Home > Business > Finance

Crypto exchanges to face stricter asset-matching system in wake of Bithumb's $40B blunder

Published: 06 Apr. 2026, 15:41

Representation of Bitcoin cryptocurrency [REUTERS/YONHAP]

All cryptocurrency exchanges in Korea will be required to set up a system to verify internal ledgers against actual token holdings every five minutes, the financial regulator said Monday.

According to the Financial Services Commission (FSC), three out of five major crypto exchanges in the country have been reconciling their asset balances every 24 hours, while the remaining two balance their internal ledgers with actual holdings every five to 10 minutes.

The FSC also said that their trade-halting systems, also known as kill switches, were found to have flaws in cases of a massive asset mismatch.

The regulator announced that all crypto exchanges must set up an asset-matching system by the end of May and disclose their balances daily, with external checks by accounting firms also required monthly.

Related regulations will be drafted into a bill to regulate the overall virtual asset market that the government and the ruling Democratic Party have been working to fine-tune.

The FSC's step came as Bithumb, one of Korea's crypto exchanges, mistakenly sent 620,000 Bitcoins, worth $40 billion at the time, to 249 users who participated in a promotional event in February, briefly dragging down the token's price.

The crypto exchange halted transactions and withdrawals. Most mistakenly sent Bitcoins were later recovered, but the blunder exposed the crypto exchange's lax internal control system.

Yonhap