Gopay Acquires "Kripto Maksima Koin", GoTo Financial's Strategy to Enter the Blockchain Ecosystem

PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk (IDX: GOTO) acquired 100% shares owned by PT Kripto Maksima Koin as a step to enter the crypto world. The company took over 50.000 shares, equivalent to 124,8 billion Rupiah.

Based on an official statement on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), the majority of Crypto Maksima's shares were taken over by a subsidiary of PT Dompet Karya Anak Bangsa (Gopay) for 99,98%, while the remaining 0,02% by GoTo.

This acquisition is reminiscent of corporate actions taken Gojek in 2016 against PT MV Commerce Indonesia. At that time the acquisition was made to support platform development e-money Their main company, namely Gopay, remembers getting a license from Bank Indonesia is quite complicated.

GoTo representatives revealed that this corporate action became the company's strategy to become "money management hub" with various products. "We believe that technology blockchain will have a mainstream role in the future of finance," said the GoTo representative.

No further elaboration on this post-acquisition plan. Based on monitoring DailySocial.id, there is no information available on Crypto Maksima Coin official website.

Crypto Maksima itself has been registered with CoFTRA since January 2022 as a Prospective Crypto Asset Physical Trader. So far, the regulator has granted permits to 25 companies, including:

Permit issuance moratorium

CoFTRA has just announced termination of issuance of registration permits for prospective physical traders of crypto assets which is effective as of August 15, 2022. This decision is contained in Circular Letter Number 208/BAPPEBTI/SE/08/2022. Meanwhile, this termination applies to crypto physical asset actors who intend to apply for a license in the form of a registration as a potential crypto asset physical trader.

According to Plt. Head of CoFTRA Didid Noordiatmoko, this step was taken to realize transparent, effective and efficient physical market trading activities for crypto assets in an atmosphere of fair competition in order to protect the interests of all parties.

"And, to increase the effectiveness of CoFTRA's supervision of prospective crypto asset physical traders in carrying out trading activities on the physical crypto asset market. Therefore, it is necessary to stop issuing registration marks as prospective physical crypto asset traders," he said.

Last year, CoFTRA issued CoFTRA Regulation Number 8 of 2021 concerning Guidelines for the Implementation of Physical Market Trading on the Futures Exchange. There are eight conditions in the policy that was set on October 29, 2021. Meanwhile, Crypto Maksima Koin is included in the list of 24 companies that have obtained permission from CoFTRA after the regulation was issued.

As of July 22, 2022, CoFTRA noted that the number of crypto transactions in Indonesia had reached Rp232,45 trillion or an average of Rp33,2 trillion per month. Meanwhile, the total crypto investors in Indonesia reached 15,57 million people during this period.

Meanwhile, the volume of crypto asset transactions in Southeast Asia reached more than $57,7 billion or around IDR859,4 trillion compared to the previous year.