Bad blow for bitcoins. South Korea, the third largest cryptocurrency market in the world, will prohibit the exchange of digital currencies on its markets and the ban will also affect foreign companies and citizens.
“Cryptocurrency trading, increasingly similar to speculation and gambling – said Park Sang-ki, Seoul's justice minister – risks inflicting serious damage on citizens' wallets. If the bubble bursts it will have a devastating effect”.
The authorities, Park underlined, "are very concerned" and "want to stop all virtual currency exchange platforms" in the country. Investing in cryptocurrencies is a widespread habit in South Korea, where 20% of the world's exchanges of virtual currencies are concentrated.
The new law proposed by the government has yet to reach the National Assembly for approval, but the news has already caused bitcoin to lose about 14% on the Bitstamp exchange.
Seoul's counter-offensive against the bitcoin danger does not stop at the bill, however. Yesterday, South Korean tax agents went to the offices of the two main national cryptocurrency markets, Coinone and Bithumb, asking for precise data on trading volumes and the taxes paid by intermediaries.
The investigators' sights are focused above all on Coinone, which has already been under investigation since last month because it allowed traders to sell digital currencies short.
The Korean crackdown follows the Chinese one last autumn, when the Beijing authorities closed the largest Bitcoin Exchange to curb speculation but above all to prevent cryptocurrencies from becoming the bolt capable of evading the stringent controls on capital movements.
Meanwhile, the SEC, the US Consob, has blocked the launch of ETFs linked to bitcoins, asking companies that are thinking of introducing this investment tool to take a step back, waiting for greater clarity on the possible risks.
Read Alessandro Fugnoli's analysis on “All the pros and cons of cryptocurrencies".
