LOS ANGELES—The report out of Thailand sounded definitive: digital currency has been officially denounced as illegal in Thailand. A subtext to the story was whether China would be next, closing off arguably the largest economy in the world. But questions remain whether Bitcoin has actually been banned throughout the country.
GigaOm.com’s David Meyer for one is taking a wait and see posture, writing this afternoon “A Bitcoin exchange in Thailand has suspended its services because, it claims, it has been informed by the country’s central bank that the crypto-currency is illegal. However, something about this now widely spread-around story just doesn’t sound right to me.”
However, the Bangkok Post reported today, “The company overseeing bitcoins in Thailand said on its website that the central bank informed it on Monday that it is illegal to trade bitcoins, move them in or out of the country, or use them to buy or sell goods or services.”
So which is it? Well, the statement issued yesterday by bitcoin exchange Bitcoin Co, Ltd., which is what the Post referenced, would seem to be definitive. At the conclusion of a meeting yesterday with 15 members of the Bank of Thailand, the company stated, “senior members of the Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department advised that due to lack of existing applicable laws, capital controls and the fact that Bitcoin straddles multiple financial facets the following Bitcoin activities are illegal in Thailand:
* Buying Bitcoins
* Selling Bitcoins
* Buying any goods or services in exchange for Bitcoins
* Selling any goods or services for Bitcoins
* Sending Bitcoins to anyone located outside of Thailand
* Receiving Bitcoins from anyone located outside of Thailand”
Reacting immediately, the company concluded that it had “no choice but to suspend operations until such as time that the laws in Thailand are updated to account for the existence of Bitcoin. The Bank of Thailand has said they will further consider the issue, but did not give any specific timeline.”
According to GigaOm’s Meter, however, “Thailand’s central bank doesn’t set laws—the country has a Ministry of Finance to do that. What it does do is regulate financial institutions and, for one reason or another, it seems to have decided that Bitcoin Co. Ltd. was not up to the task.”
He placed calls to the Bank, without success, finally concluding, “It may well be that the Bank of Thailand doesn’t understand Bitcoin yet, or is even outright hostile towards it, but that almost certainly doesn’t mean Thailand has banned it. It’s far more likely that this is a case of officials erring on the side of caution and/or not being convinced by whatever Bitcoin Co. Ltd. had to say in its license application. At most, this reflects a prohibition on one company running a Bitcoin business — rather than a full-blown national ban.”
It may not matter. Calling for a ban is one thing; enforcing it is quite another. “There would be no way of detecting let alone stopping people who use it to buy and sell things,” adds Meyer. “The same goes for sending or receiving them on a cross-border basis.” Does that go for porn, too?
