Kim Sang-hoon, Min Byeong-deok: “The Bithumb incident has nothing to do with curbs on major shareholders’ stakes at exchanges”

Criticism has emerged that the Financial Services Commission (FSC) may be using Bithumb’s erroneous Bitcoin (BTC) payout incident as a pretext to push for limits on the ownership stakes of controlling shareholders at virtual-asset (cryptocurrency) exchanges.

On the 11th (Korea time), Rep. Kim Sang-hoon of the People Power Party said at a plenary meeting of the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee that the incident “was caused by a system flaw at Bithumb,” adding that “the system flaw itself should not be linked to restrictions on major shareholders’ stakes in the virtual-asset exchange industry when stating a position.”

Rep. Min Byeong-deok of the Democratic Party of Korea criticized financial authorities, saying that “having served on the Political Affairs Committee for six years, I have continuously raised the issue of exchanges’ monopolization of fee profits and the limits of self-regulation,” and that this incident “is an accident that would not have happened if the Digital Asset Basic Act proposed in the National Assembly had been passed promptly.”

He continued, saying, “I don’t understand why they are forcing an argument to bring up the ownership structure,” and stressed, “Does changing the ownership structure solve the problem? The public must not be misled.”

This is seen as taking issue with the FSC having delayed legislation on the grounds of matters related to limits on exchanges’ controlling shareholders’ stakes.