Singapore's $284B Crypto Flex Leaves the Rest of CSAO Eating Its Dust 🦁

Singapore's crypto economy expanded 55.4% to $284 billion in the year ended June 2026, reclaiming its position as the largest crypto market in Central and Southeast Asia and Oceania even as the broader regional economy contracted 6.8%, according to Chainalysis data shared with Cointelegraph. Institutional platform activity was the main driver, rising 94% to $60 billion and concentrated among a small group of market makers, over-the-counter trading firms and institutional brokerages. "The growth in Singapore's institutional platform ecosystem was very concentrated and marked by mostly high-volume activity by existing platforms rather than the dynamic entry of new services," Chainalysis said.

The gains come as the Monetary Authority of Singapore has tightened oversight of digital-asset firms while advancing tokenization, stablecoins and settlement initiatives. In 2025, MAS required local crypto companies serving overseas clients to obtain a license or exit. StraitsX CEO Tianwei Liu said the move reduced speculative activity while leaving banks and larger firms using blockchain in production. MAS has also expanded tokenization efforts through its BLOOM program, which supports trials using regulated stablecoins and tokenized bank money. On March 25, Ripple joined BLOOM to test cross-border trade settlement using RLUSD.

While Singapore's growth was institutional, Chainalysis flagged a surge in small-value peer-to-peer activity in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The three countries recorded a combined 5.4 million P2P transfers, both domestic and cross-border, worth less than $10,000 during the reporting period, representing 14.4% of the global total despite accounting for just 2.5% of global crypto economic activity. More than four in five domestic P2P transfers across the three markets were below $1,000, with an average transfer size of $618, compared with $1,210 across the rest of the world.

In the Philippines, the International Monetary Fund has said authorities view crypto use as primarily driven by remittances and investment, with World Bank data showing personal remittances were equivalent to 8.5% of GDP in 2025. In Vietnam, Tuoi Tre reported in June that P2P trading has become a key fiat gateway because the Vietnamese dong is not widely supported in direct crypto trading pairs, while Reuters reported in March that most Vietnamese traders rely on overseas exchanges. Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission said in September it had observed a significant increase in the volume and value of stablecoin transactions, particularly USDT, across domestic markets.