Tether

Witai Ratanakorn, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, said at the ZERO Corruption event hosted by the Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking and its allies on 1 October that the Bank of Thailand is accelerating structural fixes in four areas of finance: household debt, SME access to credit, fair access to the financial system, and the twin problems of grey money and corruption. The approach is to create financial chokepoints that make illegal transactions harder, from opening accounts and transferring money to withdrawing cash and converting funds into financial assets, through KYC, CDD and EDD measures. The central bank also plans to issue rules barring payment service providers from serving grey capital groups and online gambling sites, with publication in the Royal Gazette expected next week. Cash withdrawal controls take effect from 1 April 2026, under which withdrawals above 1 million baht must go through a due diligence process and the purpose must be explained. The Bank of Thailand, together with the Anti-Money Laundering Office, has drawn up 24 suspicious transaction patterns and requires the names of transacting parties to be reported when withdrawals are used to buy more than 2 kilograms of gold, worth roughly 10 million baht. Authorities also found unusual USDT trading over the past four to five months, with a total value of several hundred billion baht. The Bank of Thailand and the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated and found patterns of cash withdrawals or transfers used to buy USDT before the funds were sent abroad under other people's names, which may be linked to money laundering. After the measures were introduced, cash withdrawals above 1 million baht fell by more than 50%, from about 100 billion baht a month to about 50 billion baht a month, while gold withdrawals through applications and withdrawals of more than 2 kilograms of gold dropped by more than 70%. At the same time, the Bank of Thailand, the Thai Bankers' Association and 11 other associations signed a declaration of intent not to allow the financial sector to be used as a tool for breaking the law, setting out clear duties for each agency.

Central banks across the European Union are calling for a ban on stablecoin yield, urging that crypto platforms be prevented from offering lending, borrowing, staking and other products that pay returns and rewards on stablecoin holdings. In a filing to the European Union, the European System of Central Banks said it "continues to support the prohibition on paying remuneration on stablecoins," arguing that "electronic money is intended to be used for making payments and not as a means of saving." The group said the ban should not be limited to services already governed by regulations and should also cover unregulated activities such as crypto lending, borrowing and staking. The central banks warned that allowing yield on stablecoins would blur the distinction between electronic money and bank deposits and undermine Europe's financial system, a position commercial banks have lobbied hard for, arguing that such yield would compete with savings and checking account deposits. The European arguments echo the debate in the United States over the Clarity Act, which recently failed to advance in the U.S. Senate, where eight U.S. banking groups urged lawmakers to tighten the bill's restrictions on stablecoin rewards. The two largest stablecoins are Tether's USDT and Circle Internet Group's USDC.

Russia's Ministry of Finance has warned domestic crypto investors that the government will not compensate them for losses if foreign stablecoin issuers such as USDT or USDC order their assets frozen. The warning also covers cases where investors hold the tokens in personal wallets, according to Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov. Nearly 20 million Russians hold digital assets worth roughly 3.7 trillion rubles, or about 44 billion dollars, with daily crypto transaction volume of around 50 billion rubles, or nearly 600 million dollars. The risk has already materialized: in March 2025, Tether froze more than 28 million dollars in USDT linked to Garantex after sanctions were imposed on the exchange. The warning comes as Russia introduces a new legal framework under Federal Law No. 282-FZ, signed on August 4 and taking effect on September 1, 2026. Ordinary investors will be limited to purchases of 300,000 rubles per year through a single intermediary and must pass a test before buying permitted cryptocurrencies. Some requirements for licensed intermediaries will take effect later, including in July 2027.

