Thailand Puts USDT Under Watch as ‘Gray Money’ Crackdown Goes Multi-Asset

Thailand’s central bank has brought USDT under formal monitoring after finding that roughly 40% of stablecoin sellers on Thai platforms are foreign nationals operating without permission. The move is part of a broader government campaign to shut down “gray money” flows by unifying oversight of cash, gold, and digital assets under a single data-driven enforcement framework.

Key Stats

• 40% of USDT sellers on Thai platforms are foreigners (BoT estimate)
• ฿2.8bn — average daily crypto trading volume in Thailand
• ฿10–15bn — average daily FX market volume
• USDT market share: ~64% of global stablecoin supply
• $3bn+ USDT frozen globally by Tether in cooperation with law enforcement

What Triggered the Move

According to local outlet The Nation, the Bank of Thailand (BoT) has flagged USDT activity as a potential conduit for illicit capital flows, despite the country’s relatively small crypto market.

Governor Vitai Ratanakorn said that the issue is not scale, but structure: a significant share of USDT trading is linked to actors who should not be operating inside Thailand in the first place.

“We will no longer limit ourselves to analysis,” Vitai said. “If structural problems are left unresolved, they will eventually affect macroeconomic stability.”

In practical terms, USDT transactions are now being reviewed alongside physical cash movements, gold trading, and e-wallet flows — a clear signal that stablecoins are no longer treated as a regulatory edge case.

From Crypto to Gold: One Enforcement Model

The USDT scrutiny follows a January 9 directive from Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, ordering tighter controls across both traditional and digital value channels.

The strategy reframes crypto and gold as parallel rails for value storage and transfer — both vulnerable to “smurfing,” underreporting, and cross-border leakage.

Planned measures include:

• Lower reporting thresholds for physical gold purchases to prevent transaction-splitting
• Possible Specific Business Tax and stricter audits for online gold platforms
• Strict enforcement of the Travel Rule for crypto, requiring sender and receiver identification
• Creation of a national data hub to monitor large or unusual financial flows in real time

This is less about banning tools and more about closing informational blind spots.

Why USDT, Not Bitcoin?

The focus on USDT reflects how stablecoins are actually used in emerging and semi-open economies.

Globally, stablecoins now dominate crypto transaction volumes. Chainalysis estimates that 84% of illicit crypto transactions in 2025 involved stablecoins, largely due to their liquidity, price stability, and ease of settlement.

USDT, in particular, has become financial infrastructure — from cross-border trade to informal FX substitution — which makes it both powerful and politically sensitive.

Tether says it has responded by adopting a proactive wallet-freezing policy, blocking over $3 billion in USDT and working with 310 agencies across 62 jurisdictions. Still, regulators remain wary, especially as USDT has been linked to sanctions circumvention in other regions.

Thailand’s Regulatory Signal

Thailand has long favored a rules-first, license-heavy crypto regime. What’s changing now is scope.

By pulling USDT into the same oversight framework as gold and cash, Thailand is signaling that:

• Crypto is no longer a regulatory outlier
• Enforcement will be data-centric, not asset-specific
• Even small markets can pose systemic risks if used as transit hubs

For exchanges and custodial platforms, this likely means tighter KYC, enhanced withdrawal scrutiny, and more friction around stablecoin flows — even if self-custody remains technically permitted.

Thailand isn’t cracking down on crypto because it’s big — it’s doing so because it connects too easily to the real economy. By treating USDT, gold, and cash as interchangeable channels for gray money, regulators are building a unified defense against illicit capital — and making clear that stablecoins now sit firmly inside the macro-financial perimeter.

In 2026, the message is simple: if value moves like money, it will be regulated like money.