Taiwan is going all in on crypto despite the global crash

On the same day that disgraced cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas, Taipei’s elected mayor, Chiang Wan-an, took to a stage in front of a packed auditorium to praise the bright future that blockchain technology would bring to Taiwan.

Chiang’s speech was part of Taipei Blockchain Week, which took place last month in a movie theater on the upper floors of a luxury shopping mall, overlooking the iconic Taipei 101 building. There, participants heard Taiwan’s proposal for a shaken crypto community: the island nation should be Asia’s next crypto hub.

The crowd cheered as Chiang, the purported great-grandson of authoritarian leader Chiang Kai-shek, declared that in Taiwan’s blockchain-powered future, “everyone will have the chance to be heard.”

At the event, which took place between December 12 and 17, Taiwan was touted as the place where blockchain founders and financiers could hire from deep pools of local tech talent to create the region’s next crypto hub. The conference, as the organizers told The rest of the world which sold 900 tickets, was hosted by Bu Zhi DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization focused on connecting global crypto enthusiasts with the Web3 community in Taiwan. The organization’s members include employees from companies such as Solana, Coinbase, Discord, Twitch, Google, Microsoft and others. Three days of talks and events were followed by a boot camp for developers working on blockchain projects, which ended with a demo day pitch event.

Leu Jang-hua, the country’s digital industries minister, echoed Chiang’s remarks that investment in blockchain technology would bring cybersecurity and empowerment to Taiwan, which already occupies a critical position in the global technology supply chain as home to the most cutting-edge semiconductor. production in the world. Throughout the week-long event, young programmers in hoodies sat in the back row of the auditorium and coded through the officials’ speeches.

When the government of neighboring China banned cryptocurrency in mid-2021, many of crypto’s earliest and most energetic proponents had to look for a new place for their companies to flourish. Much of the industry’s top talent – ​​the founders of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, as well as financiers who support new crypto ventures – landed in Singapore. But after a year of high-profile crypto volatility, fraud and scams, Singapore’s government is no longer enthusiastically positioning the city-state as the center of the crypto universe. In October, Singapore’s central bank governor, Ravi Menon, said the government’s approach to crypto trading would be “among the strictest in the world.”

Earlier in 2022, Hong Kong had shown signs of interest in attracting the crypto community to build and invest in the territory, only to meet strict requirements for crypto companies that some say would stifle growth. In early October, Hong Kong’s finance secretary, Paul Chan, championed Hong Kong as a haven for digital assets and indicated that the territory would allow retail trading of crypto-assets. In 2023, laws requiring all virtual asset companies to comply with strict anti-money laundering regulations will come into effect in Hong Kong.

Taiwan, meanwhile, has laid the groundwork to become the region’s crypto haven. For years, lawmakers have talked about the country’s potential as the “blockchain island.” In September 2022, the government granted regulatory approval to 24 crypto exchanges, including MaiCoin, BitoPro and XREX. In December, Hong Kong-based crypto investor Sora Ventures moved its fund to Taiwan. In the first six months of 2022, crypto transaction volume in Taiwan grew by more than 30% – one of the fastest rates in Asia. The country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, MaiCoin, now reports more than $20 million in daily trading volume. Leo Seewald, former head of BlackRock in Taiwan, and current director of MaiCoin, said the exchange is “running in the most conservative way possible” to show potential crypto investors that Taiwan is the most stable and safe place to trade crypto.

“Taipei is way ahead of Hong Kong, from a Web 3.0 perspective,” Ian Estrada, CEO and co-founder of decentralized financial services platform XLD, told The rest of the world. Estrada’s company enables the exchange from fiat currency to cryptocurrency in remittance-dependent economies, including Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. It gives Estrada a bird’s-eye view of which geographies have crypto-friendly regulation. In Hong Kong, Estrada said, “they are cracking down on anything related to crypto.”

Singapore also stepped back on things, Estrada said. A major bank had since the end of 2021 closed the accounts of companies even indirectly linked to the crypto community. “But if you ask me, it is [Singapore] the best place to live and build? I do not think so.”

Taiwan’s efforts to create a stable foundation for exchange may be hampered by some of the same dynamics that have made it difficult for the country’s startup scene to take off. Financial regulators in the country have a reputation for conservatism, even with the new exchange licenses. And while a new company can be registered in less than 48 hours in Hong Kong and Singapore, it can take up to four months in Taiwan, a hurdle for founders to incorporate in the country.

Still, spirits were high during Taipei Blockchain Week, even as FTX continued to collapse halfway around the world. During a question-and-answer session, an audience member captured the crypto community’s aspirations by citing Warren Buffett’s call to be “greedy when others are fearful.” Outside the hall, models in glittering silver dresses posed with signs for the Taipei-based crypto exchange BTSE.

The conference centered on the theme of a “bridge,” bringing together participants from the United States and East and Southeast Asia to meet with the local community, said a core contributor from Bu Zhi DAO who was not authorized to speak to the media. The rest of the world. Despite their shared interest in seeing the crypto universe grow, not all participants shared the same language. Many of the presentations on the first day of the conference were given in Mandarin. “There are two ecosystems here,” they said. “There’s one that takes place in Mandarin, sort of focused on their own hub, and then there are projects here that work with the whole world.”

While the contributor said his experience organizing the event had been collaborative, other foreign crypto entrepreneurs had not had the same experience. In conversation after conversation, speakers emphasized that the community must come together to harness the island’s technical talent. “We can build things as fast as anyone else in the world, if not better,” said Willy Wu, co-founder of NFT trading platform Arcade/Minty, who previously ran Uber’s expansion in Taiwan. “But we’re still missing the piece of bringing Taiwan up to that level. Everyone in the world is competing right now. We really need to understand what makes us stand out.”