· Updated By The HelloHQ team

Where Your Crypto Platform Is Licensed Is a Risk Question

Singapore's new digital-token licensing regime starts on 30 June 2025, and MAS has said it will generally not license firms serving only overseas customers. Across Asia and the US, the question for holders is shifting from which coin to which counterparty.

Most conversations about crypto start with the asset. Which coin, what price, what thesis.

The more useful question, for a household that already holds some, is about the counterparty: who holds it, and where are they licensed?

In June 2025 that question became sharper in Singapore. On 6 June, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) clarified how a new regime for digital token service providers (DTSPs) will work from 30 June 2025. A firm based in Singapore that serves only customers outside Singapore must be licensed. MAS said it will generally not issue a licence in that case, and there is no transition period: firms that do not qualify have to stop.

An exchange is not a market. It is a company, with a balance sheet, a jurisdiction and a regulator, or none of those.

What the Singapore rule changes, and what it does not

For a household, the practical points are narrow:

  • It does not regulate the coin. It regulates the service provider.
  • It means that a platform operating from Singapore with only foreign customers will either restructure or leave. If you are one of those customers, you may be asked to move your assets.
  • It reflects a broader pattern: regulators are drawing lines around who may hold customer assets and under what conditions.

The same question, asked across the region

Jurisdiction Where things stood in June 2025
Singapore DTSP regime from 30 June 2025. Since November 2023, Singapore has committed to the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework from 2027, so platforms will report customers' crypto holdings and trades to tax authorities
Malaysia The Securities Commission had listed 111 unregulated entities, issued 26 cease-and-desist orders, and taken enforcement action against four entities, as of June 2025
Taiwan The financial regulator published a draft Virtual Asset Service Act on 25 March 2025 to license service providers
Indonesia Oversight moved from the commodity-futures regulator to the financial services authority (OJK) on 10 January 2025, reclassifying crypto as a digital financial asset with licensing for exchanges, custodians and traders
United States Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds began trading in January 2024, and spot ether funds in July 2024, so crypto can be held in ordinary brokerage and retirement accounts

The pattern is consistent. Each jurisdiction is converging on licensing the intermediary, and on reporting what customers hold.

The finance fundamentals

Counterparty and custody risk are first-order. Diligence on any alternative investment treats custody, the ability to verify what is held, and the creditworthiness of intermediaries as core items. Price risk is only one of the risks.

Due diligence is a process. Before placing assets with a platform: its regulator and licence, how customer assets are segregated, whether it publishes proof of reserves or audited statements, and what happens in insolvency. A firm that cannot answer these in plain terms is telling you something.

Position size follows uncertainty. A good investment policy sets limits on a position according to how well its risks can be assessed. For an asset with unusual counterparty risk, a smaller limit is part of the policy, not a lack of conviction.

Records are part of the position. Reporting is coming from 2027 in Singapore and other countries. A household that keeps a clear history of acquisitions, transfers and disposals does not have to reconstruct it later.

Practical implications

  1. Write down where each holding actually sits: which platform, in which country, under which regulator. Self-custody counts too, with its own risks.
  2. Check the licence, not the logo. Use the regulator's own list. In Malaysia, for example, the Securities Commission publishes the entities it considers unregulated.
  3. Do not leave more on an exchange than you need to trade.
  4. Keep a transaction history you can export, with dates and costs, for tax and for any future reporting.
  5. Set a size limit in advance for the whole crypto position as a share of net worth, and for any single platform.
  6. Plan for a platform change. If your platform restructures or exits a market, know how to withdraw and what it costs.

Update, October 2026: what the following year added

The direction held. On 18 July 2025 the US signed the GENIUS Act on payment stablecoins, and in September 2025 the SEC approved generic listing standards for crypto exchange-traded products. From 1 August 2025 Indonesia taxed crypto trades with a final tax of 0.21% on domestic platforms and 1% on foreign ones. In Malaysia the Securities Commission revised its rules on 20 May 2026, raising the minimum paid-up capital for exchange operators from RM5 million to RM15 million. Singapore gazetted its Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework regulations on 11 August 2026, and Taiwan's legislature reportedly passed its Virtual Asset Service Act on 30 June 2026. Not everything moved forward: on 15 September 2026 a US Senate vote to advance the CLARITY Act, a crypto market-structure bill, failed 50 to 49.

What we could not confirm

The body of this post reflects what was known on 10 June 2025; later developments are in the update section. The Malaysian enforcement counts come from a trade-press report of a Securities Commission statement. The Taiwan and US items in the update rest on law-firm and press summaries; commencement dates for the Taiwan law were not confirmed. This is education, not investment advice.

Sources

Topics

Compliance

Related guides

What a Seizure Teaches the Other Side of the Transaction

In late October 2025 Singapore police seized or froze more than S$150 million of assets linked to a sanctioned regional conglomerate. The lesson for ordinary households is not about the targets. It is about who they dealt with.

Source of Wealth Is the New Net Worth

After Singapore's S$3 billion money-laundering case, banks and regulators stopped asking how much you have and started asking how you got it. What changed, why it matters for family offices, and how to build the file before anyone asks.

The Registry Retreats, the Bank Does Not

On 21 March 2025 the US exempted domestic companies and US persons from beneficial-ownership reporting. Transparency about who owns what did not disappear. It moved to the bank's onboarding desk.