Bitcoin Forum

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) said on Friday that “it will ban raising money through all forms of virtual currencies,” Reuters reported. The publication conveyed the regulator’s statement.
“Raising funds through ICOs seem to be on the rise globally,” the FSC said after a meeting with the finance ministry, the Bank of Korea and the National Tax Service. “Our assessment is that ICOs are increasing in South Korea as well.”

The news outlet elaborated that “the decision to ban ICOs as a fundraising tool was made as the government sees such issues as increasing the risk of financial scams.” For any parties involved in the issuance of ICOs, there will be “stern penalties,” the authority noted.

Korea’s move follows China’s which banned ICOs on September 4, a decision subsequently followed by the closing down of several bitcoin exchanges. However, Korea is not extending the ban to cryptocurrency exchanges. The Korean government will continue to monitor cryptocurrency markets to see if additional regulations are needed, Friday’s announcement detailed.

Thanks for sharing but can you peovide any sources? I wonder if this will cause a bear market too like the China news did.

Of course it will >:( I don't believe to that news and I think it's all rubbish and fake. But I'm sure that the market would be bearish next week (maybe two).

If this is true, then finally another (relatively large crypto) country realizes what is the right thing to do.

Of all the ICO's out there, only a tiny amount is not meant as a scam.

The ICO's are the place where so much money is collected from innocent investors, and dumped on the market (which causes the price to fall). So yeah, ICO's are partly responsible when it comes to a bearish market.

Same here. There is a single source of this news if I am not mistaken. And this single source is not even a reliable one. It is not a media outlet that is truly recognized and trusted, just a sort of a trash site that publishes news for the sake of having one. It is rumor, to be exact. Not worth any response or dignifying answer.

If it's true Japan will become the only country where ICO will be legit. Plus EU, but they are not define their position yet if I'm not mistaken.

I just found this one https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/28/south-korea-bans-all-new-cryptocurrency-sales.html
but according to the same news we'll see how everything goes in the coming days and see if it will result for another bear period,

This trend is a bit worrying for any potential investors. With EU's position unclear, and with Asia banning one at a time...there may be a lot of ICO restrictions in the not too distant future. While it's ok for ICOs now, I worry about certain platforms like Waves and NEO.

What's the source though. It would be better if you did share the source, since if there isn't one then we can safely pass this as a rumor!

Though, I would say if this was true, then they had it coming. There are more scams than real investments that happened in ICOs nowadays and a lot of scammers are masking their activities using this new method. I however, think that it should not be totally banned but more of regulated to prevent fraud.

If this is true, then it may have a negative impact on the cryptocurrency market in the world. Many countries can follow South Korea and also ban the ICO.

But there is no source. Yet...

Is South Korea a big player in the world of Bitcoin? And does anyone know what this could mean on the big picture?

Can we have a source for those arguments please ?

I just finished reading article about Korean domestic Ico ban even Korea planning to regulate Ico and there is lots of fraud activity happening in Ico it is the good move every country has to regulate Ico for fund raising.

Yes please. Drop your source so we can assess how true this is. Or else we might be concluding that this is all fake news. FUDs that only wants to twist the upcoming bullish month to bearish one.

actually easy to find the source you need to do is open google.com in your browser then type "korean banned ico" wait a moment then read every web that appears, if you lazy to do such thing you can click this http://www.businessinsider.sg/ico-south-korea-bans-icos-2017-9/?r=US&IR=T

I am also really worried about the future changes after the country started banning all forms of transactions. Hopefully it only lasts in a short time so as not to make investors too big losses.

The Asians are collectively giving altcoins and especially ICOs a very hard time. I'm quite ambivalent to this development, it's certainly necessary to prevent this unhindered growth in the number of ICOs where everyone tries to collect easy money without any further obligations, but regulating ICOs in a manner similar to IPOs would make them accessible only to major companies and accredited investors who are already millionaires.

I agree with you, there should be regulation and only legit ico with legit roadmap and products should be allow to launch ico, with so many scam ico, time will come all country will ban ico and that is not good for the industry but of course I want legit ico to have a place in the industry

Till now they never talked about the ICO ban may be very soon they will start regulating the ICO's because many companies with good knowledge don't have the fund to raise the capital but this is going to be the chance that startup company can start legalizing with concerned countries.

I read the same article, but it it is true its a bit concerning. It's good that the government realizes the negative that ICOs can do. I hope once the government has a plan that they will overturn their decision and allow ICOs that can prove that they aren't scammy. If this is true, it makes me wonder what other countries are going to follow suit.

They were in a perfect position to steal trade from the Chinese, guess they blew it.

This is fake news! Period. ICO issue will be tackle on Country by Country basis! ICO Issuance can not going in perpetuity! I think every knows that or should!

Not true.

https://www.coindesk.com/ico-ban-canadas-regulators-giving-one-token-sale-big-break/ (https://www.coindesk.com/ico-ban-canadas-regulators-giving-one-token-sale-big-break/)

ICO's will have to comply with legal state regulations and the self-regulation of the platform they launch on - like the recent Impak Coin ICO on Waves in Canada.

This is good news!  :D

in other countries things like ICO are already illegal bro.
the only reason you never heard of it is because the news didn't make it big and everyone usually enjoys the China news no matter if it is true or false. and if you look at all these "Korea" news all of them mention China one way or another ;)