According to ChainThink, on October 30, South Korea's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) requested the Korea Communications Standards Commission to block access to TetherMax and SuperTrust within South Korea, including termination of services.
On the same day, the Digital Asset Exchange Alliance (DAXA) referred Aegis Ventures, TetherMax, and SuperTrust for investigation, citing suspected violations of the Specific Financial Information Act and failure to declare their virtual asset business operations.
Aegis Ventures is not included in the FIU's blocking request due to the absence of an independent website or mobile application.
Those operating virtual asset businesses without registration may face up to five years in prison or a fine of 50 million KRW, and this law also applies to overseas operators serving Korean residents. The FIU stated that unregistered operators operate in a regulatory blind spot and could be exploited for money laundering.
In June this year, a joint investigation by DAXA and compliance professionals found that the average transaction fees of seized operators ranged from 1.5% to 10%, reaching up to approximately 62 times the average of Korea’s five largest won trading platforms, which is 0.16%.