ASIC’s draft standards for digital asset platforms: principal trading, custody and capital

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denouement CASP signal brief: ASIC CP 392, 16 October 2026

On 15 October 2026, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) published Consultation Paper 392 (CP 392), its proposals for implementing the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act 2026. This article focuses on three proposals with direct effects on platform business models. The draft standards would restrict trading as principal by platform operators and their related companies from trading as principal. Operators would not have to hold client assets in Australia. Under two of the three options ASIC has put forward, an operator without a qualifying third-party custodian would need net tangible assets of at least A$7m or A$14m.

The proposals are drafts. ASIC states that the attached instruments are “for illustrative purposes only and the final form of the instruments may change considerably from the preliminary drafts”—submissions close at 5 pm AEDT on 27 November 2026.

What ASIC published

Parliament passed the Act on 1 April 2026, and it received Royal Assent on 8 April 2026. It creates two new financial products, digital asset platforms (DAPs) and tokenised custody platforms (TCPs). It gives ASIC the power to set asset-holding, transactional, and settlement standards for them. The Act commences on 8 April 2027.

CP 392 comes with four attachments:

draft Regulatory Guide 000, Digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms;
a draft asset-holding standards instrument;
a draft transactional and settlement standards instrument;
a draft financial requirements instrument.

ASIC describes its approach as “principles-based” and anchored in “the globally adopted ‘same activity, same risk, same regulation/regulatory outcome’ approach”. It expects to publish final instruments and guidance in March 2027. A platform operating on 8 April 2027 must apply for an Australian financial services licence, or a variation, by 7 October 2027. If it applies by that date, it can continue operating while ASIC assesses the application.

Principal trading

The draft transactional and settlement standards say that the operator of a digital asset platform “must not buy or sell as principal any underlying assets of the platform through the platform or through any other digital asset platform issued by the operator or a related body corporate”. The operator must also ensure that its related bodies corporate do not do so.

The draft instrument disapplies the prohibition for orders where the operator acts as agent for the client, and for orders where the client has instructed the operator to act as principal counterparty. In a matched principal trade, neither the buying client nor the selling client may be the operator or a related company.

The consultation paper and the draft instrument describe the scope differently. Table 4 of CP 392 lists the prohibition as applying to “Order matching DAPs” and exempts “DAPs that are tied brokers, tied dealers, acting as agent, or in certain arrangements where they are the principal counterparty to all transactions”. The draft instrument contains no order-matching limit and does not mention tied brokers or tied dealers in its exemption. ASIC explains in paragraph 103: “Where DAP operators trade as principal against clients, there can be substantive conflicts of interest and clients may have difficulty determining the execution method and role that an intermediary is acting in.”

Listing and promotion fees

Digital asset platforms through which clients can buy or sell would be barred from accepting “a financial or non-financial benefit to preference one underlying asset of the platform that may be bought or sold through the platform over another”. The draft covers making a token available or removing it, trading in it and marketing it. A financial payment that covers “the operator’s reasonable costs of providing transactional and settlement functions” for the token is permitted. These platforms would also need arrangements to assess which tokens can be admitted, and order-matching platforms would need to manage conflicts where the operator or a related company created a token or has a financial interest in it.

Custody

ASIC proposes “to not require domestic custody of underlying assets held by DAP and TCP operators”, consistent with its approach to comparable products. It intends to give guidance, not yet drafted, that custody locations and cross-border risk management arrangements must be disclosed. ASIC also considered a fallback under which the Australian operator would have emergency access to private keys if an overseas parent or related entity failed. It noted that this “would likely introduce operational complexities, risks for the domestic responsible managers” and asks whether any fallback arrangement is needed (question B2Q2).

Client money and client property rules in Part 7.8 of the Corporations Act would continue to apply alongside the new standards. ASIC is “not proposing to grant broad relief from, or to make modifications to, Pt 7.8”. It also proposes that operators report the wallets and addresses holding client assets to ASIC each quarter and keep those records for at least seven years. ASIC notes that AUSTRAC already collects wallet information and says it “will consider broader regulatory burden when evaluating whether to proceed with this proposal”.

Financial requirements

All licensees providing services in relation to DAPs and TCPs would be subject to solvency and positive net assets requirements. A licensee holding more than A$100,000 of client money would need A$50,000 in surplus liquid funds. A licensee transacting with clients as principal would need A$50,000 in adjusted surplus liquid funds, plus 5% of adjusted liabilities between A$1m and A$100m, and 0.5% of adjusted liabilities above A$100m. Operators would also have to prepare quarterly cash flow projections covering at least the next 12 months.

