South Korea’s finance minister Kim Dong-yeon said on Thursday that the government has no plans to shut down cryptocurrency trading, Reuters reported.
“There is no intention to ban or suppress cryptocurrency (market),” Kim said, adding the government’s immediate task is to regulate exchanges.
The country’s customs earlier on Wednesday announced it had uncovered illegal cryptocurrency foreign exchange trading worth nearly $600 million.
“Customs service has been closely looking at illegal foreign exchange trading using cryptocurrency as part of the government’s task force,” it said.
Seoul previously said that it is considering shutting down local cryptocurrency exchanges, which threw the market into turmoil and hammered Bitcoin (TIKER: BTC.EXANTE) prices. Officials later clarified that an outright ban is only one of the steps being considered, and a final decision was yet to be made.
Effective from Jan. 30, the authorities imposed rules which allow only real-name bank accounts to be used for cryptocurrency trading designed to stop virtual coins from being used for money laundering and other crimes.