South Korea became the battleground of cryptocurrencies this week. The cryptocurrencies are so dependent on this market that any decision influencing the cryptocurrencies in South Korea literally influence the international value of the same. South Korea is so important because it singlehandedly constitutes the whopping 15% of the global bitcoin trading as claimed by coinhills.com.
The ‘Other’ Korean Crisis
The users are fairly young demographics who are infatuated with the neo-technological innovations. According to Saramin, a South Korean job portal who conducted a survey among 941 of its officials concluded that 30% and possibly more are trading in virtual currencies. (https://news.bitcoin.com/31-of-south-korean-workers-are-cryptocurrency-investors/) If there sampling is to be believed, almost 30% of the young Koreans are trading in virtual currencies which makes them the highest cryptocurrency using young demographics proportionally. (https://qz.com/1166103/a-third-of-south-korean-workers-have-invested-in-cryptocurrencies-like-bit)
The virtual currency, however, created a fissure between the young and the old bureaucrats in the government who are clamping down on the speculative based trading. The Justice Minister Park Sang Ki’s announcement of banning cryptocurrency has created a huge backlash in South Korean politics. It inspired a petition by Presidential Blue House which last reported were peaking at 120,000 signatures. The site crashed because of the huge number of petitions where a user blamed justice minister of instigating the breakdown which cause him to lose money. (http://www1.president.go.kr/petitions/92840)
This fiasco brought opposition conservative party of Hoon Joon-Pyo into the picture who opposed any such move without a debate first. One leader claimed that the ban is not the position of government but only hold by Justice Ministry and probably President. All this saber-rattling put President Moon Jae-in in a tough spot where his office quickly repudiated that a ban is imminent and stressed that it is just one of the many options.
The crisis of this debate is visible throughout the virtual currency market twice as demonstrated by Justice Minister’s comments which plunged the entire market and the coinmarketcap.com decision to exclude Ripple rates in South Korean exchanges which were enough to break the Ripple’s impressive run.
Amidst the drama of Kim Jong Un’s twitter war with President Donald Trump oversizing the nuclear arsenals buttons, the South Korean government was too much distracted on the international front when this domestic crisis emerged. The Justice Ministry’s showdown with the virtual currency users will be interesting in the forthcoming weeks and will influence the future of cryptocurrencies worldwide.
Stay tuned to get further in-depth analysis.
Shubham Dwivedi