Anthony Pompliano: Singapore could embrace Bitcoin first

• Singapore has consistently been extremely open to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
• CoinShares’ chief strategist Meltem Demirors feels that Bitcoin has failed to remove intermediaries from its operations.

Bitcoin bull and Morgan Creek Digital co-founder Anthony Pompliano believes that Singapore will be the first country to embrace Bitcoin. He shared this while speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box alongside CoinShares’ chief strategist Meltem Demirors. Pompliano said:

“”¦Look at Singapore; Singapore’s saying, ‘Bring it on! We’re going to provide rules, we’re going to give you clarity and we want these companies here – we want the innovation, we want the entrepreneurs to come in,.”

Singapore has consistently been one of the foremost leaders in blockchain and crypto adoption. As reported by FX Street, they have abolished GST taxation on all crypto transactions. Along with that Singapore’s central bank and certain industry players have jointly created “Project Ubin,” which will use the blockchain technology for payments and securities clearance  

Demirors, on the other hand, took a far more cautious approach than Pompliano. She pointed out that while the most alluring thing about cryptos was that it removed unnecessary middlemen, it is currently depending on those same intermediaries to permit them to operate under their terms. She said:

“What the United States is saying is that you can have Bitcoin so long as you play by our rules”¦This whole movement is about eliminating our dependence on intermediaries”¦ we see large scale systemic risk coming from these large institutions and so the idea of Bitcoin doing away with these intermediaries is a good one, but we’ve become more and more dependent on intermediaries than ever.”