The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Thailand has banned cryptocurrency companies from providing staking and lending services, according to a press release on Thursday.
The press release says the decision to prohibit "depository services," which include paying returns to depositors, was made to shield traders from the dangers associated with crypto lenders.
In their words:
“The ban on the payment of returns for deposit-taking & lending is to protect traders and the general public from the risks of such transaction providers as well as to help reduce problems that may arise from services that are not regulated by a regulatory authority and may lead to damage to the people because there is no supervision both at home and abroad.”
The ban also extends to advertisements aimed at selling such services to people.
According to the third item on the ban list,
“The SEC prohibits advertising or soliciting the general public or doing any other act in the manner of supporting the deposit-taking and lending services of the service provider or other persons, for example, as a channel for customers.”
However, following a downturn in the cryptocurrency market, where Bitcoin and Ethereum have lost more than 50% of their value since the beginning of the year, several crypto lenders, including Celsius Network and Babel Finance, as well as exchanges offering lending services, have frozen withdrawals over the past few months.
Zipmex is one of the exchanges that stopped withdrawals over the market crash, and it has entities in Singapore, Thailand, Australia, and Indonesia.
After Zipmex missed a deadline to supply transactional information, the Thai SEC filed a police complaint last week. Additionally, the regulator is questioning Zipmex regarding the withdrawal freeze in July.
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