A high-ranking government official is said to have revealed that the Indonesian government plans to introduce a cryptocurrency exchange by the end of this year. He emphasized, “We will make sure that all requirements, practices, and necessary steps have been followed.
By year’s end, the Indonesian government intends to open a cryptocurrency exchange, according to Deputy Trade Minister Jerry Sambuaga, who was quoted by Dealstreetasia on Wednesday.
The trade minister explained that the government’s efforts to safeguard consumers amid growing interest in digital currencies while speaking on the sidelines of NXC International Summit 2022 by WIR Group in Bali.
The publication stated that the complexity of the process forced the postponement of the bourse launch, which was originally scheduled to begin in 2021.
“We will make sure that every requirement, procedure, and the necessary steps have been taken,” Minister Sambuaga was quoted as saying. “This is proof that we are being careful. We don’t want to be hasty as it may cause us to miss something.” He elaborated:
Creating a bourse needs many preparations. We need to see which entities should be included in the bourse.
The government official continued, “Secondly, we need to validate the aforementioned entities. Thirdly, there are minimum capital requirements as well as other technical custodian depository requirements.
The CEO of Tokocrypto, Pang Xue Kai, thinks that a cryptocurrency exchange can attract more participants and institutional investors to the cryptocurrency market. The Indonesian Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency has granted licenses to 25 cryptocurrency exchanges, Tokocrypto being one of them (Bappebti).
Pang opined:
The industry will grow, we’ll start seeing more local projects.
Although Indonesia permits the trading of cryptocurrencies as commodities, it does not accept them as payment methods. The Indonesian Directorate General of Taxes announced in April that it had set income tax (PPh) and value-added tax (VAT) on cryptocurrency purchases at 0.1% each.
The Financial Services Authority of Indonesia (OJK) issued a warning in January stating that financial institutions are not permitted to offer and facilitate the sale of crypto assets. However, the Indonesian government will not outlaw cryptocurrencies like China did, according to the nation’s Minister of Trade Muhammad Luthfi in September of last year. However, Indonesia’s top Islamic body, which is also the nation’s Shariah compliance body, has ruled that cryptocurrency is haram, or against the law, for Muslims.
Crypto transactions in Indonesia increased 1,224% to 859.4 trillion rupiahs ($57.5 billion) in 2021 from 64.9 trillion in 2020, according to Bappebti. In the first six months of this year, there were 15.1 million crypto users in Indonesia, transacting cryptocurrencies worth 212 trillion rupiahs.
