South Korea's Financial Services Commission Files Lawsuits in Two Crypto Asset Market Manipulation Cases

According to Maeil Business Newspaper, the Korea Financial Services Commission held its 12th regular meeting on July 1 and filed lawsuits against two cases of crypto asset market manipulation. In the first case, "whale" investors mobilized billions of Korean won to acquire approximately half of the global circulating supply of a certain crypto asset, first artificially inflating the price on overseas exchanges, then exploiting cross-exchange price linkage effects to arbitrage and profit on domestic exchanges, with losses borne by domestic investors. In the second case, suspects targeting "kimchi coins" repeatedly submitted market buy/sell orders via API channels within 1 second to create a false impression of active trading, while simultaneously placing high-price buy orders on the web interface to inflate the market, waiting for buy orders to flood in before selling off in batches to cash out. The Financial Services Commission warned investors to be wary of crypto assets with unexplained sudden spikes in price and trading volume, and stated that it will strengthen the large holder position disclosure mechanism and market warning system.