South Korea’s cryptocurrency market is undergoing massive shakeup ahead of the new law in September that requires exchanges to register their business, with major crypto exchanges organizing coins before state scrutiny kicks in.

According to Korea’s top 5 crypto exchanges – Upbit, Bithumb, CoinOne, Cobit, and Gopax – on Monday, 91 coins have been newly listed over the past four months. Listings were mainly done in March (26 coins) and April (23 coins) when virtual currency prices soared. Twenty-four coins were listed on the five exchanges between May 15 and June 14 even when overall turnover fell.

Bithumb listed 17 coins including Binance Coin and Alpha Quark Token.

The reshuffling is taking because before they become subject to tighter watch on anonymity in crypto trade.

Only high-grade coins will last on major cryptocurrency exchanges in the future, an unnamed official from one of the exchanges said.

To pick out the bad, data showed that more coins are being listed on the five exchanges than those delisted.

In the past four months from Feb. 15 to June 14, 23 coins were removed from the five exchanges while 91 were listed.

In the won-denominated market, cryptocurrency exchanges each had over 100 coins – Upbit 121, Bithumb 177, and CoinOne 181.

Top exchanges are speedily removing unstable coins that lack business plan and technical capacity before specific financial information act goes into effect in September.

Upbit announced recently that it will remove five coins from its won-denominated market, including Paycoin, after they were found to be below internal evaluation standards. The exchange also named 25 coins to be under “notice,” including Komodo and LBRY credit.

The exchange said that the coins fell short of internal standards in a comprehensive evaluation on team capacity and business, information sharing and communication, technical capacity, and global liquidity, and required measure to protect investors.

Sources noted that Upbit removed the coins as it needs to register with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission by September.

By Han Sang-heon and Lee Eun-joo

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]