South Korean Regulator Considers Legalizing Crypto Market Making, Tighter Exchange Oversight

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission will review whether to allow crypto market making, a senior official said Monday, as he outlined how the country’s next crypto law could bring exchanges under public oversight.

Yoo Young-joon, the FSC’s director general for digital finance policy, said the agency would review whether market making and similar systems are needed to make digital asset markets more efficient and stable. He spoke at The Bridge Summit 2026 in Seoul, according to the Korean crypto outlet Digital Asset.

Market makers post buy and sell orders so traders can get in and out without large price swings. South Korea’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act has no exemption for market making, so the practice falls under its ban on unfair trading such as price manipulation, Digital Asset reported.

Get Unchained’s crypto news in your inbox with the free Unchained Daily newsletter.

Yoo also discussed several items under review for the proposed Digital Asset Basic Act, the bill that makes up the second phase of the country’s crypto legislation. He said it may be time for core exchange functions, including order matching, listings and surveillance for abnormal trades, to move from self-regulation to public oversight. He cited the recent listing of a yen stablecoin as an example, saying there had been criticism that users lost money in its price surge and that calls for rules were growing.

Upbit began trading JPYC, a stablecoin designed to be worth one Japanese yen, on Sept. 17. At first the exchange accepted deposits only over Ethereum, which held about 6.9% of the token’s supply. After trading opened that evening, the price hit an intraday high of 37.60 won, when one yen was worth about 8.85 won. Upbit added deposits the same evening on the Kaia and Polygon networks, which carried more of the supply, and the price later returned to around one yen.

Upbit data released Sept. 27 by Park Min-gyu, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker on the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee, shows that 21,219 investors bought JPYC at 10% or more above the won-yen rate between Sept. 17 and Sept. 21, spending about 259.9 billion won in total.

Yoo also said rules for crypto firms’ major shareholders and executives could tighten, scaled to a firm’s size and business.

He said the bill could move crypto businesses from the current filing-based system to licensing and registration, and expected it to allow domestic token issuance with disclosure rules and cover won-pegged stablecoins.

Related Listen: Why the Crypto Market Cap Could Reach $50 Trillion This Cycle

{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@id":"https:\/\/unchainedcrypto.com\/south-korean-regulator-considers-legalizing-crypto-market-making-tighter-exchange-oversight\/#arve-youtube-pqy2whgamde","@type":"VideoObject","embedURL":"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/PQy2WhgAMDE?feature=oembed&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&autohide=1&playsinline=1&autoplay=0"}

The post South Korean Regulator Considers Legalizing Crypto Market Making, Tighter Exchange Oversight appeared first on Unchained.