Thailand’s central bank is stepping up stablecoin surveillance as part of a wider effort to crack down on money laundering, illicit finance and “gray money” in the country.

The Bank of Thailand is working with the Kingdom’s Securities and Exchange Commission to audit high-volume stablecoin transactions, with a focus on USDt (USDT), cash transactions and currency exchanges, to identify and stop illicit financial flows.

“The measures we are implementing are not short-term fixes; they require the continuous deployment of multiple parallel strategies,” Bank of Thailand Governor Vitai Ratanakorn said, according to local media outlet The Nation on Saturday.

Thailand is targeting the “gray economy,” which largely consists of cash that may have come from suspicious origins, such as scam call centers that have proliferated in the region. While there are no reliable figures for the gray economy, 2025 scam losses may have amounted to $3.4 billion, amid 173 million scam calls and texts. 

Stablecoins have become a popular method of transferring large amounts due to near-instant cross-border settlement. 

Cash, forex and gold trading targeted

The move will expand commercial bank compliance duties across cash networks, currency exchanges, gold bullion trading and “suspicious stablecoin transactions” in an effort to prevent regulated entities from facilitating corruption or shadow economies, it reported.

High-value cash transactions will also require a source-of-funds declaration, and exchanges of large volumes of big banknotes for smaller denominations without a clear business reason will also be monitored. Cash deposits of more than 5 million baht ($150,000) also require full disclosure. 

Related: Thailand crypto platforms freeze 10K accounts in AML crackdown: Report

Thailand has often been touted as a crypto haven, but digital asset and stablecoin payments are still outlawed by the central bank and there has been regular rule tightening on crypto businesses. 

Crypto trading remains legal, with the country’s largest exchange, Bitkub, seeing about $26 million in daily volume. However, almost 40% of that is forex, with the USDT/THB pair being the most popular, according to CoinGecko. 

Scammer crackdown gone wrong

Thailand’s banks imposed sweeping account restrictions and froze three million bank accounts in 2025 as part of its crackdown on mule accounts, gray capital and suspicious activity.

However, thousands of individuals and legitimate businesses were caught in the dragnet in what media reports described at the time as a “scammer crackdown gone wrong.” 

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Five Democratic senators have called for committee hearings “to investigate the national security implications of President Trump’s cryptocurrency holdings” as the chamber considers digital asset market structure legislation.

In a Friday notice, the Democratic ranking members of five US Senate committees and subcommittees asked lawmakers to address President Donald Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure, in which he reported earning about $1.4 billion connected to crypto ventures like his memecoin and family’s World Liberty Financial platform. The lawmakers said that the reports “heighten concerns about the President pushing Congress to pass crypto legislation in favor of the very industry he’s cashing in on,” referring to the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, on which the Senate is expected to vote this month.

“We call on our respective Committees to hold hearings to investigate the national security implications of President Trump’s cryptocurrency holdings, including the influence of the [United Arab Emirates] or unknown third parties on President Trump’s actions,” said the notice.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, one of the Democrats who called for hearings into Trump’s ties to crypto, speaks to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday. Source: Richard Blumenthal

As members of the minority in both the Senate and House of Representatives, Democrats have less authority to hold their own hearings and oversight without Republican support. However, Senate rules require 60 votes to end a filibuster and advance a bill, meaning that Republicans will need help from some Democrats to pass CLARITY.

Related: Donald Trump says ‘nothing wrong’ with $1.4B crypto windfall while in office

Some Senate Republicans, like Cynthia Lummis, continue to push for CLARITY to pass even as many Democrats signal they will withhold support without clear ethics provisions. Representative French Hill, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee and helped the bill pass in the House in 2025, said that Trump’s ties made passing legislation “more complicated.”

CBDC ban to become law after Trump’s refusal to sign bill

The notice from Democrats came just hours before a bill barring the Federal Reserve from issuing or creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC) until Dec. 31, 2030, is expected to become law on Saturday. Trump canceled the signing ceremony for the bipartisan housing bill containing the CBDC ban and did not issue a veto of the legislation, leaving the measure to automatically become law after 10 days.

Magazine: Crypto’s CLARITY Act faces partisan fight over ethics on Senate floor

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

The US Department of Justice is reportedly moving to drop charges against the founder of BitClub Network, a purported crypto mining platform that allegedly defrauded investors of $722 million between 2014 and 2019.

