South Korea’s FSC Reviews Exchange Security and 80% Cold-Wallet Rule

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) convened crypto exchange representatives Sunday evening ET, Nov. 1 (Monday, Nov. 2, in South Korea), for an urgent review of preparations for large-scale hacks and protections for customer assets after a recent large-scale asset theft at Binance. The FSC is South Korea’s financial regulator, and the meeting drew representatives from Upbit, Bithumb and Coinone.

The review also covered ways to increase the share of customer assets kept in cold wallets, which are stored offline. South Korea’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act already requires exchanges to hold at least 80% of users’ virtual assets in cold wallets; any increase discussed at the meeting would build on that floor.

Upbit’s cold-wallet share exceeded 99%, Bithumb’s was about 94%, and Coinone’s was about 85%. Digital X and Gopax were just above 80%, leaving all five named platforms at or above the legal threshold, with the latter two closer to the minimum.

A wider security review for the full financial sector is scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 4 ET (Thursday, Nov. 5, in South Korea).