Australia’s corporate regulator said on November 22 that it was working with the legislators to create rules for digital currencies but warned that most crypto assets remained quite unregulated for now, leaving the investors in such products ‘on their own’.
In his first public comments since the nation’s biggest bank unleashed its plans to offer crypto trading, Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) chair Joe Longo warned the investors to remain cautious when buying products that did not have any protection.
Longo spoke at an Australian Financial Review Conference:
“Consumers should approach investing in crypto with great caution. At present many crypto-assets are probably not ‘financial products’ … for the most part, for now, at least, investors are on their own.”
Earlier this month, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) broke the industry ranks and became the first main-street bank in the developed world to offer a functional platform for retail clients to trade cryptos. Longo said:
“Crypto is on our doorstep, here and now, and being driven by extraordinary consumer and investor demand. The implications for consumers are potentially huge.”
The regulator stated that it was now working with the legislators who have proposed to change laws to support decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). DAOs are governed by artificial intelligence instead of a board of directors, and a licensing regime for the cryptocurrency exchanges. Longo concluded:
“ASIC does not strive to eliminate risk. But, nor should we ignore it.”
