Australia has passed legislation that will bring many digital asset platforms and tokenised custody providers under the country’s financial services licensing regime. The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 has cleared both houses of Parliament and is the most significant step yet in creating a dedicated regulatory framework for digital assets in Canberra.
Introduced in November 2025, the bill amends the Corporations Act and the ASIC Act to regulate digital asset trading platforms and tokenised custody platforms, aiming to boost consumer protection, market integrity and regulatory certainty. The legislation now awaits royal assent and is set to take effect 12 months after assent, with an additional transition period for businesses to meet compliance requirements.
Under the bill, crypto operators — including exchanges and custody platforms — must obtain an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). The licensing requirement places these services squarely within Australia’s existing financial services supervision framework.
Industry group the Digital Economy Council of Australia (DECA) welcomed the development, saying the framework provides long-awaited clarity for businesses, investors and regulators and signals a move from uncertainty to implementation.
An Addendum to the Explanatory Memorandum was tabled alongside the bill, providing further detail on how the law applies in situations involving multi-party computation (MPC). MPC is a cryptographic method that splits control of private keys among multiple parties so no single person has unilateral control; transactions require cooperation by a sufficient number of parties to be authorised, which enhances security.
The addendum clarifies that the law targets platforms that actually hold crypto on behalf of customers. It does not intend to capture purely technological providers that enable shared control, such as vendors supplying MPC tools, unless those providers in practice custody customers’ crypto assets. This distinction aims to ensure the licensing regime applies to entities that have factual custody and control over customer assets, rather than to third-party technology suppliers that only facilitate key management.
Former Commonwealth Treasury digital asset policy official Jazz Ozvald and other observers praised the passage of the bill as a milestone for Australia’s digital asset sector, noting the added explanatory detail will help firms understand compliance obligations around custodial arrangements and emerging custody technologies like MPC.
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