Australia outlines crypto regulation plan, promises action on debanking
Australia’s government, under its ruling center-left Labor Party, has proposed a new crypto framework regulating exchanges under existing financial services laws and has promised to tackle debanking.
It comes ahead of a federal election slated to be held on or before May 17, which current polling shows is shaping up to a dead heat between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor and the opposing Coalition led by Peter Dutton.
The Treasury Department said in a March 21 statement that crypto exchanges, custody services and some brokerage firms that trade or store crypto will come under the new laws.
The regime imposes similar compliance requirements as other financial services in the country, such as following rules safeguarding customer assets, obtaining an Australian Financial Services Licence and meeting minimum capital requirements.
Australia’s Treasury says its new crypto regulations have four priorities. Source: Australian Department of the Treasury
In August 2022, the government initiated a series of industry consultations to draft a crypto regulatory framework.
“Our legislative reforms will extend existing financial services laws to key digital asset platforms, but not to all of the digital asset ecosystem,” the Treasury said in its statement.
Small-scale and startup platforms that don’t meet specific size thresholds will be exempt, along with firms that develop blockchain-related software or create digital assets that aren’t financial products.
Payment stablecoins will be treated as a type of stored-value facility under the Government’s Payments Licensing Reforms; however, some stablecoins and wrapped tokens will be exempt.
“Dealing or secondary market trading in these products will be not treated as a dealing activity, and platforms where they are traded will not be treated as operating a market simply because of that trading activity,” the Treasury said.
As part of its crypto agenda, Albanese’s government has also promised to work with Australia’s four largest banks to better understand the extent and nature of de-banking.
There will also be a review into a central bank digital currency and an Enhanced Regulatory Sandbox in 2025, allowing businesses to test new financial products without needing a license.
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Albanese’s government intends to release a draft of the legislation for public consultation. However, a change of government could be on the horizon with a looming federal election, a date for which is yet to be called.
Dutton’s center-right Coalition had earlier promised to prioritize crypto regulation if it wins the election.
The latest YouGov poll published on March 20 shows the Coalition and Labor neck in neck for a two-party preferred vote.
The Coalition leads for topline voting intention, while Albanese continues to lead as preferred prime minister. Source: YouGov
Caroline Bowler, the CEO of local crypto exchange BTC Markets, said in a statement shared with Cointelegraph that the areas of reform are sensible and would keep Australia competitive with global peers.
However, she thinks there “will be additional detail required on capital adequacy and custody requirements.”
“We need to ensure that these requirements aren’t overly burdensome for business investment in Australia,” Bowler said.
Kraken Australia’s managing director, Jonathon Miller, said there is an “urgent need for bespoke crypto legislation” to address the existing confusion and uncertainty in the country’s industry.
“We believe that by establishing a clear crypto regulatory framework and mitigating problems like debanking, government can remove the barriers hampering growth in the Australian economy,” he said.
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The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is seeking permission from the court to drop an appeal against prediction market Kalshi. The move could allow the platform to offer political event contracts to users without contest.
In a May 5 filing in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, lawyers for the CFTC filed an unopposed motion for voluntary dismissal, suggesting an agreement with Kalshi. The motion, subject to approval by the court, could end the CFTC’s appeal against a federal court ruling that the financial regulator could not bar Kalshi from listing political event contracts, i.e., bets on elections.
Kalshi stipulated in a joint filing that the company would “bear its own costs, court fees and attorney fees incurred” if the court granted the CFTC’s motion to dismiss. The platform said that “election markets are here to stay” in a May 6 X post following the filing.
The betting platform initially filed a lawsuit against the CFTC in 2023 in response to the regulator ordering Kalshi to stop offering political event contracts. The company won in the lower court, prompting the appeal by the CFTC in September 2024.
Motion to drop the appeal after the change in administration?
The case was handled mainly before the US election and the appointment of acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham under President Donald Trump. CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger, nominated by former President Joe Biden, reportedly echoed Kalshi’s sentiment in February, claiming that election prediction markets were “here to stay.”
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Launched in 2021, Kalshi became popular among many crypto users in part due to bets related to the 2024 US election. Though the CFTC argued in its appeal that betting on the elections could result in “spectacular manipulation” of markets and harm to the public interest, the regulator under Pham and Trump appeared to have reversed its position with the motion to dismiss.
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Digital asset manager Bitwise has filed to list a spot Near exchange-traded fund with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, adding to a growing list of altcoins currently vying to win regulatory approval.
The Bitwise Near (NEAR) ETF will track the price movements of the NEAR token, minus expenses, through a traditional brokerage, Bitwise’s May 6 registration statement shows.
Bitwise named Coinbase Custody as the proposed custodian of the Bitwise NEAR ETF. The management fee, ticker and stock exchange it seeks to list on weren’t named yet.
Bitwise must also file a 19b-4 filing with the SEC to kickstart the regulator’s approval process for the fund. The crypto native asset manager indicated it would make such a filing when it registered a trust linked to the NEAR ETF in Delaware on April 28.
NEAR joins a pile of spot crypto ETFs on the SEC’s desk
The SEC now has at least a dozen spot crypto ETFs to review in 2025, including applications for Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Hedera (HBAR), Polkadot (DOT), Chainlink (LINK), Avalanche (AVAX), Aptos (APT) and Sui (SUI).
Bitwise already has applications out for a spot DOGE, SOL, and XRP ETFs, and also has an approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETF, which are listed on the NYSE Arca and have attracted a combined $2.35 billion in net inflows since launching last year.
NEAR — the token powering the layer-1 Near blockchain — is the 44th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $2.73 billion, CoinGecko data shows.
The Near blockchain was once touted as an Ethereum killer and is considered by its proponents as a solution to the “blockchain trilemma” — the challenge of achieving all three critical aspects of blockchain performance: security, scalability and decentralization.
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Through Nightshade sharding, Near can process up to 100,000 transactions per second and is secured by 265 active validators, Nearblocks.io data shows.
The Near ecosystem shifted from decentralized finance to AI infrastructure in 2024, unveiling plans to build the world’s largest open-source large language model.
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New Hampshire became the first US state to allow its government to invest in crypto currencies including Bitcoin (BTC), after Governor Kelly Ayotte signed a bill passed by the legislature into law.
In a May 6 notice, Ayotte announced on social media that New Hampshire would be permitted to “invest in cryptocurrency and precious metals” through a bill passed in the state Senate and House of Representatives. House Bill 302, introduced in New Hampshire in January, will allow the state’s treasury to use funds to invest in cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of more than $500 billion, eliminating many tokens and memecoins.
“The Live Free or Die state is leading the way in forging the future of commerce and digital assets,” said New Hampshire Republicans in a May 6 X post.
With the signing of the bill into law, New Hampshire becomes the first of several US states considering passing legislation to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, including an initiative with the federal government. A similar bill in Arizona passed the state’s House in April but was vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs on May 2, and Florida’s government withdrew two crypto reserve bills from consideration on May 3.
Related: Bitcoin’s role as a reserve asset gains traction in US as states adopt
New Hampshire’s crypto plans to precede the US government’s?
The efforts to create crypto reserves in different US states come as US President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers propose similar policies at the federal level. Trump signed an executive order in March to establish a “Digital Asset Stockpile” and a “Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.”
Senator Cynthia Lummis, who sponsored the Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide (BITCOIN) Act, proposed that the US government could hold more than 1 million BTC through civil and criminal forfeiture seizures. The bill is currently being considered by members of the US Senate Banking Committee.
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