Bitcoin Forum

Everyone is looking at El Salvador to be “the home” of Bitcoin, but I believe Singapore is better to be the true hub of the Bitcoin industry, with serious players.

Singapore has made a lot of effort on the technological sector. It cannot be said of El Salvador.

Singapore has clean governance, and almost zero corruption. El Salvador’s government structure might be corrupt everywhere from the bottom to the top.

Singapore’s banking industry is what made the country develop into one of the richest countries in the world. It can further develop by embracing the Bitcoin industry.

Another serious contender would probably be Japan and South Korea but you are right that Singapore could be the best choice to be named a bitcoin hub because it's practically the perfect country for it. Let's not forget Rwanda because they are basically the Sinapore of Africa even though they are currently in dictatorship, the governance is pretty good too.

Yeah i heard Singapore is very crypto friendly, but the difference why everyone is looking at El savador is the simple fact that they openly declare btc as legal tender of the country, it is an open declaration which has been recognized by government from other part of the country, it also attracts many headlines, this is the reason why El savador is the center of attraction at the moment,
perhaps if Singapore will also take the initiative and publicly accepting btc as legal tender then the focus will be on them as well, already Singapore is doing a great job in the crypto space and most project have location there it seems.

The "legal tender" and the fact that's rather close to US make El Salvador very important.

The fact that other countries are Bitcoin friendly doesn't mean that much. And while El Salvador has its place in history now, Singapore will probably have quite a competition into becoming a "hub" (and probably not from El Salvador).



Imho these don't matter that much and the comparison is uneven. And you tried to compare apples with oranges, making a fruit salad.

As long as the banking industry didn't embrace Bitcoin in Singapore, all you are saying is wishful thinking.
And the history has shown that the "possibly more corrupt government structure" has already done a step the "almost zero corruption" govt of Singapore was afraid to make. So comparing the corruption may not bring anything useful.

I think that El Salvador will probably not become a tech hub for Bitcoin. It may very well be that even Singapore won't be that. Imho, whether we like it or not, US has bigger chance for that.

I wonder who will then need Bitcoin and decentralized tech more between the two nations. I would go where it's really needed the most and use that to fight corruption where people are humble enough to accept they are corrupt.
The world is in the power of the wicked one. No one is good, not even one.
Every Worldly society is in the Evil System... Remember  "Matrix"... it's deeper and worse than that

I don't see Singapore making bitcoin legal tender anytime soon. That's the main difference between the two countries right now.
Bitcoin doesn't need no tech infrastructure, no govt approval, no banks to function properly.
Singaporean banks are accepting bitcoin to get new revenue streams.
Salvadorans will accept bitcoin to become financially independent in the future.
I see big differences here  8)

Yeah, with all the qualities, ideally Singapore would be a better Hub compared to El Salvador, but the question is, is Crypto supported by the government? Well, yes (and no), to some extent. But Bitcoin is not the legal tender and treated as goods. They have neutral position regarding to crypto (https://complyadvantage.com/knowledgebase/crypto-regulations/cryptocurrency-regulations-singapore/) AFAIK.

Anyway, I think Japan is better despite the difference in language (and text), that's why Roger went there.

It is indeed one of the best hubs for innovation in general, not just for crypto innovation. Excellent market conditions, legal system, the largest and fastest growing market of the world (that´s China) right at their door and a system that produces competent professionals. The only handicap I can think of is the ridiculously high price of real state of any type. These conditions are difficult to match for other Asian countries and are very attractive for asset-light companies that do not require massive physical space, but rather a good ecosystem and legal environment.

Comparing Singapore with El Salvador is simply impossible. The only thing they share is being on the same planet.

I believe that will change, and the Singaporean government, and their banking industry might soon welcome crypto-exchanges, hedge funds, and start ups and become the safe haven of the whole Bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry. Serious players have already made Singapore their home. Jihan Wu, Vitalik Buterin, and the Winklevoss twins made it their home in Asia.


It’s not about Bitcoin as a legal tender. It’s about a country welcoming the Bitcoin industry, to build and develop to be as successful as the banking industry.

El salvador is one big step for bitcoin adoption. They proved that even a small country could adopt Cryptocurrency and could implement it without problems. However, when it comes to improvements in bitcoin usage, Singapore is the one with their advance technology added by their clean government aiming for the best for its community.

The Singapore can surely hold a special place for bitcoin in coming time as many technical projects have been at first established in Singapore in their intial days and the friendly framework of the government with less or say zero corruption.But the problem at this time for bitcoin and other cryptos is that it is still not mainstream and accepted as legal tender like in El Salvador.This year in Singapore there were around 60 Bitcoin ATM's and almost 51 businesses accepting crypto related payment and the numbers are on the verge of rising due to increase number of investors everywhere.Another reason is that El Salvador was not having any legal currency of their own and major domination was of USD and was not developed and small country but it's not the case with Singapore as it is a technical hub and Singapore dollar is already having good market value of around 74 cents higher than many nations and the economy condition is not too worsen.But soon in the coming days we could see the government having positive approach towards bitcoin and they can provide legal regulations for the same.

