The Bank of Thailand officially includes USDT in monitoring and strictly investigates cross-border capital flows

【BlockBeats】The Bank of Thailand has recently taken new actions. On January 13th, they officially included the stablecoin USDT into the fund flow monitoring framework as part of their efforts to combat “gray funds.”

According to local media reports, the central bank discovered an interesting phenomenon during their investigation: approximately 40% of USDT sellers on local platforms are foreign traders. The central bank stated that these transactions “should not occur in Thailand.”

The central bank governor specifically emphasized that from now on, stablecoins will be subject to stricter scrutiny, just like cash, gold transactions, and electronic wallet fund flows. Although Thailand’s crypto market size is not large, the risks should not be underestimated—these flows could be diverted for illegal or gray fund purposes, posing a long-term threat to macroeconomic stability.

This move by the central bank actually aligns with the government’s broader actions. On January 9th, the Thai government issued directives requiring stricter reporting systems and wallet identity verification rules for digital asset and gold transactions. Multiple agencies, including the central bank and tax authorities, are involved in jointly promoting this new regulatory framework. The overall trend is clear: Southeast Asia is strengthening control over cross-border capital flows.