Written by: 0xmin
During the Spring Festival, I went to Southeast Asia and visited Singapore. I communicated with Internet entrepreneurs and Web3 practitioners in Singapore. I have many observations and experiences that I would like to share with you.
Singapore, a win without any effort
Chatting with an Internet entrepreneur who has been in Singapore for three years, I lamented that prices in Singapore have skyrocketed in recent years, especially rent. A one-bedroom apartment can easily cost 3,000 to 5,000 Singapore dollars and is extremely in short supply.
I said self-righteously that it was mainly because too many wealthy people in the Web3 industry had moved to Singapore. In his opinion, the crypto circle only had a small number of people and funds, and more of the capital came from Internet upstarts and Hong Kong.
Today’s Singapore is a magical place where a veteran of the Internet industry can bump into an old colleague from ten years ago on the street, or run into Luo Yonghao and the founders of major Internet companies and partners of US dollar funds on a street corner.
As for the reason, everyone knows it. When capital loses its sense of security, it always votes with its feet.
There is a particularly magical phenomenon: Singapore has gathered a group of entrepreneurs who cashed out during the golden age of China's Internet, as well as "losers" who failed in the Internet war and were forced to go ashore. Now they have become the biggest winners.
For example, when Ctrip merged with Qunar, many Qunar executives were forced to cash out and became "losers" who got nothing but money. But now many Ctrip executives envy them.
Zhang Tao, the founder of Dianping.com, once “left in tears”, but now he drinks Bordeaux every day in a private bar on Scotts Road and lives a much more comfortable life than Wang Xing.
There is a joke that a man sold his house for 15 million yuan to cash in. After lying low for a year, he found out that his previous house was sold for 10 million yuan, so he bought it back and made 4 million yuan for free.
Today, former Internet entrepreneurs who are lying low in Singapore have become LPs that many US dollar funds and Crypto Funds are vying for.
In the face of the course of history, individual efforts are insignificant.
What did Singapore do right? It seems that it did not do anything, but just continued with its past policies. The external environment suddenly changed, making Singapore a big winner without doing anything.
This is also the irony of the laws of this world. Choosing what not to do is sometimes more important than choosing what to do.
Government and people
In Singapore, the government is a topic that cannot be avoided. Its presence is too strong, and it is like a patriarch who controls everything. However, it generally implements two major principles: pragmatism and elitism, or meritocracy.
Friends who have lived in Singapore for a long time always praise the Singapore government. First, the Singapore government dares to admit its mistakes. When something is done wrong, it is willing to admit its mistakes, hold them accountable and make corrections. For example, the FTX explosion caused losses to many Singaporean citizens and the sovereign fund Temasek, and the government and Temasek also faced questions from parliament.
Secondly, the Singapore government provides good protection for the livelihood of its citizens, especially those at the bottom of society.
I once had a question: since prices in Singapore are so high, wouldn’t the lower-class people be miserable?
Later it was discovered that Singapore had implemented a policy of distinguishing between internal and external parties, strictly differentiating the treatment of citizens and non-citizens, giving preferential treatment to its citizens in all aspects, and raising the minimum living standard for ordinary people.
If you are a foreign citizen, you have to face high costs in Singapore, from housing to education, medical care, etc. For example, the stamp duty for buying a house is 4% for Singaporeans, and 34% for foreigners, and they can only buy expensive apartments. Even the rent of public sports venues is small, and citizens and permanent residents are given priority, and the cost is relatively cheap.
In order to solve the housing problem, Singaporean citizens can apply to purchase government-built flats, which only cost around 400,000 Singapore dollars for a 90-square-meter flat, with a minimum down payment of 10%, a 30-year loan, and a preferential interest rate of around 2%. This ensures that almost all Singaporean citizens have the conditions to live in their own houses.
In general, Singapore imposes high taxes on foreigners, subsidizes users and protects its own citizens.
Feng Shui
As a Chinese society, Singapore has retained a considerable amount of traditional Chinese culture and has also "promoted" some of it, such as Feng Shui.
A friend who has lived in Singapore for many years told me that Singaporean society attaches great importance to feng shui.
For example, when Singaporeans buy a house, they must consult a feng shui master to check the feng shui before making a decision. Many Chinese families also consult a feng shui master when naming their homes. Even Singapore’s one-dollar coin and subway construction have many feng shui legends, which has made feng shui a big business in Singapore.
On June 28, 2012, Singapore-based Feng Shui company New World Group was listed on the London Stock Exchange, becoming the world's first listed Feng Shui company. In the Chinese world, it is known as Yuan Zhong Xiu, and mainly sells Feng Shui products and provides Feng Shui consulting management.
As early as 2011, its net profit reached 1.6 million pounds (equivalent to 14.38 million yuan), and it has a large number of high-end customers in Singapore: Standard Chartered Bank, Citibank, Far East Consortium and other large enterprises.
Nowadays, many Web3 project parties will go to the Yuan Zhongxiu headquarters near Kaki Bukit to find a master to consecrate their projects.
fertility rate
If we talk about the problems of Singaporean society, then the fertility rate is Singapore’s “eternal pain in the heart”, or the chronic disease of the entire East Asian inward-looking society.
