Korean Government Formally Proposes Lifting the ICO Ban

[coinzonesl]

The undesirable territories include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ethiopia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Vanuatu and Yemen. These countries have been labeled as high risk by the Non-Cooperative Countries and Territories (NCCT) initiative, which has determined they are not doing enough to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing and other threats within their borders.

The ban is a part of a broader effort by Bithumb to protect its transparency and weed out fraudsters and other bad actors from its client ranks. It has come into immediate effect, with the exchange refusing to accept new users from the said countries from May 27th and onwards. Existing users from the NCCT countries have until June 21st to withdraw their funds as their accounts will be disabled then.

Bithumb is the 5th-largest digital asset exchange globally per data from CoinMarketCap, with its 24-hour trading volume exceeding $460m at press time.

According to the official spokesperson of the exchange, “The Bithumb team will voluntarily impose strict policies and cooperate closely with local financial authorities to increase the transparency in the cryptocurrency market and protect investors. With progressive voluntary policies, Bithumb will improve the global standard of cryptocurrency exchanges.“

The ban seems at least partially influenced by the recent events in Japan. Earlier this month reports have surfaced that Yakuza gangs have laundered hundreds of millions of USD, using the anonymous Zcash, Dash, and Monero cryptocurrencies.

Following the revelation, Japanese government formally requested the country’s exchanges to delist the privacy-oriented tokens. Although it must be said that only Monero can be classified as the truly anonymous virtual currency, since the majority of Zcash transactions are actually public, while privacy is offered as an additional feature on Dash.

There has also been significant pressure from South Korean authorities to implement additional security measures. The recently established Korea Blockchain Association recommended a number of know-your-customer measures in order to enhance transparency within the crypto industry. Additional rules to prevent market manipulation have also been introduced.

While technically they were recommendations, which means implementing them was not mandatory, it seems the exchanges had no other choice but to comply as they would face increased regulatory scrutiny otherwise. Even now, major exchanges will still be evaluated on a constant basis. Bithumb added that mobile ID verification process for international users will be implemented shortly.

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[bbbbbvm]

ICO is full of risk. Not every project can be successful. Only a few projects can be successful. This requires people to judge. This is also the reason why many countries ban ICOs. There are no authorit

[da7a1oad3r]

ICO is full of risk. Not every project can be successful. Only a few projects can be successful. This requires people to judge. This is also the reason why many countries ban ICOs. There are no authorit

And why are you telling us such an obvious things? Everybody know that 

[cryptohunter]

ICO is full of risk. Not every project can be successful. Only a few projects can be successful. This requires people to judge. This is also the reason why many countries ban ICOs. There are no authorit

And why are you telling us such an obvious things? Everybody know that 

well hence why the lifting of such a ban is a double edged sword without strict regulation and not essentially good news long term for crypto

[Vannie12]

ICOs can be beneficial at times or depending on how idealistic and real a project is. Yet there are many greedy people that abuse this kind of opportunity. I think letting projects provide good services can be a good idea but there should be regulations regarding their foundations as a company. Screenings are good way of determining a good project that would help cryptocurrency world develop more.

[Destroyeroff98]

This is very good news. I thank you for not being too lazy and have described everything in such detail.

[BrewMaster]

this is really a bad thing. ICOs are being banned all around the world and they were never exactly legal anywhere to raise funds like this and scam people out of their money!

we say it is a free market and all that but unfortunately the decentralization in case of ICOs have proven to fail miserably because people don't seem to grasp the illegality of these things and the damage that they are inflicting on the whole market. i say we need strict regulations with no mercy for ICOs.

[Eternu]

ICOs can be beneficial at times or depending on how idealistic and real a project is. Yet there are many greedy people that abuse this kind of opportunity. I think letting projects provide good services can be a good idea but there should be regulations regarding their foundations as a company. Screenings are good way of determining a good project that would help cryptocurrency world develop more.

Regulation of crypto is inevitable.  Time is needed for finding good solution, and until they find it things like this ban will happen.
There are those kind of people who will always seek way to wash their dirty money, and some coins provide just that. Safe way of doing it, like we can see in OP. I believe that in time govenments will find a way to regulate crypto totally. But I just hope that common people will not suffer too much in the process. Also in time, number of projects will be lower, and only those which are really good will survive.

