Newly Launch Korean Blockchain Lobby Calls on Government to Regulate Crypto Industry
The newly created Korea Blockchain Enterprise Promotion Association has approached the state to adopt crypto and blockchain technology, local Korea Joongang Daily newspaper reported last week. .
As indicated by the report, the blockchain community has filed a request with the government to regulate the new technology so as to profit from its opportunities as opposed to concentrating on its negative “short-term side effects.”
The association’s application focused on the need for the government to put in place the appropriate regulatory framework for both blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, including Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) as reported by Korea Joongang Daily reports.
The association’s move is intended to help “pave the way for Korea to lead the world in the fourth industrial revolution.’’
Yoo Joon-sang, the leader of the association called attention to the fact that different nations are currently applying blockchain technology “to all aspects of society including health care, retail and logistics,” focusing on that in South Korea,
“Instead of welcoming the people’s fervor for the technology, the government is focused on controlling it to address negative short-term side effects. This is essentially kicking away the economic opportunities that lie in front of us.”
The Korea Blockchain Enterprise Promotion Association was formally launched on July 17, 2018 in response to the growing fame of distributed ledger technology (DLT).
The association comprises of former politicians including National Assembly member Ryu Keun-chan and previous PM Lee Soo-sung, and scholars such as Kim Hyoung-joong, head of Korea University’s Cryptocurrency Center at the Graduate School of Information Security.
South Korea’s relationships with cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology has seen both a good and bad side, as the nation has restricted unknown crypto trading and prohibit minors and government authorities from trading. However, the country has more recently seen the lifting of the prohibition on Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) and sanctions on Bitcoin (BTC) as a remittance tool.
Just few weeks ago, South Korea’s financial holding firm KB Financial Group released a report that says only two percent of the country’s population were invested in cryptocurrencies.
On Aug. 6, public biotech intuition Macrogen, which represents the nation’s leading gene sequencing service industry, announced it is developing a blockchain-fuelled genomic database to secure and transfer customers’ genomic and other medical data.
