Australian 40-year economic outlook recognizes ‘AI revolution,’ omits crypto
Treasury named AI among five major transitions expected to reshape Australia’s economy, while Coinbase says the report overlooks the digital financial infrastructure AI agents could eventually need.
Australia's new 40-year economic outlook highlights artificial intelligence (AI) as one of five major transitions that will significantly impact the nation's economy. The Intergenerational Report, published by the Australian Treasury, identifies AI as increasingly capable, autonomous, and widely used, surpassing human-level performance on certain benchmarks.
Other major transitions mentioned include geopolitical conflicts, an aging population, a shift toward clean energy, and Australia's industrial transformation toward services.
The report emphasizes that Australia's prosperity over the next 40 years will heavily depend on its ability to adopt new technology and boost productivity. However, it notably omits any mention of cryptocurrency (crypto), despite the Reserve Bank of Australia's increased focus on tokenized finance and financial infrastructure upgrades earlier this year.
The Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre estimated that digital finance innovations could generate around 24 billion Australian dollars ($17.1 billion) in annual economic gains.
Coinbase Australia country director John O'Loghlen expressed disappointment with the omission of crypto, stating that the report overlooks the financial infrastructure that agentic AI systems would require. The Treasury's separate "Financial Innovation Strategy" report, released on September 3, does address the link between AI and financial infrastructure.
It highlights how agentic systems could potentially increase automated and machine-to-machine transactions, necessitating a demand for real-time, interoperable, and programmable payment systems. O'Loghlen added that progress has been made in recent years, including the Digital Asset Platform framework, which has provided necessary regulatory clarity.
He emphasized the importance of applying the same focus to the tokenized stored-value facility framework for stablecoins, with clear rules for tokenized markets. Doing so would provide the necessary "rails" for digital finance, including agentic finance, to thrive in Australia.
Written by urgent.news from Cointelegraph's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
