Malaysia’s leading securities regulator, the Securities Commission (SC), today announced that it has ordered Seychelles-based crypto exchange Huobi to shutter operations in the country.
It appears Huobi has fallen foul of Malaysian regulators for operating a digital asset exchange without registration, according to the announcement. Running a crypto exchange without a Recognised Market Operator (RMO) license is an offense under the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007.
A public reprimand has also been issued against the exchange and its founder Leon Li. As the company’s chief executive, Li has been ordered to oversee the process of winding down local operations, ceasing communications with Malaysian investors, disabling the website, and withdrawing the app from app stores.
Native Token of Bitcoin Exchange Huobi Jumps 18% Amid Fresh Investment
The value of Huobi’s native token has shot up around 18% in recent trading, following the news of fresh investment in the Seychelles-based crypto exchange. Huobi’s founder Leon Li Lin recently sold off his stake in the company to About Capital, a Hong Kong-based asset management firm, which was accompanied by the promise of more investment. According to a blog post on the company’s website, the move will see Huobi get a “sufficient” capital injection into its margin and risk provision fund, as w...
The regulator’s announcement says the enforcement action was taken “after concerns about the platform’s compliance with local regulatory requirements and protecting investors’ interests.”
Decrypt reached out to the SC and Huobi for further comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Malaysia’s first steps
Malaysia is not the first country anyone would associate with the global crypto arms race and this is reflected in the dearth of crypto news coming from the Southeast Asian country, but that might change soon.
In September 2021, the Malaysian central bank joined a trial with the Bank for International Settlements, and in January it announced it was working on a proof of concept "to enhance our technical and policy capabilities, should the need to issue [a] CBDC arise in the future."
CBDCs Are Designed to 'Destroy All the Value of Bitcoin': US Senator Ted Cruz
Introducing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) would be “profoundly dangerous” to society as it would mean the government having visibility into every single transaction of its citizens, according to Texas Senator Ted Cruz. “I am very concerned about the risk of a CBDC,” Cruz stated during the Bitcoin Policy Summit on Wednesday. Drawing parallels between President Joe Biden’s executive order that directed the Federal Reserve to explore the launch of CBDC and China’s experiments with the digi...
A CBDC is a Central Bank Digital Currency—essentially a centrally-issued digital asset that derives its value from the legal tender of a nation.
More recently, in March, Malaysia’s Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia Zahidi Zainul said the country should recognize Bitcoin as legal tender: "We hope the government can allow this," he told Parliament in response to a question from the opposition.
