Indonesia to Tighten Crypto Regulation With Stricter Rules for Exchanges

September 23, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Majority of crypto exchange leadership should be comprised of citizens, say Indonesian regulators

September 21, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Officials with Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency could implement a rule for two-thirds of directors and commissioners at crypto firms to be citizens.

Jerry Sambuaga, the deputy minister of Indonesia’s Ministry of Trade, has proposed a rule that would require the leadership at the country’s crypto exchanges to be more representative of its citizens.

In a Tuesday parliamentary meeting that included Indonesian regulatory officials, a letter submitted by Sambuaga suggested several policy changes in response to the “interesting year for the development of physical trading of crypto assets” in the country. Among the proposed rules is a requirement for two-thirds of directors and commissioners at crypto firms to be “Indonesian citizens and domiciled in Indonesia.”

*Proposed changes to Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency on crypto. Source: YouTube*

A Wednesday report from Bloomberg suggested that the proposed changes to the country’s crypto policy may have been influenced by the legal battle involving Terra co-founder Do Kwon. The South Korean national left the country for Singapore in April and his current whereabouts are unknown at the time of publication, despite officials issuing a warrant for his arrest and Interpol reportedly placing Kwon on its Red Notice list.

According to the report, Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency acting head Didid Noordiatmoko said the rule aimed to stop leadership at crypto firms “from fleeing the country if any problem arises.” In addition to the citizen rule, Sambuaga proposed crypto firms have a minimum capital requirement of 100 billion rupiah — roughly $6.7 million at the time of publication — and user funds be stored in third-party financial institutions or futures clearing houses.

With a population of more than 275 million people, roughly 11 million in Indonesia invested in crypto in 2021, according to Sambuaga. The country’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency showed there were 25 registered crypto exchanges as of April 2022, including local branches of Zipmex and Upbit.

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Binance

The country’s deputy trade minister confirmed the intention, for the first time voiced in last year.

The government of Indonesia returned to its plan to set up a digital assets exchange, publicly announced first time back in 2021. A so-called “crypto bourse” is planned to be established by the end of 2022.

According to DealStreetAsia, Indonesia’s deputy trade minister Jerry Sambuaga confirmed during the NXC International Summit 2022 in Bali that the country is still planning on the crypto bourse’ launch, while the whole project has been delayed due to additional preparations:

“We will make sure that every requirement, procedure and the necessary steps have been taken.”

Sambuaga also described some inevitable preparatory tasks ahead of the launch, such as an assessment of entities that “could be included in the bourse” and setting the minimum requirements for them.

CEO of Tokokrypto, one of the 25 licensed crypto exchanges in Indonesia with a large share owned by Binance, Pang Hue Kai, called a bourse project a catalyst for the Indonesia crypto ecosystem.

The first announcement of the national crypto bourse in Indonesia appeared in December 2021. At that time, a joint venture was said to be launched by the venture-capital arm of state-owned telecom company PT Telkom Indonesia and one of the world's largest crypto exchanges, Binance.

In a bid to diversify its assets, Indonesian tech company PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk bought a local crypto exchange, PT Kripto Maksima Koin, for 124.84 billion rupiahs ($8.38 million).

According to data from Indonesia's Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency in 2021, the total transaction volume of the crypto assets in Indonesia rose more than 1,000% compared to 2020, to 859.4 trillion rupiahs ($57.7 billion). Roughly 4% of the country’s population, which is a little under 11 million people, have been investing in crypto.

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Indonesian e-commerce giant buys local crypto exchange for million

Coin Telegraph

By acquiring PT Kripto Maksima Koin, the tech giant pursues a goal to become "a diverse money management hub."

Indonesian tech company PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk (GoTo) bought PT Kripto Maksima Koin, a local crypto exchange, in a bid to diversify its assets. The deal makes a landmark in the merging of mainstream and crypto in the fourth most populated country in the world.

As reported by Reuters, the sum of the acquisition of 100% shares by the country’s “biggest tech firm” came to 124.84 billion rupiahs ($8.38 million). The deal was finalized on Aug. 25, according to Indonesian media.

GoTo didn’t reveal any specific plans for PT Kripto Maksima Koin’s further development, but in an official statement, its representatives explained a deal as part of its effort to "a diverse money management hub."

PT Kripto Maksima Koin is one of the 25 crypto platforms licensed by Indonesia's Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (BAPPEBTI). It received the license relatively recently, on Jan. 28, 2022.

Earlier this year, GoTo, which had been formed as a result of a merge between a local e-commerce leader and an on-demand multi-service platform, conducted its initial public offering (IPO), raising $1.1 billion.

