Yoon 'Impeachment Ruling' Approaches... Authorities Issue Urgent Directive to 'Crypto Exchanges'

Financial authorities have instructed domestic virtual asset exchanges to strengthen their response to system errors ahead of President Yoon Suk-yeol's impeachment ruling.

According to industry sources on the 3rd, the Financial Supervisory Service issued an urgent directive to domestic virtual asset exchanges such as Upbit and Bithumb. The core of the directive is to strengthen preparations for system errors due to a surge in users ahead of the impeachment ruling of President Yoon on the 4th. Additionally, the Financial Supervisory Service instructed exchanges to immediately report to the authorities in case of access errors.

The reason for this directive from the Financial Supervisory Service is due to access errors that occurred at major virtual asset exchanges during the martial law situation at the end of last year. According to data submitted by Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Hyun-jung from the Financial Supervisory Service and domestic virtual asset exchanges, the number of simultaneous users on Upbit increased to 1.1 million during the martial law situation on December 3rd last year. Normally, the number of simultaneous users on Upbit is around 100,000. As a result, there was a 99-minute access disruption on Upbit. Bithumb and Coinone also experienced access disruptions for 62 minutes and 40 minutes, respectively.

Domestic exchanges like Upbit have significantly increased server capacity to prevent access errors since the martial law situation last year. Upbit expanded its simultaneous access capability from 500,000 to 900,000. Bithumb increased from 100,000 to 360,000, and Coinone from 100,000 to 500,000.