Over the past few months, Indonesia has been updating its cryptocurrency regulations. Regulators recently disclosed their intention to open a nationwide cryptocurrency exchange in 2023. The Asian nation is currently transitioning control of regulation from the commodities authority to the securities authority. The platform is set to be established before the delegation of responsibility.
For now, digital assets are traded alongside commodity contracts under the supervision of the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency, Bappebti. The agency’s acting head, Didid Noordiatmoko confirmed on Wednesday that the FSA will assume regulatory power over the assets over the next two years, by which time the exchange will likely be set up.
The said move is a part of the broader financial reform that the nation launched in December last year. Despite the macro instability, investors have been flocking into the crypto market.
According to Bloomberg, there were 16 million crypto investors in Indonesia in the first 11 months of the year. For context, the same stood at 11.2 million at the end of 2021. The trading volume, however, remained unappealing.
Illustrating the numbers, the report noted that trading value shrank to about 300 trillion rupiah ($19.2 billion) during that period, a fraction of the 859 trillion rupiah seen in the previous year.
At present, there are reportedly 383 crypto assets and 10 local coins that can be traded in Indonesia. Parallelly, another 151 assets and 10 coins are under review by Bappebti.
In the area of CBDC, Indonesia has also made progress. The central bank published a white paper on Rupiah-based digital currency in Q4 2022. The Bank of Indonesia followed the example set by other central banks that have experimented with and tested their own digital currencies.