“FTX is not the first cryptocurrency platform to collapse, nor will it be the last,” said Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong while answering lawmakers' questions about the crypto giant’s rapid failure in early November.

The country's parliament put financial regulators and the Ministry of Finance in the hot seat on Wednesday with a series of questions about crypto regulation and the potential impact of FTX’s demise on the broader economy.

Since the collapse, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which was one of the first in the world to set up a rigorous regulatory regime for crypto companies, has had to answer tough questions about its treatment of crypto entities – particularly why the regulator had placed FTX’s rival Binance on an investor alert list (IAL) but had allowed state fund Temasek to invest in the former.

Wong, who is also deputy chairman of the country’s central bank, reiterated that the IAL targets crypto companies that solicit Singapore customers without a requisite license.

“This does not mean that all entities which are not listed on the IAL are safe to deal with. MAS cannot possibly provide an exhaustive list of all the unsafe or unlicensed entities that exist in the world,” Wong said, answering questions on behalf of the MAS.

Singapore made up 6% of FTX’s global customer distribution, according to a chart shown during FTX’s bankruptcy hearing. Wong said on Wednesday that the MAS does not have data on the “number of retail users of FTX.”

(By Sandali Handagama, Lavender Au)