The Indonesian deputy minister of trade Jerry Sambuaga has announced that his ministry will launch its own crypto exchange in the near future. The initiative will allow the government to capture a share of the country’s booming crypto sector, with last year’s cryptoasset-related trade estimated to be worth about USD 4.44 billion, according to data cited by the deputy minister.
“In the near future, maybe within the coming months, or maybe even next month there will be an exchange especially regulating and accommodating the trades of these crypto commodities,” Sambuaga said during a webinar on crypto, reported the local media outlet Tempo.co.
Sambuaga pointed out the rising value of Indonesia’s crypto market, and the deputy minister said that what “this means is that it shows the future direction that digital assets [and] digital commodities can be an alternative.”
He added,
“This could even be the main pillar to increase our trade.”
In September 2018, the ministry legalized trading in cryptoassets for Indonesian residents.
A report published by the Indonesian Blockchain Association found that in 2020, there were more than 1.5 million crypto traders in the country – representing robust growth of 2,263% since 2015.
At the same time, some 80% of Indonesia’s 269 million citizens are still unbanked, the association noted.
Cryptonews.com has reached out to the Indonesian Ministry of Trade for comment.
The development is part of an international trend, with a growing number of governments launching state-owned crypto exchanges in a bid to lure domestic traders away from the private sector.
Among others, the crypto-keen Venezuelan government opened a crypto exchange in November last year, providing support for Caracas’ own petro (PTR) token, as well as bitcoin (BTC), litecoin (LTC), and dash (DASH) pairings with the fiat bolivar. The platform is named the Venezuela Exchange (VEX).
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