An important development in South Korea is that the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission’s thorough study has shown that members of the National Assembly are trading cryptocurrencies on a large scale.
From May 30th, 2020, to May 31th, 2023, this investigation looked at the digital asset transaction records of all 298 lawmakers who were still in office. It found that these public leaders were very active in the crypto market.
When the probe was over on December 29th, it was found that a lot of South Korean lawmakers were trading cryptocurrencies. Out of the 298 parliament members who were looked at, 18 had records of deals involving digital assets during the three years that were looked at. It’s amazing that only 11 of these politicians were responsible for most of the trading.
It was believed that these cryptocurrency transactions were worth a whopping 125.6 billion Korean won, which is about $97.6 million. This big number shows that South Korean politicians are becoming more interested in and involved in the digital asset market.
It turned out that these political leaders liked Bitcoin the most, which shows how popular and dominant it is around the world. But the study also found that these lawmakers owned 107 other cryptocurrencies, which shows that they are interested in a lot of different things in the crypto space.
This comes after a scandal in May 2023 involving a member of South Korea’s Democratic Party, who was criticized for not disclosing that they owned more than $4.5 million in Wemix (WEMIX) coins. Because of this incident, the South Korean government took strong action, and all members of the government voted to require civil workers to reveal their cryptocurrency assets.
From 2024 on, nearly 6,000 South Korean leaders will have to tell the public about the cryptocurrencies they own. The Public Official Ethics System will make sure that this rule is followed, which will make the public sector more open and accountable.
And to make this process easier, five of the biggest cryptocurrency platforms in South Korea—Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax—are going to launch their own “information provision systems.” These methods are meant to make it easier for people who work for the government to register and report crypto holdings.
This is a big step forward for South Korea’s method to regulating and keeping an eye on cryptocurrencies, especially among its government officials.
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