Crypto.com Singapore GM Chin Tah Ang Talks Charity, Security, 2024 Goals

New Year's and Xmas season is the time for giving, even in the notoriously ruthless crypto industry. Closing off the year by giving something back, Crypto.com has partnered with six major charities in Singapore to enable Web3 payments and innovation.

CARE Singapore, Cycling Without Age Singapore, Dementia Singapore, Limitless, MINDS and The Salvation Army Singapore are working with the exchange, which will process and convert to fiat currency on behalf of the charities.

To find out more about Crypto.com's charitable initiative and learn about its 2024 outlook Blockhead sat down with Crypto.com's General Manager in Singapore, Chin Tah Ang.

BH: Congrats on your recent partnership with local charities. What was behind this initiative?

CTA: We are very, very chuffed to have done that and are proud to support the charities in their digital asset journey. I remember as a kid, demanding change from my mom to drop coins. People ringing a bell and gathering change is something I grew up with, so it's really exciting to be part of this effort to help them level up their technology.

BH: What will your work with them consist of?

CTA: The partnership will consist of three different portions. The first part is for Crypto.com to support them in accepting donations in crypto, which we will seamlessly convert into fiat.

That does two things that I think are tremendously beneficial to the charities. First of all, it allows them to get away from price volatility and price volatility risk associated with crypto. They will receive it in fiat and we will do that for them.

The other very important thing is, that the crypto community is very passionate about good causes and they've demonstrated in the past that they're prepared to step up and donate. We really hope that this will help unlock a new donor pool for these charities and allow them to focus on what they do best, which is doing good and focusing on their causes, helping the vulnerable and such.

The second part of the partnership will be around developing innovative solutions to some of the problems faced by the nonprofit and charitable sectors.

The last part of the partnership will be around raising awareness about blockchain, and AI. We believe that there are a lot of real-life applications for blockchain and AI. And we just want to make sure that adoption continues at pace.

BH: As the market continues to strengthen, some might say we're in a bull market right now. Has this initiative been built on the back of renewed interest in the industry?

CTA: I'm not sure we would characterize what's happening right now as a bull market. But suffice it to say we have invested a lot over the past months to make sure that we're ready for the market upswing.

As of October 2023, the number ticked over 550 million cryptocurrency users in the world. That's an increase of over 30% for just less than a year ago. So the base of people who are interested in engaging with the asset class has grown tremendously. From our conversations with partners as well as our individual users, the interest in giving or rather, let me be clear, paying in crypto has been growing over time. Also, merchant acceptance has been growing.

More than half of merchants in Australia are prepared or interested in expanding or opening up that payment bill. There's a lot of pent-up interest and we're very excited to see where this takes us in the future.

BH: How have recent market trends directly affected Crypto.com?

CTA: We have been very fortunate. We feel that our business model has been validated over the past 12 to 18 months. The focus has always been on compliance and security. So just earlier this year in Singapore, we got our major payment institution license for the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which is a major, major milestone.

We also got registrations in the UK with the FCA into buy in the Netherlands and Spain. So this is part of our regulatory momentum for the year 2023, which we're very, very proud of. And these are jurisdictions that have very high standards for compliance.

The fact that we have managed to get some of these approvals is a reflection of the trusted and secure platform that we've put up over the years.

In particular, MAS has very, has measures that finely balance between promoting innovation, which we appreciate, but also protecting consumers, which we fully support and are committed to.

BH: What other opportunities are you exploring in the space?

CTA: We want to work with more real-life organizations and institutions. In addition to securing our license in Singapore and other places this year, we also established and opened up our global innovation lab in Singapore, where we are headquartered. That will allow us to explore real-life use cases for not just blockchain but also AI with partners in Singapore and APAC.

At the Singapore Fintech Festival we held our inaugural APAC hackathon. We took inspiration from the United Nations' sustainable development goals around employment, environment and economic development. We picked the SDGs that were making maybe the slowest progress and we wanted to see, hey, maybe Web3 and our partners can do something about it. 12 finalists turned out for the event with people pitching ideas around preventing scams, accounting for carbon, accounting for trees, and also helping youth find employment.

You can use Web3 technologies to address real-world problem statements. And a lot of these problem statements have a very strong nonprofit aspect. Crypto for good is a thing that I believe can be realized, and Web3 and blockchain are tremendously useful tools to address some of these issues.

BH: You sounded very proud to be headquartered in Singapore. Why is this an important region for Crypto.com?

CTA: We picked a location for Singapore to be our global headquarters because it's pro-business. We have access to international and global human capital. The talent here is tremendous. The fact that Singapore is already an established financial services hub and a FinTech hub makes a big difference.

Most importantly, the fact that Singapore has come up very early to establish a clear regulatory regime around cryptocurrency or crypto and Web3, in general, has certainly been pivotal in supporting us in our growth here.

BH: MAS has implemented stringent regulatory policies for the industry. What are the challenges you face with stricter regulation?

CTA: That's a really great question. From our perspective, and maybe we're the minority on this but we welcome regulatory clarity because it gives the industry clear open markets. How can we conduct ourselves? How shall we behave and how can we move the industry forward? How do you bring everybody along?

Crypto.com is very keen to show up for the Web3 community. Not just here in Singapore but globally to help people understand the space engaged more with the digital asset category and understand that Web3 isn't just about cryptocurrencies, it's a little bit more than that.

So, we will continue to work very closely with regulatory agencies, not just in Singapore but worldwide. We welcome more clarity. In Singapore, I think it's been a tremendous kind of environment, not just for us but for Web3 companies to grow in.

BH: Crypto continues to be a dangerous space in terms of hacks and scams. How is Crypto.com protecting its users?

CTA: We are one of the first few virtual assets companies to invest in security. We are SOC 2 Type II?audited and certified. We had that audit done by Deloitte just last year. We have the Cyber Trust mark from the Cyber Trust Cyber Security Agency of Singapore. We were recognised as operating at the highest maturity level – “Tier 5 – Advocate” – as part of the Cyber Trust mark assessment.

We have a Data Protection Trustmark (DPTM) from the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). The idea here is we want to provide a safe and trusted platform to support our user base as they continue to get excited about where the market is going and maybe we will all have a good 2024!

BH: What are your goals for 2024?

CTA: 2023 has been a year of building through the bear market. The market seems to be turning a little bit. So we are very proud and glad that we've made all these investments over the past 12 to 18 months, which is also the level of time I've been with the company. I'm quite excited to see what's coming around the corner.

As I mentioned, we whave been focused on innovation in Singapore. We want to do a little bit more of that with a broader set of ecosystem partners. We're hoping to do more with different segments within the economy. The idea here is we want to focus on real-life use cases and innovation. We want to make sure that we are staying the course in delivering great features, products and services for our users. We're well positioned and our formula for compliance and security has served us well given what's been happening in the broader industry.