Bitcoin Magazine
South Korea Weighs Fourth Delay of Crypto Tax, With 2029 Start Tied to U.S. Data Sharing
South Korea’s presidential office is reviewing a fourth postponement of the country’s 22% tax on crypto gains, with a 2029 start date gaining support among lawmakers and industry groups.
The tax is scheduled to take effect January 1, 2027. The presidential office said it is in talks with government agencies about a delay, citing gaps in the regulatory framework and the problem of treating domestic and overseas trades the same way, according to Newsis reporting.
The levy dates to a 2020 amendment to the Income Tax Act. It applies a 20% national rate plus a 2% local rate to annual income from the transfer or lending of virtual assets above a 2.5 million won ($1,888) deduction. The start date was set for 2022, then pushed to 2023, 2025 and 2027 as officials conceded that tax systems and investor protections were not ready.
The argument for 2029 rests on the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, the standard under which tax authorities swap crypto transaction records with one another. South Korea is among the first group of jurisdictions set to begin exchanges in 2027. The United States does not join until 2029.
A presidential office official told Newsis that the absence of U.S. trading data is the biggest bottleneck. Without it, the National Tax Service would have to chase overseas transactions one by one, and Korean traders on domestic exchanges would carry a heavier burden than those on foreign platforms or in self-custody.
On October 16, Democratic Party lawmaker Park Min-gyu and 13 colleagues filed a bill that would push the tax to January 1 of the second year after the first international data exchange, which works out to 2029. People Power Party lawmaker Song Eon-seok filed a separate bill to strike the crypto tax provisions from the law.
The Korea Digital Asset Business Association backed the 2029 date Thursday and asked the government to pass a digital asset law with stock-market-grade investor protections before any tax takes effect.
The pressure has come from several directions at once. Last week, two public petitions, one to repeal the tax and one to defer it two years, each cleared the 50,000 signatures that force a legislative review. Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok called for a “thorough final review,” a shift for a party that had held the line on 2027.
Finance Minister Lee Hyeong-il told a parliamentary audit Thursday the government would decide “after carefully considering and gathering all opinions from the industry and the National Assembly.” Financial Services Commission chairman Lee Eog-weon said the same day that the tax should “take various circumstances into full consideration.”
The Virtual Asset User Protection Act took effect in July 2024, but the Digital Asset Basic Act, the licensing framework flagged alongside spot bitcoin ETF approval, has not passed. Lawmakers have questioned taxing a market before the law defining it exists.
The National Tax Service has not slowed down. It plans to publish a draft notice on taxable crypto income by the end of October. The government expects to settle its position through inter-agency talks after audits wrap, with a decision through National Assembly tax revisions between late November and early December.
This post South Korea Weighs Fourth Delay of Crypto Tax, With 2029 Start Tied to U.S. Data Sharing first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
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Bank of Korea Wants Stablecoins Written Into Forex Law as Crypto Bill and Tax Fight Come to a Head
The Bank of Korea plans to draft an amendment to the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act with the government before year-end that would regulate stablecoins as a means of payment, according to a written submission to the National Assembly’s annual audit reported by Korean outlet Digital Asset.
The central bank’s October 22 report, a follow-up to last year’s audit, says it is consulting with the government on measures to regulate cross-border transactions in virtual assets.
While building a monitoring system based on foreign exchange network reporting, the bank said, it plans to prepare the amendment with the government this year to regulate stablecoins as a means of payment, among other aims.
That is a plan to write a bill, not a bill in itself. There is no draft text, no named token and no passage date. And “means of payment” is a defined term in Korean forex law: an instrument whose cross-border movement must be reported.
On that reading, the amendment would put dollar stablecoins under the same controls as a wire to New York, not make them legal tender at a Seoul convenience store.
The BOK pointed to settlement outside the banking system, mixers and regulatory gaps around personal wallets as factors that ease illegal transactions. Bitcoin holders who self-custody in Korea should take note: the country’s capital controls are the reason the kimchi premium exists, and a tighter forex net around crypto would entrench those controls rather than ease them.
The forex work runs in parallel with the Digital Asset Basic Act, the licensing and stablecoin-issuance framework flagged alongside spot bitcoin ETF approval in the government’s 2026 growth strategy.
Financial Services Commission chairman Lee Eog-weon told lawmakers Thursday that consultations are in their final stage and the bill will follow as soon as possible, Bloomingbit reported.
The BOK said it will work with ministries to limit transactions that exploit the gap until that law exists.
The gap has a date attached. Korea’s crypto income tax is due to take effect January 1, 2027, according to The Block, after three postponements, and lawmakers have questioned taxing a market before the law defining it is passed.
Lee said Thursday the tax should “take various circumstances into full consideration,” per Yonhap. Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok called Thursday for a “thorough final review,” a shift from a party that had insisted on 2027.
