Last year, Justice Minister Park Sang-ki's remarks completely beat the price of Bitcoin. This has made it known to all that Korea has reached a position to control the global economy. This is what investors call the "Park Sang-ki's rebellion."
Last year, the minister had a power as Upbit and Bithumb dominated the world, ranking No. 1 and No. 2 on the global bourse. In the cryptocurrency industry, Korea was the Digital Wall Street itself. If the minister ordered the world with the influence of well-performing private companies, it worked.
As the price of bitcoin has surged again, I am getting a lot of calls. "Do you think the price of Bitcoin will be fixed again if the minister says a word?" No one can predict the future.
However, I expected that there will be no ministerial power in 2018. Due to the government's blunder, the front-runner, Upbit, is just around 20th place, and the daily transaction amount is less than 4 percent of the top company. Korea has been completely relegated from the host country to the periphery.
Naive people, who only listened to the minister and cursed investors as speculators in the past, began to wriggle out.
As the price of Bitcoin rebounded without converging to zero, they began to criticize the government, saying, "Rhyu Si-min's remarks weren't right, don't you think so?" or "I want to invest, why make it so difficult in Korea?"
Investors, who have invested since 2016 and enjoyed handsome profits, used such exchanges as Coinbase and Kraken rather than Bithumb. Now that virtual accounts are blocked, the local exchange will not be very attractive. Naturally, they are turning their eyes to overseas exchanges.
When I woke up in the morning, the price of Bitcoin rose more than 9 percent overnight, even though the annual interest on the bank is less than 3%.
Many people say that the economy is already in bad shape. Given Koreans' tendency to look at the end once they start, they are unlikely to pass the cryptocurrency market in the upside. The lump sum of money will be transferred to overseas exchanges, while the huge transaction fees and taxes will be collected by foreign companies, and Korea will make efforts to promote the blockchain industry.
The policy of "saving blockchain and killing cryptocurrency," which is empty like the income-led growth, is likely to continue anyway. Korean government officials push ahead with the plan without reservation if they pushed once.
Kim Hyoung-joong, Professor of Information Security Graduate School (khj-@korea.ac.kr).
