Upbit and other South Korean crypto exchanges are choosing to shed off LTC in hopes of staying compliant and avoiding troubles with the regulatory agencies.
As of Wednesday, June 8, 2022, all five licensed South Korean crypto exchanges have ceased supporting Litecoin (LTC) on their platforms. According to an 8BTC report, the exchanges include Bithumb, Upbit, Gopax, Korbit, and Coinone. But each of the exchanges might have taken their decisions in line with the existent anti-money laundering laws and regulations in South Korea. Notably, their decision comes a few weeks after Litecoin launched the highly-anticipated Mimblewimble Extension Block (MWEB) upgrade on its network.
South Korean Crypto Exchanges Explain Delisting
When Litecoin came out with its MWEB upgrade, it meant that going forward, the identity of users transacting on it would be hidden. But this does not align with any of the existing crypto regulations in South Korea. Especially as most of the regulations would require strict compliance to know-your-customer KYC and anti-money laundering AML guidelines.
In line with this, Upbit and others are choosing to shed off LTC in hopes of staying compliant and avoiding trouble with the regulatory agencies. As News1 reported, all five exchanges made their LTC delisting announcements “at once.” Interestingly, this is the first such in the South Korean crypto industry when all exchanges are seeing eye-to-eye like this.
Meanwhile, Upbit has already issued a public statement regarding its decision to delist LTC from its platform. Although the statement is similar to those of its counterparts, the exchange claims that the key reason behind its decision is the Act on the Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information. This law expressly forbids exchanges from carrying out anonymous transactions. Hence, Upbit will be giving its users a grace period of 30 days to retrieve their LTC funds. That is, after retaining support for LTC transactions up until June 20, withdrawals will still be allowed until July 20.
Part of the official statement reads:
“…the optional function that does not expose transaction information included in this network upgrade corresponds to an anonymous transmission technology under the Specific Financial Information Act.”
Delisting Always Expected
It is important to note that the delisting of LTC by these South Korean exchanges, comes as no surprise. It has happened with many other privacy coins in the past and probably would still happen again. That is because, South Korea as it were, is reputed for having some of the most rigid crypto regulations globally. And one of these regulations is the Specific Financial Information Act. The rule mandates all crypto exchanges to carry out thorough verification and identification of their customers.
As of press time, Litecoin (LTC) is trading at $61.90 and is up 1% in the last 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap data. Maybe the news is yet to have any real effects on the price of the LTC token.
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Source: https://www.coinspeaker.com/south-korean-crypto-exchanges-delist-litecoin-ltc/