Australian election will bring pro-crypto laws either way
Despite reports in February suggesting that 2 million pro-crypto voters could decide the outcome of this week’s Australian Federal Election, crypto has barely rated a mention during the campaign.
“I think it’s a missed opportunity,” Independent Reserve founder Adrian Przelozny told Cointelegraph. “Neither side has made crypto a headline issue because they’re wary of polarizing voters or sounding too niche.”
But the good news is that after more than a decade of inaction, both the ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the opposition Liberal Party are promising to enact crypto regulations developed in consultation with the industry.
In April, Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor promised to release draft crypto regulations within the first 100 days after taking office, while the Treasury itself has draft bills on “regulating digital asset platforms” and “payments system modernization” scheduled for release this quarter.
Amy-Rose Goodey, CEO of the Digital Economy Council of Australia, said that both parties “are equally invested in getting this draft legislation across the line.”
“Irrespective of who gets in, we’re in a better position than we were about a year ago.”
Pro-crypto voters have choices in the Senate, too, with the Libertarian Party issuing a 23-page Bitcoin policy in March — calling for the creation of a national Bitcoin (BTC) Reserve and the acceptance of Bitcoin as legal tender.
The minor party is fielding five Senate candidates in different states, including former Liberal MP Craig Kelly, but doesn’t currently have anyone in the Senate.
The progressive left-wing Greens party has not outlined a position on crypto, while the conservative right-wing One Nation party has campaigned against debanking and CBDCs.
More than a decade of inaction on crypto
Australia’s first parliamentary inquiry into digital assets was held back in 2014, but there’s been more than a decade of regulatory inaction since. The industry says this has led to stagnation and a brain drain of talent to jurisdictions like Singapore and the UAE.
The former Liberal Government was considering the landmark Digital Services Act, based on the 2021 Senate Committee’s crypto recommendations, when it lost office in 2022. Despite ongoing consultations since, the ALP government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, hasn’t put forward any legislation to parliament.
But there has definitely been a vibe shift from the ALP recently, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers telling Cointelegraph that digital assets “represent big opportunities for our economy.”
”We want to seize these opportunities and encourage innovation at the same time as making sure Australians can use and invest in digital assets safely and securely with appropriate regulation.”
His office said exposure draft legislation would be released “in 2025” for consultation, introduced into Parliament “once that feedback has been considered” with the subsequent reforms “phased in over time to minimize disruptions to existing businesses.”
The shadow assistant treasurer, Luke Howarth, said the ALP has been slow to act because it didn’t have a blockchain policy when it was elected.
“It wasn’t until the FTX collapse that they acknowledged the need for regulation,” he told Cointelegraph. “The Albanese government initially promised it would put in place regulation by 2023 but have failed to draft legislation or give a clear time-frame for action. After three years, all that was offered to industry was a six-page placeholder document.”
He’s referring to Treasury’s March statement “on developing an innovative Australian digital asset industry.” It provides for the licensing of Digital Asset Platforms (DAPS), a framework for payment stablecoins and a review of Australia’s Enhanced Regulatory Sandbox.
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While short on detail, those aims are broadly similar to the crypto regulation priorities that Howarth outlines to Cointelegraph — the big difference being that the opposition has committed to a faster time frame.
Przelozny praised the 100-day promise as “exactly the kind of urgency we need.”
If elected, the Liberal Party’s legislation is expected to take some of its cues from Senator Andrew Bragg’s private members bill in 2023 and some from the more recent work done by the Treasury.
The government steps up efforts
The Treasury has been quietly drafting legislation this year, which Goodey understands is “almost complete.”
“There’s been prioritization within Treasury, and I know that their team has almost doubled — the digital asset team — for writing that draft legislation. So, there has been an investment in that over the past six months.”
Przelozny characterizes the ALP’s approach as “cautious and methodical, but it’s been slow,” prioritizing consumer protection and risk management.
BTC Markets CEO Caroline Bowler said the election of a pro-crypto Trump administration and the UK’s draft regulations (released this week) likely forced both sides of politics to finally get serious.
