March 23, 2022
By Priyanka Shetty
Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin, the deputy communications and multimedia minister of Malaysia, has urged regulators to legalise certain use cases of cryptos and NFTs, according to a report by Harian Metro, a local news agency.
Here is what we know:
- “We hope the government can allow this,” Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin, the deputy communications and multimedia minister of Malaysia said in Parliament on Monday when responding to a question about the government’s take on NFT marketplaces. “We are trying to see how we can legalise this so that we can develop youth participation in crypto and assist them.”
- Zahidi said Malaysia’s Finance Ministry would be responsible for regulating crypto as would institutions like its central bank and the Securities Commission, but he didn’t say how his ministry would be involved in crypto.
- While Zahidi wants to take a full swing on crypto, Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz is decidedly less bullish and said earlier this month that crypto is not a “good store of value and a medium of exchange” because of its volatility.
- Despite these developments, the central bank hasn’t announced any formal position on adopting Bitcoin as legal tender. In September, the country joined forces with the Bank for International Settlements, Australia, Singapore and South Africa to test the use of CBDCs for international settlements via a shared platform in a project dubbed Project Dunbar.
- The details and conclusions of the project were published on Tuesday in a report that supports the efforts of the G20 roadmap for enhancing cross-border payments, particularly in exploring an international dimension of CBDC design.
About the author
Based in Bengaluru, Priyanka Shetty is a freelance writer for Blockchain Asset Review.
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