After Historic Binance Hack, South Korea Considers 99% Cold Wallet Rule for Crypto Exchanges

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission met major virtual asset exchanges and custody firms after last week’s Binance breach, in which more than $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen, to consider raising the share of customer assets held offline. Under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, exchanges must keep at least 80% in cold wallets, which are kept separate from the internet; regulators are discussing a minimum closer to 99%. The FBI attributed the Binance attack to the North Korea-linked group TraderTraitor, which Pyongyang denies. A higher cold-wallet requirement could slow withdrawals, and Bithumb had roughly 13-hour delays for some altcoins in August after it moved assets from cold storage.