Indonesia will Start Crypto Exchange in 2023 Ahead of Regulatory Shift
The move is part of the country's broader financial reform, which began in December of last year.
As per recent reports, the country currently has 16 million crypto investors.
Indonesia has also made progress on the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) front.
As per reports, Indonesia will establish a crypto exchange
in 2023 as part of its crypto regulatory reform. The platform will be introduced prior to the transfer of regulatory authority from commodities to securities authority.
On January 04, Didid Noordiatmoko, the head of Indonesia's Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappebti), announced that a cryptocurrency exchange would be established this year. The move is part of a broader financial reform plan that will begin in December 2022.
In accordance with the reform, the Financial Services Authority would take over crypto monitoring from Bappebti, a commodities-focused regulator, over the next two years.
On December 15, the House of Representatives of Indonesia passed the Financial Sector Development and Reinforcement Bill (P2SK), which will become the legal reference in the financial services sector.
Suminto Sastrosuwito, the national finance ministry's chief of Financing and Risk Management, explained that the bill will shift jurisdiction from Bappebti to the FSA, claiming that:
“In fact, crypto assets have evolved into investment and financial instruments, and they must be regulated in the same way as traditional financial and investment products.”
Indonesia imposed a blanket ban on crypto payments in 2017, but trading in digital assets has mostly remained legal in the country. On January 01, Noordiatmoko announced that the value of crypto transactions in the country will drop by half in 2022, from 859.4 trillion Indonesian rupiahs ($55 million) to 296.66 trillion ($19 million).
In December, Bank of Indonesia Governor Perry Warjiyo announced the release of the proposed structure of a digital rupiah — a currency equivalent to the country's fiat — for public discussion.
