Now lawMoney & Tax Introduced in the House of Representatives, 26 Nov 2025

Crypto exchanges will need a licence from 2027

Some businesses hold crypto and other digital tokens for their customers. They will be treated like other money businesses. That means a licence, rules to keep your coins safe, and a plain guide before you sign up.

Official name: Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025

Who it affects

• People who keep crypto on an exchange: The business holding your coins must have a licence and follow rules to keep them safe.
• Crypto exchanges and businesses that hold coins: You need a licence, written platform rules and a customer guide, or you can be fined by a court.
• Small crypto start-ups: You may get a let-off if you stay under $5,000 per customer and $10 million a year in trades.
• Shops that just take crypto payments: You do not need a licence if sending people to a platform is a small part of your business.
• People who hold their own crypto wallet: The law is aimed at businesses holding tokens for other people. Holding your own coins is not covered.

Crypto firms had few safeguards

A digital asset is something that only exists and moves as a computer record. Most often it sits on a blockchain. A blockchain is a shared public record of payments, kept on many computers at once. Bitcoin and other crypto coins are the best known examples.

Until now, Australia had no clear rules for businesses that hold these coins for customers. The Parliamentary Library works for all MPs and takes no side. It says a business could hold any amount of its customers' crypto. It did not need the protections that apply to banks or share traders.

Since 2017, crypto exchanges have had to sign up with the agency that tracks dirty money. That covers checks for money laundering, which means hiding where crime money came from. It does not cover how a business keeps your coins safe.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is the company and finance watchdog. We call it the finance watchdog here. It tried to use the finance laws it had against some crypto businesses. In 2025 it lost two big cases in the Federal Court, a national court. They were about whether crypto products counted as financial products. Financial products are things like shares, super and insurance.

Big failures overseas worried people. When the FTX exchange failed in November 2022, people around the world lost about $200 billion. The Library says about 30,000 Australians lost money in that failure and an earlier one. That was the collapse of a crypto coin called Terra.

New names for crypto businesses

The law adds three new terms to the Corporations Act 2001. That is the main law for companies and money services.

A digital token is a computer record that someone can control. Control means you can move it, you can stop others moving it, and you can prove both.

A digital asset platform is a business that holds digital tokens for other people. It keeps a record of what each customer owns. A normal crypto exchange that holds your coins fits this.

A tokenised custody platform holds a real thing, such as gold or shares. It gives you a digital token that stands for it. You can use the token to get the real thing back.

Both kinds of platform now count as financial products. That brings them under the same rules as other money businesses. The law does not decide if Bitcoin or any other coin is itself a financial product. That question stays under the old rules.

Getting a licence

Any business that runs one of these platforms must hold an Australian Financial Services Licence. Fund managers and financial advisers need the same licence. The finance watchdog gives it out and can take it away.

There are two let-offs. The first is for small platforms. A platform can skip the licence if it holds no other financial products. Its trades must add up to $10 million or less over 12 months. Each customer must also have no more than $5,000 in it.

The business must tell the finance watchdog it is using this let-off. The government can raise those dollar limits in detailed rules, without a new vote.

The second let-off is for businesses that only send customers to a platform as a small side part of their work. The government's example is a grocery shop that lets you pay through a crypto service.

Say you run a small crypto start-up with 500 customers. Each holds a few hundred dollars. Your yearly trades stay under $10 million and you tell the watchdog. Then you can keep going without a full licence.

Keeping your assets safe

The finance watchdog can now write standards for licensed platforms. A standard is a rule book they must follow. Breaking one can bring a fine set by a court.

Some standards cover holding coins. They cover how a platform stores customer coins, keeps records, checks its books and uses those coins. Any spare cash a platform holds for you must be kept safe for you, apart from its own money.

Other standards cover trades. They cover how trades are carried out and finished. A platform must have a written deal with anyone who brings buyers and sellers to it. It must check they stick to it.

The watchdog must be sure each standard is fair to platforms of different sizes. The standards cannot ban a platform from offering certain services. They also cannot stop a platform keeping many customers' coins in one wallet. But its records must show whose coins are whose.

Each platform must also publish its own rules. These say who can join and how trades are finished. They say who carries the risk if something goes wrong, and which coins are on offer.

A plain customer guide

Before signing up an everyday customer, a platform must hand over a guide. The law calls everyday customers retail clients. The guide must be clear and short enough to be useful.

The guide must explain the risks and who holds your coins. It must list all fees and say how to complain. It must also explain how your rights are different from owning the coin yourself. It needs worked examples of the fees you might pay.

If something important changes, the platform must send you new information as soon as it can. It must also tell you if the change is worse for you.

Platforms must also have a voting policy. Some things you hold through a platform, such as a share, come with a vote. The policy says how those votes are used.

Powers for the Minister

The Treasury Minister can ban certain financial products from being traded or held on these platforms. First the Minister must weigh up set things. The Minister can get advice from the finance watchdog, the Reserve Bank and the bank safety watchdog.

The Minister can also say some crypto trading platforms count as financial markets. This can apply even when the tokens traded are not financial products. A similar power covers the systems that finish off trades.

The government can also use detailed rules to say a certain computer record is, or is not, a digital token. Parliament can cancel these rules.

What the law leaves out

Public blockchains themselves are not treated as financial products. They are also not treated as managed investment schemes. A managed investment scheme is a pooled investment run by someone else, such as a property fund.

Staking means locking up tokens on a blockchain to earn rewards. Some deals where a business stakes your tokens for you are also kept out of the managed investment rules.

A wrapped token is a copy of one coin made to work on a different blockchain. You can swap it back for the original. That alone does not make it a financial product.

There are also smaller changes. Company share offers made through these platforms get changed rules on what must be shared with buyers. Customer protections in the finance watchdog's own law are updated to cover the new platforms. These include the ban on unfair contract terms, which stops one-sided deals.

Start date

This bill is now law. Daniel Mulino, the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, was in charge of it. It was brought to the House of Representatives on 26 November 2025. That is the house of Parliament where the government is formed. The House passed it on 4 February 2026. The Senate, Parliament's second house, passed it on 1 April 2026.

The Governor-General, the King's representative, signed it into law on 8 April 2026. Its official number is Act No. 38 of 2026. The main rules start 12 months later, on 8 April 2027.

Platforms then get six more months to apply for a licence. If they apply in that time, they can keep trading until the watchdog decides. If they do not apply, the rules hit them as soon as the six months end.

How they voted

Its journey through Parliament

Official sources

• Bill page on aph.gov.au
• Text of the bill
• Explanatory memorandum
• Bills Digest

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