Thailand’s road to crypto asset regulation
In May, the Thai government announced the regulation on Digital Asset or “Royal Decree on the Digital Asset Businesses B.E. 2561”, another big step for Crypto and Blockchain industry in the Region. The regulation follows the steps of Australia and Japan, and Thailand is another early adopter that has taken an action toward crypto asset.
Undeniably, 2017 was the boom year for cryptos. There were many promising ICO but also many scams. Therefore, the Thai SEC has decided to regulated all relate businesses revolved around ICO, such as ICO portals, exchanges and dealer.
TBA (Thai Blockchain Association) News
Timeline
During October — November 2017 Thai Securities Exchange Commission (Thai SEC) have warned its citizens regarding ICO scam.
Thai SEC extended the comments and guidelines of how to judiciously regulate ICO with current financial infrastructure in Thailand for all stakeholder until 22 January 2018.
On 13th May 2018, the Government of Thailand enacted the Emergency Decree on Digital Asset Business Operation empowering the SEC to issue policies to regulate and control digital assets and digital asset businesses.
Thai SEC opened a public hearing to lay out guidelines for supervising digital token offering and digital asset businesses from 16 May 2018 to 30 May 2018.
Following the Decree, SEC issued the Notification of the Ministry of Finance re: Permission to Operate Digital Assets Business B.E. 2561 (2018) which took effect on 24 July 2018, setting out the requirements and licensing procedures for the operation of digital asset businesses. The guideline state that virtual currencies must be classified as digital assets, The SEC Thailand has approved 7 cryptocurrencies to be used as trading pairs: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Ripple, Litecoin, and Stellar. These cryptocurrencies were chosen based on their credibility and liquidity among other parameters.
SEC listed all digital asset businesses that are allowed to operate after they submitted their requests by 14 August 2018.
The Licensing Fee!
All the digital currencies exchange business must be registered in Thailand only. All the registered companies will pay genuine registration fees of 5 million baht. The licensing fees cover both the token distribution as well as the crypto operations. The minimal capital for the centralized exchange services is 50 million baht and for the decentralized exchanges and brokers, the minimum capital is 5 million baht and 10 million baht. The ministry also imposed minimum capitals for brokers is 1 million baht and for dealers, it is 5 million baht. Overall, Thailand’s position on ICOs was a breath of fresh air after a month of hostile remarks.
Bring back to the most important question, would these new regulations really benefit the whole crypto asset industry as whole or rather? Only time will tell.
