Bitcoin Forum

The Australian government is introducing new rules for cryptocurrency exchanges to protect consumers.
Exchanges with a lot of money will need a license and must follow financial service laws. These rules aim to ensure transparency and safety in the crypto market.
They are also considering more regulations for exchanges in the future. Tokens used in gaming and NFTs won't be affected.
The government wants to balance consumer protection with innovation in blockchain technology and digital tokens.

Source:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/australian-crypto-industry-treasury-proposals-step-forward-slow-regulation
https://cryptoslate.com/australia-to-introduce-crypto-regulation-mandating-licenses-for-crypto-exchanges/

Australia have always been an interesting country to watch when it comes to the regulations of cryptocurrency. It's good to see that a western country is not trying to stifle growth or innovation, but is trying to protect its consumers. Of course we all prefer complete freedom, though it does seem like they are at least trying to keep the scales somewhat balanced.

I have actually heard in an online community that Binance recently have let go of the vast remainder of their employees in the Australian base as of recently, after they have already been doing so throughout the year there and around the world. I wonder if the two scenarios are correlated.

They choose a good words which is "protecting consumers" it show if they're a good government, while actually their reason is to "control" their citizensso they can track how much the wealth of their citizens and tax it.

There's nothing will change, the exchanges will still accept those shitcoins and Australian government will only say "cryptocurrency is a high risk investment, do with cautious".

Is the government willing to recover the consumers' losses? nope.

All country use that term, it's not a spell binding word that would prevent businesses from exploiting, deceiving or abusing their consumer base. I don't about your claim about tracking though, they probably already have that tracking that you're talking about even before the passing of this regulation, I mean Australian citizens are paying their taxes already, I am sure that the Australian version of the IRS has their calculator kids crunching the numbers to track the wealth that each of their citizens have, of course there's never going to be any changes, pretty sure that you already know how slow the bureaucratic process is in the government.

If Australia continues in the direction they are going, it will be only a matter of time before the very essence of Bitcoin is defeated in that country. From records, Australian government is fond of interfering with virtually everything... from forex brokerage to online casinos, they practically want to control how their citizens partake in anything. They do this by placing limits on how much an individual can deposit irrespective of how much the individual is worth with their reason being that the citizens are loosing more than they are winning. There was even news of them planning to ban some crypto-based casinos... I don't remember if this scaled through.

While this might seem like watching out for their citizens, if you look deeper, it is control in disguise.

You are right and I agree, it's just that to convey the message the Australian government wraps it in friendly words. However, this is only for balance and the government there is considered still friendly compared to the policies of several countries which completely prohibit cryptocurrency transactions, especially Bitcoin which is much more decentralized. Therefore, create policies that are mutually beneficial to consumers and the government. Even though most consumers want freedom, living in a country like it or not, they still have to accept the rules. Consumers just need to be smart about securing their assets in a way that is more undetectable.

There's nothing to protect on consumer's end with the use of cryptocurrency when the people are demanding for an alternative currency to be independent with their finances, this protection will be on favour of the government tha the cryptocurrencies users because they will start by tasking them.


These are part of the reasons why an exchange is not different from a bank, they regulate the rate and how cash flow from your account.


Is this actually a success, loosing privacy to achieve transparency? how transparent could they go or offer when they have already personal interest in doing this that works in their own favour and not yours.


The earlier the better , if we can embrace bitcoin and forget every other requirements for being under government regulations.

It depends really. For example, there is this:


So, Bitcoin is clearly seen as legal in Australia.

But yes, in future you can see payments in Australia moving towards CBDCs. Basically less access to cash and a push to use more digital money only.

Here's a post I wrote in Stacker News about this: A view into the future of payments in Australia (https://stacker.news/items/257128)

The good side is that more governments are understanding cryptocurrencies and are focusing on the big platforms instead of trying to ban Bitcoin.
The good side is that users will get better exchanges and there is less possibility of being scammed.
The downside is that you have to provide more data, and this may reduce the privacy of many customers, in addition to accepting Bitcoin may mean imposing taxes on it.

In general, let us read these new regulations and decide whether they are good or bad, but in general, they are good because many people consider Bitcoin an investment.

Prior to this time has there been any security incidence with any of these crypto exchanges where lost their crypto assets? I support regulations. And crypto exchanges ought to be licensed that's one of the best ways to build trust among clients.

