Thailand Is Cracking Down On Cryptocurrency Advertisements - NewsSails

• NewsSails
• 6 Sep, 2022

According to an official notice that was released on Tuesday, Thailand's securities regulator has handed down a sentence in the case of an executive at the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the nation, Bitkub, who was accused of engaging in insider trading.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand has mandated that Bitkub Chief Technology Officer Samret Wajanasathian pay a fine of 8.5 million Thai baht (about $235,000) and has prohibited him from having an executive post for the next year (SEC).

On Wajanasathian's LinkedIn page, the position of Chief Technology Officer at Bitkub is still listed, while the position is vacant on the company's website.

The order that was issued on Tuesday follows the Thai SEC's decision in May to levy fines against Bitkub for its failure to comply with local legislation prior to the listing of the platform's native token, KUB.

Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), the oldest commercial bank in the country, withdrew from a proposal to purchase the bulk of Bitkub the previous week, citing unresolved concerns with the country's securities regulator as the reason.

The allegations of insider trading originate from an incident that occurred in November of last year, around the time that the SCB purchase proposal was made public for the first time.

According to the SEC, Wajanasathian used this knowledge to make a purchase of 1.99 million Thai baht worth of KUB tokens, which was equivalent to approximately $61,000 at the time of the transaction.

Immediately following the dissemination of this information to the public, the price of KUB increased by more than a factor of two.

Tougher restrictions governing crypto advertising in Thailand came into force on Thursday, according to an official notice from the country's securities commission.

• A requirement to give explicit risk warnings about investing in crypto is one of the new limits, and it forbids the inclusion of misleading or exaggerated information regarding cryptocurrency companies, such as inflated user counts. In addition, the publication of such material is prohibited.
• After noticing that many advertisements failed to include warnings about the risks associated with cryptocurrencies and that some showed only "positive information," the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided to amend the regulations that were already in place.
• The new laws apply to all newly created cryptocurrency advertisements that target people in the local area. According to the SEC, any existing advertisements must undergo revisions within a time frame of thirty days following the issuance of the notice.
• The development of a digital currency issued by Thailand's central bank is moving forward, and the country's financial authorities are keeping a tight eye on the cryptocurrency market. Bitkub, the most prominent cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, is currently being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly violating local securities legislation.