The South Korean National Assembly has voted in favour of the country’s first Cryptocurrency law.
The amendment of the Special Financial Transactions Information Act, which was submitted last November now has crypto-specific laws that creates a framework for Cryptocurrency holders and exchanges in the country.
According to Maeil Kyungjae, the house voted unequivocally in favor of the bill, with 182 votes for, zero against and no abstentions.
The import of this law for special money brought crypto-related organizations into the framework. As indicated by the section passed, virtual resource suppliers (VASPs) who are answerable for selling, purchasing, trading, moving, transacting, and overseeing virtual resources (digital currencies) must answer to the FIU as virtual resource suppliers and get licenses and repair before they can be worked.
Crypto-related administrators, including digital money exchange platforms, are confronted with the test of having report repair prerequisites. Administrator report repair necessities incorporate the utilization of genuine name check store and withdrawal account (genuine name account) administration, ISMS (Information Security Management System) certification, and exchange information assortment dependent on travel rules. The law will take effect from March 2021, one year after the promulgation.
Simon Kim, the CEO of Seoul-based blockchain incubator Hashed, told Cryptonews.com,
“There has been great uncertainty regarding regulations in cryptocurrency in South Korea until now. However, with the new law, cryptocurrency has been officially classified as an asset class by the institutions and virtual asset operators are able to operate under proper law in Korea. I believe this is a strong, positive signal for South Korea moving forward and proving itself as the perfect test bed for blockchain and cryptocurrency on the global scene.”
He added that “This law clearly defines cryptocurrency as virtual assets and cryptocurrency exchanges as virtual asset operators. It provides guidance for exchanges by revising the conditions for issuing accounts so more small- and medium-sized exchanges and South Korean branches of foreign exchanges will be able to link accounts with banks in South Korea.”
Meanwhile, IT journalist Janet Cho told
“All of the big South Korean companies involved in blockchain have been championing this amendment, and now they’ve got exactly what they wanted. The ball’s now in their court. How they, and other companies that have possibly been keeping their cryptocurrency plans secret, react in the next few weeks and months will be very telling indeed.”
