- Polymarket traded $515M in early 2025 amid international playing scrutiny.
- Thai SEC explores native itemizing for spot Bitcoin ETFs to develop market.
- Thailand ranks sixteenth globally in crypto adoption, Chainalysis stories.
The Thai cybercrime authorities are mulling shutting down Polymarket, a peer-to-peer prediction market the place individuals can place bets on occasions with cryptocurrency. The nation’s Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) has raised the alarm over the positioning as being in opposition to the nation’s playing legal guidelines. Primarily based on the authorities, the service Polymarket employs crypto for betting on numerous topics, together with political, sporting, and financial, and may be thought-about an unlawful playing platform primarily based on Thai laws.
The authorities have expressed issues relating to the platform’s use of cryptocurrency because it makes it tough to crack down on it. The bets are positioned utilizing blockchain, which makes it virtually unimaginable to control and monitor the betting and its attainable abuse. The Thai cyber police declare that the shutdown of Polymarket is essential to forestall individuals from partaking in illegal playing and cease utilizing cryptocurrencies for felony actions.
World Crackdown on Polymarket
Different international locations akin to Singapore, Taiwan, and France have additionally moved to restrict or ban using the service. For example, the Distant Playing Act of Singapore bans any on-line betting web site that operates with out the approval of the Singaporean authorities. This has resulted in Polymarket being blocked within the nation. Taiwan has additionally arrested a person who used the platform to put bets on the elections. In France, native regulators are investigating whether or not Polymarket is following the nation’s playing laws.
Nonetheless, Polymarket continues to be functioning in some areas. The platform stays energetic in offering prediction markets for various occasions akin to Tremendous Bowl and political elections and has obtained excessive site visitors in buying and selling. Dune Analytics reported that Polymarket achieved a buying and selling quantity of $515 million in 15 days in 2025, proving that the platform has many customers.
Thailand’s Digital Asset Panorama
Though the Thai police are arresting individuals concerned in crypto betting, the nation can also be contemplating different modifications to the legal guidelines regarding cryptocurrencies. The Thai Securities and Change Fee is contemplating allowing the buying and selling of spot Bitcoin ETFs on native exchanges. This displays the continuing effort to develop the companies for cryptocurrencies as extra individuals embrace digital belongings and create extra funding alternatives for retail and institutional traders.
The nation has witnessed an elevated uptake of cryptocurrency buying and selling, with the variety of energetic crypto buying and selling accounts rising by greater than twofold in 2024. By November 2024, the variety of energetic crypto accounts in Thailand was 270,000, up from 117,000 within the earlier yr. Such figures present that extra individuals are turning to digital belongings, even with points like those that Polymarket faces.
