Overnight, BTC continues to trade around the 105k 30-day moving average. Today's 6.5 Chain Insider's article "Stablecoin's First Stock Circle Company's US Stock IPO" mentioned another major industry event: MAS, the financial regulatory authority in Singapore, issued a new regulation at the end of May, significantly tightening the regulations on the crypto/web3 industry. The new rule will take effect at the end of June without any buffer period, showing a very tough attitude!
From the so-called "crypto paradise" to issuing an expulsion order, this cliff-like policy adjustment makes the crypto industry exclaim that Singapore's web3 mass exodus is about to arrive.
The sky is falling for Singapore's big players.
Why do we say this?
The Chain remembers that more than three years ago, in February 2022, the Supreme Court issued a judicial interpretation (Fa Shi [2022] No. 5) that listed "illegally raising funds through virtual currency transactions" as a form of illegal fundraising, for the first time incorporating virtual currency transactions into the scope of illegal fundraising at the criminal law level.
This was to plug a loophole. Previously, illegal fundraising and fundraising fraud only recognized RMB (and some legally recognized forms of property). That is, you were only considered illegal if you collected RMB from others, but collecting BTC, USDT, or other virtual currencies was not considered illegal. Why? Because we are a civil law country that only recognizes legal provisions. If it's not specified in the law, it's not considered illegal.
These illegal fundraising and fundraising fraud are criminal charges, and once violated, they face the most severe criminal sanctions. However, precisely because of this loophole, the big players who raised air coins and collected BTC and USDT from leeks at that time exploited the legal gap and escaped punishment.
It was also because of this loophole that our country's judicial crackdown on some fundraising scams at that time was far weaker than the United States across the Pacific. The US is a common law system, not rigidly applying legal provisions, but focusing on flexibility. That's why the SEC directly used the Howey Test to catch many big and small fish, directly accusing big players of illegally issuing securities, arresting, sentencing, and fining as they pleased.
Of course, how to balance protecting innovation and combating fraud has always been an art. After the SEC's heavy-handed approach for several years, it successfully provoked the entire crypto industry's resentment. When the crypto industry pushed for the return of the former president, the first thing they did was to remove SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. But that's another story.
Back to this judicial interpretation. The most fatal issue for big players here is that it's a judicial interpretation, not a law amendment.
Legal experts know there's a legal principle called "non-retroactivity". It means that today's amended laws only apply to the future and cannot retroactively punish past events. Otherwise, the entire society would live in fear, and the principle of "everything not prohibited is permitted" would lose all meaning because you would never know if tomorrow's events might be redefined as illegal. Without certainty, society would fall into chaos.
But there are exceptions to principles. The non-retroactivity principle only applies to law amendments, not judicial interpretations. This means that if a judicial interpretation expands the interpretation of existing laws, it is theoretically allowed to be retroactive. In other words, the judicial interpretation issued in 2022 could theoretically be used to crack down on token issuance activities from 2017.
As a result, the big players who were already being condemned domestically almost overnight scattered like birds and beasts, fleeing in panic.
The escaped big players looked around. In this vast world, where could they find refuge? Go to the US? Afraid of being completely crushed by the American iron fist. Go to Dubai? Afraid of being kidnapped and having their kidneys harvested. After looking around, the big players unanimously set their sights on Singapore, with its mixed Chinese-Western culture and relaxed regulation. Except for the high living costs, everything else was almost the same as living domestically (such as language, time difference, etc.), reducing the homesickness of these wandering players. And living costs? For big players who have already become billionaires, it was naturally a piece of cake.
The key was that Singapore had no extradition treaty with mainland China, which gave the big players a sense of security. Moreover, Singapore had adopted an extremely loose policy towards token issuance since the 2017 bull market cycle, simply put: issue and harvest as you like, just block Singaporean users and don't harvest Singaporean users.
Recalling the ICO token issuance wave of 2017-2018, various fancy token issuance methods were invented. From forked coins to public chain coins, ERC-20 coins, and even pure air coins, the issuance speed couldn't keep up with the leeks' crazy grabbing. Getting in was making money. So-called private placement quotas required connections and backdoor dealings to obtain, buying low and selling to the next person, instantly earning tens or even hundreds of times the profit. The entire crypto market fell into an irrational carnival until the deep bear market at the end of 2018 finally cooled down the leeks' heated minds with cold losses.
In such a crazy market, perhaps there were only two types of people: gamblers and scammers. Perhaps some were both gamblers and scammers.
No one could remain calm in the face of vivid examples of nearby friends becoming overnight millionaires. No one could watch billions of wealth in front of them while holding a sickle without harvesting. With a weapon in hand, murderous intent rises. Moreover, in a market where everyone lost their minds, the so-called weapon was just a silver tongue.
Everyone was lost in the money flying everywhere. "If I don't take the money, I'm an idiot" became the motto and life creed for many.
All feasts must end. That violent pleasure would inevitably meet a violent end. When the music of pass-the-parcel suddenly stopped, trampling began. Private placement harvesting public placement, project parties harvesting private placement, sickles harvesting each other became the last glimmer before the industry's bearish death. Those locked in became fools. Those selling at high positions became winners. Token issuance big players made a fortune, while high-position chasing gamblers lost everything.
Gamblers accused scammers of manipulating the market unfairly. Scammers accused gamblers of not following gambling rules and being unwilling to accept losses.
The so-called "compliance" at the time was registering a so-called foundation in Singapore as the token issuance entity. Complying with Singapore's rules while harvesting mainland users. But which harvested leeks didn't voluntarily send themselves to the slaughter? Crossing the wall, registering fake identities, just to exchange their precious BTC for others' air coins. Who wasn't blinded, wanting to buy low-price tokens to sell high to later leeks and harvest them to become rich?
Like Zhou Yu beating Huang Gai, one willing to fight, one willing to be beaten. In the end, neither was pure, neither was kind, neither was righteous.
So the big players of that time harvested with a clear conscience - "They're all gamblers with impure intentions, harvesting them is doing justice!"
Whenever leeks want to make a big move, they'll be big-moved. Harvesting a small leek, the heavens are too lazy to personally intervene. There are big players, hackers, runaway platforms, telecom fraud, and various ways to harvest you.
The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. As the saying goes, karma is a cycle that spares no one.
In February 2022, the judicial interpretation came, and the big players fled in panic.
In an instant, Singapore was crowded with investors, with discussions about web3 and crypto topics in Chinese or mixed Chinese-English languages filling coffee shops and five-star hotels. Numerous KOLs on various social platforms enthusiastically praised Singapore's vibrant scene, and did not hesitate to criticize Hong Kong, claiming that its closed-minded thinking and strict regulations might cause it to miss its position as an Asian financial center in the web3 era.
Singapore's unguarded embrace of crypto might simply be because it had not experienced the market's brutal lessons or felt the unlimited harvesting power of major investors.
In November 2022, FTX, once a popular platform and the world's second-largest crypto exchange, collapsed. Countless investors' wealth vanished overnight. Singapore's fully state-owned sovereign wealth fund Temasek had invested a total of $275 million in FTX in two rounds between October 2021 and January 2022. After FTX's bankruptcy, Temasek announced a full write-down of its investment and admitted to a "misjudgment" in trusting the founder SBF.
Additionally, a series of other crypto fraud and money laundering cases might have prompted the Singapore government to reconsider whether its previously unguarded policy attitude was truly beneficial.
These reflections ultimately culminated in the new regulations issued at the end of May 2025, the "Licensing Guidelines for Digital Token Service Providers". The wild era of unlicensed web3 operations in Singapore was thus closed.
