- 2 months ago
Aaron Tang of Luno APAC shares insights on Malaysia’s crypto market trends, regulatory clarity, Shariah-compliant products, and strategic vision for 2026.
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00:00Alright, cryptocurrency has had a transformative year in 2025, marked by bullish sentiment, regulatory clarity and growing institutional interest across Asia-Pacific.
00:10As Malaysia's crypto market measures, questions around adoption, taxation and innovation are shaping the next phase of growth.
00:17So joining us today is Aaron Tang, the General Manager APEC at Luna Malaysia to unpack the key trends driving the industry, explore the outlook for 2026.
00:26Alright, Aaron, firstly, we see that the market dynamics and institutional outlook.
00:30In your recent commentary, you noted a bullish outlook for Malaysia's crypto market in the second half of 2025, with institutional appetite rising globally.
00:39So to what extent is Luna preparing for a sustained institutional inflow and how close are Malaysian family offices and also corporates to mainstream crypto adoption?
00:49Please.
00:51Morning, Nabila. Thank you for having me.
00:52The question around sustained institutional inflow and how close Malaysian offices and corporates are.
00:59So we've been preparing all year. We've been preparing since last year, actually, for institutional adoption.
01:05And in many of our markets overseas, we are seeing tremendous, tremendous growth.
01:10And I think that 2026 is going to be a big year for Malaysian institutional crypto adoption.
01:16A couple of hints that we see in the market. Why I'm saying this.
01:19Number one, regulatory clarity. So we've seen a lot, a lot of good news coming from the regulators, whether it's Bank Negara, whether it's the Securities Commission.
01:26I think there's a recognition in Malaysia that digital assets are the future and that there's definitely a lot of support from the government agencies and regulators.
01:35And I think one interesting data point is also last September, we organized the first digital asset conference for institutional investors, for institutions.
01:44It was the first of the first of its kind in Malaysia and very, very, very, very promising turn out.
01:50We had so many banks coming in to see us.
01:52So we've seen a lot, a lot of good hints that people are preparing, institutions are preparing.
01:57And I think 2026 is going to be massive.
01:59That's a positive outlook going into 2026.
02:02But Malaysia's approach of treating crypto as a security has provided structure to the industry.
02:08So how have recent regulatory changes in 2024 to 2025 influenced investor confidence and user growth?
02:15Because looking ahead, which upcoming policies, whether in custody and also stable coins or investment rules even,
02:22that do you believe will most shape market scalability and also innovation?
02:26A couple of very, very exciting ones.
02:28So I'll talk about a few.
02:29So one is Bank Negara's involvement.
02:32So as we know, Bank Negara now has a digital asset innovation hub, which is run, of course, in collaboration and support with some of the other regulators,
02:40for example, the Securities Commission.
02:42So very, very interesting innovation hub.
02:45And then we know that Bank Negara is open to ideas, for example, like tokenized deposits, local Malaysian ringgits stable coins.
02:53So again, it's early days, right?
02:54But I think some of the ideas, some of the projects mentioned potentially in the consultation papers, those are very, very exciting, both for the worlds of digital assets and also financial institutions.
03:07Now, we also know that our primary regulator, which is the Securities Commission, we know that they are also going to allow more types of digital assets, more types of tokens in 2026.
03:20So we can look forward to our customers having more options in 2026.
03:24I think the final one I wanted to mention is that there's a whole lot of discussion around tokenization.
03:30So the act of actually taking an established asset, for example, whether it is a mutual fund or whether it is an ETF, the act of taking that and putting it on the blockchain to get tremendous technological advances and benefits,
03:43that talk has gone, you know, very, very hot all over the world.
03:47And I think we're going to see a lot of that happening in Malaysia.
03:50Again, the outlook and the encouragement from regulators there is tremendous.
03:54Let's look at the taxation and also investor behavior.
03:57With clearer tax treatment of crypto income being discussed in 2025, how do these tax rules influence everyday traders' decisions and also LUNO's product strategy?
04:08Does transparent tax guidance encourage long-term holding or push more short-term trading at the same time?
04:15The good news about the tax clarity is that it's not very different from what we're actually used to.
04:20So it is basically the rules are if you're using digital assets, if you're trading as a form of income, in other words, it is your second job or is your primary source of income, then you should be taxed according to income taxes, right?
04:34However, for the investor segment, the people who are investing in digital assets to basically build their wealth.
04:40So, for example, if they're investing in unit trust or other forms of investments, the tax treatment is actually the same in the sense that they would not be taxed on capital.
04:48So, actually, it's not too different from what we used to.
