토큰이코노미(Token Economy)의 입법과제

Diverse virtual assets have been appeared with changes of economy since Satoshi Nakamoto introduced a bitcoin as a alternative to a legacy finance. While the legacy finance is operated by centralized financial institutions with a fiat money, virtual assets like a bitcoin has changed shapes of economy in substitution of financial institutions and money itself. In this regard, we can call this new economy as a token economy. However, if we are asked whether the regulations are prepared well for this new economy, the answer would be negative. The legal status of tokens is not defined clearly and there is still empty area for the financial regulations on tokens. Furthermore, infra laws such as a bank law, a capital market law and a foreign exchange law should be revised in accordance with the change of the regulation regime as well. In this paper, enactment tasks of token economy are reviewed. Firstly, fundamental laws regarding a legal status of token should be reviewed. In a Korean civil law, a token is not an object of legal ownership as well as receivables. A definition of object should be supplemented. In a criminal law, though the token crimes are protected under the law through the concept of property interest while enforcement of the token itself is not fully stipulated in a procedural law. Secondly, financial regulations should be followed for revisions. The direction of revising regulations is in two ways. one is a revision of the capital market law which covers the security token as an investment instrument. The other is an enactment of new law which regulates the non-security token and payment token not covered by the current law. For these two ways, current situation of token market and other countries regulation like EU MiCA should be considered carefully. Lastly, infra laws surrounding the token economy should be supplemented in accordance with token economy development. For example, a commercial law in a DAO, a bank law and a trust law in a DeFi should be reexamined.