Move aside, Switzerland. Singapore is reinforcing its position as a global financial hub, impacting the future of business operations and worldwide retail cryptocurrency trading.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has introduced new policies for companies dealing with digital payment tokens (DPTs), like cryptocurrencies.

Set to take effect in 2024

1. Conflict of Interest Management: DPT providers must disclose conflicts of interest.
2. Listing Criteria: Clear policies for consistent and accountable DPT listings.
3. Complaint Handling: Structured procedures for resolving disputes.

In addition to these, there will be more stringent controls for retail consumers:

• Risk Awareness Assessment: Before granting access, providers must determine users risk awareness and understanding
• Incentive Restriction: Providers cannot offer incentives to trade in cryptocurrencies
• Transaction Limitations: Financing, margin, or leverage transactions are restricted, and locally issued credit card payments will not be accepted.
• Crypto Assets are Net Worth: The value of DPT help will be factored into determining a customer’s wealth to be considered as an investor.

Those last two points will have big impact.

Singapore’s interest in trading connections

These changes are part of a drive to legitimise crypto transactions and investing in Singapore, while protecting the interests of the country

MAS is committed to a positive DPT industry, phasing in these policies from mid-2024. With enhanced oversight, transparency, and accountability, the regulations counter the prior unregulated environment.

This global shift may extend beyond Singapore’s borders, elevating industry norms worldwide. Singapore’s leadership in prudent crypto governance sets a course for the global industry.

A Global Hub With International Implications

These regulatory changes may cause ripples beyond its borders. In an effort to maintain consistency across their markets, Singapore’s new standards may prove unavoidable.

So while crafted specifically for the city-state, the regulations end up elevating industry norms abroad as companies adapt to continue accessing the valuable Asian financial hub. By taking a leadership role on prudent crypto governance, Singapore is suggesting a model that can impact the industry worldwide.

Big crypto platform changes coming up

With a transformative regulations coming, these changes will require precision and expertise in navigating.

Recently I’ve been diving into the intricacies of regulating the major financial institutions of Singapore. This announcement has big implications for our clients at 440A (we specialise in startups and financial regulations).

If you’re looking for help in this area, we have expert support.

This is an abbreviated version of an article I wrote, which you can read here.

Everyone wants to know the secret to being more productive.

It’s the same reason why fad diets work as clickbait even though you know too well they don’t actually work.

Discipline and motivation is what moves the needle — every method of ‘being productive’ is just a framework.

There is no way to “hack productivity”. Anyone promising that is lying. Creating a habit starts with discipline.

Finding discipline & building a habit

Last year, I surprised myself by running a marathon. The declaration of my goal was a half-joking, apprehensive idea at first—but slowly grew into a personal challenge.

Achieving the full distance run was the goal. But the real challenge was lacing up and setting out for that 30–180 minute run around the muggy streets of Singapore. And I found myself enjoying that the most.

The journey was becoming enjoyable. It drove the motivation, and in turn, created discipline.

It was going great, until…

Just as my training program was hitting its stride, I caught food poisoning. And then two weeks later, I caught covid. It was a big hit to my confidence. I’d never run 42km before—were my chances blown?

Missing once is an accident.
Missing twice is the start of a new habit.
— James Clear

Despite a month spent being unwell, the discipline to showing up each day had created a habit, which drew me back as my health returned.

I pushed on for the last two months of training, and the doubts soon fell away. I finished the race, a little slower than my (realistic) goal, but I was ecstatic.

When habits fall, only you can set them straight

For a long time, exercise and outdoor stuff had been a way to clear my mind, take a break from the madness of life, but this accomplishment had been a reminder, just as much as it had been a release.

The habit had made returning to my training, my productive work much easier. I had chosen a plan and worked through it. It wasn’t my chosen training plan, of the 1000s, that had made the difference—it was starting out each morning or evening, showing up.

Similarly, there is no perfect productivity approach. You can choose any method to keep track of your tasks, some people like pen & paper, you’ve probably tried many approaches, personally I love using Legend.

My biggest suggestion, instead of scrolling, procrastinating, distracting, is to look at the big picture:

Set yourself a realistic goal that you can work towards, for this week, this month and this year.

