The Financial Authority of Singapore (MAS) has make clear its Digital Token Service Suppliers (DTSPs) regime, following widespread panic within the business over a possible ban on crypto companies serving abroad shoppers
In a June 6 announcement, MAS reiterated that beginning June 30, crypto companies “offering providers solely to clients exterior of Singapore referring to digital fee tokens and tokens of capital market merchandise will must be licensed.”
Nevertheless, the regulator warned that such licenses will probably be granted solely in “extraordinarily restricted circumstances.”
“MAS has set the bar excessive for licensing and can typically not concern a licence,“ the company stated, citing the issue of supervising offshore companies and cash laundering dangers as key considerations.
MAS is unable to successfully supervise such individuals,” the regulator added. Consequently, companies unable to acquire licenses will “need to stop their regulated actions.”
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The beginning of a crypto exodus?
The crypto market took discover when the MAS set a deadline of June 30 for native crypto service suppliers to cease providing digital token providers to abroad markets earlier this month.
The brand new guidelines have already triggered a shift. India-serving however Singapore-based crypto trade WazirX introduced that it will likely be moving its operations to Panama, shortly after the MAS introduced the deadline.
On the time of the deadline announcement, Hagen Rooke, a associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, stated that licenses could be issued solely in uncommon circumstances. In a LinkedIn put up, he stated:
“The MAS will grant licences beneath the brand new framework solely in extraordinarily restricted circumstances (as the sort of working mannequin typically offers rise to regulatory considerations, e.g. AML/CFT-related).”
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Singapore tightens crypto controls
Current strikes by Singapore regulators counsel that native authorities intend to keep up stricter management over the native crypto business. At the moment’s announcement clarified that crypto firms serving clients in Singapore “are already topic to regulation,” so the principles have been expanded to these serving clients overseas. Nonetheless, MAS stated not all crypto-related providers are affected:
“Suppliers of providers in relation to different tokens, resembling these solely used as utility and governance tokens, should not topic to licensing or regulation beneath the brand new regime, and therefore should not impacted.“
Singapore’s regulatory shift follows Might studies that digital belongings are widespread within the nation. Crypto consciousness in Singapore has reached an all-time excessive, with 94% of respondents in a recent survey indicating familiarity with a minimum of one digital asset.
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