South Korea’s financial regulator said Tuesday the government will support “normal transactions” of cryptocurrencies, about three weeks after it banned their trading through anonymous bank accounts. The remarks by Choe Heung-sik, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, were seen as being in stark contrast to the government’s previous stance that it could consider shutting down local virtual currency exchanges. South Korea launched a real-name trading system for cryptocurrency transactions Jan. 30 to prevent virtual coins from being used for money laundering and other crimes. Choe also said the government will “encourage” banks to make transactions with cryptocurrency exchanges.
