Coinone’s chief govt is going through an official reprimand after South Korean regulators moved in opposition to the crypto alternate for a string of compliance failures, together with tens of 1000’s of unverified person accounts and repeated dealings with unlicensed international platforms.
Regulator Cites Tens Of Hundreds Of Violations
South Korea’s Monetary Intelligence Unit, working beneath the Monetary Providers Fee, discovered that Coinone didn’t confirm the identities of customers in roughly 70,000 circumstances.
The alternate was additionally accused of finishing buyer verification data even when key data was lacking — and of permitting transactions to proceed for patrons whose identification checks had by no means been completed.
In accordance with a number of South Korean media experiences, the FIU flagged greater than 10,000 transactions carried out with 16 international exchanges that had no registration with South Korean regulators. Regulators had warned Coinone about these dealings earlier than. The alternate stored going anyway.
South Korea’s FIU fined Coinone $4M and hit the alternate with a three-month partial suspension over AML violations.
New clients are blocked from crypto deposits and withdrawals beginning April 29.
— Token Metrics (@tokenmetricsinc) April 13, 2026
The FIU fined Coinone 5.2 billion received, equal to about $3.5 million. A 3-month partial enterprise suspension was additionally imposed, blocking new clients from depositing or withdrawing funds throughout the ban.
Chief govt officer Cha Myung-hoon obtained a proper reprimand, although experiences observe it carries no prison weight — the motion is administrative in nature. Coinone has 10 days to problem the penalties earlier than they’re finalized.
Second Main Change Hit In A Month
This isn’t the primary time South Korean authorities have gone after a serious alternate in latest weeks. In March, Bithumb — the nation’s second-largest crypto platform by buying and selling quantity — was fined $24 million and handed a six-month partial suspension over related anti-money laundering failures.
That motion got here after Bithumb made headlines for a pricey clerical error: the alternate by chance despatched clients 620,000 Bitcoin, valued at roughly $42 billion on the time, as an alternative of 620,000 Korean received.
The blunder prompted the Financial institution of Korea to name on lawmakers to impose tighter controls on exchanges, together with buying and selling curbs that would kick in throughout uncommon market exercise or sharp value swings.
The alternate, ranked third in South Korea by measurement, now joins Bithumb as targets of what seems to be a widening regulatory push in opposition to crypto platforms within the nation.
Officers mentioned Monday that lawmakers ought to take into account buying and selling halt mechanisms tied to irregular exercise — a proposal that alerts authorities are taking a look at structural fixes, not simply fines.
How Coinone responds to the FIU’s motion inside its 10-day window will possible form how the ultimate penalties are written.
Featured picture from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
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