The Singapore government said its carefully studying the risks associated with blockchain and cryptocurrencies and urge the public to be careful about crypto.
Singapore’s Communications and Information Minister, Mr. S Iswaran, said the government intends to make the country a cryptocurrency and financial technology hub where companies can register their headquarters, but they have to remain cautious.
The Singapore authorities are carefully studying the benefits of the metaverse, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFT) but also trying to assess risks associated with crypto. Therefore, Isvaran urged people interested in digital assets to show maximum caution.
Iswaran said:
“Similar to the physical world, the government will seek to balance between promoting economic vitality, preserving social stability, and protecting public security in the digital domain.”
The caution comes after country residents have lost thousands of dollars in crypto scams. According to Singapore parliament member Shahira Abdullah, the country’s citizens have lost more than $70,000 on the Neko Inu gaming platform alone. Mr. Abdullah says there is a need to protect young people from fraudulent cryptocurrency games and organize such programs to increase financial literacy.
“The public should practice healthy skepticism to ask, check and confirm before making any transactions on cryptocurrency-related platforms, whether they be investment-related, or for online games.”
Singapore’s Interior Minister, K Shanmugam, recommended users make cryptocurrency transactions only with organizations regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
“When transacting with cryptocurrencies, we urge the public to only deal with entities regulated by” the Monetary Authority of Singapore.”
MAS has approved only a few applications for conducting cryptocurrency activities. Among them was the iSTOX platform for trading tokenized securities, which received MAS permission to conduct operations in the country last year.
The regulator does not have a good relationship with the well-known exchange Binance. In September, MAS added Binance On Investor Alert List; Binance later withdrew its MAS license application and said it would stop providing trading services in Singapore by February.