Lay legal groundwork
It is necessary to protect cryptocurrency investors
Rep. Lee Yong-woo of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) Friday submitted a cryptocurrency bill to the National Assembly requiring relevant businesses to register with, or get permission from, the financial authorities. If they engage in unlicensed crypto business, they will face up to five years in prison or a 50 million won ($41,500) fine. Rep. Lee said the bill was designed to better protect individual investors.
The bill is the first of its kind seeking to regulate cryptocurrencies. The nation s digital money market has continued to grow exponentially to the extent of surpassing the size of the stock markets here. However, the virtual currency boom has caused a set of problems: mushrooming exchanges, price manipulation, illegal overseas money transfers and money laundering. Individual investors could incur huge losses arising from the volatile coin exchanges.