A senior official in South Korea who developed political measures against speculation on cryptocurrency has was found dead at his home in Seoul, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on February 19.
The WSJ reports that the official was Jung Ki-joon, the 52-year-old chief of economic policy at the office for government policy coordination. Ki-joon would have died of a heart attack while sleeping on Sunday, February 18th.
In November 2017, the government of South Korea began holding weekly meetings of deputy ministers to regulate cryptocurrency operations. The deceased official was responsible for integrating the views of the various ministries and offices for meetings led by Hong Nam-ki, Minister of the Office of Government Policy Coordination.
The grievor's colleagues noted that he had been under extreme pressure last year due to holding a stressful position in charge of developing regulations against speculation cryptocurrency.
Police investigated the sudden death of the official, although it was described as natural
South Korea, the world's largest market for cryptocurrencies had a lot of confusion regarding the cryptocurrency policy. On January 11, the Justice Ministry proposed a ban on cryptocurrency trading, which was subsequently misinterpreted by some media as the announcement of an effective ban. The South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance subsequently indicated that it did not agree with the proposal
On February 14, the South Korean government responded to an online petition against crypto regulations. In a statement released, Hong Nam-ki said that there would be no ban on cryptocurrency trading. However, he pointed out that "the government is still divided with many opinions ranging from an outright ban on cryptocurrency trading to the introduction into the system of institutions that handle the currency . "