South Korea blocked KuCoin, MEXC and 25 other unregistered exchange websites

On October 13, 2026, South Korea's Financial Services Commission announced that the country's communications review authority had approved domestic access restrictions on 27 websites of unregistered virtual asset service providers, following two rounds of deliberations on October 6-7 at the request of the Financial Intelligence Unit. The named platforms include KuCoin, MEXC, Phemex, XT.com, Bitrue, CoinW, Poloniex, BTCC, BingX and BitMart. Sites hosted overseas get their domestic access blocked; sites with domestic servers or operators face service termination.

Korea requires any exchange serving local customers to register with the FIU, including ISMS certification, and the same rules apply to foreign operators targeting residents. Unregistered operation violates the Specific Financial Information Act and carries up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 50 million won. The website blocks extend measures that began in 2025, when Google Play restricted 17 unregistered exchange apps in March and Apple followed in April; users could no longer install or update the affected apps domestically.

The decision also hardened the enforcement doctrine: blocks can now follow the identification of unregistered activity immediately, without waiting for a completed criminal investigation or confirmed customer losses. The FIU has so far referred 44 unregistered virtual asset operators to investigative agencies, and a joint DAXA investigation in June 2026 found the examined unregistered operators charging trading fees of 1.5% to 10% against an average of 0.16% on Korea's five major won-based exchanges — up to roughly 62 times the domestic average.

Domestic access to 27 websites cut or terminated; 44 unregistered operators referred to investigators; up to 5 years' prison or a 50 million won fine still possible.

KuCoin, MEXC, BingX and the other named exchanges kept serving Korean users without the FIU registration the Specific Financial Information Act requires.

The platforms stayed online despite earlier requests to restrict access to unregistered virtual asset service providers, which is what the new blocking measures cover.

The same operators had already been through one enforcement wave — app-store removals on Google Play and Apple's App Store in 2025 — and did not register or leave.

Regulators documented consumer harm signals: fees up to about 62 times the domestic average, no ISMS security requirements, and no local protection arrangements for recovering customer assets.

Serving a market that requires local registration is a legal decision, not a growth hack; ignoring a regulator's first wave invites a second, broader one.

The FIU told registered crypto businesses to restrict virtual asset transfers involving the identified unregistered operators, on pain of administrative sanctions and fines of up to 100 million won per violation, and instructed the industry to help affected customers withdraw funds through DAXA. Regulators said they will monitor alternative domains and request new reviews as unregistered exchanges move to mirror sites. Korea currently counts 28 registered virtual asset service providers, and authorities have asked customers to verify registration status before depositing funds.