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Thailand has seen a huge increase in the adoption of cryptocurrency in the last year, with some describing it as "one of the most interesting countries of cryptocurrency and blockchain in Southeast Asia in 2018".
The government in particular received a lot of cover for its actions and the pro-cryptocurrency feeling, including the decision to use blockchain as a way to track VAT payments.
Crypto in Thailand
Overall, Thailand's actions and attitudes towards blockchain and cryptocurrencies have a competitive advantage, even when compared to other countries in Southeast Asia.
The government's attitude towards cryptocurrency was praised as in the Bloomberg article "Thailand Leads in Crypto by Skipping the Big Debate" in which the writer Tim Culpan praised the country's decision to approach without distinction of "securities" or "non-securities". But rather as their respective, new, form of money with its distinctions.
More recently, Thailand's deputy prime minister, Wissanu Krea-ngam called for an increase in cryptocurrency rules. Quoting largely "the largely anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies makes it difficult for authorities to identify bad actors".
Value-added crypto
London's cryptographic payments company, Electroneum, has just announced a strategic partnership with One Development, a MVNO service provider based in Bangkok, Thailand.
The report will see Electroneum contribute with the products and protocol that led the company to call its proprietary ETN token as "First Cryptocurrency to Get KYC Compliance".
As a result, ETN will become a key payment solution for One Development consumers: an "MVNA & # 39; (Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator) that compiles MVNOs for mobile phone users in Thailand.
What are MVNOs?
The market for mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) has grown rapidly in recent years and represents a lucrative opportunity in many markets.
An MVNO is a company that offers a unique service offering to potential users, through a partnership established with the principal operator. For example, in the United Kingdom, the GiffGaff company is an MVNO based on the O2 network.
One study states that at the time of writing there were around 1000 MVNOs worldwide, representing a total of 10% of the total mobile users, and that:
"Europe dominated the global MVNO market, followed by Asia-Pacific and North America in 2017."
At present, MVNOs are poorly integrated and incorporate cryptocurrency into their fundamental sales processing systems. However, current Electroneum efforts in the sector are helping to change the tides.
More information on Electroneum
Electroneum is a system that aims to combine the advantages of cryptocurrency with those of mobile technology in order to achieve the highest level of accessibility and reach. So far we have covered Electroneum in a positive light numerous times, even in the last year alone, and since it is still to be kept in mind.
Thailand is just one of the many international markets where Electroneum has joined (as well as one of the many recently announced partnerships), with the cryptocurrency listed on a South African exchange at the beginning of this month (Artis Turba).
Further advantages offered by the system are the commercial integration of cryptocurrency payments, allowing international low-rate and high-speed transactions. This, in theory, will help to introduce new revenues from other developed markets.
The future crypt of Thailand
You may not have heard of many of the individual projects coming from Thailand, as many of the projects based on them are focused on the internal market. More importantly, few, if at all, seem to provide tangible value to the country or its citizens. An example of this is the recent announcement of the liquidation of a total of seven cryptocurrency companies by the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission for local operations.
This is probably a positive indicator for future cryptocurrency operations in Thailand, however, as a result of further investigation, a major flaw will emerge. Five of these liquidated companies are cryptocurrency exchange exchanges, while the other two are concessionaires. However, none of these companies is trying to use the blockchain in original ways that could help to help the Thai economy or its citizens.
On the contrary: in other news, the country is progressing through an initiative called Project Inthanon, which was announced in the summer 2018. This project was created by the national central bank The Bank of Thailand (BoT) and will use "Corda", which is a technological platform for accounting books distributed by R3.
Project Inthanon is building a prototype test of the concept "to allow transfers of internal funds within the international banking system". This would be achieved through the use of CBDC token, a digital currency of the central bank for interbank agreements.
Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.
