South Korea\'s financial authorities will build an always-on system to monitor user assets at digital asset exchanges and sharply strengthen internal controls to financial-institution standards. The steps follow a recent mistaken payment incident at Bithumb and aim to fix structural problems and restore market trust. Regulators will require five-minute balance reconciliations, set automatic trade blocks for large discrepancies, shorten external audit checks to monthly from quarterly and expand disclosures.

Lee Chan-jin (이찬진), head of South Korea\'s Financial Supervisory Service, said the watchdog has completed inspection procedures into Bithumb\'s bitcoin mispayment case and will pursue sanctions after additional legal review of possible violations of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act. He said inspectors found flaws in internal controls and that broader institutional improvements for the digital asset market are being prepared. He added checks were also conducted at four other exchanges.