Australia’s newly released 40-year economic outlook has identified artificial intelligence as one of five foundational transitions expected to profoundly reshape the national economy over the coming decades, though the comprehensive government document has drawn criticism for omitting any mention of cryptocurrency and digital asset infrastructure.
The latest Intergenerational Report, published on Monday by the Australian Treasury, outlines the structural shifts that will dictate the country’s trajectory through the decades leading up to the mid-2060s. Among its core findings, the report describes agentic artificial intelligence systems as having become significantly more capable, autonomous, and widely adopted across various sectors, even surpassing human-level performance on certain standardized benchmarks. Alongside the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence, the Treasury’s blueprint identifies four other major economic transitions: intensifying geopolitical conflicts and global fragmentation, an increasingly aging domestic population, a sweeping global and domestic shift toward clean energy, and Australia’s ongoing industrial transformation toward a services-driven economy.
While the document offers a sweeping view of future technological integration, its silence on blockchain technology and digital assets has sparked immediate discussion among industry participants. John O’Loghlen, the country director for Coinbase Australia, addressed the report’s technological focus in emailed comments, pointing out a critical gap between the government’s economic vision and the practical financial mechanics required to support it.
The Intergenerational Report makes it clear that Australia’s prosperity over the next 40 years will depend heavily on our ability to adopt new technology and lift productivity, O’Loghlen noted, adding that while the report focuses heavily on artificial intelligence, it completely misses the financial infrastructure those agents will need to operate efficiently.
Historically, previous editions of the Intergenerational Report have similarly omitted direct references to digital assets and decentralized financial networks. This persistent oversight stands in stark contrast to recent initiatives undertaken by other major Australian financial institutions. Earlier this year, the Reserve Bank of Australia noticeably increased its focus on tokenized finance and the necessary upgrades to legacy financial infrastructure. Furthermore, independent research from the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre has estimated that ongoing innovations in digital finance could generate as much as 24 billion Australian dollars, equivalent to approximately $17.1 billion USD, in annual economic gains for the country.
Despite the notable absence of digital assets in the primary 40-year outlook, the Australian Treasury has separately addressed the intersection of emerging technology and financial systems in other policy publications. Just days prior to the release of the Intergenerational Report, the Treasury published a dedicated document titled the Financial Innovation Strategy on September 3, which explicitly examines the operational link between advanced artificial intelligence and modern financial infrastructure.
According to that separate strategy report, the proliferation of autonomous agentic systems could dramatically increase the volume of automated and machine-to-machine transactions. This fundamental shift in how commerce is conducted is expected to create unprecedented commercial demand for real-time, highly interoperable, and programmable payment systems capable of settling transactions instantaneously without traditional human bottlenecks.
Reflecting on these evolving regulatory and technological developments, O’Loghlen emphasized that Australia has made tangible progress in laying the groundwork for modern digital markets over recent years. He pointed specifically to the establishment of the Digital Asset Platform framework, which has provided crucial regulatory clarity for industry participants operating within the jurisdiction.
The opportunity now, O’Loghlen added, is to bring that same strategic focus to the tokenized stored-value facility framework for stablecoins, alongside establishing clear, enforceable rules for tokenized markets. Those are the underlying rails that digital finance, including agentic finance, will ultimately run on, and getting them right is how Australia successfully turns this economic opportunity into reality.
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