Great leadership from the Australian government. We are going to see a competition between them the Saudi government in the development of Blockchain technology. They are both crypto friendly countries.

The regulation so far is still based on the current financial services regulation but they are open to suggestions. But whatever rules are introduced in Europe are still going to be easy implementation in Australia. They don't even need to vote for it.

If ETF is already approved just as what is in the news today, I guess they are also up to approved spot ETF in Australian exchanges.  All countries should be doing the same by now.

I thought those exchanges were already licensed by the Australian government, but many are not, like Binance or Coinbase. That's why they specifically mentioned big exchanges having a lot of money. I checked and saw that only Kraken had their ASIC license back in time. Which I think might not be considered in the list of gaining a license soon.

Overall, that's a good step, into the world of digitalization, and we might see many startup companies from Australia just like Hong Kong is coming up with many new companies promoting and adopting crypto.

This would be a positive point for the GDP of Australia because more companies means more tax will be paid and hence the reserves will increase and more development would occur. And in the end, it is also bad for those, who don't want to agree on the ASIC or any other terms.

This is expected.  Countries will implement regulations and rules to the cryptocurrency to "protect" their citizens from scams and fraud so exchanges needs to seek license and have to be taxed to be able to serve their citizens.

If the regulation's intention is to be realized to protect their citizens then this is a good thing for consumers but we all know that government is after the control or information about the activities of an exchanges in order for them to benefit from the services offered by the cryptocurrency exchanges.

The good thing here is that Australia with its regulation is stepping forward for the legalization of cryptocurrency and we know that the effect of this is better adoption.

I have done some reading after your post and to an extent, you are right. From my research there are two ways that Australia can go with Cryptocurrency vs. Their proposed digital money systems.

Firslty, they can simply keep up with innovation, not stifle it and also maintain a level of freedom.

However, Australia has the stance that cryptocurrency is competing currency...and with this ideology, their best interest seems to be that they want to eventually eliminate the Australian onramps to the ecosystem. From what I've gathered, this is something that they are aiming to do in the next 5 years, as they update their money system up to a blockchain standard.

It's interesting how they portray their news and then what you find when you dig a little deeper. I will say that it does seem quote sinister to completely eliminate cryotocurrency from their country. I suppose it's one way to get rid of a superior competing currency though. I'm interested to see what happens next there...

I'm glad you are able to corroborate on my earlier submission;  I have been following Australian government policies for a while and I know how they subtly bring regulations that look good on the surface but with clandestine motives that is not far from control and censorship. Several companies that I know have been badly hit by such rules and those that have their headquarters there have to make changes to their conditions of service that it even affected those outside Australia.

I know they will have a hard time with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general considering that many people are opting for DEX over CEX. Well, in the near future, many things will become clearer.

First and foremost, do you know that governments, central banks have more laws, regulations on commercial banks than cryptocurrency exchanges. Unfortunately they can not protect their citizens from bank runs, bankruptcies of commercial banks.

Now you believe with some more regulations, they will protect customers better or completely. Is it realistic if you take commercial banks into consideration?

They ignore the most scammiest issue in cryptocurrency. Scam, free to mint tokens. They are brainless to do this.

Don't trust governments, their promises and don't trust centralized exchanges. Be your own bank and control your private key seed and bitcoin.

Remimder: do not keep your money in online accounts (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421039.0)

Like it or not, that might happen in the future, where the government will increasingly tighten its regulations to "protect consumers" from scamming.
However, consumers must also follow the regulations by submitting their data to the government through exchanges so that the government can check it quickly.
Everything has positive and negative sides as the government introduces its regulations to reduce the possibility of scamming which will become more frequent.
That means consumers must be prepared for the loss of privacy from owning crypto which should still exist.
There may be no longer freedom for consumers who own crypto because the government can request reports from everyone who owns crypto.

If the fundamentals of bitcoin is to get rid of 3rd parties and do p2p payments, then definitely this news is no good by any means. When you are in bitcoin world, you should agree that you take the responsibility of managing your own funds yourself on your own and you also take the responsibility of making transactions and exchanges without involvement of 3rd parties. That's why Bitcoin was created but now we are stealing its fundamentals from it and only give it a trading value. If bitcoin is traded on centralized exchanges and we use Blockchain Analyzes companies to filter transactions, we simply transfrom bitcoin into stocks that have additional options that includes payment and self-custody wallets.

Isn’t it already attained(the loss of privacy) with or without regulation like this once you create an account to centralized exchange?

