The South Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Wednesday 27 December that investigations of the 13 major domestic exchange houses were underway in the past few days.

The government explained in a press release that the "emergency measures related to the virtual currency" are already defined, which were to be discussed at the ministerial meeting held on December 13 of this year. Therefore, they are now monitoring virtual currency trading trends with research from the 13 most popular camibo houses in the south of the Korean peninsula, such as Bithumb, Coinone, Upbit and Korbit.

The objective of these investigations was to find out the current state of the various currency exchange houses, and then compare them with the new standards related to cryptoactives, which were set by the Financial Supervision Service in recent days. The enquiries took place from 20 December to 23 December. The FTC was responsible for taking action against those operating outside the law.

Part of the main concerns of government agencies is the possible vulnerability of bureaux de change to cyber attacks and theft of cryptoactives, as happened with the bankruptcy of the Korean YouBit exchange less than a week ago. The latter had to shut down all its operations after a second hacking attack in just one year. Perpetrators stole 17% of the cryptocurrencies in their possession.

In the press release it was again emphasized that cryptocurrencies can be a very volatile and speculative medium of exchange. Among the regulations agreed by the meeting is that exchange houses that bill more than 10 billion won (equivalent to about $9.2 billion dollars), must register in the Safe Information Management System (ISMS) to evaluate and certify consumer protection systems of them, in accordance with article 47 of the most recent revision of the Act of Information, Communication and Networks.

Those who are exempt because they produce less income should use the Personal Information Management System. It is in charge of certifying the correct handling, use and disposition of the personal information of a company's consumers.

Another of the regulations discussed at the last ministerial meeting was the formal prohibition of the Initial Offers of Coins and the granting of credits through cryptocurrencies, the legal measures against multilevel schemes with digital coins, the prohibition of the use of industrial spaces for mining purposes and the management of accounts by minors and foreigners. In addition, they contemplated banning the exchange of cryptocurrencies for air tickets.