CoinTelegraph marked the recent opening of its Korean headquarters in Seoul by looking into Korea’s regulatory landscape with Cointelegraph Korea’s chief editor, David Lee.

Suffice it say, Korea’s regulatory regime is a mixed bag.

Blockchain, good. Cryptocurrency, bad.

The result? Something like this:

“South Korean regulators seems to strongly favor blockchain over cryptocurrencies, and some recent events have further proven this hypothesis. As a result, as much as 97% of local digital assets exchanges are in danger of extinction, local reports suggest.”

With even the likes of Kakao reportedly having problems getting its Klay cryptocurrency listed on local exchanges thanks to the ICO ban and other blockchain projects looking to overseas exchanges, it’s not a good time to be a Korean exchange.

One of the side effects of the refusal by banks to provide real-name accounts to all but the “big four” exchanges has been to force other exchanges to rely on “honeycomb” corporate accounts that are vulnerable to hacking.

And don’t expect the “Amendment to the Law on the Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information” to get passed anytime soon. That piece of legislation, which would have established a regulatory regime, should have been passed by the National Assembly before July 9, but the parliamentary committee handling it apparently found no time to review it.

Still, for all the regulatory headaches, the country is still the world’s third-largest crypto-economy. CoinTelegraph also traveled to Korea to meet some of the entrepreneurs and investors operating in the country’s highly competitive crypto space, including Hashed and GroundX.

Also in the Korea blockchain space…

(By Kim Jee-hee, Oct. 7, JoongAng Ilbo)

The JoongAng Ilbo looks at how the era of IoT enabled by the advent of 5G technology is forcing telecom companies to adopt new cybersecurity techniques. SK Telecom is going the quantum cryptology route, while KT is focusing on blockchain, namely, its blockchain-based GiGAstealth security platform.

(By Joseph Young, CCN, Oct. 3)

Bithumb is trying to get the Indian government to allow cryptocurrency trading. The company is looking to expand into the Indian cryptocurrency market by forming partnerships with and investing in local firms.

(By David Pan, CoinDesk, Oct. 2)

Korean enterprise blockchain provider Blocko has launched in the EU and entered into a business and technology partnership with the SEED Group, “a conglomerate in royal family member Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktoum’s private office.” The UAE announced last year a strategy to migrate half of government transactions to blockchain by 2021. Blocko is backed by Samsung.

(DailyHODL, Oct. 3)

OK, it’s sponsored content, but still worth reading. It’s interesting that one of the stated reasons is ICON. “ICON is the biggest project coming out of South Korea,” it writes. “ICON is an interoperability project that plans to “hyperconnect” different blockchains by using their innovative ‘Loopchain’ technology. This interconnection and seamless cross-chain communication are achieved through real-time smart contracts. Currently, it is ranked #55 out of the top 100 coins on CoinMarketCap with a market cap of $84,298,620.”

(By Zak Kerr, Mineable, Oct. 4)

Speaking of Terra, they announced during Korea Blockchain Week a partnership that would allow people to make offline payments through Terra’s payments DApp CHAI in any of CU’s 14,000 retail stores. CU is Korea’s largest convenience store chain. Terra is collaborating with BCcard and Yanolja, Korea’s most popular hospitality apps.

(By Choi Moon-hee, BusinessKorea, Oct. 2)

Some of Korea’s biggest corporate heavies, including Samsung Electronics Co., SK Telecom Co., KT Corp., Hyundai BS&C Co. and LG CNS Co., used Korea Blockchain Week to unveil their blockchain strategies.

(By Park Jae-hyuk, Korea Times, Sept. 29)

Ryoo Tae-hyun, director of Shinhan Card’s digital first division, told the Korea Times that the era of plastic-free and deviceless payments is nye. And Shinhan wants to take the lead in a trio of futuristic payment systems: facial recognition-based payment systems, blockchain-powered payment systems and internet of things (IoT) financial platforms.