Cryptocurrency Now Fully Legal in South Korea

https://thenews.asia/amendment-to-special-reporting-act-passes-cryptocurrency-trading-now-legal-in-south-korea/

by wslh • 6 years ago

183 73 6 years ago

thenews.asia

slovenlyrobot• 6 years ago

Is it my imagination or was this the second country announcing the same in the past few days?

imvetri• 6 years ago

Same here. Waiting for answer.

_rrnv• 6 years ago

Something's to it. First was Germany clarifying legality of cryptocurrencies, then India Supreme Court lifting 2y ban. Now SK. Interesting.

gnikif• 6 years ago

Yep, the first one was India.

9nGQluzmnq3M• 6 years ago

That's right, India also legalized (or, rather, unbanned) crypto yesterday: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-cryptocurrency-idUS...

arberavdullahu• 6 years ago

Yes, here is also the hn discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22481649

sandov• 6 years ago

This must have triggered the spike back to $9k.

swarnie_• 6 years ago

India also lifted restrictions this week i believe.

harshal_gajare• 6 years ago

Yes. https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2020/03/04/indias-apex-court...

kbumsik• 6 years ago

The title is a bit misleading. The crypto exchange was legal already. The new law seems to consider crypto exchanges regular financial institutions, thus more regulated. As a result crypto is expected to be more trusted industry.

One of the main caveats to the enactment of the amendment is that cryptocurrency exchanges will need to comply with reporting requirements. Although the larger exchanges mostly comply with the new rules already, small and medium-sized exchanges may have trouble obtaining the contracts to reach full compliance.

magma17• 6 years ago

as a layman, I'm gonna buy all I can.

dmos6211• 6 years ago

https://www.google.com/search?q=gambling+help

chroem-4• 6 years ago

Even taking into account the bear market of the last two years, bitcoin still has an average annual return of 350%. To say that all cryptocurrency equates to gambling is just foolish.

wslh6• 6 years ago

In this phase of blockchain/cryptocurrency a link is created between the two worlds that is neither cryptoanarchist nor anticrypto. We are seeing different strategies on how states are dealing with this. For example, Germany initiatives [1] are different than US state based ones [2].

Even if we don't agree, cryptocurrencies are now an unstoppable force. We can say that the worst case scenario for cryptocurrencies would be to share the same destiny as the BitTorrent protocol [3] where there is a lot of usage but is not popular. Cryptocurrencies are moving beyond BitTorrent fate because there are many financial institutions, regulators, etc that are connecting these two worlds.

Ironically, it is more practical to use stable coins for global transfers than the volatile currencies in the permissionless blockchains that host these stable coins [4], and also more practical and cheaper than a wire transfer between two US accounts.

I am not saying that cryptocurrencies are not used for illicit purposes also, or that there is some magic intrinsic value behind them. Just saying the in the political context cryptocurrencies are gaining territory.

[1] Germany on chain: National Blockchain Strategy Released - https://medium.com/@philippsandner/germany-national-blockcha... & Bitcoin officially recognized as a legal financial instrument in Germany: https://www.somagnews.com/bitcoin-officially-recognized-lega...

[2] State Regulations on Virtual Currency and Blockchain Technologies: https://www.carltonfields.com/insights/publications/2018/sta...

[3] File-Sharing and VPN Traffic Grow Explosively: https://torrentfreak.com/filesharing-and-vpn-traffic-grow-ex...

[4] The Rise of Stable Coins: Beyond Facebook Libra: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-stable-coins-beyond-face...

Nursie13• 6 years ago

Even if we don't agree, cryptocurrencies are now an unstoppable force.

I'm sorry, but this is far from obvious.

We can say that the worst case scenario for cryptocurrencies would be to share the same destiny as the BitTorrent protocol [3] where there is a lot of usage but is not popular.

Actually, the worst case is a crash and the whole scene collapsing in a mess of criminal trials and bitter recriminations.

