Bitcoin Forum

South Korea is Officially Recognizing Crypto Exchanges as Regulated Banks

For the first time in history, the government of South Korea has officially recognized crypto exchanges regulated financial institutions and banks.

Local publications in South Korea have reported that the financial authorities of South Korea have finalized their plans to categorize crypto exchanges as an industry called “Cryptocurrency Exchange and Brokerage” to enable trading platforms to perform at a large capacity with support from local authorities.

From Communication Vendors to Financial Institutions

For many years, the government of South Korea has considered regulating the cryptocurrency sector with practical regulations and policies, primarily to prevent large-scale hacking attacks and security breaches from occurring, as seen in the case of Bithumb and Coinrail in early 2018.

However, local financial authorities feared that the regulating the cryptocurrency market would lead the public to believe that the government has legitimated the cryptocurrency sector. Consequently, South Korea postponed the regulation of cryptocurrency exchanges.

This week, local publications revealed that the government of South Korea has come to a consensus to recognize crypto exchanges as regulated financial businesses, creating a new industry dedicated to cryptocurrency trading platforms.

In the short-term, the newly created regulatory framework for cryptocurrency exchanges may have a negative impact on both the trading platforms and investors, because it would mean stricter Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and customer verification policies.

MORE INFO HERE: https://www.ccn.com/breaking-south-korea-is-officially-recognizing-crypto-exchanges-as-regulated-banks/

There was so much buzz about South Korea being totally against bitcoin and other crypto currencues .
I also heard about its opposition towards ICOS . But it is very appreciable that they finally decided to give a positive verdict on bitcoin and its legality in their country . This is an another milestone since so many ICOs comes from Korea.

I have been following the flow of money (https://coinlib.io/global-crypto-charts?theme=dark#global_money_flow) from the Korean exchanges and I have the impression that it has been decreasing a lot. In the past, their premium for the rest was gigantic. So much so that the coinmarket stopped listing them. When the government began to interfere and regulate, this agio diminished. I imagine it was a moment of doubt and uncertainty. I think the next few weeks will be key to understanding what to expect from the Korean market now that it is legalized and regulated.

Not only on South Korea but in almost big and influential countries too but the good thing here is that they do revert their decision that's why I don't lose hope for those countries to take the same decision later on where they do change their views about crypto and adopt it instead of blocking it and now we are seeing South Korea is doing it. This is a very positive news yet we do know on how big the market is in Korea.
So what country will be next?

I have no doubt that South Korea will really adopt crypto because we all that together with Japan, they really took over the torch from China last year. So its a sigh of relief that they went back and at least recognized crypto as I think it has a factor why bitcoin's price suddenly went on a free fall. So I'm now expecting a bit of price increase in the next couple of days because of this good news. As for who's next,  hard to say but as long as governments around the world are open-minded about bitcoins and crypto, I'm sure that someone will follow in the next couple of years.