Mark Carnegie urged Australian regulators to adopt clearer crypto laws, citing US progress and local industry’s slow pace.
Mark Carnegie’s MHC Digital Group has partnered with Anchorage Digital, which is the only cryptocurrency firm holding a US federal banking charter, to offer regulated custody of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies to Australian super funds, family offices and even corporates.
Anchorage’s national-trust bank status subjects it to US capital, audit and supervisory standards. Plugging into that infrastructure allows MHC to store client assets under controls broadly aligned with the prudential framework expected to emerge in Australia.
According to a report by the AFR, Carnegie said the tie-up positions MHC ahead of domestic rule-making.
A Wake-Up Call For Australia
Carnegie also predicted the big banks in Australia will “definitely change their perspective” once regulatory clarity hardens, but slammed their sluggish stance, basically suggesting they’re quite late to the party.
He’s referring, of course, to Australia’s four majors, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, which recently joined the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Project Acacia pilot. As Crypto News Australia reported, this wholesale-market trial pipes tokenised money, stablecoins and bank-deposit tokens across public and private blockchains.
He mentioned that recent U.S. actions regarding crypto assets and stablecoins — including the passage of the GENIUS Act, which focuses on stablecoin regulation, and the Clarity Act, which outlines a framework dividing crypto oversight between the SEC and the CFTC — represent a significant step toward clarifying what constitutes a security versus a commodity.
These, Carnegie says, should be a wake-up call to Australia’s “sclerotic” sector.
But, unfortunately, he doesn’t believe the Australian government will actually care to create laws for the local industry to serve demand, even though that demand is growing everyday, especially as Bitcoin and altcoins like Ethereum are reaching new highs every other week.
Bitcoin is currently trading at US$118K (AU$178K), a small change from its ATH of US$122.8K (AU$185.03K) a few weeks ago.
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