[South Korea Identifies Polymarket as a Channel for Illegal Gambling and Decides to Implement Access Block] According to Digital Asset, the Korea Communications Standards Commission held a communications review subcommittee meeting on August 18, identifying the prediction market platform Polymarket as a channel for illegal gambling and deciding to implement access blocking measures against it. The commission pointed out that Polymarket allows users to bet on the outcomes of events such as politics, elections, and sports, with a winner-takes-all profit structure that fosters speculative behavior. Polymarket argued that its operations are based on non-custodial P2P transactions and smart contracts, claiming it does not act as a host, nor does it directly raise funds or issue sports promotion voting tickets, thus not meeting the criteria for gambling. The commission responded that technical characteristics cannot be used as a basis to evade the application of South Korean law, making access blocking unavoidable.