South Korea Mulls Over Reversing Ban on ICOs

South Korean legislators are planning to chase the road to clear their stance on Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) in November this year. Despite the government’s on-again-off-again relationship with cryptocurrencies, a National Assembly committee has mooted to revamp the cryptocurrency policies in the country on October 10, 2018.

South Korea: Bringing hope to ICO Industry

An east Asian nation, South Korea has been looked upon as the harbinger of positive change in the cryptocurrency market by re-legalizing initial coin offerings (ICOs). The Korean government was antithetical towards ICOs, until the recent past. However, now some changes are being seen.

When asked about the government’s stance on ICOs, chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, Hong Nam-Ki said:

“We have had several discussions (on ICOs). Once the survey results are in by end-October, we plan to finalize the government’s stance.”

“We surveyed as some companies are conducting or preparing for ICOs despite the ban here,” added Hong.

Not All ICOs Are Scams

This announcement is not entirely out of the blue, as the development has been in the offing for some time. Last week, a few South Korean lawmakers banded together to raise the issue of legalizing ICOs.

As per a news report by a local publication, two of South Korea’s ruling party, Democratic Party legislators Min Byung-doo and Roh Woong-rae were heading an initiative to reverse the ban imposed on ICOs that was imposed in 2017. To this effect, on October 2, Min had hosted a blockchain forum at the National Assembly library. While at the conference Min had drawn comparisons with countries such as Switzerland and Singapore.

Supporting the importance of ICOs, he said that blockchain and cryptocurrencies have merits and demerits, and only confident governments can handle them properly. A case in point is Singapore, Switzerland, and France, as “these countries have opened up the road to ICOs for companies.”

Furthermore, he added that the ban on ICOs would backpedal the country. He also stated that he craves to reverse the ban and also eliminate the barriers such as speculations, money laundering, finance terrorism and more.

Despite the support put forth by the public as well as ruling party members, it is hard to come to a conclusion on which way the government may rule. Most of the ICOs have garnered a feeble image in the past one year and several studies conducted this year, have stated that nearly 80% of ICOs turn out to be fake.

In the light of this development, there needs to be a robust mechanism in place to vet ICOs, in case the government decided to reverse the ban.

What do you think of the government reversing ICO ban? Will it lift the ICO industry? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.