Lee Bok-hyun, head of South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), reportedly plans to meet with United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler to discuss crypto regulation.
According to a Dec. 18 report in South Korean news outlet Chosunbiz, Lee will visit the SEC in January and plans to arrange a meeting with Gensler. The FSS head reportedly plans to discuss the crypto market's status and the direction of supervisory policy affecting the space. Cointelegraph reached out to the SEC but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
“[R]egulatory cooperation between countries is important for borderless virtual assets,” said an unnamed South Korean government official.
The meeting will come at a critical time for both governments’ financial regulators. Many experts have speculated that the SEC could approve multiple spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded products in January. The FSS was also set to implement policies in July 2024 regarding crypto investors depositing funds into exchanges and how firms handle those transactions.
Related: South Korean financial authorities solicit reports on unlicensed crypto exchanges
Both the U.S. and South Korea are also at odds over the extradition of South Korean national and Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon. The Terra co-founder was arrested in Montenegro in March and sentenced to four months in prison for using falsified travel documents. At the time of publication, reports suggested Kwon could face extradition to the United States before South Korea.
Under Gensler, the SEC has received criticism from many in and outside the crypto industry for its seeming reluctance to decide on a spot crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF). The commission has multiple applications pending from asset managers, including BlackRock, but to date, it has never approved a spot BTC or Ether (ETH) ETF — only investment vehicles tied to crypto futures.
Magazine: Crypto regulation: Does SEC Chair Gary Gensler have the final say?