ASIC maps custody and trading rules for Australia’s 2027 crypto regime

Australia’s securities regulator has opened consultation on the operating standards that would apply to cryptocurrency exchanges, custodians and tokenisation platforms under the country’s incoming digital-asset regime.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission released Consultation Paper 392 on October 15. It proposes rules covering client-asset custody, token admission, conflicts, order execution, settlement, financial resources and disclosure. Comments remain open until 5 p.m. AEDT on November 27, making the consultation an active policy process rather than a completed rulemaking.

The package implements the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act 2026, which received royal assent on April 8. The law is scheduled to commence on April 8, 2027, but ASIC’s draft standards and guidance are not final and may change after consultation.

Platforms enter the financial-services perimeter

The legislation creates two regulated financial products. A digital asset platform, or DAP, holds digital tokens for clients and provides associated platform services. A tokenised custody platform, or TCP, records clients’ interests in underlying assets through digital tokens.

Operators would generally need an Australian financial services licence or a variation to an existing licence. They would also need customer disclosure documents, platform rules and compliance systems tailored to custody, trading and settlement.

Existing businesses that fall within the new definitions can continue operating during a transition if they apply for the required authorisation by October 7, 2027, according to ASIC’s proposed timetable. That allowance is not an automatic approval: ASIC would still assess the application, and new entrants would not receive the same operating history by default.

The framework also does not convert every digital token into a security. It regulates the platform arrangement as a financial product while preserving distinctions among the underlying tokens and other assets. Separate Australian payments reforms are expected to address certain stablecoins as tokenised stored-value facilities.

Custody and execution move to the center

ASIC proposes minimum standards for safeguarding and administering client assets. The draft covers governance, segregation, reconciliations, third-party custodians and the use of underlying assets. These obligations address the platform’s control of customer property; they do not insure customers against every loss or remove the technological and market risks attached to a token.

For trading platforms, the regulator proposes record retention for seven years, transparent order-matching procedures and disclosure of settlement timing and finality. Platforms routing customer orders elsewhere would generally need to pursue the best available outcome, subject to proposed exceptions for specified business models.

The consultation would also require controls for admitting and monitoring tokens. Operators would need to remove or suspend assets that cease to meet their standards in a timely and orderly way. Proposed conflict rules would restrict platforms from trading as principal on their own venues, although ASIC outlines exceptions for disclosed tied-broker, agency and matched-principal arrangements.

Another proposal would prohibit platforms from accepting financial or non-financial benefits to preference one admitted token over another. That could affect listing and marketing practices, but the draft does not establish a universal ban on issuer-affiliated tokens.

Capital model remains unsettled

ASIC is consulting on three alternative net-tangible-asset models rather than presenting one final capital formula. All would sit alongside solvency, liquidity, cash-flow forecasting and audit requirements intended to support continued operations and an orderly wind-down.

The models differ in how they accommodate smaller platforms, non-financial underlying assets and outsourced custody. Each includes a possible concession where an independent custodian holds all underlying assets and supplies specified assurances and audit reports.

ASIC expects to review submissions between November 2026 and March 2027, with final instruments and guidance targeted for March. Those dates are a regulatory roadmap, not a guarantee that every draft provision will survive unchanged.

Coinburn is publishing on October 18, three days after the consultation’s release. The verified development is the opening of a detailed implementation process—not the immediate licensing of any exchange, approval of any token or completion of Australia’s crypto regulatory transition.