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South Korea FSC Confirms 15-20% Shareholder Cap for Crypto Exchanges

South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC) firmly reconfirms controversial plan to cap major shareholder stakes at 15-20% for cryptocurrency exchanges. The Digital Asset Basic Act also mandates bank-led consortiums holding 50%+ stakes, strict liability rules for exchanges, and mandatory quarterly external audits. Implementation expected over 12-18 months, potentially reducing active exchanges from 35 to 15-20 compliant operators.

High impact🇰🇷 South KoreaRegulationExchangeBTCETHBithumbKorbit

APAC FINSTAB analysis

For APAC operators, this creates a high-impact signal around regulation, exchange in South Korea. Protocols/assets in scope: BTC, ETH. Named institutions or platforms: Bithumb, Korbit. Teams should monitor the original source, map the change to licensing, custody, disclosure, and market-access obligations, and update their jurisdiction playbooks before the next compliance review.

Compliance read-through: map this event to entity licensing, market-access, custody, disclosure, token listing, and operational-risk obligations before expanding or marketing in the affected jurisdiction.

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