Centralized services get our data such as IP address, transactions and many more once use their service. This kind of regulation is really good for consumer protection since there’s a lot of shady exchange like FTX that do use consumer money without any consent on different matter. I believe Binance is doing a lot of shady illegal trade that’s why they hate regulations.

This kind of act must need to consider a lot of revise, enhancement before making an implementation, if the Australia want to adopt the use of the crypto alot of things must need to consider with their laws, also sure there's alot of establishment, and other centralized platform will show up just to get caught with this trend and gets conquer this kind of business, but this kind of widely adaptation will gives a good and different impact to the crypto world and security.

Lol. Sorry for the loud laugh  ;D
So going forward, this is going to protect people from scammers? No I humbly disagree about that. Regulations comes with government working with centralized exchanges to give names of people they feel are guilty of scam but I don't think that will do much damage control with scammers because real scammers in crypto don't use centralized exchanges, they know better that when they scam investors their money, they will be track if they send it to exchange, they prefer pair to pair transaction where they can spend and move on with their life.


I really wish the way they want this to work will effectively but there are many places this will leave untouched. There are consumers who prefer their privacy protect and will never yield to any data submission and I fear they can't be protected. If a consumer have bitcoin in his personal wallet and it got stolen or hack, such transaction will be difficult to fight, it can be flag but the consumer will lost the access and u don't think there is point of even flagging an address when it can not be recover. Regulations can't do much either I think right.

What they want will be different with what they can do and what they can achieve after all. Not yet mentioned that they can lie us too.

Fiat currencies with banks are KYC but does it work effectively to prevent Money Laundering. The answer is, not.

Governments and central banks want cryptocurrency centralized exchanges to do KYC on customers, mandatory and given reason is mandatory KYC can help to fight against Money Laundering. Do you think they will succeed with it?

My answer is they will fail.

Why KYC is extremely dangerous - and useless (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221497.0).

What I say is that this is the greatest Impudence that a government can say, that for the protection of consumers they introduce Regulations , because if in case of theft or something they will be able to recover their money, that seems to me to be the most mendacious excuse of all, it is something for which we should not Fall, they intend to put regulations so that the people who know the least Will simply accept them, that is why a whole country should read, the people will enlighten themselves because it is the only way that they do not Put lies into them and they take advantage of the money of themselves, a government will always have a lot of bitcoin, and they don't care that others don't have it , as long as they have everything right, this is the same as the KYC Trap , something very Similar.

The politicians behind most governments know very well what buttons to push to get their way, if they were honest about their intentions and they said that they were introducing new regulations as they wanted to keep better track of what you were doing with your cryptocurrencies, there will be an immediate backlash against it as people hate getting their freedoms restricted.

But by using the excuse that this is being done in order to protect people from being scammed they can get away with almost anything, and do whatever they want without suffering any negative consequences.

This is positive news. It seems the regulations are friendlier than other country's. Australia seems open-minded as to the development of cryptocurrency. Although there are worries that these new regulations might categorize cryptocurrency institutions together with traditional financial institutions, I think the common ground is consumer protection. Everybody should be equally protected from the banks as well as from centralized exchanges.

There is a need to regulate the operations of centralised crypto platforms like exchanges. We have seen these crypto organisations engage in many unwholesome activities that have led to the loss of funds of many clients. The government has the responsibility of protecting its citizens from these fraudulent firms hiding under the freedom of the crypto space to carry out their criminal activities. It is important to confirm if they have the funds they claim they own and there should also be a limit to the services they offer. However, these laws should be limited to only centralised platforms because decentralisation is self-regulatory. Citizens should be allowed to freely choose between government-regulated exchanges and decentralised platforms.     

I do not know if the Australian government can achieve a balance between consumer protection and innovation in blockchain technology, because it is difficult to formulate regulatory laws that protect the consumer without at the same time affecting companies and innovation.

It would be very good to formulate such a law, but that is not easy because consumer protection will be by enforcing KYC and AML, and this is something that many users who like to maintain their privacy do not prefer. This also requires imposing strict regulations on companies that may limit the companies’ ability On innovation.

But let's wait and hope they can find a suitable formula.

It's really great to hear that Australia has announced Bitcoin legalization, but it's really great news that the people of their country can go a long way with Bitcoin. Australians are very lucky that their country's government has legalized Bitcoin for them. We are really sorry to hear this news from Australia. If this happened in our country, if Bitcoin was legal, we would be able to work more relaxed.  Maybe bitcoin will never be legal in our country because our country's government can't manage bitcoin.

