Choi Jong-koo, who is the chairman of Korea’s Financial Services Commission has shared his views on the digital currencies and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), at a parliamentary audit session of the commission conducted at the National Assembly.
While asserting negative stance regarding the digital currencies and Initial Coin Offerings, he stated, “the government does not deny the potential of the blockchain industry,” marking that it “should not equate the cryptocurrency trading business with the blockchain industry.”
He added further, “Many people say the Korean government should allow ICOs, but ICOs bring uncertainty, and the damage they can cause is too serious and obvious. For these reasons, many foreign countries ban ICOs or are conservative towards them.”
Here, Choi spoke about criticism of commercial banks that denied service to crypto exchanges. He said that “exchanges should be able to persuade banks to issue bank accounts to them.”
Apart from that, in September 2017, South Korea banned ICOs claiming that this type of fundraising is “almost a gamble.” Also, in this August, Korean lawmakers, including participants from government ministries, re-focussed on the cryptocurrency issue, especially on repealing the country’s ICO prohibition. The Lawmakers seemed to believe that it is required to develop a related policy before carrying a resolution on ICO re-allowance.
According to some other officials, the South Korean government is “likely” to declare its official stand on ICOs in November. Plus, the Chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination Hong Nam-ki stated that “the government will announce its position once it finalizes its discussion and receives the results of a government survey.”
Hong added that the government had introduced a survey of blockchain companies to gather their views on the current legal framework.
Reportedly, South Korean cabinet ministers are aimed to ‘strengthen the cooperation of related institutions’ and to guard citizens against the ‘illegal activities’ related to the digital assets business. To do so, they’ve decided to exclude all sale and brokerage of digital assets based on blockchain technology from venture business classification.