Crypto Regulators Advance New Stablecoin, Exchange and Wallet Rules

South Korea tightens exchange controls after Bithumb error

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission moved on April 6 after Bithumb’s February payout error, ordering major exchanges to reconcile internal ledgers against actual crypto holdings every five minutes and fully build the systems by the end of May. Before the incident, three of the five largest exchanges reportedly reconciled balances only once every 24 hours. Under the new regime, exchanges must halt trading automatically if major mismatches appear. Outside accounting firms must also shift from quarterly audits to monthly audits and report holdings by wallet.

The Bithumb incident itself was described as a massive input error. According to the file, an employee entered 620,000 BTC as a reward for 249 users instead of 620,000 won, causing the exchange to distribute Bitcoin worth about $40 billion, or about 13 times more Bitcoin than Bithumb actually held. The FSC said inspections found “deficiencies in Bithumb’s internal control system” and said it was completing a legal review to determine sanctions tied to the February accident.

Bithumb was already facing separate penalties from South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit. Those sanctions included a six-month partial business suspension running from March 27 to September 26 and a 36.8 billion won ($24.6 million) fine after authorities found 45,772 transactions with unregistered overseas exchanges and failures in customer identification verification. The FSC’s latest measures went beyond Bithumb and applied across the country’s largest exchanges, including Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax, after a meeting that also included DAXA.

The South Korean controls also tightened manual approval and governance procedures inside exchanges. High-risk transaction accounts must now be segregated, every manual payout requires a third-party cross-check and larger payouts may need multi-level approval. Exchanges must appoint a Risk Management Officer, establish a Risk Management Committee and submit to inspections every six months instead of annually, with the results reported to the government. The FSC and DAXA were also working to finalize separate licensing changes by the end of April that would require virtual asset service providers to monitor all transfers, rather than only those above the previous 1 million won Travel Rule threshold, keep debt ratios below 200% and avoid default for three years.

South Korea took a second step on April 8 by tightening the country’s virtual-asset withdrawal delay system after finding that criminals had exploited inconsistent exchange exception rules to move stolen funds out before banks or police could intervene. Under the earlier framework, new users’ funds were held for 24 to 72 hours, but some exchanges allowed exceptions based on minimal transaction history. Between June and September 2025, 59% of fraudulent activity, or 1,490 of 2,526 cases, occurred in accounts that had been exempted from withdrawal delays. Those exempted accounts were linked to 170.5 billion won, or 75.5% of the total 225.7 billion won lost, and in some cases the laundering route took less than an hour.

The tightened South Korean system sharply narrows who can receive immediate withdrawals. Exchanges must now use stricter evaluations based on transaction frequency, transaction period and deposit and withdrawal amounts. Simulations cited in the file showed the number of customers qualifying for exceptions should fall to “significantly reduced to less than 1% of existing customers.” Even those exception accounts must now undergo enhanced KYC at least once a year, including source-of-funds checks. The FSC said it would “minimize consumer inconvenience” in legitimate urgent cases and would “regularly reconsider the adequacy of the standards to prevent new bypass methods from occurring.”

France and Thailand widen wallet and ownership scrutiny

France advanced a tax-focused crypto measure on April 8 when a bill passed first reading in the National Assembly requiring taxpayers to declare every self-hosted wallet holding more than €5,000, or about $5,900. The measure forms part of a wider law on the fight against social and tax fraud and is aimed at digital financial flows that authorities want to make less opaque than traditional fiat transfers. The French government is seeking to reach wealth that had previously escaped detection after a strong 2025 for the tax authority, when reported amounts rose by €249 million and collections exceeded €17 billion in taxes and penalties. The same file said results from tax credit refund audits rose 148%.

The French measure still requires Senate review and approval by a joint committee, possibly in May, before final adoption. Enforcement would also depend on bylaws defining monitoring and audit procedures, making implementation more likely toward the end of 2026 or early 2027. According to the country’s watchdog, digital currency wallets would be included in France’s annual tax audit and carried a blunt warning: “Taxpayers will have to anticipate increased transparency regarding their digital assets, under threat of sanctions comparable to those for undeclared work or unreported foreign bank accounts.” It also said crypto could be integrated into the finance ministry’s surveillance mechanisms after AI-powered audits proved effective the previous year.

Thailand’s April 8 proposal targeted a different part of the crypto business chain by expanding shareholder-approval rules to include not only major shareholders, but also the people financing or backing those shareholders directly or indirectly. The Thai SEC said the goal was to ensure crypto operators are funded from legitimate sources rather than money tied to unlawful activity that could create legal, reputational and credibility risks. The proposal said, “The provision of significant funding shall include guarantors, contractual arrangements, or investments in any instruments that result in the financial supporter having the status of, or acting in substance as, a funding provider to such major shareholders.”

Thailand’s draft would apply both to direct share acquisitions in crypto business operators and to share acquisitions in legal entities that hold shares in those operators. The main carveout covers government-related entities such as ministries, departments and public organizations. On that point, the Thai SEC said, “These entities are already subject to government supervision and oversight.” Public consultation runs through April 22, 2026. 

The proposal also sits inside a broader anti-money-laundering drive in Thailand that included a “gray money” campaign launched in January and freezes on 10,000 accounts by local crypto platforms working with the Thai SEC and the Thai Digital Asset Operators Trade Association.