About 50,000 South Koreans sustained a loss of $400 million in the bogus cryptocurrency scam they were entrapped over the past one year to last July, according to the government data.

Lawmaker Kim Sun-dong of the first opposition Liberty Korea Party said Wednesday the rapid rise of the fake cyber currency crimes is due to lack of rules and regulations.

He urged the government to put the underground cryptocurrency market into the open.

He remarked after making public the loss compiled by the Prime Minister’s Office, the Justice Ministry, the Financial Supervisory Commission, the Science and ICT Ministry, and the Korea Customs Service.

He said the data is an estimate as the government has no official data on cryptocurrency dealers, investors and investor amount, he said.

The lawmaker said when Korea makes an official market, regulators can monitor and manage the crimes linked to bogus cryptocurrency.

For the past one year to last July, the government investigated 12 brokerage houses and took legal actions against 147 fraudsters, Kim said.

One unidentified company swindled money from 18,000 investors in 54 countries in the illegal multi-level marketing of worthless cryptocurrency. It also sold machines for mining cryptocurrencies, he quoted the government data as saying.

The lawmaker said the government could have prevented such crimes once it issued licenses to qualified brokerage houses. “More and more investors will be at the risk of becoming victims of the fraudsters as long as cryptocurrencies remain in the black market,’’ he said.

He proposed legislation to regulate the cryptocurrency market. Once the legislation is made, the Financial Supervisory Service can monitor trading in the emerging market. As investors deal in licensed brokers, the possibility of swindling will get lower, he added.

The lawmaker noted that the cryptocurrency trading had become a global trend. Blacklisting initial coin offering (ICO) and brokers will increase crimes, hacking and put Korea behind other countries in the global blockchain competition race, he said.