Korean government enforces new amendments on sale of cryptocurrency

On 27th September, a recent report stated that the government of South Korea held a cabinet meeting to discuss the sale and brokerage of cryptocurrency assets and why it should not be included as a part of the business venture enterprises.

During the cabinet meeting which was held under the Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, they voted on amending the Enforcement decree act on the promotion of business ventures.

According to the report, blockchain based cryptocurrency trading and brokerage businesses were witnessing an increase in illegal activities related to hacking, money laundering, overheating and blockage issues. The government decided to set a separate business sector and stated that blockchain based cryptocurrency trading and brokerage businesses will not be included in the business venture enterprises.

In addition, followed by the G-20 summit, the government planned to follow the policies set by the G-20 nations in order to soften its cryptocurrency regulations. Earlier, the Korean government had categorized cryptocurrencies as non-financial products due to their uncertain nature whereas the G-20 nations classified cryptocurrencies as financial assets. The policymakers of the Korean government were ready to acknowledge the cryptocurrencies as financial assets.

The Korean Financial Intelligence Unit [KFIU] recently began to find new ways of regulating the digital asset industry. This was done followed by the hack of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Conrail. About $33 million was hacked from the exchange which led to the government implementing new policies for financial institutions.

Despite the regulatory problems, third generation blockchain platform “Orbs” had been gaining a lot of attention in South Korea. The Orbs platform focussed on building on the strengths of Ethereum.

The report further added that the competition among the third generation blockchain trading platforms had begun. These trading platforms could solve the problem which occurred on the Ethereum blockchain platform. Some of the problems Orbs claimed to address was the commission fee for each transaction and a slow speed of data processing. The second generation platforms were the one which started after Bitcoin.