04:52Actually, it's very, very similar to what we used to.
04:54And I think the clarity just gives everyone a lot more confidence.
04:58I think even those who are actively trading, those who are very legitimate and want to make sure that they are in compliance with all the rules and regulations,
05:06this clarity is good because now they can declare all their income taxes according to the regulations.
05:12And I think for investors, it just gives everyone much more confidence that their investments are not going to be taxed as a form of income, but rather as a capital gains.
05:23We know that Luno being the first regulated platform offering Sharia-compliant ETH staking, so what has the response been from Muslim investors so far?
05:32And do you see scope to expand Sharia-compliant products beyond Ethereum?
05:36We've been very, very encouraged by the support, actually, from our Muslim investors, and I'll just put that into numbers.
05:44So, before we launched the Ethereum staking certification by our advisors, that was roughly one year ago.
05:55And since that one year, we've seen the amount of staked assets go up by roughly 30%.
06:00So, it is a huge, huge achievement for us because we saw a tremendous, tremendous uptick by our investor segment.
06:08But I think more importantly, the comments that we got, not just quantitative, right, qualitative comments that we got from our investors.
06:15People were saying that, you know, I can now invest with confidence.
06:18According to my values, right, I can invest with confidence.
06:20So, that was really, really nice to see.
06:22And we definitely have a long roadmap of Sharia-compliant assets up ahead.
06:28For example, last month, well, last two months, we actually announced Sharia-compliant staking for Solana and Cardano.
06:36So, those are two other assets.
06:37And then definitely next year, we'll be looking to add more and more to our Sharia-compliant roadmap.
06:42But despite all that confidence, we know that Malaysian user base grows past $800,000.
06:48So, in your opinion, what are your top priorities in upgrading platform security, custody standards, and also fraud prevention, especially with scams evolving rapidly in 2025 and moving forward?
07:00Yeah, I'm proud to say that we've actually surpassed more than 1 million customers in Malaysia already.
07:05So, that's very, very, very, very happy news for us.
07:09The concerning thing is, of course, as you mentioned, Nabila, the amount of frauds and scams and so on.
07:14I think where we are focusing the majority of our efforts on would definitely be more on the education and awareness.
07:23Because, unfortunately, the number one way that scammers, fraudsters actually target our customers is not that they are, you know, breaking into customers' accounts or so on.
07:34It is, unfortunately, customers are clicking a suspicious link or customers, they are downloading a malware into their own device.
07:41And this, unfortunately, will allow the attackers to start doing things to their systems, their accounts and so on.
07:49So, I think the number one thing that we need to get out more and shout out louder is that customers have to make sure that they are not downloading strange attachments from online or they are not, you know, sharing their credentials with unknown parties and so on.
08:07And it can be hard for customers to make the differentiation.
08:11It can be hard because some of these impersonation scammer apps, they look very, very similar to the real thing.
08:17However, if you look a bit deeper, they are actually scammers.
08:21So, I think we're going to focus a lot more on shouting out on these education and awareness campaigns.
08:26And I think it's what we need to continue doing throughout the new year.
08:30All right, we need to know your insights as the GM's regional role since taking the APOC role.
08:36What regional differences in crypto adoption have surprised you the most?
08:40And how is the Luno tailoring strategy for markets like Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and beyond that?
08:47It's quite interesting because every market has its own character.
08:51So, for example, I'll differentiate maybe in Malaysia.
08:54Malaysia is very much more of an investor market.
08:56So, there are a lot of people who are buying and holding, buying and, you know, price goes up, price goes down.
09:02You may see sentiments, comments, but you actually see a lot of people just holding their digital assets.
09:09So, they're in it for the long term.
09:11And I would say that that's the majority of Malaysian investors.
09:15Now, if you go to a market like Indonesia, for example, the market there is very, very much more, I would say, a trader market.
09:21So, people are very, very actively trading.
09:23And they're not just trading Bitcoin, Ethereum, they're trading some of the more exotic and interesting coins as well.
09:30Now, if you look like a country like Australia, Australia is very much a first world country.
09:34So, the behavior is that more of, again, an investor market.
09:40And you'll see that in Australia, people tend to hold their assets more as opposed to sending out to global platforms and so on.
09:48So, very, very interesting country by country perspective.
09:52But I think the most important thing for us, our strategy is the trust.
09:56So, whether it's Malaysia, Indonesia, any other country in Asia, the most important thing is for us, the trust that our customers have with us.
10:03We never want to take that for granted.
10:05And I think next year is also going to be big for us, the institutional focus.
10:10So, getting digital assets into the hands of institutions.
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