The Bank of Thailand, under the leadership of Governor Vitai Ratanakorn, has unveiled a historic structural strategy by tightening oversight of the financial system to block grey capital, money laundering networks and corruption. Under the rules, cash deposits or withdrawals of 5 million baht and above must be accompanied by documents explaining the source of the funds, and financial institutions have the power to reject a transaction immediately if the source cannot be proven. The measures also close loopholes in the conversion of cash into high-value assets such as gold, foreign currency and digital assets like USDT, and extend oversight to non-bank groups, electronic payment service providers and lending service providers. The central bank has also declared war on mule accounts, introducing risk grading for suspicious accounts and cross-institutional data linkage through the Central Fraud Registry, or CFR, along with measures to silence mules by immediately suspending all electronic transactions for anyone involved in wrongdoing across every account and every financial institution. It is also upgrading know-your-customer, customer due diligence and enhanced due diligence processes, setting transfer limits for vulnerable groups, requiring facial scans when transfers exceed a set threshold, limiting mobile banking to one device per user account, and adding protection against remote-control applications. All of this is integrated with cooperation from 11 financial associations, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Anti-Money Laundering Office and the cyber police through the establishment of a Fraud and Risk Working Group, along with a declaration of the principle of shared responsibility that requires financial institutions to share compensation for damage to the public if they are found to have been negligent or to have failed to meet the security standards set by the Bank of Thailand.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York filed a civil forfeiture complaint Tuesday targeting roughly $61 million in cryptocurrency that prosecutors say was generated through illegal sales of Iranian crude oil and petroleum products on the black market. Deputy U.S. Attorney Sean S. Buckley and FBI New York Field Office Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle, Jr. announced the action, with Buckley saying the government is seizing and seeking to forfeit more than $61 million of the Government of Iran's money. According to the complaint, two Chinese companies, Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, used trading accounts at the cryptocurrency exchange Binance to launder proceeds from illegal Iranian oil sales, funneling funds to the Iranian government and its proxies, including Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Prosecutors also identified a web of interconnected unhosted cryptocurrency addresses, grouped in the complaint under the label Entity A, through which more than $1.5 billion in revenue from unlawful Iranian oil transactions has flowed. Stablecoin issuer Tether will, under the arrangement described in the complaint, destroy the tokens sitting in the flagged addresses and mint new tokens of equivalent value, which will then be handed over to U.S. government custody. Binance said in a statement that it has zero tolerance for sanctions violations or illicit activity and that it did not permit any transactions with sanctioned individuals.

Jomkwan Kongsakul, Deputy Secretary-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, disclosed that the SEC is coordinating with the Bank of Thailand to develop infrastructure to support settlement in token form, or Tokenized Settlement, which will enable asset delivery and payment to occur in real time and more automatically when tokenized assets are traded. The approach also extends to Tokenized Collateral, or bringing collateral into token form, to reduce steps and increase the efficiency of post-trade processes, and efforts are underway to push for a legal framework to support it, especially electronic securities law. On supervision, the SEC has intensified oversight of digital asset business operators, starting from the customer onboarding process, which requires Know Your Customer and Customer Due Diligence. If transactions are found to be inconsistent with the information and status declared, further checks must be made through Enhanced Due Diligence, along with Customer Profiling to classify customer risk levels, limits on withdrawal amounts for high-risk customers, and rejection of customers linked to mule accounts. For stablecoins such as USDT, there are inspection measures for both inbound and outbound transactions, with transactions involving amounts of 5 million baht subject to additional scrutiny similar to the principles governing financial transactions in the banking sector. Meanwhile, the Travel Rule is used to track digital asset transfer data so that senders and recipients can be identified, and additional identity verification tools are required, such as Two-Factor Authentication and Liveness Detection, along with monitoring and reporting of suspicious transactions. The SEC stated that these measures have been gradually tightened since 2025, running in parallel with opening the way for tokenization technology to increase efficiency and create new opportunities in the capital market under a system that can be audited and risk-managed.

Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin is regulated at the state trust tier through a New York Department of Financial Services limited-purpose trust charter with segregated reserves and monthly independent CPA attestation, while its Office of the Comptroller of the Currency national trust charter, received in December 2025, remains only conditionally approved. That places RLUSD stronger than Tether, which holds no US charter and operates from El Salvador with no US resolution authority, but weaker than Circle's USDC, which received full unconditional OCC approval on July 10, 2026, and added a NYDFS trust charter three weeks later, making it the only dollar stablecoin holding both the state and federal tiers. RLUSD supply has crossed $2 billion, with $810 million on the XRP Ledger against $756 million on Ethereum, and Ripple pairs the coin with BNY Mellon as reserve custodian. A 21-bank consortium stablecoin planned for the first half of 2027 would launch with prudential supervision already attached, giving Ripple a little over a year to convert its conditional charter before the field gets more crowded. Until the OCC lifts the conditions, which typically requires satisfying capital, governance, and operational commitments, RLUSD remains a state-regulated stablecoin with a federal charter in progress.

