Indonesia launches its crypto exchange and clearing house
The platform, monitored by local regulators, will be the only space in the country where the legal exchange of digital assets is allowed.
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Značka: Indonesia
Indonesia to launch crypto exchange in July: Report
Once launched, Indonesia’s national crypto exchange will be the only platform allowing crypto transactions, the local regulator said.
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‘Dealt with firmly’ — Bali governor issues warning to tourists using crypto
Cryptocurrency trading is legal in Indonesia, but the use of crypto in payments carries hefty penalties including jail time.
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Study claims 99.5% of crypto investors did not pay taxes in 2022
Finland and Australia had the highest proportion of tax-paying crypto investors, while the United States ranked 10th on the list, according to the study.
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Indonesian government looks to NFTs to preserve cultural heritage
The Deputy of Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy explains how NFTs and cryptocurrency can help solve social and economic challenges within Indonesia.
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How to build a Bitcoin Beach: Advice from the pros
How does one build a Bitcoin (BTC) community? How to start? Where to begin? And what are the best practices? Cointelegraph spoke to Bitcoin community builders around the world to shed light on a growing phenomenon in the Bitcoin world. From Indonesia to South Africa to El Salvador and the Congo, circular-based Bitcoin economies and community projects have sprung up across the globe. Cointelegraph asked the successful community-focused Bitcoiners how to kickstart a Bitcoin circular economy and what advice they’d lend to enthusiasts looking to replicate the success of projects like Bitcoin Beach, El Zonte. Using Bitcoin at Bitcoin Beach. Source: TwitterFor Bitcoin community project leader Mike Peterson, it starts with Lightning. Peterson pioneered the Bitcoin Beach project in the sleepy surf town of El Zonte, El Salvador. The circular economy energized an entire nation and eventually led to El Salvador adopting Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021. Peterson told Cointelegraph:“You need to be using lightning for for people to be transacting and to build a circular economy. It really needs to be built on lightning. [..] You need to get people transacting.”The layer-2 Lightning Network is a payments solution built on top of Bitcoin. In El Salvador, El Chivo is among the most popular Lightning-enabled Bitcoin wallets, although it has experienced issues since its rollout. Across the rest of the world, Bitcoin enthusiasts use Wallet of Satoshi, Muun Wallet, CoinCorner or Blue Wallet to instantly transact with one another. Peterson continued: “If you get them making that first transaction and they see how easy it is and that they’ve actually sent value from one person to another in like a second time for hardly almost no fees, that’s what the light bulb goes off and they realize the value that that has.”Ultimately, leading with Lightning helps newbies realize that Bitcoin can be easy and even fun. In the Isle of Man, where there is a budding Bitcoin community, United Kingdom-based exchange CoinCorner has found inventive ways to demonstrate the Lightning Network.Bitcoin Ekasi Project next to Mossel Bay, South Africa. Source: TwitterHermann Vivier, founder of Bitcoin Ekasi in the Western Cape of South Africa, shared a few tricks to establishing a Bitcoin economy. First, while it’s important to “put one foot in front of the other,” and “just start,” he said, try to see if there’s a preexisting community to tap into:“We had something that that was already existing and we built the Bitcoin community on top of that.”Bitcoin Ekasi is a township project that keeps kids away from gangs in school and among South Africa’s Atlantic waves, where they learn lifeguarding and surf skills. Vivier teaches Bitcoin as another element of the kids’ education.Recent: What can blockchain do for increasing human longevity?Furthermore, Vivier also shared that it’s important to keep it simple. Stick to Bitcoin, he joked. His hours of labor and love given to this community project have turned him into a “Bitcoin maximalist,” as it helps in avoiding the risk of scams in crypto, while blockchain buzzwords can get in the way of making progress: “I would say 100% focus on Bitcoin only. And if there was something better than Bitcoin out there, then that’s what you should focus on. But at the moment Bitcoin is where it’s at.”Nourou, founder of Bitcoin Senegal, a community-led Bitcoin project in West Africa, told Cointelegraph, “You cannot create a community if you aren’t capable of answering people’s questions–and that requires a wide range of knowledge.”Iman Yudha, who leads a group of crypto and Bitcoin enthusiasts in Indonesia, agrees. He told Cointelegraph that it’s important to “Get educated first–before you make any decisions. That’s my personal opinion.” After establishing a solid basis of foundational knowledge about Bitcoin, crypto and security. Nourou recommends to start talking about Bitcoin with close relations: “Start with the family if you can’t convince your mother, your brother, your sister, the cousins, and so on, it’s a bad start.” He notes that the following step varies depending on the culture, business practice and environment. Over in Senegal, “it is the wealthiest who roughly define fashion, who define trends. So people tend to copy them.” It’s for that reason that Nourou