Mohith Agadi
The storm of Bitcoin has blown all the way from Russia to Mexico and to Malaysia now. Hopefully, in the near future, Malaysia will join the list of countries that allow trading using cryptocurrencies like the Bitcoin.
According to one of our regional news sources in Free Malaysia today, Governor Muhammad bin Ibrahim who is the chief of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has informed the reporters at a conference held on 19th September, that his bank would be soon putting forward new rules for cryptocurrency traders. Their main idea would be to reinforce the present regulations to take harsher steps to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing.
He has been reported to say that: – “We hope that by year-end, [we] will be able to come out with some guidelines on cryptocurrency, particularly those related to anti-money laundering and terrorist financing. We want to ensure there are clear guidelines for those who want to participate in this particular sector.”
However, it’s not possible to guess what will be the outcome of such regulations. And what kind of regulatory authorities will take part in setting up the new rules, but it’s a huge victory for the Bitcoin community which has had to deal with a lot of problems around the world.
Three years ago the central bank of Malaysia said that it would not monitor the operation of Bitcoin and was completely against the whole idea of cryptocurrencies. Earlier this month news on the matter wasn’t much good either when the Malaysian securities commission which runs all the financial markets in the country was frowning upon the ICO’s completely.
However, things have now changed favorably and soon Malaysia will be on the small list of countries that are working to legalize Bitcoin and bring in regulations to govern its usage.
Damodar Kalyan
