[Teheran-ro] The Direction of Virtual Asset Market Regulation

"Virtual assets are no longer just an investment vehicle. They have become financial infrastructure embedded in the daily lives of 11.13 million people."
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission (FSC) recently released the "Results of the 2025 Second-Half Survey on Virtual Asset Service Providers," which quantifies the growing weight of the virtual asset market. The domestic virtual asset market has a total market capitalization of 87.2 trillion won, and the number of tradable user accounts reaches 11.13 million. At the same time, financial regulators are taking an increasingly strict view of the governance structures of won-denominated virtual asset exchanges, which serve as the core infrastructure of this market. The centerpiece of the "Digital Asset Basic Act (second-phase legislation)" now being coordinated by the government is to define virtual asset exchanges as key infrastructure on par with alternative trading systems under the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act, and to introduce dispersed ownership rules that cap major shareholders' stakes at 15–20%.
Recently, compromise ideas such as "introducing a 20% cap on major shareholders' stakes with a three-year grace period" have been floated. However, these discussions largely ignore the fact that most won markets are private companies built by a small group of founders and shareholders who contributed their own capital and ideas. On top of that, the notion of forcibly reshaping ownership structures that are already in place runs into the major constitutional obstacles of property rights protection and the prohibition on retroactive legislation.
To be sure, the ownership structures of the main won markets make it inevitable that regulators worry. At Dunamu, which operates Upbit, Chair Song Chi-hyung holds 25.5%. Bithumb Holdings owns 73%, and at Coinone, CEO Cha Myung-hoon holds 53%. In each case, control by a small number of major shareholders is overwhelming. Yet if the law forces this ownership to be dispersed, a practical question arises: who will actually take over those shares? Given the existing limits on industrial capital holdings under the Banking Act, there is a real risk that the ultimate owners of the exchanges will end up being traditional financial capital, producing a paradoxical outcome for a policy that ostensibly seeks to separate traditional finance from virtual assets.
No major jurisdiction in the world has ever imposed a legal cap on major shareholders' stakes. It is therefore worrying whether the government's push for "standardized shareholding" will truly enhance global competitiveness, or instead become a "regulatory trap" that blocks the emergence of innovative startups. The purpose of regulation should be market stability and user protection. Strengthening fit-and-proper tests for major shareholders and introducing clearer accountability structures—behavioral regulations that enhance transparency—could be a far more reasonable alternative than ownership regulations that directly infringe on property rights.
Markets grow on trust, and that trust comes from legal clarity and predictability. In this second phase of legislation, what regulators need to demonstrate is not one-sided "control" but a "sustainable regulatory framework" in which innovation and responsibility can coexist. The 11.13 million investors in this market are waiting for that answer.
elikim@fnnews.com Reporter