Earlier this evening it became known that Bithumb, South Korea's largest exchange house, was raided by the country's law enforcement and tax authorities.

According to the Reuters agency, a representative of Bithumb said that on Wednesday the exchange house was intervened by the tax authorities to do comptrollership in documents and accounting books. Other sources indicate that the investigators collected financial information and confiscated hard drives. The information is supported by YonhapNewsTV.

For his part, a spokesman for Coinone, another South Korean bureaux de change, said his offices were also raided this week, noting that local police forces have also been investigating this bureau de change for the past year, believing they are making illegal bets.

According to Hankyoreh's information, this bureaux de change was overseen this week by the authorities, who only asked questions about the size of the company, the number of employees and the capital gains from its activity.

The Korean news service SBS announced that the Asian Ministry of Justice would be following its own agenda to monitor exchange houses and regulate cryptoactive markets.

The ministry pointed to an episode in which a gambling game called Sea Story popularized, leaving more than 1 million people defrauded and, in addition, pathological addicts to gambling and betting:

"The Ministry of Justice estimates that the crazy speculation with digital coins will have a national impact 10 times higher than the Sea Story game. In one or two years the bubbles of speculation will collapse and 3.3 million people can suffer damage for about 12 billion won. There's no reason to doubt about regulating cryptocurrencies."

Furthermore, they claim to be planning to legislate very soon on the area of cryptoactives in order to avoid illegal intermediaries in the context of this week's discussions.

These measures may not have come as a surprise to those affected, as the South Korean government has for some time now raised interest in the issue of cryptocurrencies and blockchain. It has also identified the urgency of regulating bureaux de change in one of the world's major markets, considering concerns about crime such as money laundering in Asia's fourth largest economy.

In fact, it became known last Sunday that the authorities would investigate all bank accounts registered in exchange houses to determine if their owners are involved.

This dynamic market has been characterized by sustaining higher prices in the cryptocurrencies they trade with respect to the rest of the world, which is why, unexpectedly, the CoinMarketCap website decided to separate South Korean exchange houses from their global price index and markets.