[Open – closing date: 03 March 2023] Token mapping

On 3 February 2023, the Australian Treasury started a consultation on token mapping, seeking to build a shared understanding of crypto assets in the Australian financial services regulatory context, and exploring how existing regulation applies to the crypto sector and inform future policy choices.
Back in August 2022, the Australian Government announced token mapping – a foundational step in the Government’s multi‑stage reform agenda that commits to developing appropriate regulatory settings for the crypto sector.
With the present consultation (available as PDF or DOCX), the Australien Treasury seeks feedback from stakeholders on this new regulatory crypto sector framework to inform a fact‑based, consumer conscious and innovation friendly approach to policy development.
The aforementioned consultation paper is structured as follows:
Part A – sets out key background information about token mapping, including describing the
purpose of token mapping, the existing regulatory context, and next steps.
Part B – outlines the essential concepts required to understand the crypto ecosystem, describes the financial services regulatory perimeter in the context of the crypto ecosystem, and proposes a high-level crypto ecosystem taxonomy.
Part C – describes how the existing financial services framework applies to a large part of the crypto ecosystem – where consumers rely conventionally structured intermediary businesses.
Part D – describes how some elements of the crypto ecosystem challenge the assumptions underlying **existing Australian regulatory frameworks*.
Part E – summarises the conclusions made in this paper and outlines next steps.
Stakeholder feedback is sought on the consultation questions set out at the end of each section of this paper (a complete list of consultation questions can be found at Annex 4). Stakeholder feedback will inform a fact based, consumer conscious and innovation friendly approach to policy development. Submissions received will help in formulating a framework for understanding tokens that will inform future policy choices.
Interested parties are invited to comment on this consultation and can submit responses to this consultation up until 3 March 2023** via email to crypto@treasury.gov. For accessibility reasons, please submit responses sent via email in PDF format.