South Korea’s Financial Services Commission on Friday took the decision to ban all forms of cryptocurrency-based money raising activity — "initial coin offerings" (ICOs), Reuters reports.
The regulatory body said it had "serious concern about the fact that the current market funds are being pushed into a non-productive speculative direction.”
“There is concern about the adverse effects such as the increase in the risk of fraudulent receipt, which induces investment by leading ICO, as well as the overheating of the market due to the increase in speculative demand,” the Financial Services Commission added.
The Japanese Financial Services Agency has decided to put all virtual currency exchanges in the country under full surveillance starting from October.
Earlier this month China’s central bank the People’s Bank of China proclaimed initial coin offerings (ICOs) illegal and demanded all related fundraising activity to be halted immediately.
Chinese Bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) exchanges were ordered to stop all trading from September 30.
The Chinese financial regulators are considering imposing a nationwide ban on over-the-counter (OTC) and peer-to-peer (P2P) trading platforms for all types of cryptocurrencies.
ICOs have become one of the hottest methods of fundraising in 2017, with over $2 billion raised to date using the method.