Three months into being elected to power, the Australian Labour Party has finally given its stance on how it wants to regulate crypto assets. According to a statement by Treasurer Jim Chalmers, the country will put into place the exercise of token mapping. Token mapping was one of the recommendations in the state report, “Australia as a Technology and Financial Center.”
According to Chalmers, this is the first time a nation has attempted to map the cryptocurrency ecosystem, and the endeavor will provide a clear understanding to aid in determining potential areas of regulation.
Chalmers, along with Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones, and Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Dr. Andrew Leigh, said in a statement,
“As it stands, the crypto sector is largely unregulated, and we need to do some work to get the balance right so we can embrace new and innovative technologies”
Chalmers, along with his colleagues, highlights that since 2018, more than a million tax-paying individuals have interacted with crypto. Nonetheless, he stated that regulation finds it difficult to keep up with and adjust to the cryptocurrency asset industry.
The politicians asserted that without first comprehending what was being regulated, the previous Liberal-led government had experimented with crypto asset regulation through crypto secondary service providers.
The group stated,
“The Albanese Government is taking a more serious approach to working out what is in the ecosystem and what risks need to be looked at first.”
What will Crypto Token mapping include?
The token mapping initiative, which is planned to be finished before the year is through, aims to determine how crypto assets and related services should be governed and guide future regulatory choices.
This year, Treasury will token map the Australian cryptocurrency market before publishing a formal consultation document with the industry proposing a legal framework.
It will look to identify the features of all Australian-available digital asset tokens. Included in that will be the kind of crypto asset, the technology powering it, and any other distinguishing technical elements.
The mapping will be used to identify which cryptocurrency assets are already covered by financial services law and which non-financial products may need their own unique regulation.
Michael Bacina, a partner at Piper Alderman, told Cointelegraph that the token mapping endeavor will be a critical step in closing the significant knowledge gap among regulators and policymakers.