South Korea issues cryptocurrency announcement: No ban! But a new tax...

The market has been a roller coaster since news that South Korean politicians were considering a cryptocurrency ban in the country, which controls about 15% of the cryptocurrency market.

Just announce today however - no ban!

But there will be a new tax.  Imposed on exchanges is now 22% corporate and 2.2% local income tax, retroactively. So South Korean exchanges will be beginning 2018 with a bill due from 2017.

It's expected these additional costs will be passed on to users existing fees, so it's reasonable to expect less trading coming from South Korea - but at least they're still in the market.

Another part of the government plan: exchanges must share their users info with authorities. Similar to the agreement between the IRS and Coinbase, where after challenging them in court, Coinbase lost and were ordered to turn over customer data for any account with over $20,000 in actvity.
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Author: Adam Lee
Asia News Desk