South Korea blocks 14 unregistered crypto applications on iOS

Most recently the Financial Intelligence Unit of South Korea has announced that it has restricted the access of 14 unregistered offshore crypto based Apple Store. The move came as the new regulatory measure which also aims to tackle the growing number of frauds and scams cases in the digital asset market.

The list of taken down offshore crypto applications includes MEXC and KuCoin, and the action demonstrates the regulator approach to regulate these under the national laws.

It is not the first time that FIU ordered an application store to restrict usage of unregistered cryptocurrencies exchanges in South Korea. Earlier in March this year the regulator wrote to Google PlayStore to restrict 17 unregistered international based firms offering their services in the region.

Over the past few years the Financial Intelligence Unit of the South Korea has worked to ease the set of rules to attract companies from foreign nations yet the nation has also formed a clear set of guidelines under which a company seeking to offer services related to crypto has to file with the regulators and post approval they will be eligible to offer the services.

A few other names that went out of the SK market after the FIU direct Apple Store are BTCC, Phemex (hacked for $85 million), Bitrue ( suffered a hack of $23 million in 2019), ZoomEX, Poloniex ( a hack for more than $100 million was reported in 2023), CoinCatch and CoinW.

With growing adoption of crypto globally, nations have been actively exploring the ways to regulate cryptocurrencies in order to avoid crimes and illicit activities growing in the digital assets market.

Not only crypto but blockchain technology has gained attention and the market size is constantly expanding and is expected to reach nearly $1 trillion by 2030.

Until publishing the crypto market cap was $2.73 trillion with a surge of 0.99% intraday and the crypto fear and greed index was at 31, reflecting a fade in bears actions.

At the same time Bitcoin was at $85,770 with a surge of 1.33% and is up by 8.49% in the weekly time frame. According to data from CoinMarketCap the intraday gainers list has been ruled by Fartcoin, Vet, Kaspa , Story, Toncoin and Render. 

The losers in the frame are Mantra, Flare, XDC Network, Official Trump, Ethena, Decentraland, Curve DAO token, Helium, SUI, Floki, The Sandbox, Lido DAO, Theta Network, and Aptos.

Onyxcoin remains the weekly gainer, followed by Fartcoin, Jasmycoin, Helium, Hyperliquid, Flare, Raydium, and BONK.