Thailand’s Gulf Energy Doubles Down on Crypto

Although local government is displaying a discouraging stance towards crypto and local exchanges are recording diminishing interest, Thailand’s second richest person is not backing out and plans to continue investing in the crypto space.

Speaking with Bloomberg on Wednesday, the CEO of power company Gulf Energy Development, said that his company considers the crypto industry as a good source for additional income and plans to continue investing in it.

According to Ratanavadi, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology will proof to be “key drivers for the company’s strongest returns” as the entire crypto space is still displaying “high potential.”

Ratanavadi also confirmed during the interview that his company is still planning to launch a crypto exchange in Thailand. Gulf Energy Development has partnered with the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, Binance, to realize its ambitions. In January, the firm informed the Thai Stock Exchange of its subsidiary Gulf Innova launching a digital asset exchange in partnership with Binance.

Thailand’s retail trading market is seeing a decline nevertheless. As cited by Bloomberg, data from the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission shows the number of active trading accounts dropping to 260,000 in July from 692,000 in January, alongside a crypto market downturn.

Gulf Energy turning away from its core business and into crypto has become a global trend with MicroStrategy purchasing billions of dollars in Bitcoin and still holding on to them, being the trendsetter.