Members of the South Korean parliament, the National Assembly, bought or sold almost $100 million in cryptocurrencies during a three-year period, according to a report published by the country’s Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission on Dec. 29.
The report follows a three-month investigation into the digital asset transaction records of all 298 sitting lawmakers between May 30, 2020, and May 31, 2023. The probe found that 18 out of 298 Korean lawmakers have records of digital asset possession in the last three years, while just 11 lawmakers account for the total volume traded during the period.
According to the report, the exact trade volume of crypto in lawmakers’ accounts is estimated to be 125.6 billion Korean won ($97.6 million).
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Bitcoin (BTC) was the most popular cryptocurrency among Korean lawmakers. However, the report mentions another 107 crypto assets in lawmakers’ portfolios.
After a scandal in May 2023 when a member of the local Democratic Party came under fire for undeclared holdings of at least $4.5 million in Wemix (WEMIX) tokens, the South Korean government voted unanimously to oblige civil servants’ mandatory disclosure of crypto assets.
From 2024, almost 6,000 South Korean officials will be obliged to publicly disclose their crypto holdings through the Public Official Ethics System, while five major South Korean crypto exchanges — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax — will launch separate “information provision systems,” simplifying the registration of information about crypto holdings.
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