Bitcoin Forum

Why do so many people think that ICOs are illegal in Korea? There have been several successful ICOs in or from Korea. For example, ICON (ICX) is led by a Korean team in Korea. HDAC which is sponsored by a large Korean company named Hyundai is of course from Korea as well. Proof Suite (PRFT) is also from Korea. There are actual ICOs that are still going on. For example, ICO for Hycon. So I am just shocked at how the western media and many people on Bitcointalk think that it’s illegal to have ICOs in Korea. It’s not. 😊

I'm not sure, but there were stories out last month in the media about South Korea relaxing the "ban". I do think the initial media reaction was overblown though. I think they are mainly concerned with foreigners using Korean ICOs to launder money.

It's simple: people are ignorant and lazy.

Unfortunately, crypto hype has attracted a large amount of the worst kind of "investor".
The kind that was like, "I'm doing Herbal Life and it's going to make me a millionare!" or "All I have to do is hit is big in the lottery and I can retire!" type people.
Although I was happy that they brought in money last december that pushed the market to crazy heights, we are now suffering because of it.

The very nature of these types of people spreads fud and misinformation.
So hearing some kind of "ban" in korea causes a lot of false information to be spread.

the thing is, basing investment and trading choices on very little information, hype, or rumor is terrible practice.
Informed choices will always make you more money.
Taking the time to double check information and using the correct, real information to guide your trades is way more effective.
Should make perfect sense but a lot of people don't do it.

There was a lot of FUD in Korea which was at the beginning of this bear market and i guess people didn't catch up with the new news that it crypto is not banned in Korea, in fact it is being adopted rather well compared to most countries. China, Korea, Japan, and others in the Far East will lead the way when the bull market returns.

This is true that in Korea plan to legalize ICO and introduce special tax for this?

The Korean law currently can not punish firms or projects based on promoting ICOs. However, they can punish ICOs based on other existing laws. For example, if an ICO is engaged in ponzi scheme or actively commit fraud or gambling then it can be punished under Korea’s anti-fraud law. Of course, that’s not saying that the Korean government is opening its arms and actively welcoming ICOs per se. The Korean government is indeed interested in regulating it like many other countries around the world.

It must be because of the people's ignorance, not all of them knows crypto even though there are ICOs which have been successful before. The other thing is that they are afraid of crypto becoming another source of income or another type of investment.

Not exactly, Korea now accepts ICO projects but they are required to register with their government. They will check the potential ICO project and then accept global funding. This move from Korea is very beneficial for investors. So if I meet ICO I always support and decide to invest in them.

In Korea, by the way, they are very correct in registering Ico. There first, the state considers the project and decides whether to admit it or not, for investors it is a very good protection against scammers and reliability in profits.

Because theres a lot of FUDs coming from korea,that is why most of the people think that ICOs are banned and restricted like what china has,either way if you are going to invest with korean ICOs you should know what you are getting into or else you could lose your investments because theres a lot of scam ICOs and you should only invest to those legit ones.

Not sure if that was FUD from south korea but in fact there are some announcements regarding it. it looks like south korea is really banning icos from there. That's why icos are illegal in south korea.
In fact the majority of icos don't follow the regulation in the south korea and the government only stated to protect the potential investors from the scammer.

In the current stage, ico is held in countries that are prohibited from engaging. The project itself is unreasonable. Even if the ico is successfully held, it still has to deal with government departments to conduct business, and in what capacity to communicate.

The one that you mention have been around since some time ago, before the rumour of Korea banning ico start popping up. I never read anything about ico ban from official source, there's just rumor regarding that, i know they want to regulate crypto to protect their citizens from scam ico but there's no ban yet. Even cube held their ico last month and they are Korean project.

I am less so know about this information.
may there indeed prohibit ico for a particular purpose.
that's my opinion: D

Maybe they are referring to ICO that is not back up with any known legit company or ICO that is suspicious. If the ICO is back up by a legitimate company or a very well known company like Microsoft, I doubt if they are going to ban it. In every rule there is always an exemption. NEO is an example in China.

People are reacting with FUD to every bombastic news, although it is a well-known fact that newspapers like to take out the sentences from the context and put them into titles. Join that with them being lazy to investigate on their own and you will get your answer.

The other part could be ignorance - it is quite possible that many people think South and North Korea are the same things and that in both countries people live in total isolation. It is comical what Western people thought, and some of them still think, about Balkan. One guy even asked on Quora whether people in Serbia drive cars  ???, I mean what the......