Siled regulatory efforts are unlikely to help bring oversight to the highly decentralized crypto industry

The multibillion-dollar collapse of the Terra-LUNA stablecoin alerted regulators worldwide to the need for regulations for the burgeoning crypto industry in an effort to protect investors from losing their hard-earned savings.

However, regulatory efforts in silos are unlikely to help bring oversight to a highly decentralized industry, panelists stated at Discard his recently live-streamed event “Crypto Rising: The future of crypto regulation: APAC and Beyond,” said.

“It would make a lot of sense for us to continue our conversations with other policy makers, to try to agree some common standards around market licensing arrangements,” Australian Senator Andrew Bragg said, adding “it’s in all our interests.”

A race to protect consumers

With a reputation as a regional leader in crypto regulation, Australia made headlines this week by announcing a new plan to regulate crypto through a process called “token mapping.” which seeks to categorize digital assets according to their utility and by examining their underlying code.

However, Bragg, now in opposition following the results of Australia’s recent federal election, is quite critical of this plan, but says much of the research has already been done that Australia only has 12 months to maintain the strong position it has built as a regional region. head of crypto regulation.

“We are in a global race for investment, we are in a global race to keep the investments we have in the country. But we are also in a global race to show how consumer protection rules can be established, he said.

While Carolyn Bowler, CEO of Australian crypto exchange BTC Markets Pty Ltd., has previously supported the new plan, she said on the Crypto Rising panel that time is running out for global regulators to come to terms with the technology.

“The horse has frolicked,” she said, “you cannot forbid it; it’s not going to work. We just need to put in place the right safeguards that provide the necessary protection without stifling or patronizing crypto investors worldwide.

“If we don’t do it in Australia, they’re going to go elsewhere,” she added.

Often, regulation comes down to a choice between consumer protection and innovation, but Bowler said there was a need to address both concerns.

“I don’t think it’s a binary choice and I think the enthusiasm, the passion in the Australian crypto community, in the developer community around these projects, is second to none and it’s only growing and that pace is not going to stop.”

In Hong Kong, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) is launching the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (AMLO) in September which will introduce a licensing regime for virtual asset service providers.

A more nuanced view

Stratford Finance Ltd founder and chief executive Angelina Kwan told the panel the SFC was keeping an open mind about the sector after initial discussions in 2019 would have restricted retail investors from trading digital assets in the jurisdiction – leading some exchanges to leave and with Hong Kong.

“There are already discussions about exchanges that have left Hong Kong to come back to Hong Kong and get licensed,” Kwan said, adding that these new regulations will create a much more level playing field for the parties to be licensed that everyone will go through . same process.

Kwan also said that increasingly strict crackdowns on crypto trading in China in recent years have seen many crypto players move further afield to jurisdictions such as Macau and increasingly Hong Kong as they are more welcoming in terms of regulatory environments.

Roll out the red carpet

In recent years, both Singapore and Hong Kong have been fighting to wear the crown of the APAC crypto hub, Hong Kong’s licensing regime would give the territory a real victory over the Lion City – but not so quickly, says Hassan Ahmed, head of crypto exchange Coinbase. of Southeast Asia.

“I think that Singapore has real ambitions to be a global crypto hub,” he said. “If I’m a crypto user, I want access, options and protection. And I think Singapore provides a very healthy balance between the three.”

Ahmed also advised regulators to take a narrow view of digital assets by examining only their price movements doing a “serious disservice” to the technology, and that Coinbase is working to integrate as many users into the technology as possible.

“To allow users to access crypto-assets and then to use crypto-assets for the purpose they [made] is for, that’s the magic moment that we’re trying to get everybody up to,” he said.

As a long-time proponent of the crypto industry in Australia, Bragg recognizes these opportunities and said that as much as consumers need to be considered, ultimately they need to take some responsibility for their own investments.

He recounted a speech given by the head of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission who said if consumers are going to invest in digital assets, “they have to be prepared to lose their shirts.”

“Now in Australia we have great beaches and we have flags on our beaches where you can swim if it’s safe,” he said. “There’s no guarantee there won’t be a shark – but there certainly are lifeguards,” Senator Bragg added. “That’s the kind of model we need to move towards where there will be a system of regulated or protected arrangements.”