South Korea released guidelines on Monday to define which specific cryptocurrencies would fall under financial securities regulations. The move is part of an ongoing review of digital assets and the development of comprehensive regulations for the sector.

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• South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) has said that blockchain-based tokens will be treated and regulated as securities if they have the appropriate characteristics set out in the country’s capital markets law.
• The Capital Markets Act defines “securities” as financial investment instruments in which investors are not required to make additional payments beyond the initial investment.
• The FSC said examples of digital assets that may be classified as securities include those that offer a stake in the operation of a business, the right to dividends or residual ownership, or issuers attribute profits from the business to investors.
• Cryptocurrencies or other digital assets that have the characteristics of a security will be governed by the Capital Markets Law, while those that do not fall under this definition will be governed by the Digital Assets Regulations being prepared. .
• The FSC said the security properties of a cryptocurrency and other digital assets are determined on a case-by-case basis. Issuers and brokers, such as crypto exchanges, will be held responsible for making these assessments in accordance with regulations, the FSC added.
• According to the FSC, the new guidelines aim to prepare the financial sector for the upcoming legalization of the issuance and distribution of security tokens. It aims to allow companies to issue such tokens directly without financial institutions and plans to set up an over-the-counter market for such tokens. It will present a proposal to include these updates in existing finance laws in the first half of 2023, the FSC said.
• Shinhan Securities, South Korea’s largest securities firm by net profit, announced on Monday that it has formed the so-called “STO Alliance” to expand the security token ecosystem.

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Source: forkast.news