There’s growing interest from Australian self-managed super [retirement] funds (SMSF) to invest in crypto but are being let down by a lack of regulatory clarity, Caroline Bowler, chief executive officer of Australian exchange BTC Markets said at an industry panel on Wednesday.
See related article: Australia’s Holon Global got ahead of BlackRock with funds shrugging off crypto winter
Fast facts
- “[Financial] advisors … are coming up to us going we really want to advise our clients on this subject, but we don’t know how to do it because it’s not yet regulated,” Bowler said. “So, there is this pent-up demand that is just starting to come through in the SMSF space in particular,” she added.
- Bowler was speaking on a panel entitled “Decrypting crypto and making sense of blockchain” as part of Tech Week events hosted by Australian law firm Hall and Wilcox.
- There is heightened interest in when Australian superannuation funds might begin investing in crypto given the sector was valued at US$2.3 trillion in 2021 and ranked the fifth largest in the world.
- “Once the regulatory framework is in place and implemented, you’re going to see this avalanche of capital moving into the industry,” said Karl Mohan, general manager for the Asia Pacific at Crypto.com.
- Mohan also said he is surprised Australia is still talking about regulation as opposed to simply doing it, pointing out that many of the country’s neighbors in the Asia Pacific region already have very advanced crypto regulation.
See related article: Australian superannuation fund considers crypto investment
We’ll be discussing crypto regulations in Australia on our upcoming Crypto Rising livestream:
The Future of Crypto Regulations: APAC and Beyond
25th August 2022, 9PM EDT / 26th August 2022, 9AM HKT
You can sign up for the event on this page.