During the last couple of years, the state of bitcoin in South Korea was quite unclear, due to a set of laws that cannot be easily interpreted. Yet, this is about to change, as the South Korean Government is trying to break its rigid financial laws, and come up with better ones, suited for the financial environment that we live in.

With this in mind, the Chairman of the South Korean Financial Services Commission, also known as the FSC, recently carried out a presentation, introducing a project named ‘The FinTech Development Roadmap’. With this in mind, this development roadmap is supposed to remove all of the irrational regulations present in the legislative framework, but also find ways to change up and revamp the systems being currently used, in order to make more room for the FinTech technology that will soon hit the market.

Leaving aside a couple of regulation talks and conferences, China's attitude towards Bitcoin has mostly remained unchanged during the last couple of years. However, according to recent reports, this may change soon enough.

The Chinese Government has recently published a whitepaper, meant to set out some of the key milestones for the development of the blockchain network and technology in the country, which represents its strongest signal so far, that it is ready to encourage the growth of both Bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain.

At this moment in time, billions of people from all around the world mind their daily business without owning an ID, and being registered in any database. While this practice, most common in third world countries, allows people to stay off the grid, it can also cause numerous problems. Some of these include the inability to open bank accounts, travel to other countries, or even being treated in a hospital.

It is worth pointing out that fixing the issue via governmental implication isn't that easy, especially in certain regions where bureaucracy and high taxes make it almost impossible for a citizen to get their ID card.

At this moment in time, one of the biggest misconceptions regarding bitcoin refers to the fact that it represents a digital currency meant to fund illegal activities. While there are numerous research studies carried out by analysts from all around the world, which have proven that only an insignificant percentage of bitcoin transactions are carried out for shady purposes, this trend of belief continues.

According to recent reports, Intelligence Agencies in India have just issued an official report stating that virtual currencies such as Bitcoin can be used for the funding of illegal activities, by people who also move their funds through hawala transactions. Once the report has been received by the competent authorities, the Indian Government alongside with the Reserve Bank of India, also known as RBI, have responded and said that they will investigate the issue and do their best in order to ensure that the bitcoin payment method is not used for illegal purposes.

So far, Japan’s policy on bitcoin has been quite lenient, apart from a couple of taxes imposed on people purchasing bitcoin with the help of digital currency exchanges. However, recent reports indicate that Japan’s government has just decided to finally end the 8% consumption tax, imposed on these types of bitcoin transactions, thus coming as a relief to the digital currency community in the Asian country.

While initially announced in a Japanese publication, the change will come after an agreement set by the Financial Agency and the Japanese Financial Ministry, after long talks, which should come to fruition by the end of the year, or in early spring. Reports indicate that a tax panel will also join the discussions, and will hopefully be in favour of the plan to end these taxes.

While bitcoin is present throughout the world, the Asian sphere has always been in advantage, thanks to regions such as China, where bitcoin mining, trading and use has become a routine for some people. However, another country may soon rank up and start playing an important role in the future of digital currency.

With this in mind, various economic analysts believe that India may be the main source of bitcoin’s next rally. During the last couple of days, the price has seen a clear increase, especially after UnoCoin launched in India. While China still is the dominant force behind the success that bitcoin has had in Asia, India’s influence may just help the digital currency hit new heights, especially if adopted by the country’s, highly unbanked population. Reports indicate that more than half of India’s population is unbanked, thus placing the region a couple of hundred years ago, in terms of the quality and presence of financial services. This represents one of the main reasons why bitcoin and other digital currencies have such a high potential in the region, if promoted accordingly.

At this moment in time, there are several countries throughout the world, which tend to be extremely strict when it comes down to the freedom of using the Internet. Such examples include China, Syria, and even Turkey from time to time.

By imposing censorship, the governments of these countries wish to discourage access to information, and online meet-ups needed to discuss possible protests, ideologies and more. According to recent reports, it seems like the government of Turkey has recently blocked and restricted several websites including Google Drive, GitHub, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive and more.

This decision was made to stop the spreading of leaked emails, about Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, alongside with his son in law, who happens to be a government minister.

At this moment in time, bitcoin’s underlying support, the blockchain system is doing its job very well. Yet, as the digital currencies continue to advance, and be adopted by more and more people, studies have shown that the blockchain network may face a couple of limitations that would need to be fixed as soon as possible.

With this in mind, one of the main issues of the blockchain network, which has been highly debated in the past, is scalability. As bitcoin was initially designed to support lightweight clients, the network can only verify a set number of transactions during a predefined period of time. If more and more people would begin using bitcoin, the block size alongside with the scalability issues could lead to slower transactions, which could take hours or even days to complete, thus making bitcoin and its network obsolete.

A new investment record has recently been set, after the Bangalore-based Bitcoin firm known by the name of Unocoin, has managed to raise a total of $1.5 million in their first pre Series-A investment round, which is a record for all digital currency-related investment rounds in India and its surroundings until now.

There are however, some controversies regarding this project. As the founder wants to find a way to scale bitcoin to the masses and facilitate adoption throughout India, many believe that this isn’t an achievable goal, considering the fact that over 50% of India’s population is currently unbanked.

During the last couple of months, as blockchain technology gained significantly more popularity, governments have also started discussing about blockchain-related regulation. According to recent reports, it seems like the United Kingdom may be the world’s first country to present its regulatory framework for the blockchain network.

It seems like the Fintech Accelerator deployed by the Bank of England is one of the main reasons why this regulation will be put into place, considering the fact that blockchain networks now represent the basis for new innovative financial products and services.