Breaking, from Reuters.
From article:
A press official said the proposed ban on cryptocurrency trading was announced after “enough discussion” with other government agencies including the nation’s finance ministry and financial regulators.
The nation’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinone and Bithumb were raided by police and tax agencies this week for alleged tax evasion. The raids follow moves by the finance ministry to identify ways to tax the market that has become as big as the nation’s small-cap Kosdaq index in terms of daily trading volume.
Ban and tax the market too ? Confusing.
Are they gonna tax the back dated transactions or gonna let continue the trades with taxed system.
I think in general, pretty much, "authorities" are making it all up on the fly.
South Korea act weird to many things... but yeah, probably the exchanges were doing some money laundering too... Woudn't be surprised.
As well, I woudn't be surprised if any other giants (KIA/ Samsung) are into it when comes about tax evasion.
Odds are, every multinational is into money laundering, in some way, shape or form. I'd guess the greater concern is a weakening of confidence in the local currency due to people moving to crypto (similar to why price of gold is kept in check.) From what I have read, crypto is huge in South Korea.