South Korea Unveils 2026 Plan to Tighten Crypto Oversight After Bithumb Bitcoin Incident

• South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service to investigate crypto price manipulation using AI-based tools.
• A committee for the introduction of the Basic Digital Asset Act has been formed to dismantle cruel financial practices.

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) of South Korea released its business plan, which included aggressive measures to tighten crypto regulation by targeting risk practices that collapse the crypto market, as well as stronger IT and cybersecurity accountability for financial firms. According to South Korea’s Yonhap local news agency report, Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin announced the 2026 business roadmap on February 9. 

FSS Targets Crypto Market Manipulation

As per the report, FSS will launch planned investigations to crack down on South Korea’s financial crimes that include crypto price manipulation that involves Whale trading, Fence trading that manipulates the prices when deposits or withdrawals are suspended,  Racehorse schemes, which involves in the practice of rapidly increasing prices by purchasing a huge amount at specific moments, API abuse and fake news disbursed through social media.

They also planned to develop  AI-based tools to automatically identify suspicious groups and parts through investigating virtual assets that exhibit an unusual price increase every minute, noted in the report. 

Basic Digital Asset Act Push After Bithumb Bitcoin Incident

The report mentions that a preparatory committee has been formed to support the implementation of the Basic Digital Asset Act, an important part of the second-stage crypto legislation.  

As said, the team will do the creation of a complete disclosure framework for token issuance and exchange listings, as well as standardized license and review guides for digital asset operators and stablecoin creators. 

The tightening of crypto regulations comes after the mistaken distribution that happened on February 6 by Bithumb, a South Korean crypto firm, which transferred 2,000 BTC, totalling 620,000 bitcoins, worth about $40 billion to every winner of a promotional campaign. 

They were originally entitled to a cash reward of 2,000 Korean won, which led to a halt of trading and withdrawal functions for almost 695 affected customers. Then, Bithumb said it has recovered 99.7% of the mistakenly transferred bitcoin.

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