tried to target his Bitcoin communication to those communities first. Incidentally, Nourou is hosting West Africa’s first major Bitcoin conference, Dakar Bitcoin Days, on Dec. 2 in West Africa’s largest theater.Cointelegraph attended Dakar, Senegal’s first ever Bitcoin meetup in 2022.Lukas, a co-founder of Global Bitcoin Fest — which holds marathon Twitter Spaces for people all around the world — again encourages Bitcoin enthusiasts to focus on the people. It can be “lonely” in the land of Bitcoin, he told Cointelegraph, so finding a team with shared values can spur things along. He shared an example:“It’s a conversation that I’ve had recently with two guys in Zimbabwe. They want to kickstart a [project] there. He wanted to do it, but he was alone. […] Then he found Metamorphoses, another great maxi, and now they’re forming a team — and the energy is completely different now.” Yudha chimed in, sharing that energy and enthusiasm are critical, and community builders should avoid being “toxic” where possible. Recent: FTX collapse: The crypto industry’s Lehman Brothers momentIn short, these Bitcoin pioneers suggest finding like-minded individuals to work with, starting small, taking advantage of existing communities, knowing and understanding the subject matter and not overstretching. The simplest way to do this is to focus on Bitcoin and Bitcoin only. And to get people interested and transacting, get people using the Lightning Network because that’s what gives people their own light bulb moment.
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Majority of crypto exchange leadership should be comprised of citizens, say Indonesian regulators
Jerry Sambuaga, the deputy minister of Indonesia’s Ministry of Trade, has proposed a rule that would require the leadership at the country’s crypto exchanges to be more representative of its citizens. In a Tuesday parliamentary meeting that included Indonesian regulatory officials, a letter submitted by Sambuaga suggested several policy changes in response to the “interesting year for the development of physical trading of crypto assets” in the country. Among the proposed rules is a requirement for two-thirds of directors and commissioners at crypto firms to be “Indonesian citizens and domiciled in Indonesia.” Proposed changes to Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency on crypto. Source: YouTubeA Wednesday report from Bloomberg suggested that the proposed changes to the country’s crypto policy may have been influenced by the legal battle involving Terra co-founder Do Kwon. The South Korean national left the country for Singapore in April and his current whereabouts are unknown at the time of publication, despite officials issuing a warrant for his arrest and Interpol reportedly placing Kwon on its Red Notice list.According to the report, Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency acting head Didid Noordiatmoko said the rule aimed to stop leadership at crypto firms “from fleeing the country if any problem arises.” In addition to the citizen rule, Sambuaga proposed crypto firms have a minimum capital requirement of 100 billion rupiah — roughly $6.7 million at the time of publication — and user funds be stored in third-party financial institutions or futures clearing houses.Related: Indonesia plans to set up its crypto bourse by the end of 2022With a population of more than 275 million people, roughly 11 million in Indonesia invested in crypto in 2021, according to Sambuaga. The country’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency showed there were 25 registered crypto exchanges as of April 2022, including local branches of Zipmex and Upbit.
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Indonesia plans to set up its crypto bourse by the end of 2022
The government of Indonesia returned to its plan to set up a digital assets exchange, publicly announced first time back in 2021. A so-called “crypto bourse” is planned to be established by the end of 2022. According to DealStreetAsia, Indonesia’s deputy trade minister Jerry Sambuaga confirmed during the NXC International Summit 2022 in Bali that the country is still planning on the crypto bourse’ launch, while the whole project has been delayed due to additional preparations: “We will make sure that every requirement, procedure and the necessary steps have been taken.”Sambuaga also described some inevitable preparatory tasks ahead of the launch, such as an assessment of entities that “could be included in the bourse” and setting the minimum requirements for them. CEO of Tokokrypto, one of the 25 licensed crypto exchanges in Indonesia with a large share owned by Binance, Pang Hue Kai, called a bourse project a catalyst for the Indonesia crypto ecosystem. The first announcement of the national crypto bourse in Indonesia appeared in December 2021. At that time, a joint venture was said to be launched by the venture-capital arm of state-owned telecom company PT Telkom Indonesia and one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, Binance. Related: Mastercard partners with crypto gateway to drive financial inclusion in IndonesiaIn a bid to diversify its assets, Indonesian tech company PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk bought a local crypto exchange, PT Kripto Maksima Koin, for 124.84 billion rupiahs ($8.38 million). According to data from Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency in 2021, the total transaction volume of the crypto assets in Indonesia rose more than 1,000% compared to 2020, to 859.4 trillion rupiahs ($57.7 billion). Roughly 4% of the country’s population, which is a little under 11 million people, have been investing in crypto.
