Under new legislation intended to increase transparency, South Korea is opening up the public’s access to the cryptocurrency and other asset holdings of about 5,800 public officials.
The South Korean Ethics Policy Division announced in a post on Wednesday that public officials will receive an integrated asset disclosure service beginning in the following year. Although asset disclosures are currently published in official gazettes, the new law will make the data accessible via the Public Official Ethics System (PETI).
Following a high-profile scandal involving a lawmaker, new laws mandating public officials to disclose their cryptocurrency holdings were passed in May.
The director of personnel management, Kim Seung-ho, stated in a post on Wednesday that “we expect that the transparency of the public service community will be further increased through the implementation of an integrated service for public official property disclosure and property registration of virtual assets.”
The announcement also stated that information provision systems will be implemented by cryptocurrency exchanges Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax to aid in holdings tracking beginning in June 2024.