Australia

Australia spent a decade in INFO 225: some crypto-assets are financial products (and then AFS licensing, hawking bans, product intervention, disclosure apply), some are not. The 2025 Bill, now an Act awaiting 9 April 2027 commencement, changes the object of regulation. It does not define “digital asset” as a product. It defines digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms — facilities that possess clients’ tokens — and folds those facilities into the Corporations Act as financial products, with ASIC minimum standards for holding, transactions and settlement, and a platform guide.

The A$10 million line

A DAP issuer need not hold an AFSL if total market value of transactions across its platforms does not exceed A$10 million over 12 months. That is a small-platform exemption, closer to a de minimis CASP than to Rule 200’s $5 million issuer cap. Comments that treat it as Australia’s startup exemption will be easy to dismiss. Comments that treat it as evidence the Commission could have written a de minimis intermediary exemption — and chose not to, because RCA is not an intermediary statute — are the accurate ones.

• AUSTRAC still runs the AML door for digital-currency exchanges. AFSL and DCE registration are not substitutes.
• Eighteen-month transition from commencement: the DAP/TCP rules do not apply, for six months, to a provider that does not yet hold the relevant AFSL authorisation.
• INFO 225 remains the characterisation guide after 2027 for whether the underlying token, acquired through a DAP, would itself have been a financial product.

• Calendar: Australia’s platform statute goes live six months after RCA comments close. A dual-list AU/US plan for 2027 should be in the letter if you have one.
• The platform-guide-plus-underlying-disclosure model is a serious alternative to Rule 103 website copy. If you want the Commission to study it, attach the EM, not a tweet.