- The Seoul Metropolitan Government has announced the upcoming Blockchain Governance Team
- The team will consist of 100 people and will explore the possible uses for blockchain by the government
While the South Korean government has reiterated previous statements about ICOs being illegal in the country, the South Korean city of Seoul has taken a large step towards the embracing of blockchain technology.
It has been announced that the city will be setting up the Seoul Blockchain Governance Team which is being organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
The purpose of this new team is, essentially, to explore the possible uses of blockchain technology in the city. There will be particular emphasis on government processes such as voting. Other processes to be looked into include document verification and automatic payments.
The intended team will have a total of 100 members who will be between the ages of 21 and 77. Among these individuals will be people from various fields both related to and unrelated to blockchain such as developers, association executives, project makers, corporate representatives, and students.
No Taking the Bait
The use of blockchain in government has seen widespread use in the last few years after being used by various world governments such as the UK, Australia, and China. This use has also found its way towards cities with Vienna recently announcing that it is developing its own Vienna coin to serve as an incentive for citizens.
There is, however, an interesting trend of governments like China and South Korea seemingly having issues with cryptocurrency but not with blockchain itself. This is evidenced by the face that ICOs and cryptocurrency are banned in South Korea and China respectively but their governments have had no issue making use of blockchain, the technology that creates cryptos in the first place.
South Korea’s reason for keeping up the ban is that ICOs apparently make use of foreign jurisdictions while still making money from South Korean residents.
“If there is an unlawful act, a third party has to intervene, but it is difficult to intervene until the transaction volume or price soars,” a representative for the Financial Services Commission (FSC). These findings were apparently gotten from a survey that was carried out from September 2018 in a bid to understand ICOs better.
“The government has taken a cautious stance on the institutionalization of ICOs. We will stick to it,” the FSC’s press statement said.
