Report: massive NFT adoption in South Korea

South Korea, which was among the top 10 countries in the Global Innovation Index by the World Intellectual Property Organization as of 2020, has always amazed the world with its innovative and advanced technological solutions and it continues to rule the crypto industry when it comes to digital assets. With massive NFT adoption, the small East Asian country is witnessing its citizens and organizations jump into the sector.

Companies like Samsung and LG are bringing new things to global retail consumers and game makers like Krafton are entertaining gamers with their innovations. Not only this, presidential candidate Lee Jae-Myung of the Democratic Party (DP) used NFTs to raise funds for his election campaign. Korea-based NFT project, KlayChicken’s Strategy lead stated in a recent interview with the Cointelegraph:

“The NFT hype in South Korea stems from a mixture of sentiments… I believe that in the second half of the year, the time will come when the whole Korean NFT industry takes a quantum leap.”

Lack of crypto tax in South Korea promotes NFT adoption

The lack of a tax on digital assets may be one factor contributing to this quantum leap. As TheCoinRise, crypto tax in South Korea has been postponed until 2023, but President-elect Yoon Seok-yeol may try to push it back to 2024. The country also previously hinted that it would not impose taxes on NFTs but later decided to revert the decision back.

Furthermore, NFTs are not subject to the same regulations as cryptocurrency. Although the Financial Services Commission (FSC) is attempting to adopt new NFT laws, none have yet been implemented. This has maintained the market open for a slew of new marketplaces to emerge on exchanges like Upbit and Bithumb, as well as from firms like gaming behemoth Krafton looking to profit from NFTs.

GM Chung, co-founder and CEO of DeSpread, a blockchain ecosystem accelerator headquartered in South Korea, believes that practical NFT use-cases will become increasingly popular in the nation.