The South Korean government has taken measures to enhance the regulatory framework for cryptocurrency exchanges.
Following an emergency inspection triggered by a high-profile payout incident at Bithumb, authorities have found that three out of five major exchanges were reconciling balances only once every 24 hours. This limited their ability to respond promptly to discrepancies and raised concerns about how they would handle large-scale errors.
To address these issues, the Financial Services Commission has ordered all exchanges to implement automated ledger-to-wallet reconciliation systems operating on a five-minute cycle. Additionally, exchanges must introduce defined criteria for triggering automatic transaction halts in case of significant discrepancies.
Regulators are also pushing for sweeping changes to internal operations, including stronger oversight of high-risk processes like promotional payouts. Exchanges will need to separate high-risk accounts and implement automated verification tools for payments.