Following the global regulatory race, Australia opened the public consultation on its own taxonomy of crypto assets. The national regulators propose to distinguish four major types of products related to the crypto industry.
On Feb. 3, the Australian Treasury released a consultation paper on “token mapping,” announcing it as a foundational step in the government’s multistage reform agenda to regulate the market. It seeks to inform “a fact‑based, consumer conscious and innovation-friendly” approach to policy development.
- Crypto asset services, which include lending and borrowing, fiat on/off ramping, crypto token trading, funds management, mining/staking-as-a-service, gambling and custody.
- Intermediated crypto assets, which are the closest to a wide-spread definition of tokens; rights or licenses in relation to event access or subscriptions, intellectual property, reward programs, consumer goods and services, fiat money, nonfinancial assets and government bond coupons. This class includes stablecoins.
- Network tokens — a “new type of currency” constituting peer-to-peer payment infrastructure. Think of your original Bitcoin (BTC).
- Smart contracts exist on a spectrum from “intermediated” to “public.“ Intermediaries use the former in providing a service; the latter is used by parties to remove the need for an intermediary.