According to CoinDesk, South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC) has stated that recently-listed U.S. bitcoin ETFs may violate Korean law. The nation's financial regulator claims that domestic brokerage of a U.S.-listed bitcoin spot ETF by Korean securities firms could potentially conflict with the country's Virtual Asset User Protection Act and the Capital Markets Act. In 2017, the Bank of Korea's governor, Lee Ju-yeol, declared that cryptocurrencies are commodities, not legal tender, and stressed the need for regulation in this area. The FSC announced that further review is forthcoming.
SEC chair Gary Gensler is set to meet his Korean counterpart later this month in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, South Korean authorities have expressed plans to create regulations that would make officials' crypto holdings public. In the U.S., Vanguard has opted not to offer spot bitcoin ETFs, including BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), on its platform, due to what it calls a misalignment with the company's investment portfolio strategy.