According to its top fintech officer, Sopnendu Mohanty, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the nation’s central bank, and the financial regulator would not accept bad behavior in the crypto industry.

Singapore regulator vows to be ‘unrelentingly hard’

In Singapore, where many crypto businesses had been established due to the perceived friendly regulatory environment and low taxes, the crypto meltdown has hardened the stance of officials, which has caused crypto exchanges like Bybit and Binance to shun the city-state in recent months as the MAS started to roll out increasingly restrictive rules.

“We have no tolerance for any bad market behavior. If somebody has done a bad thing, we are brutal and unrelentingly hard.” – Sopnendu Mohanty.

“We have been called out by many cryptocurrencies for not being friendly,” Sopnendu Mohanty, top fintech officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said in response to these claims in an interview with The Financial Times. “My response has been: friendly for what? Friendly for a real economy or friendly for some unreal economy?”

The strict due diligence process

He continued by saying that the MAS would be reluctant to provide licenses to cryptocurrency startups. He said the regulator had enforced a “painfully slow” and “extremely draconian due diligence process” for licensing crypto firms. Only 14 businesses have received MAS approval to provide crypto services thus, yet.

Overall, Singapore’s perception of the crypto business has undergone a significant adjustment. Recently, the nation actively courted the industry, but crypto companies have relocated to other nations, notably Dubai, due to its stricter stance.