Two petitions, one to repeal the tax and one to defer it two years, each cleared the 50,000 signatures that force a legislative review.
The National Tax Service has not moved: it plans to finalize its draft tax notice by October 30, Digital Asset reported.
This post Bank of Korea Wants Stablecoins Written Into Forex Law as Crypto Bill and Tax Fight Come to a Head first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
South Korea is approaching another decision point on its long-delayed cryptocurrency gains tax, with exchanges and policymakers preparing to discuss whether the January 2027 start date is realistic.
TL;DR: The country’s planned crypto tax has already been deferred three times. A new proposal would push implementation toward 2029, but no additional delay has been enacted.
Finance officials are expected to meet representatives of major domestic exchanges on October 20. The industry is arguing that the systems needed to handle different transaction types and calculate cost bases are still incomplete. A rushed launch, exchanges say, risks creating inconsistent tax treatment or driving activity to offshore platforms.
South Korea’s planned rate is commonly described as 22% after local tax is included, rather than a simple 20% all-in charge. The question now is less about whether crypto gains should ever be taxable than whether the supporting reporting infrastructure is ready for millions of transactions across different venues.
A lawmaker’s proposal would link the effective date to cross-border data sharing through the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, potentially moving the start to 2029. That measure requires legislative action; a meeting with exchanges cannot, by itself, change the law.
For investors, the current scheduled date remains January 2027 unless lawmakers decide otherwise. For exchanges, a later timetable could buy time to build reporting systems, but another postponement would also prolong policy uncertainty. South Korea has reached this crossroads before, which is why a proposed delay should not be reported as a settled outcome.
Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
TL;DR: South Korea’s Financial Services Commission identified Gopax operator Streami among 16 financial firms affected by recent hacking incidents. Authorities said around 100,000 data-leak cases had been identified across the broader group, not specifically at Gopax.
A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange has been caught up in a cybersecurity investigation stretching across the country’s financial sector.
The Financial Services Commission disclosed on October 14 that hacking incidents had affected 16 financial firms, with around 100,000 cases of leaked data identified across the group. Streami, which operates the Gopax exchange, was among the named businesses, alongside banks and other financial companies.
That figure is important to read correctly. It describes the regulator‘s overall investigation, not 100,000 confirmed Gopax customers or accounts. Public reporting has not established a firm-by-firm breakdown of the total.
The incident has also brought the exchange’s communications under scrutiny. A report by Seoul Economic Daily said Gopax had not issued an apology or detailed public disclosure as of October 15, the day after the regulator’s announcement. That makes a subsequently issued apology a claim that would need its own independently verified notice before publication.
South Korea’s financial watchdog said it would investigate the methods used in the attacks, including whether artificial intelligence played a role. It also signalled broader security inspections and measures to improve detection and coordinated responses.
There is no basis in the regulator’s overall data-leak tally to claim that Gopax suffered a specific amount of stolen cryptocurrency. The confirmed story is about an exchange operator named in a wider financial-sector cyber incident and the pressure for clearer disclosures when customer information may be at risk.
Bitcoin Magazine
South Korean Lender Jeonbuk Bank to Offer Bitcoin-Backed Loans
Jeonbuk Bank has become the first bank in South Korea to offer won-denominated loans backed by bitcoin, according to reports.
The subsidiary of JB Financial Group has started offering the loans, according to exclusive Monday reporting by the country’s Edaily paper.
For now, the product is limited to corporate customers raising working capital, and bitcoin is the only eligible collateral. The bank said it may expand the service depending on regulatory changes and market demand, the report added.
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Jeonbuk Bank won’t own or control the bitcoin itself. The collateral is held by a specialized custodian, limited to virtual asset service providers registered under Korea’s Act on the Reporting of Specific Financial Information, it further noted.
If a borrower defaults, the bank won’t take the coins but will rather liquidate them through enforcement procedures such as a court-ordered sale and recover the loan from the proceeds.
The bank said it chose bitcoin for its market capitalization and trading volume, the largest of any digital asset, and that its own stress tests showed bitcoin held up as collateral even during sharp price declines. To value the collateral, it uses an index based on a weighted average of prices across multiple global exchanges.
Similar products already exist abroad. JPMorgan Chase debuted bitcoin-backed loans for institutional clients in March, and Switzerland’s Sygnum Bank offers comparable credit.
The loan is the first concrete result of the “Crypto Bank” vision put forward by Jeonbuk Bank President Park Chun-won. The lender is the only regional bank to provide real-name verified accounts to crypto exchanges, and it is preparing an “all-in-one wallet” that combines fiat accounts and digital asset wallets.
“This loan is an example of designing a risk management and recovery structure that allows us to utilize existing bank lending and collateral management systems without directly holding virtual assets,” said Jeong Sang-hoon, executive vice president of the bank’s digital division.
This post South Korean Lender Jeonbuk Bank to Offer Bitcoin-Backed Loans first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.
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