ASIC Seeks High Court Ruling on Crypto Yield Products After Block Earner Win

Australia’s company regulator is searching for particular depart from the Excessive Courtroom to enchantment a ruling in favour of crypto agency Block Earner, intensifying a authorized dispute over the standing of digital asset yield merchandise.

The Australian Securities and Investments Fee, or ASIC, is asking the Excessive Courtroom to make clear how interest-earning and asset conversion merchandise needs to be handled beneath the Firms Act. 

“The definition of monetary product was drafted in a broad and technology-neutral means, and ASIC believes it’s within the public curiosity to make clear this,” the company mentioned in a statement. “This clarification is essential because it applies to all monetary services and products, whether or not they contain crypto-assets or not.”

Particular depart is required to enchantment to the Excessive Courtroom of Australia. The court docket grants it solely in instances involving vital authorized questions or issues of public curiosity. Appeals should not heard routinely, and ASIC, on this case, should first receive the court docket’s permission.

In April, a choice by the Full Federal Courtroom overturned earlier findings towards Block Earner, which ASIC argues had supplied a fixed-yield crypto product known as “Earner” and not using a monetary providers licence. 

The Full Courtroom discovered the providing didn’t represent a monetary product beneath present legislation, a blow to ASIC’s efforts to carry crypto providers beneath the identical framework as conventional finance.

The case was delivered to the court docket following an earlier Federal Courtroom ruling in February 2024, which discovered that Block Earner had engaged in unlicensed conduct when providing the Earner product between March and November 2022.

Nevertheless, the Courtroom dismissed ASIC’s claims towards Block Earner’s variable-yield product, “Entry,” and in June relieved the corporate of penalties. 

That call was then appealed by ASIC and counter-appealed by Block Earner, culminating within the Full Federal Courtroom’s ruling in April 2025.

Block Earner, the buying and selling identify of Web3 Ventures Pty Ltd, has since shuttered the product and has said it has no plans to relaunch it. 

The corporate argues that its providing merely allowed clients to mortgage crypto beneath fastened phrases and obtain curiosity, with out pooling funds or exposing customers to enterprise danger.

“From the outset, we sought to make sure that our trendy product suite may match right into a less-modern regulatory setting,” Charlie Karaboga, CEO and co-founder of Block Earner, mentioned in April.

The Excessive Courtroom has not but set a date to contemplate ASIC’s utility.

Decrypt has approached Block Earner for remark.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair