Indonesia Launches National Digital Asset Exchange; Reports Say

• Indonesia would launch a National Digital Asset Exchange to rehabilitate the crypto sector.
• The exchange would scrutinize the private crypto firms.
• The new national exchange intends to mitigate the losses caused by FTX’s fall. 

The transcontinental country, the Republic of Indonesia, has reportedly proposed to launch a National Digital Asset Exchange to rehabilitate the crypto sector and confront the risks posed by the fallen cryptocurrency firm FTX.

Though it was announced before that the national exchange would commence in December 2022, the launch date was delayed due to undisclosed reasons.

Later, Zulkifli Hasan, the Minister of Trade declared that the exchange would come into existence by June 2023, pointing out:

Let us not rush because if it is not ready, things will get messy. The government does not want this to massively take a toll on the public because people do not know much [about crypto trading].

According to the disclosed plans, the new exchange would be in charge of separating trading, clearing, and custody under official oversight, resembling the criteria followed by the stock markets.

Notably, the key role of the exchange would be as a regulator that scrutinizes private crypto exchanges. The state-backed crypto exchange would have control over private sector platforms, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency.

Noordyatmoko, the head of the agency told that “the difficult part is that we cannot find a benchmark for this kind of crypto exchange”. He added that the other state-backed bodies would handle clearing and custody to protect assets and avoid further fraud in the crypto sector.

Furthermore, Vincent Thong Ming, the Content Manager at the Metaverse Gaming platform Avacado DAO, said that by establishing the national exchange, and accepting tokens as securities, the authority recognizes their “legitimacy as financial and investment instruments in the country”.