”Australia has ground to make up, and I would anticipate this also being a factor in the savvy move by both parties,” she said.
Stand With Crypto campaign and ASIC
The Stand With Crypto campaign is active in Australia but has been fairly low-key during the campaign, with a focus on debanking.
Coinbase managing director for APAC John O’Loghlen called on whoever wins the election to launch a “Crypto-Asset Taskforce (CATF) within the first 100 days.” This would include industry and consumer representatives to finally get crypto regulations over the line.
“If Australia doesn’t move now, we risk falling even further behind,” he told Cointelegraph.
“The next government must move beyond consultation and into legislation.”
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is the local equivalent of the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). It released its own crypto regulatory proposals in December.
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Joy Lam, Binance’s head of global regulatory and APAC legal, told Cointelegraph she doesn’t expect ASIC to suddenly change direction if a new government comes in, as the SEC did.
“ASIC doesn’t make the law,” she said. “I don’t expect a complete kind of 180 because ASIC, it is independent, and it does have its own mandate, but it obviously operates within the legislative framework that the government is going to be setting.”
Who should single-issue crypto voters back?
In February, a poll by YouGov and Swyftx found that 59% of crypto users would vote for a pro-crypto candidate in the federal election above all other issues. That equates to around 2 million Australians and would be enough to determine the outcome of the election one way.
But the similarities between the major parties on crypto regulation are much greater than the differences. Goodey said both sides of politics have genuinely engaged with the industry about its concerns and priorities.
“You can see in some of the language with their media releases that they both released in March, April this year, that they are in agreement on what the industry issues are,” she said.
Owing to Senator Bragg’s campaigning on crypto, the industry sees the Liberal Party as more enthusiastic about digital assets, but after three years in government, the ALP looks to have arrived at roughly the same place.
Recent YouGov and Resolve polls suggest the government is likely to be reelected.
While internal Liberal polling suggests an ALP minority government is a genuine possibility, the major parties would have enough votes between them to pass bipartisan crypto legislation.
Whatever happens, 2025 looks like the year Australia will finally provide the crypto industry with the certainty it needs.
“For industry, the timing is really quite critical now because obviously it’s something that has been discussed and kicked around for quite a few years,” Lam said.
“I would say that we are cautiously optimistic.”
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The cryptocurrency market continued its recovery in the past week as the total crypto market capitalization breached the $3 trillion mark for the first time since the beginning of March.
Bitcoin (BTC) rose to an over two-month high of $97,300 last seen at the end of February, before the “Liberation Day” tariffs announcement in the US, bolstering analyst predictions for a rally driven by “structural” institutional and exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows into the world’s first cryptocurrency.
Risk appetite continued rising among crypto investors, as Chinese state-linked news outlets indicated that the Trump administration has quietly contacted Beijing to discuss tariff reductions.
In the wider crypto space, Ethereum developers proposed a new token standard to improve the interoperability of the world’s second-largest blockchain network.
Bitcoin to $1 million by 2029 fueled by ETF and gov’t demand — Bitwise exec
Bitcoin’s expanding institutional adoption may provide the “structural” inflows necessary to surpass gold’s market capitalization and push its price beyond $1 million by 2029, according to Bitwise’s head of European research, André Dragosch.
“Our in-house prediction is $1 million by 2029. So that Bitcoin will match gold’s market cap and total addressable market by 2029,” he told Cointelegraph during the Chain Reaction daily X spaces show on April 30.
Gold is currently the world’s largest asset, valued at over $21.7 trillion. In comparison, Bitcoin’s market capitalization sits at $1.9 trillion, making it the seventh-largest asset globally, according to CompaniesMarketCap data.
For the 2025 market cycle, Bitcoin may surpass $200,000 in the “base case” and $500,000 with more governmental adoption, Dragosch said.
Eric Trump: USD1 will be used for $2 billion MGX investment in Binance
Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX will use a stablecoin linked to US President Donald Trump’s family to settle a $2 billion investment in Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
The World Liberty Financial USD (USD1) US dollar-pegged stablecoin was launched by the Trump-associated crypto platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI) in March 2025.
