Australia to Mandate Crypto Licensing Under New Law

Australia has passed legislation that will bring many digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms under the country’s financial services licensing regime.

The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 has now cleared both houses of the Australian Parliament, according to parliamentary records, marking the biggest step yet in Canberra’s push to create a dedicated regulatory framework for digital assets.

Introduced in November 2025, the bill amends the Corporations Act and ASIC Act to regulate digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms, with the stated aim of improving consumer protection, market integrity and regulatory certainty.

The bill now awaits royal assent, the final step before becoming law. It is set to take effect 12 months after assent, with an additional transition period for businesses to comply.

The bill requires crypto operators, including exchanges and custody platforms, to obtain an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the country’s financial regulator.

The Digital Economy Council of Australia (DECA), an industry group representing Australia’s digital economy, praised the development in a statement on LinkedIn.

“For the first time, we have a legislative framework that directly addresses digital asset platforms and it provides long-awaited clarity for businesses, investors and regulators, and marks a shift from uncertainty toward implementation,” DECA said.

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Addendum clarifies treatment of MPC and crypto custody under new law

Jazz Ozvald, former assistant director of digital asset policy at the Commonwealth Treasury, took to LinkedIn to express delight at the milestone in passing the bill.

He noted that the government also tabled an Addendum to the Explanatory Memorandum, which includes additional detail about how the bill is intended to apply where digital tokens are factually controlled through multi-party computation (MPC).

MPC is a cryptographic technology used to secure crypto wallets by splitting control between multiple parties, so no single person has full control. Transactions can only be approved when enough parties work together, making it harder for funds to be stolen or misused.

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The addendum says that the law only applies to platforms that actually hold crypto for customers, rather than just providing technology that helps control it, even in shared-control setups like MPC.

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