Last week’s Policy Week brought together industry leaders, regulators, and innovators from across the globe for five days of deep discussions on blockchain security, regulation, and the future of tokenization.
From an in-depth analysis of the Bybit hack to high-level conversations on regulatory clarity, stablecoins, and the role of tokenization in real-world assets (RWA), the event showcased both the progress and challenges facing the blockchain ecosystem.
BlockchainNZ Executive Director Trevor Topfer attended the sessions, gaining key insights from government officials, industry experts, and researchers on how the Asia-Pacific region is shaping the future of blockchain and crypto regulation.
Here’s his key takeaways from each day. 👇
Day 1: The BGIN session took a deep dive into the Bybit hack and analysed what happened and what we can learn from it moving forward. Some incredible insights offered by Alex Kim, Mark Staples, Sandra Ro 🇺🇦 and a highly engaged room of industry, regulatory and researchers from Australia and around the world. The evening welcome dinner featured Andrew Charlton who gave an inspiring speech about the engagement from Australian government and the incredible work being undertaken by key players in the region (including Amy-Rose Goodey and the DECA team).
Day 2: The opening session gave a broad sweeping view of the landscape across the region with commentary from leaders in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. A full day of panel discussion covered topics ranging from the 180 degree about face from the USA, how APAC has been actively regulating blockchain and crypto for more than 5 years and, although it feels like we are behind in many ways, we are actually well placed from a global viewpoint. MP Simon Kennedy also handled a swag of tough questions from Steve Vallas and highlighted the work being done by the Australian government on clarity for the industry.
Day 3: Included an incredibly technical and robust discussion around Tokenisation which saw big banks, industry, regulators and innovators come together in a no holds barred discussion on this important part of the industry. This was followed by BCNZ Chair Jeremy Muir and the Australian MinterEllison team bringing regulators, researchers and major stablecoin representatives from Circle, Tether.io, AUDD CEO Effie Dimitropoulo, and our own Paul Quickenden into a deep discussion around the important role of stablecoins and best practice in their regulation. Day 3 ended with the International Attendees Dinner.
Day 4: I spent the day in Parliament House in an intense and focused discussion on Tokenisation of RWA. There were representatives present across the spectrum from Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC), the Treasury and other regulators, banks, stablecoins and major industry players, as well as key representatives from broader industry organinsdations and smaller start-ups in the space. The primary theme coming through included taxonomy – we need to all be speaking the same language, the important role of a local stablecoin, the upcoming changes in Australian legislation and where the gaps still remained to ensure a clear regulatory playing field and to scale the adoption of tokenisation across industry sectors.
Day 5: A more casual end to the massive event with a roundtable featuring Senator Andrew Bragg who gave an emphatic speech highlighting Liberal Party’s positive attitude toward crypto and lamenting that the incumbent unelected majority (the beaurocracy) were largely to blame for Australia’s lack of movement in regulation and legislation in the industry.