A court filing shows Matthew Goettsche’s attorneys wrote to New Jersey district court Judge Claire Cecchi on Wednesday, stating that the parties “reached an agreement in principle” to resolve the pending charges “but need time to finalize the terms.”

Goettsche’s attorneys’ letter to New Jersey district court Judge Claire Cecchi. Source: Bloomberg Law

The filing came after the deputy attorney general’s office in Washington reportedly ordered the New Jersey attorney general’s office to dismiss the case against Goettsche with prejudice, according to a report on Friday from Bloomberg Law, citing two sources familiar with the matter. 

Goettsche was indicted in December 2019 and was set to face trial in October for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and selling unregistered securities. A reversal would mark one of the more notable changes in US crypto enforcement history, particularly given that three of his former colleagues, Silviu Balaci, Joseph Abel and Gordon Beckstead, have pleaded guilty for their involvement in the scheme.

The potential reversal follows an April 2025 memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who directed the DOJ to end its “regulation by prosecution” strategy against the digital asset industry.

Cointelegraph reached out to the DOJ for comment but didn’t receive an immediate response.

BitClub operated from April 2014 to December 2019, claiming to be a Bitcoin mining pool where investors could buy shares and earn passive returns. BitClub allegedly falsified earnings values to investors and fabricated mining data to entice more investors into the scheme.

Related: Acting AG Todd Blanche confirms ‘code is not a crime’ in DOJ pivot 

Past court filings show Goettsche once described his model as one built “on the backs of idiots.”

DOJ is still taking down crypto’s bad actors

In April, California man Evan Tageman was sentenced to 70 months in prison for his role in a criminal enterprise that stole about $263 million worth of crypto from victims through social engineering scams and burglary. 

The DOJ also froze over $700 million in crypto tied to investment scammers targeting Americans in April, while in February, it seized nearly $580 million in crypto linked to a criminal scam group operating in Southeast Asia.

Features: Will the crypto lobby’s $189M campaign get CLARITY over the line? 

The US Federal Reserve named Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) co-founder Marc Andreessen to help lead a task force studying how artificial intelligence and other new technologies could affect productivity and jobs.

Andreessen will serve on the Fed’s Productivity and Jobs task force alongside Charles I. Jones, a Stanford University economics professor currently on leave at Anthropic, and Asha Sharma, Microsoft’s executive vice president and Xbox CEO.

The new task force will assess how general-purpose technologies such as AI will affect employment and productivity to better inform the central bank’s policymaking, the Fed said in a Thursday press release.

The group is one of five task forces launched under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, each responsible for examining important areas of monetary policy conduct. The other task forces will focus on the Fed’s policy communication, balance sheet policy, data quality and inflation frameworks.

Andreessen co-founded Andreessen Horowitz, which has become one of Silicon Valley’s most influential venture capital firms and a major backer of crypto and AI startups.

Andreessen and Warsh’s ties date back to the early 1990s at Stanford University. During a 2025 interview with CNBC, Warsh said that both Andreessen and Palantir’s Peter Thiel “have been friends from my days in college.” 

Andreessen publicly supported Warsh’s appointment as Fed chairman. “I’ve known Kevin for 30 years; he combines great insight in economics and finance with keen understanding of technology and business,” he wrote in a Jan. 30 X post following US President Donald Trump’s nomination.

Source: Marc Andreessen

Warsh launches Fed task forces

Warsh revealed the leadership-driven overhaul and the creation of the five new task forces during a press conference on June 17.

“These subjects are timely, consequential, and, in my view, worthy of a fresh look,” said Warsh during the press conference, adding that each of these will be independently led by “some of the very best minds—both inside and outside the economics profession.” 

Warsh also said that the central bank will strive to publish policy statements and guidance in shorter, clearer language.

Related: Hyperliquid shows how onchain perps could challenge Wall Street: Pantera

FOMC divided over AI’s economic impact

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is sharply divided over the economic impact of AI and whether it is an inflationary or disinflationary technology. Some view AI as a long-term disinflationary productivity booster, while others argue that the current spending on AI infrastructure is actively increasing inflation.

During a May 27 speech, Governor Lisa Cook said that she expects AI to further “boost productivity growth, contributing to my expectation that GDP will grow robustly,” but added that it presents the risk of “higher inflation.” 

In former Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statements from March 2026, he said that data center spending is “putting pressure on all kinds of goods and services” and is “probably pushing inflation up at the margin.” 

Magazine: Strategy sells $216M Bitcoin, Bollinger bullish on BTC: Hodler’s Digest, June 29-July 6, 2026

Revolut, a crypto-friendly digital banking platform, said its Tether USDt (USDT) delisting will not affect all customers globally.

