Datuk Zahidi Calls On Malaysian Government To Adopt Crypto Money To Support Young Generation

Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin. (photo: KKMM)

JAKARTA - The Malaysian Ministry of Communication and Multimedia (KKMM) has reportedly supported the adoption of cryptocurrencies. Even the Deputy Minister of KKMM also asked the government of the neighboring country to legalize crypto money.

Reported by Harian Metro on Monday, March 21, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin, has urged Malaysian regulators to legalize certain use cases of cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens (NFT).

Zahidi pointed out that such measures would significantly support youth. The reason is that the cryptocurrency industry has grown more and more popular among the younger generation, especially in Malaysia. He also said that KKMM was exploring ways to increase youth participation in the industry.

Zahidi also noted that the decision on cryptocurrency regulation is up to Malaysian financial regulators, including the central bank and the Malaysian Securities Commission.

However, the ministry is willing to raise this issue. "The crypto industry is a future business and financial program, especially for young people today," said Zahidi, as quoted by Harian Metro.

"We hope that the government can try to legalize this issue so that we can expand youth participation in cryptocurrencies and help them in terms of energy consumption and so on," said Zahidi.

According to several sources, Zahidi also proposed not only legalizing certain cryptocurrency transactions in Malaysia. But also adopting cryptocurrency as a legal tender. This is similar to the steps of El Salvador which have adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender in their country.

In early March, Malaysian Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz reiterated that payments in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) are illegal in the country. He cited the reason that cryptocurrencies do not meet the characteristics of universal money.

“In general, digital assets are not a good store of value and medium of exchange. This is because digital assets are vulnerable to volatile price fluctuations due to speculative investments, the risk of theft due to cyber threats, and lack of scalability,” said Zafrul.

He added that Bank Negara Malaysia is working on introducing a central bank digital currency and blockchain-related developments to respond to the growing trend in the digital asset industry.