Google Play ties South Korea app listings to local crypto registration, threatening offshore exchanges’ availability
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South Korea Moves to Cap Crypto Exchange Ownership and Tighten Stablecoin Rules
The Financial Services Commission is backing a proposal to limit major shareholders’ stakes in licensed crypto exchanges to roughly 15–20% and to shift exchanges into an authorization regime with tougher governance checks. Lawmakers are also moving toward a 5 billion won minimum capital floor for stablecoin issuers, while parallel pressures—from the central bank’s caution on won‑pegged coins to new Google Play app‑store registration rules and ongoing high‑profile stake sales at exchanges—are accelerating market consolidation and compliance costs.
Vietnam accelerates onshore crypto exchanges, restricts offshore trading
Hanoi has fast-tracked a pilot for nationally licensed crypto exchanges, clearing five firms and targeting a March 2026 operational date while seeking to repatriate roughly $200B a year of activity onto local platforms. A concurrently circulated draft adds detailed tax and licensing terms — a 0.1% transfer levy, 20% corporate tax, VAT exemption for transfers, a 10 trillion VND charter-capital floor and foreign-ownership caps — measures that raise entry costs and help explain why few applicants passed initial screening.
People Power Party Moves to Abolish South Korea Crypto Tax
South Korea’s opposition caucus has lodged a bill aiming to remove a planned crypto capital‑gains tax set for 2027, arguing the levy creates unfair double taxation and enforcement impracticalities. The move collides with active National Tax Service procurement and wider digital‑asset reforms, raising the odds of delayed enforcement, legal disputes, and short‑term market shifts toward offshore venues.
South Korea Democratic Party Proposes Crypto Influencer Disclosure
A Democratic Party lawmaker proposed amendments requiring crypto-focused commentators to disclose payments and personal holdings when making investment recommendations, and links breaches to existing market‑offence penalties. The measure arrives amid wider Digital Asset Basic Act negotiations — including exchange ownership caps, stablecoin capital floors and stepped‑up AI surveillance by the FSS — which together signal a push to recast crypto channels and venues as regulated infrastructure.
South Korea accelerates crypto enforcement with AI-powered market surveillance
South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service has upgraded its crypto market monitoring system with an automated algorithm that scans trading intervals for signs of manipulation and has secured targeted funding to expand AI capabilities. The move comes amid parallel legislative and enforcement actions — including proposed exchange ownership caps, higher stablecoin capital floors and a major customs-linked crypto money‑laundering bust — that together heighten regulatory scrutiny of crypto venues and flows.
South Korea breaks a cross-border crypto laundering operation that moved roughly W149 billion
Customs investigators uncovered a multi-year scheme that allegedly routed about 148.9 billion won through cryptocurrency and local bank accounts; three suspects have been referred to prosecutors. The action is part of a broader enforcement push as authorities tighten oversight of foreign exchange flows and underground exchange activity.
Coinone ownership put on the block as global and domestic bidders circle South Korea’s crypto market
South Korean exchange Coinone has begun selling the controlling stake held by chairman Cha Myung-hoon, drawing interest from both local financial groups and overseas trading platforms, with Coinbase named among potential suitors. The move comes amid broad consolidation in Korea’s crypto sector and highlights valuation strain for prior investors such as Com2uS, which now shows a material write-down on its Coinone holding.
South Korea allows listed firms back into crypto markets under strict 5% treasury cap
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission will permit listed companies and licensed investment firms to trade cryptocurrencies again, overturning a nine-year institutional ban while imposing a strict 5% cap on annual equity allocations and limiting eligible holdings to the top 20 tokens on five domestic exchanges. Lawmakers are simultaneously negotiating tighter exchange governance (authorization model and 15–20% ownership caps), a roughly 5 billion‑won minimum capital floor for stablecoin issuers, and new app‑store VASP enforcement that together could accelerate consolidation and reshape market structure ahead of the Digital Asset Basic Act in early 2026.