Financial authorities have asked banks to declare their cryptocurrency businesses to figure out the exact numbers of cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country, as it tightens its grip over illegal activities in the industry, according to local media reports Wednesday. The financial regulators asked major banks to provide the current status of their businesses with cryptocurrency exchanges including corporate accounts and banks’ monitoring methods.  “Currently, crypt

Market May 5, 2021

More than half of Koreans favor taxation on gains from cryptocurrency trading, a survey showed on Monday, lending support to the government’s move to levy tax on the digital assets. 　 According to a poll by local survey firm Realmeter, 53.7 percent of the people polled said they back the planned taxation on cryptocurrency next year while 38.3 percent of them said they opposed the plan. Female respondents were more supportive over the taxation scheme over male respondents. The percentage

Market May 3, 2021

Nonfungible tokens, widely known as NFTs, will survive a second wave and, even more, thrive as the public increasingly embraces this digital asset that has become more understandable and tangible, advocates said. Gathering for a panel session held by accelerator SparkLabs, industry experts from the US and Korea said Thursday that, unlike in 2017, there are more use cases of NFTs and people adopting their use. First appearing in 2014, an NFT is a blockchain-based nonduplicable digital certi

Market April 30, 2021

Blockchain technology -- not just the cryptocurrencies that rely on it -- is becoming mainstream, as evidenced in the recent market debut of US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and nonfungible tokens gaining popularity, said advocates of digital assets on Thursday. “There are many promising blockchain companies but they are overshadowed by cryptocurrencies (for now),” said Lee Han-joo, the co-CEO of SparkLabs, a leading South Korean accelerator, at the company‘s demo day that

Market April 30, 2021

Amid the increasing intensity in the cryptocurrency markets, local exchanges are reintroducing offline customer centers. Coinone, one of the four largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the country, reopened its in-person customer center in Seoul, the company said Thursday. Coinone initially launched its customer center in September 2017, but closed its doors two years later to focus on other businesses. The recent surge in interest in cryptocurrency transactions and as well an influx of custome

Market April 29, 2021

Korean-Japanese game maker Nexon on Tuesday said it spent $100 million to purchase bitcoin, joining companies like Tesla and MicroStrategy who bet on cryptocurrencies. The company listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange said it purchased 1,717 bitcoins at $58,226 on average. Bitcoin was being traded at $54,910 as of 1:35 p.m. on Wednesday. “In the current economic environment, we believe bitcoin offers long-term stability and liquidity while maintaining the value of our cash for future investme

Market April 28, 2021

The country’s startups attracted a record amount of investment in the first quarter, data from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups showed Tuesday. During the first three months of the year, the country’s venture investments jumped 61 percent from the same period last year to a record high of 1.24 trillion won ($1.18 billion). Some 989 venture capital rounds at 558 startups were closed during the first three months in the country, the best performance recorded since 2000. Of the tota

Market April 27, 2021

Kakao Pay, the financial technology arm of mobile giant Kakao, is finally heading to the country’s main stock board, defying market expectations that it was considering the tech-heavy secondary market or even overseas listings. The company filed for a preliminary review for its listing to KRX , the stock market exchange, on Monday, a regulatory filing showed. According the the disclosure, the IPO is expected to be priced between 73,700 won ($66.32)and 96,300 won per

Market April 26, 2021

Local cryptocurrency exchange Daybit is the latest company to voluntarily shut down its operations due to the toughened anti-money laundering law, the company said Sunday. Chain Partners, which operates Daybit, said it plans to close the service by June 1, citing rigid regulations in explaining its decision. Earlier this year CPDAX, operated by blockchain technology developer Coinplug, also decided to opt out. “The operation of Daybit will be halted in phases by June 1 as we are unab

Market April 25, 2021

Dunamu, the operator of Korea’s largest crypto exchange, has been enjoying its profit surging with transactions exceeding that of global competitor Coinbase, market data showed Thursday. For the first quarter of this year, Dunamu, which operates Upbit, Korea’s largest digital coin exchange by transaction volume, is expected to see revenue of 590 billion won ($528 million) with extreme profit rates. The company’s estimated operating profit is 544 billion won and net profit at

Market April 22, 2021

Founders and leaders of 17 rising startups in South Korea were picked as young innovator by the Forbes in a survey that listed 300 successful entrepreneurs under age 30, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups said Wednesday. The list of startups includes SelectStar, Codeit, Carpenstreet, Sleek, TableManager, Devotionfoods, Happy Moonday, Glorang, The Carbon Studio, ReDwit, Classum, Juni Essentials, Neubility and Sentbe. SelectStar, which provide AI-backed data collection and annotation service, was

Market April 21, 2021

When Ryu Young-joon, CEO of Kakao Pay, the fintech arm of mobile giant Kakao, took charge of the business in 2015, competitiveness of South Korea’s fintech industry was lagging behind other countries worldwide, close to the bottom. Citing the World Economic Forum’s 2015 Global Competitiveness Report published in 2015, Ryu said the country ranked 87th out of 140 countries in a category that measured development of the financial market and its capacity in embracing new technology.

Market April 20, 2021

Volatility in the local cryptocurrency market continued Tuesday, with most digital coins including Bitcoin suffering sellouts as authorities strengthen measures against suspicious trading. The extreme volatility sent Bitcoin’s value from a record high of 82 million won ($73,722) April 13 to 67 million won Tuesday, falling below 70 million won for the first time since April 7. It recovered earlier losses in the afternoon, bouncing back up to reach 69 million won. A market index developed

Market April 20, 2021

After achieving a strong earnings growth last year, biotech firm Avellino Labs is seeking to refocus on its pipeline with gene editing technology ahead of its planned market debut on South Korea’s secondary Kosdaq market. Unaudited financial results of the firm, born in Korea but now headquartered in the US, showed its sales shot up from $2.6 million in 2019 to $122 million in 2020 with a net income of $56 million, due to the exploding demand for its COVID-19 diagnostic testing se

Market April 18, 2021

The price of a bitcoin hit another record high, both in local and global exchanges, buoyed by the expectation for the highly anticipated public listing of US crypto exchange Coinbase Global. Bitcoin prices rose to above 82 million won ($73,000) on domestic exchanges early Wednesday, while the coin’s price on overseas exchanges reached new heights at $63,742 per unit. The prices for Ethereum, the second-largest digital coin by market capitalization, also touched its highest points, risin

Market April 14, 2021