Binance Thailand, a joint venture between the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and local energy conglomerate Gulf Energy Development, has emerged as a transformative force in one of Southeast Asia’s most crypto-forward markets since its launch in January this year. Operating in a country where crypto accounts outnumber traditional stock brokerage accounts, Binance TH leverages its parent company’s robust infrastructure to offer Thai users access to over 300 tokens – the highest number among local exchanges.
In this interview, CEO Nirun Fuwattananukul provides insights into Binance TH’s strategic position within Thailand’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, from its innovative educational initiatives through Binance TH Academy to its collaboration with Gulf’s telecommunications network for wider crypto adoption.
Can you share your journey to Web3?
I first heard about crypto around 2013-2014. Honestly, at the time, I was a skeptic. I was thinking, “What is this? What is Bitcoin? Is it real? It’s not even tangible.” Then, in 2018-2019, when the whole crypto movement happened, a few of my friends told me I should try using Binance. That’s when I started looking into what was happening.
At the time, it was Ethereum and BNB on BSC. Those were the first few projects, the first few tokens that I actually studied. What fascinated me was that it’s actually a programmable blockchain. At first, when I understood what a blockchain was – its value as a ledger – it wasn’t so interesting to me. But when I realized that it’s programmable and there are lots of applications you can build on top of it and how decentralized it is, that’s when I started. So, I didn’t start with Bitcoin; I started with Ethereum and BNB.
I studied a little bit more and started investing in these tokens, as well as Bitcoin. That was 2018-2019. In 2020, things went up, which was good. Then, in 2021, I had a chance to join Binance. At the time, Binance was looking for a head of Southeast Asia. I thought this was a very interesting space, and because I had already invested a little bit in it, I thought it would be interesting to get inside the industry. So I applied and got the role of head of Southeast Asia, looking after key countries in the region like the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and others.
After that, the Bitcoin price went down, and the whole industry declined for a bit. I held on and invested more. At the time, Binance was trying to get regulated in many countries, including Thailand. The project I was working on then was setting up a locally licensed entity in this country. We had many options to consider: applying for a license ourselves or acquiring a local company. The final decision we made was to partner with a local conglomerate called Gulf Energy Development. We formed a joint venture in Thailand, applied for a license together, and launched operations in January of this year.
Do you see increased adoption of crypto since Binance Thailand started operating in the country?
It’s probably hard to say if there’s increased adoption in the whole country just because we entered the market. What I can say for sure is that Thailand already has one of the highest crypto adoption rates in the world, especially in Southeast Asia. Because of that, once we entered the market, we saw a lot of users who were very interested in our platform, and our user base has been increasing steadily ever since we launched.
What do you think are the factors that increased this adoption in Thailand?
In Thailand, digital penetration is one of the highest in the world. Everyone has a mobile phone and internet access. Because of that, and because crypto and digital assets information is spread mainly through social media and KOLs, all the news, content, and analysis about crypto was widely circulated in social media.
Thai people are all over social media, so they pick up and learn about new things very quickly. They also like to try new things and invest in new opportunities. Also, because local Thai stock markets aren’t doing well, there are a lot of people who want to try new ways of investing. In fact, it’s estimated that there are more people with crypto accounts than stock broker accounts in Thailand.
How does Binance Thailand integrate into the broader Binance ecosystem? What advantages do Thai users have from being part of this global network?
First of all, Binance Thailand or Binance TH is not just for Thai users. Anyone who lives in Thailand and has proof of address can register with Binance TH. Second, because we carry the Binance brand, we inherit all the strengths of the platform. Binance has one of the most trusted platforms in the world, with very strong infrastructure and robust technology. All that technology layer is here in Binance TH.
We plug into Binance.com for liquidity. Binance.com has over 300 tokens with high liquidity because Binance processes the highest trading volume in the world. We share that order book with Binance, so we bring that liquidity and depth to users in Thailand. We offer almost the same number of tokens, over 300, which is the highest number among all local exchanges in Thailand.
Do you see any trends in terms of user engagement in Thailand or other countries of Southeast Asia?
