The High Court of Australia has granted special leave  to rule on whether bitcoin is capable of being property. The case involves a dispute between Adam Poulton and Jeff Conrad and concerns Conrad’s payment to Poulton to invest $10,000 in Bitcoin on his behalf. This development follows the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Tasmania decision , which endorsed, in obiter, a third category of property for crypto assets (beyond possession and choses in action) and suggested that

Following industry consultation in late 2025 , ASIC released a new regulatory instrument providing tailored licensing relief for certain stablecoins and wrapped tokens.   ASIC Corporations (Stablecoin and Wrapped Token Relief) Instrument 2025/867 ( Relief Instrument ) provides licensing and disclosure exemptions to distributors of eligible stablecoins and eligible wrapped tokens. ‘Eligible stablecoins’ must the satisfy the following core criteria, among others: the stablecoi

On 27 January 2026, the long‑running litigation concerning the Qoin Wallet product reached its final chapter. The Federal Court handed down its penalty decision in Australian Securities and Investments Commission v BPS Financial Pty Ltd (Penalty) [2026] FCA 18 , imposing $14 million in civil penalties, a 10-year injunction restraining unlicensed financial services activity and corrective advertising orders against BPS Financial Pty Ltd ( BPS ). In the wake of the judgment, th

The promise of the fintech sector as an engine of economic growth has drawn increasing attention from the Australian Government. In December 2025, Treasury released a consultation paper in connection with its independent review of the enhanced regulatory sandbox ( ERS ) . The Government is seeking views on: the extent to which Australia's regulatory, policy and economic settings foster financial innovation; the effectiveness of the current ERS design and regulatory settings;

From 20 January, Vietnam has commenced taking applications for licensing for crypto exchanges, but the requirements for licensing have proven eye watering and designed to lock out all but the largest existing traditional operators. Among the requirements are: a minimum capital of approximately US $380 million; ownership stipulations including at least 65% institutional holdings; and at least 35% ownership from two institutional investors who are involved in banking and finan

Traditional finance’s push to integrate digital assets has taken another meaningful step forward. Over the past month, several major products and pilot programs slated for 2026 have been announced, signalling that digital asset exposure is rapidly becoming a standard feature of wealth management and capital markets operations. One notable example is Morgan Stanley’s plan to roll out a proprietary digital wallet  in the second half of 2026. The wallet is touted to support both

The New Year has brought a wave of 2026 crypto and blockchain predictions from major industry and institutional players. Industry outlooks for 2026 point to a year of structural change across crypto and traditional finance. Reports from Bitcoin Suisse, Messari, Galaxy Research, A16Z, Coinbase Institutional and others highlight common themes: lower interest rates driving capital inflows, tokenisation moving from pilot operations to large-scale implementation, and of course AI

Predictions markets have seen a huge rise in users with sites like Polymarket and Kalishi raising large funding rounds and experiencing exponential growth. The speed with which these offerings have grown has started to run into regulatory hurdles however, and last Friday, regulators in Tennessee sent a cease-and-desist letter to Polymarkets, Crypto.com and Kalshi, alleging that their predictions markets were in fact unlicensed gambling. The same day Kalshi commenced lega

The Victorian Court of Appeal has endorsed the view that bitcoin (BTC) is a form of property and that its misappropriation is capable of being prosecuted as theft. The judgment follows an appellate decision of the Supreme Court of Tasmania’s recognising that Bitcoin is property but endorsing the view that it does not neatly fit within the existing categories of chose in action and chose in possession. Background In Connor Yeates (A Pseudonym) v the King [2025] VSCA 288 , the