MGX will use the USD1 stablecoin for its $2 billion investment in the Binance exchange, according to an announcement by Eric Trump during a panel discussion at Token2049 in Dubai. Trump, the son of the president, serves as executive vice president of the Trump Organization.
MGX announced its investment in Binance on March 12, marking the first institutional investment in the exchange and one of the biggest funding deals in the entire Web3 industry.
At the time, Binance declined Cointelegraph’s request to disclose what stablecoin was used in the transaction.
This marks the Abu Dhabi-based investment firm’s first venture into the cryptocurrency space.
Ethereum to simplify crosschain transactions with new token standards
Ethereum developers are working to improve blockchain interoperability with two new token standards: ERC-7930 and ERC-7828.
“There’s no standard way for wallets, apps, or protocols to interpret or display this information,” decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem development organization Wonderland wrote in a May 1 X post. Wallets, decentralized applications (DApps), block explorers and smart contracts follow different rules.
“The result? A messy, inconsistent experience that breaks crosschain UX,“ Wonderland stated.
Wonderland is a group of developers, researchers and data scientists focused on improving the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem. The organization partnered with multiple DeFi protocols, including Optimism, Aztec, Connext and Yearn.
In the post, the organization shared what was discussed at a recent Ethereum Foundation interoperability working group call. Teddy from Wonderland explained that the current goal is to finalize both token standards within the next two weeks. He added:
“We badly need feedback on the ETH-Magicians forum.”
Crypto hackers hit DeFi for $92 million in April as attacks double from March
Cryptocurrency hackers stole more than $90 million in April, dealing another blow to the industry’s mainstream reputation despite ongoing efforts to improve cybersecurity.
Hackers made off with $92 million of digital assets across 15 incidents in April, according to an April 30 research report by blockchain cybersecurity firm Immunefi.
The total marks a 124% month-over-month increase from March, when hackers stole $41 million.
The month’s largest hack on open-source platform UPCX accounted for most of the damage in April, with over $70 million in losses, while KiloEx lost $7.5 million as April’s second-largest hack.
The KiloEx exploiter returned the stolen funds just days after the attack occurred.
All of April’s reported attacks targeted decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. Centralized exchanges reported no incidents during the month, the report noted.
Immunefi, which says it helps protect $190 billion in user funds, has paid more than $116 million in bounties to white hat hackers.
Crypto group asks Trump to end prosecution of crypto devs, Roman Storm
The crypto lobby group, the DeFi Education Fund, has petitioned the Trump administration to end what it claimed was the “lawless prosecution” of open-source software developers, including Roman Storm, a creator of the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash.
In an April 28 letter to White House crypto czar David Sacks, the group urged President Donald Trump “to take immediate action to discontinue the Biden-era Department of Justice’s lawless campaign to criminalize open-source software development.”
The letter specifically mentioned the prosecution of Storm, who was charged in August 2023 with helping launder over $1 billion in crypto through Tornado Cash. His trial is still set for July, and his fellow charged co-founder, Roman Semenov, is at large and believed to be in Russia.
The DeFi Education Fund said that in Storm’s case, the Department of Justice is attempting to hold software developers criminally liable for how others use their code, which is “not only absurd in principle, but it sets a precedent that potentially chills all crypto development in the United States.”
The group also called for the recognition that the prosecution contradicts the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidance from Trump’s first term, which established that developers of self-custodial, peer-to-peer protocols are not money transmitters.
“This kind of legal environment does not just chill innovation — it freezes it,” they argued. The letter added that it also “empowers politically-motivated enforcement and puts every open-source developer at risk, regardless of industry.”
In January, a federal court in Texas ruled that the Treasury overstepped its authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash.
DeFi market overview
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the green.
The Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) token rose over 103% as the week’s biggest gainer, followed by the Solayer (LAYER) token, up over 29% during the past week.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.
