Top South Korean presidential hopefuls support legalizing Bitcoin ETFs

1 month ago

South Korea could soon travel Hong Kong successful legalizing spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), arsenic the country’s apical statesmanlike candidates person expressed pro-crypto positions.

Still, immoderate manufacture observers stay cautious astir the likelihood of near-term regulatory change.

“All 3 large South Korean statesmanlike candidates enactment #Bitcoin ETFs and organization investment,” Ki Young Ju, the laminitis and CEO of onchain information level CryptoQuant, wrote successful a May 14 X post.

Currently, Bitcoin ETFs and organization crypto investments are banned successful South Korea, meaning that “100% [of the] measurement comes from retail,” Ju added.

On May 6, South Korea’s Democratic Party person Lee Jae-myung promised to legalize spot crypto ETFs, little transaction fees and “create a harmless concern situation truthful that young radical tin [build] assets and program for the future, according to a study from The Korean Economic Daily (KED).

The Democratic Party made akin promises successful its 2024 predetermination campaign, including the legalization of spot crypto ETFs, but advancement has been delayed, KED reported.

Candidates backmost ETFs, but past casts doubt

While the crypto-friendly perspectives of the starring candidates suggest a promising aboriginal for integer plus authorities successful South Korea, regularisation experts stay skeptical.

“The candidates’ pro-crypto pledges to propulsion to legalize spot Bitcoin ETFs and trim fees awesome a imaginable shift. But past tempers optimism,” Anndy Lian, writer and intergovernmental blockchain adviser, told Cointelegraph, adding:

“They volition instrumentality connected akin stances arsenic Hong Kong. Whether the ETFs tin execute oregon not depends connected assorted different factors.”

“A pro-crypto president could thrust reform, aligning South Korea with planetary trends similar the US, wherever Bitcoin ETFs person attracted implicit billions successful nett inflows,” Lian said, adding that the Financial Services Commission’s code besides suggested “regulatory openness” for cryptocurrencies.

However, the People Power Party, elected successful 2022, besides promised to assistance the crypto ETF prohibition and revise the arguable one-exchange-one-bank rule, “but failed to enactment earlier President Yoon’s impeachment,” Lian said.

Over successful Hong Kong, the archetypal batch of Bitcoin and Ether-based ETFs launched for trading connected April 30, 2024, but saw disappointing trading activity compared to their US counterparts, Cointelegraph reported.