The Central Bank of Thailand plans to launch its Crypto Assets in 2025.

Latest developments in 2025

As of 2025, following successful testing between 2022 and 2024, the implementation of Thailand’s CBDC has entered the operational phase. The Bank of Thailand has successfully launched a limited retail CBDC operation, becoming one of the early countries in ASEAN to break through the pilot testing phase.

Key developments in 2025:

• The Inthanon project is fully integrated with domestic payment infrastructure.
• The partner network has expanded to 15 financial institutions (up from the original 8).
• Daily trading volume exceeds 175 million THB (approximately 5 million USD)
• Achieve cross-border CBDC exchange capability with two neighboring countries

The R3 Corda platform supporting Thailand’s CBDC has undergone significant upgrades to support higher transaction throughput and enhanced security protocols. These improvements address the initial scalability issues identified during the early testing phase.

Features	Pilot in 2022	Implementation in 2025
Transaction Speed	1,200 TPS	8,500 TPS
user base	10,000 testers	3.2 million users
Merchants adopt	250 test merchants	45,000+ merchants
Use cases	Basic Transfer	Payment, Loan, Bond

Thailand’s progress has positioned it among the global leaders in CBDC implementation, demonstrating how Central Bank Digital Currency can effectively coexist with traditional financial systems while providing enhanced efficiency, security, and accessibility for digital transactions.

Gate (Gate.io) provides comprehensive trading services for users interested in participating in the market affected by the development of these CBDCs, offering analytical tools to track the impact of Central Bank Digital Currencies on related Crypto Assets.

The Central Bank of Thailand may create a crypto asset for bank transaction settlements.

[TL; DR]

Thailand is jointly developing its digital currency with countries and regions such as Canada and Hong Kong.

Thailand, R3 Technology, and eight other financial institutions jointly developed Thailand’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

R3 developers will develop digital currencies based on Corda’s distributed ledger technology (DLT).

Since the launch of the CBDC, the trading volume of domestic crypto assets exchanges in Thailand has grown from about 143 million USD in 2018 to 2.49 billion USD in 2020.

As of 2022, no country has fully launched its digital currency.

According to the Central Bank of Thailand, the full launch of the CBDC will be in the middle of 2022.

The project named Inthanon attempts to create a Central Bank’s own Crypto Assets based on blockchain technology, making interbank transactions both fast and cheap.

The Inthanon project is a type of Central Bank digital currency that uses a proof-of-concept mechanism for large-scale domestic and cross-border fund transfers.

A part of the project is also referred to as the “DLT _script_less bond project.”

The launch of CBDC will be carried out in phases.

In the first phase, all partners, including technology companies and financial institutions, will collaborate to design, develop, and test the proof of concept prototype.

The entire phase of the project aims to explore the potential advantages of distributed ledger technology in enhancing the efficiency of Thailand’s financial market infrastructure.

Keywords: Thailand, Central Bank, digital currency, Crypto Assets, CBDC, distributed ledger technology (DLT), Inthanon.

The widespread adoption and increasing popularity of Crypto Assets leave government agencies with no choice but to follow the trends of the times in order to play a positive role in the ecosystem.

For many years, we have seen countries like Hong Kong and Canada develop their own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) through their central banks. Recently, Thailand joined the international alliance and also launched its digital currency.

This article will introduce the efforts made by the Bank of Thailand, R3 Technology, and eight other financial institutions in the joint development of Thailand’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

Let’s get into the main content!

Developing CBDC in Beijing

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Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is the digital equivalent of legal tender. While legal tenders such as the US dollar, euro, and Thai baht are not backed by any physical commodities or value, the digital currencies developed by central banks across the country are backed by their respective legal tenders.

The research of the Bank of International Settlement indicates that over 80% of Central Banks express interest in developing their own Central Bank Digital Currency. So what is the background for the widespread adoption and development of CBDCs?

The main background for its development is that the volatility of Crypto Assets, which has received unprecedented attention, is extremely high, and there is a lack of government support. Regardless of how high the price is, there is always a risk of a sudden crash.

In light of this, the government of each country is developing a digital currency backed by fiat currency, which is also regarded as legal tender, controlled by the government, and uses distributed ledger technology (as encryption coin).

Thailand is one of the countries that has recently developed a Central Bank digital currency and has received a lot of attention in recent years.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Thailand stated, “This is the norm.” This statement supports the fact that Thailand’s CBDC is the same as the CBDCs of other countries.

Like all other countries, Thailand plans to conduct a preliminary pilot in the second quarter of 2022. The testing has been postponed to the fourth quarter of 2022 due to “the design and related technologies still pending clarification.”

Most countries are in the trial phase of digital currency and are facing similar issues. Therefore, they are either postponing the trial period or are correcting certain terms.

Thailand will start testing deposits, withdrawals, and transfers of Central Bank Digital Currency. The preliminary pilot plan will be tested as a retail CBDC. In other words, this is another payment method for “cash-like activities on a limited scale.”

