The cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has secured an MPI payments licence in Singapore.
On 8 September 2026, Gemini Digital Payments Singapore Pte. Ltd. (GDPSPL) announced that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) had granted it a Major Payment Institution (MPI) licence, the top tier of authorisation under the city-state’s Payment Services Act 2019, putting the exchange on a permanent regulatory footing in one of Asia’s most closely watched digital-asset hubs.
The MPI licence is the most demanding class of authorisation MAS issues for payment services. Under the Payment Services Act, a firm whose regulated activity runs above set monthly transaction thresholds must hold an MPI licence rather than the lighter Standard Payment Institution licence, and carries the full weight of MAS’s anti-money-laundering, safeguarding, financial-soundness and conduct requirements. For a digital-asset business, it is the tier that allows regulated digital payment token (DPT) services to be offered at scale to Singapore customers.
What Gemini runs in Singapore
GDPSPL said it currently offers spot trading for digital assets, alongside custody and over-the-counter (OTC) services, to customers in the country. Gemini has operated in Singapore since 2020, and the licence formalises a footprint the exchange had been building for years under the transitional arrangements that let applicants keep serving customers while their applications are assessed. With the MPI licence granted, that activity now sits on a full, standalone authorisation rather than a provisional one.
Gemini’s founders framed the licence as validation of a long-running bet on Singapore.
“Securing the MPI license from MAS validates our commitment and investment into Singapore. We’ve been in Singapore serving customers since 2020 and are excited for what’s ahead,” said Cameron Winklevoss, Gemini’s president and co-founder.
“Singapore’s regulatory framework and status as a leading global financial center make it a natural strategic hub. With this license, we are well placed to continue serving both retail and institutional customers in Singapore,” said Tyler Winklevoss, Gemini’s chief executive and co-founder.
A selective gate
The approval lands against a backdrop of deliberately cautious licensing. MAS has repeatedly said it takes a selective, risk-based approach to digital-asset firms, weighing an applicant’s financial health, business model and track record before granting authorisation, and approval rates have run low across the sector. A granted MPI licence, in that context, is less a formality than a signal that a firm has cleared a demanding bar; Gemini joins a relatively small group of exchanges to have done so in Singapore.
Why it matters for compliance teams
An MPI licence is a beginning, not an endpoint. Licensed DPT providers carry continuing obligations that sit at the centre of supervisory attention: segregating and safeguarding customer money and assets, meeting anti-money-laundering and countering-the-financing-of-terrorism controls, applying the travel-rule information requirements to token transfers, and satisfying risk-management, reporting and financial-soundness standards. For Gemini, the licence converts those duties from application commitments into live, examinable requirements, the day-to-day substance of holding the authorisation.
For the wider market, the grant is another data point in a steady pattern: established exchanges are increasingly choosing to operate inside clear regulatory perimeters rather than around them, and jurisdictions with a defined rulebook. Singapore, among the most developed, is where that consolidation is happening. How Gemini and its licensed peers sustain those standards in practice, and how MAS supervises a growing roster of authorised digital-asset firms, will be the more telling story now that the licence itself is in hand.
