Min Byeong-deok Urges Digital Asset Basic Act Passage by January 18

Deadline Tied to the GENIUS Act

Democratic Party lawmaker Min Byeong-deok called on Tuesday for South Korea to pass the Digital Asset Basic Act no later than January 18, 2027, arguing the deadline is set by the United States rather than by Seoul. Speaking at the D-CON 2026 conference held at the Fairmont Ambassador hotel in Seoul's Yeouido district, Min said the ruling party should move the framework law through the current regular National Assembly session before the US GENIUS Act, Washington's stablecoin statute, takes effect on that date. Once dollar-based stablecoin issuance and distribution scale up globally, he argued, domestic firms would be asked to compete without even a basic law in place. Min identified two sticking points that have slowed drafting: who may issue a won-denominated stablecoin and the limits on large shareholders of exchanges, with ten related bills previously parked in the National Assembly and the question of whether banks must hold majority stakes in issuers the most contested. His position is that eligibility should rest on substance, not corporate type: whether reserves are fully backed at 100 percent, whether redemption rights are guaranteed and whether an anti-money-laundering framework is in place. He rejected the premise that an issuer is safe because it is a bank and risky because it is not, and pressed for conduct-based rules instead of entry restrictions, saying any firm meeting the required standards should be allowed to compete. On adoption, he backed opening won stablecoin issuance to banks, fintechs and digital asset firms alike, and said rapid institutionalization could put South Korea among the world's two leading digital asset markets within five years. Min has separately argued that digital asset taxation should take effect only after the Basic Act passes, with transfer and lending income taxable from January 1, 2027 under current rules.

Park Backs a Slower Path

People Power Party lawmaker Park Su-min took the opposite view on sequencing at the same panel, a discussion that also included Dunamu vice chairman Kim Hyeong-nyeon. Park said delay is not necessarily harmful, because the industry evolves so quickly that a law written in fine detail might need amendment the moment it is enacted. The reason companies wait for legislation, in her reading, is not eagerness for rules but fear of later punishment for operating in a legal gray zone; she proposed that financial authorities state an administrative direction first, making clear that firms complying with anti-money-laundering and transaction transparency standards will not be penalized. Her list of urgent fixes starts with the one-exchange-one-bank arrangement, under which Korean digital asset exchanges must settle through a single bank while securities firms may use accounts at several banks. She asked why exchanges alone face that restriction and said rules treating digital assets as an exceptional financial product should be revised first. Park also urged allowing corporations and institutional investors into the market promptly, on the argument that professional capital and varied market analysis would follow. Where the two lawmakers agreed was on the need for a won stablecoin itself: Min framed it as open competition among issuing entities, while Park framed it as defense of the won's value and wider use of the currency in international settlement as dollar stablecoins spread. Park closed by saying the parties should not simply wait for financial authorities but reach bipartisan agreement and push institutional reform decisively.

COINOTAG's reading: the date, not the philosophy, is the real news. Both sides support won stablecoins and broader institutional access, so the fight that remains is the one Min named first, the issuer-eligibility clause and the bank majority-stake requirement for exchanges, which is precisely what ten stalled bills have failed to resolve. A hard deadline anchored to an external statute weakens the argument for incremental deregulation first, since every month of drafting delay hands dollar-based issuers a longer head start in a market Korean firms cannot yet enter. Whether the regular session calendar can actually deliver passage by January 18 is the open question no panel statement settles.