Embracing the Digital Future: Blockchain Australia becomes DECA
Blockchain Australia, Australia’s preeminent Web3 professional group, has announced it is rebranding to the Digital Economy Council Australia (DECA). This rebrand, unveiled during the highly anticipated Blockchain Week 2024, underscores the organisation’s commitment to a broader spectrum of digital innovations.
The announcement was made by Amy-Rose Goodey, the newly appointed Managing Director of DECA (previously serving as COO of Blockchain Australia), during her opening speech at the annual Blockchain Week 2024 event held in Sydney.
Commenting on the rebranding, Ms. Goodey emphasised that the organisation needed to broaden its scope to be more inclusive, addressing the rapidly evolving demands of the digital economy.
The term ‘blockchain’, while central to our inception and growth, now represents only a segment of the vast digital ecosystem in which we operate. Our repositioning to the Digital Economy Council of Australia marks an important re-alignment for our organisation, to one that encompasses all verticals of the digital economy.
DECA aims to encapsulate the diverse and expanding range of digital technologies transforming Australia. Its new identity signals an inclusive approach, focusing on fostering growth and collaboration across various facets of the digital economy.
The rebranding announcement was strategically timed with Blockchain Week, an event that has grown to become a cornerstone of the digital technology calendar in Australia. This year’s event, held from 11-14 June, drew industry leaders, policymakers, and innovators from around the globe and marks the tenth year of the organisation’s founding.
Written by Steven Pettigrove and Luke Misthos
All crypto bets are off: Australia bans crypto payments to gambling sites
On 11 June 2024, the Australian government implemented a sweeping new ban on most regulated interactive gambling services (e.g. interactive wagering services) accepting digital currency and credit cards payments. The ban follows amendments to the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (Act) enacted in December last year, which make it a criminal offence for interactive wagering services to accept credit card and digital currency payments punishable by criminal and civil penalties.
This means Australians will no longer be able to use their credit cards or digital currency (such as Bitcoin) to place bets online, as the government moves to tighten industry regulations to “stamp out harms“ caused by gambling.
If an online gambling platform breaches the prohibition, it could face severe criminal or civil liabilities. They may also commit a separate offence in respect of each day during which the contravention continues, which could result in the imposition of significant cumulative penalties.
Furthermore, these offences do not require the interactive wagering service to be physically based in Australia – which basically means it has extraterritorial effect. The Act offers only limited defences to interactive wagering services.
The new amendments also pose risks to digital currency exchanges (DCEs). While the Act does not directly prohibit DCEs from facilitating digital currency payments to interactive wagering services, DCEs could become complicit in the commission of an offence by facilitating digital currency transfers to interactive wagering services (e.g. by dealing in the instrument or proceeds of crime). DCEs also risk breaching anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) obligations by facilitating crypto payments to interactive wagering services.
Crypto users are known to like a punt and in recent years there has been a proliferation of gambling websites which accept crypto payments. On 11 January 2024, users of the betting platform Polymarket gambled USD$12 million on the outcome of Bitcoin Spot ETF approvals. Similar bets on ETH ETFs approvals reached USD$2.4 million in March.
Given the serious financial and reputational consequences of breaching criminal and AML/CTF laws, it is important for both online gambling services and DCEs to assess their payments offerings and identify steps to mitigate legal risks arising from the new prohibition on credit and crypto payments.
The genesis of the new prohibitions was the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services’ 2021 inquiry into Regulation of the use of financial services such as credit cards and digital wallets for online gambling. The policy rationale for restricting the use of credit to gamble are well known and new restrictions on credit cards appear to be targeted at gaps in the existing law. The focus on digital currency payments appears to have come later with little by way of published policy analysis or debate supporting the ban. In any event, the prohibition on crypto payments is now law of the land Downunder for interactive wagering services, so all crypto bets are off for the foreseeable future.
