Myanmar anti-coup activists see crypto as the solution to overcome military rule

Myanmar exiles ousted in a 2021 coup are pressing the US Federal Reserve to endorse their bid to use billions of dollars in funds frozen by the US to back a digital currency. This would enable them to establish a new central bank for the opposition National Unity Government, Bloomberg News reported. “We just need the US blessing that allows us to use the frozen money virtually,” Tin Tun Naing, the exiled National Unity Government’s minister of planning, finance and investment, said in an interview with the news agency. The amount sought by the exiled opposition leaders is part of…

Myanmar exiles ousted in a 2021 coup are pressing the US Federal Reserve to endorse their bid to use billions of dollars in funds frozen by the US to back a digital currency.

This would enable them to establish a new central bank for the opposition National Unity Government, Bloomberg News reported.

“We just need the US blessing that allows us to use the frozen money virtually,” Tin Tun Naing, the exiled National Unity Government’s minister of planning, finance and investment, said in an interview with the news agency.

The amount sought by the exiled opposition leaders is part of Myanmar’s reserves that have been frozen by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since February 2021, when the country’s armed forces seized power in the country.

Establishing a new central bank

If the exiles can get US support, they would then seek to establish a new central bank that could issue the digital currency to help support the opposition’s “revolutionary efforts,” Tin Tun Naing said.

He noted that the plan to issue currency against the reserves as a more feasible alternative to asking the US to free the cash entirely, which is rather unlikely.

Rest of the reserves held in Singapore, Thailand and Japan

The US Treasury Department, which helps enforce sanctions, directed questions related to the initiative to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but there, a spokesperson declined to comment.

The unsanctioned rest of Myanmar’s foreign-currency reserves, believed to total in the low billions of dollars, are being kept in Singapore, Thailand and Japan, Tin Tun Naing said.