In China, many people attribute the fertility rate problem to insufficient support for people's livelihood such as housing, medical care, and education. However, both Singapore and Japan have solved the worries in these aspects and even have various cash subsidies. For example, in Singapore, a baby can receive a cumulative subsidy of more than 100,000 yuan.
However, the fertility rate has been gradually declining, with the Chinese having the lowest fertility rate, followed by the Indians, but it is still not high. Only the Malays support Singapore's fertility rate.
Therefore, judging from the practices of Singapore and Japan, giving money alone cannot save the fertility rate.
What is the crux of the matter? Several Singaporean friends believe that, on the one hand, women are more independent, receive longer education, are financially independent, and have a rising awareness of feminism; on the other hand, the entire East Asian culture emphasizes competition and is more inward-looking. “If I can’t give my children a better future, why give birth to them and let them suffer with me?” has become the attitude of many young people.
Singapore has a unique word “Kiasu”, which comes from the Hokkien word “fear of losing” and largely reflects the mentality of Chinese Singaporeans and even Chinese around the world.
If you want to raise a child, you have to give her/him the best resources to win at the starting line. Even though there are free public schools and cheap HDB flats in Singapore, many people still want their children to attend international schools and live in high-end apartments. The cost of raising an "elite child" is bound to be high.
There is currently no solution to the fertility rate problem in East Asia and Singapore.
migrant
In Singapore, where 70% of citizens are Chinese, immigration is a topic that is inevitably often discussed among the Chinese.
I have found that many Chinese people around me who have become Singaporean citizens have a connection with Singapore through the China-Singapore Scholarship Program (SM Scholarship). Some of them have studied in Singapore since high school or even junior high school, and then they can get PR and then become citizens immediately after graduating from university.
In the past, when faced with the question of whether to become Singaporean citizens, many graduates of the SM program chose no, because they believed that "Singapore is too small" and that returning to China or going to the United States would provide them with a broader world.
Singapore today is no longer what it used to be. Many people who gave up on naturalization back then have to go the EP-PR route again. After all, the Singapore passport, which offers visa-free access to 192 countries and regions around the world, is still very attractive. More importantly, many people have gradually come to realize Singapore’s dual attributes and identity: it is both a global city and a nation-state.
For Singapore citizens, they seem to be natural Global Citizens. This identity is also needed by WEB3 practitioners. Currently, almost all the crypto practitioners I know in Singapore have plans to apply for PR (permanent residence) naturalization.
However, in recent years, with the influx of more and more Chinese, the difficulty of obtaining PR has increased exponentially, and Singapore has changed from "seeking people to come" to "selecting people".
In 2022, the EP monthly salary threshold will be raised from S$4,500 to S$5,000. The 2023 Top Talent Visa (ONE Pass) will seek senior talents with a monthly salary of more than S$30,000 (approximately RMB 150,000).
Not only that, in September 2023, Singapore work visa EP applications will be scored based on monthly salary. 5,000 Singapore dollars is only the minimum standard. The higher the monthly salary and the better the academic qualifications, the more likely you are to stand out from the applicants.
Singapore is based on "pragmatism" and only selects those who contribute to Singapore, for example, paying more taxes, hiring more Singaporeans, giving birth to more children for Singapore... pragmatic and cruel.
In the foreseeable future, Singapore will remain one of the "preferred cities" for Chinese immigrants, especially top wealthy people, and the difficulty of immigration will continue to increase.
Not a Crypto Paradise
In all the popular articles about Singapore, Crypto and Web3 always appear. In the eyes of many people, Singapore seems to have become a crypto paradise. In my opinion, this is not the case.
Singapore may be a haven for the wealthy in the cryptocurrency world, but it is not a hotbed for Crypto.
The Singapore government, which was founded on “pragmatism,” has a clear idea. It hopes to attract wealthy people in the crypto industry and their money (US dollars), but does not allow local business to be conducted.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has never issued a cryptocurrency exchange license, and its 11 cryptocurrency licenses are only used in the payment field.
Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, as well as the "next prime minister", Lawrence Wong publicly stated at the end of 2022 that digital assets are an important driving force that can change financial markets, cross-border payments, settlements and capital markets, but Singapore's consistent position is that even in the face of external criticism, it needs to take a tough stance on speculation and trading in cryptocurrencies, especially by retail investors.
After the FTX explosion, Lawrence Wong strongly stated in Parliament that Singapore does not plan to become a hub for cryptocurrency activities.
From an ideological perspective, Crypto is a deconstructive force, and its biggest stage is where order is on the verge of collapse. In a well-ordered, rule-bound country like Singapore, Crypto itself does not have much room for development. It is more centered in Singapore, with its business radiating to Southeast Asia and other countries.
Of course, a more practical reason is that the cost of employment and living in Singapore is too high, and many people cannot stay there even if they want to. After all, Singapore belongs to the bosses and executives in the cryptocurrency circle.
Singapore is a bustling city, but it is not a crypto home after all.