Leigh Travers believes the change in Australian government will slow down the work of crypto regulation, which could prove that the industry is already operating at a higher level than traditional money.
Leigh Travers, CEO of Binance Australia, believes that such a structure would prove that the crypto industry “holds itself to a higher standard” than many believe.
Travers spoke to Cointelegraph on June 14 about the current state of the local crypto regulatory effort and how opportunities in the industry are limited due to a lack of transparency.
Lack of transparency has been cited as the reason why the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) last month indefinitely suspended a pilot program for its crypto trading services. Although there is no rule in the books directly banning new CBA services, Australian financial regulators have pushed for a break in services due to missing consumer protection.
Without rules that allow such crypto services to operate, they cannot verify their effectiveness.
From Travers’ point of view, the crypto industry is already ahead of traditional financial regulatory regimes for various reasons, and he believes that the new regulations will reflect that. He said he thinks “the crypto industry wants to see regulation” for a good reason.
“People in crypto want to prove that they hold themselves to a higher standard than what people think they actually are.”
Travers believes a prudent regulatory system would make that higher standard apparent to Australians. With or without new regulations, blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis made it clear in January that in case of financial crimes, “cash is still king.”
Another way Travers argues that the crypto industry distinguishes itself from traditional money is that cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH do not easily fit into any existing classification for property or financial products. Cryptocurrency is currently classified as an asset in Australia.
Travers says that the distinction between crypto and other assets may widen over time as decentralization increases, adding that “crypto fits across different products”, which only increases the difficulty of controlling it responsibly.
Travers termed Senator Andrew Bragg one of the champions for crypto on the Liberal side, but the local industry may be at a loss for such a champion now that the Labor Party has supposed power for the first time in nine years.
He said that the former popular Liberal Party saw the industry “with high paying jobs and contributions to the economy” as a good thing. He doubts that the work already underway on new regulations will slow down considerably because “Labor is not immediately focused on blockchain or crypto,” which can put the local industry at a disadvantage.
“This industry is crying out for clearer regulation because it’s tough being a service provider in this environment.”
Overall, Travers seems bullish on crypto. He shared his conviction in the future of nonfungible tokens (NFT) and the various roles they could play in society.
In the short term, he acknowledges that the nature of NFTs is still uncertain and would likely continue to be a general art form, but that the long-term implications for NFTs were far-reaching for property rights and intellectual property. He said he thinks “NFTs are going to be enormous. Intellectual property is why Disney is such a huge company.”
Notwithstanding the ongoing price crash where BTC has dropped down below its realised price for the first time since March 2020, Travers is usually bullish on the industry. He noted in the short term, “crypto will struggle as so much is macro-driven,” but that it is just a matter of time before the tide changes back for the bulls.
“When the fear of higher interest rates is diminished, crypto will catch that wind and make more opportunities when everything has been sold off.”
Leave a Reply