Several news outlets jumped the gun yesterday and reported that South Korea would be banning cryptocurrency exchanges. This was not the case and caused a large selloff in the market. The Korean minister of Justice did make a statement regarding a bill, "We are preparing a bill to ban transactions through the virtual currency exchange," said Justice Minister Park Sang-ki.
However, there is a task force that has been created to develop legislation for regulation and it seems clear that not everyone on the task force shares those views. The task force is composed of representatives from the South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Financial Services Commission, Ministry of Justice, Fair Trade Commission, and Financial Supervisory Commission.
An official at the Ministry of Finance was quoted as saying,
"It was not until I saw the news that I had encountered the policy of closing. I did not know the announcement of the Justice Department to close the virtual money exchange. Another official said, "The field of virtual money such as Bitcoin should be deregulated into an area where Korea has advantages, like online games, and the government should directly raise the industry."
Any proposed bill to ban cryptocurrency exchanges would also have to be passed by the congress to be enacted.
From: http://m.news.naver.com/hotissue/read.nhn?sid1=101&cid=1074429&iid=2718120&oid=018&aid=0004009939