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South Korea fines Bithumb $24 million, orders 6-month partial suspension over AML violations

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Bithumb mistake sent BTC price to $55,000 on that exchange

Bithumb, one of South Korea’s leading crypto exchanges, has been fined by the country’s anti–money laundering and counter-terrorism financing agency.

South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has slapped a 36.8 billion won ($24.6 million) fine and ordered a six-month partial suspension after finding millions of violations of the country’s anti-money laundering rules.

The sanctions stem from violations of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information, the Financial Services Commission said, according to local media.

According to the FIU, Bithumb committed about 6.65 million violations. Around 3.55 million involved failures to carry out required customer identity verification, while 3.04 million were related to cases where the exchange failed to properly block transactions that should have been blocked.

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The suspension targets services for newly registered users. Existing customers will still be able to trade and move funds on the platform, according to initial reports on these sanctions.

Regulators also issued personnel penalties. Bithumb’s chief executive received a reprimand warning, while the exchange’s reporting officer was suspended for six months.

The violations surfaced during on-site inspections of South Korea’s five largest crypto exchanges, Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax, conducted between 2024 and 2025.

The case comes as South Korean regulators tighten oversight of the crypto market. Last year, the FIU handed Dunamu, the operator of the country’s largest exchange, Upbit, a three-month partial suspension and a 35.2 billion won fine for compliance gaps. Korbit, a rival platform, faced a smaller penalty of 2.73 billion won, along with institutional warnings.

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Bithumb, founded in 2014, ranks among the largest exchanges in South Korea by trading volume, according to CoinGecko data. The partial suspension comes just a month after Bithumb mistakenly distributed billions of dollars worth of bitcoin to users.

CoinDesk has reached out to Bithumb for comment, but hasn’t heard back at the time of writing.

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Crypto World

T. Rowe Price Updates Filing for Actively Managed Crypto ETF

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T. Rowe Price Updates Filing for Actively Managed Crypto ETF

T. Rowe Price, the $1.8 trillion asset manager best known for managing mutual funds and retirement accounts, has amended the registration statement for its proposed Active Crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF), updating a prospectus first submitted in October that outlines plans for an actively managed fund investing directly in digital assets.

The amendment with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was submitted on Monday and lists 15 eligible digital assets that may be considered for the portfolio, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Avalanche (AVAX) and Shiba Inu (SHIB).

The updated filing adds new operational details but it leaves the core structure of the proposed fund intact. The amendment names Anchorage Digital Bank as the ETF’s crypto custodian, expands disclosures around share creation and redemption, and adds Sui (SUI) to the list of eligible digital assets.

T. Rowe Price’s Form S-1 amendment. Source: SEC

The asset list is largely consistent with the October filing, according to Cointelegraph’s earlier reporting. At the time, the proposal surprised some industry observers, given T. Rowe Price’s historically conservative focus on traditional investment products such as mutual funds over its nearly nine-decade history.

It also provides updated information on the FTSE Crypto US Listed Index, including constituent weights as of January 2026, and expands risk disclosures related to portfolio turnover and the fund’s active trading strategy.

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Related: SEC’s ‘Crypto Mom’ calls for simpler disclosure rules, flags tokenization debate

TradFi asset managers embrace crypto ETFs

In October, NovaDius Wealth Management president Nate Geraci said T. Rowe Price’s crypto ETF filing came out of “left field,” given the company’s long-standing focus on traditional mutual funds and its relatively recent entry into the ETF market.

With the proposal, T. Rowe Price joined a growing list of traditional financial institutions that have launched crypto investment products, including BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, VanEck and Invesco.

The original filing came near the peak of the crypto market, shortly after Bitcoin surged above $120,000. It also coincided with the Oct. 10 liquidation event, when a sharp market reversal triggered billions of dollars in forced liquidations across leveraged crypto derivatives positions.

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After a turbulent five months, net inflows into crypto ETFs has flipped positive in recent weeks. Source: CoinGlass

Since then, digital asset prices have retreated, and crypto ETFs have recorded notable outflows, reflecting cooling investor sentiment after the rally in 2024 and 2025. 

Related: Bernstein says Bitcoin rebound reflects more resilient long-term holder base