TechFlow News, March 17: According to Asia Economy, South Korea’s National Police Agency recently finalized a draft directive on the management of seized virtual assets. For the first time, the directive includes regulatory guidance specifically addressing “privacy coins”—virtual currencies with strong anonymity features—and clarifies management protocols for software wallets (i.e., hot wallets). Privacy coins, whose transactions are difficult to trace, have previously been used in criminal cases such as the “Nth Room” scandal and North Korean money-laundering operations. Over the past five years, the police estimate the total market value of seized virtual assets at approximately 54.5 billion KRW, including roughly 50.7 billion KRW in Bitcoin and about 1.8 billion KRW in Ethereum.
Additionally, the National Police Agency plans to select private custodial institutions by the first half of this year. However, three prior tender processes failed due to issues such as a limited budget of only 83 million KRW and the relatively small scale of qualified institutions. Experts recommend establishing a government-led, professional, unified custodial system to mitigate security vulnerabilities and internal risks.
