Legislature Holds Meeting to Discuss Cryptocurrency

After various departments of the Moon administration made conflicting announcements regarding cryptocurrency over the past month that have brought confusion and instability to markets, the Korean legislature has decided to move ahead of the administration in creating cryptocurrency related policy. The National Assembly held meetings today, the 29th with the topic of “How Should Cryptocurrencies be Legislated?”

These talks included Bareun party leader and former presidential candidate Seongmin Yoo, whose party organized the meeting, with members of various other parties, professors and lawyers in order to facilitate an informative discussion on the topic. It’s nice to see that Korean lawmakers are trying to engage in a discussion, and seeing the comments they made, it’s good to see that they may actually begin to be educating themselves on cryptocurrencies and a proper path forward.

Cryptocurrency Needs A Healthy Market, Not Chaos

One of the legislators who participated in these discussions, Taekyung Ha, member of the Bareun Party, stated that “I will strive to create a bill that reflects the people's opinions first and is based on real discussions among academics, industry leaders, and regulators.” Representative LeeBae Chae of the People’s Party followed with “We need to secure transparency, soundness and stability in order to create a healthy market.” He then added “We as the National Assembly should respond without waiting for the government's chaotic policy.”

Both these statements seem like big improvements over the Moon administration’s previous statements on cryptocurrency, some of which were found to have resulted in government officials conducting “insider trading” selling bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies before the government announcements and then buying it back after for a profit.

Professor Also Speaks in Favor of Crypto

Additionally, professor Hyeon Joong Kim from Korea University Graduate School of Information Studies (the university I attend) had stern remarks for the government and these previously announced regulations. He stated “ICO restrictions are isolationist style policies, and closing [cryptocurrency] exchanges is suicide.” He followed this up with "The government should not attempt to control prices, but instead should focus on the protection of investors and regulate unfair and opaque transactions, but not with approaches like bans or closure of exchagnes.”

Professor Kim is also pushing for cryptocurrencies by calling for government agencies conducting research regarding blockchain technology to simultaneously be looking into cryptocurrencies as an inclusive part of the blockchain. “Having a blockchain without a cryptocurrency is a difficult product to make,” adding that “cryptocurrency R&D is blockchain R&D.”

Is Korea Coming Back to Crypto

It is a great sign seeing both legislators and professors, in addition to the Korean people pushing back against unwarranted and uninformed government regulation. It seems that Koreans understand how much of an important player they are and can/will be in this space, and are fighting to make good things happen. Although I believe too much government interference is never a good thing, with healthy and moderate regulation, this can bring more users and people into the market, creating more demand and a more overall stable and growing cryptocurrency environment.

As a fun experiment, I think it would be fun to thank these representatives for promoting realistic ideas on cryptocurrency. I’ve linked their twitters below, so go and tweet at them to show our support! Maybe we'll get an article written about us in Korea that I can report on tomorrow!

Taekyung Ha https://twitter.com/taekyungh

LeeBae Chae https://twitter.com/cwhej

As always, thanks for the 4 minutes.