Thailand Proposes $148,000 Daily Cap on Stablecoin Flows

Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed capping daily stablecoin deposits and withdrawals at 5 million baht ($148,000) each per customer at regulated crypto operators. The regulator announced the draft rules on Thursday, applying the limit separately to deposits and withdrawals at each licensed operator.

The SEC said the measures aim to curb money laundering, cybercrime and attempts to bypass cross-border money transfer rules. The caps would not be aggregated across the industry: a customer transacting through multiple operators would face the 5-million-baht ceiling at each venue independently.

What would the draft require from operators?

The proposal places verification duties directly on licensed platforms. Under the draft:

• Stablecoin transfers to and from third-party wallets would be barred; operators must verify customers own the accounts or wallets used for deposits and withdrawals.
• Operators must comply with the Travel Rule, collecting and sharing information about transfers.
• Operators must deploy blockchain analytics to identify wallets linked to suspicious activity.
• Crypto exchanges must name their market makers and identify the assets for which those makers provide liquidity.
• Crypto brokers would be barred from using liquidity providers for stablecoin-baht trading pairs.
• Certain off-platform trades would carry a 3 million baht minimum.

The market-maker disclosure requirement stands out among the measures. It would give the SEC visibility into which firms supply liquidity on Thai exchanges and for which tokens — information most jurisdictions do not compel platforms to publish.

How does this fit Thailand's broader crypto tightening?

Thursday's draft follows a September consultation in which the SEC proposed stablecoin transfer limits and tighter oversight of crypto operators. The sequence signals a sustained regulatory push rather than a one-off intervention, extending from transfer monitoring into the structure of exchange operations themselves.

The new proposal also arrives alongside enforcement action against unlicensed venues. Thai authorities plan to block access to Bitget in December over unlicensed crypto trading, extending website-blocking measures already used against other offshore platforms.

What are the operational consequences?

For licensed operators, the draft would create compliance costs on two fronts. Ownership verification for every deposit and withdrawal wallet adds a screening layer comparable to bank account-matching requirements in traditional finance. The Travel Rule obligations would additionally require data-sharing infrastructure with counterparties abroad.

The 5-million-baht cap is modest by institutional standards — roughly $148,000 per day, per direction, per platform. Larger stablecoin users could respond by splitting activity across multiple licensed operators, since the cap applies per operator rather than per customer across the market.

The 3-million-baht minimum on certain off-platform trades would formalize a threshold structure for over-the-counter activity, pushing larger private transactions into a regulated reporting perimeter.

What happens next?

The draft remains a proposal, and its provisions could change before adoption. Market participants will watch whether the SEC finalizes the caps as drafted and whether the December blocking of Bitget signals a broader enforcement window against unlicensed platforms serving Thai users.