The country’s financial regulator said it will not allow the trading of cryptocurrencies at the local financial market despite the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of exchange-traded fund(ETFs) for Bitcoin on Wednesday. 

The Financial Services Commission(FSC) presented the stance in a press release on Thursday, saying that domestic securities firms' brokerage of overseas-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs may contradict the government's position on virtual assets and may violate the Capital Market Act.

The FSC reportedly sent this guideline to local securities companies.  
 
The country’s capital market law stipulates that ETFs must be operated in conjunction with changes in basic assets such as stocks and bonds, with no legal basis for viewing virtual assets such as Bitcoin as basic assets. 

For this reason, the financial authorities appear to have decided that it is difficult to allow crypto ETFs to be listed in South Korea, and to be traded indirectly through securities firms, either. 

However, the FSC added that it will conduct additional reviews as the nation is about to enforce a new law on virtual assets in July.