SINGAPORE: The co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, the U. S. -based cryptocurrency exchange. U. S. Secretary of State Brian Armstrong has said that Singapore should be a forward-thinking regulator, but that it supports cryptocurrency trading.
The city-state warned that cryptocurrencies are highly speculative and volatile after many retail investors lost much of their savings. It also banned crypto advertising in public spaces and on social media.
“Singapore needs to be a Web3 hub and then say, ‘Oh, we’re not really going to allow retail or self-hosted wallets to be available,'” Armstrong said at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2022. I was talking to Sopnendu Mohanty, lead money generation officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
“These two things are incompatible in my opinion, and I would like to see retail and self-hosted wallets in Singapore,” Armstrong added.
This comes after Coinbase obtained approval by MAS precept to offer a virtual payment token in the city-state.
So far, Singapore has issued 17 approvals and licenses in principle after a strict variety process after 180 applications. Binance reportedly withdrew its offer to operate in the city-state earlier this year after being in regulatory limbo for months.
In response, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Mohanty, said retail investors were “exposed to dangers they do not perceive they are taking. “
“We believe that Web 3. 0 is long-term and what we need to do is make sure that the cash that can transact in this ecosystem is considered a safe asset, a safe currency. As long as it is the direction, we agree. ” Mohanty added.
Mohanty then challenged Armstrong to ask for the regulations he said to be revised.
“For centralized exchanges and custodians [like Coinbase], I think they should be treated like other money services companies. There are protections against money laundering. There are audits that they have to do, not mixing of funds, proper disclosures to clients,” Armstrong said.
“Cryptocurrencies will not be treated disadvantageously; They will have to be treated on an equal footing with other regulations of monetary facilities. “
In response, Mohanty made an analogy to a visitor to a banking app.
“We, as a regulator, don’t care about protocols. We only care about the consumers who have come to the bank. The bank is guilty of making sure it protects its consumers,” he added.
“MAS has made our position transparent on where the true price of the crypto industry comes from,” a MAS spokesperson told CNBC in reaction to a request for further comment.
In his keynote speech at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2022, MAS managing director Ravi Menon said: “If a crypto center is about experimenting with programmable money, applying virtual assets to use cases, or tokenizing monetary assets to increase potency and decrease the threat in money transactions, yes, we need to be a crypto hub. But when it comes to trading and speculating cryptocurrencies, that’s not the kind of crypto hub we should be.
Coinbase responded to CNBC’s request for comment.
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