Australian 40-year economic outlook recognizes ‘AI revolution,’ omits crypto

Australia’s latest Intergenerational Report, released by the Treasury, identifies artificial intelligence as one of five structural transitions expected to significantly affect the nation’s economy over the next 40 years. The report describes agentic AI systems as markedly more capable and autonomous, noting they have surpassed human-level performance on some benchmarks. The other transitions highlighted are geopolitical tensions, population ageing, the transition to clean energy, and an industrial shift toward services. The 40-year outlook did not, however, mention cryptocurrencies or digital assets. Coinbase Australia’s country director John O’Loghlen criticized the omission in emailed comments, saying the report focused heavily on AI but failed to address the financial infrastructure those AI agents might require. He pointed to the need for digital rails such as tokenized stored-value facilities and clear rules for tokenized markets. While the Intergenerational Report left out digital assets, other parts of Australia’s policymaking apparatus have been engaging with tokenization and related infrastructure. The Reserve Bank of Australia increased attention on tokenized finance and payments infrastructure earlier in the year, and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre has estimated digital finance innovations could deliver about 24 billion Australian dollars (roughly $17.1 billion) in annual economic gains. Treasury itself has produced a separate Financial Innovation Strategy, published on Sept. 3, that addresses how agentic systems could drive more automated and machine-to-machine transactions and thereby increase demand for real-time, interoperable and programmable payment systems. Industry representatives cited progress such as the Digital Asset Platform framework as helpful regulatory clarity and urged similar attention for stablecoin frameworks and tokenized market rules to support emerging digital finance use cases.