The closure of Singapore's Web3 companies is already obvious.
Tokenize Exchange, a cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in Singapore and operating for 7 years, announced today that it will cease operations in Singapore before September 30 because it failed to apply for a digital payment token license from MAS after the exemption period ended. Instead, it will move its headquarters to Labuan, Malaysia.
However, it seems that Tokenize is currently only planning to apply for relevant licenses from the Labuan Financial Services Authority (LFSA) of Malaysia, and has not yet obtained this license. In addition to Labuan, Tokenize also plans to apply for a financial license from the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).
In March 2024, Tokenize Xchange completed a financing of US$11.5 million, with venture capital firms Trive and others participating in the investment, which brought its Series A financing to US$23 million. After the financing, Tokenize announced that it would increase the number of Singapore team members by five times. After today's official announcement, all 15 local employees of Tokenize in Singapore received resignation notices.
Unlike Binance and Bybit, which are Chinese exchanges, Tokenize was born and raised in Singapore, and its CEO is also Singaporean, having studied at Poly and Nanyang Technological University.
After the heavy blow of Temasek's failed investment in FTX in 2022, and the largest telecom fraud and online gambling money laundering case in history of 3 billion Singapore dollars in 2023, which was closely related to virtual currency, the era when the Singapore government embraced cryptocurrency with open arms is over.
