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Thai SEC Fines Bitkub Executive $235K for Insider Trading
Last week, the country’s oldest commercial bank backed out of a deal to buy a majority stake of the local crypto exchange, citing unresolved regulatory issues.
Thailand's securities regulator has issued punishment in the insider-trading case of an executive at the country's largest cryptocurrency exchange Bitkub, according to an official notice published Tuesday.
Bitkub Chief Technology Officer Samret Wajanasathian was ordered to pay a fine of 8.5 million Thai baht (around $235,000) and was barred from holding an executive position for 12 months by the country's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
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Although Wajanasathian's LinkedIn page still shows him as CTO at Bitkub, he's absent from the company's website.
Tuesday's order comes after the Thai SEC in May hit Bitkub with fines for failing to comply with local regulations before listing the platform's native token KUB. Last week, the country's oldest commercial bank, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), backed out of a plan to purchase a majority of Bitkub, citing unresolved issues with the securities regulator.
The insider-trading case stems from an incident from last November, when the SCB acquisition plan was first announced. According to the SEC, Wajanasathian – armed with this information – bought 1.99 million Thai baht (roughly $61,000 at the time) worth of the KUB token. The price of KUB subsequently more than doubled immediately upon the public announcement.
Bitkub didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Sandali Handagama
Sandali Handagama is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for policy and regulations, EMEA. She is an alumna of Columbia University's graduate school of journalism and has contributed to a variety of publications including The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Nation and Popular Science. Sandali doesn't own any crypto and she tweets as @iamsandali
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