This preliminary pilot program is similar to China’s digital yuan and Nigeria’s eNaira, initially intended for a limited scale of retail transactions. The success of CBDC at this stage will lay the foundation for broader adoption and large-scale use, such as interbank settlements and cross-border transfers.

Thailand and Crypto Assets

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In March 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Thailand announced a ban on using Crypto Assets as a means of payment. The announcement indicated that any form of encryption tokens would cease to be used for payments and transactions before April 1, 2022. However, Crypto trading and exchanges will continue to operate normally as legitimate businesses.

At the time of this announcement, the Thai government is refocusing on regulating the Crypto Assets market. As more and more digital assets are used for money laundering, and are frequently impacted by the volatility of the crypto market along with the increasingly high transaction fees, the implementation of relevant regulatory measures has become urgent.

Although banning Crypto Assets payments will undoubtedly affect the enthusiasts and holders in the country, the Thai government believes this is in the best interest of the Thai people. Additionally, there is a need to reduce the dominance of these government-uncontrolled assets in the market. Unfortunately, Crypto Assets fall into this category of assets that must be restricted.

The Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) launched by the Bank of Thailand

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In August 2018, the Central Bank of Thailand announced a collaboration with R3 Technologies and eight other financial institutions to jointly develop a Central Bank Digital Currency.

According to the announcement, digital currency will operate based on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) called Corda. It will be developed by R3 Technology, a tech company focused on enterprises, which has extensive experience in leading, consulting, and implementing distributed ledger technology (DLT) projects.

The other eight financial institutions collaborating with the Bank of Thailand and R3 are Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited, Krung Thai Bank Public Company Ltd, Bank of Ayudhya Public Company Limited, Kasikorn Bank Public Company Limited, Siam Commercial Bank Public Company Limited, Standard Chartered Bank (Thailand) Limited, Thanachart Bank PLC, and HSBC.

According to officials from the Bank of Thailand, the prototype of the digital currency is used for interbank payments, and this digital currency has the potential to become the foundation of Thailand’s future financial infrastructure.

Since the concept of creating a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) was proposed by the Bank of Thailand, the trading volume of domestic crypto assets exchanges has increased from approximately $143 million in 2018 to $2.49 billion in 2020. In addition to contributions from the digital asset ecosystem, the growth of the Thai crypto asset market can also be attributed to speculative investments and new regulatory measures that have enhanced the healthy development of the country’s crypto market.

It is important to know that no country has yet launched a fully functional Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). With the recent measures taken by Thailand continuously being implemented, it seems that they are close to realizing the full potential of CBDC. The Bank of Thailand is looking forward to public testing of the CBDC before the second quarter of 2022.

Next, we will focus on the technical aspects of digital currency.

Inthanon Project and DLT Paperless Bond Project

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Image source: Crowdfund\
insider

Although many experts regard the digital currency developed by the Bank of Thailand as the “Inthanon project,” some experts categorize it into two types, namely the “Inthanon project and the DLT-based paperless bond project.” However, since the Inthanon program will be powered by distributed ledger technology built by R3, we can consider the entire project as the “Inthanon project.”

The Inthanon project is a type of Central Bank digital currency that uses a proof-of-concept mechanism for large-scale domestic and cross-border fund transfers. A DLT paperless bond project will be deployed to enhance the efficiency of the registration and sales process for digital currency bonds.

The Inthanon project and DLT paperless bond project aim to determine the design of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), key findings, and future considerations. The project is expected to enhance financial infrastructure by enabling direct transfer of digital value between parties, immutable record keeping, and programmable automation through smart contracts.

The Inthanon project initiative will be implemented in phases. In the initial phase, the project seeks to explore the favorable impacts and potential benefits of distributed ledger technology in enhancing the efficiency of Thailand’s financial market infrastructure.

All partners, including technology companies and financial institutions, will work together to design, develop, and test a proof of concept prototype. This prototype will support bulk fund transfers using CBDC tokens. The first phase will be completed in 2019 and will test liquidity saving mechanisms and risk management.

The next phase of the project will test the capabilities for broader use cases such as cross-border and third-party fund transfers. These phase tests will provide insights to guide the future trajectory of the project. At the same time, multiple parties will also explore how to utilize Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and digital currencies that support interbank transactions.

Conclusion

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Source of the image: Electronic Payments\
International

The Bank of Thailand is launching its own Central Bank Digital Currency to ensure its stake in the Crypto Assets ecosystem. Establishing this digital currency will help optimize interbank payments, virtual transactions, and other functions of decentralized financial services.

We must clearly recognize that the Thai government is taking a new key step towards entering the Crypto Assets ecosystem. The Central Bank of Thailand is planning to launch a digital platform for consumers to pay bills and conduct other financial transactions - Promptpay.

Although the specific date for the comprehensive launch of Thailand’s Central Bank digital currency has not been given, the Thai government is fully committed and has conducted tests periodically to ensure the “perfect” birth of the project. The preliminary pilot program is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Overall, industry professionals and enthusiasts are optimistic about the results after the project’s full disclosure.