According to the latest Australian Security and Investments Commission (ASIC) report into retail investment, the uptake in cryptocurrency has skyrocketed among Australian retail investors. The regulator found that 44% of those surveyed reported holding cryptocurrency, making it the second most common product type held after Australian shares. At the same time, a quarter of the surveyed investors who held cryptocurrency also indicated that cryptocurrency was the only investment they held.
With this increase in the uptake of cryptocurrency and other related blockchain technology, coupled with the lack of regulation which has allowed scams to proliferate, it will perhaps come as no surprise to learn that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) estimates that more than $100 million has been reported lost to cryptocurrency investment scams just in the first half of 2022.
In a bid to stamp out these scams, the then Coalition government had commissioned the Board of Taxation to conduct a review into the appropriate policy framework for the taxation of digital transactions and assets in Australia. The Board is due to report back by the end of 2022.
However, the Labor Government has recently criticised the previous government for “prematurely jump[ing] straight to options without first understanding what was being regulated” and said it is now seeking to take a “more serious approach to work out what is in the ecosystem and what risks needs to be looked at first”. Treasury will prioritise “token mapping” work as a first step, aiming to identify how cryptocurrency assets and related services should be regulated. The next steps will be to identify notable gaps in the regulatory framework, progress a licensing framework, review innovative organisational structures, look at custody obligations for third-party custodians of cryptocurrency assets and provide additional consumer safeguards.
