Thailand’s Ministry of Finance has officially granted a license allowing the Huobi exchange to trade digital assets.
This makes the Chinese crypto exchange, now based in Singapore and San Francisco, the fifth one authorised to operate in the country officially and in full compliance with local regulations.
Over the past two years, Thailand has improved its legislation on digital assets with the aim of providing the safest possible investment environment for investors.
In fact, since May 2018, all companies operating in the digital assets sector in Thailand have been authorised to do so only after having obtained a special licence issued by the local SEC, the Thai financial market regulator.
The first four licenses were granted in January 2019 to Bitcoin Exchange, Bitkub Online, Satang Corporation and another digital asset broker, while three other applications were rejected.
To issue a crypto license, regulators focus on whether the applicant has a robust management system, a monitoring system to detect conflicts of interest, routine computer security controls, and other features.
Huobi Thailand’s CEO, Sakda Katekaew, said:
“Huobi Thailand is built on Huobi Cloud, which provides a one-stop solution for global digital asset exchanges. Huobi Thailand will provide Thai users with secure and reliable digital asset trading services through Huobi Cloud’s verified technical capabilities. In the field of digital asset trading, Huobi is one of the largest exchanges in the world by trading volume and has accumulated six years of experience in safe operation. After entering Thailand, Huobi will also actively cooperate with the government and local enterprises to explore the application scenarios of blockchain”.
The Thai government is actively exploring other applications of blockchain technology. For example, in August 2018, the Bank of Thailand announced the development of its official virtual currency which will probably be based on the R3 platform of Corda: eight commercial banks in the country, including Standard Chartered Bank of Thailand and HSBC, have announced support for this project.
Huobi now holds 12 state licenses, including the US, Japan, where it obtained crypto license number 7, and Gibraltar.
