Crypto exchange Gemini has cleared a significant regulatory bar in one of Asia’s most closely watched financial hubs. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has granted the company a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license, Cointelegraph reported, formalizing an operation the Winklevoss-founded exchange has been building in the city-state for years.
The license was issued to Gemini Digital Payments Singapore Pte Ltd, the company’s locally incorporated entity. Under Singapore’s payments framework, an MPI license authorizes the holder to offer digital payment token services and cross-border money transfer services. Crucially, MPI holders are not bound by the transaction-volume caps that apply to smaller operators, though in exchange they face more comprehensive oversight, reflecting the larger scale and risk their activities carry.
Gemini’s leadership framed the approval as validation of a long-term bet on the region. Cameron Winklevoss, the exchange’s president and co-founder, noted that the company has served customers in Singapore since 2020. His brother Tyler Winklevoss, Gemini’s chief executive, described Singapore as “a strategic hub for serving retail and institutional clients,” language that signals ambitions beyond retail trading.
The full license is the end of a multi-step process. According to the report, MAS granted Gemini in-principle approval in October 2024. In April 2025, the exchange migrated its Singapore customers from Gemini Trust Company, which had been operating under an exemption, to the newly incorporated local entity. The full MPI authorization, dated September 9, 2026, completes that transition and puts the business on a permanent regulatory footing.
On the ground, Gemini’s Singapore menu includes spot crypto trading, digital asset custody and over-the-counter services, the building blocks for courting institutional clients who need both execution and safekeeping from a licensed provider. For those customers, a local license is often a prerequisite rather than a nicety: compliance teams at banks and funds tend to treat a recognized regulatory stamp as the minimum condition for doing business with a crypto venue.
Singapore has positioned itself as a jurisdiction that welcomes digital-asset firms willing to play by clear rules, and MAS has been methodical about handing out payment licenses to exchanges that meet its standards. For Gemini, the approval lands as US-based exchanges increasingly look abroad for growth, seeking regulated beachheads in markets where institutional demand for crypto services is maturing. Locking in an MPI license gives the company a durable base in Asia, and a credential it can point to as it competes for the region’s larger, more cautious pools of capital.
Written for Red Robot with AI assistance and human editing. Based on reporting by Cointelegraph.
