How Australia Is Changing Its Crypto Landscape With New ICO Guidelines

Australia has been mentioned in crypto news several times this month already, but thankfully, it was all for the right reasons. It seems like the country is gearing up for a crypto dominant future as it is starting to implement some healthy laws in terms of regulation and money laundering prevention. One may have heard Australia spearheading global crypto tax crime task forces, but it has also been implementing relevant judicial guidelines on its own territory as well.

Why were the ICO guidelines implemented

The new Initial Coin Offering guidelines were implemented in Australia not too long ago. In fact, the law was passed some time at the end of May and has been active in the country ever since.

The main idea of implementing new ICO guidelines was to provide the local population with a lot more transparency from the company’s side of operations. Since Australians had been suffering so much from crypto related scams in 2018, there needed to be at least some type of intervention from the government. Being the direct middleman between the local consumer and the company would not cut it as it would simply remove the whole value of cryptos in general.

Therefore they went for the next best thing, which was approving various crypto companies and their Initial Coin Offerings. Every crypto company willing to cater to the local market or hold an ICO needed to apply for a license from the Australian Financial Services. This would also support the Australian government to keep an eye on the money laundering and crypto tax crime cases in the country, ultimately making it a lot more manageable in terms of legality.

How were Aussies being targeted?

The Australian citizenry is quite strong when it comes to finances. The local consumer purchasing power is much stronger than most of its neighbours in Indonesia, the Philippines and even New Zealand. Therefore, if a fraudulent company was trying to succeed in the region, Australia would be their primary goal.

The most effective platforms that scammers used were online Australian casino games, which are a favourite of the local population. Seeing ways to spend their cryptocurrency, many local players didn’t even consider a scam situation and went for the platform blindly, ultimately resulting in their loss of the funds they wanted to keep safe.

However, with the implementation of the license requirement, the Australian government is pretty much preventing foreign websites to offer crypto transactions. Those that actually apply and are given the right to offer these services will most likely be promoted by the government themselves. Australians understand that getting rid of wagering platforms is out of the question for the near future, therefore the government taking more control of the industry is acceptable for them as long as they have safety assurances.

How will the crypto landscape look like?

Although most crypto enthusiasts don’t like it when the government policies are actually relevant, it cannot be avoided that massive amounts of value are being added to the market. Nearly every crypto holder in Australia will indeed be identified and their transactions tracked, but in the end, paying 20% of the crypto tax and not losing 100% to a fraudulent company is still much more acceptable for the investors.

Overall, the Australian crypto sphere can soon be an example of the co-existence of a decentralized financial platform and the local government.

Image courtesy of RTTNews