Singapore's watchdog vows to be ‘brutal and unrelentingly hard’ on the crypto sector’s bad actors

While the cryptocurrency market still reels from the carnage it went through over the past couple of weeks, some financial authorities are starting to take a tougher posture in regulating the space, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Indeed, the city-state’s central bank has promised to be “brutal and unrelentingly hard” on bad behavior in the crypto industry, according to its chief fintech officer Sopnendu Mohanty, Oliver Telling at the Financial Times reported on June 23.

As he explained in an interview:

“We have no tolerance for any market bad behavior. If somebody has done a bad thing, we are brutal and unrelentingly hard.”

At the same time, Mohanty brought into question the value of private crypto assets and said that a state-backed alternative was planned to be launched in the next three years. As he told Financial Times:

“We have been called out by many cryptocurrencies for not being friendly. (…) My response has been: friendly for what? Friendly for a real economy or friendly for some unreal economy?”

Commenting on the market uncertainties, Mohanty said that he believes “the world at large is lost (…) in private currency, which is causing all this market turmoil.” He added that Singapore has implemented a “painfully slow” and “extremely draconian due diligence process” for licensing crypto businesses.

Singapore’s crackdown on crypto

It is worth noting that his words arrive five months after MAS issued new guidelines that forced all crypto ATM operators in Singapore to shut down their machines, including the largest operator Daenerys & Co.

At the same time, the guidelines imposed limitations on crypto firms regarding advertising their services to the general public within the country, citing its aim to stop retail speculation for various assets that are known to be volatile.

Earlier, in November, Finbold reported on Ravi Menon, the Managing Director of the MAS, stating his position that cryptocurrencies have been inadequate in performing “as a medium of exchange, a store of value, or a unit of account.”