For operators, ASIC is consulting on three alternative net tangible assets (NTA) models. All thresholds would be indexed annually to CPI annually.

Model 1: without a qualifying third-party custodian, the greater of A$14m and 10% of average revenue.
Model 2: as Model 1, except that an operator holding no underlying asset that is a financial product needs the greater of A$7m and 10% of average revenue.
Model 3: without a qualifying third-party custodian, the greatest of A$2m, 0.5% of the average value of underlying assets (up to A$14m) and 10% of average revenue. DAP operators add the sum of any applicable amounts: A$500,000 for acting as an agent, A$750,000 for operating a neutral trading venue, and A$1m for trading as principal with clients. The draft instrument gives A$500,000, not A$750,000, for a neutral trading venue.

Under all three models, an operator whose underlying assets are all held by third-party custodians or sub-custodians would need NTA of at least the greatest of A$200,000, 0.5% of the average value of underlying assets (up to A$7m) and 10% of average revenue. To qualify, the operator must obtain written assurance from each custodian and sub-custodian within the previous 13 months, and a registered auditor’s report, attesting that the custodian holds “the amount and form of NTA that the operator would otherwise be required to hold” and meets the cash needs requirement. Limited exceptions to the audit-report requirement apply to newly appointed custodians.

ASIC acknowledges that “the proposed models appear to set higher minimum requirements” than overseas regimes. It says minimum capital requirements for digital asset platforms in the UK, the EU, Singapore and Hong Kong range from approximately A$80,000 to A$5.4m depending on activities and authorisations, and that they “scale up markedly”. It adds that those requirements “differed materially in form and purpose” and concludes that it does not consider the NTA models “to be comparatively disproportionate or burdensome”. One reason is that NTA can be met with a range of liquid tangible assets, provided 50% is held in cash and cash equivalents. In contrast, overseas regimes typically require a narrower class of capital.

A separate proposal applies to all Australian financial services licensees, not only digital asset firms. A stablecoin that would otherwise count as cash or cash equivalents would not count towards NTA if it is issued, possessed or held by the licensee, an associated entity, or a person controlled by or under common control with either of them issues, possesses, or holds it. ASIC calls these “restricted stablecoins”. Stablecoins not issued by any associate of the operator and held for it by a third-party custodian are not restricted.

Our assessment

The following points are our reading of the proposals, not statements made by ASIC.

Groups in which an affiliate makes markets on the group’s own platform would need to move that activity to a third-party liquidity provider or restructure it to fit an exemption. Under the Act, the standards must not prevent operators from sourcing liquidity from outside Australia. Still, they must require an enforceable written agreement with anyone providing liquidity or market making on the platform (CP 392, paragraph 92(d)).
Fees or other benefits for preferring one token over another (listing, delisting, trading or marketing) would be prohibited unless they are a financial payment covering the operator’s reasonable transactional and settlement costs.
The difference between the custodian and non-custodian NTA floors gives operators a financial reason to outsource custody. The custodian must then hold the NTA itself, so the cost is likely to reappear in custody fees.
None of the three draft instruments would take effect before the Act commences on 8 April 2027 (CP 392 gives no start date for the restricted-stablecoin proposal), and existing platforms have until 7 October 2027 to apply.

Points to raise in the consultation

NTA models (D3Q2 to D3Q7). ASIC asks which model best meets the objectives, each model’s effect on competition, whether the amounts and thresholds are appropriate, and the time and cost for existing operators. ASIC presents Model 3 as “a more scalable option for smaller DAPs and TCPs”.
Principal trading (C3Q1 to C3Q5). ASIC asks whether the prohibition is appropriate and when principal trading “would require an exemption”. The differences between Table 4 and the draft instrument can be raised directly, as can whether a related company may trade as principal against an agency order, which the draft does not address expressly.
Custody fallback (B2Q2). ASIC asks whether emergency fallback arrangements are needed and what form would balance consumer protection, cost and operational risk.
Wallet reporting (B5Q1 to B5Q3). ASIC asks about the risks of reporting and how it could be streamlined, for example by collecting only storage addresses rather than deposit addresses.

Key dates

15 October 2026: CP 392 published.
27 November 2026: submissions close at 5 pm AEDT (fintech@asic.gov.au).
November 2026 to March 2027: ASIC reviews feedback, with further consultation if required.
March 2027: final instruments and guidance expected.
8 April 2027: the Act commences and licence applications open.
7 October 2027: transition window closes for existing platforms.