Something interesting happened in South Korea this week, relating to crypto.
Now keep in mind, that South Korea is one of the Asian countries in which crypto isn't explicitly banned like in China and Saudi Arabia.
While there are no explicit restrictions on cryptocurrencies in S.K, citizens of South Korea are permitted to hold and even trade cryptocurrencies authorized by exchanges.
However, according to reports, nearly 1,500 South Korean citizens were recently compelled to declare their crypto assets.
At the end of the day, these holdings amounted to a whopping 130.8 trillion won (or about 98.5 million dollars).
Let's go over the more juicy aspects of the story in the following sections.
According to a recent publication by the South Korean Tax Agency, the country began to require its citizens to declare their overseas crypto holdings this year.
At the end of a recent round of audits, it was found that when a total of 1,432 individuals and companies reported their holdings outside of the country, they owned a collective of 130.8 trillion won, worth nearly a hundred million dollars.
Yonhap, a local news outlet reports that the country compelled its citizens who own more than 500 million won in assets (including cryptocurrency) in overseas accounts, to report their holdings. This led to the initial audit that revealed several millions of dollars worth of crypto, locked away in overseas wallets.
What does this tell us?
First of all, according to the Korean Tax Agency, Korean taxpayers disclosed holdings in cryptocurrency overseas that made up 70.2% of the total amount of reported foreign assets.
These statistics indicate that crypto is quite popular among South Koreans
Yonhap reports that the United States, followed by Britain and Japan, were the top destinations for foreign accounts holding crypto and other assets held by South Korean companies.
However, for individuals, the United States came in first place, followed by Singapore and then Hong Kong.
However, there may be more of these crypto holdings in accounts locked away in other countries, mainly because of the decentralization of crypto and how difficult it is to directly track a cryptocurrency asset's geographic location on exchanges and wallets.
The current call for asset declaration is by no means over, as S.K. now appears to be imposing strict regulations on crypto and crypto assets.
The Korean Financial Services Commission and the Bank of Korea said in July this year that as part of new accounting regulations, it will start requiring domestic corporations to report their total cryptocurrency holdings as of 2024.
By these new regulations, crypto issuers and exchanges must also reveal information about their tokens, business plans, and internal accounting procedures.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information, but it will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.