Indonesia All Set To Legalize Cryptocurrencies

By Rishma Banerjee

Cryptocurrencies and their popularity have been on a tremendous high, in the last few years, which have also seen the exponential growth in the number of blockchain and crypto related companies, the legalization and regulation of cryptocurrencies in some form or the other across the world, as well as the market, go through several phases.

Indonesia is one such country which has been dabbling in cryptocurrency for quite some time now and in a rare win for the crypto community has also declared that they will officially recognize bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as commodities. This means that henceforth legal support will be provided for the trading of digital assets. As per reports, The Indonesian Trade Ministry Futures Exchange Supervisory Board (Bappebti) has issued regulation No.5/2019 which includes regulations for cryptocurrency exchanges. It also provides recognition of digital assets as commodities, which effectively means that the trade of cryptocurrencies will from now on be legal in the country.

However, as in common and is usually the case, along with the legal recognition, there are a few strings attached in the form of clauses. For now, cryptocurrency transactions in the country will have to mandatorily fulfill a set of requirements before they are allowed to function. Exchanges must ensure that they implement the services of IT security experts as well as maintain the records and keep details of their transactions for a minimum of 5 years. Moreover, exchanges must have their servers based in the country and must have clearly defined organizational structures with separate divisions like legal, IT, client support etc.

Indrasari Wisnu Wardhana, who serves as the CEO of Bappebti stated:

“We want to give protection to people who want to invest in crypto assets so that they aren’t cheated by fraudulent sellers.”

Rishma Banerjee

Rishma is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and has a special place in her life for sifting through all sorts of random trivia, thank you very much.

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