The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has worked with the Thai Digital Asset Operators Trade Association (TDO) and digital asset businesses to issue a new industry standard, aiming to crack down on digital asset mule accounts.
The new standard follows discussions with relevant agencies, including the Bank of Thailand, the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau, Central Investigation Bureau, the Anti-Money Laundering Office and the Thai Bankers' Association, on the prevention of using digital assets for money laundering by criminal groups.
The standard aims to intercept new mule accounts, detect unusual customer behaviour, investigate and take action against digital asset trading accounts that are considered mule accounts, and facilitate information exchange between the banking sector and related agencies regarding mule accounts, according to the regulator.
Anek Yooyuen, deputy secretary-general of the SEC, said as technology crimes have increasingly damaged people's assets, the regulator worked with relevant agencies to develop measures and issue industry standards to help block the transfer of victims' money into digital assets via mule accounts.
These measures will be strictly enforced starting in late March, becoming the standard for the Thai digital asset industry, noted the regulator.
The SEC plans to coordinate with the TDO to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the measures to ensure they are effective, he said.
Jomkwan Kongsakul, another deputy secretary-general of the SEC, said the regulator also implemented measures to prevent investment fraud, such as issuing warnings and providing knowledge and understanding to the public about investment fraud, as well as coordinating with relevant agencies to block social media accounts found to have been involved in fraudulent investment activities.
According to the SEC, the market value of digital assets globally contracted by 23.2% in February from a month earlier to US$2.78 trillion, 60.2% of which is Bitcoin, followed by Ethereum with a 9.71% share and USDT at 5.11%.
Trading volume soared by 73.4% from a month earlier to $18.3 billion.
In Thailand, the digital asset market was worth 77 billion baht in February, down 22.6% from January, with the daily transaction value declining to 2.28 billion baht.
There were 174,000 active accounts last month, down 13.2% from January, noted the SEC.