I agree that Singapore is a suitable country to be called a home for Bitcoin. there we feel special if we have cryptocurrency. Apart from their very supportive policies towards crypto growth, we know that Justin Sun has a big project in Singapore. Well, where Singapore is a haven for cryptoners who want to protect their rights to freedom of their assets.

however, I still haven't gotten any actual news on how the crypto tax policy system there is, whether it has been implemented or not, or indeed there will be no crypto tax.

Singapore is far better in terms of everything we can imagine compared to El-Salvador. I remember, one of the oldest exchange of my country Zebpay moved to Singapore in just a week when the Central Bank of my country banned crypto exchanges from receiving banking service. It shows how transparent and business friendly the government of Singapore is who can arrange to shift an entire business from one country to another in just a week. No wonder why Singapore is one the richest place on earth and also tops in almost every single human development index.

El-Salvador is probably the one country who is trying to push for mass adoption, but Singapore will remain the business hub for any kind of legal businesses.

As long as I know, the Singapore's government policy really support their society to advance their life level. Tha public facilities is made for advertising their country to investors, in the south east Asia Singapore is popular as the Bitcoin heaven because the government support their society to trade and invest in BTC, but to protect their fiat existance the government made tax fee for trading BTC at least 7%. I know that is a high fee for paying but this is a win win solution for the country. The government really understand that BTC has a potential for the future currency and there is no forbidden about BTC there, I really admire their government system.

I went to search the net on this but the banking system was not giving as the reason alone but I understand what you mean here.

Three factors were important for the growth of Singapore development,

1. Being friendly to foreign investors
2. Location
3. Sincerity in governance and policy.

There is however relationship in the last listed point to growth of economy because policies made are going to be followed up sincerely. As for the bitcoin in Singapore, the government may sincerely develop policies that will help to boost the adoption. But I think they will also go the way of developing there own cryptocurrency.

yes, this is true, do you see that majority of countries in asia are very much involved in crypto, they actively participate in it and singapore is no exception.

Both of these sentences are contradicting each another especially the bolded part. If Singapore rely on their banking industry that means there is no hope for bitcoin to settle in the country. You are probably contradicting between making it a legal tender like El Salvador or turning Singapore as the hub of the bitcoin industry but basically any other country could also be the central hub for blockchain based industry, Malta is probably one of the option for that and it doesnt have to be Singapore

Edit : it seems a little bit make sense to call it blockchain based industry rather than bitcoin industry


So does any other country in Europe, that doesnt really make sense

In Malta, I believe the serious players in the cryptocurrency industry won’t have the same access to large money markets, and the banking partners they need to grow. Plus billionaires prefer Singapore, if that’s where developers and start ups can source capitall, that’s where they’ll be.

It’s not contradictory if Singapore banks are open to the new emerging market. Cryptocurrencies.


Yes, the whole industry.

Especially with China banning everything, what is the nearest location in the region, that they can call their new “home”.

Agreed.

Right now a lot of what has been said about El Salvador is pure hype.

It is a country with zero governance, no prudent authority in charge, and very little social security. Even if they offered next to zero corporate taxes, why in the world would you choose them over something like Singapore which has proven itself with robust administrations and a historic track record of innovation?

It is not about El Salvador being a hub, it is not a hub, it is about how countries started to see bitcoin as a legal tender and that is the reason why people are seeing it as something good and as long as people keep seeing it as something good then we should not diminish the importance of it neither.

I personally believe that we should not be comparing it to any other nation, look at USA they are very supportive of crypto as well and they are not making it illegal, however they are not making it a legal tender neither, so we can't compare those two things together. Same could be said about crypto in Singapore, as far as I know they didn't make it a legal tender and that is what matters to me, if it is not legal tender then it is not something similar to what is going on with El Salvador, it is not about being a hub, it is about being a legal tender in that specific nation.

It is the hype making people think like that. The real home of bitcoin is in the heart of the people who use it, not a country. Decentralized is the key word here.

Japan has the biggest technologically advanced society out there. So why not Japan? In fact the use of bitcoin in japan has increased much in the recent years and I remember a couple of news that came in 2017 which I will link here:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/12/bitcoin-price-rises-japan-russia-regulation.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/29/bitcoin-exchanges-officially-recognized-by-japan.html

None of that helps unless the governments are willing to allow cryptocurrencies to be used legally or at least with less problems of the "grey area". I know the combo of a corrupt government and crypto is a bad idea but I feel we are lacking information to comment more on this.

The skeptic would say that if the fact that banking sector has its roots close, would mean bitcoin would not get any space there. But practically banks can also use blockchain to deliver services and store information at the same time not allowing governments to accept crypto.

AFAIK Singapore isn't very Bitcoin/cryptocurrency friendly.
Do you have any insider information that Singapore is going to become pro-Bitcoin and accept Bitcoin as a legal tender?Are we going to play the guessing game about which country will be "the new El Salvador"? ;D
Isn't this just wishful thinking about what will happen to Bitcoin,if country X(insert random name of a country) adopts BTC? ;D
I believe that Bitcoin should be a truly global currency/asset.We shouldn't rely on one,two or several countries to be considered "the home of Bitcoin".

