증권형 토큰의 발행 및 거래와 관련한 외국환거래법상 쟁점에 대한 검토

Discussions on ICO(Initial Coin Offerings), which is raising funds through issuance of cryptoassets and granting acquirers the profit participation rights, voting rights or equity to the business, are still continuing. Although the South Korean financial regulatory authorities have been prohibited ICOs, financial regulatory authorities in major countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom are designing the regulatory system by applying the existing securities regulations when the cryptoassets issued by ICO have the attributes that can be considered securities. Their highest priorities are consumer protection and financial innovations. If the global regulatory framework for ICO is revised, it will be inevitable the South Korean government to design regulations on ICOs. Therefore, it is necessary to reviewing laws and regulations which are related with ICOs and issuing and trading cryptoassets. The Foreign Exchange Transactions Act is also one of the laws requiring an in-depth review in relation to ICO and trading of so-called securities tokens. It is possible that the cryptoassets are used as a means of settlement of foreign transactions, capital inflow and outflow, and issuance and acquisition of securities. Therefore, it is necessary to regulate ICOs and trading security tokens considering the legislative purpose of the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act. ICO has the same effect as capital flows with fiat-currency, but it is not based on the legal tender system, and it has the effect of transferring capital between countries without using the existing bank system. Therefore, it is difficult to regulate ICO under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Law. Especially, it is not easy to design an effective regulatory system because there are many technical constraints to regulate the issuing and acquiring security tokens by the current reporting system. However, since the discussion of global regulation on ICO is making considerable progress, it is necessary to discuss in more depth in order to find out effective regulatory methods related to issuance and acquisition of security tokens under the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act.