A few new regulatory guidelines were introduced in South Korea recently. These decisions are all positive for cryptocurrency as a whole. Unfortunately, some exchanges will struggle to cope with these new demands as of right now. Coinpia, one of the smaller trading platforms, has suspended its services for the time being. Their KRW deposits have been suspended indefinitely as well. It seems the company is the first victim of the new KYC guidelines.
Performing KYC verification is now mandatory in South Korea. For most exchanges, that is not a big problem, as it requires few to no changes whatsoever. Other companies, on the other hand, may need to undertake additional action in this regard. Coinpia appears to be one of the first “victims” in this regard. More specifically, the company has decided to suspend its transactions for now. This decision comes as a big surprise to a lot of people, for obvious reasons.
Lots of Work Ahead for Coinpia
According to a message on their website, the KRW deposits have been interrupted. Coinpia is in the process of upgrading their internal infrastructure to accommodate the new KYC guidelines. They have been working on various methods to step up their game in this regard. Customers will need to verify their bank account through deposits, similar to how Coinbase operates.
Korean Won deposits are unavailable at the time of writing. There is no indication if and when this service will return. Coinpia wants to integrate user identities in a convenient manner. Coming up with a solution that works for everyone has proven to be virtually impossible so far. It appears they were one of the few exchanges who had no KYC verification whatsoever. With anonymous Bitcoin trading no longer being allowed in South Korea, other companies will need to upgrade their infrastructure as well.
It is an unfortunate development for the Coinpia exchange. Running such a trading platform in South Korea is now subject to very strict regulations. The company already faces a hefty fine due to user privacy protection issues now that long ago. While this new KYC requirement will not be the end of the company, it’s evident they face a lot of changes in quick succession. The company will hopefully come out stronger in the coming weeks. Building a new customer identity verification system from scratch isn’t easy.