Is crypto legal in Singapore?

The short answer

Crypto is legal in Singapore, and it has never been banned. You can buy Bitcoin with your own money, hold it in your own wallet, spend it where a merchant accepts it and sell it back for Singapore dollars. None of that needs permission.

What Singapore does instead is regulate the businesses in the middle. Exchanges, brokers, custodians and payment firms serving people here must hold a licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), must follow strict anti-money-laundering rules, and since 2022 have been limited in how they can advertise. Since 2024 they have also had to follow consumer-protection rules that make crypto deliberately harder to speculate on. The result is a country that is open to the technology and openly unenthusiastic about retail speculation. MAS has repeatedly said crypto trading is highly risky and not suitable for the general public.

The practical upshot for you: it is legal to buy, but you should know whether the platform you use is licensed. The full list of MAS-licensed crypto firms is the place to start.

The Payment Services Act and “digital payment tokens”

The core law is the Payment Services Act 2019, which took effect on 28 January 2020. It does not use the word “cryptocurrency”. Instead it defines a digital payment token, or DPT. Paraphrasing the Act, a DPT is a digital representation of value that is expressed as a unit, is not denominated in any currency or pegged by its issuer to one, is meant to be accepted by the public as a way to pay for goods or services or settle debts, and can be transferred, stored or traded electronically. Bitcoin and Ether fit that description neatly. Security tokens and tokenised shares do not; they fall under the Securities and Futures Act instead.

A DPT service originally meant dealing in tokens (buying and selling them for customers) and facilitating their exchange, which covers exchanges and brokers. Amendments passed in 2021 widened it to include transferring tokens for customers, safekeeping them and facilitating cross-border transfers, and those parts took effect from 4 April 2024. If a firm does any of these things for people in Singapore as a business, it needs a licence. For crypto that means a Major Payment Institution licence; we explain the licence types on the licensed exchanges page.

Running a DPT business without a licence is an offence under section 5 of the Act, punishable by a fine of up to S$125,000, up to three years in prison, or both. This is not theoretical. In February 2025 the police charged a man who converted scam proceeds into USDT and Bitcoin with both money-laundering offences and providing an unlicensed DPT service. It is the main legal risk for people who trade peer-to-peer for others, which we cover in the P2P guide.

Advertising and consumer-protection rules

Singapore’s rules for licensed platforms tightened in three waves, and together they explain why buying crypto here feels different from buying it in many other countries.

Advertising (January 2022). On 17 January 2022, MAS issued guidelines, known as PS-G02, telling DPT providers not to market their services to the general public in Singapore. No ads in public areas, on public transport, in broadcast media or through social media influencers, and no physical crypto ATMs in public places. Firms may only promote themselves on their own website, app and official social media accounts. Operators switched off Singapore’s Bitcoin ATMs within days, a story told in our Bitcoin ATM guide.

Protecting customer assets (July 2023). MAS announced that licensees must segregate customer assets from their own, hold them in a statutory trust, and stop lending or staking retail customers’ tokens.

Reducing speculation (November 2023 onwards). On 23 November 2023, MAS announced a further package: retail customers must pass a risk awareness assessment before trading; platforms may not offer incentives such as sign-up bonuses or referral rewards; no leverage or credit for retail customers; and no purchases using locally issued credit cards. These were phased in from mid-2024. Business-conduct and technology-risk guidelines (PS-G03) were issued in April 2024, revised in September 2024, with their measures taking effect around June 2025.

The DTSP regime for Singapore-based firms

For years there was a gap: a company could be set up in Singapore, serve customers only overseas, and fall outside the Payment Services Act. That gap closed on 30 June 2025, when Part 9 of the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) took effect for Digital Token Service Providers (DTSPs).

Under it, any Singapore-incorporated firm, or individual or partnership operating from Singapore, that provides digital token services only to clients outside Singapore needs a licence. In its 6 June 2025 clarification, MAS said it would generally not issue such licences, because of the money-laundering risks of businesses whose regulated activity happens entirely abroad, and that there would be no transitional period. Firms had to stop or leave.

Several did. WazirX’s Singapore parent Zettai restructured under a Panama entity, and Bybit and Bitget were reported to have weighed relocating staff. For ordinary users this changes little directly, but it is why some exchanges with Singapore roots no longer operate from here.

Anti-money-laundering checks and the travel rule

Licensed DPT firms follow MAS Notice PSN02 on preventing money laundering and terrorism financing. In practice that means full identity checks before you trade: your NRIC or passport, proof of address and, for many platforms, a Singpass MyInfo login that fills these in automatically. Platforms must also monitor transactions and report suspicious ones.

