Crypto market: Thailand to set new regulations amid high interest
2 min readTL;DR Breakdown:
- The number of cryptocurrency users increased by a whopping 300 percent within the space of six months.
- 50 percent of trading accounts are owned by people under the ages of 30.
- With the country’s strict regulations, the crypto market has not stopped growing.
Crypto market interest in Thailand has increased considerably in the past few months. According to the country’s Security and Exchange Commission, the number of cryptocurrency users increased by a whopping 300 percent within the space of six months.
In terms of crypto market regulation, the Asian nation is top on the list as a lot of cryptocurrency exchanges face strict regulations to which they have to adhere to. Most recently, the biggest crypto exchange in the country was banned for breaking regulations. Various sources report that the crypto exchange, BitKub was involved in several long service outages.
Even as there are a lot of strict regulations in the country, its crypto market continues to flourish. The SEC, however, had plans to reduce the number of crypto investors in the country by releasing an official statement regarding crypto investment in the country. The SEC is an official statement proposed that only people with at least an annual income of 1million Thai baht which is equivalent to $33,000 have the right to invest in the crypto market.
Of course, the statement was not accepted by a large number of the country’s crypto population because it was going to affect those who don’t have enough funds — low-income and middle-income earners. Due to the outrage by communities, Thailand’s SEC came out a few days after releasing the statement to explain the reason for imposing such strict regulations.
In his response to citizens’ outrage, the SEC’s secretary stated that the regulation which was considered too strict was imposed just to see how people react to it other than for execution.
Thailand’s Crypto market defies its strict regulations
With the country’s strict regulations, the crypto market has not stopped growing. Data from the SEC showed that the growth of the county’s cryptocurrency sector increased considerably from December 2020 to February 2021. According to the data, as of December 2020, exchanges recorded about 160,000 trading accounts in the country. This figure increased to 470,000 last month. What more, 50 percent of these accounts were owned by people under the ages of 30.
The recent numbers show that the crypto market in Thailand is increasing substantially and the SEC’s strict rules are not likely to hinder proceedings shortly.