The delisting will affect Revolut customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland, while support for the stablecoin will continue in other markets, a spokesperson for the company told Cointelegraph.

Revolut said the decision followed a review of its crypto services and risk considerations under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

“Revolut is discontinuing support for USDT for customers in the EEA following a periodic review of our cryptocurrency offering in light of the evolving EU regulatory framework under MiCA,” the spokesperson said.

Revolut’s decision reflects a broader trend across the EU, where crypto platforms have continued to phase out USDT after Tether, the issuer of the $184 billion stablecoin, chose not to seek authorization under the bloc’s MiCA framework.

News of Revolut’s USDT delisting first surfaced on Friday, when the company notified some European users that it planned to delist the stablecoin from its platform by Aug. 31, 2026.

The company added that the process began earlier, as Revolut had already removed USDT from its Revolut X trading platform for EEA customers. The latest step completes the removal of USDT from its EEA retail offering, the spokesperson said.

MiCA scope raises questions over affected markets

MiCA is an EU regulation marked as having EEA relevance, meaning it is expected to extend to the broader EEA, which includes Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein alongside EU member states, according to official documents from the European Securities and Markets Authority.

Switzerland, which Revolut included among the affected markets, is not part of the EU or the EEA and is not directly covered by MiCA. Revolut did not explain why Swiss customers were included.

Related: ESMA turns spotlight on crypto custody risks after MiCA transition

Revolut did not provide a list of jurisdictions where it currently offers crypto services, and had not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for clarification on the scope of its offering by the time of publication.

Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Revolut originally launched crypto trading in 2017 and later expanded crypto services in EEA countries in 2024.

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India’s tax department reportedly found widespread gaps in crypto tax reporting, warning that offshore exchanges, private wallets and peer-to-peer (P2P) trades are making crypto activity harder to track. 

Reuters on Wednesday reported government documents showed that fewer than a quarter of 645,000 individuals who made crypto transactions in the year ending in March 2023 reported the trades on their tax returns. The department also reportedly estimated that India had about 39 million crypto traders holding over $2.1 billion in crypto at the end of May. 

The findings add a tax-enforcement factor to the country’s long-running digital asset policy debate, moving the issue beyond the central bank’s financial-stability concerns and into questions on offshore trading and recoverable tax revenue. India was ranked first in Chainalysis’ 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index.

The report comes days after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) backed a containment strategy for crypto assets. On July 3, the central bank urged lawmakers to keep banks and financial institutions insulated from cryptocurrencies and privately issued stablecoins. The RBI reportedly said prohibition remained a recognized policy option and recommended preventing digital asset use in payments and settlements. 

Cointelegraph sought comment from India’s Central Board of Direct Taxes but had not received a response by publication.

Crypto tax enforcement remains a global challenge

India is not the only jurisdiction struggling to bring crypto activity into the tax net. In Israel, a voluntary disclosure program aimed at crypto profits fell short of expectations, according to a June 3 report by local business outlet Globes. 

The Israel Tax Authority (ITA) reportedly expected to collect 2 billion to 3 billion Israeli shekels (about $650 million to $986 million) from the process, which offered criminal immunity to taxpayers who would disclose previously hidden capital. 

Related: Petition to scrap South Korea’s crypto tax reaches 50K threshold

Despite this, only 289 disclosure requests had been submitted since the program was launched in August 2025, with reported capital totaling 676.5 million shekels and estimated tax due of 40.9 million shekels. The figure was a sharp miss compared with the expectations and with the estimated crypto tax gap. 

Globes cited tax experts who said the program’s lack of an anonymous disclosure track had weakened the incentive for crypto holders to come forward.

Magazine: Has Bitcoin bottomed for this cycle? Analysts say ‘not yet’

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

EU lawmakers on Tuesday adopted a position paper on digital assets, setting out their view on how the bloc should approach crypto regulation after the rollout of its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework.

The paper calls on the European Commission to assess whether activities including decentralized finance (DeFi), crypto lending and borrowing, staking and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) should be brought more clearly into the EU’s regulatory perimeter. It also urges consistent application of MiCA across member states and warns against national rules that could fragment the bloc’s digital asset market.

The vote turns the report, “Digital assets – challenges for the competitiveness and integrity of the European Union’s financial system,” into Parliament’s formal policy position on digital assets, but it does not directly amend MiCA or create new legal obligations for crypto firms.

