypto group Blockchain Australia is at loggerheads with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Commonwealth Bank over broadly classifying all crypto assets as financial products.
The lobby group reportedly said a broad classification of all crypto assets as financial products would harm the investment and growth of the sector. The group also warned that this could lead to the loss of jobs in the industry.
Another lobby group, the Australian Bitcoin Industry Body (ABIB), argued that lumping all businesses interacting with crypto into only one category will make regulatory efforts for the industry’s sub-sectors challenging.
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.
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Posted In: Australia, Regulation
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Oluwapelumi Adejumo
Oluwapelumi values Bitcoin's potential. He imparts insights on a range of topics like DeFi, hacks, mining and culture, underlining transformative power.
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FTX
FTX is a defunct cryptocurrency exchange, currently in bankruptcy proceedings, that was founded by Sam Bankman-Fried and Zixiao “Gary” Wang in May 2019.