It has been reported that since the enforcement of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act, South Korean financial authorities have identified around 40 cases of suspected market manipulation and referred them to investigative agencies. They also plan to introduce an AI-powered real-time monitoring system and secure the authority to immediately freeze suspicious accounts. This shows a strong commitment to significantly ramping up the speed of market monitoring.

A point worth noting is the Financial Supervisory Service's introduction of an AI surveillance system. While it previously took a long time to detect complex on-chain transactions or the movements of manipulators using multiple accounts, real-time detection of abnormal transactions will now be much faster. As regulations become more sophisticated, the space for abnormal trading targeting the 'Kimchi Premium' or aggressive market manipulators is bound to shrink.

Some raise concerns that if account freezing powers are overused, innocent users' funds could be temporarily locked. However, in the long run, this seems like a positive signal for increasing overall market transparency and weeding out opaque manipulative groups. It will be interesting to see how listing maintenance reviews and liquidity conditions at domestic exchanges change moving forward!

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