OUR Declarator Gatot Nurmantyo Suggests Indonesia To Implement E-Rupiah, Is It Possible?

JAKARTA - The Declaration of the Coalition for Action to Save Indonesia (WE) Gatot Nurmantyo suggested that the government issue e-Rupiah to address Indonesia's economic problems due to the global pandemic COVID-19. So what is meant by e-Rupiah?

According to Gatot, the e-Rupiah concept has been practiced in everyday life, such as paying for toll roads, public transportation and online services. Where non-cash transactions have been adopted by digital and banking platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our suggestion needs to be discussed by the government to issue e-Rupiah, it can only be transactions between e-Rupiahs," said Gatot during the WE declaration at the Proclamation Monument, Jakarta, Tuesday, August 18.

In fact, e-Rupiah is nothing new. This idea was coined by the Governor of Bank Indonesia (BI) Agus Martowardojo two years ago, when the central bank was studying the issuance of rupiah in digital form.

This is adapting the use of virtual currency which has also been done by central banks in other countries. BI noted, currently there are 1,490 Cryptocurrencies that are developing in the world, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital currencies.

Cryptocurrency or digital currency is currently one of the most favorite investment instruments in the world, including in Indonesia. This currency is growing rapidly and has become a non-cash alternative value, such as remittances and cross-border transactions.

In fact, the cryptocurrency exchange rate is determined using Blockchain technology, which is a decentralized, transparent and secure peer to peer network because it is protected by cryptographic algorithms. With this technology, a centralized server or data center will no longer be needed to act as a clearing house for all transactions.

As a result, transactions using Cryptocurrency on the Blockchain network are believed to be a solution to various problems faced by conventional financial systems. In Indonesia, Cryptocurrency regulations have been regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (Bappebti).

Through Bappebti Regulation Number 5 of 2019 concerning Technical Provisions for the Implementation of the Physical Crypto Asset Market, cryptocurrency is recognized as a commodity that can be traded on a futures exchange.

"Crypto assets are intangible commodities in the form of digital assets that use cryptography, peer-to-peer networks, and distributed ledgers to regulate the creation of new units, verify transactions, and secure transactions without interference from other parties," a description of the Bappebti rules. .

Despite being a commodity asset, cryptocurrency has not been fully recognized as a means of payment throughout Indonesia. Because there is no guarantee of the transaction value of ownership of the currency, moreover cryptocurrency can cause instability in the financial system.

Quoting CNBC, Indonesia already has its first Crypto asset, namely Rupiah Token (IDRT). This form of cryptocurrency is built on top of Blockhain Ethereum with the standard ERC-20 smart contract protocol.

IDRT tokens have a stable value of 1 to 1 with Rupiah and are produced by PT Rupiah Token Indonesia. According to an audit report issued as of 1 May 2020, the total Rupiah Tokens circulating in the market have reached 72.7 billion IDRT with collateral in Rupiah of the same value.