South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) today announced a blanket ban on all ICOs in the country. The decision was decided by personnel from various government agencies including the Fair Trade Commission, the Office for Government Policy Coordination, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the Ministry of Justice, the Korean Communications Commission, the National Tax Services, the National Police Agency, the Bank of Korea, the Financial Supervisory Service, and the Korean Internet Development Agency.
They were quick to defend the move by claiming that this new ICO ban is not intended to inhibit business growth and that the ICO prohibition should be viewed as "investor protection rather than impeding industrial development."
The press release also reported that beyond implementing the ICO ban, members of the task force would continue to monitor cryptocurrency trading in order to determine whether it should be regulated. It said that in addition to enabling fraud, virtual currencies play a role in the drug trade, citing a cannabis sale this past January that was transacted via bitcoin.
Sidenote: " a cannabis sale"... Well using that logic I guess they better also ban physical fiat currencies since those are used in thousands of tons of under the table cannabis sales each year...
Image Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/crowdfunding-vs-ico-experts-question-legitimacy-and-guarantees-of-initial-coin-offerings
Holding "Joint TF for virtual currency-related institutions"
You can read the full press release at the links below:
View in Korean / View in English
Cryptocurrency isn't a fraud at this point, but ICO definitely is. At least until cryptocurrency settles completely...
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