Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Korean government has decided to maintain its ban on ICOs.
A pan-governmental task force in charge of examining virtual currencies and regulations pertaining to them announced on Wednesday the results of its survey (in Korean) of 22 Korean companies that have carried out ICOs.
Suffice it to say it didn’t like what it found.
Firstly, only 13 of the 22 companies bothered to respond to the survey, which it launched in September.
Secondly, the task force discovered – sit down for this – that those foundations Korean blockchain projects were opening in places like Singapore were really just paper companies set up to circumvent Seoul’s ban on ICOs. It also learned that though their ICOs were carried out overseas, these companies published Korean-language white papers and promoted themselves in Korea, indicating that they had indeed raised money from Korean investors.
What really got the government’s proverbial goat was how companies refused to reveal important information to investors or even the government, despite raising tons of money in ICOs. The survey also found that with the exception of some “reverse ICO” projects, most projects had yet to offer any actual services.
Oh, and the survey revealed that blockchain technology and its terminology is hard to understand and that virtual currency prices had collapsed.
Judging that ICOs constituted a high risk investment, the task force decided to maintain its ban on ICOs. It also advised investors from putting their money into ICOs.
On a positive note, the task force also recommended efforts to promote and develop the blockchain industry.
Other Korean Crypto News:
(By Erica Lee, CoinNews Span)
(By Kim Young-won, Korea Herald)
(By Aditya Worah, Cryptoground)
(By Park Ga-young, The Investor)
(By Helen Partz, Cointelegraph)
(By Georgina Lee, South China Morning Post)
