The Australia’s financial intelligence agency has declared that inactive registered crypto exchanges withdraw or risk having canceled them on fears that sleeping companies can be used for scams.
There are currently 427 crypto exchanges recorded with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (Austrac), but the agency said On April 29, he suspected a significant number were inactive and perhaps vulnerable to purchase and cooption by criminals.
The agency contacted so -called digital currency exchanges (DCES) which no longer seem to exchange, and the CEO of Austrac, Brendan Thomas, said that they would be told to “use or lose it”.
“Companies registered with Austrac are required to keep their details up to date; this includes details on services that are no longer provided,” he added.
Companies wishing to offer Australian conversions between species and the crypto, including automatic crypto shop suppliers, must first register with Austrac, which monitors crimes, including money laundering, terrorist funding and tax evasion.
The agency can cancel a recording if it has a reasonable reason to believe that the company is no longer active or to offer services related to cryptography.
Ten companies have seen their registration of Austrac canceled since 2019, the most recent being FTX Express in June 2024, the local subsidiary of Crypto Exchange Effondrée FTX.
Austrac to launch the public list of registered exchanges
After his blitz on the exchanges of inactive crypto, Austrac said that he would publish a list of registered exchanges to help the Australians check the legitimate providers.
Thomas said the goal is to make criminals more difficult for people to defraud people and improve the integrity and precision of the Austrac register.
“If a DCE intends to offer a service, he must contact us otherwise we will cancel the registration and this information will be added to the register,” he said.
“Public members should be convinced to be able to identify the legitimate cryptocurrency providers who are registered and subject to regulatory surveillance and that we lead criminals outside this industry,” added Thomas.
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In February, the money laundering control regulator took measures against 13 fundraising service providers and Crypto exchanges, with more than 50 others investigating any compliance problems.
Six suppliers were refused to renew the recording renewal on the grounds that key staff were sentenced, prosecuted or accused of a serious offense.
Australia has not yet adopted cryptographic regulations. In August 2022, the Center-Gauche Labor Party in power launched a series of industry consultations to write a cryptographic regulatory framework.
In March, the government proposed a new framework of cryptography regulating exchanges under existing laws on financial services before a federal election scheduled for May 3.
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