South Korea demands stronger crypto safeguards following Binance hack

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission has directed domestic cryptocurrency exchanges to hold more assets in cold wallets and strengthen their financial reserves following the $6.3 billion Binance hack on October 29. Summary South Korea’s Financial Services Commission has urged domestic crypto exchanges to raise cold wallet holdings and strengthen financial reserves following Binance’s $6.3 billion hack. The regulator held an emergency meeting with major exchanges and financial authorities to review withdrawal approval systems, administrator access controls and transaction monitoring procedures. Domestic exchanges are already required to keep at least 80% of customer crypto assets in cold storage, although the regulator has not announced a new minimum threshold. Binance said it had replenished approximately 95% of the stolen assets by November 1 and subsequently restored withdrawals for 51 additional tokens on November 3. According to a November 2 report by ChosunBiz, the regulator convened an emergency meeting with major virtual asset service providers to review their security arrangements and assess whether the incident had affected South Korea’s cryptocurrency market. The m...