With the rapid development of Taiwan's virtual currency industry, the challenges and opportunities faced by the government and industry are also increasing. Liu Shiwei, founder and CEO of MaiCoin Group, emphasized in Financial Information Magazine that in order to promote the international competitiveness of Taiwan’s virtual currency market, cooperation between local and overseas players should be promoted and local players should gradually be opened to provide derivatives trading services.
Legal compliance will lead to loss of market competitiveness
Liu Shiwei pointed out that according to the "Guiding Principles for Managing Virtual Asset Platforms and Trading Businesses (VASP)", Taiwan's virtual currency operators are currently not allowed to provide services such as derivatives or stable currencies. However, overseas players can continue to provide these services, which gives them an advantage in attracting domestic investors and creates an unfair playing field for local players.
(Taiwan Virtual Currency Association is established today! Bito serves as the chairman, XREX vice chairman, and Rybit executive director)
Promote cooperation between local and overseas businesses
Liu Shiwei believes that in order to enhance the competitiveness of Taiwan’s virtual currency industry, the government should consider opening up cooperation between local and overseas players. This kind of cooperation can introduce more advanced international experience and technology and promote innovation and development in the local market. At the same time, it can also enhance Taiwan’s status in the international virtual currency market.
Open derivatives trading services
Liu Shiwei emphasized that the government should gradually open up local players to provide derivatives trading services, such as ETFs, perpetual contracts, dual-currency options, etc. This will not only meet the needs of domestic investors, but also improve the competitiveness of local players and enable them to demonstrate their strength in the international market. He pointed out that past events such as the collapse of LUNA currency and the bankruptcy of FTX, although causing losses to investors, also reminded the government and industry that they should pay more attention to risk management and compliance requirements in future development.
New challenges and opportunities for government regulation
Recently, the "Four New Anti-Fraud Laws" passed by the Executive Yuan have brought virtual currencies into the scope of supervision, which has put forward higher compliance requirements for domestic and foreign players. According to the draft amendment to the "Money Laundering Prevention Law", in the future, whether domestic or overseas companies provide virtual currency services, they must complete money laundering prevention and service energy registration or login with the central competent authority. Liu Shiwei said that the introduction of these new regulations provides a fairer competitive environment for local businesses, but it also requires the government to strictly supervise the compliance behavior of overseas businesses to protect the rights and interests of domestic investors.
Coinbase, the most compliant exchange in the United States, is also looking for offshore business
Not only Taiwanese operators, but Coinbase, the largest virtual currency exchange in the United States, cannot trade derivatives products despite having a large number of customers and multiple licenses in the United States. Compared with offshore exchanges that can freely trade various derivatives (futures contracts), the trading volume gap is quite large.
After Coinbase obtained a license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) in April 2023, it launched an offshore derivatives exchange locally and began to set up an international site to provide "non-U.S." institutional users with trading perpetual contracts.
As of this writing, according to CoinMarketCap statistics, Coinbase ranks 52nd in terms of derivatives trading volume, which is still quite different from mainstream derivatives exchanges.
(Coinbase has received regulatory approval and international exchanges can provide retail perpetual contract trading)
This article Maicoin founder Liu Shiwei calls for: Promote cooperation between local and overseas industries and open up Taiwan’s virtual currency derivatives trading. It first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.
