Will the BOK (Bank) of Korea also secure a competitive edge in digital currency (CBDC) technology?

 The pandemic heated up discussions about digital currency. We already know some of the digital currencies. Cryptocurrency is one of them. The recent 1 bitcoin price has exceeded 20 million won, reproducing the glory of 2017.

 One of the recent rising factors is that digital currency is now recognized as a substitute. In a memo to investors last August, JPMorgan said that the millennials prefer Bitcoin. “American millennials see bitcoin as a “replacement” for the dollar. Because of this, the correlation between bitcoin and gold is also positive, but there has also been a change between bitcoin and dollar.”
   
 Another axis of digital currency is issued by companies. JPMorgan, a global investment bank, has created a digital currency “JPM Coin” and has been using it for payments at 320 banks around the world since the end of October. Considering that more than 6 trillion dollars a day goes over 100 countries, JPM Coin is more than an event. This is the advantage of JPM Coin that JPMorgan has put forward.

 The ability to quickly solve the problem of chargebacks, which can be caused by errors in account information in cross-border payments, saves 75% of the cost of the parties to the transaction by converting the issue of checks to digital currency, checks that took days It is attractive that payments take only a few minutes.
   
 Private cryptocurrency is showing off its presence, and world-class investment banks are also working on digital currency production. "Technology determines how we perceive and use money, whether we like it or not," said Professor Gavin Brown at Manchester Metropolitan University. Eventually, the future of money will come from private cryptocurrencies, coins issued by companies, and the nation's three waves.

​ In particular, the government will not sit still and wait for the threat to currency.” In fact, according to a survey conducted by the International Settlement Bank (BIS) last year, 80% of central banks in 66 countries around the world answered that they are researching Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

 The People's Bank of China established a digital currency research team in 2014 and expanded to a research institute in 2017, filing 84 digital currency-related patents by September 2019, while the BOK (Bank of Korea) established a digital currency research team in February this year. Although it is in progress, there have been no patent applications as of October 2020.

 In Korea, Article 14 of the' Basic Act on Electronic Documents and Electronic Transactions' regulates the government's restrictions on the use of cryptographic products and measures necessary for access to cryptographic technology, but it is pointed out that it is necessary to clarify the scope and contents of the application as it is unclear.

 The National Assembly Legislative Research Office said, "If China's digital yuan is successfully settled, there is a possibility that the standard and technology of digital yuan will be adopted as an international standard. The Bank of Korea also need to support digital currency-related crypto technology projects, secures patents" Also it emphasized that "It is necessary not only to seek advancement of the payment and settlement system in Korea by strengthening cooperation with related organizations such as the Ministry of Technology and Information and Communication, but also to avoid being pushed in competition for the leadership of related technologies.”

I think, within 2025, the BOK (Bank of Korea) will issue digital currency on a trial basis. How do you think?