The company Presto informed the public that it has filed a constitutional complaint against South Korean’s ban on Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), as the country’s economic media outlet Sedaily reported earlier.
LeapRate reminds that, after China announced its ban on domestic exchanges trading Bitcoin, South Korea was the next country that also came out with the news that it is going to ban ICOs about a year ago.
The South Korean blockchain startup‘s complaint stated that, by ‘banning ICOs in the country, the government has acted unconstitutionally’. The country hasn’t taken any action since the ban on ICOs came into effect. The current situation has been bothering startups for more than a year now, who use the ICO method to avoid the strict capital-raising process required by venture capitalists or banks.
According to Presto’s CEO, the company has been heavily affected by this undemocratic ban on crypto. Kang Kyung-won also stated that the company has taken into consideration several options such as “setting up an overseas corporation to issue tokens, but it is still waiting on the government to provide a give a follow up on its ban on ICO.
Kang Kyung-won commented:
We trusted that the government will foster [this] new industry through follow-up measures. However, it has been more than a year since the ban and the government has yet to introduce any forms of ICO guidelines or regulations.
As a blockchain startup company, we face a lot of difficulties due to the ICO ban and the lack of legislation from the government and the Parliament for more than a year. I am requesting confirmation of the unconstitutionality of the lack of legislation.
As a counter-reflection of the situation in South Korea, Malta has been praised as “the blockchain island” after the local parliament approved three bills that gave the crypto industry unprecedented legal clarity.