MiCA’s transitional period ended on July 1, requiring crypto-asset service providers that fall under the framework to obtain bloc-wide or national authorization to continue operating across the European Union.

The EU Parliament overwhelmingly approved its digital asset policy stance. Source: European Parliament

EU lawmakers look beyond MiCA 

The report reflects growing pressure in Brussels to address digital asset activities that remain outside MiCA’s current scope.

While MiCA established licensing and conduct rules for crypto-asset service providers and issuers of certain tokens, lawmakers have continued to debate how the framework should treat DeFi, staking, lending, NFTs and tokenized financial assets.

Related: EU crypto rulebook faces enforcement challenge as MiCA transition ends

The EC has already been reviewing whether MiCA should be expanded. In May, it opened a public consultation that sought feedback on potential changes to the framework, including whether additional crypto activities should be covered and whether MiCA’s restrictions on interest-bearing stablecoins should be revisited.

The Parliament report approved Tuesday also takes a more supportive tone toward tokenization and euro-denominated stablecoins, arguing that digital assets could support the competitiveness of EU financial markets if regulated consistently across the bloc.

Magazine: Bitcoin decouples from tech stocks, Ether eyes ‘selling wave’: Market Moves

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a broad regulatory blueprint for retail financial services, warning that retail financial services are hurtling toward total automation driven by autonomous “agentic AI.”

The landmark report, “AI and the future of retail financial services,” spearheaded by executive director Sheldon Mills, details a structural shift away from periodic, human-led decisions toward continuous, automated financial services that could increasingly rely on programmable financial infrastructure.

“The central shift is from human-led, episodic financial activity towards services that are AI-enabled, continuous and delegated,” Mills wrote. In January, the FCA launched a review into the implications of advanced AI on consumers, retail financial markets and regulators.

The 147-page report comes at an inflection point where generative AI meets institutional crypto adoption. As financial systems transition to autonomous portfolio and cash management, legacy fiat banking rails are seen as structurally incapable of matching machine transaction speeds. This positions systemic stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits as potential settlement infrastructure for AI-driven financial services.

It outlines seven recommendations for the FCA to consider, including enabling “the foundations for agentic finance,” which would support the development of trusted agent protocols that would underpin use of agentic AI and “scaling up the FCA’s AI Lab to support AI models and system innovation in financial services.”

Related: UK plans payments rule changes for stablecoins, tokenized deposits

FCA envisions agents on “autonomy spectrum”

The Mills Report suggests that the catalyst is the rapid evolution of AI from predictive models into independent agents operating on an “autonomy spectrum.” At the far end of this spectrum, humans act as mere “observers” while AI continuously manages capital.

Screenshot of table header that sets out how FCA sees operator activities may change as they move across the AI autonomy spectrum. Source: Financial Conduct Authority.

The acceleration of this shift has outpaced prior regulatory timelines, with more than 20 frontier models released since late 2025 alone.

“Firms are moving from systems that recommend actions to systems empowered and trained to take them, and consumers will soon gain agents that act on their behalf,” Mills said in the report’s foreword. FCA research shows that 20% of UK adults are already open to letting AI make autonomous financial choices.

For these AI agents to execute multi-layered transaction strategies seamlessly, they require programmable, instantaneous settlement mechanisms. Traditional multi-day settlement latency remains an operational bottleneck. Because systemic stablecoins and tokenized assets live natively on programmable ledger networks, they provide the friction-free, atomic settlement needed for automated protocols to move capital instantly without human clearance.

However, this automation introduces severe corporate governance risks regarding legal accountability.

The review highlights growing industry anxiety over this ambiguity, noting that one CEO observed that the financial sector may eventually require a “Turing test” to accurately distinguish between human intent and autonomous algorithmic behavior in the market.

“The FCA’s Mills Review reinforces that firms should treat agentic AI as an accountability and governance issue now, while providing greater confidence to innovate responsibly as AI adoption accelerates,” Emma Banymandhub, CEO of The Payments Association, said in a statement. “AI has enormous potential for financial services, but realising that potential will depend on strong governance, clear accountability and maintaining consumer trust.”

Mills, who is leaving after eight years at the FCA, told The Financial Times ahead of the report’s release that managers would still need to be accountable for the actions of their AI models. “You need a human on the hook for what they’re doing,” he said.

Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa… faster than crypto

South Africa’s tax authority has proposed new guidance that clarifies how crypto assets are taxed under existing income and capital gains tax frameworks.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) on Wednesday published draft guidelines on crypto asset taxation, applying South Africa’s existing tax framework, primarily the Income Tax Act, 1962, alongside capital gains tax rules.

The draft provides that most crypto activities, including trading, swapping and spending, are generally treated as disposals that may trigger tax events. It still emphasizes that the rules depend heavily on each taxpayer’s specific circumstances.

If adopted, the proposed guidelines are set to impact millions of local users, as SARS reported in 2024 that at least 5.8 million residents held crypto assets.

Crypto treated as an asset, not currency

The guidance document reiterated that crypto assets are not legal tender or foreign currency, but rather intangible assets for tax purposes.

“The preferred interpretation of the legal nature of crypto assets is that, although highly versatile and capable of negotiability, they are not ‘currency’ and, consequently not ‘foreign currency’,” the agency said.

Source: SARS

Taxpayer’s intention as a key element

The guidelines place significant emphasis on a taxpayer’s intention when determining how crypto is taxed.

According to SARS, whether a person is classified as a trader or a long-term investor depends on their behavior, transaction frequency and the purpose for holding the asset.

An excerpt on how taxpayer intention is assessed, according to the proposed guidelines. Source: SARS

“It is important to consider the taxpayer’s intention at the time of acquisition, at the time of selling the asset, and whilst holding the asset, as a taxpayer’s intention regarding an asset may change over time,” the authority said. SARS added that this requires a broad assessment of all relevant facts and circumstances.

Related: Crypto lobby urges Congress to pass staking and mining tax bill as is

The guidelines also say crypto assets may fall under South Africa’s donations tax, as the assets are treated as “property” under tax law, with tax rates ranging from 20% to 25%, depending on the value of the donation.

Public input open until August 31

The draft guidance is not final law and is open for public comment until August 31. SARS said it is intended to attempt to provide interpretive clarity rather than introduce new legal obligations.

South Africa has emerged as one of Africa’s largest crypto markets. According to Chainalysis’ October 2024 report, the country received about $26 billion in crypto value during the one-year period covered by the study.

Chainalysis also found that institutional and professional-sized transactions were the largest contributors to total value received, particularly from late 2023 through the first quarter of 2024, highlighting a shift toward larger and more structured market activity.

Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa… faster than crypto

Revolut, a crypto-friendly digital banking platform headquartered in the United Kingdom, notified some users it will delist Tether USDt (USDT) stablecoin in August, citing regulatory and risk concerns.

In a Friday customer notice seen by Cointelegraph, Revolut said users will no longer be able to buy USDT starting July 6, with full delisting scheduled for Aug. 31, 2026.

If users do not sell or withdraw their USDT by the end of August, Revolut will automatically convert any remaining USDT holdings into users’ base currency at the day’s exchange rate, the company said.

USDT deposits will no longer be supported after July 30, 2026, after which any incoming USDT transfers will be rejected, it said.

The move highlights how major fintech companies are adjusting stablecoin access in response to shifting regulatory frameworks. Exchanges such as Coinbase began delisting USDT in Europe in 2024 to align with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) requirements.

Revolut does not cite exact framework for delisting

Revolut has not clarified whether the USDT delisting will apply globally or only in specific jurisdictions.

Addressing the reasons for delisting USDT, Revolut cited “regulatory and risk considerations” without expanding what regulations specifically have triggered the move.

Source: Cointelegraph

The company was granted a MiCA license as a crypto asset service provider (CASP) in November 2025, according to the official register by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The license was issued by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).

Related: EU crypto rulebook faces enforcement challenge as MiCA transition ends

Cointelegraph approached Revolut for comment on the affected jurisdictions and the scope of its crypto offering but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Tether refused to comply with MiCA

Tether’s USDT has been gradually delisted by CASPs in Europe since late 2024 as the stablecoin’s issuer refused to comply with the EU’s MiCA regulation.

The company’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, has repeatedly criticized perceived flaws in MiCA, including reserve requirements that apply to certain stablecoin issuers and require part of their reserves to be held with EU credit institutions.

Source: Cointelegraph

“I think it’s a very not well thought legislation,” Ardoino told Cointelegraph in a May 2025 interview.

At the time of publication, USDT is the third-largest crypto asset by market capitalization after Bitcoin and Ether, with a market value of $184 billion. Its largest competitor, Circle’s USDC, has a $73 billion market cap and ranks as the fifth-largest crypto asset, according to CoinGecko.

Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight