Yet Another Probe Into Crypto Firms In S. Korea Over Terra Collapse

The aftermath of the Terra network crash saw a big shift in regulatory action in the crypto industry. With several countries in the process of tightening the noose against crypto wrongdoings, the action appears to be coming sooner that it was thought, which started with South Korea Terra probe.

South Korea Targets Crypto Payment Firms

In a latest, South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) launched a probe into several companies offering crypto payment services. The inspection largely targeted the country’s payment gateway companies, according to a report by Smart Times.

This follows an investigation into the Terra crash last month, which had in a matter of days wiped out billions of dollars of investor money. The Financial Intelligence Unit, a part of FSS, revealed that South Korea had 2,80,000 investors holding nearly 80 billion tokens as of May 24.

Crypto Firms Asked To Report Compliance

The FSS had previously instructed as many as 157 electronic payment service providers to report crypto-related services. The service providers were also asked to report on their future plans in the industry, besides their digital asset holdings. It was found that six local payment gateway firms were holding digital assets, as per a report by FSS.

Earlier this week, reports suggested that the country had intensified its probe into the Terra crash episode. Accordingly, prosecutors had summoned employees of Terraform Labs in the South Korea Terra probe.

Also, the South Korean authorities, on suspicion of embezzlement of funds by the Terra team, took further action to protect funds. They requested crypto exchanges to freeze Luna Foundation Guard from withdrawing corporate funds from accounts held on the exchanges. Prior to that, the country’s tax authorities charged Terra CEO Do Kwon with over $78.4 million in unpaid taxes.

On Saturday, Terra launched the Terra Bridge V2 on the mainnet using Cosmos IBC and Axelar Network. The bridge will allow users to perform cross-chain transfer of tokens between Terra 2.0, Ethereum, Osmosis, Secret, Cosmos, and Juno.

Anvesh is keen on writing about major announcements around crypto adoption by institutions and popular personalities. Having been associated with the cryptocurrency industry since 2016, his interest in this space helped pivot his journalism career to the blockchain ecosystem. Follow him on Twitter at @AnveshReddyEth and reach out to him at anvesh (at) coingape.com

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