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ARTICLE · 16 FEBRUARY 2024

Access all areas? Unpacking the lessons earned from the Block Earner v ASIC judgment

Piper Alderman
Piper Alderman
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Piper Alderman

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Clarity as to when crypto-backed products should be considered financial products which require licensing.

AustraliaTechnology
Michael Bacina
Michael Bacina
Steven Pettigrove
Steven Pettigrove
Jake Huang
Jake Huang
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Michael Bacina, Steven Pettigrove, Jake Huang of the Piper Alderman Blockchain Group bring you the latest legal, regulatory and project updates in Blockchain and Digital Law.

The judgment in ASIC v Web3 Ventures Pty Ltd (trading as Block Earner) was released today and has been greatly anticipated. The matter focused on two products offered by Block Earner, "Access" through which customers could send funds through to Aave and Compound, prominent DeFi lending protocols which compensate lenders for depositing cryptocurrency, and an "Earner" product, which paid users interest on crypto, and which was discontinued in November 2022. ASIC alleged that Block Earner should have obtained a financial services license to offer the Access and Earner products as it had created a facility through which a person makes a financial investment, that the products were an unregistered managed investment scheme or were a derivative.

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