It is a tricky balance to obtain.

Australia used to be a great place for innovation, but now I'm not so sure about it. Maybe it is still great, but I haven't seen the same growth I've seen in a decade ago.

The thing is that Australia is a very technological place, and things might happen, but there is still a lot of people that might not want that to happen.

El Salvador is more friendlier since they accept Bitcoin as a legal tender.

Banks aren't give any protection to their customers, they're only making a promise and you need to rely with their promise. As you know human is complex and can change their mind so fast, I don't be surprised if they said they will protect their customers, but tomorrow they will disappear.

The article says that exchanges largely support the suggested regulations, so I guess it can be a good thing. Moreover, it means that we're talking about hypothetical regulations which aren't currently in place and might not get adopted after all.
It seems to me that both the title of the thread and the way the op phrased the info made it seem more negative and more serious than it currently is, to be honest. The part about protection of consumers kind of looks as if there's a problem with it these days, but consumer protection is mentioned only as one of the reasons for the proposed regulations, not as a single or central reason.

Well, it is definitely the responsibility of the government to be regulating anything that it feels it has jurisdiction with, especially with the intent of protecting the people and/or the general public from unscrupulous players in the industry. I do find this news to be a good news for the cryptocurrency industry in Australia as we are slowly moving away from the Wild Wild West era which dominated in many years and in many ways resulted into loss of money of people victimized by scams and frauds.

I've not been to Australia but I really like what I'm seeing in the news, the government truly have the best interest of the citizens and they will do everything to protect them. Few months ago they banned the use of credit cards and digital currencies in casinos and online gambling platforms. Now, they are laying down well defined rules to streamline the operations of crypto entities in the country.

Where I come from, there are no rules and there are two cases of local exchanges scamming customers, and no one has been held accountable. I know some persons may kick against this but it's for the best interest of the Australian people. The government is going make some money in the form of taxes but the regulations will also help to protect the citizens from shady crypto establishments.

This doesn't have anything to do with legalizing BTC, by the way BTC isn't illegal in Australia. The Australian government are providng more regulations, rules and guidelines for cryptocurrency exchanges, these exchanges must follow these regulations or else they will cease to offer their services to Australian customers; i don't know where you read about BTC legalization and all the stuffs you're saying here.
I don't know what country you are talking about, but it doesn't matter if BTC is legal or not in a particular country, they still do not have the power to manage or control it, they can only make laws and decisions on it or affecting BTC businesses, but they can manage or control BTC in itself.

Regulation will protect some certain numbers of people that only want to be protected from scam crypto exchanges and projects but they won't be able to be useful for others who cares more about decentralization, the hate on Bitcoin started because it's decentralized, and the only way the government can be in power is buying every piece and this is why I feel this next bull market might be the last best, Blackrock coming into crypto will make every juicer things in crypto become saturated, few years later crypto will be in the palm of Blackrock.

They can't control Bitcoin, and they want to, now we have ETFs, the whole crypto game is going to change in the next few years, I strongly believe in this, I do not believe that any government have the best interest of people at mind, they aren't benefitting from crypto so yes they can pretend to be fighting for the people.

The biggest robbers of poor people are the governments, when they are benefiting from anything, even if it's the most evil thing, they will heavily protect that thing, at this state there won't be any good or bad sides, I don't need any protection from the government, decentralization is the only chain breaker from the governments controls and monitoring. 

Hmm, well there's a point to it, Regulatory policies consume time with the discussion here in Australia we cant be sure about anything. For the ETF's approvals, there are some rumors the early ETF approval can be of MicroStrategy, BlackRock is a strong contender but it will most likely take time. On the Australian upcoming policies about the Spot ETF is too early to predict such sort of the outcomes.

Very interesting, especially their Covid policies were made with respect to human rights and all that ;)


I'll give you some interesting facts about this "regulation."


They actually do want it, just trying to make it look like they want to protect people.
Protect from what?

The deal is to slow down the crypto industry, make businesses apply for paid licenses that take time to obtain and fills the government's pockets while they work on CBDC.
Australia is not a country that has your own good in mind and they showed it during the pandemic, just like Canada showed it during the protests.


Completely unrelated :D
Australia only wants to help them grow...

