A few weeks ago in Canberra, the Digital Economy Council of Australia (DECA) brought together leaders from across the digital asset ecosystem to explore a question that is no longer theoretical:
Should Australia take a strategic approach to sovereign digital assets?
Chaired by Michael Prenderville (JellyC) and Joni Pirovich (Crystal aOS), the roundtable focused on governance, fiscal implications, and how Australia might respond to accelerating international developments.
Nothing about a meeting like this revolves around hype, and together, a focus on balance sheets and future-proofing the Australian financial system took precedence.
Internationally, sovereign digital asset policy is no longer speculative.
The United States has taken steps to retain certain seized digital assets rather than automatically liquidating them, and now holds approximately 328,372 BTC at the time of writing. Meanwhile:
El Salvador has publicly accumulated Bitcoin as part of its national strategy.
Bhutan has reportedly integrated digital assets into its sovereign planning.
Even China, despite its regulatory stance, is estimated to hold roughly 190,000 BTC.
Against that backdrop, the question for Australia isn’t whether digital assets exist within sovereign systems; it’s whether we participate strategically or passively.
One theme echoed consistently throughout the discussion: policy delay has balance sheet consequences.
As more nations and institutions accumulate Bitcoin, the cost of entry rises. Sovereign adoption has elements of game theory; early movers secure exposure at lower relative cost, while late adopters risk paying a structural premium. If it sounds familiar, it’s because it is! (read on for those reminders).
For Australia, historically cautious in monetary settings, the conversation is shifting from “if” to “how.”
In 2016, Victorian Police auctioned 24,518 BTC seized from Silk Road activity for approximately $16 million AUD.
At today’s prices (~$97,855 AUD per BTC), those same assets would be worth over $2.4 billion AUD, and at prior market peaks, closer to $3.5 billion AUD.
Without trying to throw our establishment under the proverbial bus, the discussion wasn’t actually about hindsight criticism; albeit the hope was that ‘lessons had been learned’. It was, however, about future framework design.
Should long-term fiscal considerations be embedded into digital asset management decisions? Or should liquidation remain automatic?
The reality is that’s a governance question, not a speculative one.
Participants explored what a sovereign digital asset approach could look like, beginning with principles rather than purchases.
The first and most straightforward concept is what some called a “non-dilution” approach:
Rather than default liquidation of seized digital assets, governments could retain them under structured governance settings.
This approach is budget-neutral. It doesn’t require taxpayer capital. It simply changes the management framework of assets already recovered.
From a fiscal perspective, that creates the possibility of a sovereign digital reserve built from existing holdings, effectively ring-fencing value recovered from criminal activity into national balance sheet resilience.
No new spending. Just different stewardship.
Beyond initial retention, the roundtable explored (cautiously), future considerations, including:
Institutional-grade onshore custody frameworks
Clear jurisdictional alignment between State and Federal agencies
Regulated Australian venues for trade execution
The potential role of staking (e.g., Ethereum) for yield generation
Exploration of digital financial instruments such as “Bit Bonds” or tokenised real-world assets
These are exploratory ideas, not policy prescriptions, but as stage two is horizon scanning, not immediate action, all possibilities were brought to the table in an effort to look forward by working backwards.
An interesting dimension of the conversation centred on AUD-denominated stablecoins.
While USD-pegged digital dollars dominate global markets, some participants argued that supporting a competitive AUD stablecoin could be a national strategic priority — preventing further erosion of Australian currency relevance in digital markets.
Mechanisms such as RBA-supplied liquidity support were discussed conceptually as one pathway to competitiveness.
Again, not a policy position, but a governance conversation.
Any sovereign digital asset strategy would require careful execution across three pillars:
Custody: Institutional-grade, onshore infrastructure aligned to national interest security.
Jurisdiction: Clear delineation of asset ownership and responsibility between agencies.
Execution: Regulated, licensed Australian exchanges for trade activity.
Consider these pillars where rhetoric ends, and frameworks begin.
A draft paper will be presented to Parliament on May 13, focused on evidence-based analysis, governance guardrails, and practical options for government consideration.
As DECA noted:
“DECA convened industry leaders to examine the strategic and fiscal considerations of managing seized digital assets in the national interest. This is not a policy position, but a serious conversation about governance, risk management and long-term balance sheet implications in a changing global financial environment. Our forthcoming paper will focus on evidence, guardrails and practical options for government.”
For Bamboo readers, the takeaway is simple: The conversation has matured.
This is no longer about speculation cycles. It’s about how a modern nation thinks about digital assets within sovereign fiscal strategy.
And that’s a discussion worth having; early, thoughtfully, and with guardrails firmly in place.
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