South Korea is working on new measures to protect domestic investors from unlicensed foreign cryptocurrency exchanges, Bloomberg has learned, citing the Financial Services Commission (FSC). The regulator reportedly wants other agencies also to block access to unregistered crypto trading websites.
At the time of writing, the watchdog has sanctioned Poloniex, KuCoin, MEXC, Phemex, XT.com, Bitrue, ZB.com, Bitglobal, CoinW, CoinEX, AAX, ZoomEX, BTCEX, BTCC, DigiFinex and Pionex for offering services to Korean investors without any approval from authorities. Besides sanctioning the firm in Korea, the FSC will report violations to the countries where sanctioned companies originate from, Bloomberg added.
The authorities will also sanction those operating unregistered businesses with a fine of up to $37,900 or prison terms of as much as five years. As of press time, neither KUCOIN nor Poloniex have made any official statements regarding violating Korean laws.
