South Korea Announces Deadline for Halt of Anonymous Crypto Trading

South Korea's financial watchdog has set a
deadline for the barring of anonymous
cryptocurrency trading accounts within the
country.
According to a new announcement from the
Financial Services Commission (FSC), starting
from Jan. 30, cryptocurrency investors in
South Korea will have to use real-name bank
accounts in order to continue trading.
Once the rule comes into effect, investors can
only deposit funds to trade cryptocurrencies if
their name on the crypto exchange matches
that on their bank account.
The move comes as part of the financial
regulator's push through a strengthened
"know-your-customer" (KYC) compliance to
curb cryptocurrency speculation. The FSC said
in the release that the new rule is resulted
from an inspection of domestic anonymous
crypto trading accounts – assisted by six
domestic banks, as well as the Financial
Intelligence Unit – from Jan. 8–16.
In addition, the official announcement also
established an anti-money laundering
guideline for cryptocurrency exchanges, which
outlines situations where exchanges should
stay alert to potential illegal activity.
The statement said:
"Specifically, for users to make virtual
currency transactions more than 10
million won per day or more than 20
million won for 7 days when depositing
and withdrawing funds, this is the type
of financial transaction you suspect for
money laundering."
The new rule also appears to have a wider
affect on foreign nationals who had been using
cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea
through a virtual bank account. As the FSC's
announcement pointed out, minors and non-
citizens will be restricted from the new name
verification service.
So far, three major cryptocurrency exchanges
in South Korea have said they are in line with
the new mandate.
In an email response to CoinDesk, a
representative from Coinone confirmed that it
will enforce the change starting from Jan. 30.
"Under the new requirement, six banks are
preparing the real-name account linkage with
exchanges. They are NongHyup, KookMin,
Shinhan, KEBHana, IBK, and JB Bank. As for
Coinone, our users have to be registered with
NongHyup for the time being," the company
said.
In addition, in its official blog post, Korbit
also said on Jan. 19 that the existing fund
deposit method will be terminated and
replaced this month. It added that users
"must have a Shinhan Bank account registered
under your legal name."
According to a report from South Korean
news agency Yonhap , the Bithumb exchange
also said it will also enforce the new change as
per the government's requirement.
Editor's note: some content of the
announcement had been translated from
Korean.