South Korean Financial Authorities Plan to Raise Exchange Cold Wallet Custody Requirement to 99%

November 3 – According to South Korean outlet News1, industry sources say the South Korean Financial Services Commission (FSC) held an emergency safety inspection meeting on November 2 with major cryptocurrency exchanges and custody institutions, using the Binance theft incident as an opportunity to discuss raising the cold wallet custody ratio at exchanges. The plan currently under consideration is to raise the ratio from the 80% or more stipulated by the existing Virtual Asset User Protection Act to around 99%, the level maintained by some large exchanges. It is understood that Upbit's cold wallet custody ratio for user assets exceeds 99%, Bithumb is about 94%, Coinone 85%, and exchanges such as GOPAX are in the low 80s.

Industry insiders warned that raising the ratio will reduce the hot wallet assets available for instant withdrawals, which could lead to withdrawal delays and increase the operational burden on small and mid-sized exchanges; in August this year, Bithumb delayed withdrawals of some altcoins by about 13 hours due to an insufficient hot wallet balance. The plan is still under discussion and has not yet been finalized.