It’s big news for anybody involved with the Hedera ecosystem. Hashgraph (developed by Swirlds Labs), is expecting to launch a permissioned DLT, HashSphere, in Quarter 3 2025. A current beta tester is Australia Payments Plus, which operates key Australian payment infrastructures. The company is also a member of the Hedera governing council.
There was much excitement when Australia’s eftpos, now part of Australia Payments Plus, joined Hedera years ago. Eftpos merged with other Australian payment infrastructures which are today part of Australia Payment Plus. With stablecoins now on the cusp of going mainstream, with projects like the Genius Act. Hedera’s time might have come.
Rob Allen from Australia Payments commented on the news by sharing: “As a Hedera Governing Council member, we are interested in HashSphere primarily for its enhanced privacy and regulatory compliance, while also needing network interoperability for the seamless and transparent interchange of stablecoins between public Hedera and private HashSphere, and other Layer1 protocols.”
Why the Australian Payments Plus Story is Important
In the last few weeks many things have happened in Australia. For instance, Dr. Sabrina Tachdjian, Director, Fintech and Payments at the HBAR Foundation was a speaker at the inaugural Black Swan Summit in Perth. Not only that, but last week news emerged about Australia’s new crypto regulations.
Steve Vallas, Managing Director at Blockchain APAC shared on social media how the new regulations will mean:
- Licensing Shift – exchanges wil need an Australian financial services license (AFSL) rather than a stricter market licence as ASIC initially pushed
- Stablecoin Oversight – APRA will regulate stablecoins under a stored-value facility regime bringing them closer to traditional financial oversight
- Capital Requirements – Minimum capital adequacy standards will apply to exchanges holding assets like bitcoin and ETH
- No new Crypto Tax laws – The government ruled out crypto-specific tax legislation
All the above fit a rhetoric where Hedera can help. The vision of HashSphere is perfectly positioned to support Blockchain 4.0.
The concept of HashSphere is to build a private permissioned version of Hedera in-house, but not only. Commentators on X have added how the question today is “how do we leverage BOTH a public and private DLT for more robust, harmonized operations?”
In the world of banking using a private DLT paired with a public one for retail access for stablecoins. Gamechanger? It will be if HashSphere fulfils even part of its promise.
Stay tuned for more HBARNews as it comes up.
Author: Andy Samu
See Also:
How The Black Swan Summit Made an Impact in Western Australia | Disruption Banking
The Rise in Popularity of Crypto in Australia with Alpha Node | Disruption Banking
