Korbit: Non-Koreans Prohibited from KRW Deposits at All Domestic Cryptocurrency Exchanges

moon2011 (33)in #crypto • 7 years ago

Korbit, the third largest bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange in the South Korean market behind Bithumb and Coinone, has announced that non-Korean nationals or foreigners will not be allowed to deposit Korean won at any domestic cryptocurrency exchanges.

Foreigners Prohibited From Trading Cryptocurrencies by End of January
In a message sent to its clients, Korbit stated:

“Please note, however, that non-Korean nationals, both resident and non-resident, will not be allowed to deposit KRW at any domestic cryptocurrency exchanges when the new KRW deposit method is implemented. We will explain further via a separate message.”

The Korbit team noted that the closure of Kookmin Bank virtual bank accounts on the trading platform along with the cryptocurrency trading ban for foreigners is a part of a new anti-money laundering (AML) policy introduced by the South Korean government.

“In order to comply with the identification and anti-money laundering regulations being enforced by the government, the current KRW deposit method will be terminated by the end of January 2018,” said Korbit.

Last month, on December 14, CCN reported that the South Korean government released four major regulations to better regulate and foster the local cryptocurrency exchange market. One of the four regulations was to prohibit underaged investors and foreigners from trading cryptocurrency-to-fiat (KRW) on local trading platforms.

The government document leaked in early December read, “request banks and exchanges to ensure underaged investors and foreigners cannot open trading accounts on cryptocurrency exchanges.”

In December, the South Korean government explained that it has decided to prohibit foreigners from trading cryptocurrencies within the local market to prevent overseas investors from taking advantage of the arbitrage opportunity in the local cryptocurrency market.

Since trading prices of most cryptocurrencies in the South Korean market are at least 15 percent higher than global average prices, the government requested both cryptocurrency exchanges and banks to disable foreigners from trading cryptocurrencies in the local market.

Initially, local exchanges planned to prohibit foreigners from trading cryptocurrencies by January 20. But, based on the statement of Korbit, foreigners will be able to trade until January 31 and by the end of this month, overseas investors will no longer be able to deposit Korean won on South Korean cryptocurrency trading platforms.

Strict Regulations Rather Than a Ban
Last week, the South Korean government and the executive office of President Moon Jae-in officially stated that a cryptocurrency trading ban will not be imposed in the short-term. Rather than a ban, the government emphasized that strict regulations will be imposed to ensure the local cryptocurrency exchange market remains stable and regulated for general consumers.

Following the statement of the government, South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission chairman Kim Sang-jo said that closing down cryptocurrency exchanges is realistically impossible, considering the immense economic impact it would bring.

The statement of chairman Kim translated at CCN read:

“[Shutting down cryptocurrency exchanges] is not realistically possible. Based on electronic commerce law, the government does not have the authority to close down cryptocurrency trading platforms.

From the viewpoint of an economist, it is not a fair and transparent decision to outright ban economic activity. Whether it is excessive speculation or not, the gain or the loss is the responsibility of the investor.”

As of current, it remains unclear whether foreigners will be prohibited from trading cryptocurrencies in the local market in the long run.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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KORBIT, SOUTH KOREA
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AUTHOR
Joseph Young
Hong Kong-Based Finance and Cryptocurrency Analyst / Writer. Contributing regularly to CCN and Hacked. Offering cryptocurrency news and Insights Into Asian Market (South Korea, Japan, and more).

BITCOIN ANNOUNCEMENTS JANUARY 20, 2018 17:33
Greg Maxwell Resigns from Blockstream to Focus on ‘Deep Protocol Work’

Bitcoin Core developer Greg Maxwell has resigned from blockchain startup Blockstream to focus his efforts on open-source protocol development.

Maxwell made this announcement in an email distributed to the bitcoin-dev mailing list, adding that he had submitted his resignation in November but had only just wound down his involvement with the company.

“In order to spend more time working independently on deep protocol work, especially new cryptographic privacy and security technology for Bitcoin, I resigned from Blockstream last November,” Maxwell wrote.

Maxwell, who co-founded Blockstream, said that his goal in starting the company — which provides corporate blockchain solutions but also contributes heavily to open-source development — was to provide Bitcoin development with the level of sustained financial support that Linux and other open-source projects have.

“We hoped that Blockstream could help act as an anchor of support for technology development, and in doing so help grow the community. I think that has been a big success,” he said. “The Bitcoin industry has matured a lot and today Bitcoin Core gets significant regular contributions from many organizations…and a volunteer community much larger and more active than it has ever been before.”

