Shelley Banton, director of Super Clarity, said while there is a lack of regulation in the digital asset industry the draft legislation is “really good news because we’re finally seeing some movement at the station”.
According to research from the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre, Australia could capture as much as $24 billion a year in productivity and cost savings by unlocking digital finance innovation.
Currently, businesses can hold unlimited client digital assets without financial law safeguards. Recent collapses overseas have shown the consequences of inadequate oversight.
The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 introduces enforceable rules for businesses that hold digital assets on behalf of consumers, ensuring they meet the same standards of transparency, integrity and consumer protection that apply across the financial system.
It introduces two new types of financial products – digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms. These platforms will now need to hold an Australian Financial Services Licence, ensuring they are subject to core obligations including:
- The requirement to act efficiently, honestly and fairly;
- Prohibitions on misleading and deceptive conduct and unfair contract terms;
- A requirement to give customers clear information about how assets are held and what their rights are;
- Maintaining strong governance and risk controls;
- Providing accessible dispute resolution and compensation if things go wrong.
While digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms will be regulated under the existing AFSL framework, their obligations will be tailored to reflect the unique structure and risk profile of these types of platforms.
Smaller, low‑risk platforms – those holding less than $5,000 per customer and facilitating less than $10 million in transactions per year – will be exempt, consistent with the approach for other financial products like non‑cash payment facilities.
During an online discussion with digital trading platform OKX, Banton said there is a lot of movement in the digital currency space, especially from a trustee point of view.
“ASIC in particular, along with the ATO, has been warning SMSF trustees about crypto scams like the pump-and-dump scam, along with those emails that get sent out that have been pretending to come from the ATO, saying that the person is involved in tax evasion and then asking them to connect their wallet and link to that link in that email,” Banton said.
“All of these things are red flags for trustees, and there’s a lot more scams that are going on out there as well.”
However, she said as well as the draft legislation there have been other key developments in the digital asset space, one of which is ASIC information sheet 255, released a few weeks ago which clarifies when crypto assets are financial products under the Corporations Act.
“The good thing about that is that it’s going to raise standards for the service providers in the industry, such as the crypto exchanges, and it’s going to improve that transparency, the integrity and the responsibilities of those offering services in that industry,” she said.
“The other thing that ASIC has said is that stable coins, wrapped tokens, tokenised securities and digital asset wallets may be captured as financial products. A good example is if there’s a token that offers a right to a financial return or it’s pulled in a managed investment scheme, ASIC says that the issuer or the platform may need to hold an AFSL because it’s going to be classified as a financial product.”
Banton continued that the ATO is already providing guidance on crypto asset investments, which sets out the tax treatment of this type of investment, discussing what trustees need to know about CGT trading versus investment and record keeping requirements.
“Regardless of whether you’re holding crypto in or out of an SMSF, you’ve got to keep those clear records of acquisition costs, disposal costs, dates, returns and value in Aussie dollars, which can be an additional conversion exercise if you’re trading in other currencies now,” she said.
“Info 255 also gives guidance about good practices for digital asset ecosystems, which is more about the conduct of those service providers rather than the assets themselves. It refers to the use of that specialised infrastructure, specialist expertise, segregation of assets, which means there’s more appropriate custody arrangements in place.
“There’s good risk management practices, robust security, and internal governance, just as a starting point.”
She added from an SMSF trustees point of view, what’s important is that all exchanges also have a compensation system in place so clients can be compensated if the crypto assets are lost through market movement.
“One of the interesting points also to note is that when we’re talking about super funds, we’re talking about the sole purpose of having a super fund is to build and protect wealth for the retirement benefit of the members,” she said.
“So putting this new regulatory framework in place is going to support that, and it also means that trustees will need to be more circumspect about the exchange that they’re using, because the start of these draft regulations mean that we’re moving these digital assets into mainstream financial services, which is going to obviously strengthen the opportunities for SMSFs.
“However, it also means that they need to look to see whether that platform is going to be appropriately regulated in the future.”
