- Seven major domestic securities firms in South Korea are applying for permission to operate cryptocurrency exchanges.
- Two companies are listed by name in the report: Mirae Asset Securities and Samsung Securities.
- The institutional digital asset ecosystem in South Korea is seeing a surge in demand following the local presidential election of Yoon Suk-Yeol.
Seven major domestic securities firms in South Korea have applied to establish bitcoin and other cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a local NewsPim report.
Only two of the companies, Samsung Securities and Mirae Asset Securities, were named in the report. However, the seven companies have applied for preliminary authorization to operate an exchange in the first half of 2023.
Mirae is the largest investment bank by market capitalization in South Korea with $648 billion in assets under management. The securities firm plans to set up a subsidiary under its consulting arm Mirae Consulting to operate the exchange.
Additionally, Mirae is looking to onboard technical staff for the research and development of bitcoin and other blockchain-based platforms, according to the report.
Likewise, Samsung is conducting studies on the best way to enter the bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem. The securities firm tried to lead the development of a cryptocurrency trading platform last year, but failed to acquire the talent to do so, according to the report.
The sudden influx of institutional interest in South Korea was reportedly prompted by the recent presidential election of Yoon Suk-Yeol. During his election campaign, the South Korean president promised the deregulation of the bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets.
“We need to move to a negative regulatory system to at least ensure that the virtual asset market is free from worries,” Suk-Yeol said at the time.
Indeed, the country’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) plans to act with regulatory adaptation by promoting a regulatory framework for these types of businesses. The framework has been regularly requested by the North Korean Financial Investment Association, according to the report.
Additionally, the FSC would revise existing cryptocurrency and securities legislation to separate security tokens and insecure tokens.