Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will bring in new provisions for crypto exchange-traded funds and the development of digital assets as an investment class as part of its new three-year plan.
SEC Secretary-General Pornanong Budsaratragoon said in a statement that Thailand’s capital markets had faced challenges on multiple fronts in 2025, including both domestic factors and global shifts.
“Amid the volatility and uncertainties arising from multiple factors that may affect Thailand’s capital market going forward, the SEC remains committed to maintaining a balanced approach between promoting market development and ensuring effective supervision, so that the capital market remains credible, sustainable, and accessible to all sectors,” she said.
Jimmy Xue, co-founder and CEO of Axis, a quantitative yield protocol, told Decrypt the combined efforts of different institutions suggested the country was pursuing a model that integrates crypto into traditional finance rather than fencing it off, mirroring the U.S. approach of using banks as market makers and approving spot ETFs to lower operational risks for retail investors.
“Thailand appears to be taking a dual-track approach where the regulatory sandbox for bond tokens nurtures local issuers while the formalization of ETFs signals to global projects that the country is a safe jurisdiction for foreign capital,” he added.
“This strategy aims to transform the local market from a retail-heavy trading hub into a sophisticated venue for institutional asset allocation.”
He characterised Thailand as taking a “regulated middle ground” between the approaches seen by some of its neighbors, including “the legally gray but high-adoption market of Vietnam and the cautious, accredited-investor focus of Singapore.”
“By actively creating retail-accessible products like ETFs with a suggested 4-5% portfolio allocation, the Thai SEC provides clear legal protections without stifling access,” he added.
Thailand is also continuing its focus on scams targeting retail investors. The SEC said that, in 2025, it prevented 47,692 crypto mule accounts used by scammers to transfer assets through measures such as issuing industry standards to digital asset operators to screen and prevent mules accounts, and amending the Cybersecurity Decrees to block illicit apps and enforce shared liability. It had handled over 12,000 reported and investor inquiries related to scams, and published over 3,800 investor alerts.
