South Korea’s parliament has passed a new law that will provide a framework for the regulation and legalization of cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrencies in the country,media reported. Through this set of laws, the government hopes to effectively monitor this emerging industry in the country and develop provisions to deal with illegal crimes such as money laundering.
Over the past few years, South Korea has been at the forefront of the shifting changes in the cryptocurrency boom and bust, and is one of the few countries in the world to adopt the technology on a large scale. Surveys conducted at the peak of the cryptocurrency boom in 2017 showthat that more than a third of the country’s workers are active investors in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. To keep up with the boom, Seoul, South Korea’s largest city, has launched a government initiative to launch its own cryptocurrency, the SCoin.
During this time, the South Korean government moved quickly — introducing new regulations and limiting the spread of blockchain, leading to significant fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin.
In just a few years, the vote in South Korea’s legislature is now a relatively rapid shift for regulators, a sign of the growing acceptance of blockchain there. As one of the country’s largest technology companies, Kakao continues to invest in blockchain projects, while local ecosystem innovation in this area remains relatively strong.
While the cryptocurrency bill’s passage is a victory for South Korea’s start-up ecosystem, other major problems in the industry remain.