South Korea May Shut Down All Crypto Exchanges
- Chair of Financial Services Commission shared that all crypto exchanges may close.
- No registrations completed in line with new regulatory laws.
- There are an estimated 200 crypto exchanges which could be affected.
South Korea’s top financial regulator has suggested that all crypto exchanges in the country could be shut down by this fall, following non-compliance with new laws.
Eun Sung-soo, as chair of the Financial Services Commission, broke the news on April 22. He shared this remark in a meeting of the National Assembly’s policy committee. He noted that the agency had not received any Virtual Assets Service Provider (VASP) applications yet.
The agency has asked for the registration in line with a recently amended law, going into effect later this year. Notably, South Korea has been tightening its cryptocurrency rules recently.
In his statement, Eun added, “There are an estimated 200 cryptocurrency exchanges in the country, but if the current situation continues, then all of them could be shut down.”
He said this was referring to the anti-money laundering law (AML). Authorities amended the law last year to include crypto. The FSC started accepting applications for registering on March 25, but no exchanges have been signed up yet.
One important factor for registering is an official partnership with a bank. So far, out of the 200 exchanges Eun mentioned, only 4 have such partnerships. Most traders refer to these as the ‘big four’ and believe that only these will survive the regulatory surge.
However, as Eun already said, even they haven’t applied for VASP yet. This leads to worries about their future, at a time when interest in crypto is peaking. Recently, many major exchanges have exited the country amidst new, stricter rules.
source:coinquora.com