No one is diminshing the importance of the El Salvadorian government’s experiment. I was merely pointing out facts, and the differences between El Salvador and Singapore. Which economic environment would the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency industry flourish more?


I don’t have insider information, but everyone knows Jihan Wu is based in Singapore, Vitalik Buterin and the Winklevoss twins considers Singapore Gemini’s home in Asia.


Japan is advanced in Electronics and Robotics, and they don’t have the same environment for money markets, and investment banking that could provide capital to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency start ups.

You are wrong about Japan its economics. They do have a huge huge market and they have amazing big companies that not only grew huge in Japan but grew big internationally, there are only a handful of nations that have companies that make 1+ billion dollars a year in profit, USA has a lot, European nations have few nations like UK, France, Germany and so forth, Japan is one of those nations and they are very big on finances because of that, since it allows them to actually end up handling tons of money, you can't just ignore it when you reach those levels.

This is why bitcoin was so big the moment it started in Japan, and this is why they had laws and regulations the moment it got some traction, while rest of the world was just watching Japan was getting legislature ready regarding crypto, hence why it could always be hub of bitcoin, but when USA is so much richer than everyone else, usually they take that spot.

Nope it doesn't prove anything because a small country is easily manageable to adopt bitcoin compared to a big one. Plus, El Salvador isn't like an influential country on he international stage so it's not that big of a deal.

It must be admitted that Singapore is one of the countries with the best banking industry development in Asia or maybe the world, with a government that is clean of corruption, it makes world investors happy to invest in Singapore, actually there are many big projects based in Singapore but I see no serious support from the state with crypto.

Singapore certainly is much more developed, there's no question about that. The reason why everyone goes on about El Salvador as a future country of Bitcoin is that, unlike Singapore, they have no currency of their own and are much tied to the US dollar.

They don't have a fully functional self-sufficing financial system and currently are in large debts. That is why many seem to think that adopting Bitcoin will be a good option for El Salvador. However, it is a matter of question to me. I mean, if the country couldn't even implement their own fiat system, what are the chances that they'll handle crypto system?

Singapore is one of the countries that are adaptive to the latest technology and that includes cryptocurrency. However, just like other Asian countries, they're more strict when it comes to currency. I believe that they will adapt Bitcoin yet it couldn't replace their own currency which is the Singaporean dollar but their banking system, to be honest, is better than any banking system in SouthEast Asia.

In Singapore the banking industry bitcoin digital currency is a currency that will be approved by central banks and they will oversee transactions. Eighty percent of the world's central banks are researching this technology the united states china russia japan have come a long way the us federal reserve and  are conducting joint research on the crypto project. The goal of the project is to figure out how digital currency will work and what kind of system to build and banking systems to allow crypto.

El Salvador recently planned to launch a national stablecoin called "Colón-Dollar"  (https://www.coindesk.com/el-salvador-may-issue-its-own-stablecoin-report), don't know if all countries including Singapore will do the samething or not after adopting bitcoin in their banking system or other government related works. Though it can't be denied about the technological development of Singapore, but it'll best for bitcoiners to wait for the final outcome before calling it the “the home” of Bitcoin, IMHO.  ;)

The United States is considered to be the country most ready to adopt cryptocurrencies. Based on the Crypto Head report, the United States' score in the 2021 Crypto Readiness Index is 7.13 on a scale of 0-10 points. The higher the score, the more ready the country is to adopt cryptocurrencies. One of the reasons for the US's readiness to adopt this digital currency is that it has 17,436 crypto automated teller machines (ATMs). Every single crypto ATM is used by 19,023 people. US law also permits the ownership of cryptocurrencies and their use in banks. As a result, searches for cryptocurrencies have increased by 140% in the past year.

Yep.
The only thing with US that it's a country made of states which have their own laws. And while some states welcome openly crypto, others try to regulate it as strongly as they can (almost to a limit close to banning, but banning will probably not happen).

So while it's not the entire US bitcoin friendly, you can find plenty of places in US who have all it takes to become a crypto hub tomorrow.

that is true but there is a big gap between being bitcoin friendly and actually adopting bitcoin. El Salvador is important these days and will keep on growing in bitcoin world because they have taken that step over the gap and are already on the other side while Singapore is still on the other side and is not taking that jump over. until they do, other countries will be in the lead and at some point it will be too late to catch up.

one of the reason why some country adopt btc is because they have a corupt government and this can make their currency suck but singapore is a non corupt country so they dont have a problem in their currency and they wont be needing btc for now   .
 there was a site that i visit and they have a canditate for which countries are next to follow el salvador,   i never see singapore in thier list but only venezuela , vietnam and others.

As you've mentioned the difference between the two countries, we can already see why Singapore didn't initiate on making bitcoin a legal tender. Maybe it could be because the government has a very low corruption record that they do not need the aid of bitcoin on reviving their economy. As for El Salvador, you said there are a lot of corrupt politicians and maybe soon it will show up on how they are planning to use bitcoin as something that might mess up their country's economic state as well as bitcoin's repuation once their plan fails to succeed.