The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand wants to regulate DeFi projects in-country, including the issuance of digital token.
In an announcement on Sunday, securities regulators said DeFi activity involves digital tokens. All activity related to decentralized finance especially project issuing tokens could require licenses issued by the regulator.
The statement released on Sunday afternoon after the DeFi project Tuktuk Finance debuted on the Bitkub chain. The project native token TUK rose to several hundred dollars before plummeting beneath $1 within minutes.
“The issuance of digital tokens must be authorised and overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the issuer is required to disclose information and offer the coins through the token portals licensed under the Digital Asset Decree,” the SEC said.
It is the first official announcement on DeFi from the SEC. News has caused a divide within the crypto community.
“It has become clearer that some types of DeFi are under-regulated, and we could see the SEC-regulated DeFi platforms in the future,” said Mr. Dome, founder of Tokenine the developer of MVP Coin Project.
Niran Pravithana added that the announcement is reasonable given a number of fraudulent tokens are in circulation. He is a co-founder and CEO of Ava Advisor.
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“These criminals can hide in messenger application Telegram and manipulate the token prices and these illegal activities can easily go undetected by the authorities,” said Mr. Niran.
“For traders, it is best to study the DeFi project before getting involved in both the technical and security aspects,” the SEC said. Traders “should check whether the service provider is a digital-asset business that is licensed and regulated by the SEC or other regulatory agencies under law.”
