April 26th, 2022

Here Are the Most Popular Cryptocurrencies in South Korea: Report

The five most preferred digital assets by South Korean investors are Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Ether (ETH), Cardano (ADA), and Dogecoin (DOGE).

South Korean investors reportedly own over $5 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC). Ripple (XRP) is the second most popular digital asset as locals hold nearly $4.8 billion in it.

BTC and XRP Lead the Way

South Korea’s leading crypto exchanges – Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit – conducted a study to determine which digital assets are the most attractive to local investors. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization – Bitcoin (BTC) – places first as South Koreans have invested more than $5 billion in it. The native token of Ripple – XRP – ranks second with around $4.8 billion distributed in it.

The third and fourth places belong to Ether (ETH) and Cardano (ADA), respectively. Investors own approximately $4.5 billion worth of the second-largest digital asset and nearly $1 billion in ADA.

Interestingly, the first-ever memecoin – Dogecoin (DOGE) – rounds up the top 5. South Koreans hold almost $900 million worth of it.

The report noted that local investors traded over $7 trillion in digital assets throughout 2021. The figure is more than the entire amount traded on the main Korea Composite Stock Price Index and the transactions on the junior Kosdaq.

South Korea Takes the Crypto Path

Last month, the East Asian country held its most contested presidential election. In the aftermath, the candidate of the Conservative party – Yoon Suk-yeol – collected only 263,000 votes more than his opponent and became South Korea’s next President. What’s more interesting is that he is a keen proponent of the cryptocurrency industry and vowed to turn his homeland into a digital asset hub.

During his campaign, he promised to allow initial coin offerings (ICOs) and increase the minimum threshold for paying capital gains tax on profits from crypto investments. He vowed to change the law and ensure that those who generate revenues of less than $40,000 annually should be exempt from paying taxes. Currently, such taxation is imposed on investors who make more than $2,000 per annum.

Korea Blockchain Association – a lobby group for crypto exchanges – envisioned that the new leader of South Korea will positively impact the local digital asset ecosystem. Secretary-General Yoon Seong-han said:

“We definitely welcome his stance as he is confident about boosting the industry. As ICOs are banned now, we have no choice but to issue coins in Singapore and other countries. Ventures and startups will be able to raise money easily from investors [if the ban is lifted].”

BigONE Exchange’s Chairman – Anndy Lian – also welcomed the new President of the country:

“He understands the importance of crypto. He understands the future, and it is unstoppable.”

Original Source: https://cryptopotato.com/here-are-the-most-popular-cryptocurrencies-in-south-korea-report/

Anndy Lian

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com

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March 15th, 2022

Biden’s executive order to review the state of cryptocurrencies

It’s welcome news that Bitcoin has risen in price by close to 9% after Joe Biden has signed an executive order “to establish the first-ever comprehensive federal digital assets strategy for the United States” which appears to show a constructive engagement with cryptocurrencies.

It’s also good news that the White House wants measures to protect American consumers on the one hand, while also directing the Depart of Commerce to create a framework that “drives U.S. competitiveness and leadership in, and leveraging of, digital asset technologies.”

In a similarly balanced approach, which seeks to safeguard against the risks while benefiting from the opportunities crypto provides, the order sees their utility in opening up financial provision, certainly a positive step. Indeed, the prematurely published statement from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen aligns with this sentiment, suggesting these measures “could result in substantial benefits for the nation, consumers, and businesses.”

In 2021, many lawmakers failed to take additional steps in the cryptocurrency space, owing to a lack of critical legislative fundamentals and poor opinion polls.

Part of the problem is simply lack of legislative tools to do the job for such innovative assets. This has meant the SEC has been slow to crack down on rogue ICOs, using legislation designed for a pre-crypto era, while threatening to widen its scope based on its interpretation of how securities law applies to even new assets such as NFTs.

As a result, since Bitcoin launched in 2008 the US government has had to play catch up, for example in last December executives of eight major cryptocurrency firms were called to testify before the House Financial Services Committee, a US congressional committee. That was the first time crypto companies in the US have been questioned in that way and was well overdue considering the hype and scams around the ICO boom took place back in 2017/18.

Whether the regulatory policy in the field of crypto assets can be implemented in 2022 will also necessitate close collaboration among governments from across the world to develop a practical regulatory policy plan agreed by the majority of them. Indeed, the international aspect is mentioned in Yellen’s abortive reference to promoting international standards and “a level playing field”. What such a field means in practice is quite another thing, especially if the US gets to call the tune to the detriment of emerging crypto economies from Dubai to Gibraltar.

This point was also recently underlined with the economic sanctions against Russia, which were in part resisted by crypto exchanges. However, it’s noticeable that US exchanges such as Coinbase have started to fall into line by banning 25,000 Russian accounts. However, Coinbase is treading a fine line with the Biden administration by confirming it would not ban accounts for ordinary Russians.

The use of the SWIFT payments system to take down the Russian economy, which has pushed the Russian central bank into closer cooperation with the Chinese government’s own financial system has also reminded US lawmakers of the importance of work to create a US digital currency. The executive order is well timed therefore in tasking the Treasury Department in this respect, along with the Justice Department’s role in deciding on what new law would be required as a result.

What will be interesting too is how this plays out in the battles over privacy rights, in deciding what a digital US currency will look like, in the months and years to come.

