KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's digital asset market continued to grow last year despite market uncertainties following Covid-19, with about RM21 billion in digital assets traded across the four registered digital asset exchanges (DAXs).
The Securities Commission (SC) said investor interest boosted the total number of investment accounts by nearly 300 per cent to about 760,000 from more than 190,000 in 2020.
"Investors aged below 35 years comprised the largest segment at 62 per cent, holding more than 470,000 accounts as at end-2021," the SC said in its Annual Report 2021 released today.
The commission continued to facilitate new digital assets on DAXs, with the approval of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in March 2021 as an additional permissible digital asset.
Other digital assets permitted to be traded on DAXs include Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum and LiteCoin.
The SC said digital investment management (DIM) segment expanded its capital market offerings with total assets under management (AUM) of more than RM1 billion as at end-2021.
Higher retail interest in the equity market during the pandemic pushed digital brokers to new highs, gaining a retail market share of 5.45 per cent with total number of accounts having risen more than 50 per cent to about 251,000 in 2021 (2020: more than 165,000).
The DIM segment attracted and served the younger demography of investors, with more than 70 per cent of participating individual investors in DIM comprising those aged below 35 years and attracting the participation of first-time investors.
"The emergence of spare change investing, where spare changes from investors' purchases are rounded-up and invested into funds, has also allowed investors to begin investing with small investment amounts with ease," it said.
Another DIM company was licenced last year, bringing the number of DIM companies currently in operation to eight.