Malaysia’s finance minister earlier warned that cryptocurrency payments were unlawful because they lacked the universal properties of money.
The Malaysian Ministry of Communications and Multimedia (KKMM) is apparently supporting cryptocurrency adoption, with the deputy minister urging the government to legalize cryptocurrency.
Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin, Malaysia’s deputy communications and multimedia minister, has requested Malaysian authorities to legalize some use cases for cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens (NFT), according to local news outlet Harian Metro on Monday.
Zahidi said that such measures will greatly benefit young people, since the bitcoin business has grown in popularity among the younger population. He also said that the KKMM is looking at measures to enhance young people’s engagement in the business.
The deputy minister said that Malaysia’s financial authorities, notably the central bank and the Securities Commission Malaysia, have the last say on crypto regulation.
However, the ministry is eager to bring this matter up since the crypto sector is the “future business and financial program, particularly for young people today,” according to Zahidi.
“We hope that the government will strive to legalize this topic so that we can increase the engagement of young people in cryptocurrency and assist them with energy usage and other issues.”
According to some reports, Zahidi recommended adopting cryptocurrencies as legal cash rather than only allowing some cryptocurrency transactions in Malaysia.
Officials from the KKMM did not immediately react to Cointelegraph’s request for comment. This page will be updated when new information becomes available.
Malaysia’s Communications Ministry supports making cryptocurrencies legal tender “to assist the younger generation who are active users of the currency, particularly on non-fungible token (NFT) trading platforms.”
According to some rumors, Honduras is also planning to embrace Bitcoin (BTC) as legal cash, following in the footsteps of El Salvador, which implemented its Bitcoin Law in September 2021. “We must not let El Salvador to be the only nation that is not subject to dollar hegemony,” Honduran President Xiomara Castro is quoted as saying.
Malaysia’s finance minister, Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, stated in early March that payments in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) were unlawful in the nation because they did not fit the universal criteria of money.
“In general, digital assets are neither a suitable means of trade or a store of value.” This is because digital assets are prone to dramatic price swings as a result of speculative investments, the possibility of theft as a result of cyber threats, and a lack of scalability,” he said.
To response to the expanding trend in the digital asset business, the minister said that Bank Negara Malaysia was working on the prospective introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and blockchain-related advancements.