Singapore also applies the “travel rule” to crypto transfers. When you send tokens from one provider to another above S$1,500, the sending platform must pass on information about the sender and recipient. This is why exchanges sometimes ask who owns the wallet you are withdrawing to, or whether it is your own self-hosted wallet. Answer accurately; a wrong declaration can freeze a withdrawal. Our cashing-out guide covers how to avoid bank account freezes when the money comes back.

CBDC, stablecoins and tokenisation

Singapore is one of the most active central banks in the world on blockchain experiments, but almost all of that work is wholesale, meaning for banks and financial institutions rather than the public. MAS has said there is no urgent need for a retail digital Singapore dollar.

Project Ubin (2016 to 2020) tested tokenised Singapore dollars for interbank payments and settlement across five phases. Ubin+ extended the work to cross-border wholesale CBDC with other central banks. Project Orchid, launched in November 2021, explored Purpose Bound Money (PBM): digital money with rules attached, such as a voucher that can only be spent at certain merchants. Project Guardian works with financial institutions on tokenising assets such as bonds and funds, and Global Layer One, announced in November 2023, studies shared ledger infrastructure for tokenised assets across borders.

The newest pieces bring this closer to real money. BLOOM, announced on 16 October 2025, supports settlement using tokenised bank deposits and regulated stablecoins. MAS has run an SGD Testnet for wholesale CBDC since 2025, and in September and October 2026 it carried out trial issuances of tokenised MAS Bills of S$1 million and S$10 million.

On stablecoins, MAS finalised its framework on 15 August 2023. It covers single-currency stablecoins pegged to the Singapore dollar or a G10 currency and issued in Singapore. Those that meet reserve, redemption and disclosure requirements may use the label “MAS-regulated stablecoin”. Draft amendments to put this into legislation were published on 1 September 2026 and consultation closed on 16 October 2026; as of our check they were not yet law. USDT is not a MAS-regulated stablecoin. Our stablecoin guide explains what that means for XSGD, USDC and USDT holders.

The collapses that shaped the rules

Singapore’s stance hardened for a reason. Several of the industry’s biggest failures had Singapore connections, and many local investors lost money.

The pattern is consistent: firms that lent out or rehypothecated customer assets, or were never licensed, left customers queuing in court. The 2023 rules on statutory trusts and the ban on lending retail customers’ tokens are a direct answer to that.

Mining, and starting a crypto business

Mining is legal. Nothing in Singapore law bans it, and you do not need a licence to mine your own coins. For tax, IRAS’s e-Tax guide says that an individual who mines is, on the face of it, treated as doing so as a hobby, so gains from selling mined coins are capital and not taxed, and mining costs are not deductible. If you mine habitually and systematically for profit, IRAS may treat it as a business and tax the profits when you sell. A company that mines is treated as running a business from the start. In practice, Singapore’s electricity prices and space constraints mean large-scale mining is rare. More on this in our crypto tax guide.

Starting a crypto business is a different matter. If you plan to buy and sell tokens for customers, run an exchange, hold tokens for others or move them on their behalf, you need a MAS licence before you start, and serving only overseas clients from Singapore is generally not allowed under the DTSP regime. Issuing a stablecoin, a security token or running a fund brings in other rules again. Start with MAS’s payments regulation pages and speak to a lawyer who works in this area; this page is not legal advice.

Timeline

• 2016–2020Project Ubin tests wholesale tokenised Singapore dollars across five phases.
• Jan 2020The Payment Services Act takes effect. DPT services need a MAS licence. GST no longer applies to buying and selling DPTs.
• Sep 2021Binance is added to the MAS Investor Alert List. Project Orchid follows in November.
• Jan 2022PS-G02 bans public crypto advertising and crypto ATMs in public places. Binance.sg closes in February.
• 2022Terra, 3AC, Zipmex and Hodlnaut collapse. Project Guardian launches.
• 2023Rules on segregating customer assets (July), stablecoin framework (August), consumer measures announced (November) and Global Layer One.
• 2024Consumer measures phase in from mid-year; expanded DPT services come under licensing.
• Jun 2025The FSMA DTSP regime takes effect for Singapore-based firms serving only overseas clients.
• Sep–Oct 2025Tokenize ends Singapore operations; WazirX scheme sanctioned; BLOOM announced.
• 2026Bybit (June) added to the Investor Alert List, Gemini receives its full licence (September), draft stablecoin legislation published, tokenised MAS Bills trials.

If you are deciding where to buy, the exchange comparison shows each platform’s licence status, and the scams guide covers the risks the rules cannot remove.