He said that far from stepping back from Bitcoin, his resignation will allow him to spend more time focusing on development itself and less managing the day-to-day operations of a company.

“So for me this means that I can go back to working on the things I find most exciting … without the overhead of managing staff or dealing with the many non-Bitcoin blockchain applications which are important to Blockstream’s business,” he said, adding that he would focus his attention on innovative technologies such as Bulletproofs, Confidential Transactions, and signature aggregation — technologies which could increase bitcoin’s privacy in a more scalable way.

Maxwell and Blockstream have both become lightning rods in the cryptocurrency community, so it is unsurprising that his resignation engendered very different responses among different corners of the ecosystem.

Posts on the Bitcoin subreddit were overwhelmingly positive, with former coworkers praising his leadership and community members thanking him for his continued contributions to the Bitcoin development.

The /r/BTC subreddit — the de facto subreddit for bitcoin cash — meanwhile, attracted a few humorous conspiracy theories. One post, which had 669 upvotes at the time of writing, opined that “Blockstream is falling apart.” Others suggested that he had been forced out by Blockstream investors.

Perhaps the most unique theory came from a Twitter user, however, who said that she “wouldn’t be surprised” if she learned that Maxwell had left Blockstream to begin working on Bitcoin Cash.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

POSTED IN:
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TAGS:
BITCOIN CORE, BLOCKSTREAM, GREG MAXWELL
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AUTHOR
Josiah Wilmoth
Josiah is a former ancient and medieval literature teacher. He has been writing about cryptocurrency since 2014, and his work has been cited in Business Insider, NPR, and Yahoo! Finance. He lives in rural North Carolina with his wife and son. Email him directly at josiah.wilmoth(at)ccn.com.
BITCOIN & BLOCKCHAIN INVESTMENTS JANUARY 20, 2018 16:38
More Retail Investors Coming? Bitcoin Investment Trust Sees 91-to-1 Stock Split

Bitcoin has been gaining a lot of attention in recent months as a new asset class. Study after study has shown that millennials prefer Bitcoin to traditional asset classes. All this attention, combined with a market capitalization in the hundreds of billions has left Wall Street licking their wounds as more money flows from commission-generating trades led by execs and into self-managed crypto trades run by third-party companies. Wall Street found it’s solution with the launch of the Bitcoin Investment Trust in 2015. The (GBTC) Bitcoin Investment Trust is an ETF (exchange-traded fund) that buys and holds bitcoin.

Why is the Stock Splitting?
The reason for this split is to decrease the price of an individual share to make it more accessible to retail investors. Currently, GBTC trades at around $1,800. This means newer retail investors using apps like Robinhood might not even be able to buy a single share, and if they are would use most of their portfolio to do so. In order to solve this problem a split is occurring in which every current shareholder will get 91 shares that are priced proportionally cheaper. Because this ETF represents an underlying asset the amount of Bitcoin it represents is also going to decrease. Currently, every share represents around .092 bitcoin. After the split, every share will represent around 0.00101 bitcoin.

Shareholders from January 22nd on will be eligible for the split and the split will occur January 26th. As with most stock splits, one can anticipate that the increase in retail investment will lead to a price increase. Retail investors also carry with them more volatility and are much more susceptible to FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

What Does This Mean for Bitcoin?
Firstly, it’s important to recognize that GBTC’s underlying asset, Bitcoin is one of the most accessible assets ever created. With easy to use “exchanges” like Coinbase it’s time from intention to buy, to owning bitcoin is much shorter than Stocks, Gold, or other underlying assets traditionally represented by ETF’s. For instance, we’ve seen Coinbase growing at insane rates of 125,000 users per day. If anything is clear, it’s that retail investors don’t really need a cheaper way to invest in bitcoin.

Furthermore, because GBTC is the only ETF who’s underlying asset is bitcoin it trades at a high premium, over 50%. This means if you can buy a bitcoin for $10,000 on Coinbase, the share holding equivalent of a Bitcoin on GBTC will cost you $15,000. Finally, the fund comes with a 2% management fee. This is incredibly high for an unmanaged ETF and is excessive.

Nonetheless, it should be interesting to see what kind of effect the split has on the price. Despite all the reasons not to invest in the ETF over Bitcoin, will retail investors snap it up as fast as they have anything else associated with crypto? Time will tell.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Jake Sylvestre
Jake Sylvestre is the founder of PhishTrain & a cybersecurity expert who consults for Fortune 500 companies on topics like cybersecurity, blockchain, and marketing.
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