 |
| Dunamu CEO Lee Sirgoo, right, drinks water while participating in an emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures against the recent scandal surrounding the collapse of the controversial Terra and Luna coins, at the National Assembly in Seoul, Tuesday. Joint Press Corps-Yonhap |
By Lee Min-hyung
Cryptocurrency exchanges are crying foul over the government's move to shift the responsibility on them for the recent crash of the Terra stablecoin and its sister token, Luna.
With more than 160,000 retail investors in Korea alone suffering losses from the Luna scandal, the National Assembly and the government held an emergency meeting recently with the heads of major crypto exchanges here.
The meeting was aimed at finding measures to prevent the recurrence of such incidents, but the National Assembly and financial authorities appeared to support the imposition of tougher regulations on exchanges, which industry officials claimed are "unfair."
"Exchanges should be given legal sanctions in case they violate regulations and they have to be subject to thorough supervision by watchdogs so they can play a proper role," Rep. Sung Il-jong of the ruling People Power Party said during the meeting with exchange leaders.
But officials in the industry expressed frustration over the overall mood of the latest meeting, as crypto exchanges have caught a lot of flak at a time when the most blame should be directed at Terraform Labs, the developer of the controversial cryptocurrencies.
"We understand the purpose of the meeting, but the most urgent step is to summon Do Kwon, co-founder of the company, as quickly as authorities can," an official from one of the exchanges here said. "Exchanges can easily become a target of criticism at this period of time when no specific regulatory guideline has been introduced."
The Assembly is also set to hold a hearing session on the Luna incident in the near future. But it appears unlikely that Kwon will be willing to attend the hearing, since his whereabouts remain unknown.
Lawmakers also stepped up criticism on the exchanges, citing their belated handling of the latest fiasco. With Luna's prices starting to plunge in mid-May, exchanges did not remain swift in making a decision on delisting the cryptocurrency, in what some critics said was the exchanges' intention to reap more commissions from the incident.
Rep. Yoon Chang-hyun of the ruling party took issue with the exchanges' ambiguous listing and delisting standards.
"The exchanges do not have any unified listing standard, nor do they hold any negotiations over the issue," he said.
But Lee Sirgoo, the CEO of Dunamu, which operates the nation's top exchange, Upbit, opposed the idea of applying the same regulatory standard in Korea, because crypto investors can use multiple exchanges here and abroad while trading cryptocurrencies.
"Crypto assets can be sent to overseas exchanges, and many crypto investors are already using non-Korea-headquartered exchanges," Lee said. This situation is why introducing a uniform standard on local exchanges does not make any sense, he stressed.
