According to BlockBeats, on September 26, Decrypt reported that South Korea’s financial regulator issued a severe warning that cryptocurrency fraud cases with profits exceeding $4 million (about 5 billion won) will be punished with life imprisonment. This warning was issued after the enactment of South Korea’s “Virtual Asset User Protection Act” in July 2024, which aims to prevent cryptocurrency crimes and was partly inspired by the Terra/Luna founder Do Kwon incident and the FTX collapse.

Lee Bok-hyun, director of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) of South Korea, told 16 digital asset industry executives that financial regulators will continue to strictly enforce the bill. The new law also stipulates other penalties, including fines of 3 to 5 times the illegal profits and up to one year in prison. In addition, the bill requires virtual asset service providers (VASPs) to store at least 80% of customer funds in cold wallets and establish a cybersecurity incident reserve.

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