Crypto exchange Coinbase gets in-principle nod from Singapore authorities
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Coinbase said that it has been building up its presence in Singapore and has nearly 100 employees in the Republic.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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SINGAPORE - The biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States has received a nod from Singapore’s authorities to offer digital asset payment services.
Coinbase announced on its blog that it has been granted in-principle approval under the Payment Services Act by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
When asked, Coinbase’s regional director for South-east Asia Hassan Ahmed said Singapore is a key institutional market for the group in Asia because of its talent pool and MAS’ regulatory leadership.
More importantly, Singapore has many marquee asset allocators and asset managers that continue to express interest in and want to increase exposure to digital assets, he said.
The move ties in with the firm’s Singapore plans, given that the city also serves as Coinbase’s Asia-Pacific tech hub.
The firm had applied for a licence from the MAS before July 2020.
Coinbase has close to 100 employees in Singapore, with the product, engineering and design team comprising 30 per cent of the local headcount. The firm employs more than 4,900 staff globally.
“We announced our Singapore tech hub last year; we intend to continue hiring and training professionals on Web3 technologies in the island state,” Mr Hassan said.
Coinbase now holds licences and registrations in multiple jurisdictions, including Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy, Ireland, the United Kingdom and US.
Its parent company, Coinbase Global, is listed on Nasdaq and is the only crypto player in Fortune magazine’s list of 500 largest companies in the US by revenue.
As at the end of the second quarter this year, Coinbase had US$6 billion (S$8.6 billion) in total resources, with an additional US$428 million crypto assets.
The firm services more than 100 million retail investors, over 14,000 institutions and 245,000 ecosystem partners across more than 100 countries.
There were close to 200 applications to MAS in 2020, when the regulator opened its doors to crypto firms.
So far, more than a dozen in-principle approvals and licences have been granted, including to Crypto.com and Coinhako.
Singapore had positioned itself as a crypto hub and that drew many players over.
But the crash of stablecoin TerraUSD and sister token Luna - created by Terraform Labs - sent the digital asset market into a rout. Terraform Labs is incorporated in Singapore and its founder Do Kwon, whose location is unknown, is wanted by South Korean police.
Other popular names in the industry that were caught in the crash include crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, and lenders Celsius and Vauld.
The market crash, led in part by rising interest rates, wiped out billions of investors’ funds globally.
The developments have prompted MAS to come up with proposals to regulate stablecoin and to make it harder for local retail investors to trade in crypto. The regulator previously said it would announce this in October.
