There seems to be a major difference of opinion in South Korea on what policy to pursue over cryptocurrencies. In a January 11th report from Reuters in Seoul, Ministry of Justice (MoJ) officials are said to be working on a bill to ban the trading of digital currencies on the country's local exchanges. In the report, the Justice Minister referred to discussions between various government departments, including the Finance Ministry and South Korean financial regulators.

On the other hand, a locally based South Korean crypto journalist reported the Ministry of Strategy and Finance (MSF) as not agreeing with the proposals. Joseph Young's January 11th tweet cited local sources, and said that no final decision has yet been made. He claimed there was "massive confusion" and that "MSF is upset MoJ released a premature statement."

SK has been almost constantly in the news with its plans to regulate (rather than completely ban) cryptocurrency exchanges – and because the disparity of trading prices on those exchanges has led to some of them being excluded by CoinMarketCap from its averages. Digital currencies (BTC, BCH, ZDR, ETH, PPT etc) tend to trade at a much higher price (up to $1 more) on SK exchanges, but in late December 2017, they were handling some 20% of world crypto trade.