How come crypto is so popular in Indonesia? Even the investors are unpredictable.
We found a very prominent person in the cryptocurrency circle in Indonesia. His name is Ananda Badudu, a 32-year old man. Has the characteristics of dreamy eyes with a slightly muscular body. In his country, he is a famous activist and musician of the gentle folk-pop genre.
He used to play his guitar softly at the cafe in the Jakarta area. It seems hard to imagine that he is a crypto figure who likes to battle Twitter or do evangelism on Telegram.
Ananda Badudu’s initial capital on crypto tokens is only $20. His interest in crypto stems from an incident that upset him. At first, he saves his money on insurance services that could be enough for his wedding expenses.
However, the pandemic suddenly came and forced Ananda to withdraw his money. Unfortunately, when he withdrew his money, he found that the money in the account was not what he expected. Ananda Badudu believes that security will be easy to find in rupiah currency or when it gets support from the government.
Data on the Development of Crypto Enthusiasts in Indonesia
Since the past few years,, cryptocurrency enthusiasts in Indonesia have increased very rapidly. Many reasons for these people. Some of them stem from disappointment with hard currencies; some are experiencing bad financial times during the pandemic. These people then look for alternative ways to make money fast. Data for 2020 states that almost $4.5 billion crypto assets were in circulation in Indonesia and a 10-fold increase to $50 billion this year.
In addition to the reasons above, another reason for the increase in crypto enthusiasts is that investing money in crypto tokens is very easy. You only need to prepare a cellphone with a working internet connection and an initial capital of 75 cents.
You can simply download an application for a leading crypto provider, such as Pintu or Indodax, and a Binance-Supported application like Tokocrypto. The ease with which this application connects accounts with a virtual payment model makes new users appear more than stock investors.
Th lure of benefits offered by influencers is very interesting for the Indonesian people. The post-pandemic economy is also rapidly growing after experiencing a slump for several years.
Interestingly, this is reinforced by local governments and regulators who are following the trend of investing funds in cryptocurrencies with plans to create their crypto market by 2022. Crypto players also understand that financial understanding will increase according to the opportunities that exist. This is to avoid a potential crash that would damage this fast-growing market.
Senior Indonesian Crypto Enthusiast Comments
Antony Teo, an admin of the Cryptonesian Telegram group, stated this trend. He stated that many Indonesians suddenly tried many types of investments during the pandemic. The most popular types of investments such as stocks, investments, mutual funds, or anything that generates profits only with their mobile phone capital. “People are attracted by the high returns that crypto has, especially after people have shared their success stories, but don’t forget crypto is also high risk,” said Teo.
Another investor named Agus Artemis. He founded the largest crypto telegram group in Indonesia, Crypto. He knows Bitcoin since participating in a music competition in Russia and getting crypto to pay his reward. Initially, he had a pragmatic outlook.
He has tens of thousands of followers on Telegram and Instagram. However, he has another view as follows. “People only want to make profits. People still lack crypto literacy,” said Artemis.
This increase in crypto users can see from several hashtags circulating in Indonesia. Like the hashtag #SalamToTheMoon which got popular by Elon Musk with #ToTheMoon hashtag. They exchanged screenshots of the lively token valuation chart, shared opinions on the crypto winter, and many other crypto discussions.
The founder of Cryptonesia gave an additional statement regarding a low-income group trying their luck in the crypto world with minimal capital from many backgrounds. “They are very active, loud, and noisy, they are watching the charts every day, and overreact,” Teo said.
Crypto App From Indonesia Founders Comment
Tokocrypto Founder Comment
The founder of Tokocrypto, Teguh Kurniawan Harmanda, said that the average crypto enthusiast in his application is still young — people younger than 35. Teguh believes that young people in Indonesia have tolerance for potential losses. The reason is that they still have a lot of time in their youth to accept failure and take risks. Tokocrypto itself was founded in 2018. Now it has over 100 thousand active trades every week with a trading volume of $70 million daily.
Unfortunately, cryptocurrency is not a legal payment currency in Indonesia right now. Maybe you can’t buy street food in Jakarta using Bitcoin, however, you can buy and keep it via the exchange. In the past few years, to be exact, in 2018, only two cryptocurrencies were traded legally, but for now, 13 cryptocurrencies can be purchased officially on the Indonesian trading exchange.
