South Korea asks crypto exchanges to raise cold-wallet ratios after Binance hack

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) asked domestic virtual asset exchanges to immediately increase their cold-wallet holdings after a Binance hacking incident on 30 October, according to explanatory material published on 3 November. The FSC held an emergency review meeting at 10am on 2 November with the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), Financial Security Institute, Digital Asset Exchange Alliance (DAXA) and major virtual asset service providers.

The meeting means Korean exchanges are being asked to review custody, transaction monitoring, incident response and financial-loss capacity now. The document records supervisory requests rather than a final rule or enforcement decision. It sets no uniform cold-wallet percentage, reserve amount, reporting form or compliance deadline.

Four controls requested immediately

The authorities asked exchanges to:

- raise the proportion of assets held in cold wallets;
- monitor deposits and withdrawals continuously and secure additional response personnel;
- operate a prompt response system for abnormal access attempts, including reporting and information sharing; and
- make additional reserve provisions to protect users.

The requests apply to domestic virtual asset businesses discussed at the meeting. They do not state that exchanges must halt withdrawals, suspend particular assets or follow a single custody model.

The FSC issued the material to correct a 2 November *Munhwa Ilbo* report that suggested the financial sector would only discuss the incident at a meeting on 5 November. The FSC said the emergency meeting had already taken place on 2 November after the 30 October incident, with the FSS and other relevant bodies participating.

No prescribed ratio yet

The FSC material repeats the newspaper’s account that approximately KRW8.5tn had flowed out of Binance, but presents that figure as reported media content rather than a government assessment. It does not make a finding on the attack’s attribution or quantify any exposure at Korean exchanges.

For compliance teams, the four requests identify the areas requiring attention: custody allocation, continuous deposit and withdrawal monitoring, abnormal-access reporting and information sharing, response staffing and reserves. The requests were described as immediate, but the material provides no further implementation timetable or numeric cold-wallet threshold.