Thailand’s SEC moves to block five exchanges to protect investors
Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an independent state agency responsible for the supervision of capital markets including the digital assets sector within the Southeast Asian nation, has moved to block five cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
In a statement published by the agency to its website on Thursday, May 29, the SEC outlined that it deems the five exchanges, namely OKX, Bybit, CoinEx, XT.com and 1000X.Live, to be unauthorized crypto trading platforms.
Countering money laundering activity
It is acting against these platforms “to protect investors” and to prevent their use for money laundering purposes. In offering services to Thai users on an unauthorized basis, the exchanges were found to be in breach of Thailand’s Digital Asset Business Act B.E. 2561 (2018).
The agency has asked the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (MDES) to take measures to block local access to these online platforms. That block will be put in place on June 28. On that basis, the SEC has advised Thai users of such platforms to proceed to remove their assets from them before that June 28 deadline.
An updated version of the Royal Decree on Measures to Prevent and Suppress Technology-related Crime, (No. 2) B.E. 2568 (2025), was introduced by the Thai government in April. It facilitated the establishment of the Committee for the Prevention and Suppression of Technological Crime.
Following practices overseas
The committee met with the MDES in April, with the parties setting out the process through which unauthorized digital asset platforms would be restricted and blocked. On that occasion, similar practices carried out in other jurisdictions within the Asian region were referred to.
In December 2023 India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) moved to block nine offshore crypto exchanges, having issued them with compliance show-cause notices.
In April 2024 the Philippines SEC requested that Google and Apple remove apps associated with global exchange Binance from the local versions of their application stores. Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) similarly ordered both companies to remove apps belonging to unregistered crypto exchanges in February of this year.
Back in March, the Thai SEC filed a lawsuit against Aux Cayes FinTech Co. Ltd., an OKX affiliate company. The complaint alleged that OKX had been running an unlicensed exchange in Thailand, and was filed with the Economic Crime Suppression Division of the Thai police force.
The SEC outlined on March 21 that a similar criminal complaint had been filed against XT.com. It’s understood that Bybit, CoinEx and 1000X.Live have also been recipients of complaints on the same basis.
Earlier this year, the Economic Crime Suppression Division considered taking action against Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market, on the basis that the platform violated Thailand’s gambling laws, and in doing so, posing a risk to economic and social stability in Thailand.
In April 2024, the SEC issued a warning to crypto exchange platforms against the use of misleading advertising, drawing their attention to the fact that advertising of that nature would potentially place those platforms in breach of regulatory guidelines.
