South Korea Drills Out $600 Million In Illegal Cryptocurrency Trades

The South Korean government is slowly and steadily pushing up its regulatory stand on cryptocurrencies. Earlier this week, on Jan 30, the Korean government banned anonymous trading in cryptocurrencies i.e. trading with anonymous accounts on the exchanges which are not linked to the customer’s actual bank accounts with real-names.

Owing to a tremendous increase in crypto trading activities in the last year, the South Korean government is seen formulating several measures with a crackdown on its exchanges. Tax Officials have been repeatedly seen visiting the exchanges to nib any dubious activities done by crypto trading.

Earlier this week, on Jan. 31, the Korean Customs Service (KCS) released a report which shows that a total of $600 million USD or 638 billion worth won have been found in illegal forex trade through cryptos.

The investigation by the Korean authorities is done to have a broader reach to examine and scrutinize all the cryptocurrency-related activities. The Korean Customs Service said in a statement: Customs service has been closely looking at illegal foreign exchange trading using cryptocurrency as part of the government’s task force.”

However, the KCS has not revealed the names of the entities who have been found in illegal crypto-trading activities. Although it has outlined the ways adopted to perform those activities.

Since the beginning of 2018, the South Korean government has been cracking a whip on crypto trading activities. At one point in time, there were also rumours about the government planning to introduce an outright ban on all trading activities. This created a huge panic and fear in investors, following which the markets corrected heavily. There was a huge uproar in the investor community and the government had to later re-consider its decision stating that they have “not finalized” any such decision of ban.

Recently, South Korea’s finance minister Kim Dong-yeon said that the government holds no plans to ban cryptocurrency trading which came as a much relief for the investors. South Korea is one of the largest cryptocurrency markets and second biggest in Asia after Japan, in terms of volume trade.

Bringing crypto activities to a halt in this part of the globe can create a huge ripple effect on the global crypto markets. The markets have been on a major correction with South Korea’s crackdown and announcements on the regulatory measures.

Currently, the cryptocurrency markets are seen correcting majorly as Bitcoin now slips below $9,000 mark. The overall markets are bleeding at the moment with other altcoins like Ethereum and Ripple seen correcting significantly. The overall crypto-market valuation has now slipped to $400 billion.