The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday reiterated its warning that investing in cryptocurrencies bears high risks, adding that in Taiwan, only fundraising through security token offerings (STOs) is regulated by the commission.
The commission’s remarks came after the collapse of Bahamas-based FTX, which filed for bankruptcy last week after withdrawals from consumers and a failed rescue deal with Binance Holdings Ltd (幣安).
At a news conference held by local cryptocurrency exchange Pionex (派網) in Taipei, a Taiwanese investor said that before FTX’s collapse, he had invested in cryptocurrencies for about a year, attracted by the platform’s return of 5 to 8 percent, but he has now lost all his investment.
Photo: Reuters
As FTX is registered and operates overseas, it is not regulated by the commission, but Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Roger Lin (林志吉) said the commission would monitor how foreign regulators address the fallout from FTX’s bankruptcy.
The commission has not received complaints or reports from local investors, but it would contact local cryptocurrency exchanges to see if they have partnered with FTX or have launched joint products, FSC Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) said on Monday.
The collapse of FTX and the exchange’s native token FTT, as well as the impact on other popular cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, show that cryptocurrencies are highly volatile and cannot help investors hedge against other investment targets, so investors should be extremely careful, Huang added.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
RSS