Cryptocurrency News - South Korea revisited

In this blog, I will go over and summarize what is happening today in the cryptocurrency world. I will cover news stories, as well as new coins and technologies.

One of the biggest stories to come out today happens to be a follow up on the South Korean incident we saw last week where a government official, the minister of justice, made an announcement saying that the country was going to ban cryptocurrency trading. This was important news and very well might have led to the crash we saw the last couple days where prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fell 50% and more.

The story that broke today was about how South Korea admitted that there were government officials who used insider information to purchase and sell cryptocurrencies before the statement was released. While there are no current laws banning insider trading in cryptocurrencies these actions by South Korean government officials grabbed the attention of the Korean public enough to merit a 200,000-signature petition to review the actions of said officials. Many within the country are calling for their resignation and for them to be punished for the misuse of their power. A spokesman for the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) stated, “There is no code of ethics and no code of conduct for virtual currency investment in FSS regulations, so it’s difficult to say about punishment at this stage.”

Due to the 200,000 signatures gathered by the people of South Korea, the government has 30 days to release a response on the incident. This could prove to be vital to the upcoming crypto world as this could set a precedent used by governments around the world on insider trading with cryptocurrencies. Depending on how they proceed, other nations might respond by making their own laws and regulations as we are seeing a need for regulation in certain parts of the industry. Something to note is that the more regulations we see the harder it will be for cryptocurrency to grow. Instead of making regulations for everything in the crypto world governments need to create laws wisely so as not to choke and hold down the growing markets with unneeded rules.

South Korea is a hotbed for cryptocurrency trading as they are the 3rd largest market in the world for cryptocurrency trading, falling behind Japan and the United States. On top of being very active in the cryptocurrency trading markets, they have been subject to pay heavy premiums on the cryptocurrency they purchase. This is due to large numbers of traders and a high demand that is driving the price up 30% at times compared to other exchanges around the world. This is true in most Asian markets as you see big disparities in price in the Thai, Japanese, Korean and US markets.

It is reported that since the crash that occurred the last couple days, prices have leveled out and people aren’t paying as high of premiums anymore. It still leaves to question exactly what type of markets we are seeing in the Asian countries as to whether the buyers are investors or believers in the cryptocurrency. I have noticed two distinct groups of people who act very differently when purchasing cryptos where one holds everything they purchase and believe this to be the next currency to take over the dollar and others who think of this as an investment they cannot pass up. This is important to take into consideration because the believers will not trade their cryptos and will hold them thus making the markets smaller as there are less tokens out there to be traded. I think as time passes and more and more people start realizing what the cryptocurrencies will become we will see the price and popularity continue to climb until the dollar is nonexistent.