Both in South Korea and in the UK, it was announced this week that self-regulated associations between major players of each respective countries will be formed. The Korean Blockchain Industry Association has 33 members while CryptoUK will be formed by 7 companies.
According to a statement released by Yonhap News, a local South Korean journal, an association of 33 Korean stated that it is planning to verify whether its members are respecting the set of self-regulatory cryptocurrency rules established December of last year. The list includes Coinone, Bithumb, and Korbit.The Korean Blockchain Industry Association announced at the end of 2017 that it wanted to “establish a set of specific ethical codes on the virtual currency bourses, including insider trading and market manipulation”.
It was founded in the hopes that it will give the cryptocurrency market more transparency and legitimacy in order to calm the governmental and financial authorities who wanted to regulate the market.
This week, seven of the largest cryptocurrency companies in the United Kingdom also formed a self-Regulatory body. It will be called “CryptoUK” and its members include Coinbase, CEX.io and CryptoCompare. Iqbal Gandham, chairman of CryptoUK, said the purpose of the association is “to promote best practice and to work with government and regulators.”
Members of the association will be required to sign a code of conduct, which CryptoUK said,“will ensure greater due diligence against illegal activities and ensure customer funds can pay out in the event of insolvency, as well as safeguards against hacking of customer accounts.”
Regarding the self-regulatory body, Coinbase‘s CEO Zeeshan Feroz said ,“The fundamentals are engaging as a single industry with the government. Regulation is imminent and that’s a good thing.”
There are also rumors that Japanese firms want to imitate the efforts that have been done in South Korea and the UK and form a self-regulatory body of their own.
If cryptocurrency companies are able to come to a consensus with governments of the major countries that are concerned by cryptocurrencies (USA, China, Japan, South Korea, UK, European Union), it will be one less thing to worry about for the future of the industry.