Buying and Selling Crypto in Singapore
Tags: Monetaryauthoritysingapo, Cryptocurrency, Btc, Crypto, Singapore

With more and more financial companies hopping onto the crypto bandwagon, many people may be thinking of how to hop onto this trend. Buying bitcoin is no longer a difficult task and some of the crypto companies are even approved by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Entities that have notified MAS pursuant to the Payment Services

If you are planning to buy a large amount of crypto, it might be worth considering buying from the approved MAS entities. These entities generally follow the KYC rule (Know your customer) that is required in other countries. This also helps reduce the risk of these companies liquidating. Some companies bypass this by restricting certain features for Singapore customers.

Here are some of the entities that I use and have a sizable amount of assets deposited. I kept my investment in different locations to diversify the risk as it’s generally less safe compared to depositing money into the bank. I don’t have sufficient money to use all the platforms, but these are the platform that I am currently using.

Xfer

Before you start buying Crypto, it is good for you to sign up for an account with xfer. This would generally be the main method of buying and selling crypto in Singapore.

Generally, you will transfer money into xfer’s digital wallet and the crypto services will be able to deduct money from your account.

Signing up requires you to upload your NRIC and a selfie of your holding a piece of paper showing the date and your NRIC. This is part of the process to identify a person.

However, xfer has an annual limit of $30,000 spending limit per year. This meant that you can only buy a maximum amount of $30,000 worth of crypto annually through xfer.

Coinhako (somehow no longer on MAS list)

Coinhako is 1 of the first few companies in Singapore to facilitate the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies in Singapore. Signing up requires you to upload your NRIC with a selfie.

This is also the only company that allows you to transfer/withdraw money directly from a bank. This meant that you can bypass the $30,000 limit by xfer. This is quite simple and they will clear your money within hours( the website states 10 am and 4 pm but my money usually gets reflected hours after transferring regardless of timing).

However, things are slightly sketchy as you need to avoid putting any comments related to crypto when transferring. It is also good to double-check on the bank accounts as they do change account occasionally.

Additionally, they do offer vouchers that you can swap with coinhako virtual coins that can be earned rather easily.

However, I do find the cost of coinhako to be rather high. There is a huge discrepancy between buying and selling.

Not only is there a price difference, you are also charged 1% when you sell.

Binance SG

This is another good option to procure crypto in Singapore. Maybe it is due to the regulations in Singapore, the platform is quite limited compared to the main Binance platform. You can literally only buy a limited selection of crypto(only 8) compared to the wide range of services available.

This is made worse as there are no mobile apps. This means that it is quite hard to do login on the mobile phone.

Nevertheless, this seemed to be the next best platform to buy in Singapore. Registration is easy as it integrates and pulls info from xfer (assuming you have already created an xfer account).

Additionally, Binance is a rather big company that has a big stake in the crypto world. As such, it is less likely for finance to liquidate.

Crypto.com

The next service that I am currently using is CDC (Crypto dot Com). This service is actually not part of the list under MAS and has never been on their list. Hence, if you are using, do trade with caution and do not store too many assets on their platform.`

The app is quite easy to use as you can purchase crypto using xfer or credit card. Registration requires NRIC to be uploaded and will be approved relatively fast. You can even apply for a debit card that comes with cashback options (In form of CRO). I’m really enjoying the use of my card that gives 3% worth of rebates whenever I use them.

CDC offers additional features for Singapore customers. You can stake your crypto for a limited amount of time for additional interest. This interest is generally higher than bank interest. Eg, dai/USDT is 12% annually while BTC is 6.5%. In some sense, if you trust CDC enough, a $200,000 stake of dai will earn you $2000 a month for you to retire.

There are also other features such as supercharger, syndicate, and exchange that you can use. Supercharger and syndicate let you earn additional crypto within short periods of time. (Usually 1–3% of the amount you joined with).

However, the company has hit some issues as the price of CRO has dropped from $0.25 to a mere $0.08. CDC is trying to improve they are doing a lot to improve their company image and hopefully their situation will improve.

I do use CDC quite often and the ease of using the apps helps. I can check the price of crypto easily as it is updated in real-time and I do have a few thousand dollars stake on their platform to earn interest.

Sign up using my referral link

Hodlnaut

Platforms like BinanceSG and Coinhako that does not offer staking as a service. Hence, I do transfer a certain portion of my crypto that I have purchased from these 2 platforms and store it onto Hodlnaut.

Hodlnaut is a money lending platform and they will give you interest if you deposit cryptocurrency onto their platform. It is also on the MAS list.

To diversify my investment, I stake a certain portion of my cryptocurrency on CDC and Hodlnaut. I also have an active amount used for trading.

Hodlnaut provides a decent interest for BTC and eth but slightly lesser for stable coins compared to CDC. Hence, do check before depositing your money onto these platforms.

You can sign up to hodlnaut using my affliated link

Other noteworthy places to buy crypto

There are simply too many places to buy crypto in Singapore. You can also consider the following:

Lunos (On MAS list)

This is a rather famous company that allows you to buy and sell crypto. It also offers interest while the crypto is on the platform.

Coinbase (On MAS List)

Coinbase is another market leader in terms of cryptocurrency. They have a large stake in the crypto market. You can definitely also trust them to buy and sell cryptocurrency.

Warning

Trading bitcoin is a risky investment and you should always trade only money that you can afford to lose. Even those that are license by MAS has a disclaimer that you will not get your money back if they liquidate. Even key crypto players have issues and they may cause you to lose your money.