According to Reuters data, in 2021 total transaction volume of the crypto assets in Indonesia rose more than 1,000% compared to 2020, to 859.4 trillion rupiahs ($57.7 billion). Roughly 4% of the country’s population, which is a little under 11 million people, have been investing in crypto.

In recent years, the country saw a rising tide of celebrity coins and non-fungible token (NFT) projects, with regulators’ having to weigh in in a mild manner — BAPPEBTI has been repeatedly warning the population about the risks of investing in non-registered digital assets, but at the same time, it got along without harsh prosecution, involving even the non-registered providers in a dialogue.

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Indonesia-licensed crypto asset platform Pintu raises $113M in Series B

June 7, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Indonesia-licensed crypto asset platform Pintu raises 3M in Series B

Coin Telegraph

The latest $113 million fund injection will be redirected to scale the platform’s existing offerings, such as introducing new features and added support for blockchains.

Indonesian crypto asset platform Pintu announced the closure of a $113 million Series B funding round participated by four prominent investors Pantera Capital, Intudo Ventures, Lightspeed and Northstar Group.

Licensed by the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappebti) under the Ministry of Trade, Pintu caters to Indonesian crypto investors dealing in popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

Bappepti previously highlighted the doubling in the number of Indonesian crypto investors in 2021-2022, to which Jeth Soetoyo, Founder and CEO of Pintu, said:

“We believe that crypto adoption in Indonesia is only in its beginning stages, and educating users on the fundamentals is critical to ensuring this growth continues in a healthy way.”

The latest $113 million fund injection will be redirected to scale the platform’s existing offerings, such as introducing new features and support for blockchains. The company also plans to add more tokens and launch new products to solidify its position in Indonesia further.

In just two years since its inception, Pintu launched numerous features on its mobile application that allow users to earn and stake their crypto holdings. In addition, a part of the Series B funding will be dedicated to Pintu Academy, an educational program for crypto traders that aims to spread awareness about the opportunities and risks of crypto investing.

A recent Cointelegraph analysis from April 3 pointed out that crypto investments in Indonesia saw considerable growth between 2020-2022, with 4% of the country’s population having invested in crypto.

However, celebrity involvement in crypto seemingly fueled the adoption spree among Indonesian investors. In addition to the participation of popular stars such as Joe Taslim, Jessica Iskandar and Shandy Aulia, the Indonesian celebrity crypto scene witnessed numerous nonfungible token (NFT) launches.

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New crypto owners nearly doubled in 3 key regions in 2021: Report

April 4, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Brazil

More than half of respondents in India, Brazil and Hong Kong made the first purchase of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin in 2021.

The number of cryptocurrency owners has massively increased last year, with nearly half of all owners worldwide buying crypto for the first time in 2021, according to a new report.

Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, has polled about 30,000 respondents in 20 countries between November 2021 and February 2022 to provide a picture of a rapidly expanding crypto ecosystem. The company released the survey findings as part of its “2022 Global State of Crypto” report shared with Cointelegraph on Monday.

According to Gemini’s findings, crypto adoption skyrocketed in 2021 in countries like India, Brazil and Hong Kong as more than half of respondents started investing in crypto 2021. The number of such respondents amounted to 54% in India and 51% both in Brazil and Hong Kong.

Elsewhere in the world, Latin America (LATAM) and the Asia Pacific (APAC) respondents were also actively buying crypto in 2021, with 46% of respondents in LATAM and 45% in APAC purchasing their first crypto in 2021. 44% of respondents in the United States and 40% in Europe started investing in 2021, according to the report.

Gemini also found that countries like Indonesia and Brazil are leading the world in terms of the share of cryptocurrency investors among the general population. According to the report, 41% of respondents both in Brazil and Indonesia reported owning crypto, compared to just 20% in the United States, 18% in Australia and 17% in Europe.

Crypto ownership rates are reportedly also significantly high in counties like the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Israel, with 35% of respondents in the UAE, 30% of respondents in Singapore and 28% of Israeli respondents reporting holding crypto.

*Cryptocurrency ownership by country. Source: Gemini*

The report also cited the uncertainty over crypto regulation and lack of education as two of the biggest impediments to the mass adoption of crypto. Among non-owners, 39% of respondents in APAC, 37% in LATAM, and 36% in Europe said that there was legal uncertainty around crypto. 30% of respondents in the Middle East, 24% in the Asia Pacific and 23% in Latam, also indicated that crypto tax reporting kept them away from buying crypto.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Gemini predicted last year that the number of U.S. crypto investors would nearly double in 2021. According to some other surveys, the number of new crypto investors in the country was far more than that in 2021. According to the “Crypto Perception Report 2022” released by the Huobi crypto exchange in January, about 70% of crypto owners in the U.S. started investing in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) for the first time in 2021.

Indonesia

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