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Indonesian e-commerce giant buys local crypto exchange for $8 million
Indonesian tech company PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk (GoTo) bought PT Kripto Maksima Koin, a local crypto exchange, in a bid to diversify its assets. The deal makes a landmark in the merging of mainstream and crypto in the fourth most populated country in the world. As reported by Reuters, the sum of the acquisition of 100% shares by the country’s “biggest tech firm” came to 124.84 billion rupiahs ($8.38 million). The deal was finalized on Aug. 25, according to Indonesian media. GoTo didn’t reveal any specific plans for PT Kripto Maksima Koin’s further development, but in an official statement, its representatives explained a deal as part of its effort to “a diverse money management hub.”PT Kripto Maksima Koin is one of the 25 crypto platforms licensed by Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (BAPPEBTI). It received the license relatively recently, on Jan. 28, 2022. Earlier this year, GoTo, which had been formed as a result of a merge between a local e-commerce leader and an on-demand multi-service platform, conducted its initial public offering (IPO), raising $1.1 billion. Related: Mastercard partners with crypto gateway to drive financial inclusion in IndonesiaAccording to Reuters data, in 2021 total transaction volume of the crypto assets in Indonesia rose more than 1,000% compared to 2020, to 859.4 trillion rupiahs ($57.7 billion). Roughly 4% of the country’s population, which is a little under 11 million people, have been investing in crypto. In recent years, the country saw a rising tide of celebrity coins and non-fungible token (NFT) projects, with regulators’ having to weigh in in a mild manner — BAPPEBTI has been repeatedly warning the population about the risks of investing in non-registered digital assets, but at the same time, it got along without harsh prosecution, involving even the non-registered providers in a dialogue.
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Indonesia-licensed crypto asset platform Pintu raises $113M in Series B
Indonesian crypto asset platform Pintu announced the closure of a $113 million Series B funding round participated by four prominent investors Pantera Capital, Intudo Ventures, Lightspeed and Northstar Group. Licensed by the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappebti) under the Ministry of Trade, Pintu caters to Indonesian crypto investors dealing in popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).Bappepti previously highlighted the doubling in the number of Indonesian crypto investors in 2021-2022, to which Jeth Soetoyo, Founder and CEO of Pintu, said:“We believe that crypto adoption in Indonesia is only in its beginning stages, and educating users on the fundamentals is critical to ensuring this growth continues in a healthy way.”The latest $113 million fund injection will be redirected to scale the platform’s existing offerings, such as introducing new features and support for blockchains. The company also plans to add more tokens and launch new products to solidify its position in Indonesia further. In just two years since its inception, Pintu launched numerous features on its mobile application that allow users to earn and stake their crypto holdings. In addition, a part of the Series B funding will be dedicated to Pintu Academy, an educational program for crypto traders that aims to spread awareness about the opportunities and risks of crypto investing.Related: Celebrity tokens: Signs of rising crypto adoption in IndonesiaA recent Cointelegraph analysis from April 3 pointed out that crypto investments in Indonesia saw considerable growth between 2020-2022, with 4% of the country’s population having invested in crypto. However, celebrity involvement in crypto seemingly fueled the adoption spree among Indonesian investors. In addition to the participation of popular stars such as Joe Taslim, Jessica Iskandar and Shandy Aulia, the Indonesian celebrity crypto scene witnessed numerous nonfungible token (NFT) launches.
