Vithai Ratanakorn, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, said at the 10th anniversary event of Mitihun news agency, under the theme Capital with Purpose, that the Bank of Thailand supports the government in considering a tax on gold transactions, with the aim of requiring gold shops to report trading data on who they sell to and in what amounts, in order to bring hidden transactions into scrutiny and close the channel of using gold as a conduit for money laundering. The proposed approach is a specific business tax on gold shops at a very low rate, such as 0.01%, meaning a gold purchase worth 70,000 baht would incur a tax of only 7 baht. The latest data for August showed cash withdrawals exceeding 5 million baht totalling 50 billion baht, with the top 50 large customers accounting for 25 billion baht, and 66% of this group had transactions related to gold. Previously, the Bank of Thailand required reporting of gold purchases via applications and withdrawals of gold bars exceeding 2 kilograms, worth more than 10 million baht, which reduced the volume of gold bar withdrawals from 20 billion baht to 3 billion baht. In addition, it is preparing to cooperate with the Securities and Exchange Commission to close the channel of the digital asset USDT, whose suspicious transfer value in and out amounts to several hundred billion baht, with the first half of the year seeing USDT trading worth as much as 500 to 600 billion baht. It will also join with 11 financial sector agencies to declare their intent to combat illegal transactions, crack down on grey capital, online gambling and corruption, and share data on abnormal transactions together.
JPYC President Okabe Explains Price Divergence After Upbit Listing, Cites Inventory Shortage and Overnight Work
Regarding the issue of the Japanese yen stablecoin JPYC's price diverging from its roughly 1 yen peg, JPYC President Noritaka Okabe responded to an interview with NADA NEWS on September 18. JPYC was listed on the South Korean crypto exchange Upbit on September 17, and immediately afterward 1 JPYC rose to a level exceeding 2 yen. Arbitrage trades, in which coins issued at 1 yen were sold in the higher-priced market, occurred one after another, and the circulating supply swelled to approximately 4.26 billion JPYC as of 9 a.m. on the 18th, about 2.2 times the previous day's level. Okabe revealed that issuance surged and inventory ran short in the middle of the night, and that employees took on overnight work due to a sharp increase in account applications, and he expressed his gratitude to the employees. He also said he had no knowledge at all of the Upbit listing and had not thought the first day's trading volume would exceed 30 billion yen. Noting that although it is a stablecoin compliant with Japanese regulations, not a single domestic electronic payment method operator has yet begun trading it, he expressed hope for trading to start at an early date. He explained that because JPYC Inc. always receives 1 yen at the time of issuance, it can be redeemed regardless of the secondary market price, and he called on users to use it with peace of mind.
JPYC price briefly diverges to 2.2 yen on Upbit listing, circulating supply up 2.2x day-on-day to over 4.2 billion yen
The total circulating supply of JPYC, a Japanese yen-pegged stablecoin, has surpassed 4 billion JPYC, reaching approximately 4.26 billion JPYC, according to the latest data from JPYC info, which compiles on-chain data. That marks an increase of about 2.36 billion JPYC from roughly 1.89963 billion JPYC as of 10:23 on September 17, a 2.2x rise day-on-day. The trigger was the start of JPYC trading on September 17 on the South Korean crypto exchange Upbit, which opened three markets for the token: Korean won, Bitcoin, and Tether, marking the first time a Korean won-denominated trading pair has been offered for JPYC. Immediately after trading began, the price diverged sharply from its baseline level of around 1 yen, with CoinMarketCap recording a temporary high of about 2.2 yen per JPYC. At the start of trading, the only network Upbit supported for deposits and withdrawals was Ethereum, and JPYC on Ethereum accounted for only about 7 percent of the total at the time, which is seen as one reason the available supply was limited. The price gap drew a rush of funds from investors seeking arbitrage, and reports proliferated on X of users who issued JPYC at 1 yen and swapped it for USDC on DEXs such as Uniswap to turn a profit. As of September 18, Polygon ranked first in circulating supply by chain, followed by Ethereum in second and Kaia in third, and after trading began Upbit also began supporting deposits from Kaia and Polygon.
Coinbase CEO Says AI Agents Will Need Their Own Financial Infrastructure
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said AI agents will need their own financial infrastructure, telling Scott Melker that the company has built a set of tools for the agentic economy. Armstrong said the existing payment rails are sometimes not sufficient for AI because agents want to move very fast, make payments globally, and in some cases transact in very small amounts. The stack includes the Base blockchain, the USDC stablecoin that Coinbase co-created with Circle, and the X402 protocol, which Coinbase created and which is now under the Linux Foundation in collaboration with Google, AWS, CloudFlare and others. He said X402 allows agents to pay each other in real time instantly all over the world, even in very small transaction amounts like a couple of cents at a time, which traditional payment rails do not really support. Armstrong also said Coinbase has been able to bring perpetual futures products to the US under this administration, calling them a pretty killer app in the trading world, and that he expects a future not too far off in which more agents transact in the economy than humans.
