A South Korean official who was drawing up measures against the cryptocurrency market has been found dead at his home, according to reports.
Jung Ki-joon, the head of economic policy at South Korea’s Office for Government Policy Coordination, is presumed to have suffered from a heart attack, the state news agency Yonhap reported. Colleagues are attributing the 52-year-old’s death to stress. The new agency reports that Ki-joon had been under a lot of pressure since being put in charge of the counter-cyber money team at the office late last year.
He was in charge of gathering the opinions of ministers and offices to prepare for weekly meetings of Hong Nam-ki, minister of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, and other relevant vice ministers.
The Wall Street Journal reported a government spokesman as saying that:
He died from some unknown cause. He passed away while he was sleeping and [his] heart [had] already stopped beating when he was found dead.
At the beginning of the year the South Korean government took proactive steps to curb the cryptocurrency market. At the end of January, the country’s authorities banned the use of anonymous digital currency trading accounts, ordering investors to use real-name accounts instead if they wished to continue trading.
Notably, in recent weeks the South Korean government doesn’t appear as keen to want to ban crypto trading. It does, however, want to place greater transparency on cryptocurrency transactions. It was reported last week that as a way of regulating digital currency exchanges in the country the government was considering a system similar to a New York ‘BitLicense.’
Unlike China’s move to ban all trading, South Korea seems interested in exploring cryptocurrencies further while ensuring that its citizens are protected from the negative effects of speculation in what remains a volatile market.
At the time of publishing, bitcoin is trading at $11,534, representing a near 34 percent rise over the past seven days.
Police are continuing to investigate the cause of death.
Featured image from Shutterstock.