[Suit Up]

HOME / JURISDICTIONS / Thailand
Jurisdictional snapshot · APACUpdated 2026-04-28

Thailand

Wholesale-forward, retail-cautious: one of APAC's longest wholesale CBDC research programmes paired with a progressively tightened retail virtual-asset perimeter.

Catch up on Thailand→

Recent developments

Curated developments appear as the tracker fills.

Key institutions

Named institutions appear as the tracker fills.

Thailand sits in an unusual spot among APAC tokenisation jurisdictions: it ran one of the region's earliest wholesale CBDC research programmes (Project Inthanon, from 2018), it is a founding mBridge participant alongside HKMA, CBUAE and PBoC, and it inherited governance of mBridge when BIS exited the project in late 2024. At the same time, SEC Thailand has progressively tightened the retail virtual-asset perimeter under the Digital Asset Business Emergency Decree, and BoT has been visibly cautious on private THB stablecoin issuance. The net signal for tokenisation operators is asymmetric. Thailand's wholesale plumbing is among the most advanced in APAC, but the retail-distribution layer is harder to ship into than Singapore or Hong Kong. The most useful comparison is UAE, the other mBridge graduate: similar founding-CB role on the cross-border rail, less retail openness than HK, and a tokenisation story currently led from the central-bank rather than the markets-regulator side.

Regulatory posture

Bank of Thailand owns the wholesale layer. The lineage runs from Project Inthanon Phase 1 through Phase 3 (single-currency wholesale CBDC research starting 2018), into Project Inthanon-LionRock with HKMA in 2019-2020 (the first bilateral CBDC bridge in APAC), and from there into mBridge as the multi-CB extension under the BIS Innovation Hub. mBridge graduated from BIS governance in October 2024, with HKMA, BoT, CBUAE and PBoC inheriting the governance stack. BoT also ran a retail CBDC pilot circa 2023-2024 with a small group of banks, and as of late 2025 the published posture leans toward a measured, infrastructure-first rollout rather than a full retail launch.

SEC Thailand owns the virtual-asset and digital-token perimeter under the Digital Asset Business Emergency Decree (B.E. 2561, 2018). Licensing covers exchanges, brokers, dealers, fund managers, and custodians. The Decree also defines investment tokens and utility tokens as regulated categories, which is the route several Thai issuers have used for property-backed and infrastructure-backed offerings. SEC Thailand has been more active than BoT on retail-investor-facing rule changes: stablecoin scope tightening (effective dates around 2022), restrictions on certain crypto products, advertising rules, and recurring revisions on foreign-issuer access for VASPs. The Ministry of Finance owns the broader regulatory perimeter and the tax framework, where rules on capital gains from digital assets have been adjusted multiple times. AMLO is the AML/CTF supervisor and integrates with SEC Thailand's licensing regime.

The wholesale-versus-retail asymmetry is the operative editorial point. BoT has stayed engaged with cross-border tokenisation infrastructure. SEC Thailand has been more receptive on institutional digital tokens than on retail VA distribution. THB stablecoin issuance has remained small, with both regulators showing caution, including on access for foreign stablecoins by regulated VASPs.

Active pilots

  • mBridge under post-graduation governance. Founding participant alongside HKMA, CBUAE and PBoC. Tracking the current state of BoT's role and use cases as of early 2026 is the highest-value cross-border story for this jurisdiction.
  • BoT wholesale CBDC research, including any extension into tokenised-asset settlement adjacent to mBridge.
  • BoT retail CBDC pilot (circa 2023-2024). Results pointed toward measured rollout rather than full launch; current production status as of early 2026 is open.
  • SEC Thailand institutional digital-asset and tokenisation framework under the Digital Asset Business Emergency Decree, covering investment-token offerings and the licensing perimeter for digital-asset businesses.

Key institutions

  • bank of thailand. Wholesale CBDC, mBridge governance share, retail CBDC pilot.
  • sec thailand. Digital asset business licensing, investment-token framework, retail VA rules.
  • mof thailand. Broader regulatory perimeter, tax framework on digital assets.
  • amlo thailand. AML/CTF supervisor, integrated with SEC Thailand licensing.

Open questions

  • mBridge governance post-BIS graduation: which CBs are leading day-to-day, what the published commercial use cases look like as of early 2026, and whether BoT's role has expanded or narrowed relative to HKMA, PBoC, and CBUAE.
  • Whether BoT extends wholesale CBDC research into tokenised-asset settlement (a path several APAC peers have signalled) or keeps the wholesale layer scoped to payments and FX.
  • Whether SEC Thailand opens institutional access to tokenised funds in a way that mirrors the recent HK SFC moves on secondary trading of tokenised authorised products.
  • THB stablecoin posture: whether BoT and SEC Thailand will publish a clearer issuance and access regime, or continue case-by-case caution including on foreign-stablecoin access for licensed VASPs.
  • Project Agorá: whether Thailand has joined any wholesale tokenisation workstream alongside mBridge, given the BIS exit from mBridge and BIS-led continuation of Agorá.

Related

  • Stablecoin types for THB and the broader fiat-pegged perimeter.
  • Tokenisation, defined for the investment-token versus tokenised-fund distinction.
  • hong kong as the bilateral CBDC bridge counterparty (Inthanon-LionRock) and mBridge co-governor.
  • japan for the contrast on retail VA posture and the FSA sandbox model.
  • BIS, BIS Innovation Hub for the mBridge graduation context.
Weekly briefing

Sunday evening Singapore time. Importance-3 items, one deep dive, what's worth watching next.