S. Korea suspends almost half crypto exchanges after new amendment
Of the 66 cryptocurrencies exchanges operating in South Korea, only the top 4 companies stand strong after the registration deadline.
Currently, more than half of the crypto exchanges would be forced to close due to failure to meet the requirements.
In March, South Korea introduced an amendment to its Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information that required the crypto exchanges to register with the country’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) body and open real-name bank accounts issued by commercial banks.
Failure to meet either of these requirements would result in the suspension of activities of the exchanges. If an exchange was able to register with the authorities but failed to partner with a bank, it cannot offer trading activities in Korean fiat currency, Won.
According to the local news outlet The Korean Herald, 29 crypto exchanges have submitted their applications before or on the deadline and will be under review for the next three months. Of the 29 exchanges, only 4 exchanges- Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit- have met all the above requirements.
Also, according to CoinDesk Korea, three exchanges, Gopax, Huobi Korea, and Gdac, which had been negotiating with banks until just before, will stop trading in the Korean Won after failing to secure partnerships with banks.
In the face of the new registration system, several popular exchanges such as Binance, ByBit, and BitMEX have announced that they will partially restrict services in South Korea.
Many exchanges have already notified their clients to withdraw their funds and financial authorities have explained that the damage to investors would be minimal.
However, Kim Hyun-Joong, director of the Cryptocurrency Research Center at Korea University said that it has become difficult to monetize stocks that are not listed on the four major companies, and the scale of damages to investors could reach 4 trillion Won ( $3.4 billion).
The post S. Korea suspends almost half crypto exchanges after new amendment appeared first on Our Bitcoin News.
OhNoCryptocurrency via https://www.ohnocrypto.com/ @Gauri Bhatia, @Khareem Sudlow