Author:

Anndy Lian, Chairman of BigONE Exchange

Anndy Lian

www.anndy.com

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November 28th, 2021

Banning cryptocurrencies not a solution, say experts

New Delhi: All eyes are on the much talked about Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament beginning next week. In a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 13 November, he had flagged the issue of misleading non-transparent advertising on crypto currency. Stressing the point on how “unregulated” markets cannot be allowed to become avenues for “money laundering and terror financing”, a major concern and issue for the government was how youths of the country are misled and over promising and non-transparent advertisements attract youths. In the craze for more and easy money and a better future, youth are, in fact, being led to a bleak future. But the government is also aware that this is an evolving technology and thus steps taken by government will be progressive and forward-looking. The RBI continues to be a critic of crypto currencies, saying they pose serious threats to macroeconomic and financial stability of the country. While details of the said bill are not known, the 2021 bill seeks to prohibit all private crypto currencies in India with certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of crypto currency and its uses. The bill also seeks to “create a facilitative framework for creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India”.

While there is lot of noise around whether the Indian government will ban crypto currencies or not, global experts say ban is not the solution and more regulations on crypto transactions, legal framework and penalties on fraudulent activities will help.

The Sunday Guardian talked to some experts to know views on the same. Anndy Lian, an inter-governmental blockchain adviser and investor and chairman at BigONE Exchange, which is a global digital asset, says, “There is need for better regulation and education to support the estimated 15-20 million crypto investors in India, who are benefiting from using crypto currency to send and receive money around the world, through to earning money from playing blockchain-based games such as Axie Infinity. As a government, one cannot stop the move to decentralization. With India’s crypto adoption ranking second in the world in the recent 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index, this move looks like it will not only hurt individuals, but also larger businesses. Compared to Vietnam and Pakistan, the country has a significantly larger share of large institutional investors, suggesting that India’s cryptocurrency investors are part of larger, more sophisticated organizations. To ban cryptocurrency as part of a wider strategy to roll out their own central bank digital currency (CBDC) will therefore seriously undermine the nation’s crypto and blockchain business community, with the crypto industry in India currently seeing over 100% growth month-on-month growth, despite the government’s alleged desire to foster innovation in the blockchain sector.”

New Delhi-based cyber law expert Virag Gupta said: “While crypto is spreading like wildfire, there should be no delay in its regulation. The delay in bringing a law has given an opportunity to certain exchanges to create a parallel empire of cryptocurrency. Crypto currency and Bitcoin scams have surfaced and regulation is much required.” He also said it’s a misconception to believe that a conducive regulatory environment will harm the crypto currency sector. Rather, to cement a certain future, detailed jurisprudence diving deep within the currency and technology is essential. “Taking the benefit of zero regulatory framework around crypto, the “self-styled godmen” of this industry have made their own regulatory mechanism and code of conduct which have put the Indian law-making machinery in a bad light for the world. The biggest question now is: How is the government planning to levy and recover tax on money being made by crypto trading exchanges and apps? If it is treated as capital gains, then the players get undue benefit and if it is treated as business income, then the whole illegal system turns legal,” Gupta said, adding: “In the proposed law, if cryptocurrencies are not accepted as legal tender, how will it be treated as an asset class and who will be its regulator. Non-levy of GST in various layers of its transaction and non-imposition of income tax with penalty is causing huge loss to the state and central government revenue.”

Hayden Hughes, CEO of Alpha Impact, a social trading platform, said like other central banks across the world, the RBI is “fearful” of losing control over monetary policy and seeks to rapidly push a Central Bank Digital Currency while slowing down mainstream crypto currencies. “The RBI has been battling the Supreme Court over the fate of crypto currencies in India since 2018, in a ban that was ultimately overturned. The thesis is that if CBDC adoption can occur, the threat will be mitigated. While it’s clear that there will be some restrictions, the latest draft of the bill has not been made public. There has been explicit references to “exceptions” in the bill, and the devil will be in the details. Even if there is a total ban of crypto currencies in India, we only have to look to China to see that firms would immediately offshore their operations. Only on-shore crypto companies would be affected. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are, after all, decentralized, meaning they cannot be shut down. If China cannot shut crypto down, India won’t be able to either.”

Aliasgar Merchant, Developer Relations Engineer at Tendermint, which is the core contributor of Cosmos SDK with flagship products such as Starport and Emeris, said: “A blanket ban on crypto currency will have a negative impact on the Indian economy. Apart from immediate effects like drop in value, institutions working on cutting technology like blockchain will lose trust and ultimately there will be a brain drain. While I recognize the potential misuses of crypto, the government should be focused on regulating crypto rather than putting a blanket ban on crypto. This brings us to the question will people stop investing in crypto? Decentralized exchanges like Emeris, Uniswap, etc could be used which will ultimately defy the purpose of a ban. This is very similar to banning alcohol in a state. People interested smuggle the spirit, ultimately costing the government millions in taxes.”

With crores of Indians invested in crypto currencies with their holdings totaling billions according to industry estimates, many are worried about the future. At the same time, many feel this is an opportunity in the hands of India as a country to show the path to others towards the crypto world and it will be interesting to see how India grabs this opportunity.

About Sunday Guardian

The Sunday Guardian is a Sunday newspaper founded by journalist, author and politician M.J. Akbar in 2010. The newspaper is divided into two sections: news and features, with 20 pages dedicated to each section. Both provide interesting perspectives which is a mix of news, investigation, opinion, entertainment, lifestyle and issues of human interest. M.D. Nalapat is the editorial director of the newspaper. The newspaper has two editions—Delhi and Mumbai.

The newspaper is owned by the ITV Network of Kartikeya Sharma, Managing Director ITV Network (Information TV Pvt Ltd), which also runs news channels India News and NewsX.

Also found on Epaper, page 17: https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/e-paper/28-november-2021/