Around the world, in the fintech world, there has been a lot of noise around the crypto ecosystem and the regulators in various countries have been trying to adopt different methods to make some sense of the noise.
While one group of regulators have sought to ban all crypto activities outright, another set has embraced it with open arms while the third group is adopting different laws and regulations to deal with the same. Amidst all this, the Australian government has spelled the need to bring the crypto as well as digital wallets under stricter laws as right now, they seem to be just beyond the current laws and hence are not covered properly which could lead these companies to exploit the grey areas. Google Pay, Apple Pay, and WeChat Pay are the wallets that are currently under watch and so far, they have not been regulated as pure payment systems which lead to confusion and grey areas in their regulation.
“Ultimately, if we do nothing to reform the current framework, it will be Silicon Valley alone that determines the future of our payments system, a critical piece of our economic infrastructure.”, said Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
The country and the blockchain community in the region are also feeling the need for the crypto space to have specific regulations which will give a direction for the industry in the coming years. The lack of such regulation at this moment, they feel, is hurting their growth and ultimately, it could lead to Australia and other such countries falling behind in terms of technology growth. This is a challenge that is being faced by many countries at the moment. China has basically cracked down on any kind of crypto-related activity while other countries like India are also looking to shut down crypto, though for a different reason as they want to launch their own digital currencies.
What is clear in all this is the fact that the crypto ecosystem is still not fully mature and hence the situation in different countries is still very fluid. It is likely to take some more years for the market to mature and the regulations to catch up and till then, those involved in the crypto ecosystem have to understand the risks involved before getting into it.
