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Stand With Crypto Expands to Australia in Effort to Educate Local Policymakers
- The Coinbase-backed crypto political advocacy group, Stand With Crypto, has expanded into Australia, holding an event yesterday to mark its Aussie launch.
- The group’s agenda includes sensible crypto legislation for regulatory clarity and growth, and shifting the crypto narrative away from scams and towards real-world use cases.
- Stand With Crypto was launched in the US and actively campaigned for pro-crypto candidates during the recent US election.
The Coinbase-backed, US-based crypto advocacy group, Stand With Crypto, announced yesterday that it has expanded into Australia. Its move down under is aimed at educating local policy makers about the benefits of crypto and shifting the narrative away from frauds and scams and towards the more beneficial uses of the technology.
Stand With Crypto has previously expanded into the UK in May and Canada in July. In the US, where the group was founded, it actively campaigned for pro-crypto candidates throughout the recent election and it says over 280 pro-crypto candidates who ran for House and Senate seats won their races. Partners affiliated with the US group include Consensys, Kraken, Hedera and OpenSea.
Related: Kraken Calls for Clear Crypto Rules in Australia After ASIC Ruling
Stand With Crypto Wants to Shift Narrative and Achieve Regulatory Clarity
At the launch event, Tom Duff Gordon, Coinbase’s vice president of international policy, said the primary goal of Stand With Crypto is to highlight the many real and valuable use cases of crypto and encourage the development of sensible legislation to govern the sector, as reported by Cointelegraph.
Duff Gordon pointed out that currently crypto is still widely seen as a scammy flash-in-the-pan, but Stand With Crypto can help change this view:
We want to change the narrative from crypto just being related to fraud and scams. We want to show people the good use cases, and I think if we have that from a bottom-up grassroots movement as well as top-down advocacy, I think we can raise the profile [of] crypto in Australia.
Tom Duff Gordon, Vice President of International Policy at Coinbase Stand With Crypto also wants to see sensible regulation of the industry. John O’Loghlen, managing director of Coinbase Australia, said that Stand With Crypto would work closely with Aussie lawmakers to create crypto policy designed to improve regulatory clarity and grow the local industry.
He added that the current regulatory environment is holding the Australian crypto industry back:
It’s really concerning, without the clarity of regulation and necessary signposting, a lot of top talent and young human capital are going to look to start their careers elsewhere.
John O’Loghlen, managing director of Coinbase Australia Liberal MP Says the Party Supports Crypto
Making an appearance at the Stand With Crypto launch event, Federal MP Simon Kennedy claimed the Liberal Party would support the crypto industry in the lead up to next year’s federal election:
I think you will see the Liberal Party be a big supporter of this sector. I hope it will be bipartisan, but you will see it from us.
Simon Kennedy, Federal MP for the Electorate of Cook Despite Kennedy’s suggestion that the Liberal party is currently full of diehard crypto tragics, as we’ve seen in the past, this kind of political support for crypto tends to evaporate very quickly when market sentiment turns ugly.
Another reason to take Kennedy’s comments with a grain of salt is that he’s a junior MP — having only entered parliament this year after winning former PM Scott Morrison’s seat of Cook in a by-election. It seems unlikely his words carry much authority within the party.
Let’s hope serious political support for crypto does emerge soon in Australia though, the industry has been crying out for clearer legislation and regulation for years now and it’s costing the industry. A survey conducted by Brisbane-based crypto exchange, Swyftx, published in September found that many would-be Aussie crypto investors and builders are “sitting on the sidelines” awaiting updated legislation.
Related: ASIC Says All Crypto Start-Ups Must Have Financial Services Licence
As O’Loghlen told Cointelegraph, Australia can’t continue to follow the lead of jurisdictions like the US, whose regulatory environment is woefully outdated and not really fit for purpose when it comes to crypto:
When you look back to the Howey Act and other tests that are enforced overseas, some of this regulation is 80 to 90 years old and relates to market an orange grove and refers to asset classes and technologies that are quite removed from modern-day Australia.
John O’Loghlen, managing director of Coinbase Australia 
Author
Jody McDonald
Jody is a Brisbane-based freelance writer who specialises in writing about business, technology, and the future of work.
