Australia Establishes First-Ever Digital Asset Regulatory Framework

Legislation passed Wednesday has established Australia’s first ever comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets, requiring crypto exchanges and crypto custody providers to acquire Australian Financial Services Licences (AFSL) within 6 months.

The legislation, known as the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025, cleared both houses of Australia’s federal parliament on April 1, bringing crypto exchanges and custody providers under the same AFSL licensing regime which applies to TradFi financial institutions. 

As part of the bill, two new categories have been created under the Corporations Act:

• Digital asset platforms, which hold cryptocurrencies on behalf of their users; and 
• Tokenised custody platforms, which hold tokenised real-world assets (RWAs) on behalf of their users and issue digital tokens representing those assets. 

Both types of platforms will now require financial services licenses to operate. Digital asset platforms will be subject to the same strict requirements as traditional financial services firms, including safeguarding customers’ assets, making legally necessary disclosures, avoiding misleading conduct and operating compliant dispute resolution and customer compensation systems.

Rather than seeking to regulate crypto directly, with this new regulatory framework the Australian Government has instead opted to regulate the platforms that custody and control customer assets in an attempt to reduce the harm to consumers while continuing to allow the digital assets industry to innovate and grow.

CEO of the Digital Economy Council of Australia, Amy-Rose Goodey, said the legislation was the end result of “years of conversations, submissions, working groups, pressure, coordination and persistence to get to this point.”

It’s now about how this works in practice, licensing, implementation, and how these settings work for real businesses operating in the real world.

Amy-Rose Goodey, CEO of Digital Economy Council of Australia

Swyftx CEO Jason Titman called it a “momentous occasion”, while a Kraken spokesperson called it a “top-down signal” that Australia takes digital assets seriously. Kate Cooper, CEO of OKX Australia, said the bill marks a “pivotal moment,” for digital assets in Australia, adding that it lays a solid foundation for continued institutional participation and long-term investment.

Related: Australian Senate Panel Backs Bill to Bring Crypto Platforms Under Financial Services Rules

New Framework Could Help Australian Economy Unlock $24 Billion Benefit From Digital Assets

According to recent research from Australia’s Digital Finance Co-operative Research Centre (DFCRC), the evolution of Australia’s financial licensing system to include digital asset platforms is one of three key priorities to unlock a potential AU$24 billion per year digital asset windfall for Australia’s economy.

“Australia has made important progress on regulation and guidance for digital assets, digital money (stablecoins), and consumer protections, but evolving the financial markets and Digital Finance Market Infrastructure (DFMI) licensing pillar remains an important enabling step,” the report’s author wrote.

The report claimed that under the previous licensing regime, only around AU$1billion of the potential AU$24 billion gain would be realised. The report found that by updating licensing arrangements to include digital assets, as much as AU$1.9 billion in gains for the Australian economy could be unlocked by 2030.

Related: Banking Woes Rise as Record One-Third of Australians Invest in Digital Assets

Other priorities identified by the report include establishing a Digital Financial Market Infrastructure (DFMI) sandbox to support transitions from pilots to production projects and deploying foundational infrastructure, such as tokenised Government bonds and a wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) inside the DFMI sandbox.