‘Let’s Create a Crypto Ministry,’ Industry Urges South Korean President-Elect

cryptonews.com:

A summit of South Korean lawmakers, industry chiefs, and leading academics has called for the country’s President-Elect Yoon Suk-yeol to create a minister – or a ministry-level agency – for the crypto sector.

Per Seoul Finance, the calls were made at the “Digital Asset Promise Implementation and Digital New Economy Ecosystem Innovation Seminar,” an event that was hosted by the crypto-keen MP Cho Myung-hee of the People’s Power Party and the Korea Digital Innovation Solidarity – a collective comprising leading domestic blockchain and crypto-related firms.

Yoon will be sworn into office early next month and has previously pledged to create a government-run Digital Industry Promotion Agency, which he says will be charged with regulating and promoting the nation’s crypto sector.

But attendees at the summit were quoted as calling for Yoon to go a step further and create a ministry – or a ministerial-level organization or dedicated committee – that would govern the sector. The parties argued that doing so would ensure the healthy growth of the digital economy.

Kim Hyung-joong, a Professor at the Graduate School of Information Security at the elite Korea University, was quoted as warning that Yoon’s proposed Digital Industry Promotion Agency might end up becoming an agency that simply operates under another, existing ministry. It could also be forced to rely on this ministry for its funding.

Kim claimed that creating a “Digital Assets Committee” – in the mold of the Fair Trade Commission (the national trade watchdog) and the Financial Services Commission (FSC, the top financial regulator) would grant the new agency both clout and independence. Both commissions are funded directly by the central government, and neither answers