Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia Zahidi Zainul believes that Malaysia should accept Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a legal tender.
Zainul put forward a proposal to accept Bitcoin as legal tender in the Malaysia Parliament on Monday. “We hope the government can allow this,” said Zaihidi “We are trying to see how we can legalize this so that we can develop youth participation in crypto and assist them.”
Currently, Malaysia ranks 23rd on Chainalysis’ 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index. This shows the country is comfortable with cryptocurrency transactions and could react well to the legalization of them.
The way to legalize Bitcoin as legal tender was paved by El Salvador, who officially adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in September of 2021. Although the adoption of Bitcoin in El Salvador according to business owners hasn’t had much of an impact. Currently, a mere 14% of businesses have transacted with Bitcoin.
According to a Bloomberg report, Malaysia’s central bank hasn’t announced any plans to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender yet. Despite this in September 2021, Malaysia joined a trial for Project Dunbar, with the Bank for International Settlements. In January the central bank announced they were working on a proof of concept for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
Project Dunbar is testing the uses cases of CBDCs. Along with Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, and South Africa have also joined the project.