Vithai Ratanakorn, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, said at the 10th anniversary event of Mitihun news agency, under the theme Capital with Purpose, that the Bank of Thailand supports the government in considering a tax on gold transactions, with the aim of requiring gold shops to report trading data on who they sell to and in what amounts, in order to bring hidden transactions into scrutiny and close the channel of using gold as a conduit for money laundering. The proposed approach is a specific business tax on gold shops at a very low rate, such as 0.01%, meaning a gold purchase worth 70,000 baht would incur a tax of only 7 baht. The latest data for August showed cash withdrawals exceeding 5 million baht totalling 50 billion baht, with the top 50 large customers accounting for 25 billion baht, and 66% of this group had transactions related to gold. Previously, the Bank of Thailand required reporting of gold purchases via applications and withdrawals of gold bars exceeding 2 kilograms, worth more than 10 million baht, which reduced the volume of gold bar withdrawals from 20 billion baht to 3 billion baht. In addition, it is preparing to cooperate with the Securities and Exchange Commission to close the channel of the digital asset USDT, whose suspicious transfer value in and out amounts to several hundred billion baht, with the first half of the year seeing USDT trading worth as much as 500 to 600 billion baht. It will also join with 11 financial sector agencies to declare their intent to combat illegal transactions, crack down on grey capital, online gambling and corruption, and share data on abnormal transactions together.

The Bank of Thailand, under the leadership of Governor Vitai Ratanakorn, has joined with 11 financial sector agencies to declare their intent under a cooperation framework to prevent illegal transactions in the financial sector, so that the financial sector does not become a tool, channel, or conduit supporting illegal activity and corruption. The 11 agencies that signed the declaration are the Bank of Thailand, the Thai Bankers' Association, the Association of International Banks, the Association of State Financial Institutions, the TEPA Association, the Foreign Exchange and Financial Services Association, the Thai Hire Purchase Business Association, the Thai Leasing Association, the Thai Motorcycle Hire Purchase Business Association, the Vehicle Title Loan Business Trade Association, the Personal Loan Club, and the Credit Card Business Club. This cooperation sets out six new guidelines: reporting online cash withdrawals of 5 million baht; reporting online gold trading of 2 kilograms or a total value of 10 million baht; setting a cap on foreign currency purchases of 800,000 baht per person per day; setting transfer limits based on risk along with customer profiling and enforcing the Travel Rule for digital assets, especially USDT; upgrading KYC, CDD, and EDD for specialized financial institutions and commercial banks; and defining 24 patterns of abnormal behavior. As a result of the cooperation, gold withdrawal volumes that had reached 20 billion baht fell to 3 billion baht, a decline of 70%, while cash withdrawals of 5 million baht dropped from 100 billion baht to 40 billion baht. In October 2026, an additional measure will require reporting when cash deposits exceed 5 million baht, with the source of funds to be explained. Phayong Sriwanich, Chief Executive Officer of Krungthai Bank and Chairman of the Thai Bankers' Association, disclosed that from January to July of this year, the Anti-Online Scam Center of the Royal Thai Police received more than 190,000 reports of technology-related crimes, with total damages of more than 9 billion baht. Although the average number of reports fell from about 1,040 cases per day in 2025 to 902 cases per day, it remains at a high level. Yod Chinsupakkul, President of the TEPA Association, said the association has set four commitments to upgrade KYM for merchants and digital wallets and to upgrade KYC and CDD for consumers, while continuously submitting data to analyze the connections of risky transactions.

Iran has relaxed its currency controls to permit exporters to bring home earnings in cryptocurrency, according to Financial Times reporting. Exporters can now use overseas earnings to fund imports directly, bypassing the official foreign exchange system, with Bitcoin and Tether primarily used to move value through trading corridors where sanctions restrict access to correspondent banks and conventional payment systems. Approximately $10 billion in cryptocurrency moved through Iran during 2025, and this development is expected to increase scrutiny of stablecoin issuers and their ability to identify and freeze sanctioned funds. The move fills specific gaps created by sanctions, though it does not replace Iran's broader financial system.

