Thailand Proposes $148K Daily Stablecoin Transfer Cap
Key Takeaways
- •Thailand's SEC proposed daily caps of 5 million baht, roughly $148,000, on stablecoin deposits and withdrawals per customer at licensed crypto exchanges and brokers, with each limit applying separately at every operator.
- •The draft rules are designed to combat money laundering, cybercrime and circumvention of cross-border money transfer regulations.
- •Stablecoin transfers to and from third-party wallets would be prohibited, and operators must verify that customers own the accounts or wallets used for deposits and withdrawals.
- •Operators would need to comply with the Financial Action Task Force's Travel Rule and deploy blockchain analytics to detect wallets tied to suspicious activity.
- •Exchanges would be required to disclose their market makers and covered assets, brokers would be barred from using liquidity providers for stablecoin-baht pairs, and certain off-platform trades would face a 3 million baht minimum.
Thailand's securities regulator has proposed capping daily stablecoin deposits and withdrawals at 5 million baht ($148,000) each per customer at regulated crypto operators, including exchanges and brokers, in a step that would tighten oversight of digital-asset flows through the country's licensed crypto venues.
The limits would apply separately to deposits and withdrawals at each operator, Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a Thursday announcement. The regulator said the measures are designed to curb money laundering, cybercrime and attempts to bypass cross-border money transfer rules. If adopted, the caps would translate the SEC's anti-money-laundering focus into concrete daily thresholds for individual users of Thailand's licensed crypto venues.
The draft would bar stablecoin transfers to and from third-party wallets. Operators would have to verify that customers own the accounts or wallets they use for deposits and withdrawals, effectively limiting such transfers to wallets the customers themselves control.
Operators would also be required to comply with the Travel Rule — an anti-money-laundering standard for virtual asset transfers developed by the Financial Action Task Force — which requires crypto service providers to collect and share information about transfers. They would also have to use blockchain analytics to identify wallets linked to suspicious activity.
The draft would additionally require crypto exchanges to name their market makers and identify the assets for which those firms provide liquidity, a disclosure step that would make the sources of trading liquidity on regulated platforms more transparent. Crypto brokers would be barred from using liquidity providers for stablecoin-baht pairs, and certain off-platform trades would be subject to a 3 million baht minimum.
The proposal follows a September consultation in which the SEC put forward stablecoin transfer limits and tighter oversight of crypto operators, marking the latest step in the regulator's broader effort to strengthen supervision of the sector. Because the proposal is still a draft, how the SEC finalizes the thresholds — and when they would take effect — remains to be seen.
Related: Thailand is set to block Bitget in December over unlicensed crypto trading.
