South Korea, as one of the leaders in today’s tourism and economic sectors, is expected by the global crypto-community to fully warm up to cryptocurrencies. However, for the past few years, the country remained reluctant to get into it. There was a blanket ban on Initial Coin Offering (ICO) settled in September 2017 and hearsay last January that the government will entirely ban cryptocurrencies.
Fortunately and just recently, issues concerning digital coins have been resolved in many Asian countries. Following this lead, South Korea is planning to be one of the pioneers in the fourth industrial revolution as they realize the benefits of blockchain and crypto. This is due to the fact that the country’s citizens contribute a large portion of money to the global cryptocurrency trading market—South Korea reportedly verified and confirmed more than 14 percent of global Bitcoin trades in July 2017.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
This milestone still comes with rules and regulations. The use of cryptocurrencies will be subjected to certain conditions.
Heavy regulations that they have put upon the crypto space in the past highlight the following:
- Banning anonymous trading
- Forbidding minors and government officials from trading
- Taxing exchanges substantially
The new positive changes encompasses the following:
- Recently lifting the blanket ban on ICOs
- Legalizing Bitcoin as a remittance method
CRYPTO EXCHANGES IN SOUTH KOREA
Certainly, legalizing cryptocurrency exchanges is part of lifting the ban. The businesses are now legal entities and are classified as “crypto asset exchange and brokerage” as oppose to their previous classification as “communication vendors”. They will still, of course, face particular legal rules and regulations. But despite that, this is already a significant step for the everyday customer of exchanges who often encounter hacks and fraud allegations.
Addressing the issue is Andre Lim, the president of South Korea Blockchain Marketing and PR company. He said: “Classifying all things blockchain was to be expected, especially when it comes to the exchanges and the critical need for regulations. It wasn’t too long ago when you could open a cryptocurrency exchange with a “mail order distributor” license in Korea. There were hardly any regulations in place and the platforms they built the exchanges on were unbelievably insecure.”
