The South Korean crypto rush which rocked the entire world both in form of arbitrage trading and its effects on the global cryptocurrencies price ups and down was again targeted today. The government cracked down harshly on the illicit trade activities regarding the flow of the cryptocurrencies, especially from foreign countries.
The Reuters reported that Republic of Korea’s Custom services released a statement where it claimed to uncover almost 637.5 billion won which is almost $ 595 million worth of cryptocurrency crimes. The statement was released today and was aimed at illicit foreign trading exchanges operating from South Korea. [1]
The story began with the crypto rush in December when investors captured almost 2 billion won in cryptocurrencies and then used ‘virtual wallets’ to send these tokens abroad only to be brought back in form of fiat currencies with the inflated value which accounts for the unrecorded flow of capital. This brought Custom Union into the picture. ROK’s Custom Services aims at targeting the illegal foreign transactions or any element detrimental to the safety of society according to their website.
“Customs service has been closely looking at illegal foreign exchange trading using cryptocurrency as part of the government’s task force,” it said. [2]
The South Korean law states that only licensed banks and brokers can offer exchange service which liquidates assets in foreign markets. Anyone moving more than $3000 out of the country must submit documents to for taxation purposes, which must include the purpose of such transaction. The annual cap on such trading is $50000.
The authorities imposed these rules in the crypto realm from 30 January onwards which stopped the use of virtual wallets to transfer the money. There were many cases where investors sent money to their South Korean trading partners specifically for illegal currency trade. Japanese share was staggering 53.7 billion won.
The heightened regulatory backlash against cryptocurrencies has sent the bitcoin prices nosediving once again. This was compounded by the hacking of the Coincheck exchange where $500 million was stolen in a Mr. Robot type cyber heist where Evil Corp was effectively Coincheck. Bitstamp, Luxembourg based exchange recorded 27.1 percent fall this month in the bitcoin prices.
This sounds really bad for the crypto market.
