Trade volumes of LocalBitcoins have rallied to an all-time record high in Indonesia for the week ending February 16, following the country’s announcement of new regulations to legally recognize crypto and counter money laundering.
According to data from Coin Dance, which monitors weekly trading volumes of LocalBitcoins across markets, the trading volume of LocalBitcoins surged up to 300% in that week alone compared with other similar time periods.
Specifically, traders in Indonesia moved a new record of 10.3 billion rupiah ($730,000) – more than double the last record of 4.5 billion rupiah ($319,000) just a week before.
The trading surge comes around the same time that Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappebti) has been enacting official new regulation regarding crypto and money laundering. Apart from legalizing crypto and its trade, the new rules require crypto exchanges to comply with AML/KYC laws.
Using crypto as a form of payment is still not recognized, however. Bappebti also just introduced hefty minimum deposits for futures traders of crypto, where trading firms must have as much as a whopping Rp 1 trillion ($70.9 million) in paid-up capital – more than what is needed to start a rural bank in Indonesia.
Indonesia’s consumption of LocalBitcoins may seem to follow Venezuela’s footsteps to give the erroneous impression that Localbitcoins is favored as an alternative to needing identity requirements and regulation among crypto users.
Instead, LocalBitcoins has been making efforts to comply with the expansion of anti-money laundering laws back in Finland where it is based. LocalBitcoins is in the process of enhancing its identity verification process as reported earlier this month.
Comments