2024

Financial Services Commission Chairman Kim Byung-hwan said he would “look into it” regarding the market domination of the country’s leading crypto exchange Upbit. 
In a national assembly meeting, legislator Lee Kang-il raised issues about Upbit’s dominance and its close partnership with the local bank, K-Bank. 
The online banking firm holds a significant portion of Upbit’s deposits, according to an Oct. 10 <a href="https://news.einfomax.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=4327737" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-wpel-link="external">report</a> in local media. 
<h2 id="monopoly-concerns">Monopoly Concerns</h2> 
“I am aware of the issue of Upbit’s monopolistic system,” Lee said before adding [translation]: 
<blockquote>
 “The monopolistic trend toward one company, Upbit, started after its business partnership with K-Bank.”
</blockquote> 
He then raised an issue about Upbit taking up a significant portion of K Bank’s deposits, which is set to undergo an initial public offering (IPO) soon. 
The lawmaker said Upbit accounts for around 20% of K-Bank’s 22 trillion KRW (around $16.3 billion) deposits, adding, “If Upbit transactions are cut off, a bank run on K-Bank will occur.”&nbsp;He was also critical of the bank, questioning whether it was reasonable for such an organization with a profit margin of less than 1% to offer 2.1% for Upbit customer deposits. 
<blockquote>
 “The influence between Upbit and K-Bank violates the principle of separating finance from industry,” he added.
</blockquote> 
FSC Chairman Kim responded by stating that the IPO review of K-Bank has been thoroughly examined,” adding, “Since we have a virtual asset committee, we will review the [Upbit] situation comprehensively.” 
This week, South Korea’s Ministry of Strategy and Finance <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/south-korea-to-tighten-stablecoin-regulations-with-new-forex-rules/" data-wpel-link="internal">announced</a> that it is reviewing measures to regulate stablecoins more strictly. 
<h2 id="upbit-huge-in-south-korea">Upbit Huge in South Korea</h2> 
According to CoinGecko, the 2017-established centralized exchange Upbit has a daily trading volume of $1.2 billion. Around 10% of that volume is the BTC/KRW pair, with altcoins such as Chilliz (CHZ) and Sui (SUI), also popular among Korean crypto traders. 
Trading volume on the exchange spiked to $15 billion during the 2024 market peak in mid-March.&nbsp;Comparatively, the world’s leading exchange, Binance, has a currency daily volume of around $12.5 billion. 
Earlier this year, CryptoPotato <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/upbit-dominates-south-koreas-crypto-market-ranking-top-5-globally-report/" data-wpel-link="internal">reported</a> that Upbit dominated 80% of South Korea’s crypto trading and was ranked fifth globally. <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/bithumb-rockets-to-all-time-high-in-korea-claims-72-market-share-over-upbit/" data-wpel-link="internal">Bithumb</a> is Korea’s second-largest crypto exchange, with $700 million in daily volume. 
In late September, Upbit announced a change in its privacy policy to store user data on US Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers, effective from Oct. 1. 
The post <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/south-korean-finance-regulators-to-investigate-upbits-monopoly-report/" rel="nofollow">South Korean Finance Regulators to Investigate Upbit’s Monopoly: Report</a> appeared first on <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/" rel="nofollow">CryptoPotato</a>.

South Korean Finance Regulators to Investigate Upbit’s Monopoly: Report

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