Compared to earlier this year, I feel like our social media campaigns and in-person campaigns are getting more attention. A lot of people are asking to find out more about Binance TH, about campaigns, and how to start trading. The sentiment of the community is much stronger now. There’s a lot of hope that crypto and digital assets will go “to the moon,” though, of course, everyone needs to review and study their own risk appetite before investing. I definitely can see higher engagement among the community.
How do you educate new users? Do you have any initiatives for onboarding new users in Thailand?
We have a Binance TH Academy arm with its own Facebook page that focuses purely on education: what is blockchain, what is crypto, crypto 101, how to start trading. While our main Binance TH Facebook is about general platform information, campaigns, and marketing, the Academy focuses purely on education.
This same team does a lot of university outreach. We partner with many universities and go on campus to educate about blockchain and crypto, including how to start trading. We’re also starting to work with government agencies who want to learn more about crypto. We even help law enforcement agencies understand how to track cryptocurrency transactions on-chain, as some criminals use cryptocurrency.
Can you please elaborate more on the government’s stance on digital assets in Thailand? And what do you think needs to be done to create a fully supportive regulatory environment?
In Thailand, we have the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) as our regulator. They were very early adopters, implementing their first crypto regulation six years ago in 2017-2018. They’re one of the earliest countries with crypto regulation, so they were ahead of their time.
The challenge is that crypto is constantly changing, with new developments happening all the time. We are working with the regulator to update them on industry trends, so they can update their regulation accordingly. They have been very supportive in making regulations more flexible to encourage innovation. For example, they have policies to support investment tokens, which are tokenized assets for investment. There are many local projects that issue investment tokens for the general public to invest as a new form of investment.
The SEC continues to adapt regulations to meet new trends. However, things in crypto move so fast that it’s a challenge for them to adapt and update regulations in time. From an industry perspective, it’s important that we update them, explain what’s happening, and help them structure this regulatory framework.
How does Binance TH align with the Thailand 4.0 economic model, which focuses on digital transformation? What role do you see blockchain playing in Thailand’s economic future?
Thailand 4.0 is all about making Thailand more digital – digitizing the economy and the country. Blockchain is one way to achieve digitization, particularly through tokenization. There’s a lot of interest in Real World Asset (RWA) projects in Thailand. As we speak, they’re reviewing several projects, whether it’s tokenized investments in real estate or tokenized carbon credits.
Blockchain can also help with many government functions. In fact, the national KYC platform is built upon blockchain. The government is already working on and implementing blockchain projects. I think there will be more opportunities to use blockchain to support many national-scale projects.
Our part as Binance TH is to engage with all stakeholders, showing them different options of what’s happening in the world, which chains to use, which are faster, and what makes sense for national needs. We need to educate different stakeholders about blockchain’s benefits and leverage our ecosystem from Binance.com, including technical know-how to help implement these projects.
How does the partnership with Gulf Innova enhance Binance’s ability to offer localized services and talent?
Gulf is a local conglomerate in Thailand whose business covers many sectors. They started in energy as the largest private electricity generation company in Thailand, with gas power plants and renewable energy plants. Then they ventured into digital projects, working with a local telco and setting up a data center with Google. Now they’ve partnered with Binance to launch Binance TH services.
In terms of collaboration, the most notable example is their telco arm, which covers almost the entire population. We can leverage the telco as a means to educate users on crypto and drive adoption, as well as help with customer acquisition. We’ve had campaigns with the telco to get more users and educate them about crypto.
Locally, Gulf also has a strong network with government and local business partners. We leverage these partners not only for customer acquisition but also to explore different blockchain projects for the future. Right now, we’re focusing more on user education and acquisition in this first year of launch. Beyond this year, we want to do something bigger to drive blockchain adoption in the longer term.
What growth projections do you have for Binance TH over the next five years?
We do have huge plans, but as you know, this industry changes constantly. We have internal forecasts and projections, but it’s very challenging because crypto changes all the time – nobody knows where it’s going to trade tomorrow. What we know for sure is that we want to become number one in Thailand in terms of market share and trading volume. That is our ultimate goal.
Since our launch, we’ve seen strong growth month over month, and we believe that with this momentum, we’ll be able to become number one in the next one to two years. Our strategy is clear: we want to bring the best of Binance Global to Thai users. Things like security, a high number of tokens, and platforms that are easy to use – these are our key differentiation factors, which we believe we can leverage to become number one in the market.
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