South Korea ends nine-year corporate crypto ban with 5% investment cap

Beincrypto reports South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) has reportedly finalized guidelines allowing listed companies and registered professional investors to allocate up to 5% of their equity capital to cryptocurrencies, ending a nine-year corporate ban. Under the new rules, investments would be limited to the top-20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization on Korea’s five major exchanges, and roughly 3,500 entities — publicly listed firms and registered professional investment corporations — would gain access.

Regulators will require exchanges to use staggered execution and order size limits, and whether dollar-pegged stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT qualify remains under discussion. The change follows a period in which retail investors accounted for nearly 100% of trading and capital flight reached 76 trillion won ($52 billion), and is presented as complementing the government’s "2026 Economic Growth Strategy," which includes stablecoin legislation and spot crypto ETF approvals announced last week.

Industry participants have welcomed the shift but argued the 5% ceiling is overly restrictive compared with jurisdictions that impose no comparable limits, and critics warned it could impede Digital Asset Treasury companies; "Applying excessive regulations only to crypto could leave Korea behind as global markets accelerate," one industry official told the outlet.

Key Topics

Crypto, South Korea, Financial Services Commission, Tether, Usdt, Metaplanet