Korean cryptocurrency trade Korbit has accepted a tremendous of almost $2 million. The trade has additionally issued an official warning of widespread failures in its AML and know-your-customer programs.
Corbitt stated in a press release: “We respectfully and humbly settle for the choice of the Monetary Intelligence Bureau to impose a tremendous. (…) Regardless of the troublesome circumstances, we’ve taken this resolution to make sure transparency and the wholesome growth of the digital foreign money market.”
Nice shakes Corbitt’s presence in Korean market
The Monetary Intelligence Service discovered that the corporate violated various commerce monitoring laws and imposed a tremendous. The FIU issued Corbitt with a tremendous and a warning.
Accountability was additionally positioned on senior administration, with the trade’s CEO receiving a warning and the individual accountable for reporting being disciplined.
The FIU stated there have been roughly 12,800 instances wherein improper id verification was carried out. These embrace receiving unclear or unverifiable identification, receiving incomplete handle data, and failing to carry out required reverification.
A further 9,100 instances allowed customers to make transactions earlier than they had been totally verified, violating guidelines limiting transactions by unverified prospects.
The regulator additionally flagged 19 digital asset transfers involving three overseas digital asset service suppliers (VASPs) that weren’t correctly reported. This violated South Korea’s guidelines concerning the remedy of unregistered overseas companies.
Moreover, the FIU recognized 655 cases wherein Korbit didn’t conduct a required cash laundering danger evaluation earlier than introducing new transaction varieties, together with NFT-related providers.
The tremendous is a significant blow to Corbitt, as its common day by day buying and selling quantity has shrunk this 12 months to simply over $12 million, or simply 0.5% of the South Korean market. That is decrease than Upbit, the principle trade within the nation, which has persistently held a market share of round 70% to over 80% of whole buying and selling quantity.
On the similar time, Korbit is getting ready for potential. change In possession. The trade is presently majority owned by gaming large Nexon by means of its holding firm NXC, with a subsidiary of SK holding a couple of third of the shares.
Securities agency Mirae Asset is reportedly in talks to accumulate Corbitt. Native newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported a preliminary memorandum value between $68 million and $95 million. Nevertheless, the ultimate phrases haven’t but been confirmed.
South Korea’s anti-fraud efforts outpace regulatory readability, weakening the crypto sector
As a part of its efforts to curb crypto fraud, the South Korean authorities has held round $61.4 million value of digital property throughout a number of crypto buying and selling platforms over the previous six years, in response to Cryptopolitan. reported. This consists of $37.4 million value of crypto property affected by Bithumb’s 2020 withdrawal suspension.
It additionally froze $18.9 million value of crypto property in 30,106 instances between 2020 and September 2025. Regulators additionally froze $4.4 million value of crypto property, which had been blocked on the Coinone trade in reference to 755 incidents. Practically $296,000 associated to 529 instances was frozen in Corbitt, and an extra $222,000 associated to roughly 280 noncompliance instances within the space.
Alternatively, issues are rising within the home digital asset market because the announcement of pointers permitting corporations to open financial institution accounts for digital foreign money transactions has been delayed.
“The delay within the launch of pointers on company digital asset accounts is because of the heavy workload concerned in drafting the brand new laws.” An FSC official stated: “We’re reviewing the rules in parallel, however with restricted personnel, assets are centered on precedence duties and it’s troublesome to specify a transparent timeline.”
The whole 24-hour buying and selling quantity of South Korea’s 5 main won-based crypto exchanges, together with Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax, reached $2.39 billion as of 1 p.m. Friday, in response to on-chain information. This represents a lower of roughly 82% in comparison with the $13 billion recorded on the identical day final 12 months.
