According to Jonathan Miller, CEO of Kraken Australia, stablecoins and the correct legislative actions can enable Australia’s institutional crypto demand to catch up.
According to a Kraken Australia executive, the country’s politicians need to make the correct choices for the cryptocurrency business in Australia to capitalize on a worldwide “inflection point” in demand.
Miller told Cointelegraph on the sidelines of the Melbourne Formula One Grand Prix that he was bullish on cryptocurrency in the next few months due to factors such as stablecoin adoption, the flood of new capital into spot Bitcoin ETFs, and BlackRock’s decision to launch a $100 million tokenization fund on Ethereum.
Demand has reached a good inflection point. It seems like crypto is again on the upswing,” Miller said. All of this points to the future of financial services infrastructure, and that much is certain. Miller pointed out that institutional demand for crypto had increased dramatically in the US, with wealth managers like Fidelity and BlackRock advising their customers to put their money into Bitcoin, but that this had not yet translated to Australia.
According to him, “We’re obviously not seeing that degree of activity in Australia,” but he acknowledged that it was a start in the right direction.
Nonetheless, Miller clarified that the country’s individual investors and crypto-related firms have continued to show a significant increase in interest.
The pursuit of liquidity is a common motivation for many of these companies, according to Miller. Stablecoins, which Miller and many others have called the “killer app” of the cryptocurrency sector, seems to be the primary emphasis of the new crypto companies in Australia.
Miller believes that the absence of clear regulations and relatively slow legislative movement are the main obstacle to the adoption of cryptocurrencies in the United States.
“The sheer absence of confidence makes it very difficult to take risks and invest in the crypto industry in Australia.”
But according to Miller, his company’s interactions with Australian lawmakers have been mostly fruitful so far, and the current focus is on getting the government to pass reasonable legislation.
“We have had nothing but good experiences working with the Australian Treasury. Getting the government to prioritize legislation is our next hurdle. I believe we’re getting closer, but it’s very difficult to accomplish,” he said.
The Australian Department of Treasury published a consultation document in October 2023 proposing that cryptocurrency exchanges be required to get a financial services license from ASIC.
Miller emphasized that due diligence in crypto legislation should include the global scope of the industry, warning that efforts to craft Australian-specific regulations risk inadvertently “overengineering localization.”
Bringing this money from another dimension into our three-dimensional space-time is something you should strongly avoid doing. Finally, he emphasized the need to ensure that rules effectively address genuine threats in order to keep it on course.
Also Read: Bitwise’s CIO is “excited” about a product that provides Ethereum DeFi exposure
