Quick take:
- The NFTs will be minted on the AERGO blockchain.
- Yoon has minted more than 4000 NFTs to date.
- Democratic Party candidate was the first to mint NFTs for his election campaign.
People Power Party candidate for South Korea’s presidential election on 9 Mar, Yoon Suk-yeol, is minting a total of 22,329 NFTs of videos and photos of himself to woo young voters.
So far, more than 4000 NFTs have been minted on the AERGO blockchain. The NFTs were made available for sale today on South Korean NFT marketplace CCCV for 50,000 Korean won (US$40.78) each.
According to the latest pollby Gallup Korea on the presidential election, Yoon is leading with a 39% approval rating while his rival Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung trails closely behind with a 38% rating.
The left-wing Democratic Party candidate Lee was the first to issue NFTs in January in a bid to win over young voters. To comply with the Political Funds Act or the Public Official Election Act, Lee’s NFTs, which included a picture of him and a copy of his policies, were airdropped to donors of his campaign instead of being put up for sale. He has also accepted BTC and ETH as well as other cryptocurrencies for political donations.
As South Korea plans to become one of the big players in the metaverse markets, both candidates have made crypto-friendly statements to sway votes from the younger generation.
Both Yoon and Lee have promised to lift the country’s defacto ban on ICOs which was posted on the Financial Services Commission’s website in 2017, even though it never officially made it into legislation.
In January, Yoon vowed to deregulate Korea’s crypto industry to promote its growth. His rival Lee Jae-myung has set up a metaverse and gaming task force and has announced ambitions to turn Korea into a crypto hub.
South Korea has yet to pass blockchain-specific legislations that protect crypto investors, though there are 14 crypto-related bills circulating at the moment. Speaking to Coindesk, Jin Kang, head of legal at Hashed, said the lack of regulation is a “calculated risk” to make sure that the ruling party can attract voters with its proposal of a regulatory framework.
Recently, South Korea has been making big moves into the Web 3 space. It announced in January its plans to dominate the global metaverse market. In February, the country pledged $186.7 million to create the nation’s metaverse ecosystem while major entertainment corporations YG and SM, as well as gaming giant Netmarble, have all announced plans to launch NFTs and blockchain games.
Steve Lee, an investor at BlockTower Capital, a hedge fund focused on crypto asset and blockchain technology, told Coindesk that “this shows the level of NFT (non-fungible tokens) hype among retail investors, but also how listed companies or brand names drive hype.”
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