MAS Explains Reasons for Not Alerting Local Users About FTX

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The Mon­e­tary Author­i­ty of Sin­ga­pore stat­ed that there was no rea­son to cau­tion investors against FTX cryp­to exchange as it did with Binance because the for­mer did not active­ly solic­it users in Singapore.

This comes amid ear­li­er spec­u­la­tions stat­ing that the regulator’s action against Binance caused Sin­ga­pore­an users to shift to FTX there­by caus­ing them to be caught in the exchange’s collapse.

FTX Did Not Solicit Singapore Users

In a state­ment pub­lished on Mon­day (Novem­ber 21, 2022), MAS respond­ed to “ques­tions and mis­con­cep­tions” fol­low­ing FTX’s down­fall. The Sin­ga­pore­an finan­cial reg­u­la­tor said it was not pos­si­ble to pro­tect locals who used the Bahamas-based FTX as the cryp­to exchange was not licensed by the agency and oper­at­ed offshore.

MAS also addressed con­cerns about its treat­ment of the world’s largest cryp­to exchange Binance, and FTX. The reg­u­la­to­ry watch­dog said that while both cryp­to exchanges were unreg­u­lat­ed in Sin­ga­pore, there was a dif­fer­ence between them.

The reg­u­la­tor received sev­er­al com­plaints about Binance between Jan­u­ary and August 2021, adding that the exchange giant was solic­it­ing Sin­ga­pore users with­out hav­ing a license. Con­se­quent­ly, MAS placed Binance on the Investor Alert List (IAL). Also, the Com­mer­cial Affairs Depart­ment (CAD) inves­ti­gat­ed Binance for pos­si­ble vio­la­tion of the Pay­ment Ser­vices Act (PSA) on MAS’ referral.

Mean­while, FTX did not go through the same treat­ment as its rival because, accord­ing to the reg­u­la­tor, it did not specif­i­cal­ly solic­it users in Sin­ga­pore and did not con­duct trades in the local cur­ren­cy, even though res­i­dents could access the Bahamas-based plat­form online. There was also no evi­dence that the firm vio­lat­ed the PS Act.

“While both Binance and FTX are not licensed here, there is a clear dif­fer­ence between the two: Binance was active­ly solic­it­ing users in Sin­ga­pore while FTX was not. Binance in fact went to the extent of offer­ing list­ings in Sin­ga­pore dol­lars and accept­ed Sin­ga­pore-spe­cif­ic pay­ment modes such as PayNow and PayLah.”

MAS Repeats Warning About Crypto Risks

MAS also reit­er­at­ed its warn­ing about the cryp­to indus­try, stat­ing that the FTX cri­sis was an exam­ple that engag­ing in cryp­tocur­ren­cy was risky.

“The ongo­ing tur­moil in the cryp­to indus­try serves as a reminder of the huge risks of deal­ing in cryp­tocur­ren­cies. As MAS has repeat­ed­ly stat­ed, there is no pro­tec­tion for cus­tomers who deal in cryp­tocur­ren­cies. They can lose all their money.”

The col­lapse of one of the largest cryp­to exchanges has affect­ed all facets of the indus­try, both retail and insti­tu­tion­al actors. As pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed by Cryp­toPota­to, court fil­ings revealed that the bank­rupt FTX owed over $3 bil­lion to its top 50 creditors.

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