Anchor: An outline of government regulations to ease the frenzy over virtual currency is expected to come out as early as this week. Authorities are alarmed at wild price swings as well as the high level of willingness among ordinary Koreans to speculate with little or no understanding of the currencies. 
Our Bae Joo-yon has more.
 
Report: The head of the Justice Ministry’s Legal Affairs Office, Lee Yong-goo plans to chair the joint government task force meeting scheduled for Friday to discuss strong regulations for Bitcoin and other types of virtual money.
 
Participants are expected to discuss revisions to the Electronic Financial Transaction Act and to a law that regulates the act of financing random people without permits or registration.
 
Meanwhile, the Financial Services Commission(FSC) seeks to revise the law to regulate virtual money transactions and related businesses.
 
Among the government’s objectives are consumer protection, prevention of money laundering and banning multilevel marketing.
 
The task force is also said to be considering a set of measures to fully ban virtual money transactions based on cases seen in other countries.
 
Earlier on Monday, President Moon Jae-in chaired a meeting of senior secretaries and reviewed ways to respond to the craze over virtual money.
 
Presidential Spokesman Park Soo-hyun said in a statement that the government seriously regards the current virtual currency craze and decided during the meeting to devise necessary measures while strictly controlling illegal acts related to such money.
 
Also on Monday, FSC Chairman Choi Jong-ku had said in a seminar in Seoul that financial authorities are considering new regulations on cryptocurrency transactions, including banning them altogether.

The price of one Bitcoin plunged some 40 percent last Sunday to around 13-thousand-500 dollars after having surged to nearly 23-thousand dollars last Friday. 
Bae Joo-yon, KBS World Radio News.