Hope that every country would really be something like this on which they are really that open when it comes to crypto existence and instead of banning, they would neither be having reconsiderations on running laws
and regulations for the sake of their citizens safety which it isnt really that bad at all,considering on having lots of scams and frauds that do exist on the market then it would really be just that normal for the government to be really that in concern about their citizens safety or protection on which it is really just that normal for government on doing so.For exchangers to be needing to be getting in line with government rules and regulations then it would really be just that a common approach.

For those who doesnt really like centralization or KYC then it might look that bad but in overall for your protection then it would really be just that less riskier on losing money or funds
if ever the exchange would really be making out some foolish movement on running away with their users funds but in exchange to that then the government would really be
having that track on you in regarding on how much you do hold or simply it is really that still dealing with centralized things but at least we do really have that
option if ever we do tend to be that truly anonymous on which on not to touch up these services.

Instead of preventing citizens from using cryptocurrency, it is always better to implement a clear regulation. So it would prevent their citizens from losing funds from unexpected incidents. When the government regulates exchange, they will allow exchanges that follow government rules. That's how we would create a reliable crypto atmosphere. If the exchanges comply with regulations from the beginning, then they don't need to encounter legal action later. So I think the Australian government is making the right decision.

Not every country does it, prioritising the people's interest and making regulations is positive way of approaching cryptocurrency. Most of the countries look for the opportunity to restrict people from cryptocurrency usage, and Australia have got different view in it. Even in gambling this country is different as it looks for the goodness of the people. The country have restricted usage of credit card for gambling understanding this could lead to addiction easily.

I don't know how government will achieve this in decentralized exchanges. Government tightening regulations is only feasible in centralized exchanges where they have the bio data of those who signup in those exchanges. A case where many businesses start accepting cryptocurrency, which is where we are going, many people will not need fiat anymore and will rather pay for goods and services with cryptocurrency and this will further make it difficult for government and the regulators to hinder or interfere in the use of cryptocurrency.  

Even though the steps taken by the Australian government are very good, they are reportedly trying hard to control crypto transactions that occur in Australia.
[1] (https://beincrypto.com/australian-senate-consider-digital-asset-liscensing-law/#:~:text=Senator%20Andrew%20Bragg%20has%20put%20forward%20the%20Digital,for%20cryptocurrency%20exchanges%2C%20custody%20services%20and%20stablecoin%20issuers.)
Reportedly they will also ban Monero and Zcash from there, but i'm not sure they will be able to do that considering the majority of crypto users really like with anonymity.  Crypto investors from Australia are obliged to respond to this policy, i am sure that when this rule is enforced strictly, more and more crypto investors will transact via P2P.

In reality, no government is good for cryptocurrency consumers because it all comes down that people are using crypto to be free from the government, from its rules and regulations. So in this case, it's like the government is only using the crypto consumers safety net just to create a positive image towards the people who are very enthusiastic with crypto. And we are not fool enough to believe on this. It's clear that majority of the governments are still not in favor with the existence of cryptocurrency and if they won't be able to get rid of it completely, then at least they will try to regulate it so that crypto users will still be traceable in all their transactions. That way, if they can't control the existence and progress of cryptocurrency, at least they can control their citizens on their crypto activities.

For the life of me I never end up trusting governments when its about things like this, I just end up trying to find some conspiracy theories in order to make it not make sense at all. Sure "a government put regulations on exchanges to protect the customers" sounds like a normal thing but we are so not used to normal things that I end up thinking that we could be maybe seeing something much larger at play. Something like these regulations require some sort of payment to government to check it or maybe it requires them to pay more taxes because they are labeled differently and all that, I keep trying to see if there is an angle of it where government gets away with something.

If it is one thing I know it is that privacy is under attack in western countries including Australia, so after reading your rationale, it made sense that then the positivity in the news was actually smoke and mirrors, behind something that may lead to more censorship and control. Hopefully for the citizens, it does not get bad.


Hmm definitely some food for thought here. I know the west ultimately want a CBDC to scale fiat and print with clicks instead of a printer, it's true that the pandemic was a good indicator of that...lots went printed.


Their HQ is closing down there I believe. So it doesn't look like it. From Australia's actions against Binance this year, firstly stopping withdrawals and the tightening regulation to eliminate Binance from the country, does not come across looking like that they want Binance to grow....quitee contrary.

