The Australian Senate Economic Legislation Committee has rejected a bill put forward by the opposition senator from New South Wales Andrew Bragg, which was aiming to regulate the cryptocurrency market.
The committee believes the bill lacks detail and certainty, and raised “genuine concerns about regulatory arbitrage and adverse market impacts.”
They have encouraged the government to collaborate with industry members in order to gain better insight of the digital assets in Australia.
Bragg mentioned that the decision may result in a slowdown of the cryptocurrency industry in the country.
Furthermore, in February, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had initiated a consultation paper to the Treasury which suggested the “token matching” which essentially mandated disclosure of technological characteristics of digital assets.
The Senate Committee should have established a structure for the license and custody of cryptocurrencies for VASP, however, this has not been done yet.
Finally, the Central Bank of Australia has tested a Centralized Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) back in July, and the results revealed it will take “several more years” for it to be fully functioning.
