Malaysia orders exchanges to shutter for not submitting to regulation

Malaysia is cracking down on unregistered cryptocurrency exchanges in an attempt to protect cryptocurrency traders in the country. As reported by CCN, Securities Commission Malaysia has announced that all but three exchanges must close and pay back their customers.

The three exchanges that bothered to meet the requirements of the Malaysian regulator are Luno Malaysia, Sinegy Technologies, and Tokenize Technology. The commission stated:

“Apart from the three operators mentioned above, no other online platforms are permitted to establish and operate a DAX in Malaysia currently. As such, all other DAX operators are required to immediately cease all activities related to the trading of digital assets and return all monies and assets collected from investors.”

What made those three special were some fairly obvious, common sense steps that will keep the customers better protected than the average crypto trader. They’ve committed to comply with the regulator’s requirements by May 2020, which are to provide market surveillance, implement trading rules and segregate their bank accounts.

The three are expected to make a killing once the other exchanges are forced to close. Malaysia has very lenient cryptocurrency taxes, with no capital gains tax and no transaction tax on crypto at the moment.

These are fairly basic steps for any exchange to take as well. As has been repeated so many times at this point, had exchanges like QuadrigaCX segregated their bank accounts and had a regulator monitoring operations closely, thousands of customers would have been saved from losing millions of dollars.

It also marks another step in the eventual crack down against exchanges that benefit from aiding and abetting criminal activity. As more countries, like Malaysia, Japan, and the Netherlands create common sense exchange laws, those who blatantly allow illegal activity like money laundering will have less safe havens. That’s a necessary step for the industry to grow up and achieve global adoption, as the criminal acts done in the name of Bitcoin have held it back dramatically and can go on no longer.