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Singapore: the blockchain city testing the tech for the rest of us
Singapore is famous for its use of technology, be it driverless buses or robot suits for firefighters. After all, it’s easier to implement new ideas when your country is small and tightly controlled. Now Singapore has evolved into a testbed for blockchain in government, taking the use of the distributed digital ledger technology beyond finance and into public service.
That’s been encouraged via grants and funding doled out by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the Singapore Blockchain Innovation Programme (SBIP), which has driven a variety of projects across government and industry.
At the centre of the city-state’s blockchain efforts is the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). This has trialled blockchain for serious banking functions, including settlement and clearing, and is even working on building its own blockchain infrastructure.
What’s behind such work? “The main motivation for Singapore’s push into blockchain was the promise of improved efficiency and transparency in public systems, especially financial infrastructure,” says Chia Ling Koh, Managing Director at OC Queen Street LLC, part of legal firm Osborne Clarke.
While Singapore is all-in on blockchain, it doesn’t mean it’s ignoring other technologies – or requires all partners to suddenly get deep into crypto to work with the city-state.
“Singapore adopts a pragmatic and ‘tech-neutral’ stance to blockchain, incorporating the technology only where it provides demonstrable benefits in terms of interoperability and efficiency,” says Koh.
“Although companies do not need to be blockchain-savvy to do business in Singapore, a general understanding of the government’s regulatory approach to blockchain, especially in the financial and payment services sector, is helpful.”
Singapore’s financial starting point
Back in 2016, MAS started its work on blockchain for financial purposes with Project Ubin. This five-phase series of trials and research aimed to uncover how to use the technology for clearing and settlement, in particular to reduce the costs of such financial transactions. Nor did it go alone, working with organisations such as Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric.
In 2022, MAS rebooted the idea with Project Ubin+, focusing on cross border settlements. Here, the aim was better interoperability between financial systems and evaluating the role for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). For example, it tested cross-border transactions using CBDCs, alongside the central banks of Australia, Malaysia and South Africa.
“Project Ubin showed that the use of blockchain for interbank settlements is viable, and has since led to Partior, a live settlement platform backed by DBS, JPMorgan and Temasek,” says Koh.
Co-founder Standard Chartered went live with Partior in May 2024, making it the first European settlement bank to use the system for transactions between Hong Kong and Singapore in Euros.
In 2021, MAS launched Project Orchid. This considered “purpose bound money”, tokens that could only be used for a specific purpose, perhaps as part of a subsidy or government support.
Beyond such projects, MAS has backed crypto via regulatory support and licensing, issuing 13 digital payment token licences last year for a total 29. And last year, MAS announced plans to issue wholesale CBDC to settle transactions and retail payments between banks.
While MAS is putting plenty of effort into finding ways to put blockchain to work in finance, Koh notes that these projects remain trials. “As many MAS projects are pilot stage or confined to regulatory sandboxes, it is still early to say whether any of them are unsuccessful,” he points out.
Singapore & blockchain: outside finance
While MAS has perhaps led the way in Singapore’s use of blockchain, there are plenty of other ways the tool has been used in government. “Blockchain is used in sectors such as education, trade and supply and bunkering,” says Koh.
He points to two examples, one from education and the other in trade. “For example, OpenCerts is a Singapore public service built on the Ethereum blockchain for verifying educational certificates.
“In the trade and supply context, TradeTrust is a public blockchain-based system allowing governments and businesses to exchange and verify electronic trade documents across platforms.”
The government is also working on a digital service to manage bunkering, which refers to refueling ships – a huge business for Singapore, one of the world’s main bunkering hubs.
Last year, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore announced that, from 2025, suppliers must offer digital bunkering services such as digital delivery notes. While companies need not specifically use blockchain, systems are popping up to supply that service using TradeTrust.
The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) created TrustBar, a platform for checking business information such as company names, directors and addresses, with all the data stored on the blockchain. That also allows companies to set up more quickly, filing their data in a verifiable, transparent way.
Previously, such data was shared via PDFs, but those are easily faked, with ACRA saying using blockchain allows for data to be checked for authenticity and ensure it’s accurate in real-time.
What’s next in Singapore’s blockchain adventure
Koh says there’s are a few clear trends for blockchain in Singapore and elsewhere. “Asset tokenization at scale also continues to be a focal point both in Singapore and globally,” he says.
Another challenge facing blockchain is sustainability – Bitcoin alone uses as much energy as Poland, though power consumption depends on the type of blockchain and how it’s used. That could stymie the use of full, open blockchains in favour of less energy demanding technology, Koh notes.
“At present, the energy-intensiveness of open chains has resulted in a focus on developing applications using permissioned closed chains,” says Koh. “Moving forward, sustainability and scalability will be important factors guiding the development and use cases of blockchain.”
And keep an eye on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
“China is pushing ahead with its CBDC, the digital yuan, as well as its blockchain-based Service Network,” says Koh. “Given the current geopolitical climate, Singapore is likely to watch China’s developments in this space very closely.”
He adds: “However, the standardization of protocols between countries is likely to remain a key challenge to the widespread adoption of China’s CBDC, and for that matter any blockchain Singapore wishes to put into production.”
Indeed, it’s worth emphasising once again that Singapore is largely still trialling blockchain technology, so it’s worth watching which projects stick. And remembering it remains early days for blockchain, even in Singapore.
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