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New crypto owners nearly doubled in 3 key regions in 2021: Report
The number of cryptocurrency owners has massively increased last year, with nearly half of all owners worldwide buying crypto for the first time in 2021, according to a new report.Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, has polled about 30,000 respondents in 20 countries between November 2021 and February 2022 to provide a picture of a rapidly expanding crypto ecosystem. The company released the survey findings as part of its “2022 Global State of Crypto” report shared with Cointelegraph on Monday.According to Gemini’s findings, crypto adoption skyrocketed in 2021 in countries like India, Brazil and Hong Kong as more than half of respondents started investing in crypto 2021. The number of such respondents amounted to 54% in India and 51% both in Brazil and Hong Kong.Elsewhere in the world, Latin America (LATAM) and the Asia Pacific (APAC) respondents were also actively buying crypto in 2021, with 46% of respondents in LATAM and 45% in APAC purchasing their first crypto in 2021. 44% of respondents in the United States and 40% in Europe started investing in 2021, according to the report.Gemini also found that countries like Indonesia and Brazil are leading the world in terms of the share of cryptocurrency investors among the general population. According to the report, 41% of respondents both in Brazil and Indonesia reported owning crypto, compared to just 20% in the United States, 18% in Australia and 17% in Europe.Crypto ownership rates are reportedly also significantly high in counties like the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Israel, with 35% of respondents in the UAE, 30% of respondents in Singapore and 28% of Israeli respondents reporting holding crypto.Cryptocurrency ownership by country. Source: GeminiThe report also cited the uncertainty over crypto regulation and lack of education as two of the biggest impediments to the mass adoption of crypto. Among non-owners, 39% of respondents in APAC, 37% in LATAM, and 36% in Europe said that there was legal uncertainty around crypto. 30% of respondents in the Middle East, 24% in the Asia Pacific and 23% in Latam, also indicated that crypto tax reporting kept them away from buying crypto.Related: DeFi, Web3, CBDC still unknown for most: SurveyAs previously reported by Cointelegraph, Gemini predicted last year that the number of U.S. crypto investors would nearly double in 2021. According to some other surveys, the number of new crypto investors in the country was far more than that in 2021. According to the “Crypto Perception Report 2022” released by the Huobi crypto exchange in January, about 70% of crypto owners in the U.S. started investing in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) for the first time in 2021.
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Celebrity tokens: Signs of rising crypto adoption in Indonesia
Cryptocurrency investments in Indonesia have seen considerable growth between 2020-2022, with 4% of the country’s population having invested in crypto.In 2021, crypto transaction volumes surpassed $34 billion, according to Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency.This growth has formed a new mindset toward crypto investment, especially in the mainstream media. One example of cryptocurrencies’ growing appeal in the mainstream is the participation of Indonesian celebrities and influencers.Crypto adoption among celebritiesCelebrities and influencers in Indonesia seem to have become much more involved in Indonesia’s crypto investment industry since 2021.Many have become brand ambassadors for exchanges and crypto projects to help promote them and essentially raise the trading volume.The participation of individuals such as Joe Taslim, an Indonesian actor that has gone global, and Indonesian models and actresses Jessica Iskandar and Shandy Aulia might not be surprising, considering celebrities’ inescapable presence in advertising and branding.Some celebrities have even created their own cryptocurrency.The trend of celebrity tokens has boomed, especially after one of the most prominent musicians in Indonesia, Anang Hermansyah, created his own token.Three tokens have gone viral in Indonesia as of February 2022: VCG (VCG), Asix (ASIX) and I-Coin (ICN).Asix is led by Anang Hermansyah, a prominent figure in Indonesia’s music industry.VCG went viral thanks to a partnership with RANS Entertainment. This company is owned by Raffi Ahmad and Nagita Slavina, a married couple who are prominent movie stars and business figures in Indonesia and were recently nominated as the Sultans of Contents by Forbes Indonesia.I-Coin was created by Wirda Mansur, a public figure and daughter of a renowned Indonesian Islamic cleric.The name of celebrities supporting them and their marketing team has made their token viral and gotten a lot of fear of missing out, or FOMO, from Indonesia’s newbie investors.But, long before these, the trend started with an influencer named Indra Kenz, who created his own token with his team named Botxcoin (BOTX).Related: Indonesia’s crypto industry in 2021: A kaleidoscopeCelebrity NFT projectsBOTX, an Ethereum-based project that plans to be a decentralized social trading platform, launched in 2021. BOTX is the first celebrity token in Indonesia and its goal is to become the first decentralized copy trading platform for crypto in Indonesia. Following its launch, influencers seemed to pay more attention to the growing blockchain and crypto trend. The trend led to an array of influencers talking about cryptocurrency on their own social media. When this happened, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) also became very popular in Indonesia, especially when the