Ravi Menon, chief of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), has talked about the huge potential of using blockchain for international payments. The speech was named “Crypto Tokens: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” and went in detail about the history of money, and the potential of crypto, which could facilitate cross-border payments.

Menon stated that Singapore would use blockchain technology to enable these type of settlements, moreover MAS has already partnered up with the Bank of Canada to test and develop cross border solutions with the help of blockchain based tokens used by the two central banks. However, he added that so far these tokens are not entitled to be called currencies, as the there is a lack of payment, storage and accounting features, but this doesn’t mean that it could not become a currency in the future once the requirements are fulfilled.

Of course he had to mention the concerns, which are often addressed by government officials and central bankers nowadays: the growing risk of money laundering and terrorism financing that a decentralized currency could allow. He made a detour in his speech about the ICO sphere too, stating that MAS has already reported initial coin offering guidance, meaning ICO issuers must meet the required security rules before the token sale could be launched. The markets and platforms where trading happens should also be regulated and registered by the MAS.

Although these mixed statements are not solving the headache that a lot of crypto investors have currently , we at WalletInvestor still believe that if the above mentioned regulations are done correctly, it could have a really healthy effect on the scene itself. Also the fact that Singapore’s financial lead, the chief of MAS has taken the effort to look into cryptocurrencies and the possibilities they could facilitate instead of calling them a fraud is a pretty good sign that some countries are still open for decentralization.