“Just because of cryptocurrency, we cannot have Financial Services Commission (FSC), which is a regulatory agency, be the agency that is responsible for Blockchain Industry Promotion Fundamental Act. We need to have a separate department be in charge of promoting blockchain industry and have FSC take a step back.”
“There will not be any confusion within blockchain industry and legal industry by having various conditions such as conditions for setting up Smart Contract more clear.”
Korea International Trade Association (KITA) held a meeting for ‘Legislation of Blockchain Industry Promotion Fundamental Act’ at Trade Tower in Samsung-dong on the 16th and collected opinions from representatives of various industries. Representatives from blockchain companies, accelerators, universities, and law firms participated in this meeting and they suggested for changes in clauses and urged for swift legislation.
Industries agreed that there needs to be enough clauses that also consider investors alongside of blockchain businesses within a legislation bill. They are claiming that it will be difficult to promote blockchain industry until FSC eases its stance towards complete prohibition of ICO.
“Although there are many technical companies and venture companies that are looking to do reverse ICOs and tokenization, South Korean investors are negative towards ICO as they cannot possess cryptocurrencies due to Capital Market Act.” said Kim Kyoon-tae who is a partner of HASHED. “Our country’s competitive edge in investment will be weaker compared to other countries and it will continue to depend on traditional IPO (Initial Public Offering).”
“Because regulations given by government authorities to financial industry are ambiguous, entire blockchain investment has stopped.” said Director Park Sung-joon of Dungguk University’s Blockchain Research Center. “Because most of government departments excluding FSC and Financial Supervisory Service are looking at ICO positively, we need to first lift off the sanction that prohibits ICO and talk about solutions that will promote our blockchain industry.”
Many attorneys also attended this meeting and shared their opinions about interpretation and correction of detailed clauses with Senior Attorney Kim Kyung-hwan of MINWHO Law Group who wrote legislation bill.
“Many people from legal industry point out that there cannot be regulations on utility-type tokens because utility-type tokens do not have set laws for them unlike securities-type tokens.” said Jung Ho-seok who is an attorney from SEUM Law Groupo. “We hope that there can be clear-cut regulations to reduce amount of risks for businesses and to increase level of predictions.”
“Clauses that approve validation from achievement of conditions of Smart Contract are somewhat unrealistic.” said Cho Won-hee who is an attorney from D’LIGHT Law Group.
“We are not sure if qualification system related to blockchain is a clause that is absolutely necessary.” said CEO Jung Sang-ho of CrossChain Technology while mentioning detailed clauses of Blockchain Industry Promotion Fundamental Act. “It is more realistic to verify qualifications by whether blockchain companies can carry out their road maps rather than having them show their source codes.”
Opinions about needs for regulations on cryptocurrency exchanges were also brought up.
“Since legislation of this act is to ultimately protect investors and to promote our blockchain industry, there should be clauses that mandate governance of blockchain-based companies to be transparent.” said CEO Hwang Sung-jae of Foundation X. “We should also consider solutions about preventing moral laxity due to a recent controversy involving listing of exchanges and issue of tokens.”
“We are going to put together opinions and apply them to a legislation bill and supplement current Blockchain Industry Promotion Act.” said Department Head An Geun-bae of KITA’s Trade Support Headquarters. “We are going to continue to gather various opinions by continuing to have meetings in the future.”
Staff Reporter Park, Jungeun | jepark@etnews.com