Thailand’s SEC Approves Country’s First ICO Portal

By Prashant Jha

In the latest development coming from Thailand, the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved the first portal for Initial Coin Offering. The portal is aimed at screening tokens in the offering, verify the whitepaper with the progress made by the token and ensure due safety for the consumers.

The Bangkok Post reported about the latest development on Wednesday and went on to describe the role of the portal as,

“ICO portals help screen ICOs, conduct due diligence, prove smart contract source codes and verify the know-your-customer process.”

The website of SEC is still not updated about the addition of the new portal, however, the director of the fintech department in the agency, Archari Suppiroj has confirmed to the publication that “Thailand’s first authorized ICO portal is being finalised for official approval with the relevant government agencies such as the Commerce Ministry.”

The SEC is responsible for regulating crypto use in the country and they have issued a statement that all the interested ICO issuers must get a clearance from the ICO portal before getting the SEC approval.

The SEC website has also issued certain financial guidelines for the ICO investors where a firm must possess a minimum 70 million baht (~$2.21 million) worth of assets or at least 25 million baht of investments. Retail investors can invest up to 300,000 Baht in ICO investments.

Crypto Operators Have Started to Apply for the ICO Conduction

The Bangkok Post also revealed that about seven to eight firms are in line and have consulted SEC for conducting their ICO in the country, however, there were no specific names of the companies mentioned, and they only mentioned hat the firm is foreign.

Thailand currently has only one foreign firm approved by the SEC to operate and offer crypto services in the country which is Bitherb Co. Ltd, a joint venture between Japanese crypto exchange Bitpoint Japan and Asia Herb Association Bangkok Co. Ltd.

Bitpoint Japan also announced that they are in talks with the SEC to obtain a license in order to conduct their ICO in the country. One of the representatives from the firm confirmed the news and said,

“Bitherb did acquire [four] licenses but will begin to operate after [the] SEC inspects the company within 180 days after license acquisition (by July 30th, 2019).”

Final Thoughts

Thailand SEC’s novel approach to adding an ICO portal is a great step towards ensuring fair and transparent crypto operations in the country. ICOs has gained a lot of bad press in recent times due to a number of fraudulent activities being done in the name of Initial Coin Offering. This has led to many countries outright banning ICO conduction in their home turf.

South Korea recently conducted research into the future of ICOs and after months of examination, they realized ICOs have too many vulnerabilities to bet the money on. In order to ensure that the citizens don’t fall victim to these fraudulent ICOs, the country has banned any kind of ICO operations.

Prashant Jha

As a content writer Prashant believes in presenting complex topics in simple laymen terms. He is a tech enthusiast and an avid reader.

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