I reassessed my run time twice during my training, just as you should be reassessing what you are working towards, constantly.

It is incredibly difficult to be disciplined without a goal of what you are working towards. I haven’t run as much as I was back then, the discpline is not motivated by a goal anymore. I still run, but far less frequently.

Achieving your goals requires discipline. The technique you choose provides a structure, but you need the big picture first.

Chances are this isn’t a groundbreaking perspective to you, we all know doing great things takes discipline, but hopefully this is a timely reminder for you.

Turning this epiphany into action

Unlike the promises made by other ‘productivity influencers’, reading this isn’t going to turn you into an ultra-productive, superhuman— we all have triumphs and struggles.

For the rest of your day, I hope this serves as a suggestion of what helps to give you direction and reframe the things that are motivating you. Here is a framework for you to get through your tasks and achieve your goals:

1. Set yourself the goal you want to achieve,
2. Figure out what you need to do and how you will track your progress (almost anything works),
3. Show up & start,
4. Reassess progress & repeat (give yourself a break as well 😴).

What’s your takeaway for boosting productivity, or what’re you trying to do more of? I’d love to hear from you :)

• If you’re looking for a productivity tool, Legend is my go to for keeping track of things
• My main work is Bravely, a mental health company focused on supporting therapists and their clients
• As part of that we have a directory of independent therapists available, in case you are looking for support: GetTherapy.in/anywhere
• I also do freelance work, supporting companies and small teams with their operations, product and business development. If you are interested, here’s my page to find out more

This was an article sparked by watching a conversation from Steven Bartlett with his guest Rich Roll.

I have dozens of unfinished articles, but it was something in this one hour of conversation that kickstarted a productive streak, a reminder of what discipline looks like and so far I have had four great days in a row, I’ve finished this article and have avoided my standard distractions.

I hope you’ve found something useful here, thanks for stopping by.

Apparently April is stress awareness month, like mental health I think we should be talking about this every month, and yet, here we are.

For those who want the tips without the reasons or learnings:

𝐁𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞:

1. Take some calls as voice only, and walk or sit in a quiet place. Theres a space between ‘meeting should be an email’, and video calls that is perfect for this.

2. Prioritise 2 or 3 messages/emails, and walk around your block with your phone. Staring at a screen outside is better than inside, even if you are only drafting a response.

3. Scattered, procrastinating or stuck on a problem. Take pen and paper and sit nearby: doorstep, park bench, bus stop. Gather your thoughts/priorities and jot them down, then get back to getting it done.

Working as a founder of a company, we are constantly working to solve mental health problems for others. Unsurprisingly, we have learnt not to neglect our own well-being in the process. Countless hours of feedback calls with therapists and advisors, Sydney, Singapore, San Francisco.

We know it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day sometimes — we get that too.

I was laptop bound all of Monday, inside. But yesterday, I made sure to get out for a run and soak up some sunshine. Reflecting on this, yesterday was more productive, fulfilling and focused

It’s amazing how taking a few moments to enjoy the great outdoors can make all the difference in your day.

I don’t have time for a run today.

But I’m going to taking a short walk for meeting, instead of sitting inside.

While getting things done, going outside is also hugely beneficial to your mental health.

1. More time in nature = less stress, improved mood and more resilient to conflict,

2. More time in nature = better cognitive processing and decision making,

3. By using the outdoors to manage your stress you are less likely to turn to other crutches or unhealthy behaviour to cope.

These are some of my learnings. I have come to love the outdoors, both as a hobby, way to cope with stress and process present challenges.

While we can all benefit hugely from using green spaces, for many disadvantaged people or those living with disabilities, finding outdoors spaces to enjoy can be difficult or impossible.

If you are in a position to advocate for others rights to access, security and safety when in the outdoors please do.

We can all make changes in our local communities that can improve the access of others to the outdoors and nature, and benefit from the societal changes that come with it.

Go outside — Get more done, and feel better? In a fast paced society, it is possible. was originally published in ILLUMINATION on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There is no organisational tool that offers the same diversity of uses, especially at this price

There is so much depth to the Legend app, and many great features to stay organised in your life, work or hobbies.

Once you have got your head around the system of documents, panes and boards (check out this article for the details), you need to start laying out your notes and items to get yourself organised.

