Australia introduces classification for crypto assets

The national regulators propose to distinguish four major types of products related to the crypto industry. 397 Total views 20 Total shares Listen to article 0:00 News Own this piece of history

Collect this article as an NFT 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 Governments multi?stage reform agenda to regulate the market. It seeks to inform a fact?based, consumer conscious and innovation-friendly approach to policy development.

The paper, based on the functional and technology-neutral method, proposes a number of basic definitions for all the things crypto.

At the first level, it outlines the key concepts of crypto networks, crypto tokens, and smart contracts. According to the Treasurys vision, a crypto network is a distributed computer system capable of hosting crypto tokens. Its primary function is to store information and process user instructions. The paper cites Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) as the two most well-known public crypto networks.

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A crypto token is defined as a unit of digital information that can be exclusively used or controlled by a person who doesnt administer the host hardware where that token is recorded. The concept of exclusive use and control is a key distinguishing factor between crypto tokens and other digital records, according to the paper.

A smart contract goes as the computer code that has been published to a crypto networks database. It involves intermediaries or agents performing functions pursuant to promises or other arrangements or functions being performed by crypto networks in the absence of promises, intermediaries and agents.

Starting from these simple definitions, a paper proposes its taxonomy of four types of crypto-related products: 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, non-financial 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 BTC. Smart contracts exist on a spectrum from intermediated to public. The former is used by intermediaries in providing a service; the latter is used by parties to remove the need for an intermediary.

While the paper proposes to start the discussion on this taxonomy and doesnt provide any legislative initiatives, its authors anticipate a relatively easy tailoring of existing laws for a large portion of the crypto ecosystem. It is the pockets of the ecosystem where functions are being ensured by the public, self-service software, which could demand the creation of a brand-new legislative framework.

The Treasury will wait for feedback up until March 3. The next major step of a national regulatory discussion will come with a release of a similar paper on the possible licensing and custody framework for crypto in mid-2023.

On Feb.1, His Majestys Treasury of the United Kingdom published its consultation paper for the crypto regulation as well. In it, the financial authority emphasized the lack of necessity in the separate legislation, given the capacity of the existing Financial Services and Markets Act to cover digital assets. #Australia #Smart Contracts #Bitcoin Regulation #Tokens #Regulation Related News What is total value locked (TVL) in crypto and why does it matter? Top 7 blockchain courses and certifications for beginners What crypto hodlers should keep in mind as tax season approaches BonqDAO protocol suffers $120M loss after oracle hack Euro stablecoin launched in Finland, claims to be first approved in the EU