By
Jeff Fawkes
February 9th, 2020
Taiwan’s authorities refuse to follow the examples of China and South Korea in banning ICOs and join Japan in its bitcoin-friendly approach.
Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission chairman Wellington Koo has announced the intention to support initial coin offerings (ICOs) and adoption of both cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in the country. As Taiwan’s financial regulator has told in response to a request by a congressman at a parliamentary session, the country is not going to follow the examples of China and South Korea in their recent ban on any activity related to cryptocurrency market.
Bitcoin continues to show positive dynamics after the Chinese ICO ban. At post time, Bitcoin’s exchange rate to US dollar was $4581 pursuant to the CoinMarketCap.
According to the report of The News Lense, Koo expressed the official stance following a request by legislator Jason Hsu, a congressman from Taiwan’s Nationalist party which has long adopted a deregulatory pro-FinTech stance.
As Jason Hsu commented:
“Just because China and South Korea are banning, doesn’t mean that Taiwan should follow suit – there is a huge opportunity for growth in the future. We should emulate Japan, where they treat cryptocurrency as a highly regulated, highly monitored industry like securities.”
Koo stated there would be no outright ban on crypto-related activities in Taiwan. The chairman pledged support for the country’s innovators to experiment with distributed ledger technology and cryptocurrency.
According to Hsu, today’s statements by Koo will also be followed by the successful passing of the “Financial Technology Innovation Experimentation Act’, in the same parliamentary session. The bill is to allow all fintech activities and blockchain start-ups to freely develop in the country’s deregulated space.
Early in September 2017, Chinese authorities announced the official ban on ICOs in the country deeming them to be an illegal method of fundraising. The following action was shutting down all inland digital currency exchanges. A week ago, South Korea followed suit and banned ICOs regionally. Japan, on the opposite, declared bitcoin a legal method of payment since April 2017.
In relation to the topic, Jason Hsu stated:
“I am worried that with both China and South Korea banning ICOs, all this hot money will flow into Taiwan’s stock market and real estate.”
There are no fears now that Taiwan will join China and South Korea as the recent move by Taiwanese authorities demonstrates the country is closer to Japanese bitcoin-friendly position.
