TrueNorthBit Reports: South Korean Crypto Regulation has brought the Crypto Market in the Danger Zone

London, England, 2nd July 2021, ZEXPRWIRE – 

How South Koreans look at Cryptocurrencies 

South Korea has always been in a distinct position when it came to cryptocurrency. Since the year 2018, the country is living through the second wave of a national boom of digital currencies and this reflects how the South Korean consumers have a welcoming attitude towards the currency.

Last year in the month of March, the National Assembly of South Korea passed a new law that regulated and legislated its use. I am TrueNorthBit Broker Alex Jameson, an expert at crypto and related issues. I have been observing for a while now that the statistics and facts coming from South Korea suggest that the young generation looks at crypto as their token to a prosperous future and they realized it way earlier than the rest of the world which helps them stay ahead to date. Reports from 2017 show that more than 1/3rd of the Korean workers have invested in mainstream cryptos like Ethereum and Bitcoin. 

What drives the Fever?

I, along with many fellow experts, believe that this interest is driven by many social and economic reasons. One of them is that despite being a large and prosperous country, the youth of South Korea have to suffer from rising unemployment rates. Last year, in the month of December it was 8.2% and it went in June to 11%. The interest of the government to make the currency more adoptable is also an attempt to fight off the ever-growing unemployment issue. Particularly after the pandemic and the hardships it inflicted on the people all around the globe, the craze has seen to be more than ever. The young ones fear that monetary inflation and subsequent problems can affect them terribly in the long run and Crypto is the only boat they can ride to reach the land safely. 

Twist in the Tale

However, circumstances have taken an interesting turn now. Just recently, a crypto exchange company based in South Korea has reached a decision to deal with lesser Altcoins than before. I believe that this measure is a reaction to the news that the Korean Government is looking forward to a serious regulation to make crypto’s use less of a threat for the state. 

A few weeks back, a popular exchange labelled more than 175 coins as “coins to watch”.  They presented the consumers with a justification that the overall evaluation of these tokens did not meet the international standards and these measures are being taken in an attempt to protect the investors. Besides this, they also temporarily stopped trading in Korean Won for some of the cryptos. 

Many competitor exchanges were ‘shocked’ at the decision because most of these were the ones that had immense growth potential and we’re already growing at a fast pace. However, there are many others who could see the reasons behind the step. Coinbit, another exchange, has somewhat followed the measure and has announced that they have suspended the trade of around 8 tokens and have 28 of them in them under monitoring. Just like Coinbit and Upbit, another exchange, Bithumb, has suspended trading in four tokens. 

These operational suspensions are definitely a precautionary measure in my opinion because if you look at the new rules they are killing the reasons behind the growing popularity of crypto. Anonymity has always been one of the major attracting features. The law says that now you cannot be anything close to anonymous if you wish to trade crypto in the country. The real-name bank accounts will help in fully verifying the provided identity information which will allow them to keep an eye on the trader. Also, the traders are allowed to trade using these accounts only, so the responsibility to verify the trader now lies with the bank and the exchange jointly. 

Setting up a Crypto exchange will also not be as easy as it used to be and this is also making the exchange firms uneasy. In order to avoid the practice of Money Laundering, the exchanges will have to get approval from the concerned authorities. This way the need to request data from exchanges has been eradicated and authorities can directly keep a track of the suspicious transactions. This isn’t it. Any Crypto exchange will have to get a certificate issued from the Korean Internet & Security Agency (KISA) for an Information Security Management System.

Conclusion

All these strict laws and regulations have made the conditions claustrophobic for the exchanges. Either they shut down, move to another place or run the firms illegally and end up in jail for 5 years and pay a fine worth 50 million Korean Won. South Korea is a huge market for crypto and it needs to be seen what approach the exchanges will opt for. If the firms decide to close business and go back home then it can be a serious setback for crypto traders all around the globe. 

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