Singapore's Monetary Authority Proposes Measures to Discourage Crypto Speculation

According to Cointelegraph, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has proposed measures for Digital Payment Token (DPT) service providers to discourage speculation in cryptocurrency investments. The de-facto central bank of Singapore outlined five ways DPT service providers can help retail clients avoid price speculation. These include determining customer risk awareness before offering crypto services, avoiding incentives to trade in cryptocurrencies, and not offering financing, margin, or leverage transactions. Additionally, MAS suggests refusing locally issued credit card payments and not considering crypto holdings in determining a customer's net worth. Ho Hern Shin, the deputy managing director (financial supervision) of MAS, stated that these measures cannot insulate customers from losses associated with the speculative and highly risky nature of cryptocurrency trading. The MAS believes that speculative cryptocurrency trading poses significant risks and consumer harms, partly fueled by unverified success stories, celebrity endorsements, and the fear of missing out on good returns. On November 15, Singapore's central bank included five additional industry pilots in Project Guardian to test various use cases around asset tokenization. The five pilot projects are distributed among Citi, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity International, Ant Group, BNY Mellon, OCBC, JPMorgan Apollo, and Franklin Templeton. In addition to the pilots, MAS launched Global Layer One to explore the design of an open digital infrastructure that will host tokenized financial assets and applications.