Singapore needs to welcome Bitcoin-related businesses to maintain its status as a global financial hub

The 34-year-old rose to prominence last month during the general election as one of just two independent candidates, pulling in 36.16 per cent of the votes in Mountbatten SMC.

Retired businessman Jeremy Tan believes that Singapore needs to welcome Bitcoin-related businesses to maintain its status as a global financial hub.

The 34-year-old, who is also a lecturer at Southeast Asian Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, rose to prominence last month during the general election as one of just two independent candidates.

At the Multimodal Integration & Optimization in Intelligent Systems (MINT) Centre on Wednesday (June 13), Tan said that he thinks Singapore will have an advantage in the global economy if the government creates Bitcoin-related laws.

"We need to recognise Bitcoin as a separate entity from other forms of cryptocurrencies," he said at an event hosted by cryptocurrency exchange Gemini.

"The difference between the previous Bitcoin cycle and the current Bitcoin cycle is that the bad actors are no longer in the market."

He was referring to former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried as one of the "bad actors".

The American's crypto exchange, FTX, collapsed in 2022, and he is now serving a 25-year sentence for committing fraud; he stole US$8 billion from customers.

During the nine-day campaign and on his election website, Tan promoted Bitcoin as an inflation-proof asset that Singaporeans should have. He also proposed several policies, including the creation of a Singapore dollar-denominated Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

"If we can change the way SMEs think about Bitcoin as a treasury, then we can change the way SMEs become more productive going forward," Tan said.

He added that there is a growing market for advisory services for SMEs which wish to invest in the cryptocurrency.

"There are many companies here that want to store (their treasury) in Bitcoin, but they do not know how to structure their business to do so," he said.

Tan noted that unless the government starts to reform its Bitcoin laws, the advisory services industry will not be able to grow.

"There are about 10 to 15 small and medium-sized enterprises advisory service firms here that are advising companies on how to set up Bitcoin treasury, but they are encountering difficulties because the legal framework does not permit it yet."

As at Thursday, the largest such ETF by market cap, iShares Bitcoin Trust, had a 16.57 per cent year-to-date return. Its market cap stands at US$72.6 billion.

According to a report by Point Logic in April, the total value of crypto ETFs and products has risen sharply in recent years, more than tripling from US$1 billion in 2019 to US$3.7 billion in 2022.

The report noted that the US is currently leading the way in terms of crypto ETF offerings, with a wide variety of products available.

Meanwhile, Saad Ahmed, Asia-Pacific head at Gemini and the host of the fireside chat, pointed out the increasing institutionalisation of cryptocurrency. He said one of the key catalysts of this is the approval of Bitcoin ETFs.