South Korea Giving Investors Chance to Exit Before Crypto Trading Ban (1/16/2018)

South Korea’s Ministry of Justice confirms it has set a policy to push ahead with banning cryptocurrency transactions after due warning is given to the populace of the risk of virtual currency — the warning is so investors can exit the market in an orderly fashion. Without the government’s verbal interventions, the Justice Ministry estimates that the price of one bitcoin would have already exceeded 40 million won.

Giving time to get out of the speculative market in order to induce a soft landing

“The need to review the virtual currency trading ban” by the Ministry of Justice states: “To prevent good citizens from falling into gambling virtual currency fraud and speculation and to prevent existing investors from getting out there, warning needs to be given. ”

“It is reasonable to make a soft-landing legislation by allowing the good people to distribute these materials for a few minutes and allow time for them to escape from the speculative specs.” It means that it will cool overheating of the virtual currency market through repeated warnings, promote the departure of investors, and push for legislation such as closing the virtual currency transaction site.

The document, which the Justice Department prepared for the National Assembly’s report, states that “it is necessary to distribute a press release on the strong regulatory policy on virtual currencies,” and that “press releases should be distributed to warn speculation and risks of virtual currency transactions.” have. “The price of one bit coin soared from 18 million won on December 7 to 25 million won in one day, and the Ministry of Justice and other government officials said that the price of the beat coin was stabilizing at 18 million won on December 9.” (The price of bitcoin) was going to surpass 40 million won by December 10. ”

According to this document, the government warned of the risk of virtual currency trading and reaffirmed its regulatory will through three press releases on December 13, 20 and 28 last year. On the 11th, Minister of Justice Park Sang-ki announced a policy to establish a special law for closing the virtual currency trading site through a press conference.

The Ministry of Justice said in a written statement, “Korea is the worst in the world in virtual currency speculation, and the bitcoin price is 20% higher than the world market price.” He said, “We are in a hurry to sell virtual currency to our country from all over the world. They are buying all of them.”

“Domestic investors are more than a dozen trillion won in total investment, with more than one million people including multi-level operators, college students, housewives, office workers, retirees and middle and high school students.” “Even if it is not money or financial products, Has been encouraging speculative trading through indiscriminate advertising with high profit as a bait.”

In addition, “the domestic gambling virtual currency exchange has 13 or more, and it is opened arbitrarily without any permission because there are no relevant laws.” “The transaction amount of gambling virtual currency is more than 5 trillion won per day, exceeding 2.4 trillion won The size of the deal is so large as to be beyond imagination that urgent legislative regulation is necessary. ”

The document states that “virtual currencies can not be future currencies or gold,” while the national currencies are guaranteed to be issued and issued by the issuing country’s credit and legal force, There is no country or institution that guarantees value or enforcement, no one can issue it, it can not be limited in its kind, and it can not prevent the issuance of similar virtual currencies from continuing indefinitely. The technology provided guarantees a secure transaction of the virtual currency and does not guarantee the value of the virtual currency itself.

◇ The Ministry of Justice “prohibition of transaction ban …” Legislation unknown

Meanwhile, the paper said, “On December 4, 2004, virtual currency prices surged by more than 40% after the press release of the Ministry of Justice’s” Virtual Currency TF (Task Force) There are bus-side advertisements for virtual currencies that are issued overseas without any awareness, and indiscriminate mobile advertising targeting the whole nation. ”

“It is necessary to review the ban on virtual currency trading to prevent the damage caused by abnormal trading of virtual currency transactions and speculative speculative transactions,” suggesting a plan to enact a special law. Acts prohibited by the special law include △ virtual call brokering and brokerage, △ virtual currency sales and sales, △ virtual money issuance (ICO). However, he did not intend to penalize individuals buying or selling virtual currency privately.

In fact, the Ministry of Justice recently drafted a draft enactment of the “Act on the Regulation of Fictitious Mark Transactions”, which stipulates that anyone should not issue, store, manage, exchange, mediate, . According to the judgment of the Ministry of Justice that a virtual currency can not be recognized as a currency, the expression “virtual token” was used instead of a virtual currency.

If the bill is enacted in accordance with the original law, all virtual currency trading sites that continue to operate after the enforcement date become illegal. Penalties apply to both the trading site and the trading site representatives in accordance with the Regulations. In the case of trading sites, all profits earned in the name of commissions, etc. are all confiscated or confiscated, and the representative of the trading site is imprisoned for less than 7 years. However, virtual currency transactions through overseas trading sites or P2P transactions are excluded from the prohibition under special law.

However, it is unclear whether the Ministry of Justice will submit such a bill to the National Assembly as originally proposed or if it is submitted to the National Assembly. There has been a widespread opposition to the virtual currency trading site closure plan, centered on the opposition.

* As this is breaking news, this post is still undergoing editorial revision.