Well, regulating cryptocurrency exchanges is obviously better than simply banning the existence of crypto and its exchanges. And Australian government has been more open minded about crypto unlike other countries government that refuse to accept bitcoin and just turn it down without trying to understand that some of  their citizens are also in crypto investment. However, the fact that any government would want to centralized everything so that they can take control on everything that exists, then this is just like Australian government is wearing a mask just to look good on their people when all they want is not to legally adopt crypto, but to take control on their people's crypto assets so they can tax it depending on the amount they are hodling. Because in reality, government regulations are not just for the citizens to benefits, but its a vice versa wherein the government also benefits when their citizens are benefiting.

Yes, it is very annoying to see that banks are basically telling you how you can use your own money.

They have restrictions such as $1k per month to be used for exchanges, etc.

It is insane that they just come up with these numbers and block what you can do with your own money.

CBDCs are being tested these days, and they will probably be implemented in a few years.

Ah yes of course, El Salvador is special in the sense that it treats Bitcoin like a king. It didn't just recognize it as an alternative currency, it made it a legal tender.

In fairness, crypto projects and crypto companies can more easily pull the rug than banks. That's the reality. Banks are heavily regulated but crypto projects are not. That's why they need regulating as well. In the short time that we're dealing with crypto, we're already losing count of the different scams that victimized a lot of people all over the world.

The existence of cryptocurrency cant be ignored. Yes, it is good that the Australian government isnt completely rejecting it like some others. But lets go into more detail. Sometimes there's more to the story than what the government says when they "regulate." Control is a powerful draw. On the surface, it looks like they're on board with crypto, but control and taxes could be the real goal.

But let us look at it from a different angle. The world of crypto is very big and can be dangerous at times. Governments may want a piece of the crypto pie, but these rules could also protect regular investors from the less honest parts of the world. As always, though, the important thing is to know and ask why every choice was made. As you correctly pointed out, its almost never a one-sided deal. No matter if its real or artificial, every coin has two sides.

I tend to think that goventments usually don't want to give us any power or freedom. They focus on a number of things and none of them are for our good:
-holding power
-making money
-securing borders

They don't care about you. You're just a worker ant that does all these things. You make them money by paying taxes, secure borders by being a soldier and allow them to hold power by obeying their laws.


I was trying to be sarcastic, hence the smile.
You're of course right, this is related, and that's what I was trying to say there.

Your answer is logical and I believe it 80%, that might actually be there reasons. We can not tell but let's see how far this regulations will go. If they are doing this with good intentions, it's a welcome development but if it is for the sake of countroling the wealth of the citizen then it will further make it difficult to use.

I completely agree with that. It does depend how you want want to look at it though, as government are people too. If we are heading toward a utopian world, maybe the actions are for the better. If we aren't, maybe you are right. Either way I do agree that ultimately power of people and loss of a kind of freedom come with both the utopian and dystopian world where a government both exists and played a major role in the outcome.



Haha, I suppose I missed the memo. I'm in agreement with you then :)

Governments are not doing anything that would lower their own power, that is the problem. It is not about getting power from you, it is not about making you less powerful, that is not the point to be fair, it is to keep themselves powerful.

Obviously one way of doing that would be lowering your power and freedom, it is not a must, but it does benefit them, if they could give you some freedom and power while giving themselves even more, they would prefer that too so it is not about you all the time. In this case, Australia had no good reason to do this but they did it anyway, why? Who knows, they just wanted to get some power from the people and that's it, nothing really too complicated when governments want more power for themselves.

 I applaud countries with the intent of protecting the citizens and the businesses that falls within its jurisdiction, irrespective of the newness of the technology being deployed or the innovation being introduced.

Although technology has become the new wave of making life easy and things being done faster and better, governments have decided to strangle these innovation since it poses a threat to their constituted authorities. Australia has done weill for its citizens, from the consumer perspective.

The thing that people misinterpret about government is that it's people who are within it, but not the same people who are the same ones who come up with the decisions. Government itself could actually be a democratic and potentially even decentralized entity, however due to the dark and misinformed age behind us, it has been manipulated by powerful interests, as have the people within it.

Government need reform around the globe in order for it to work properly again. Until then, it is an entity that is against the people ultimately.

We can only hope that the decisions made by the Australian government relating to cryptocurrency (and other decisions against the people's interests and other governments who make decisions similarly) are doing it because of ignorance. The reason ignorance is preferred over intentional, is that ignorance is easier to recognise and undo later in time. Unfortunately either way, these things are hard to reverse until bad things happen that prompts a need for change.