South Korea's Digital Asset Basic Act Expected to Be Published This Month, Plans to Cap Exchange Major Shareholder Stakes at 15-20%

November 8: According to eToday, South Korea's Financial Services Commission is stepping up coordination on the government's version of the Digital Asset Basic Act, with the goal of making it public within this month. Core contents include limiting major shareholders' stakes in virtual asset exchanges to 15-20% and changing exchange market entry from a reporting system to a licensing system. Existing exchanges may be given a 1-2 year transition period to adjust their equity. Stablecoin issuers are expected to take the form of bank-led consortiums.

In addition, an incident response mechanism is expected to be established. To prevent a recurrence of incidents such as the large-scale Bitcoin payment error at Bithumb earlier this year, parties are discussing measures such as requiring operators to bear compensation liability in the event of a hack or system failure even if the operator is not at fault, and listing violation of the obligation to hold virtual assets in substantive form as grounds for suspension of business.