South Korea Orders Crypto Exchanges to Verify Holdings Every Five Minutes

South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges previously had their assets audited quarterly by accountants, but internal ledgers were not necessarily synchronized in real time with actual wallet balances. On February 6, 2026, a Bithumb promotion mistakenly entered 620,000 won as 620,000 bitcoins, exposing an internal-control weakness that could create “ghost bitcoins” out of thin air and putting user asset protection and market confidence at risk.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) announced corrective measures on April 6, 2026, requiring all domestic cryptocurrency exchanges to establish automated reconciliation systems that compare internal ledgers with actual holdings every five minutes. Trading must be blocked when a material discrepancy is detected. The Bithumb incident affected 249 users and involved the erroneous distribution of 620,000 bitcoins with a notional value exceeding 60 trillion won.