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South Korea Bans Initial Coin Offerings (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the chopping-block dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: South Korea's financial regulator on Friday said it will ban raising money through all forms of virtual currencies, a move that follows similar restrictions in China on initial coin offerings. The Financial Services Commission said all kinds of initial coin offerings (ICO) will be banned as trading of virtual currencies needs to be tightly controlled and monitored. The decision to ban ICOs as a fundraising tool was made as the government sees such issues as increasing the risk of financial scams.

"Raising funds through ICOs seem to be on the rise globally, and our assessment is that ICOs are increasing in South Korea as well," the regulator said in a statement after a meeting with the finance ministry, the Bank of Korea and the National Tax Service. "Stern penalties" will be issued on financial institutions and any parties involved in issuing of ICOs, the statement added, without elaborating further on the details of those penalties.

15 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Governments hate to lose control of their fiat. by Paleolibertarian · · Score: 1

    Bitcoin and other non-state controlled currencies will wreak havoc on governments ability to tax and otherwise control the movement of money. Bitcoin etc... will become as illegal as illicit drugs... and just as hard to stop.

    1. Re:Governments hate to lose control of their fiat. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Are you kidding? That's all they're used for. That's all they were created for in the first place. Nevermind whatever stories you've all been told, they were created for illegal activities, plain and simple.

    2. Re:Governments hate to lose control of their fiat. by psycho12345 · · Score: 1

      I see we have another lunatic libertarian anarchist type around. I'm curious, do you have enough money to protect yourself from a JDAM or maybe from people robbing your house since you don't have any police protection, seeing as they are part of the evil statist government?

    3. Re:Governments hate to lose control of their fiat. by crimson+tsunami · · Score: 1

      Was that your suicide note?

    4. Re:Governments hate to lose control of their fiat. by thejynxed · · Score: 1

      It's quite easy to stop if they truly wanted to stop it. Good luck translating any sort of virtual currency into any hard form of the same if there are no outlets that you can do it at. No amount of wishing can save Bitcoin and the like if governments and the WTO collectively decide it's a problem (on top of the problem of virtual currency value disappearing into nothing in an instant if enough people decide that it's no better than the stuff that came with my Monopoly board game).

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    5. Re:Governments hate to lose control of their fiat. by Paleolibertarian · · Score: 2

      WOW! In all the years I've been on /. Its users have largely been transformed into a bunch of sheeple!

      Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are one simple way for Liberty minded people to begin to break free of the stateist slavers. You are all slaves if you can't understand that.

      “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
        Samuel Adams

  2. I don't either by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    Taxes pay for my roads and schools. Regulating currency limits criminal money laundering and limits bubbles.

    Also this is less trying to stamp out bitcoin and more trying to regulate a speculative market before it goes out of control and takes advantage of naive investors.

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  3. Re: Governments hate to lose control of their fiat by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Decriminalize harmless activities and there wouldn't be a problem.

  4. Re:Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    HA! Found the guy who didn't get in on any virtual currencies when he should have^

  5. Re:The more you tighten your grip... by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    I have a universe inside my mind!.

  6. Re:The more you tighten your grip... by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Your tears are delicious.

  7. Re: Governments hate to lose control of their fiat by Raistlin77 · · Score: 1

    You're right, we should criminalize stupidity.

  8. Probably for the best. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The fact of the matter is that a lot of these ICOs are going to end being investment scams to bilk gullible investors much like stock scams of the 19th century.

    The most popular cryptocurrency currently is BitCoin, but I don't know anyone who uses it in their daily life. Yet that fluctuates wildly in price and is climbing to an absurd degree.

    How likely are other cryptocurrencies to gather the same amount of success.

  9. Re: Governments hate to lose control of their fiat by jblues · · Score: 1

    Not if we just murder everyone with bitcoin.

    Murder someone with a Bitcoin? It's difficult enough already to do murder someone with a physical coin. I've seen even practicing professional struggle with that. With a BitCoin the best I think that you could hope for is hurt feelings. However, if you're willing to jump on the band-wagon, you could use some BitCoin to obtain the services of a qualified murder.

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  10. Re:bitcoin IS a fraud ponzi scheme, not a success by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    https://www.ted.com/conversati...

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