South Korea Toughens Crypto Oversight with New Travel Rule Changes
The South Korean government has expanded its oversight of cryptocurrency transactions and exchanges through two new proposals. The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has approved changes to the Travel Rule, a requirement that sending platforms pass sender and receiver details to receiving platforms.
The previous threshold for applying the Travel Rule was 1 million won ($700), but it has now been deleted. This means that transfers of any value must include the required information or risk being refused by the receiving platform.
The FIU also revised its policy on transfers to foreign platforms and self-hosted wallets, rating them based on risk levels. Low-risk exchanges can receive unrestricted transfers, while high-risk ones are blocked outright. The FSC has been tightening its rules since a $40 billion Bitcoin payout by Bithumb sparked a five-minute ledger reconciliation for exchanges.