Just because cryptocurrencies are 'legalised' doesn't mean a whole lot for the long term. In fact I would hope to see this sort of thing result in much more active enforcement of existing legal and financial protections, something the cryptocurrency scene has been unnervingly able to dodge so far.

gaining territory

Not in many places. They seem to be seen by most folks I encounter as both passe (that was so 2017!) and basically as crimebux.

I'm also enjoying the frantic handwaving away of power usage concerns in the wake of the current rebirth of the green movement, post Thunberg.

wslh6• 6 years ago

Actually, the worst case is a crash and the whole scene collapsing in a mess of criminal trials and bitter recriminations.

As I said in my comment and my post[4]: [even if they crash] stable coins are one of the major drivers of cryptocurrencies/blockchains and by definition fully collateralized stable coins does not crash or if they crash it is because the underlying standard financial system crashes.

I also highlight that in this context the most interesting thing about blockchains is that "Openness and interoperability have become more important than decentralization".

[4] The Rise of Stable Coins: Beyond Facebook Libra: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-stable-coins-beyond-face...

dmos6211• 6 years ago

Even if most exchanges are shut down and the price crashes, the network can't be undone, in that, if there's demand, it's sufficiently resilient to continue to exist. For crypto to function as currency we need it to be at least somewhat stable. We currently have that. We also need to be able to exchange it, which we also have. Remember that decentralized, anonymous and trustless crypto<->fiat exchanges are possible, like Bisq https://bisq.network/

rolltiide• 6 years ago

I'm also enjoying the frantic handwaving away of power usage concerns

Because headlines focus on the amount of power used and not the source of power used, which is overwhelmingly renewable and wasted energy that had no prior economic use which undermines the whole reductive argument about power used, and is an outcome resolved purely by market forces.

Let me know if you would like examples for your independent corroboration.

Hinrik• 6 years ago

The HN camp is mainly anti cryptocurrency

What's the point of starting your comment by unnecessarily painting this entire community with such a broad brush and dismissing the nuanced opinions on cryptocurrencies found here? What does it add? It just makes me more skeptical of whatever you're about to say, to the point where I barely feel like it's worth reading.

wslh6• 6 years ago

I just edited my comment and removed that part. As an active HN community member I shared my feelings here but never said that all the HN community was anti crypto. I said "mainly" because I see a shift to the anti crypto camp. I can obviously be wrong but it is based on my cognitive device reading thousands of messages for years.

codehalo• 6 years ago

There is an abundance of evidence that HN was one of the most anti cryptocurrency sites. It was/is surprisingly bizarre, given the expectation that the posters would be more knowledgeable of future tech than other sites. History has now shown that it way too high of an expectation.

blueprint• 6 years ago

Stablecoins so far are not able to be cryptocurrencies. They involve the oracle problem. No functional cryptocurrency operates w outside data like that.

wslh6• 6 years ago

As I said in [4]: "Furthermore, stable coins are centralized, but they take advantage of the interoperability features and open finance capabilities in decentralized blockchains. Openness and interoperability have become more important than decentralization."

[4] The Rise of Stable Coins: Beyond Facebook Libra: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-stable-coins-beyond-face...

proy24• 6 years ago

Also worth noting is that South Korea is considered to be a country with a serious gambling problem https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2019/11/119_255191.h... This is partly due to the fact that upward mobility in South Korea is notoriously hard without the right connections and also the reason why the country went full YOLO on ICOs in 2017.

Still even with the current ruling only spot exchanges are legal and derivates are still not allowed which means koreans exchanges are still not allowed to offer shitcoin futures with 125x leverage.

solveit• 6 years ago

This is partly due to the fact that upward mobility in South Korea is notoriously hard without the right connections

This is perceived to be the case, yes, but I have seen no evidence indicating that it is in fact the case. In fact, all measures I can find put Korea somewhere around the middle of developed countries in social mobility.

Cryptocurrency Now Fully Legal in South Korea

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