Former MAS chair who called crypto 'highly risky' wins Singapore's presidential race

Tharman Shanmugaratnam, erstwhile seat of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, has won the predetermination for the city-state’s presidency with much than 70% of the vote.

According to aggregate reports from Sept. 2, Shanmugaratnam defeated statesmanlike candidates Ng Kok Song and Tan Kin Lian to go the adjacent president of Singapore with astir 70.4% of votes. He volition beryllium sworn into bureau connected Sept. 14 — little than 2 weeks aft the election.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam's presidency triumph announcement connected Sept. 2. Source: Facebook

In the lead-up to his statesmanlike campaign, Shanmugaratnam resigned from his presumption successful Singapore’s parliament and astatine the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), wherever helium served arsenic seat from 2011 to 2023. He was besides the country's concern curate from 2007 to 2015. Under Shanmugaratnam, Singapore’s fiscal regulator witnessed the collapse of Three Arrows Capital and Terraform Labs amid the 2022 marketplace crash.

The president-elect reportedly erstwhile called crypto assets “highly volatile” and “highly risky arsenic concern products” successful 2021 warnings to Singapore-based users successful his relation arsenic MAS chair. The fiscal regulator granted Crypto.com an in-principle support to run successful the city-state successful June 2022, arsenic good arsenic exemptions for Bitstamp, Coinbase, and Gemini Trust.

Related: Singapore to necessitate crypto firms to enactment idiosyncratic assets into trusts by year-end

Shanmugaratnam, arsenic president, volition go the caput of authorities successful Singapore, representing the state successful diplomatic functions arsenic portion of a mostly ceremonial role. He volition beryllium replacing Halimah Yacob, who served arsenic president since 2017.

Following Shanmugaratnam's departure from MAS, the fiscal regulator has announced a revised regulatory framework for stablecoins successful Singapore arsenic portion of a nationalist consultation launched successful 2022. In July, Singapore’s precocious tribunal ruled that cryptocurrencies could beryllium treated arsenic idiosyncratic spot akin to fiat money.

Collect this nonfiction arsenic an NFT to sphere this infinitesimal successful past and amusement your enactment for autarkic journalism successful the crypto space.

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