The Australian Securities and Investments Commission opened a public consultation on 15 October 2026 with the release of Consultation Paper 392, Digital asset law reform implementation: Proposed standards and guidance, announced in media release 26-245MR. The paper sits at the consultation stage. It carries a draft regulatory guide and three draft legislative instruments that ASIC has marked as preliminary and illustrative, issued before the agency settles the final text.
The operative statute is the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act 2026, which amends the Corporations Act to create two regulated categories: digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms. CP 392 attaches draft Regulatory Guide 000 covering both categories, together with three draft ASIC Corporations instruments carried in the consultation as 2027/XX: one setting asset-holding standards for both platform types, one setting transactional and settlement standards for digital asset platforms, and one setting financial requirements for both. Final instrument numbers have not been assigned.
Operators of digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms will need to hold an Australian financial services licence, or vary an existing one, before the new obligations bite. Crypto exchanges, custodians and tokenisation providers serving Australian clients fall within the perimeter. ASIC also proposes customer disclosure documents and platform rules, and net tangible asset requirements where relevant, which reach firms operating today without an AFS licence as well as licensees adding digital asset lines to an existing authorisation.
Submissions close at 5pm AEDT on 27 November 2026 and are directed to fintech@asic.gov.au. The digital asset platform and tokenised custody platform provisions commence on 8 April 2027, leaving a short period between the close of consultation and the start of the regime for firms that intend to be licensed on day one.
Licentium advises digital asset platforms, custodians and payment firms on licensing and conduct obligations in the jurisdictions where they operate. Work we undertake includes AFS licence applications and variations for digital asset platforms, mapping the proposed asset-holding and settlement standards against existing custody arrangements, net tangible asset modelling, and drafting consultation submissions to ASIC.