The Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Friday (June 11) that its board of directors has approved new rules governing digital asset exchanges. The SEC Notification No. Kor Thor. 18/2564, which sets forth the rules was approved by the board on June 9. In a notice released on the website, the SEC said digital asset exchanges are henceforth prohibited from providing services related to utility tokens or cryptocurrencies that have any of the following characteristics:
- Meme token: having no clear objective or substance or underlying, and whose price running on social media trends;
- Fan token: tokenized by the fame of influencers;
- Non-fungible token (NFT): a digital creation to declare ownership or grant of right in an object or specific right. It is unique and not interchangeable with digital tokens of the same category and type at the equal amount; and
- Digital tokens which are utilized in a blockchain transaction and issued by digital asset exchanges or related persons.
Also read: Hong Kong to restrict retail investors from crypto trading.
While Dogecoin is not explicitly specified, it is evident that the coin along with Shibcoin would qualify as meme tokens. Dogecoin stands in the top 10 crypto coins by market cap. The SEC notification had come into effect on June 11 and digital asset exchanges are required to comply with the requirements within 30 days. Thailand has seen many fold increase in domestic crypto trading since last November. Alarmed by the domestic crypto trade volume, the SEC in April announced draft plans to require traders to have prior experience, minimum age, and minimum annual income.
The Asian kingdom since 2018 requires digital asset businesses to obtain a licence from the Minister of Finance and approval from the SEC. The digital asset businesses are primarily regulated under the Emergency Decree on Digital Asset Businesses, B.E. 2561 (2018), which specifies the digital asset class to be regulated under Thai law.
In the last week of May, the Bank of Thailand had hired German company Giesecke+Devrient to develop a prototype for retail central bank digital currency for a total cost of 10 million baht.
