Without the Bank of Thailand's intervention, the baht would have weakened significantly and the short-term interest rates would have risen sky-high because the speculative attacks would have drained liquidity in the money market.
A baht attack to the tune of US$10 billion on May 14, 1997 meant that roughly Bt260 billion, based on the exchange rate of Bt25 per US dollar, would have been immediately drained from the system. This could have broken apart the payment system, since only about Bt400 billion in bank notes and coins - or the M1 money supply - was in circulation at that time.