Indonesia Now Has More Cryptocurrency Investors than Stock Traders

The total number of crypto investors in Indonesia crossed stock traders by  2.2 million, as per data released by the Indonesian Stock Exchange.

FREMONT, CA: The Indonesian Blockchain Association, Asosiasi Blockchain Indonesia, became the country’s official blockchain and digital asset organization. Indonesia’s crypto-asset industry is currently witnessing a drastic increase in transactions. Last year, Muhammad Luthfi, the Minister of Trade, Indonesia, highlighted that cryptocurrency trading volume was around Rp. 65 trillion, which reached a mark of Rp. 350 trillion within the first five months of 2021, accounting for a 470% increase. The country had around 6.5 million crypto investors in May 2021, while the total retail investors registered in the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) remained at 5.37 million. Crypto assets are now the most popular investment choice in Indonesia, with currently 229 legal cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum and Bitcoin. The investors trade their assets on 13 available platforms registered with the Ministry of Trade’s Futures Exchange Supervisory Board, or Bappebti. The ministry is currently forming strategies for effective regulations of the trades. Considering that crypto assets have immense potential to help boost Indonesia’s growth of domestic startups, the local government needs to manage it well to avoid outflow to foreign countries. Authorities also underscored that strong regulations are needed to prevent cryptocurrencies from being used to launder money or execute financial terrorism plans. The Ministry of Trade is running a policy with objectives to better regulate and protect trading and simultaneously forming regulations. The institution is also collaborating with the central bank and regulators from the financial sector.

The cryptocurrency domain is enormously threatened by rising cybercriminals, who are continuously targeting digital assets. 62 illegal cryptocurrency platforms are already banned that were running multi-level marketing and Ponzi schemes to dupe investors. The ministry is stepping up its efforts to better regulate the domain and educate citizens regarding fraud and misuse. It is working on a dedicated crypto marketplace called Digital Future Exchange (DFX) which is expected to launch by the second half of 2022. The Indonesian government is also preparing frameworks for taxing crypto transactions.