Australia's 40-Year Outlook Skips Crypto Amid AI Focus

Australia's new 40-year Intergenerational Report highlights artificial intelligence as one of the major drivers of economic change, but surprisingly leaves out digital assets and cryptocurrency.

The report emphasizes that agentic AI systems have become significantly more capable, autonomous, and widely adopted, with some benchmarks surpassing human-level performance. It also notes that technology adoption and productivity gains are crucial for Australia's prosperity over the next four decades, alongside other transitions such as geopolitical conflicts, an aging population, clean energy shift, and industrial transformation toward services.

Coinbase Australia's John O'Loghlen points out that the government focus on AI overlooks the financial infrastructure needed to support tokenized and stablecoin-based systems. He notes that policymakers should prioritize well-defined frameworks for stablecoins and tokenized market structures to serve as the underlying system layer for automated agents.

The omission is striking, given earlier discussions about tokenized finance and digital finance gains. The Reserve Bank of Australia has increased its focus on tokenized finance and financial infrastructure upgrades, reflecting growing attention to how tokenization could improve settlement and economic activity.