A blockchain startup will file a constitutional appeal against the Korean government’s ban on initial coin offerings (ICOs). Presto said Thursday that it would appeal the Constitutional Court, alleging that banning all types of ICOs is against the rule of law and the principle of proportionality, thereby violating basic rights

Presto has been in the spotlight by claiming to apply DAICO, an alternative to ICOs, for the first time in Korea. DAICO, a portmanteau of Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and ICO, enables investors to use a smart contract to decide on executing funds or getting their money back, resulting in embezzlement or scams being reduced significantly.

“As a blockchain startup, we have been hitting a snag as the government and the National Assembly have done nothing over the last one year since the government’s blanket ban on ICOs,” said Presto CEO and founder Kang Kyung-won, adding that “we will ask the court to rule on the ICO ban and the legislature’s nonfeasance.”

The Korean government formed a virtual currency task force consisting of government agencies including the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the Financial Services Commission in September last year and banned all types of ICOs including security-type ones. However, there have been no laws and guidelines governing ICOs since then.

Presto contends that the ICO ban is the execution of governmental authority that infringes upon -- without legal grounds -- people’s freedom of occupation and property and equal rights and scientists’ basic rights. “In this era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and unbounded competition, one year or two in the science and technology community is comparable to 100 years in the past Industrial Revolution. Such unconstitutional and pre-modern measures as the ICO ban should not exist any longer,” Kang said. /yjk@decenter.kr

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