Australia is clamping down on crypto exchanges and custody platforms with legislation that, according to the government, could unlock $24 billion in annual productivity gains while imposing multimillion-dollar penalties on firms that fail to protect client assets.
The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025, introduced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Financial Services Minister Daniel Mulino on Wednesday, establishes Australia's first comprehensive regulatory framework for businesses holding digital assets on behalf of customers.
The bill was introduced and read a first time on Wednesday, with the second reading moved the same day, a procedural step where Parliament debates a bill's general principles before detailed examination.
"We take Australia's crypto industry seriously, and we know that blockchain and digital assets present big opportunities for our economy, our financial sector, and our businesses," the officials said in a statement.
James Volpe, founding director of Melbourne-based Web3 education firm uCubed, told Decrypt that the bill is an “early stage experimentation without forcing every proof of concept to go through the process of becoming licensed from day one."
Closing a dangerous gap
The bill introduces two new financial product categories under the Corporations Act.
Digital asset platforms encompass facilities where operators hold clients' crypto assets and provide transactional functions, such as transfers, buying, selling, or staking.
Tokenized custody platforms, meanwhile, handle real-world assets like bonds, property, and commodities, where licensed operators must hold each underlying asset and issue a single redeemable token that clients can redeem in its original form.
Platforms must hold an Australian Financial Services Licence, act “efficiently, honestly and fairly,” and follow ASIC’s custody and settlement standards governing how they safeguard assets, execute trades, handle client instructions, and source liquidity.
Low-risk operators under the $5,000-per-customer and $10 million-volume thresholds are exempt from full licensing.
The exemptions for “genuinely small and lower-risk platforms” allow early-stage experiments to proceed without requiring every prototype to obtain full licensing, Volpe noted.
The bill follows ASIC’s October update to Info Sheet 225, which added new guidance on custody, fund management, and yield products, with tokens and stablecoins likely to be treated as financial products under existing law.
New rules, old gaps
Darcy Allen, Associate Professor at RMIT University and a director at the Digital Economy Council of Australia, told Decrypt that the industry still has “genuine questions about how these changes will work in practice,” including how discretionary powers will be used and what compliance will cost Australian operators.
“The real issue is that after years of delay, Australia must realize it is now a follower on digital-asset regulation,” Allen said, noting that other markets have already moved ahead with clearer and more established regimes.
Sharing similar concerns, Joni Pirovich, founder and CEO of crypto specialist master agent The Crystal aOS, told Decrypt the bill moves in the right direction but still leaves significant gaps that the industry will need to fight to correct.
The “definitional detail” isn’t where it needs to be, she said, adding the industry will now have to lobby major parties and independents for more holistic reform that also delivers tax clarity.
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