Today in Crypto: Korean Central Bank Urges Regulating ICOs Instead of Ban

Tether is firing back against a Wall Street Journal report saying it had inadequate reserves for its stablecoin, a blog post said.

The article, titled “Tether Says Audit Is Still Months Away as Crypto Market Falters,” critiques Tether’s openness about its finances and its reserves.

Tether says the WSJ made “unsubstantiated conclusions” and that the article had been trying to “discredit” the work Tether had been doing to have transparent, honest communications.

It says BDO isn’t a “Tether accounting firm” as the report said, and that the firm would be able to keep its access to any needed information, and Tether would keep sharing attestations. Tether decried “continuous attempts by the media to disparage its reputation and that of top-ranking firms like BDO that are working with digital asset companies.”

Tether accuses the WSJ of having an “agenda,” saying the critiques of its reserves could apply to other stablecoins on the market, too. The company said assuming its business is unprofitable is “false.” And Tether said it had been transparent about the fact that it hadn’t had an audit yet and was working to get one.

In other news, the Bank of Korea has said South Korea’s new crypto regulations will have to institutionalize initial coin offerings (ICO), Coindesk wrote.

ICOs are currently banned in South Korea.

The Financial Services Commission, the financial regulator in the country, banned the ICOs in 2017, but now the central bank is arguing for regulating the ICOs rather than forbidding them. The rationale is that the ban isn’t effective.

South Korean regulators have been cracking down on local crypto companies after the collapse of Terra, which was founded by a native, Do Kwon. Regulators have been investigating Terra, and have flagged other crypto platforms for allegedly flouting the local regulations there. And the Financial Services Commission will be helping to add more regulations for the digital assets.