Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies, has warned retail investors not to get involved with crypto, saying that the industry needs greater regulation.
According to a report by The Register published on May 31, Keat gave a talk at the Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG) event (May 31 – June 3, 2022) and warned that retail investors should avoid cryptoassets.
He said:
Retail investors, especially, should steer clear of cryptocurrencies, we can not express this enough.
Keat cited several individual investors who had lost large sums of money via crypto, including their life savings, following the market meltdown of Terra ($LUNA). The stablecoin TerraUSD, which many believed to be pegged to the value of $1, fell more than 90% in the wake of the market collapse.
Keat called cryptoassets a “highly risky” investment, but did note the impact blockchain and digital currencies could have on the finance industry. The deputy prime minister said that the industry as a whole would need better regulation to foster innovation while curbing risks.
He continued:
We remain keen to work with blockchain, and build up trust.
On the first day of ATxSG 2022, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced “the commencement of Project Guardian, a collaborative initiative with the financial industry that seeks to explore the economic potential and value-adding use cases of asset tokenisation.”
The press release stated that Project Guardian “will test the feasibility of applications in asset tokenisation and DeFi while managing risks to financial stability and integrity.”
The first industry pilot [1] under Project Guardian will explore potential DeFi applications in wholesale funding markets. The press release went on to say that “the pilot, led by DBS Bank Ltd., JP Morgan and Marketnode, involves the creation of a permissioned liquidity pool comprising tokenised bonds and deposits,” and that this pilot “aims to carry out secured borrowing and lending on a public blockchain-based network through execution of smart contracts.”
The MAS has in the past warned against crypto trading, and it took action in January 2022 to limit the promotion of digital assets. In April, Singapore passed the Financial Services and Markets Bill 2022.
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Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the author, or any people mentioned in this article, are for informational purposes only, and they do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice. Investing in or trading cryptoassets comes with a risk of financial loss.
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