[lulutika]

I hope that will happen. But I just hope that ordinary people will not get too much in the process. At the same time, the number of projects will be lower, and only really good projects will exist.

[pooya87]

ICOs can be beneficial at times or depending on how idealistic and real a project is. Yet there are many greedy people that abuse this kind of opportunity. I think letting projects provide good services can be a good idea but there should be regulations regarding their foundations as a company. Screenings are good way of determining a good project that would help cryptocurrency world develop more.

"can be" is very different from "is". a lot of things can be a lot of things but they aren't. ICOs are one of them. and since so far not even one ICO has been remotely good you can say that this lifting of the ban is the strangest thing that they could have done! in a world where everyone is banning ICOs and preventing them from scamming people taking a step back is like undoing all the things you have done so far.

[hugeblack]

I hope the regulation extends to include shitcoins. ICOs, shitcoins & High-Privacy ruined crypto's reputation.
Everyone tries to become rich by repeating the same ideas or scamming others, which is due to the negation of this technology.
Because of this news, everyone looks at the bitcoin look black pic, so I hope that the South Korean government will think again.

[classictee]

Its good for them to lift the ban and introduce a strict rules and regulations to any ico before conducting any... The team must be screened properly and confirmed...

[teterinal]

i think this is a good newsfor the crypto community.

[Morvarid89]

South Korea always support this market, I hope so in other countries. Especially China will support

[Odonko]

This is great news for the crypto community as this would help reduce the criticisms against cryptocurrencies. Again all these are also geared towards the legalization of the bitcoin and other potenttial altcoins such as ethereum, dash and litecoin as a mode of payment for transactions.

[Johnzky]

ICO is full of risk. Not every project can be successful. Only a few projects can be successful. This requires people to judge. This is also the reason why many countries ban ICOs. There are no authorit

What you me to say is Most of the ico are scammers and only few from a thousand are legitimate that way become the ico investing is very risky.

This is the thing that governments want to prevent since many of their people becomes victim by this  scammers and doesnt care about their victim

[virendarnagpal]

Suppose a car is manufactured with all it's features except the breaks.  Many people will still be saves provided they do not find any traffic in their way.  Or  in other words they are so lucky that they are still safe and reach their destination.
In the same way I think without some regulations; scammers will always be able to cheat others.  There should be some one who is keeping eye on their activities.  Though their powers should be limited.  With unlimited or more powers they may become dictators.
Rules and regulations need to be formed at international levels because ICOs have international reach.  World Bank may be the rule maker in this case.  Or any other new regulatory agency may be formed under whose guidance all the countries are working in this field. 
Crypto currency is the currency for the future; so entire world should help develop it and remove hurdles from it's way.

[sukatuku]

Thank you, good news you brought us the problem

[talkbitcoin]

Suppose a car is manufactured with all it's features except the breaks.  Many people will still be saves provided they do not find any traffic in their way.  Or  in other words they are so lucky that they are still safe and reach their destination.
In the same way I think without some regulations; scammers will always be able to cheat others.  There should be some one who is keeping eye on their activities.  Though their powers should be limited.  With unlimited or more powers they may become dictators.
Rules and regulations need to be formed at international levels because ICOs have international reach.  World Bank may be the rule maker in this case.  Or any other new regulatory agency may be formed under whose guidance all the countries are working in this field. 
Crypto currency is the currency for the future; so entire world should help develop it and remove hurdles from it's way.

we don't need regulations to prevent scams. this is a decentralized world with decentralized rules and we as a part of this decentralized system, should be able to prevent scams from happening by having more educated people who use their brains instead of their greedy emotions.

but when that clearly doesn't happen and we still have idiot newbies who continue to give away their money to ICO scammers then we need some external force to come in and clean it up for us. which is sad to be honest because it shows how the altcoin market has failed.

[pltgksl]

Korean has an excellent economy because of following the all hottest technologies. Because money is using new technology, i think.