Australia's digital assets framework was assented in April 2026 but starts in April 2027, and payment stablecoins remain in unlegislated draft law.
The Business Desk is a contributing writer covering business and public affairs for The Sydney Times.
Australia's digital assets framework became law on 8 April 2026 and will not commence until 9 April 2027. In the meantime, payment stablecoins sit in draft legislation that has not been introduced to Parliament at all, and ASIC has already told the market that stablecoins are financial products. The legal classification arrived before the licensing regime.
The operative instrument is the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act 2026, No. 38 of 2026. It creates two new product categories, digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms, bringing exchange and custody operators into the Australian financial services licence regime and giving ASIC new powers over asset-holding standards and transaction and settlement standards.
The Senate Economics Legislation Committee's March 2026 report was unusually blunt in its section headings, including "Regulation by Litigation," "Debanking Remains a Serious Barrier," and "The Bill Establishes the Framework, but Punts the Full System to Future Regulations."
That last heading is the operative problem. The new asset-holding standards, the transactional and settlement standards, the platform rules and the ministerial prohibition powers do not operate until twelve months after assent. ASIC has signalled an eighteen month implementation roadmap to meet the commencement date, with licence applications expected to open about six months beforehand.
ASIC chair Sarah Court has since framed the pre-commencement position differently, saying the High Court's ruling "reinforces ASIC's long-standing position that the definition of financial product is broad and technology neutral and so captures new and emerging products without the need to amend the legislation."
On 12 March 2026 the High Court upheld ASIC's appeal in ASIC v Block Earner, ruling unanimously that the fixed-yield "Earner" product was a financial product requiring a licence. The Court accepted that Earner was a derivative because returns varied by reference to digital asset values and exchange rates.
Two further penalties landed earlier in the year. The Federal Court ordered Binance Australia Derivatives, trading as Oztures Trading, to pay a $10 million pecuniary penalty plus $200,000 costs on 27 March 2026, after 524 of 611 clients were found not to have supplied sufficient information to confirm non-retail status. The operator paid approximately $13.1 million in compensation to affected clients, more than the penalty itself.
On 27 January 2026 the Federal Court ordered BPS Financial, which ran the Qoin Wallet, to pay $14 million, comprising $2 million for unlicensed conduct and $12 million for misleading and deceptive conduct, with over 96,000 wallets issued and more than $42 million derived from token sales. ASIC had sought $21 million; BPS argued for $600,000.
The transaction-level regulator has been the more immediate constraint. Expanded anti-money laundering obligations commenced on 31 March 2026, bringing virtual asset safekeeping and financial services connected to the offer or sale of a virtual asset into the designated services regime, with a registration deadline of 28 April 2026.
On 10 August 2026 AUSTRAC suspended Cryptolink's registration for three months from 9 August, taking 96 cryptocurrency ATMs offline. AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas said the company "was given the opportunity to comply but could not meet its obligations despite the enforceable undertaking," having failed to submit threshold transaction reports and to respond to requests for information.
The public register shows a steady sequence of refusals, suspensions and cancellations through 2026. The maximum civil penalty for a body corporate rose to 100,000 penalty units, about $36.4 million, when the penalty unit increased to $364 on 1 July 2026.
Payment stablecoins were captured in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Payments System Modernisation) Act 2025 as digital units of value within the new definition of funds. The licensing regime for them sits in a Tranche 1 draft released on 12 March 2026, with submissions closing 9 April 2026. It had not been introduced to Parliament as of 5 October.
The draft creates a "tokenised stored value facility," defined so that the right to redeem a fixed, single-currency amount is attached to the token. That structure deliberately excludes algorithmic stablecoins, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Providers would have to publish notices of material change and monthly reserve statements within seven days of month end, and unreasonably restricting redemption becomes an offence.
ASIC had already granted temporary relief to distributors of eligible stablecoins and wrapped tokens through Corporations Instrument 2025/867 in December 2025, and INFO 225 had already classified fiat-backed stablecoins as financial products while confirming Bitcoin is not.
Regulatory detail is published by ASIC, AUSTRAC and Treasury. Our Business desk covers the sector.
Direct inquiries, corrections, or documentation concerning this dispatch to our editorial newsroom desk.
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