The South Korean Ministry of Justice has introduced plans to launch a so-called ‘virtual currency tracking system’. With this, it hopes to counter money laundering initiatives and recover funds related to criminal activities.
System to track crypto
The advanced system for crypto will be used to track transaction history, find out information about transactions and check the source of funds before and after transfer.
The South Korean Ministry of Justice will introduce a “cryptocurrency tracking system” in the first half of this year to strengthen the tracking of money laundering and recovery of criminal proceeds using cryptocurrencies. https://t.co/2CLkaLUrX6
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) January 29, 2023
While the system is expected to be implemented in the first half of this year, the South Korean ministry shared plans to develop an independent tracking and analytics system in the second half of the year. A rough translation from the ministry reads as follows:
“In response to the sophistication of crime, we want to improve the forensic infrastructure. We want to build a system that meets international (worldwide) standards.”
Earlier you could read in the crypto news that the British financial regulator also believes that many crypto platforms make money laundering a lot easier for criminals. It therefore shares the same opinion as the South Korean Ministry of Justice, which is now trying to counter it with the tracking system.
That said, most crypto transactions are already public and therefore much easier to trace than fiat currency and unsuitable for crime.
Fine for bitcoin exchange Bithumb
On January 13, the South Korean Supreme Court finalized its ruling that crypto exchange Bithumb had to pay damages to a total of 132 investors for a 1.5-hour outage on November 12, 2022. According to a local news source, the damage is equivalent to $202,400. Users ran into problems because transactions fell through, which can cost a lot of money.
The court said the following:
“The burden or cost of technological failures should be borne by the service provider, not the service users who pay commission for the service.”