South Korean financial authorities will impose sanctions on several cryptocurrency exchanges, and severe penalties may be unavoidable.

PANews reported on November 24th that, according to Newsis, South Korean financial authorities are expected to impose sanctions on cryptocurrency exchanges for violating anti-money laundering obligations. Following the penalty imposed on Dunamu (operator of Upbit), the Financial Supervisory Service (FIU) plans to take action against other exchanges, including Korbit, Gopax, Bithumb, and Coinone. The Financial Supervisory Service has conducted on-site inspections of these exchanges since last year and is currently in the legal review and sanctions deliberation stage. The FIU will process the cases in the order they were completed, but Bithumb's processing may be delayed due to the need for a second inspection. The market expects the sanctions imposed on each exchange to be relatively similar in severity.

Previously, in February of this year, the FIU warned the head of Dunamu and imposed a three-month suspension on new customer deposits and withdrawals; subsequently, on November 6th, it imposed a fine of 35.2 billion won . Other exchanges are expected to face similar fines of tens of billions of won, with the specific amount to be determined based on the severity of the violations. Due to the large volume of pending cases, the FIU anticipates difficulty in completing all procedures this year, and most sanctions may be delayed until the first half of next year.