The presidential candidate for Korea’s ruling party is thinking about using blockchain to more equitably distribute gains from urban development projects.
Former Gyeonggi-do governor Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party told his party’s central election committee on Monday that Korea needed a plan to redeem unearned income, and that he was considering a blockchain-based system that would share development gains among all citizens.
He added that the country needed to prevent a handful of people from monopolizing development gains that arise during the exercise of state power.
According to NoCutNews, it appears Lee believes we can use the immutable character of blockchain technology to prevent incidents like the big Daejang-dong development scandal, in which developers and officials allegedly colluded so that the former could reap an estimated profit of KRW 850 billion, almost 1,000 times their initial investments, to the public’s loss.
Lee recalled that in the past, shares of public corporations were allotted to the people. Now, he said, we should adopt new methods in the digital age.
The Iconist’s note: While none of this has anything to do with crypto, it’s still nice to hear a leading presidential contender talk about blockchain use cases.
And for what it’s worth, Lee believes Korea should wait longer before taxing crypto assets — an opinion shared by main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl and third party candidate Ahn Cheol-soo.
This is no surprise — nobody wants to anger younger, crypto-invested voters ahead of an election. But if you’re looking for more principled, less politically cynical reasons to hate the crypto tax, we direct you to this post from last month.
Lee also believes that the crypto market should be brought into the mainstream to prevent it from being put to ill use.
