. since the beginning of last year, the daily value of bitcoin against the us dollar has fluctuated about 20 times more than the singapore dollar did against the us dollar. people may buy some crypto tokens to speculate on their values. but with such volatility, i doubt they will put their retirement savings into them. crypto tokens also fail as a unit of account. how many entities do we know of, which maintain 1 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches their financial statements in crypto tokens? so, does it mean that crypto tokens can never become money? with technology, we can never say never. a second generation of crypto tokens is emerging, to address some of the current challenges related to network congestion, transaction time, energy costs, money laundering risks, and importantly, price stability. some of the best minds in the field are applying their creative energies to make crypto tokens mainstream. not all developers and programmers in the crypto world are anti - establishment anarchists. many may have been 10 years ago, but a growing number are married and have kids now! they know the value of stability. the litmus test will be public trust and acceptance. basically, the history of privately issued money has not been an inspiring one. will people put their faith in money that is not backed by a trusted public institution like a central bank dedicated to protecting its value? perhaps – if an algorithm can mimic the reaction function of a central bank and preserve the value of the crypto token better than central banks can do with respect to fiat currencies. we have to wait and see. the good, bad, and ugly of crypto tokens whether crypto tokens become money or not, they are here and they pose a variety of issues – the good, the bad, and the ugly. let me start with the good. as many have pointed out, far more significant than the crypto token is the underlying blockchain technology that these tokens help to power. the blockchain has two distinct characteristics that hold promise. first, it is a distributed ledger. it provides a record of who owns a given asset at any moment in time and an immutable record of all transactions in that asset. second, it is a protocol for establishing trust among diverse parties in a decentralised system : where everyone has access to the same record ; the data are secured by advanced cryptography ; and transactions are executed by

ravi menon : fintech in its element - water, metal, fire, wood, earth speech by mr ravi menon, managing director of the monetary authority of singapore, at the singapore fintech festival 2022, singapore, 3 november 2022. * * * good morning, and welcome to day 2 of the singapore fintech festival. it's great to be able to meet in person after three long years. pandemic and lockdowns notwithstanding, fintech innovation has marched on briskly. if anything, digitalisation has gathered pace and become more pervasive. yes, in the realm of a crypto assets, a harsh winter has set in, even fears of an ice age. but i believe it is an overdue cleansing of unsustainable business models, highly risky practices, and unviable use cases. the digital asset industry will emerge leaner and stronger. but more of that later. fintech in singapore has continued to push new frontiers. there has been a surge in collaborations across businesses, financial institutions, fintech start - ups, and even central banks. in 2021, fintech investments in singapore hit a high of us $ 3. 9 billion, compared to us $ 0. 9 billion in 2019. i will focus my remarks today on five key problems that fintech collaboration in singapore is trying to solve. these problems will resonate with many industry players as among the biggest pain points crying for a solution. but before we get into the problems, some wisdom from ancient china. according to the chinese philosophy of wu xing, there are five fundamental elements that function as cosmic agents of change : water, metal, fire, wood, earth. in describing the fintech projects aimed at solving each of the five problems, i will relate them to the properties of these five elements. the five key outcomes we want to achieve through our collaborative fintech projects are : instant remittance atomic settlement programmable money tokenised assets trusted sustainability data 1 / 11 bis - central bankers'speeches flowing like water - instant remittance ( project nexus ) the first desired outcome is instant remittance. the advent of real - time payment systems over the last few years has made domestic payments flows seamless in many countries. today, with paynow, we can make 24 / 7 real - time transfers using just mobile numbers or unique entity numbers. but the world has not solved the cross - border payment problem. for most people, it remains slow, costly,