Singapore still aims to be a crypto hub, minus speculative trading

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) wants to build the city-state into a “crypto hub” fueled by instant settlements, tokenized assets and programmable money, not “speculating in cryptocurrencies,” Ravi Menon, the central bank’s managing director, said at the Singapore FinTech Festival on Thursday. 

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Fast facts

• The most common question asked, according to Menon, is if Singapore wants to be a crypto asset hub. 

• “Yes, we want to be a crypto hub,” the central banker said. “But if it is about trading and speculating in cryptocurrencies, that is not the kind of crypto hub we want to be.”

• According to Menon, the real value in the crypto industry comes from tokenizing assets and placing them on a distributed ledger for use cases that increase economic efficiency.
• Singapore aims to create a future where any asset can be fractionalized while drastically reducing trading costs, Menon said.
• Menon’s comments at the conference came after officials in Hong Kong, Singapore’s financial rival in Asia, announced this week at their own annual gathering, the Hong Kong FinTech Week, a series of policies to re-attract digital asset investment. 

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