South Korean Parliament gives the go ahead to officially legalise cryptocurrencies
The crypto industry believes this law would be the key to legitimise the sector
The National Assembly of South Korea’s legislation and judiciary committee has voted in favor of the country’s first cryptocurrency-specific legislation. The amended legislation, Special Financial Transactions Information Act, will effectively create and significantly tighten the quality control in the crypto industry, specifically around local crypto exchanges. This was great news for the South Korean cryptocurrency industry and received a positive reaction.
Simon Kim, the CEO of Seoul-based blockchain incubator Hashed, told Cryptonews.com, that there had been great uncertainty regarding regulations in cryptocurrency in South Korea until now. However, with the new law, cryptocurrency has been officially classified as an asset class by the institutions and virtual asset operators are able to operate under proper law in Korea. He believes this is a strong, positive signal for South Korea moving forward and proving itself as the perfect testbed for blockchain and cryptocurrency on the global scene.
Blockchain consultant Mira Kim also spoke to Cryptonews.com, stating that “This is great news. OK, nobody will actually welcome taxes and regulations, but a lack of legitimacy is what was holding investors and big companies back. In a year, that will be gone. Now it’s a fair fight against the conventional finance industry. Game on!”
G7’s FATF guidelines were followed dealing with how governments should police what it terms as virtual asset service providers (VASPs) – namely crypto exchanges and brokerages. Crypto exchanges are to comply with the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) guidelines on anti-money laundering (AML) and terrorist financing prevention. Exchanges will also need to receive approval from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Korea Internet & Security Agency to operate in the country.
The house voted unequivocally in favor of the bill, with 182 votes for, zero against and no abstentions. Crypto industry executives believe this law will help legitimise the sector.
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