Indonesian NFT collection dubbed “Ghozali Everyday” became globally known for its uniqueness. Because of the booming crypto and NFT trends, influencers and celebrities have started creating their own NFT and cryptocurrency projects.One Indonesian celebrity who created their own NFT Projects and went viral globally was Syahrini, an Indonesian singer and socialite.Under the pseudonym Princess Syahrini, she created an NFT collection and sold them on Binance’s NFT marketplace. It was reported that her “Syahrini’s Metaverse Tour” NFT collection sold out after just eight hours of being listed.Another prominent figure in Indonesia’s entertainment industry that created their own NFT project was actress, model and singer Luna Maya.She launched her collection consisting of just 10 NFTs with Tokau, a Japan-based art company that has NFT creation experience.Her collection was sold on the BakerySwap NFT Marketplace and caught a lot of attention, including from Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance.The trend continued with more celebrities in Indonesia exploring, promoting and creating their own NFT projects.One example of recent Indonesian influencers and celebrities promoting NFT projects was actor Brandon Salim, renowned Indonesian chef Arnold Poernomo and influencer known as Jejouw.They promoted one of the most successful NFT projects in Indonesia that went global, “Karafuru,” which has a current trading volume of 37,200 Ether (ETH). Government responseWith the runaway hype of celebrities creating their own NFT and crypto projects, regulators are stepping in to protect investors.The Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency, also known as BAPPEBTI, is currently giving warnings to celebrities to get their projects approved in the Indonesia legal crypto list before promoting them.BAPPEBTI, which is responsible for regulating crypto in Indonesia, warns that there are only 229 cryptocurrencies that are legal to trade and transact in Indonesia.By that warning, BAPPEBTI wants investors to understand that buying or selling celebrity-created tokens in Indonesia is not yet legal. The warning comes from a Twitter thread, originating when new investors began pouring money into viral celebrity tokens: “New crypto assets that are going to be traded in Indonesia, should be registered under BAPPEBTI through registered crypto exchanges in Indonesia to be assessed by the rules that are applied in Indonesia. For that reason, crypto assets that have not been registered on BAPPEBTI’s legal crypto assets list cannot be traded in Indonesia.”As of right now, most of the illegal cryptocurrencies have not been fined or given any sentences because most of them are in talks with BAPPEBTI. BAPPEBTI is open to new crypto to be legal in Indonesia, as long as they want to comply with the requirements and processes to be legal and be supervised under the agency. Currently, there hasn’t been any talk of banning these tokens from the government but rather an invitation for these tokens to be listed as a legal commodity in Indonesia.BAPPEBTI has also worked with its committees such as the Indonesia Blockchain Association to help create a better environment for crypto in Indonesia, especially with the rise of celebrity tokens. Coinvestasi has successfully gotten a comment from the aforementioned committee around the topic of celebrity tokens. The comment directly came from the chairwoman of Indonesia Blockchain Association. She stated:“My perspective on the celebrity token trend in Indonesia is neutral as long as they comply with existing regulations, because for the past couple of years, there are lots of Indonesians that created their own cryptocurrencies. But what I think is important for Indonesian developers to understand is that their cryptocurrencies must have values for investors and users and must have something that differentiate them from other existing cryptocurrencies. This is because they have a responsibility to their investors and token holders. Developers need to work together to help change the mindset of cryptocurrencies as a scam in Indonesia.”This statement clearly shows that the government wants the best for crypto investors and creators in Indonesia. It can be concluded that Indonesia’s government supports the growth of cryptocurrencies as long as it is done in a regulated and safe manner. Growing crypto adoption in Indonesia The trend of celebrities and influencers joining up to create and promote crypto projects has made Indonesia’s crypto landscape bigger. Data showed that the growth has been exponential, reaching more than 100% growth in transaction volumes since 2020, largely supported by retail investors. Institutions also became interested, as evidenced by their participation in funding and investing in blockchain or crypto-related projects. Major business conglomerate Sinar Mas supported the launch of a new cryptocurrency named NanoByte (NBT), which has Tokocrypto exchange as its partner. Nanobyte is a token created by an exchange that also plans to be integrated into the current fiat payment system, integrating with e-money and credit cards in Indonesia. This is to help investors and holders use their crypto wallets and NBT to pay for their everyday needs. Another example is BRI Ventures, the venture arm of one of Indonesia’s leading government-owned banks, which created an accelerator that acts as an incubator for Indonesian blockchain companies to grow globally. These projects could trigger a domino effect among Indonesian financial institutions to invest in the blockchain or crypto sector. But, this also pressures regulators to develop new regulations to support the growth so that Indonesia does not get left behind. Reporting by Muhammad Naufal.
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