The collapse of FTX the war in Ukraine and the U.S midterm elections have rightly dominated this week's news cycle but as the G20 meeting in Bali winds down one issue has bubbled below the surface and it could have a big impact on crypto.
So let's take a closer look at what's happening in Taiwan it has only been a month since the island reopened its borders two and a half years of quarantine has taken its toll on the economy recent GDP data showed that things may be slightly better than expected but are still not great demand for taiwan's biggest exports high-tech Goods has been hit hard Global inflation has of course been a big contributor but so too has the zero covered policies in the Chinese Mainland.
which have also impacted trade all of this has prompted many in Taiwan to call for a greater pivot towards crypto and web 3. but what's been going on there so far well until the last year or so the government had been pretty hostile towards virtual currencies it had officially labeled Bitcoin ethereum and other cryptocurrencies as quote highly speculative digital virtual Commodities since last year digital asset firms have been required to comply with International rules on money laundering as well and those have continued to concern some in the sector Ron Tucker co-founder of the international digital asset exchange Association told Al Jazeera this month quote.
There is a real risk this will lead countries to unbank crypto exchanges which will affect the end user this is serious so Taiwanese authorities have looked very wary of the risks posed by crypto then but they are also trying not to miss out on the opportunities in August this year that a new ministry called the ministry of digital Affairs one of its mandates is to develop the country's web free industry but developing the industry is not the same thing as regulating it and this is the problem that many in crypto in Taiwan are now struggling with there's not really a clearly articulated guideline place in terms of Regulation and a mailman and taiwan's Regulators are taking a more permissive approach to crypto and trading crypto retail Investments and the crypto industry here remains largely unregulated so many of the industry players they just have to self-regulate so this has led to exchanges like btse trying to figure things out for themselves and its CEO Henry Leo says it's holding them back.
I think taiwan's been quite receptive to crypto but they've done a lot of things that have basically put in limits or when you like you know regulations that may not be as friendly in terms of allowing the industry to grow according to the chain analysis geography of cryptocurrency report 2022 Taiwan ranked 53rd in the world for crypto adoption that was above notable places like El Salvador and perhaps surprisingly Singapore but it was also below Somalia Iraq and Hong Kong the island scored well on the value of crypto being traded but it scored very poorly on volumes while regulation has held adoption back Henry says that so too have attitudes when it comes to retail investment in other kind of newly started projects there is a bit of you know there's a bit of a I don't want to call it uh fear but there's a bit of a hesitation especially when you try to do Investments retail investments into things that are more Securities when it comes to crypto just as it has done with its two and a half years of quarantine Taiwan remains inwardly focused everything is um is a lot more localized and you don't see a lot of venture capital companies or firms kind of located in Taiwan and investing Alberts is usually just money from the outside coming in and that flow right of investment and talent does does affect how a country kind of incubates its people and convenes its projects but there are signs of change in September 24 crypto platforms got approval to operate the world's largest crypto Exchange Finance is also now working in the city other International exchanges are said to be investing in their operations in Taipei too longer term this is what is prompting something to speculate that Taiwan could yet become a Force within crypto and win three I'm very excited that a lot of companies are investing in the Taiwanese people in terms of investing into engineering Talent uh and I see that to be kind of the Catalyst to potentially more and more people than taking that knowledge transferring into their own businesses or potentially starting off on their own and building up more while Taiwanese crypto and web 3 firms are far from household names they are growing and in number as well as in size companies like my coin and bitter X are the biggest local exchanges within Taiwan with trading volumes amounting to almost 30 million dollars combined.
I think Taiwan has its own unique set of skills in terms of the type of people that they want to educate they want to create um similar to how Taiwan has this niche in the technology industry right has a very strong presence when it comes to manufacturing or semiconductors designs of IC chips Etc so I think it's it's working on its own kind of flavor and its own its own take on on where it stands in the in the entire crypto industry there remains one large elephant in the room however China its cryptocurrency ban is likely to have a big influence on what happens in neighboring Taiwan the ongoing question of security is also one that is hanging over the island while that has the potential to hurt crypto in Taiwan it is interestingly also pushed authorities there to already adopt and deploy blockchain technology it's actually used IPO ipfs technology to boosts its cyber security capabilities so there were there were DDOS attacks um that have a peer check have expanded to the web through space and I think that's one thing that Taiwan government has to focus on and really see how they can use web through technology and blockchain to tackle this issue in the meantime Taiwan remains a fascinating place to watch crypto adoption let us know in the comments or on Twitter what you think about crypto in Taiwan could it become a global competitor one day perhaps find out more too about what else is happening in crypto and web 3.