Bank of America, the U.S. consumer-and-investment banking giant, joined 20 other financial institutions racing to launch a dollar-backed stablecoin as its shares slid approximately 1.2% to $62.28 Friday. The heavyweight group plans to establish a company in 2026 and put the token into circulation during the first half of 2027. The pitch is simple but ambitious: one dollar of reserves behind every coin, support across public blockchains and a direct attack on institutional settlement, consumer payments and cross-border transfers. A euro-backed token is already next in line, while additional Group of Seven currencies could follow. The banks have trust, regulatory muscle and enormous distribution, but Tether has the harder advantage to steal: more than $180 billion already in circulation and a deeply established network. Bank of America can help build a credible challenger, but winning actual balances will be the real battle. The valuation picture adds pressure, with the $62.28 share price sitting 15.21% above its $54.06 GF Value, a premium that leaves less room for execution mistakes.

The Bank of Thailand (BOT) is set to declare a joint stance with the financial sector under its supervision, including financial institutions and non-banks, on September 10, to affirm that the financial sector will not serve as a tool, conduit, or support for illegal transactions. BOT Governor Mr. Withai Rattanakorn stated that blocking at the source through the banking system is the most effective strategy, as all illicit funds must pass through the banking system before being diverted to other assets. Measures already implemented, such as requiring disclosure of the source of cash withdrawals or deposits of 5 million baht or more, have reduced large cash transactions from about 100 billion baht per month in January 2026 to 47 billion baht in June 2026, a decrease of 52%. Meanwhile, a measure requesting cooperation from gold shops to report buyers and sellers of gold bars weighing 2 kilograms or more, valued at approximately 10 million baht, has reduced such transactions by up to 70% during the same period. Additionally, the BOT is coordinating with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to monitor the unusually high trading volume of USDT coins, which has surged to tens of billions of baht, and plans to extend supervision to all non-bank businesses to close loopholes that online gambling uses cash card services to rotate funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is preparing to issue rules to regulate stablecoin transactions, limiting transfers in and out to no more than 5 million baht per day per person per business operator, and prohibiting transfers through other people's wallets to prevent money laundering, mule accounts, and cybercrime. This follows a significant increase in stablecoin transactions, particularly USDT. SEC Secretary-General Mrs. Pornanong Busaratrakul revealed that the SEC Board has approved the principles for enhancing supervision, requiring that source and destination wallets undergo identity verification and comply with the Travel Rule, as well as using tracking tools to check connections with risky wallets. Transfers between customer accounts through Thai business operators are not subject to the limit but must comply with the Travel Rule. Additionally, the SEC is preparing to enhance other regulations, such as overseeing market makers and liquidity providers, as well as large off-platform transactions. Public hearings will be held within September 2026.

Tether is facing a lawsuit from two Thai businessmen over its freezing of 42.4 million USDT in October 2025, with a seizure warrant issued only four months later. The plaintiffs allege Tether acted on an informal request from a Homeland Security Investigations agent without a warrant or court order, and they seek removal of the blacklist and damages. The case hinges on the GENIUS Act's definition of a 'lawful order,' which the plaintiffs argue informal requests do not meet. Tether has frozen over $4.2 billion cumulatively, with $1.26 billion frozen in 2025 alone, and 55.6% of the frozen total has been destroyed. The court's interpretation could reshape the industry's cooperative freezing model.

Tether's planned Bitcoin mining expansion in Uruguay has collapsed amid a dispute over power supply with the state-owned utility UTE. According to an investigative report by Reuters, the project was estimated at around 120 million dollars across two mining facilities in Florida department, and was positioned as a foothold for expanding operations across South America. A conflict emerged by November 2024 between Tether's local entity Microfin and UTE over whether the contracted power supply amount should be interpreted as a minimum or a maximum. After a power shortage occurred, Microfin stopped paying electricity bills, notified termination of the contract in June 2025, and UTE cut off power supply on July 25 of that year. The unpaid electricity bills were settled in December of that year.

Tether's USDT remains the world's dominant stablecoin despite rising competition, according to data from crypto payment firm NOWPayments. Circle Internet Group's USDC stablecoin is gaining momentum, with transactions up 209% year-over-year and transaction volume up 101% in the first half of this year. Tether's USDT transaction activity declined over the same period, though it remains the market leader. NOWPayments said USDT continues to offer the scale and liquidity businesses rely on, while USDC is emerging as a popular alternative. Circle's stock has declined 43% over the last 12 months to trade at $76.53 per share.