The South Korean presidential contender calls for a stronger government leadership role in the area of digital assets

Lee Jae-myung, the governing Democratic Party’s presidential candidate for the 2022 election in South Korea, asserts that bitcoin is already ingrained in the lives of Korean residents and that the nation must become a leader in virtual assets.

Lee said at an inviting talk to Seoul National University’s finance and economics seminar that cryptocurrency is a “undeniable fact” that is “recognised by a large number of individuals as a way of exchanging and storing wealth.” He also said that South Korea’s cryptocurrency market has already surpassed the KOSPI stock market in terms of trading volume.

Lee also believes that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and private cryptocurrencies can coexist, since cryptocurrencies provide a more smooth, cost-effective, and time-efficient manner of transferring remittances abroad than the current banking system.

When asked his perspective on whether the government should interfere in cryptocurrency seigniorage — the discrepancy between the denomination and manufacturing and distribution expenses — Individuals profiting from seigniorage while issuing virtual currencies, the candidate said, is not justified, and that there should be a mechanism for the public to partake in the seigniorage.

Lee Jae-myung has long been an outspoken proponent of virtual assets. He also fought strongly against taxes on cryptocurrency earnings during his presidential campaign. Since then, the cryptocurrency tax has been formally postponed by one year, to 2023, with backing from Lee and other politicians from both the government and opposition parties. Additionally, the presidential contender advocated redistributing profits from real estate and large-scale housing constructions in cryptocurrency to every Korean citizen.

Lee’s crypto campaign is interpreted as an attempt to win over virtual asset investors, as South Korea has one of the world’s highest rates of crypto adoption — a recent survey revealed that four out of every ten Koreans in their twenties and thirties have invested in virtual assets, while deposits in South Korea’s four largest crypto exchanges — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit — exceeded 60 trillion Korean won (approximately US$50.9 billion) in

Lee now behind opposition People Power Party candidate Yoon Seok-youl by 8.2 percent in a hypothetical multicandidate contest, despite a 2% increase in the last Realmeter poll. Lee has 37.1 percent support, while Yoon receives 45.3 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3% at a 95 percent confidence level. March 9, 2022, will be the date of the presidential election.

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