Investing.com - Bitcoin was at a two-month high on Monday as South Korea reshuffled its financial watchdog and set up a cryptocurrency organization.
Bitcoin (BitfinexUSD) was trading at $7,705.10, rising 4.11% on the Bitfinex exchange, as of 4:37 AM ET (8:37 GMT), not far from its session high of $7,755.20.
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) is creating a Financial Consumer Bureau as part of an organization reshuffle to “better protect financial consumers,” the regulator said in a press release.
The bureau is tasked with responding to new development such as cryptocurrencies but would also have oversight over policy initiatives related to other financial technology and data innovations.
South Korea is one of the top virtual currency markets in the world. As alternative currencies have increased in popularity, regulators have struggled with how to respond. For now, many major governments are allowing the trade of crypto on exchanges while introducing some consumer protections measures.
Just last week, the U.S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau set up a regulatory sandbox to help firms explore innovated products. The sandbox is usually set up by regulators to help companies who want to launch new products and is generally established by regulators to let smaller firms create and test products in a space monitored by regulators.
While the news of South Korea’s FSC organization reshuffle was welcome to digital asset investors, cryptocurrencies overall remained steady. The coin market cap of total market capitalization was at $288 billion at the time of writing.
Ethereum, the second biggest alternative currency by market cap, inched down 0.25% to $460.85 on the Bitfinex exchange. Ripple, the third largest virtual currency, increased 0.80% to $0.45466 while Litecoin was at $84.366, up 1.14%.