Ananda Badudu himself started his crypto coin investment from Ripple’s XRP with a purchase value of $20. He uses Indodax as a crypto trading platform with the most users in Indonesia. Within a few days, the value of his investment rose to 300 percent. Unfortunately, this value decreases in just one month.
Pintu App CEO Comment
This drastic increase is what attracts new users. However, this effect is felt to be detrimental to regulators if this new user ignores the possible instability risk that will be borne. Therefore, ‘Pintu,’ which in English means door, is the first gateway for Indonesian people who will enter the world of cryptocurrencies.
Indodax itself provides a dictionary or glossary feature about foreign terms in the crypto world. These two applications become basic classes for beginners who will become enthusiasts of crypto tokens.
The founder of Pintu, Jeth Soetoyo gave a statement; “It is very scary for users to dive into crypto. Trying to understand everything and what crypto actually does is not easy.” He built an application that aims to answer the anxiety and confusion of new users. They mostly ask what they need to know about investing, and the applicator will answer their questions in great detail to make users hold their funds longer. Of course, this can also minimize the possibility of users choosing the wrong investment.
Indonesian Ordinary Literacy On Cryptocurrencies
Users need to understand many concepts and literacy in cryptocurrency transactions. This is necessary so as not to be careless in using the application. At least they understand the concept of digital wallets and smart contracts. This is what the COO of Tokocypto emphasized in a subsequent statement “We tried to open the door for a lot of people to the world of financial investment, which used to be mostly closed.”
No one is charged yet due to their involvement with fintech: platforms like GoPay fall under the financial regulator Financial Services Authority. However, crypto assets are being monitored by the Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency.
Now, the problem is that the literacy of cryptocurrencies is giving regulators some confusion. Some tokens originating from jokes on the internet, such as Shiba Inu and Dogecoin, have skyrocketing value. This makes BAPPEBTI have to keep up. To date, the agency recorded at least 224 types of crypto tokens in circulation at the last count.
Some of them are old tokens like Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Tether. Next up are “PlayGame” tokens like PancakeSwab and Abyss. We certainly hope that there is an official authority that regulates this mass trade. If an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) dealer steals Dogecoin in Indonesia, they will be processed through the applicable law with enough proof.
Ananda Badudu lost more than a thousand dollars in cryptocurrency. This amount is equivalent to the average income of Indonesians in a period of 4 months. Badudu stated that the money was a payment for learning.
Barriers to Crypto Development In Indonesia
Then how to proceed from unregulated transactions. Maybe it will have an impact on economic conditions in Southeast Asia and become a great learning opportunity for other countries that are emerging after several years of pandemic and deteriorating national economic conditions.
Charles D’Haussy gives further information. He was an official of the Hong Kong Government and chairman of ConsenSys. He said that if there is a strong Fintech company, then it has a chance to run into government authorities.
If there is no cooperation, maybe the two will try to hold their unique tokens, as happened in China. “Ultimately, you get a market that is controlled by several people, which then brings systemic risk to banks. Just like we saw in China,” said Charles.
On the last day of the NFT.NCY crypto conference, Pandu Sastrowatdoyo was a guest speaker from Indonesia itself. He is the co-founder of the IBA organization and has worked for the organization for six years. It states that Pandora’s Box is open.
And Indonesians will definitely use it. He emphasized that the only best way to control the circulation of cryptocurrencies is to make them legal. Unfortunately, our regulators are not brave enough to make a decision.
This is due to the decision of the MUI which prohibits crypto trading because it contains an element of uncertainty. This is prohibited in the rules of the Islamic religion adopted by the majority of Indonesian people.
Also, this means using crypto transactions becomes a gray area if you don’t get legal access right away. This makes Indonesia an attractive market with sizable crypto transactions every day. Although actually, the Singapore market looks more attractive as a place to escape after harsh rule from China.
Conclusion
Indonesians have a lot at stake. They just need a lot of outside influence to do something. But the strongest influence came from idealists and salespeople. People with a musical background, like Ananda Badudu might just be a problem for revolutionists.
His band is called Banda Neira, referring to the place or island where the Dutch exiled many Indonesian revolutionary figures. “If we look for other ways to fight the status quo, the crypto world will have a fighting chance,” he said.
