In its urgency to reign in the cryptocurrency industry in the wake of the Terra collapse, South Korea will launch a “Digital Asset Committee” by the end of June, according to a local news report.
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Fast facts
- The committee will serve as a watchdog for the crypto industry until the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act is enacted and the government creates a separate agency for the task.
- The government is expanding and reorganizing its existing Special Committee on Virtual Assets to form the new Digital Asset Committee.
- The committee will be launched after the Financial Services Commission’s new chairman takes up office.
- The new committee will set coin-listing criteria, monitor unfair trade practices, oversee investor protection measures, among other tasks.
- With South Korea’s daily crypto transaction volume averaging around US$9 billion (11.3 trillion won), similar to the stock market trading volume, cryptocurrency investors should receive protection measures like stock traders, said Hwang Seok-jin, a professor at Dongguk University and a member of the Special Committee on Virtual Assets.
- The country’s regulators have reportedly been trying to speed up crypto regulation since the Terra debacle affected nearly 280,000 South Koreans.
See related article: South Korea hopes to institutionalize crypto by 2024