Legend isn’t like those other outliners — it is far more powerful, and to help you unlock more of it, here are 5 features that can help you with setting up your workflow:

1. Using item types and prefixes for formatting

Legend uses prefixes to give each item special types for both style and function. For example:

The use of the forward slash key to unlock a menu of interactions ( / ), is a common shortcut with organisation/text tools these days:

This menu is really helpful as a formatting shortcut. Eventually you can learn the prefixes for each kind of item, for example pressing the # key and then a space formats that line as Header 1.

2. Set up some filters on your panes to show the important information

If panes are the powerhouse for creating viewing options in Legend, filters are really where the magic happens.

While a document holds all your information and items, you can set different filters in your panes to display specific information. Or you can set up 5 panes in a board, each with a different filter to focus on something specific.

To open up the filter pane, flick the filter bar in the top right of a pane. Using the dropdown you can select the one, or many filters to apply. Once you are a bit more familiar with filters, try typing terms into the search bar to set the filters for a pane.

As an extra, if you want a short walk through on setting up filters in the app, check out this video on YouTube — it also has a short introduction to using advanced filters.

There is a short guide to creating a kanban board using this feature you can find here.

3. Use zooming to focus your panes on specific parts of your document

This is a useful feature to know about whether you are focusing on a single project for the day and want to cut out the distractions, or you want to set different panes in a workflow for certain parts of the document.

To set up zooming for a certain document, make sure it has been formatted with headers, and then use the document selector sidebar on the left of a pane to choose the part of the document you want to zoom into.

You can open the document selector using the button in the top left of a pane, as shown in the gif below.

4. Change the view settings of your panes to create custom workflows

The different types of information that can be stored in a document and the ability to change the views of that is one of the features that set Legend apart form other productivity tools.

You can open a to do list, a calendar and an email inbox side by side in one board, and drag and drop items between them based on what you want to do. You have probably seen the short gif example on the legend home page of what this looks like.

There are many in depth ways you can use the view mode functions on each pane to change the way you are looking at your information.

5. Use inferred hierarchy to create flat view documents you can collapse

The last feature I want to point out isa recently new feature, using header size to infer hierarchy of information. With inferred hierarchy you can collapse a header with all its information beneath it, including any smaller headers beneath it.

Before this update, Legend operated like any other outliner, using the tab key to indent a line and create hierarchy beneath collapsable headers/titles. using inferred hierarchy, you can create flat documents that display your information without having to indent to create hierarchy, so you can hide all items and sub headers without all the indenting.

To create a different size header, use the / key or right click on the item to open menus that allow the changing of the item type to the size header, and then instead of indenting with the tab key under each header you can continue typing like a text editor document, just with the power of tags, filters and prefixes.

I hope you found this short introduction to a few features useful, I’m interested to hear what else you would like to see?

If you have any requests for features you want a more in depth look at, workflow creation guides or general things you need help with, then let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to help with them.

Five Legendary features you can use to smash your productivity slump — with gifs! was originally published in Legend on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There are sooo many different to-do apps and organisation tools out there, so what is it about Legend that makes it so powerful?

Before Legend, I struggled to maintain a task list. I tried many different options, but I would quickly get frustrated with the time spent on tidying up my lists to keep them current and organised.

But in Legend, once a workflow is set up, you get the most important items first and fastest — whether you have 20 tasks to get through or 10,000. You never have to spend time tidying up your list.

How do Documents, Panes and Boards work?

Before we get into a bit more depth, on a super high level, here is how it all fits together:

• Documents are where all your items are saved, your notes, to-dos, email tasks, all your information
• Panes are where you view your document or zoom in on parts of it by focusing on a particular project or using filters to sort your items
• Boards are where you organise your panes, use a single pane to take notes or create extensive workflows across multiple panes - you can save different workflows of panes in different boards to return to as you need.

What makes documents in Legend different?

A document on other apps/tools is a page of words arranged in lines, to be viewed, as you typed them, just like a normal notepad to-do list.

In Legend you record your tasks, notes and information as items on their own, collected together in a document, instead of part of a contiguous list (think of it as writing each item on its own post it note).

Your documents list your information, but it’s panes that give you the real power.

Pro-Tip: start with just one document, and create different children or nodes inside it. This allows you to search, sort and filter all your information more easily.

Powerful, pain-free pane usage.

Panes are the superstars of Legend. Each pane can be set to view a document in its entirety (similar to most note taking tools) or zoom into separate nodes or children of a document.

Panes can also be set with different filters, to sort through the information and only pull out the things that you want that pane to focus on.

For a few examples on how to use the filter system in your panes, check out this video on Youtube.

An example of your workflow could be:

• One pane with your whole document for taking notes, brainstorming projects/ideas, and reading over.
• A second pane set to view only items with a priority tag 🔴 🟠 🌕. With this you can see the items with priorities, clearly separated from your other items.
• Your last pane could be set to focus on a particular project in your document you are working on, keeping all your items for that project clearly displayed.

Other options include sorting by hashtag, or particular contacts, so you can find things that relate to people or topics.

There are so many ways you can use panes to arrange and sort your information: panes can be set to include tags, filter types or search terms — for more examples check out the filters video.

Arrange your panes and save your workflows with boards.

Finally, boards are the place where you organise your panes. Arranged from left to right and horizontally scrollable, you can add, customise and close boards to create workflows. Using different boards gives you the ability to store your workflows and revisit them later.

Perhaps you want a board for work and one for home (keep that work/life balance in check), or you have a workflow you want to use for developing leads and another for your HR records. Boards allow you to save different workflows, even if they are in the same document.

Insider Tip: Have you seen the ‘Powerful workflows for everyone’ example on the Legend home page? (About 75% down the page).

This is a great example of boards being used to arrange and save different workflows. It is a good example of how to use documents, panes and boards, while drafting these examples, I created 6 boards, but saved all data in one document, with each pane focusing on a different child using different view types and filter settings.

Next steps for your workflow

Start by creating using just one document - by creating too many documents you limit your ability to search or filter across all your projects. Open that first document in a single pane in one board. Make this your first stage of recording your notes.

For your next step, take a look at the examples listed on the homepage (shown just above), and make a new pane to experiment with a view types and filter settings.

For some basic shortcuts, check out the intro video, and the one on filters - there are a few hotkeys in there that make setting up a lot easier.

Lastly, if you want to get started with some quick note taking techniques, check out the medium articles on basic intro to bullet journalling here, and a really good looking 4 pane flow.

I hope this has been helpful! If you have any questions or want to see what other advanced users are setting up their workflows, check out our forum.

Documents, panes and boards make Legend the most powerful productivity tool was originally published in Legend on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Melissa and I have been in near complete isolation in our apartment in Singapore since mid January, choosing to settle in and avoid any risk.

While Singapore has been widely recognised as one of the few countries that has done well in handling the pandemic, my wife Melissa has leukaemia.

Meaning that any infection, is far more life threatening to her than it is to most people, especially something as devastating as COVID19.

Dystopia

The stay home orders that are being enforced in many countries, seem like something from a dystopian movie, and the idea of being stuck at home for weeks on end is a daunting prospect.

For many people, myself included, the ability to go outside or meet up with friends is such a normal part of our lives.

*Ominous drums begin*

I remember seeing snippets of news in December, vague headlines reported on an unknown virus, with many experts concerned about the uncontrolled spread.

With concern for the spread of the virus during Chinese New Year, Melissa and I went shopping for supplies to avoid needing to go out again.

We were suddenly aware that our normal supermarket was full of tourists.

In the hours preceding the first lock down of Wuhan during CNY, 10,000 Chinese nationals would arrive in Singapore, these would be the first 32 cases in Singapore, and create numerous infection clusters.

Go home, stay home

Since that day, we have ventured out only for the occasional grocery top up, visits to the hospital and one trip to the park. We have been in effective self isolation, with only a few visits from family, and our friend Jay who has been isolating like us.

For the last 70 days, it has been the two of us in a one bedroom apartment. Every day.

Many introverts are shrugging it off, saying life will be remain unchanged.

But for those of us who are outdoor lovers and extroverts, being forced to remain indoors and isolated during the pandemic, for weeks on end, seems impossible.

Impossible is nothing

It is doable, your day to day WILL be very different, but that is also a blessing, find new things that you can do everyday. Or just spend a month working on something you’ve been waiting for a chance to do.

It’s normal to feel uncertain, these are unknown times we are moving into. However, self isolation doesn’t have to be difficult, Melissa and I have a few useful lessons for how to pass the time and remain sane, which we would like to share with you all:

1. Come together and be apart.

If you are isolating with other people, agree early on how much time you want to spend together and apart. Some days, we feel like we spend too much time together, and then surprisingly, some days we feel like we DON’T spend enough time together. Figure out what time of day you want to keep as your own, and let the people around you know to respect that. We spend time together every evening, but as an early bird I have the mornings to myself and as Mel is a night owl, she has the nights.

2. You suddenly have time!

Sleep in, switch off the news for a bit and take a few days as a pretend weekend. Rest, the stress of the pandemic is so real, and is felt by many of us. Do things slowly, pick a task that you can spend a few hours on, focus on enjoying the precious commodity rather than feeling forced to pass it!

3. Share how you are feeling.

Take the time to listen to those you are with, but also learn to express what you need. There are going to be days where being forced to stay inside is frustrating and enraging. It’s times like these you should express it, say you are fed up, exhausted or just having a crappy day and be sure to encourage those around you to say how they’re feeling.

4. Make some spaces

In our apartment we have been really intentional with creating places for particular things. We have our own spaces to work, we have a Netflix set up with a screen, we’ve got a lunch spot near the window in our room and we take video calls outside on the balcony.

5. Set some objectives

In many places, the isolation period is for many weeks, set yourself a goal, a new skill you want to learn or an old one you wish to master. Organise your hard drive, learn to knit or practice that other language (you can learn anything on Youtube).

6. Work smarter

If you are working from home or a remote worker like us, balance your time off. Take ‘weekends’ or give yourself evenings/mornings off. It is very easy to throw yourself into work and burn out. On the flipside of that, make sure you set up some good habits around your work, a certain place in the house, time of day, or particular type of clothing (a collared shirt). These habits can help you to separate your work time from your down time and can be crucial elements in making the home office a success.

7. Soul food

In many of the dishes we love to eat, time is an essential ingredient that many of us don’t have in our normal lives. Pick an old favourite, your childhood dish of choice or try cooking something new. Cooking good food is a rewarding experience that all of us can reap the benefits of.

8. Reach out

Finally, just because you aren’t able to meet up with people, doesn’t mean you can’t still be social. Video chat is a crucial link for us to stay connected with those who matter to us.

Call your friends and family, send pics, voice memos and messages tell them what you are doing, and ask them how they are. Make a deliberate social connection, don’t just post things on your social media. This is a difficult time for many of us, it’s not the thought, but the effort that counts.

Rarely, do we get enforced downtime at home. Our time off is usually spent rushing to go on holiday or meet up with friends.

We hope you are all staying healthy out there, it’s a scary time, and especially so for those who are immunocompromised or at risk. Thanks to everyone taking steps to break the chain of infection, you are helping protect people like Melissa everywhere.

If you are interested in reading more about Mel’s battle with leukaemia and the rollercoaster of struggles we have faced, you can check out our GoFundMe which has been kept pretty well up to date since her diagnosis in September. In our free time we like to travel, eat good food and see new places. For work we are launching our mental health startup, Bravely, we have a Medium publication about it here.

As the first successful digital marketplace in NZ, it has been the prominent online auction site for Kiwis for the better part of two decades, but as with any incumbent, tech changes will threaten that. TradeMe has outgrown and acquired many competitors over the years, but what are its origins and will it be enough to outmatch new startup competitors?

Founded in 1999 by Sam Morgan, TradeMe remains one of NZ’s greatest startup stories. With over 20 years of market domination, it remains a major employer in the country, and up until last year was a publicly traded company, when it was bought and de-listed by a US-based group.

As the first online marketplace in NZ, TradeMe’s model of user experience is primarily an auction website, that also happens to have an app.

In a time when smartphones are king, its days on top are numbered.

TradeMe revolutionised the way we bought stuff in the 90s.

Thursday was the secondhand shopping day, as it was the day the Trade and Exchange went to print. The T&E was a weekly paper, devoted to classified ads from people who had something for sale.

As a kid, I remember listening to my Dad and Uncle pouring through the pages of listings, while I played with my box of 1980s space LEGO (a treasure chest of nostalgia from the T&E). You could buy anything on there, furniture, dogs, TVs, my Uncle once bought an ex-army landing craft…

Back then, you scoured the weekly listings for one you liked, phoned up someone who you didn’t know if you could trust, to negotiate viewing of an item that you didn’t even know was still available.

TradeMe was born out of that frustration, Morgan founded the online auction site after chasing down a heater listing on the T&E website, only to find it had sold more than a week before (online listings were delayed a week to promote paper sales). The model was similar to eBay, the globe’s top auction site, in an effort to provide a platform that regulated the listing and selling process in an obvious format.

TradeMe’s price hikes are not targeted at people buying and selling heaters.

Today, TradeMe resembles more of a one-size-fits-all marketplace. Listings range from an overwhelming amount of cheap-to-produce crap, to faithfully restored classic cars.

The price hikes that have irked so many people are part of a suite of new charges aimed at professional, high value sellers, and more specifically at motor vehicle market. These professional sellers leverage the large audience, and well known platform to flood their listings onto the site, the like of Turners, the largest secondhand vehicle retailer in the country.

Some may see this as the US based TradeMe owners trying to squeeze profits from NZ companies, but since the introduction of international sellers, TradeMe’s focus has hardly been ‘Kiwi companies first’. To most everyday Kiwis the price hikes will have little daily impact.

Personally I would like to see these professional seller fees pushed out to more sellers, in a move to limit the amount of AliExpress type, mass produced junk on TradeMe. So where do these kind of sellers belong?

Online sales in the instant era.

In true Zuckerberg fashion, Facebook is rapidly screwing over P2P marketplaces, we are connected to our phones and our feed constantly. We like instant messaging and the ability to get things right away, FB Marketplace is becoming a favourite for many people with its no fee, accessible and instant platform. You can spot something you like, chat to the seller, confirm the purchase and head to pick up, all within a couple of hours.

Suddenly the online auction site model seems outdated for selling our used TVs and couches or picking up a new USB charger.

Many other countries boast modern, rapid trading platforms similar to the instant ability of FB Marketplace, Singapore’s Carousell has the line ‘Snap to sell, chat to buy’, a MO that makes buying and selling stuff that someone else doesn’t want, but you need, super slick.

These companies fundamental user experience is based around smartphone features, it’s the same user experience that FB marketplace has leveraged.

So what is the gap in the market?

New Zealand needs a mobile first marketplace.

I imagine something along the lines of Carousell, ‘Snap to sell, chat to buy’. A mobile first marketplace that serves the:

‘I’m moving out, I need to sell/giveaway all my stuff’

-type of user, someone who doesn’t want to list things a week before they need to get rid of it. Facebook marketplace serves some of this crowd, but I don’t think it has, or will have full uptake.

It needs to have:

• Instant chat function, it needs to be smartphone first,
• Scrollable feed with all listings (no need to go to a new page),
• Location based searches,
• An extensive category system (in my opinion one of Trademe’s greatest assets),
• Flexible payment options with an ‘offer price feature in chat’,
• Diversity in monetisation, success fee only is a model for auctions, advertising, high visibility listings, flat fee professional seller rates, and payment protection methods are some of the ways you could monetise a platform like this.

Online auction sites will always have their place, but NZ needs something that is more instant and everyday. Most TradeMe listings go unsold, the majority of sales only receive bids from one person, and then a select few will create a bidding war that truly utilise the sites features. Rather than connecting people to talk to each other and speed up the selling process, TradeMe actively prevents interested buyers from communicating with sellers outside of a simple QnA feature.

TradeMe should remain as the go-to for quality secondhand or collectible stuff, but if you need a new USB cable, homeware item or other daily essential, the kind of listing that rarely receives any bids, there should be another place to go. NZ is severely lacking from all encompassing marketplace similar to Amazon.

Until Amazon arrives and provides everyday new goods for cheap prices, TradeMe will continue to offer the best audience and marketplace for SME retailers to list their items, I just don’t see it as the best use of the platform.