The central bank and the Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday warned against bitcoin use in Taiwan, saying the virtual currency does not enjoy legal protections.
The regulators also said they may take necessary steps if financial institutions engage in bitcoin business, according to a joint statement issued yesterday.
The warning came after several monetary and financial regulators around the world have made similar moves in recent weeks to discourage bitcoin transactions, as the digital money gains in popularity and value.
“Bitcoin holders are on their own, as the currency is not issued by any monetary authority and is therefore not entitled to legal claims or guarantee of conversion,” the regulators said in the statement.
Bitcoin is not a real currency or a commonly accepted payment tool given its volatile values and its inability to be used for book-keeping or debit purposes, they said.
The official currency, the New Taiwan dollar, is guaranteed all legal protections, according to the statement.
Central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said last month he and his colleagues have kept a close watch on the development of bitcoin and compared its transactions to deals in precious metals.
The central bank and the commission have not issued warnings against investment in gold or other precious metals.
The two regulators painted bitcoin trading as highly speculative, and said holders should watch out for drastic volatility, malicious default, hacker attack, Internet theft and other risks.
Transactions in the virtual currency could also be connected to money laundering, smuggling, drug trafficking and other illegal activities, they said. However, SinoPac Financial Holding Co (永豐金控) earlier lent support to investment in bitcoins, saying it is to increase in value and popularity, in keeping with the fast-growing prevalence of e-commerce.
Transaction risks are minimal and bearable like all other investment instruments, SinoPac Financial chief economist Jack Huang (黃蔭基) said on Dec 4.
Meanwhile, a Taiwanese online shopping service operator plans to start accepting the virtual currency on its shopping site tomorrow and welcomes Beijing’s ban on Chinese financial institutions handling bitcoin transactions, because it could create new business opportunities.
Chinese people who possess bitcoins are expected to be more willing to use the digital money for online shopping because it’s harder for them to take advantage of appreciations in the currency’s value since the People’s Bank of China imposed the ban on Dec. 7, according to sources at Wayi International Digital Entertainment Co (華義國際).
However, given the volatility of bitcoin’s value, the company will limit its holdings of the new type of payment instrument to control risks.
Additional reporting by CNA
This time was supposed to be different. The memorychip sector, famous for its boom-and-bust cycles, had changed its ways. A combination of more disciplined management and new markets for its products — including 5G technology and cloud services — would ensure that companies delivered more predictable earnings. Yet, less than a year after memory companies made such pronouncements, the US$160 billion industry is suffering one of its worst routs ever. There is a glut of the chips sitting in warehouses, customers are cutting orders and product prices have plunged. “The chip industry thought that suppliers were going to have better control,” said
Enimmune Corp (安特羅生技) has obtained marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its EnVAX-A71 vaccine for enterovirus 71 (EV-71), becoming the nation’s first enterovirus vaccine completely made in Taiwan, it said yesterday. After spending 13 years and NT$1.5 billion (US$49.77 million) on the research and development of the vaccine, Enimmune plans to start manufacturing and marketing it by the end of March, the company said in a statement, without disclosing customer order figures. “It is possible that the vaccine would not be included in a national vaccination program initially, and consumers would need to pay for it themselves,” parent
Vaccine skeptics blocking transfusions for life-saving surgeries, Facebook groups inciting violence against doctors and a global search for unvaccinated donors — COVID-19 misinformation has bred a so-called “pure blood” movement. The movement spins anti-vaccine narratives focused on unfounded claims that receiving blood from people inoculated against COVID-19 “contaminates” the body. Some have advocated for blood banks that draw from “pure” unvaccinated people, while medics in North America say they have fielded requests from people demanding transfusions from donors who have not received a vaccine. In closed social media groups, vaccine skeptics — who brand themselves as “pure bloods” — promote violence against doctors
Asteroid mining start-up AstroForge Inc is planning to launch its first two missions to space this year as it seeks to extract and refine metals from deep space. The first launch, scheduled for April, is to test AstroForge’s technique for refining platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material. The second, planned for October, would scout for an asteroid near Earth to mine. The missions are part of AstroForge’s goal of refining platinum-group metals from asteroids, with the aim of bringing down the cost of mining these metals. It also hopes to reduce the massive amount of carbon emissions that stem from mining