South Korea’s financial regulator, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), announced plans to crack down on cryptocurrency exchanges across the country. 

The FSS is preparing to weed out any illegal or shady transactions, marking the first big move under the new Virtual Asset Users Protection Act.

This law packs a serious punch, including life sentences for those who illegally rake in more than 5 billion won (about $3.7 million). South Korea’s exchanges collectively represent about 5% of the global cryptocurrency trading volume.

Altogether, the country hosts four major won-based exchanges: Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit. Beyond those, the FSS will also be scrutinizing three more exchanges and one cryptocurrency wallet provider. In the regulator’s words:

“The FSS will establish market order through stern punishment against illegal activities that may be identified in the process of its inspection, and will push for the revision of regulations if necessary by identifying the areas in the system where improvements are needed.”

Exchanges like Upbit and Bithumb are seeing trading volumes that they haven’t experienced since the crazy days of the 2017 crypto boom. The surge in activity is partly due to the renewed interest in crypto after the recent changes in regulations.

Upbit is the king of the hill, controlling a whopping 83% of the total trading volume. Bithumb is a distant second with about 13% of the market, while Coinone and Korbit each hold around 1.1%.

The high volume in South Korea is largely driven by retail investors, who are known for their active trading strategies and interest in altcoins. This contrasts with markets like the U.S. where institutional trading plays a larger role.

The total daily trading volume across all cryptocurrency exchanges is approximately $20 billion. Binance leads with a daily trading volume of about $7.29 billion.

Binance has reported holding approximately $92.7 billion in total assets across its platform, including various cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. Coinbase’s reserves are estimated at around $30 billion, primarily in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

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