
Indonesia, trailing just behind the United States as the fourth most populous country in the world, has a large and growing bitcoin community. The vast population is 80 percent unbanked, and their Rupiah is one of the most-traded currencies for bitcoin worldwide already. Bitcoin.com interviewed Suasti Atmastuti Astaman, the Business Development Manager of Indonesian bitcoin exchange Bitcoin.co.id.
Majority Market Share
Bitcoin.com (BC): What’s your market share of the Indonesian bitcoin market?

Our daily transaction volume can reach up to 1.5 million USD per day. And we are listed as one of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges in Southeast Asia.
I believe we control for more than 70% Bitcoin transaction in Indonesia, considering we are the biggest Bitcoin exchange in Indonesia.
Indonesian Bitcoin Market
BC: Can you describe the bitcoin market in Indonesia?

There are a lot of people in Indonesia that love to take profit from trading, not just cryptocurrency, but also stocks and foreign exchange. Apparently, they love Bitcoin just as much since the price tends to fluctuate a lot. For people who love the idea of Bitcoin as a new form of money, they are going to hate knowing that there a lot of people taking profit from Bitcoin trading but that’s the fact and it contributes quite a lot to our trading volume.
But of course, there are also people who buy Bitcoin in order to shop (mostly online) or to make transactions in various MLM or money game websites.
Main Uses of Bitcoin
BC: What main uses of bitcoin are you seeing in Indonesia?

Personally, as we are serving in a country where there are at least 80% of unbanked people in the market due to our vast region and there are more than 250 million people in term of population with remittance market cap reaching around 7 billion US dollar a year, it is only right if we try to use Bitcoin to support remittance services and make it easier, faster and cheaper for people to transfer money from anywhere around the world to Indonesia or vice versa.
Digital cash such as Bitcoin will allow people to hold their own money without involving any third parties—this surely will make them interested in giving it a chance. I believe there will be a lot of people in Southeast Asia, where there are thousands of people working overseas and transferring money back home, who will find Bitcoin exciting and a great way to transfer money.
Regulations
BC: What does the Indonesian government say about bitcoin?
BI: Other than giving an official statement about how they see Bitcoin, which you can see here, the Indonesian government hasn’t made any important moves to restrict or facilitate bitcoin transactions in Indonesia.

With no clear regulation, we’re operating as a marketplace that obeys the usual regulation regarding financial transactions in Indonesia which is collecting their ID, asking their sources of funds and the purpose of their transactions. We do this to comply with the KYC in order to prevent money laundering happening within the country using Bitcoin.
Future Adoption Prospect
BC: How fast are you expecting bitcoin adoption to grow going forward?
BI: With clear regulation, minimum amount of bad press, and huge effort in marketing? Soon, I guess. Even without those three, people are starting to love bitcoin more and more and treat it as a great way to invest. They start reading news about what’s happening around the cryptocurrency world in other countries, and there are a lot of positive news nowadays to keep Bitcoin interesting and people engaged.
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