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Yesterday I shared news about the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) which forbids crypto as a currency.
Responding to this, Indodax CEO Oscar Darmawan said that in Indonesia crypto assets are not used as currency.
This is in line with the regulations issued by Bank Indonesia.
"This is also the same as the result of the MUI deliberations that forbid crypto as a currency because in Indonesia only rupiah is the recognized currency. At Indodax itself we trade many types of crypto assets, even the largest trading volume at Indodax comes from crypto assets that have physical underlying assets, ” he said in an official statement, Friday, November 12, 2021.
As is known, crypto assets are currently widely owned by many people in Indonesia as an investment.
Crypto asset trading is even used as the main livelihood by millions of Indonesians today to meet their daily needs.
With a fairly high price increase every year, the enthusiasm of the Indonesian people for investing in crypto assets is increasing day by day.
This is evidenced by the continued increase in transaction volume as well as the increasing number of registrants who participate in registering on many officially registered crypto exchanges in Indonesia.
Regarding the underlying assets of the crypto assets themselves, Oscar Darmawan said that actually almost all crypto assets have their own underlying assets which may not have been explained before.
He said that actually all crypto assets have an underlying. There are those whose underlyings are easy to understand in physical assets such as USDT, LGold, LSILVER, XSGD and there are also those whose underlyings are in the form of issuance fees such as Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has an underlying in the form of bitcoin mining fees for the verification and issuance process which requires electricity costs of 150 TeraWatt per hour.
"It's just that the form is purely digital, yes, the name is technological innovation, now money doesn't have a physical form, it's just digital like e-money. So because there are production costs, Bitcoin doesn't just appear, so don't be surprised if the price of Bitcoin keeps going up," he added.
Oscar explained that Indodax currently has more than 4.5 million members, of which 99 percent are Indonesians who live from trading crypto assets.
Indodax has helped 4.5 million Indonesians go through difficult times during the Covid-19 pandemic by providing alternative jobs as crypto asset traders.
"Many people who do not have jobs now live from trading crypto assets. Indodax has 170 types of crypto assets. So there are many types. It's just a matter of traders choosing which crypto assets to trade," he said.