PANews reported on February 7 that according to Dailian, the number of virtual asset operators (VASPs) in South Korea has decreased compared to last year. There were about 40 virtual asset operators last year, but now it has been reduced to 31. On February 7, the Financial Information Analysis Institute (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission of South Korea released the current status of virtual asset operators, showing that there are a total of 31 domestic virtual asset operators. Previously, there were 42 registered, but 11 were excluded from the operator list in this release.
In the list of operators released by FIU, the excluded companies include Jinak (Peertech), Probit (Oceans), Huobi Korea (Huobi), Flata Exchange (FlataiX), Hanbitco (Hanbitco Korea), Bitrade (Blockchain Company), Coin&Coin (Coenco Korea), Casharet (Newlink), Ten&Ten (Ten&Ten), Aprobit (Apro Korea), Myki Wallet (CP Labs) and other 11 companies.
This is because the renewal period for virtual asset operators has expired, and companies that have not made renewal declarations have been excluded from the operator list. In particular, since last year, many cryptocurrency exchanges have closed down due to operational difficulties, but because their licenses are still valid for a certain period of time, they remain in the official operator list. However, in this release, the companies that have not renewed have been cleared and the number of operators in actual operation has been reflected.
