Over the past week, news of crypto-assets trading service Zipmex has announced a suspension of deposits and withdrawals. It is a big news in the digital asset industry in Thailand. This is because of the problem with the ZipUp product, a service that invests customer money in order to deliver returns. But with the situation of the digital asset market that previously had a liquidity shortage, many owners
The main backlash in this regard was Barbel and Celsius, who suspended their withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy. And both companies are direct partners of Zipmex Asia where Zipmex Thailand has deposited the money there. After the incident, Zipmex issued a statement to clarify the incident along with the following guidelines. Vice Chairman of the Committee for Communications, Telecommunications and Digital Economy and Society The meeting was called by the SEC and Zipmex (Thailand) on July 27, 2022. The Bitcoin Addict Thailand team contacted Khun Pakornwut via phone to understand the story as follows:
What was the cause of the meeting with the committee of DES, and where did it come from?
After the ZipUp product incident from Zipmex, it was proposed that the Chairman of the Commission invite both the SEC and Zipmex to discuss the incident. But due to the relatively sudden events and last week was also a period of distrust. All committees were therefore cancelled. Until a convenient day was on July 27 in the past to talk and discuss the problem.
From the incident, what is the SEC plan to do next?
Prior to meeting the two sides, Zipmex has come out to clarify the story and give directions on how to deal with it, such as suing Barbel and Celsius, or even finding investors to buy shares to get their money back. to the victim An interesting fact is that approximately 61,000 ZipUp+ users in Thailand are experiencing this problem. The data was found in the form of a long tail, meaning those with high damage value were less than those with low damage value. The damage is estimated at 50-55 million US dollars. The number of victims is considered quite large.
If Zipmex fails to negotiate with Barbel/Celsius, what will happen?
Personally, Mr. Pakornwut thinks that negotiations with Barbel and Celsius will take a long time. may take years which must be in accordance with the process but the victim If you have to wait that long, it may not be in time, but with ZipUp+, it’s not under the SEC’s supervision, or it doesn’t have a law to support it because the SEC doesn’t allow Thai companies to do so. This makes prosecution likely to be difficult or if the SEC can find a better way to deal with it. Victims may also be able to receive compensation faster.
In the case of Zipmex, Mr. Earth thinks why he survived the SEC’s control, despite the fact that this agency should always be investigating.
ZipUp+ is a service that doesn’t allow people with a license to do it, but Khun Pakornwut asked the SEC when he found out about it. and what has been done Are there any other license holders that do this kind of service? because of the fact Soliciting investments in Thai language is wrong. If anyone remembers, there was a case where Binance had to cancel the Thai language service from the same case. The answer is that the SEC recently learned that Zipmex has a service called ZipUp on July 20, 2022, which is almost impossible.
Because the SEC has a duty to inspect license holders who already operate board business in Thailand. which must be checked regularly And with more than 61,000 ZipUp victims, it’s almost impossible for the SEC to not be aware of this. and if you know Why didn’t you issue a warning that this product was directly linked to a company abroad? It is a risky service and is not regulated by the SEC as it was previously reported that Binance users should be advised to use the service on a regulated exchange. SEC
After the incident, the SEC has reviewed the hot wallet and cold wallet of all digital asset trading service providers. And there was a question of whether there was such a service or not. Which the answer is that there is no service provider that acts in such a manner, but on the side of Mr. Pakornwut asked back that “Didn’t check normally already?” because the assets in the Hot wallet / Cold wallet and the trading board’s bank account must be the same as the assets that the client holds in the portfolio. Because they are not allowed to take customer assets to do anything else.
The SEC has also sent a letter to ask Zipmex if there is such a service. But do not forget that the ZipUp product of Zipmex is a separate two companies. Zipmex Thailand will take care of the assets in the Trade Wallet section. If in the Z wallet that has ZipUp service, it will take care of Zipmex Aisa abroad which does not need to be sent. SEC Checked, so the SEC checked it and couldn’t find it anyway. because it is different company
Where is the current law to support digital assets?
The Digital Assets Act has been in use for about 4 years. Mr. Pakornwut, personally, thinks it is broad coverage, but doesn’t penetrate deeply enough. Which digital asset services at that time and now have changed a lot, which the SEC itself can regulate. Legislation is not required. is an decree/act But at least there should be a change. to change according to the era which we may slacken in the matter of educating the public as well, because if the SEC already knows that there is a service like this and the world market has begun to grow Maybe try to make a sandbox project that experiments with various trading boards such as Bitkub Satang Pro or others to talk to the SEC and cut the rules and limit something, for example, the limit may be 100 million baht with collateral. In the end, both the SEC and the trading board will learn from each other. that it should go in which direction Including the general public will also know what happened. which caused the event to fail The damage will be in a narrow circle. No one had to be seriously hurt.
summarize
Now, Zipmex is working to resolve the issue by building trust among the victims. By coming out to live update the situation every day But victims cannot be certain that their assets still pending in Zipmex can be recovered. may have to wait for a successful lawsuit or sell shares which may take some time But what is interesting is that in the future, the SEC will be able to issue regulations or regulations. To prevent this kind of incident from happening again or not?