THE region is moving into a digital-asset era faster than its laws can keep up.
That’s the warning from a United Nations Drug and Crime (UNODC) consultant who says cryptocurrencies, stable coins and tokens create opportunities but also open the door to scams, fraud and irreversible losses.
Speaking at the Pacific Youth Digital Resilience Forum, Dr Jeffery Garae, framed virtual assets as a sharp break from ordinary digital banking.
“Virtual assets such as cryptocurrency allow us to trade faster, remove the central banking system from the equation,” he said.
But he added that the same technology posed a lot of challenges.
Garae said digital finance already touches everyday life through online banking and mobile payments but warned that crypto is different because transactions can move across borders without the protections people expect from banks.
“Once it’s done, that’s it,” he said, describing blockchain transfers as hard to reverse.
“It cannot be reversed. It’s quite secure in some sense, and it’s always on.”
The consultant spent much of his talk explaining to the youth participants that blockchain is the technology behind cryptocurrencies, a public ledger that records transactions across thousands of computers.
He said that visibility and decentralisation were part of its appeal, but also part of its danger.
“What you see is just the wallet in funny characters,” he said.
“It’s all anonymous.”
Garae drew a blunt line between convenience and risk. Cross-border payments could be faster and cheaper, he said, and crypto could help reach people outside the formal banking system.
But the same features make it attractive to criminals, fraudsters and opportunists.
“It is used a lot in crimes and money laundering,” he said.
Garae added that “weak protection” meant users could lose funds if they revealed their seed phrase or private key.
He repeatedly urged caution in a region where several governments are still building rules for the sector.
He said Fiji has made cryptocurrency trading a criminal offence and pointed to other Pacific states, including Papua New Guinea, Tonga and the Marshall Islands, which are exploring digital-asset frameworks.
“If we do it properly, we’ll be utilising that for best advice,” he said.
The consultant also warned that artificial intelligence is making fraud harder to spot, with scams now using fake endorsements, social media profiling and personalised messages to win trust.
“Anyone asking for a seed phrase or codes, don’t do that. That’s unknown,” he said.
His message to all youth delegates present was practical and sharp: know the law, verify the source, and do not confuse hype with safety.
“Always question, verify before you trust or act,” he said, urging attendees to report scams to police, cyber units and consumer protection agencies.
“Opportunities are real but also back all the time.”
