Thailand Banning Bitcoin Payments
Thailand has always been seen as a place where the rules are a bit arbitrary, well every country is but theirs seems to be a little bit more off the beaten path. Thailand itself is a constitutional monarchy, which hasn't always been the most politically and financially stable system.
People have somehow adapted and for any tourist heading there, it can sometimes feel like the wild west.
So to me, it comes as a bit of a surprise that Thailand’s financial authorities have unveiled a plan to issue regulate/ban the use of bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a payment method.
The goal is to
“limit the widespread adoption of digital assets as a means of payment for goods and services”
Thai protection racket
In a bid to protect the country of 70 million people from unregistered securities and speculative assets. Now the reasoning to me makes sense, the shitcoin market is a complete joke and is in fact harmful to many but I don't see the need to ban it. It will buckle under the weight of itself in time and those who freely elect to use them will pay the price.
Babying people and telling them they can't do something for their own protection leads us down a path towards totalitarianism. Even though I don't like scams and don't want to see people hurt, I don't see how bans set a good precedent.
However it's the reality and as certain cryptocurrencies die due to bans, we see how fragile they are and I guess that's the silver lining, government pushback shows you which projects deserve to say around.
Blocking the chain from moving too fast
If I were to read betting man and to read between the lines I would say that this blunt instrument is using shitcoins as a play to keep bitcoin adoption from disrupting the Thai Baht. You see it's easy to paint bitcoin as a speculative asset and link it to all the scammy shit going on in the wider crypto space and issue a blanket ban.
However, behind that veil, we see that when it comes to bitcoin, ownership in Thailand is high. Over 20% of the population ages 16 to 64 say they own some amount of bitcoin, according to the Bangkok Post.
That is a lot of people, if we consider 70 million in total that's 14 million people holding some satoshis. This creates a method of payment that avoids detection, tax and impacts government revenues. Thailand has a massive remittance market locally and a huge informal sector, where the lightning network is bound to thrive.
So cutting off crypto payments and making them illegal is meant to keep people from using them as a medium of exchange. In Thailand cryptocurrency investments are still allowed as there are tech companies and investment firms they want to keep happy, it's really only competing with their local currency they want to limit.
Bans are bullish
I keep repeating myself every time I see a ban if Bitcoin is bad for the environment if it's a Ponzi if it's a scam, why would it need to be banned? It would eat itself and collapse as all scams do. A ban is a government submitting defeat and acknowledging that bitcoin is a threat to the status quo.
When I see little dick politicians and monarchs freak out over sats, I know we're making the moves I want bitcoin to make, making these people as irrelevant as they should have always been.
Sources:
Have your say
What do you good people of HIVE think?
So have at it my Jessies! If you don't have something to comment, "I am a Jessie."
Let's connect
If you liked this post, sprinkle it with an upvote or esteem and if you don't already, consider following me @chekohler and subscribe to my fanbase
| Safely Store Your Crypto | Deposit $100 & Earn $10 | Earn Interest On Crypto |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
In cases where cryptocurrencies are banned, they end up growing stronger there. In my country, the government do not allow banks to perform any crypto related transactions and so, people turned to P2P as an alternative
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Absolutely, that's what I am counting on, I hope that the p2p economy continues to grow and circular economies around the world, it will make it near impossible to stop
This is a very good point. When the banning of BTC as a point of sale payment system was announced in Thailand (which this isn't the first time they've done it btw,) all of a sudden there was a much greater interest in getting involved.
Dear @chekohler, Do you think Bitcoin will surpass the value and power of each country's fiat currency?
It's already the 14th biggest currency in the world - https://fiatmarketcap.com/
I don't know if they said anything to justify this, but I don't see how wanting to limit something can be accepted so easily by the people. Maybe I've been into this blockchain thing for too long and I have taken too seriously the whole creating our own rules part, I'm not saying some government is not necessary. By the same token, no pun intended, I'm not entirely comfortable just accepting unjustified limitations where previously there weren't any.
Why would you want competition for your own currency and if purchases can be conducted with it, its easy to bypass things like sales tax and income tax by simply not declaring it, it directly affects the pockets of governments so its not surprising
As someone who lived in Thailand for over a decade and was one of the only businesses that accepted BTC as payment during the time when I owned a business there I can say that this move doesn't surprise me at all. During the time where you could accept it as payment, very few people actually did because they didn't understand the technology. My ability to accept it resulted in basically every crypto-nerd heading to my business even if they weren't all that interested in what I had for sale. It was like the community was trying to reward me for being a pioneer of sorts.
The Thai government is in cahoots with the traditional banking industry and this is true globally I would imagine. and all I can say is that I hope they don't move to ban it outright.
Accepting crypto as payment in Vietnam, where I currently live, is also illegal. However, in both countries it is legal to buy and sell BTC and other cryptos and they have their own exchanges. Both countries have BTC ATM's and here in Vietnam we have ETH ones as well.
You just can't use it as a point of sale payment method which sucks, but at least it isn't an outright ban but in all honesty, I think the only reason why they don't do that is because they know they couldn't possibly enforce it.
Like you say point of sale is not very popular in any case, its a trade for some and a hodl for others, and those that trade between crypto and fiat are the majority, which is a pretty easy tax revenue since its mostly via centralised institutions so I can see why it doesn't bother these governments right now
As for spending yeah you don't want to allow people to have off the books deals, where they settle outside the system, you want less cash transactions, you want them in your system
Yes we can use ATMs and swap bitcoin for vouchers to buy goods and services, and P2P also cannot really be stopped, I think it's just a way to scare off some people and slow the growth in the short and medium term