Yoon Becomes New South Korean President, Delivering an ICX Boost

Key Insights:

• Crypto-friendly People Power Party candidate Yoon wins South Korean Presidential Election.
• ICON surged on news of the Yoon victory.
• President Yoon plans to deregulate the crypto market in South Korea.

The crypto news headlines were busy in the run-up to Wednesday’s South Korean Presidential Election. It was a two-horse race, with democratic party candidate Lee Jae-myung and conservative candidate Yoon Suk-yeol leading the polls.

Yoon Victory Drives ICON Price Up

On Wednesday, People Power Party candidate Yoon Suk-yeol beat rival Lee Jae-myung to take the presidency. According to Reuters, exit polls showed Yoon leading by less than 1%. It was enough for Lee to concede defeat.

In response to Yoon’s victory, ICON (ICX) surged by 37.1% to $0.85, with ICON finding further support this morning. In December, South Korean President Yoon minted his signature on the ICON blockchain, forever etching a link between Yoon and ICX.

🇰🇷 South-Korean presidential candidate Yoon Seokryul visited the ICONLOOP office today.

As the Korea Startup Forum held its heavily televized start-up policy talk, Yoon Seokryul went on to mint his signature as an NFT on @craftdotnetwork!

✍️: https://t.co/NpvDYtixVF pic.twitter.com/naBYXjPnkz

— ICON Foundation 🌐 (@helloiconworld) December 2, 2021

Market reaction to the Yoon victory was positive, with Yoon having favorable crypto policies. In January, Yoon reportedly spoke at the Virtual Assets Conference 2022, promising to deregulate the country’s crypto market. Yoon’s plans contrast to other jurisdictions looking to tighten crypto regulations.

ICON Network (ICX) Price Action

At the time of writing, ICX was up by 2.74% to $0.8712. Early in the day, ICX struck a day high of $1.09 before succumbing to broader crypto market forces. ICX had been up by 28% before retreating to sub-$0.90 levels.

Near-term, a move back through to $1.00 levels would bring December’s high $1.96 into play.

ICON is a South Korean blockchain focusing on decentralized identity, digital certificate issuance, blockchain payments, decentralized finance (DeFi), and NFTs.

Additional use cases include e-government, elections, decentralized oracles, and e-health. In 2020, South Korea’s Jeju Island selected the ICON Network for COVID-19 tracing.

South Korean Presidential Election Battle Went NFT

Both candidates were crypto-friendly, with Lee and Yoon wooing younger voters with NFTs. This week, FXEmpire reported now President Yoon’s plans to mint 22,329 NFTs on the AERGO blockchain. Democratic Party candidate and rival Lee Jae-myung airdropped NFTs to campaign donors in February.

In January, ruling Democratic Party candidate Lee announced he would accept crypto for political donations. In addition to Bitcoin (BTC), supporters could also make donations in Ethereum (ETH), PayProtocol Paycoin (PCI), and several other cryptos.