South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) has asked local cryptocurrency exchanges to boost the proportion of user assets stored in cold wallets after a major hack on Binance that resulted in the loss of approximately $6.3 billion from the exchange’s hot wallets.
Regulatory response
In an emergency meeting with the Financial Supervisory Service, the Financial Security Institute, the Digital Asset eXchange Alliance (DAXA) and major crypto service providers, the FSC reviewed the impact of the Binance incident on the South Korean market. The regulator examined exchanges’ IT access controls, wallet withdrawal approval and signing procedures, as well as administrator privileges, and urged providers to increase offline storage of assets.
Current cold‑wallet ratios
South Korean law already requires exchanges to keep at least 80 % of users’ crypto assets in cold storage. Recent data from the Financial Supervisory Service show varying compliance levels among major exchanges: Upbit reported a 99.17 % cold‑wallet ratio, Bithumb 94.76 %, Coinone 85 %, Digital X (formerly Korbit) 82.79 % and GOPAX 80.54 %.
Additional security measures
The FSC also recommended continuous monitoring of deposits and withdrawals, the addition of incident‑response personnel, prompt reporting of unusual access attempts, and the setting aside of extra reserves. The regulator said it will keep working with relevant agencies and the industry to mitigate further attacks.
Broader oversight
Separately, the Bank of Korea is surveying 18 banks and 13 brokerages about their exposure to crypto‑related risks, including exchange hacks and market downturns, a review that began before the Binance breach.
