Thailand are now on hot pursuit of cryptocurrency regulations which will in turn go on to see the country adopt a similar approach to regulation as we have seen in Japan. Though at the moment, even Japanese style regulation is looking uncertain at the moment. The Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have released details of a number of new rules and regulations that are being established to clamp down on cybercrime through initial coin offerings (ICOs). These regulations will come into force on the 16th of July 2018, so in just ten days time.Within these regulations, ICOs will be recognised under the Digital Asset Management Act (BE 2561). As a result of this, the SEC will be able to run checks on the legitimacy of all ICOs. Within this, the SEC are expected to run a full investigation into all areas of the company, from the ICOs business plan, to future plans and the distribution of tokens. They will also analyse source code and any non-disclosed information. Upon these inspections, the ICOs will be given approval to go ahead.It does seem that the checking of ICOs won’t be carried out by the SEC directly, rather, a team of companies acting on the SEC’s behalf seem to be leading these investigations here. These teams must be approved by the SEC and must have a registered capital of around $150,000.00. In essence, anyone can apply to become an ICO investigator, providing they meet the criteria set by the SEC.According to Crypto Vest:
“The screening process seeks to protect crypto investors from fraud, said the SEC’s secretary general Rapee Sujikitkul. He elaborated that getting green light from watchdog does not necessarily mean a certain token offering will prove successful. Investors should closely examine the available information and accept the involved risk, Rapee warned.”See more for yourself, here. It does seem pretty clear that the SEC are not planning on damaging the cryptocurrency industry and that they do want trading and crypto engagement to flourish. They are however clearly concerned about the risks associated with ICO investment, so want to ensure that investors and traders in Thailand have access to only safe and moderating ICO opportunities. In turn, this will go on to reduce occurrences of cyber-crime associated with ICOs and may very well go a long way towards ensuring that ICO culture is able to grow with the crypto-sphere and not become marginalised as many people currently fear it will. Investment Disclaimer