The US Central Intelligence Agency is increasingly incorporating Bitcoin (BTC) as a tool in its operations, and working with the cryptocurrency is a matter of national security, Michael Ellis, the agency’s deputy director, told podcast host Anthony Pompliano.
In an appearance on the market analyst and investor’s show, Ellis told Pompliano that the intelligence agency works with law enforcement to track BTC, and it is a point of data collection in counter-intelligence operations. Ellis added:
“Bitcoin is here to stay — cryptocurrency is here to stay. As you know, more and more institutions are adopting it, and I think that is a great trend. One that this administration has obviously been leaning forward into.”
“It’s another area of competition where we need to ensure the United States is well-positioned against China and other adversaries,” Ellis said.
Although Ellis’s comments point to Bitcoin maturing as an asset, they also reflect the increased involvement of governments and institutions in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. This increased involvement runs contrary to the libertarian and cypherpunk ethos originally inherent in crypto.
Related: Geopolitical tensions fuel central bank shift toward gold, crypto — BlackRock exec
Bitcoin: from cypherpunk experiment to state reserve asset
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve on March 7, to mixed reactions from the Bitcoin community.
Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey celebrated the move, while Venice AI founder and BTC advocate Erik Vorhees warned against the government owning any Bitcoin but added that if the US government is to adopt any crypto reserve, it should be Bitcoin-only.
Concerns that cryptocurrencies have lost their cypherpunk roots predate the current market cycle and any strategic reserve legislation or comprehensive regulatory frameworks for digital assets.
In March 2020, Therese Chambers, the former director of retail and regulatory investigations at the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), argued that cryptocurrencies had become increasingly financialized and institutionalized.
Chambers added that digital assets were behaving far more like traditional financial instruments than the privacy-preserving tools they were initially billed as.
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Crypto exchange KuCoin said that it may reenter South Korea after its platform was blocked in the country.
On March 21, South Korean regulators ordered Google Play to block access to exchanges that were not compliant with the requirements needed to operate in the country. On April 11, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) ordered the Apple Store to block unregistered crypto exchanges.
KuCoin was among those affected by the country’s crackdown on unregistered platforms that were previously available. While the platform is now unavailable to South Koreans, it has not fully abandoned the jurisdiction.
In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, KuCoin’s newly appointed CEO, BC Wong, said that the crypto exchange has plans to reenter the country.
Regulators drive global players away from local markets
Wong told Cointelegraph that before the exchange can reenter South Korea, it plans to secure compliance with major jurisdictions first. He said:
“The resource is there. We need to go one by one. Our strategy will always be that major jurisdictions come first, which means the United States, EU, China, India, and maybe after that, Australia.”
Wong confirmed to Cointelegraph that KuCoin representatives had started speaking with regulators. The executive said that operating in crypto is very similar to traditional financial markets, where there’s a need for a clear background in each jurisdiction.
The KuCoin CEO also said that regulators are stricter compared to three years ago. He said that this could be a move to drive global players away from local crypto markets.
“I’m not so sure that if the regulators’ intention is to regulate the global market or just simply, they want to pave the way to get all the global kind of players to be out from their market, and pave the road for their domestic exchange,” Wong added.
Related: Kraken tells how it spotted North Korean hacker in job interview
KuCoin’s EU CEO shares regulatory challenges in Europe
Oliver Stauber, who joined KuCoin as its European Union CEO, told Cointelegraph that there are also difficulties operating in the EU, even with the bloc’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) in place.
Stauber, who previously worked as the chief legal officer of Bitpanda, told Cointelegraph that while MiCA licenses have a passporting feature, which should allow license holders to provide services across the EU, the executive said that some jurisdictions interpret the laws differently.
Stauber said that some jurisdictions may say that licenses were “wrongly assessed,” which gets in the way of operating in some jurisdictions.
“MiCA was said to have a level playing field in crypto all over Europe. However, as long as there are players who are not playing by the books, you know it’s getting quite messy and difficult,” Stauber told Cointelegraph.
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