Okex Korea is shutting down on next month. Please withdraw your balance

[numanoid]

Okex Korea is shutting down on next month. But it didn't said what is the reason and it could be because of new law on there about cryptocurrency.

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/99073/okex-korea-shutting-down-april-2021?utm_source=cryptopanic&utm_medium=rss

P.S Anyone who still has some balance on Okex Korea, please withdraw it ASAP

[joniboini]

From what I've heard, the new law requires an exchange to register and set up a real bank account in the country and report user details to the government. Sounds like they don't want to open a "real" bank account there tbh. Maybe because they afraid government will intervene with their operations. Well, hopefully, this will reduce shady trading activities even though user data might be collected here and there.

[Lordhermes]

Not only new Korean laws resulting to the shut down, also business difficulties are issues Okex Korean recently had, as I read in this quote below.

OKEx Korea official told The Block that not only were there regulatory issues, but also business difficulties.

"We struggled to get ISMS [Information Security Management System certificate] and virtual account [bank account required to get licensed]," said the official. "As a joint venture company with OKEx.com, it was hard to decide, but we had no other option."

I think these are the two reasons (laws & business difficulties) why they want to shut down. How will this incidence affect those that forget to withdraw out their funds till the said date, April 7th, will it be lost forever? Or victims will be given more time to withdraw out later?

[Bitcoin_Arena]

I don't think it's a coincidence, Binance also shutdown Binance Korea a couple of months back. The regulatory atmosphere in South Korean is becoming to strict for the exchanges to thrive there.

Apparently there a law that was passed where exchanges are not to be allowed to share their order books. The law is supposed to take effect just 2 days from now.

According to thenews.asia

Article 13, section 4 of the amendment specifies that “[it is forbidden to allow its customers to trade virtual assets with customers of other virtual asset operators through partnerships with other virtual asset operators.]” Such a ban would quickly strangle small exchanges out that of the market who cannot survive without such order book-sharing arrangements.

[chaser15]

But it didn't said what is the reason and it could be because of new law on there about cryptocurrency.

Even OKex didn't mention the actual reason, it was stated in the article that they are having:

- Regulatory issues
- Business difficulties

AFAIK, Okex Korea is a local exchange and most of their users are Korean-based so I think only a few here have accounts here. But for those few, they should withdraw the balance now as no follow-up will be entertained after the closure.

Next in-line, Huobi Korea.

[sunsilk]

That's surprising, all of the sudden, and while the market is still on the bull run.

Next in-line, Huobi Korea.

If they're about to go next, it's only that they're closing their doors to their local market in Korea but they still have other markets to be active such as Huobi Global and other countries in Asia.

[Bitcoin_Arena]

That's surprising, all of the sudden, and while the market is still on the bull run.

Such bad exit decisions and news always become rampant during the Bull Market. This is because in the Bull Market, Bitcoin and lots of alts make headlines which gets the attention of regulators. Remember what happened to Bitmex late last year.

How will this incidence affect those that forget to withdraw out their funds till the said date, April 7th, will it be lost forever? Or victims will be given more time to withdraw out later?

In most cases those who didn't withdraw usually lose access to their money but if the exchange is lenient enough, there can be an option for one to contact support in order to only withdraw their funds just like Binance did with the US customers when they blocked them from using the main site.

[sunsilk]

That's surprising, all of the sudden, and while the market is still on the bull run.

Such bad exit decisions and news always become rampant during the Bull Market. This is because in the Bull Market, Bitcoin and lots of alts make headlines which gets the attention of regulators. Remember what happened to Bitmex late last year.

If they really have no choice, it's harder for them to accept that decision. But it's just shocking to see them have their service close within the next month.

From what I've known about them, they're unlikely to close because they are popular with their Korean customers. Well, they still have their main exchange.

[Lordhermes]

How will this incidence affect those that forget to withdraw out their funds till the said date, April 7th, will it be lost forever? Or victims will be given more time to withdraw out later?

In most cases those who didn't withdraw usually lose access to their money but if the exchange is lenient enough, there can be an option for one to contact support in order to only withdraw their funds just like Binance did with the US customers when they blocked them from using the main site.

Yes, that's the only thing they could do to avoid bad reputation on them Okex, and I'm sure not all victims gonna withdraw out money before the said date. I'm just thinking that the withdrawal method that would be done  then is manual type, I mean for those that's given an option to fill out a form after deadline.

[tippytoes]

How will this incidence affect those that forget to withdraw out their funds till the said date, April 7th, will it be lost forever? Or victims will be given more time to withdraw out later?

In most cases those who didn't withdraw usually lose access to their money but if the exchange is lenient enough, there can be an option for one to contact support in order to only withdraw their funds just like Binance did with the US customers when they blocked them from using the main site.

Yes, that's the only thing they could do to avoid bad reputation on them Okex, and I'm sure not all victims gonna withdraw out money before the said date. I'm just thinking that the withdrawal method that would be done  then is manual type, I mean for those that's given an option to fill out a form after deadline.

They need to publish the official statement in all social media channels as much as possible so they can reach out to their customers. Because that time period is I think not enough for all users to comply before the said date. Some are always late when it comes to this as they are just storing their funds to the exchange. However, if the exchange is generous, they will give an extension for those who can't avail their withdrawal at a specified time. Also, it is good that they release statement that they are shutting down, because some will just disappear into thin air.

[Darker45]

Another one bites the dust. While there are also business reasons for this to happen, the closure is largely brought about by regulatory strangulation. As such, OKex's decision to just give up on its crypto business interest in South Korea is bittersweet. While I am not a huge fan of centralized exchanges, that's still a crypto business that is shutting down. Well, I guess that's the price they have to pay for being a centralized exchange in a strict country.

[cabron]

An exchange that big forced by the law to shut down, could this happen to the rest of the exchanges like binance.com as well?

If the rest like Houbi Korea will also shutdown, this could be a massive dip soon. Either this could trigger the bear market or traders will now consider the DEX. Its not going to be a problem, after all, there are varieties of them that exist with volume up to billions.

[buwaytress]

From what I've heard, the new law requires an exchange to register and set up a real bank account in the country and report user details to the government. Sounds like they don't want to open a "real" bank account there tbh. Maybe because they afraid government will intervene with their operations. Well, hopefully, this will reduce shady trading activities even though user data might be collected here and there.

Yeah I believe this was something ongoing from 2019. South Korean law requires crypto exchanges to fulfil some series of requirements (in fact, crypto insurance on deposits is one, so I was looking into them other than Japan at some point) but Okex has been filing for some exemptions, and then the grace period actually ends next month so I guess they either couldn't obtain one, or didn't feel like it was beneficial enough.

Wonder what happens to all the user data there for non-EU citizens;)

[stomachgrowls]

Looking up for some reason on such closure then i found this;

“In addition to several other factors, actual profits from our Korean operation don’t add up to much, so we decided to cut our losses,” said the spokesperson.
Source

One of the reason too is to avoid that revised regulatory thing for them to hurdle on.