South Korea said on Monday that its plans to ban virtual coin exchanges had not yet been finalized, Reuters reported.
"The proposed shutdown of exchanges that the justice minister recently mentioned is one of the measures suggested by the justice ministry to curb speculation,” the Office for Government Policy Coordination said in a statement.
“A governmentwide decision will be made in the future after sufficient consultation and coordination of opinions," the statement reads.
The remarks backtrack from recent measures taken by the government, which signalled a clampdown on cryptocurrency trading would arrive shortly.
On January 11, Justice Minister Park Sang-ki said the government was preparing a bill to ban trading of the virtual currency on domestic exchanges.