#SouthKoreaCryptoPolicy

🇰🇷 Cryptocurrency Policy Situation in South Korea for 2024–2025:

✅ 1. Strict regulation but gradually opening up

• South Korea is one of the countries with very strict cryptocurrency regulation, especially after incidents like the Terra-LUNA collapse.

• However, from 2023–2024, the country has shown signs of gradually easing, recognizing crypto as part of the financial system.

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🔒 2. Investor Protection & Supervision Policy (FSC - Financial Services Commission):

• All crypto exchanges must register and comply with anti-money laundering laws (AML/KYC).

• Anonymous transactions have been banned.

• Bank accounts linked to exchanges must verify real identities (“real-name system”).

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📘 3. “Virtual Asset User Protection Act” (effective from July 19, 2024):

A significant milestone:

• Exchanges must protect user assets, at least 80% of customer assets must be held in cold storage.

• Insider trading, price manipulation, and misinformation are prohibited.

• Severe penalties including imprisonment and heavy fines for violations (up to life imprisonment for large embezzlement).

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💰 4. Taxation on crypto:

• The government plans to impose a 20% capital gains tax on profits from crypto above 2.5 million KRW (~1,875 USD).

• However, the plan has been continually postponed, most recently pushed to 2025 to wait for a complete supervision system.

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🏦 5. CBDC and stablecoin:

• The Bank of Korea (BOK) is testing a domestic CBDC (central bank digital currency).

• Stablecoins not issued by banks are under strict control.