VinitS

The People Power Party (PPP), one of South Korea’s main right-wing political parties, recently announced plans to push forward a new bill to support the country’s cryptocurrency asset sector.

The new legislative initiative, named the ‘Digital Asset Promotion Basic Act’, aims to cement the country’s position as a global leader in blockchain technology and digital assets. Notably, details of the upcoming bill will be revealed next Monday.

Additionally, the nation’s financial authorities announced that they were working on loosening their previously strict rules about the cryptocurrency asset market.

South Korea signals a strategic shift toward embracing digital assets

According to South Korean news agency Newsis, the former ruling party’s policy chief, Kim Sang-hoon, said during a meeting that the country must move past the period of uncertainty and regulation and into the era of promoting digital assets.

Moreover, according to reports, Kim added that an overly regulation-focused policy kept foreign capital out of the domestic virtual asset market due to the government’s anti-money laundering efforts. Based on his argument, the same factors were causing domestic capital to leave the local market.

Kim also described cryptocurrency as an asset class of the new economy that potentially could be the gold store of value of the twenty-first century.

Furthermore, Kim highlighted that in the face of this new frontier, they were unsure, perplexed, and unable to provide a clear direction. He then asserted that they had to shift their focus to initiatives that actively promote and institutionalize digital assets.

According to a January announcement from South Korea’s Financial Services Commission, the ban on institutional investors’ cryptocurrency investments would be gradually lifted to support South Korea’s digital assets.

In January, the Financial Services Commission announced that it would gradually lift the ban preventing institutional investors from investing in cryptocurrencies.

Relatedly, as a follow-up to the nation’s first crypto regulatory framework, the Commission is actively enforcing laws, focusing on stablecoin regulations, token listings, and disclosure requirements.

South Korea’s proposed changes to the Virtual Asset User Protection Act

Earlier this month, South Korean lawmakers proposed amendments to the Virtual Asset User Protection Act aimed at tightening regulations on cryptocurrency exchanges and enhancing oversight of social media chat rooms that promote speculative crypto investments.

The proposal that Min Byoung-dug and Kang Hoon-sik of the Democratic Party of Korea led called these chat rooms to register with the Financial Services Commission as quasi-investment advisory firms. Currently, these entities are prohibited from making false profit rates, guaranteeing returns, or compensating for investment losses.

In addition, the proposed amendments require cryptocurrency exchanges to report any modifications to their terms and conditions to the Financial Services Commission.

Meanwhile, in relation to digital assets, lawmaker Min Byoung-dug introduced a bill designed to safeguard consumer assets in the event of a cryptocurrency exchange bankruptcy. The amendment seeks to ensure that customers’ rights to reclaim their assets are not treated as general unsecured claims within the bankrupt estate.

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Hackers are breaking into Japanese online brokerage accounts and using them to push up the prices of penny shares around the world, Japanese regulators and industry officials say. 

Police, brokers, and the Financial Services Agency (FSA) estimate that about ¥100 billion—roughly $710 million—has already been churned through these fraudulent trades, most of them in penny stocks.

The pattern is straightforward: thieves seize a client’s login, buy low-cap shares in Japan, the United States, or China, and lift the price high enough for earlier holders—often the hackers themselves—to cash out.

Worried that their platforms are being used as launchpads for the scams, several Japanese securities houses have halted new buy orders in certain small-cap names listed in China, the U.S. and at home.

Major brokers in Japan have confirmed the suspicious transactions from hackers

Eight of the country’s largest online brokers, among them Rakuten Securities Inc. and SBI Securities Co., have confirmed unauthorized transactions. The attackers’ success has turned Japan into a potential weak link in the defense of global markets, exposing holes in the nation’s cybersecurity practices just as the government is urging households to pour more retirement money into equities.

Victims say the experience is baffling and costly. Mai Mori, a 41-year-old part-time worker in Aichi Prefecture, discovered that her Rakuten retirement account had been used to buy Chinese shares worth ¥639,777—about twelve percent of her savings. She called Rakuten, which advised her to file a police report.

“The police told me that in most fraud cases, the victims often end up having to just quietly accept the loss,” Mori recalled. “Basically, there’s not much that can be done.”

Rakuten says it will “continue to examine each case individually and respond in good faith.” Rival SBI states that it is “listening to individual circumstances and responding promptly.” SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. adds that it reviews every complaint and “will consider individual responses.”

Not every victim is willing to go public. A Tokyo man in his mid-50s, who asked not to be named, says he lost about ¥50 million when his brokerage account was hijacked on the morning of April 16. An alert flashed on his iPhone, but when he rang the firm, he was told technicians could not freeze the account in time to stop the trades.

On April 22, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato urged securities companies to hold “good-faith” talks with affected customers about reimbursing losses. So far, however, few investors have received compensation.

Cases of suspicious trading have been increasing in Japan

The scale of the problem is growing fast. According to the FSA, suspicious trading cases leapt to 736 in the first half of April from just 33 in February. Officials did not disclose the total amount stolen, but industry analysts warn that the surge threatens the government’s long-running campaign to shift household cash from bank deposits into investment accounts.

Cybersecurity specialists say the scammers probably rely on two techniques: “adversary-in-the-middle” attacks and infostealer malware.

In the first case, victims are lured to a phony webpage—often through a phishing email or a malicious online advertisement—that discreetly redirects them to the genuine brokerage site.

While the client types in a username and a one-time password, the attacker scoops up the session cookies and gains control of the account. Some fake sites display the real page alongside the counterfeit one, creating an illusion of authenticity.

A cultural preference for desktop browsers over mobile trading apps is another weakness, says Yutaka Sejiyama, deputy director at Macnica Security Research. Mobile apps tend to use stronger biometric checks and encrypted channels. “If people switched to apps, many of these thefts could have been stopped,” he argues.

By contrast, infostealers are small programs hidden in attachments, ads, or bogus links. Once inside a computer or phone, they sift through files and browsers for stored IDs and passwords and send the data to the attacker without the owner noticing.

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